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Presenters

Session One: James Gregory, Trevor Griffey, Mic Crenshaw

Reflecting on the Legacy of Civil Rights and Affirmative Action: Out of the past into the future!
Tuesday, January 29, 2007

James N. Gregory is a Professor of History at the University of Washington and the Director of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. He is the prize-winning author of several books and many articles on issues of race, labor, migration, and civil rights. His most recent book is The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (University of North Carolina Press). The book was recently named winner of the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award. He won two major book prizes for an earlier book, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (Oxford University Press).

Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982, he has taught at the UC Berkeley, University of Texas, and at the University of Washington since 1993. He teaches courses in United States history and is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Labor Studies. Professor Gregory lectures widely and has appeared on a variety of radio and television news and documentary programs.

In 2004, Professor Gregory co-founded the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, a website project that explores the history of civil rights activism and struggles for racial justice in the Seattle region. Based at the University of Washington and featuring contributions by nearly one hundred students and faculty along with scores of people in the community, the project gives Seattle a unique resource. No other city has this kind of window into its own history of racial segregation and civil rights activism. Taught in classrooms from middle school to university level and used by tens of thousands of online visitors from near and far, the online project offers a wealth of resources including more than 80 oral histories; dozens of articles detailing important issues, incidents, organizations, and people; several short films and slide shows; maps that show the history of residential segregation; and hundreds of rare photographs and important documents.
http://www.civilrights.washington.edu

Trevor Griffey is Doctoral Candidate in American History at the University of Washington and the University of Washington's 2007-8 Alvord Fellow in the Humanities. His dissertation will document the civil rights and labor movement battles over affirmative action in the 1970s, and he is the co-editor of a forthcoming collection of articles titled Black Power at Work: Community Control Movements, Affirmative Action, and the Struggle to Desegregate the Construction Industry, 1960s-70s. Before beginning graduate school in 2002, he served as a Contributing Writer for the Seattle Weekly, ColorsNW Magazine, the South Seattle Star, and Real Change. He is currently the Project Coordinator for the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project.

Mic Crenshaw is an emcee, poet, activist and educator based out of Portland, Oregon. As an independent artist, Crenshaw has toured nationally, and in 2001 won the title of Portland Poetry Slam Grand Champion. Currently Crenshaw has three hip-hop groups to cover his diverse taste in music: Hungry Mob, Suckapunch and Cleveland Steamers, all of which have received critical acclaim.

In his various musical projects, Crenshaw has shared the stage with renowned acts such as Dead Prez, Outcast, Cypress Hill, Gil Scott Heron, Black Uhuru, Ice Cube, Saul Williams, Cool Nutz and Lifesaves, to name a few.

In 2007, after over twenty years of grass roots social justice organizing and educational work, Crenshaw and partner Morgan Delaney started Global Family NetWork (Global Fam). Global Fam is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization committed to improving the lives of individuals and supporting community in the US, as well as in countries affected by war, poverty and lack of access to resources and expression.

Global Fam has used hip-hop, activism and education combined to raise funds and awareness for their projects through community events and school workshops. Global Fam's initial project sent computers to an African organization in Burundi and Rwanda, bringing Dead Prez to tour the Pacific Northwest to help build support. The commitment to this region in Africa stems from a 2004 trip to Rwanda by Crenshaw to attend a conference on economic justice and youth empowerment, where he was requested to help get them computers.

Global Fam's new projects include supporting a hip-hop collective in Zimbabwe, and one made up of youth in Portland as well, while also setting up a computer center for displaced Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

To Mic Crenshaw and his colleagues it is clearly bigger than hip-hop, as music, education and entertainment are avenues to facilitate building community and a better civilization on earth. Currently, Mic Crenshaw is touring nationally with his project and seeking to establish awareness and support for his music and mission.

For more information visit http://www.hungrymob.com

Session Two: Steven S. Miller, Pramila Jayapal

Grappling with Immigration: Re-envisioning Americans
Friday, March 7, 2008

Steven S. Miller is a Partner at Cowan Miller & Lederman in Seattle, Washington.

For fifteen years, Steve has limited his practice to immigration law, specializing in the needs of businesses and professionals with a particular emphasis on complex and difficult cases and immigration court hearings. He has been a featured speaker on business related immigration law many times since 1990 and writes frequently for professional publications and the general media on immigration topics.

Steve is currently President of the Washington AILA Chapter and served on the Executive Board of the Washington AILA Chapter from 1998 through 2002. He recently served as President of the Bellevue School Board and is currently a Trustee for Bellevue Community College. Steve has been chosen as one of Washington State's "Super Lawyers" in several of the Washington Law & Politics publications.

Steve graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 1972 and obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School with honors in 1977, where he was invited to join the Harvard Law Review.

Before joining the firm in 1990, Steve served as a King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, a Fulbright Fellow Lecturer at the University of Indonesia, an associate for a major Seattle law firm, Deputy Director, King County Department of Planning and Community Development, and Legal Counsel to the King County Council.

Pramila Jayapal is the founder and Executive Director of Hate Free Zone, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the fundamental principles of democracy and justice through building power in immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies. Since its creation, HFZ has grown into a leading voice for its courageous and ground-breaking work on behalf of immigrant and refugee communities targeted post-9/11. Under Ms. Jayapal's leadership, the organization has grown to be the largest immigrant rights organization in Washington State, and one of the most influential nationally.

Hate Free Zone has received several awards, including the City of Seattle's 2002 Civil Rights Award, the Washington Bar Association's Access to Justice Community Leadership Award, and the Ecumenical Leadership Award from the Washington Association of Churches.

Ms. Jayapal appears frequently on local and national radio and television shows and is a featured speaker around the country to diverse audiences on issues of immigrants and immigration. Her previous work includes over twenty years in both social justice and private sector fields. She served as the Director of the Fund for Technology Transfer for PATH working across Asia, Africa and Latin America, a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, and a nonprofit consultant. She has also spent several years on Wall Street in investment banking. Pramila has a Masters in Business Administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and a B.A. from Georgetown University in English and Economics. She is a writer (author of Pilgrimage to India: A Woman Revisits Her Homeland, 2000), 2000), with essays and articles published widely. She was born in India, and raised in India, Indonesia and Singapore.

Session Three: Grove Harris

Struggling with Religious Diversity: Rekindling Respect
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Grove Harris, Former director of the Harvard Pluralism Project, speaker, writer and consultant, Cambridge, MA

Grove Harris consults, writes, and speaks about religious diversity in America and the interfaith movement. She has recently presented at the American Academy of Religion, Brandeis University, the North American Interfaith Network, Union Theological Seminary, and the Global Youth Leadership Institute. As a Peace Commissioner, she recently represented the City of Cambridge at the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities in Krusevac, Serbia and on a delegation to Bethlehem, Palestine.

Grove Harris served as the Managing Director for the Pluralism Project through January, 2007. This award-winning project documents the religious diversity of America and offers resources for educators on its website, www.pluralism.org. Since joining the Project in 1994, she managed the extensive growth of the Project, dramatically increasing capacity, productivity, and outreach. Her work included building a network of researchers, receiving international visitors, public speaking, writing, and editing. Areas of research included religious diversity in the workplace and the interfaith movement.

Her publications include the section on Paganism for the CD-Rom On Common Ground: World Religions in America, a chapter on Wicca and Healing, "Healing in Feminist Wicca," for Religion and Healing in America, Oxford University Press, 2005,the chapter "Pagan Involvement in the Interfaith Movement: Exclusions, Dualities, and Contributions," in Crosscurrents, Spring, 2005, and the chapter entitled "Youth and the Pluralism Project" in Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action, edited by Eboo Patel and Patrice Brodeur, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2006.

She has taught at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, at the Global Youth Leadership Institute well as at adult religious retreats, and leading a Maidens' group for teenage girls. She has led consensus-training workshops in Germany and England. Her community activism has served causes including peace activism, urban open space, economic development for women and religious freedom.

Her background is in Race, Gender and Class studies. She earned her B.A. in Women's Studies, Business, and Religion from the University of Massachusetts (1992). Her Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School (1996) incorporated studies of organizational development and business management into the study of religion and ethics. She is an initiated Wiccan Priestess, and leads public rituals for groups ranging in size from 20 to 300. She serves as the Wiccan Chaplain at MCI-Framingham, and is a Peace Commissioner for the City of Cambridge.

Session Four: Carolyn Lukensmeyer

Colliding over politics: Are we so divided?
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Dr. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Founder and President of AmericaSpeaks, has made her mark as an innovator in deliberative democracy, public administration, and organizational development. Concerns about the deep partisan divide in Washington and the growing disconnection between citizens and government across the country led Carolyn to launch AmericaSpeaks in 1995. Her goal was to develop new democratic practices that would strengthen citizen voice in public decision-making.

Under Carolyn's leadership, AmericaSpeaks has earned a national reputation as a leader in the field of deliberative democracy and democratic renewal. She and AmericaSpeaks have won a number of awards, including two from the International Association for Public Participation (2001 and 2003), the Organizational Development Network's Sharing the Wealth Award (2006), the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for best practices, a Distinguished Service Award from the Federal Managers Association for Outstanding Leadership (1994) and a Best Practice Award from the National Training Laboratories Institute in 1993.

Prior to founding AmericaSpeaks, Carolyn served as Consultant to the White House Chief of Staff from November 1993 through June 1994. In this capacity she ensured that systematic thinking was part of the White House's work on internal management issues and on government-wide reform. She also served as the Deputy Project Director for Management of the National Performance Review (NPR), Vice President Al Gore's reinventing government task force. From 1986 to 1991, Carolyn served as Chief of Staff to Governor Richard F. Celeste of Ohio. She was both the first woman to serve in this capacity and, at the time of her appointment, the only Chief of Staff recruited from the professional management field.

Carolyn also led her own successful organizational development and management consulting firm for 14 years. In this capacity, she worked with public and private sector organizations on four continents.

Carolyn earned a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University and completed postgraduate training at the internationally-known Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. She is affiliated with the American Management Association, National Training Laboratories, Organization Development Network and the Organization and Management Division of the American Psychological Association, and serves on the Board of the Fielding Institute.

An avid traveler and outdoors adventurer, Carolyn has led a rafting expedition down the Colorado River, tracked panda bears in the remote Sichuan Province of China, and trekked in major mountain ranges all over the world. She currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Session Five: Dr. W. Terrell Jones, Dr. WIlliam E. Cross

Struggling with Religious Diversity: Rekindling Respect
Thursday, September 25, 2008

Vice Provost for Educational Equity, The Pennsylvania State University

With a foundation in Sociology, Terrell earned both his master's and doctoral degrees in Student Personnel Services from The Pennsylvania State University. He has developed and conducted seminars on cultural differences, racial awareness, cross-cultural counseling, minority retention strategies, and affirmative action programs. Terrell has presented successful human relations training programs for industry, government, public schools and universities.

Terrell is the author or co-author of several book chapters on the subject of cultural diversity. He is an affiliate faculty member with the Division of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Penn State, and has taught courses on race relations and cross-cultural counseling. Terrell is a board member of International Partnership for Service Learning (IPSL) and is a diversity consultant for several Pennsylvania school districts and private sector organizations. He has been a faculty member of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC) for more than ten years and regularly presents workshops on strategic planning for diversity in higher education and racial and cultural identity.

In addition, Dr. Jones will serve as president of the Pennsylvania Black Conference on Higher Education, Inc., from March 2008 through February 2010.

Professor, Ph.D. Program in Psychology/Social Personality and Urban Education

William E. Cross, Jr., a scholar who studies the psychology of African-American identity development in the United States, is head of Social-Personality Psychology, a subprogram of the Ph.D. Program in Psychology, and is affiliated with the interdisciplinary concentration in Africana Studies. He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught at Cornell University, Penn State, and the University of Massachusetts before coming to The Graduate Center. His 1991 groundbreaking book, Shades of Black: Diversity in African American Identity, is one of the most frequently referenced texts on black identity. His model conceptualizing the states of black identity development has generated an ever-expanding number of essays, commentaries, and empirical studies. In addition, his ideas have stimulated the growth of identity-development models for application to a wide range of groups, including gays and lesbians, Hispanic/ Latinos, Asian Americans, feminists, and white European Americans.

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/new_faculty/cross.htm

Session Six: Patricia Digh, David Robinson

Confronting Global Diversity: Imagining a wide circle of inclusion
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Patricia Digh has designed diversity initiatives and training for clients around the world for the past 20 years. Her first book, Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National Cultures (Simon & Schuster, 2000) was named a "Best Business Book for 2000" by Fortune Magazine. Her most recent book is The Global Diversity Desk Reference (Wiley, 2003).

Patti has published over 75 articles on diversity and intercultural issues, having traveled and worked in over 60 countries. She was formerly the Vice President of International and Diversity Programs for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world's largest association of human resources professionals with over 195,000 members worldwide. While there, she created the Institute for International HR, the award-winning SHRM Diversity Initiative, Diversity Train the Trainer Certificate Program, National Diversity Conference, and diversity newsletter, MOSAICS.

Clients have included Achva College Israel, Amdocs Israel, the Australian Human Resources Institute, the New Zealand Institute of Personnel Management, the Government of Guyana, the U.S. Postal Service, PBS, Shell Oil, The Center for Association Leadership, The American Society for Quality, The American Psychological Association, The American Cancer Society, and DaimlerChrysler, among many others.

Patti serves on the faculty of both the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication and the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She has served on the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities and on the Diversity Advisory Councils of the National American Red Cross, the AARP, and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

David Robinson is a strong artistic leader with extensive experience in theatre, visual art, creativity, and education innovation. His 20 years of professional directing experience help him design programs for academic and corporate environments utilizing theatre techniques to discover the creative impulse. As a life long visual and theatre artist, he has mastered the competencies that are now being recognized by contemporary organizations as invaluable to their health and sustainability: creative, artistic, imaginative, symphonic, and mythic.

David has been Artistic Director of The Dimensions Theatre Project, General Manager of The Seattle Shakespeare Company, and Artist-in-Residence for the Lincoln Unified School District. He has taught for The Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Seattle Children's Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, The Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts, and Bringing Theatre Into the Classroom, and has served as curriculum consultant for MacMillan-McGraw Hill, The Teacher's Curriculum Institute, and Lincoln and Hayward Unified Schools.

David was founder and director of The McCandless Communications Academy, dedicated to teaching core curriculum through experiential learning processes. As a consultant to school districts and curriculum developers, David has developed extensive knowledge and experience engaging the multiple intelligences, which he continues to use in a variety of contexts. David is on the faculty of Antioch University and a member of the National Storytelling Network. Recent clients include The Society for Humanism in Medicine, the Hudson Institute, The Fetzer Institute, Prudential Financial, and the San Lorenzo School District, in association with Dell and Microsoft.

http://www.davidrobinsoncreative.com/