Donald Edward Ensley

1941 -

Donald Edward Ensley
Donald Edward Ensley. Image Source: ECU News Service

In the spring of 1977, Donald E. Ensley joined the faculty as an associate professor in the School of Allied Health and Social Professions’ Department of Community Health, becoming one of ECU’s first African American faculty. Ensley’s professional focus was on community-based health services, managed care, health promotion and disease prevention, rural health care, elder care, health care advocacy of special populations, and public health policies. Exemplifying the “think global, act locally” philosophy, Ensley also helped strengthen the environmental integrity of eastern North Carolina by serving as a founding board member and first president of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. Continuing his community-based environmental work, Ensley was appointed to and served on the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission.

By the time of his retirement in 2011, Ensley had become one of East Carolina’s most respected and longest serving African American faculty. His collaborative research work on four mid- twentieth-century African American physicians in eastern North Carolina – Dr. Andrew Best of Greenville, Dr. Milton Quigless of Tarboro, Dr. Joe Weaver of Ahoskie, and Dr. John Hannibal of Kinston – stands as a landmark contribution to the history of health care in the state during the Jim Crow era and beyond. As an emeritus professor, Ensley remained an active voice in community affairs, diversity initiatives, and public health concerns.

Raised on a farm in rural Belhaven, Ensley graduated from Belhaven High School before enrolling at North Carolina Central University in Durham where he majored in social biology and minored in environmental health. Ensley later earned a M.A. and Ph.D. at Michigan State University through the Department of Administration and Higher Education. His doctoral dissertation, A study of characteristics of college health services in the Western Chicago Conference Association, foreshadowed his later work on community health at ECU.

In 1972, Ensley was appointed assistant director of admissions at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dedicated to community service throughout his life, Ensley, while a graduate student at Michigan State, worked with the Lansing School District’s “Follow-Through Program.” And in North Carolina, he worked with the Neighborhood Youth Corps in Charlotte and the N.C. Fund Community Action Training Program in Durham. Prior to joining the ECU faculty, Ensley had also served as a visiting lecturer at Harvard University’s Medical School Health Career Summer Program, the Black Pre-Med Association at Wayne State University, and the Michigan Osteopathic Society in Detroit.

Following his return to North Carolina, Ensley earned a master’s degree in public health at UNC-CH. At ECU, his professional interests meshed well with the emerging School of Medicine and related health sciences programs, first becoming chair of the College of Allied Health Sciences’ Department of Community Health and director of its program in graduate studies, and then later, assistant vice chancellor for community engagement. Along the way, Ensley was also an outspoken advocate for social change at ECU, criticizing the school for lacking “a structured program … to recruit black faculty members.” As chair of the Department of Community Health, Ensley was also a colleague of Ledonia Wright, and following her tragic passing, an advocate for naming the African American Cultural Center in her honor.

In 2001, Gov. Mike Easley appointed Ensley to the N. C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission tasked with distributing North Carolina’s share of the national tobacco settlement. In 2005, he was elected to serve a three-year term on the board of the North Carolina Humanities Council after having worked on two oral history projects funded by it. The first, in 1996, “The Black Physician Experience in Eastern North Carolina,” an oral history project, and then later, the second, in 2003, “Voices of Stroke: Words and Pictures of Stroke Survivors and Caregivers.” Ensley also served as vice chair of the North Carolina Heart Disease and Stroke Task Force and as chair of the board of directors of the North Carolina Heart Association.

The Jean Mills Health Symposium, held annually during Black History Month and sponsored by the College of Allied Health Sciences collaboration with the ECU Medical & Health Sciences Foundation, Pitt Memorial Hospital Foundation, and Eastern Area Health Education Center, honors the work of one of Ensley’s former students, Jean Mills, who died of breast cancer in 2000. Mills’ brother, Amos T. Mills, “created the symposium in an effort to keep her spirit of discovery and community outreach alive through an inspirational tribute to one of her former graduate school instructors, Donald Ensley.” Ensley’s broadminded efforts on behalf of community health education and local environmental initiatives well exemplifies the ECU motto of service.

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Citation Information

Title: Donald Edward Ensley

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication:7/7/2021

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