ÁùÉ«Íø

Since January 2022, Dr. Annalise Fonza has been a Lecturer in the Department of Urban & Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona, but she has been crafting the art of teaching adults from the late 1990's. Dr. Annalise Fonza self-identifies as a writer, a womanist, and as a former United Methodist clergywoman who is now unapologetically atheist. Outside of Cal Poly Pomona, and full-time, she is a sworn federal civilian employee. This Fall semester (2025) at Cal Poly Pomona, Dr. Fonza teaches URP 1051 -Ethnic Communities, Places, and Urban Planning, which is an Area F course cross-listed in the Cal Poly Pomona Department of Ethnic and Women’s Studies. 

Dr. Fonza began her academic career in urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois - Champaign-Urbana (UIUC). At UIUC, she was actively engaged with the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP). Concurrently, she became like a shadow to John Lee Johnson, a local housing advocate who is now deceased, and she participated in the development of the North First Street in Champaign, Illinois. It was in Champaign that she also was invited to teach religion and developmental writing courses, part-time, at what is now Parkland College. Upon graduation from UIUC, the former Rev. Annalise Fonza, was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the Department of Urban & Regional Planning (URP) and she accepted a brief intern position with the City of Urbana, Illinois, in the Department of Grants Management: her task was to organize, conduct, and present local housing data and to draft the city's Analysis of Impediments to Housing (AI). Years later, and hundreds of miles away in Massachusetts, she was thrilled to learn that the findings of her AI research (sent to HUD Headquarters in Washington, D.C.) contributed to the creation a new local housing ordinance for the city of Urbana, Illinois. 

As a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona, Dr. Fonza has had the privilege of educating hundreds of students about the centrality of ethnicity and culture as they are related to the practice and history of urban and regional planning in the U.S. In the classroom, Dr. Fonza is known as a challenging yet warm instructor, and she conducts herself as a professional academic in the wisdom of the Chinese proverb that says, "The teacher can open the door, but the student must walk through it." 

In 2019, Dr. Fonza published a short electronic/digital document, which is available on most digital platforms entitled  She refers to it as a love letter to Black America. Writing as a womanist planning scholar in this bold yet brief publication, Dr. Fonza pays tribute to Kansas City entrepreneur and Missouri Restaurant Hall of Famer, Mr. Ollie Gates. The interconnectedness of history, culture, and placemaking is central to Dr. Fonza's scholarly work. In 2022, she also published two online courses on behalf of which provides continuing education opportunities and resources to those seeking professional certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). 

Conducting oral histories and thus preserving the cultural and collective histories of black people and black communities are dominant features of Dr. Fonza’s research, teaching, and professional profile. In 2007,

Prior to becoming an urban planning scholar, Annalise used her talents as the Reverend Fonza in the United Methodist Church for about a decade, beginning in the city of Houston, Texas, and while she was a first-year student at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Her service to vulnerable populations, including veterans and those affected by domestic violence began formally at Saint John’s Community Church in Houston, Texas, under the amazing leadership of Pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus. This work - serving people - has always been an enduring feature of her personal, organizational, and professional endeavors. As a United Methodist clergywoman, Annalise served under episcopal appointment - to six separate congregations in three different states: Missouri, Illinois, and Massachusetts.

Dr. Fonza is skillful at "pitching tent" with communities and people who have experienced "root shock" and been dislodged from their sense of place. She has been employed at every level of government: federal, state, local, and regional (e.g., county). She is a natural leader, and her abilities to lead and provide instructional design and delivery are apparent when it is her turn to shine. Presently, she is certified by The (American) Humanist Society as a Senior Humanist Celebrant (no expiration date), and she is duly authorized to co-create ceremonies and to officiate services with those who bravely self-identify as atheists, humanists, secularists, freethinkers, black “nones,” in a world that is predominantly and presumptuously religious, and for others who choose to mark the special occasions in their lives with no reference or mention of a belief in supernatural beings, myths, or philosophies. In July 2025, she gained endorsement by The Humanist Society as a Humanist Chaplain.

. If you know Dr. Fonza personally or professionally, then you know that she believes wholeheartedly that education is only one of many keys to personal, social, and global liberation; it is not the only one. Wherever she is, Dr. Fonza is the consummate educator committed to “tearing down walls and building bridges” – once the slogan of Saint John’s Community Church in Houston  -  as courageously as possible.