Joy Austin, Executive Director of the Humanities Council of Washington, DC since 2000, previously served as Program Manager for the Center for Arts and Culture in Washington, DC. Austin received her B.A. in English Literature from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada and her M.S. in Non-Profit Administration from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. Austin has provided consultation and research on a number of projects centered on museums and historical preservation. She served as lead consultant to the Chicago Housing Authority and the ABLA Working Group on a feasibility study for the development of a museum of public housing. She also consulted with the Kellogg Foundation’s Expert in Residence program, as well as with the Foundation on all aspects of the creation of a monument to the Underground Railroad. During her tenure as director of the HCWDC, Austin has worked to widen the audience for humanities in Washington DC by developing a number of programs which emphasize community access and participation. She established two television series, “Humanities Profile,” a talk-show hosted by a local poet who interviews local and national figures relevant to DC, and ADC Humanities,” which features grantees supported by HCWDC. “Soul of the City” is a four-year-old leadership program she developed that brings together community leaders and youth in order to foster emerging leadership in a context of literature, history, ethics, and sense of place. Austin is currently working on a new community heritage initiative which seeks to provide the power, resources, and leadership for local preservation efforts in the hands of residents.
Roger Blumberg is the current chair of the board of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH) and a faculty member of the Department of Computer Science at Brown University. Blumberg has more than 20 years experience in higher education, teaching courses that range from freshman humanities and the history of science to mathematics, computer science, and the philosophy of technology. These courses include cross-disciplinary topics such as “Science and Society in the 20th Century,” a history and sociology course focusing on the Manhattan Project and the Human Genome Project, and “Technology and Contemporary Life,” a course in the philosophy of technology. He is currently at work on a textbook project entitled Computing and Its Consequences, based on undergraduate courses he has taught. Blumberg served on the editorial board of the journal Computers and the Humanities, is the co-author of World Wide Dubliners, an annotated and hypertext version of James Joyce’s Dubliners, and is the author of numerous scholarly articles. Blumberg currently serves as President and the Director of Evaluation at Mendele Education, a company specializing in the evaluation of educational technology programs, educational computing programs, and professional development activities for teachers and administrators. Current evaluation projects include the NSF-sponsored TeachScheme/ReachJava program (Adelphi University) and the CPATH/ACES program (Brown University). During his tenure on the RICH board, Blumberg has chaired a Task Force on technology whose work led to the council’s website redesign, and he has served on the Grants Review Committee, the Evaluation Committee, and the governance committee. He has also been an active fund raiser for the council.
David Colburn served as Provost of the University of Florida from 2000 until 2005 and has been a member of the University of Florida faculty since 1972. A native of Rhode Island, Dr. Colburn received his A.B. and an M.A. before entering the U.S. Army in 1966. Dr. Colburn served one year in Vietnam before returning to the States to study for his PhD, which he received in 1971.
Dr. Colburn's teaching and research have focused on politics, race, and ethnicity in 20th century America. He was twice named teacher-of-the-year and has edited or authored thirteen books and more than twenty-five articles and chapters in books. His most recent books include: From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics Since 1940 (2007); Florida's Megatrends: Critical Issues in Florida (2002) with Lance deHaven-Smith; and African-American Mayors: Race, Politics, and the American City (2001) with Jeffrey S. Adler. Dr. Colburn has been a regular contributor to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and served as one of the authors of the Rosewood Report in 1993, which was part of the inquiry of the State of Florida into the destruction of the town of Rosewood in 1923. He served as a Fellow in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1997. Dr. Colburn currently directs the Reubin O'D. Askew Institute on Politics and Society at the University of Florida, which provides public programs to civic leaders and citizens of Florida on critical issues confronting the state. He is the former chair of the Florida Humanities Council.
Margaret (Maggie) Coval has been Executive Director of Colorado Humanities since 1997. She joined the Colorado Humanities staff in 1982 and has served as Grants Officer, Assistant Director and Associate Director. Prior to moving to Colorado, she was employed by Binghamton University. She has a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. from the University of Denver, and is a graduate of the Center for Creative Leadership's Executive Leadership Program. While at Colorado Humanities, Coval has developed and directed dozens of public humanities programs. She is co-founder of the High Plans Chautauqua; served as executive producer of the NEH funded Conversations 2000 public radio programs and the Five States of Colorado documentary film; and developed several institutes for K-12 teachers. In 2004, Coval facilitated the merger of the Colorado Center for the Book with Colorado Humanities, securing the Center's future and doubling the number of CH programs.
Coval has served on advisory committees of the Rocky Mountain Book Festival and the El Pomar Foundation. Currently she serves on the advisory board of the Center for Colorado's Economic Future and is working with the governor's staff to create a Colorado Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Coval has served on the Federation's Bylaws and Nominating Committees and hosted the 1999 Federation Conference in Denver.
Sharon Gagnon has been a resident of Alaska since moving to Anchorage with her husband Bruce E. Gagnon in 1970. She has a PhD in French literature from Harvard University, having done her undergraduate work at Indiana University and having been a Fulbright Scholar to France. Since her arrival in Alaska, she has been actively involved in civic life and higher education in her adopted state. Among her other activities, Gagnon is an officer of the University of Alaska Foundation Board of Trustees and Vice President of the The CIRI Foundation. She serves on the Wells Fargo Statewide Advisory Board, the University of Alaska Chancellor’s Advisory Council and the Best Beginnings Council. She was a member of the University of Alaska Board of Regents where she served as President for three years. Gagnon was also a member and president of the Harvard University Board of Overseers and was a member of Harvard’s Search committee for University President in 2000-2001. Previously, she was national President of the Harvard Alumni Association. Gagnon received The Harvard Medal in 2002. Gagnon served two terms on the board of the Alaska Humanities Forum and was Chair of the board in 2003-4. Forum President Greg Kimura notes that “she has been a strong advocate for the humanities, as a scholar, community leader, and professional...Her experience and influence are widespread across diverse cultural groups.”
Bob Hazel is currently a partner at the firm Moore, Taylor & Thomas where he has worked since 1998. Previously, he served as Vice President for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. from 1985 to 1991, Vice President for Public Affairs at SCANA corporation from 1991 to 1993, and as Executive Director for the S.C. Business-Education Partnership from 1993 to 1996. In these executive positions, he developed strategy and administered public relations efforts. He earned his M.B.A. in 1972 and his J.D. in 2000, both from the University of South Carolina. During Hazel’s tenure as chair for multiple civic, community, and government organizations, he was responsible for setting policy and direction. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Chair for the Humanities Council South Carolina, and he continues to hold membership on the Council. One of only two people in the history of the HCSC to be elected twice to serve on the Council’s board of directors, Hazel helped develop the vision for and launch the first South Carolina Book Festival. Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), Hazel’s former law partner, says that he is “personally aware of Bob’s activity to forcefully, succinctly, and clearly articulate his message” and that he has had the Apleasure of seeing Bob actively participating in the legislative process whenever he had to advocate for his particular organization.”
Joseph Kelly has been Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council since 1994. Previously, he served as Special Programs Officer and Associate Director (1983-1993); held teaching positions at Penn State, Temple, and Drexel; and worked in editing and public relations. As PHC's Executive Director he has initiated many changes, ranging from mission and vision to the exploration of informal learning as the core activity in the public humanities. He has organized systematic approaches to three major constituencies for public programming -- historical organizations, arts organizations, and public libraries -- based on new audience development and capacity-building for small and medium-sized nonprofits. Joe also has negotiated partnerships for new program development and funding with several state agencies, including the Historical and Museum Commission, the Council on the Arts, Commonwealth Libraries, and the Department of Community and Economic Development. Service to the Federation before board membership included active participation in "Humanities on the Hill" since the mid-1990s; presentations at several national conferences; membership on the Task Force on University-State Council Collaborations in 2001-02 and the Planning Committee for the Savannah conference in 2003; and chairmanship of the Task Force on State-Based Opportunities in 2005. A native of Philadelphia, Joe holds a B.A. in English from Penn State and a M.A. and Ph.D., with a concentration in Renaissance and Medieval literature, from Temple. Recent publications include "Historians Sharing a Life of Learning," Pennsylvania History (Autumn 2007) and "Pennsylvanians and Life-Long Learning: A Role for Public Libraries," in The Future of Pennsylvania: Essays on the Role of Libraries in Education (Spring 2007). He contributed historical articles on "The Irish in Philadelphia" and "The Irish in Pennsylvania" to The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999).
Wanda Mills-Bocachica, Ph.D. currently serves as Planning Director with the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources. Besides practicing as a development consultant in the areas of heritage and ecological tourism, she previously served as Historic Preservation Architect/Planner with the Virgin Islands State Historic Preservation Office. In 2004, Mills-Bocachica was appointed to the Virgin Islands State Humanities Council Board, and currently serves as the Program Planning and Evaluation (PPE) committee chairperson. Dr. Mills-Bocachica is trained as an architect and urban planner, having obtained her B.S. in Architecture degree from the Ohio State University (1983), and her Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Policy Development from Rutgers University (2003). She has published two volumes of poetry, entitled "Meditations in Solitude" (1988 & 1992), and written to inspire public awareness on humanistic, social awareness, historical and the environmental themes. The second volume featured a musical interpretation of the volume's recited poetry. Dr. Mills-Bocachica has been an advocate for the advancement of the heritage and attraction-based tourism in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and is currently incorporating the study of associated land use issues into the update of the Territory's Land and Water Use Plan. She has also been involved in numerous other initiatives and projects to build the Territory's knowledge base and infrastructure in the field. Her Carnival troop themes and lectures in the World Literature and Virgin Islands/Caribbean history encourage critical thinking in areas of cultural diversity, and community building through unity-in-diversity. Dr. Mills-Bocachica is also a 15-year member of the Federation of Caribbean Architects Associations and was selected as a speaker at the 2008 conference on "Culture and the Built Environment" in French Guyana. She is the mother of one son, Alain Kennard Odjougbele Kouchica.
Craig L. Newbill is a Southwest regionalist and oral historian whose research and writing are focused on American history and literature. Born on the Llano Estacado and raised in the Canadian and Pecos River Valleys, he is a life-long resident of New Mexico. He holds an M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1993) in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. His dissertation is entitled, Oral History Studies from Eastern New Mexico Homestead Areas: Life Along the Caprock from 1900 to 1941. He has taught American Studies courses entitled 20th Century Cowboys, Cowboys in Literature and Popular Culture, Mountain Men of the Rockies, and Rural Life in American Literature and Film. Dr. Newbill has been employed by the New Mexico Humanities Council (NMHC) for the past fifteen years, serving as Program Officer, Assistant Director, and as Executive Director since 1996. Dr. Newbill has been instrumental in bringing many fine programs to New Mexico, such as the Smithsonian Exhibit We Shall Overcome, Photographs from America’s Civil Rights Era, The Colorado River: Moving Waters in the West, the National History Day program, and the Smithsonian Museum on Main Street exhibitions, Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future (2003-2004), Between Fences (2005-2006), and Key Ingredients (2007). Dr. Newbill helped establish the first retirement plan for employees in 1998. In 2001, working with the NMHC Board, he helped establish, seed and raise the initial principle for the NMHC Reserve Fund, an idea in the making for almost thirty years. Dr. Newbill is presently serving on the New Mexico Centennial of Statehood Task Force to plan for the state’s centennial commemoration in 2012. He is community focused and dedicated to bringing the humanities to all New Mexicans to include all voices and perspectives in the public humanities.
Willis Lott has been President of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College since 1998, a position he assumed after serving as Vice President for the college’s Perkinston Campus from 1994-98. Willis earned his Ed.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and was Director of Admissions and Records and then Dean of Academic Affairs at Pearl River Community College before moving to his current institution to become Vice President for Instructional Affairs. He is the chair of the Mississippi Humanities Council, whose director, Barbara Carpenter, says that “a particular benefit of Dr. Lott’s leadership is his innate, profound understanding of the political process and the operations of government at every level, from local county supervisors to the most august members of Mississippi’s delegation in Washington.” He was recently awarded the Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction by Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for community colleges, and in June 2005 received the Higher Education Award from the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education.
Sara Ogger joined the staff of the New York Council for the Humanities in 2002 as a Grants Officer and served as Senior Program Officer and then Associate Director before being named Executive Director in 2007. Before joining the council, Ogger was a visiting professor of German at Montclair University in New Jersey. She was a guest student at the University at Tuebingen, Germany, from 1988 to 1989 and again from 1996 to 1997. Ogger organized and hosted the 2006 Program Officer’s meeting in New York City. She also served on the Federation’s 2007 Conference Planning Committee and has been a member of the Legislative Committee for the past year. At the end of 2006 she was asked to serve a one-year appointment on the Federation board to replace a board member who resigned before the end of the four-year term. She and her husband are parents of a son, who was born this summer.
John Roth is a former chair of the board of the California Council for the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, where he taught from 1966 to 2006 and became the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights. Roth’s expertise in Holocaust and genocide studies, as well as in philosophy, ethics, American studies, and religious studies, has been advanced by postdoc¬toral appointments as a Graves Fellow in the Humanities, a Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a Fellow of the National Humanities Institute, Yale University. He used a Demonstration Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop two model interdisciplinary courses: “Perspectives on the American Dream” and “The Holocaust.” Roth has served as Visiting Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, and as Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland, and Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. In 2001, he held the Koerner Visiting Fellowship for the Study of the Holocaust at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in England. In 2004-05, Roth was the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. In addition to lecturing widely throughout the United States and around the world, Roth has authored, coauthored, or edited more than forty books, and he has published hundreds of articles and reviews. His recent books include: Holocaust Politics; a revised edition of Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy; Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide; Anguished Hope: Holocaust Scholars Confront the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict; and The Double Binds of Ethics after the Holocaust: Salvaging the Fragments. Roth has been a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the church relations committee at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, on the selection committee for the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, American Journal of Theology & Philosophy, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Max Sherman has a rich and varied career in public service and higher education. He served in the Texas Senate from 1971 to 1977, as President of West Texas State University from 1977 to 1983, and as Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (where he also taught courses on politics and ethics) from 1983 until 1997. He is currently the Vice President of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Sherman’s extensive board experience includes service on the boards of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Leadership Austin, and the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He was a member of the board of the Texas Council for the Humanities (now Humanities Texas) in the 1980s and has continued in subsequent years to be actively involved with the council. Sherman is also the editor of the multimedia compilation Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder, a selection of speeches given by the late U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan and presented as both a book and DVD. A review in the Austin American Statesman notes that Sherman Adoesn’t just help Jordan deliver her messageChe allows her to speak again, in her own voice.” Sherman was recognized by Texas Monthly magazine in 1973, 1975, and 1977 as one of the ten best legislators in the state government. The magazine cited his integrity, intelligence, and “genuine sense of public service.” Mike Gillette, Executive Director of Humanities Texas, says that while Sherman “has a wealth of experience in working with scholars in a university environment, he also has a public official’s skill in dealing with corporate and governmental representatives and the general public.”
Deborah Watrous has been on the staff of the New Hampshire Humanities Council for 16 years, and has served as Executive Director since 2004. Watrous created the Humanities Council’s first statewide reading program, “What is NH Reading This Month?” and obtained an NEH Challenge Grant that formed the basis for the Council’s education endowment. She was responsible for developing the Council’s signature event, the Annual Dinner, which has featured such speakers as Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, and Salman Rushdie. She also organized the Council’s Chautauqua summer history festival for eight years. She is a 2008 graduate and now a member of the board of Leadership New Hampshire, where she serves as co-chair of the Development Committee. Watrous earned her B.A. at Kirkland College in 1978 and her M.M in Vocal Performance from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music in 1981. She pursues her passion for music by singing with the Concord Chorale. She lives in Concord with her husband, Rick, a State Representative and communications teacher at NHTI, and her two children, ages 14 and 18.
Jamil Zainaldin has been President of the Georgia Humanities Council since 1997, having assumed that position after eleven years as the President of the Federation of State Humanities Council. Prior to his work with the Federation, Zainaldin was Deputy Director of the American Historical Association and staff director of the Congressional Task Force on Social Security and Women. A historian by training, Zainaldin has taught at Northwestern University, Case Western Reserve University, and Georgetown University Law School. He is currently an adjunct professor at Emory University. He is a past member of the Governor’s Commission on History and Historical Tourism and a Governor’s appointee to the Georgia Historical Records and Advisory Board, as well as president of the Georgia Association of Historians. Upon arrival at the Georgia Humanities Council, Zainaldin launched the New Georgia Encyclopedia, which has won a number of awards and has served as a model for electronic state encyclopedias across the nation. He also developed the council’s Leadership Forum series, a civic dialogue seminar that took place annually from 1999 to 2003. He was on the planning committee of Atlanta’s Center on Human and Civil Rights and is involved in the creation of a proposed State Museum of Georgia History. During his tenure as head of the Georgia council, he has been active in many Federation activities, most notably serving as the Chair of the Federation’s Strategic Planning Steering Committee in 2004.