Futuring Diversity 2005
Select Featured Participants
Over 30 prominent leaders stimulated our conference discussions as speakers, panelists, or performers. Here are just a few of them:
- Daria Roithmayr
- Chauncey Veatch
- Gerard Béhague
- June Manning Thomas
- Andrew J. Imparato
- Hassan Jaber
- Carol A. Goss
- Dudley Cocke
- Carol Schneider
- Lamin Sanneh
- Camara Phyllis Jones
- Kenji Hakuta
- John Sibley Butler
- Ann Akiko Kusumoto
- Allan Gilmour
- Veena Das
- Gerald Gipp
- Richard Haverkate
- Beverly Geltner
- Elizabeth Bunn
- Ann Chih Lin
- Linda Lim
- Thylias Moss
- Elisabeth Gruskin
- Lee Knefelkamp
- James Steward
Daria Roithmayr
Professor Roithmayr is a scholar of national and international renown in the area of critical race theory. She received her B.S. degree from UCLA and her J.D. magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to joining the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 1996, Professor Roithmayr twice served as special counsel for Senator Edward Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, advising him on the nominations of justices David Souter and Clarence Thomas.
Professor Roithmayr has published articles in numerous law reviews. She is currently at work on a book, Locked in Equality, which argues that racial inequality can become locked into institutions in much the same way that market monopolies can become locked into the market.
Chauncey Veatch
Chauncey Veatch is the 2002–2003 National Teacher of the Year. Since 1995, he has taught middle school, high school, and adult students in the Coachella Valley Unified District of California. He prizes opportunities to teach students with learning disabilities, students involved with gangs or drugs, and non-English speakers.
Mr. Veatch earned a B.A. degree from the University of the Pacific, a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and teaching credentials from Chapman University. He served in the Infantry and Medical Service Corps branches of the U.S. Army for 22 years.
He has also been honored as the International Ambassador for Education by La Prensa Hispana, the recipient of the Migrant Education Program Teacher Award, and the Bilingual Education Program Teacher of the Year.
Gerard Béhague
Gerard Béhague (Ph.D., Tulane University) is a Professor of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Virginia Murchison Regents Professorship in Fine Arts. He specializes in the musical traditions of Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean, with most of his publications springing from field research in Brazil, the Andean countries, and West Africa.
Dr. Béhague is a former President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the founder and current editor of the Latin American Music Review. He has trained many of the well-known Latin Americanist musicologists active today in the U.S. and Latin America. He has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation, NEH, and the Fulbright Commission, among others.
June Manning Thomas
June Manning Thomas is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University. She is Co-Director of the Urban Collaborators Program for M.S.U. Extension. Her Ph.D. was earned from the University of Michigan.
Her current research focuses on mixed-income neighborhoods, neighborhood planning, and urban revitalization. She recently received research funding to assist the State of Michigan’s efforts to create “cool cities,” a program announced by Governor Granholm in 2003.
Some of her books include Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit, which earned the 1999 Paul Davidoff award, and Planning Progress: Lessons from Shoghi Effendi. She co-directs an outreach project, funded by MSU Extension, that links planning students and community needs in several Michigan cities.
Andrew J. Imparato
Andrew J. Imparato is the President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), a national non-profit membership organization for the political and economic empowerment of all people with disabilities, based in Washington, DC.
In 2003, Mr. Imparato was appointed by Senators Daschle and Kennedy to serve as a member of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel to the Social Security Administration. He has provided legal counsel to the National Council on Disability, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy.
Drawing upon his own experience with bipolar disorder, Imparato is also an advisor on disability market and accessibility issues for several leading U.S. businesses.
Hassan Jaber
Since 1980, Hassan Jaber has been the Associate Executive Director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), located in Dearborn, Michigan.
He has helped transform ACCESS from a storefront organization into the largest Arab American organization in the country. He develops and administers programs in social, legal, immigration, and advocacy services; mental and community health; employment and job training; and youth and education services. In 1992, he co-founded the American Arab Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Jaber earned a B.A. in economics and a Master’s in Public Administration from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He is currently adjunct lecturer of Arabic language and culture at the University of Michigan–Dearborn.
Carol A. Goss
Visit the Skillman Foundation website
Carol A. Goss is President and CEO of The Skillman Foundation in Detroit. Prior to coming to The Skillman Foundation in 1998 as a Senior Program Officer, she was a program officer at The Stuart Foundation in San Francisco, California, and program director at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, she received an B.A. in Sociology and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. Ms. Goss has more than 27 years of experience in the human service field as a social worker, social work supervisor, and agency administrator, in the areas of child welfare, family services, and youth development.
Dudley Cocke
Visit the Roadside Theater website
Dudley Cocke, director of Roadside Theater since 1978, has directed 28 mainstage productions, including Zuni Meets Appalachia (2003) at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in New York City and the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. In 2000, he was elected a trustee of the Bush Foundation, and in 2002, he joined the board of Grantmakers in the Arts. Recognized nationally for creating artistic opportunities and a sense of pride for people who have not seen themselves reflected in the mainstream of American cultural institutions, he is a recipient of the 2002 Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities. Roadside Theater is an integral part of Appalshop, the Appalachian arts and humanities enterprise.
Carol Schneider
Carol Geary Schneider has been president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities since 1998. With a membership of about 1000 colleges and universities, AAC&U is the leading national organization devoted to advancing and strengthening undergraduate liberal education. Dr. Schneider has launched several major initiatives, including American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy and Liberal Learning; Greater Expectations: the Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College; and the Presidents’ Campaign for the Advancement of Liberal Learning. Prior to her appointments at AAC&U, Dr. Schneider taught at Boston University, Chicago State University, The University of Chicago, and DePaul University. Honored as a Mina Shaughnessy Fellow of the U.S. Department of Education, she has published extensively on all the major areas of her educational work.
Lamin Sanneh
Lamin Sanneh is D. Willis James Professor of World Christianity and History at Yale University. He has studied classical Arabic and Islam in the Gambia, the United States, the Middle East, and England, and has worked with churches on interfaith and cross-cultural issues. He has written extensively on Christianity and Islam in West Africa, as well as other historical and religious subjects. For his academic work, he was made Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Lion, Senegal’s highest national honor. Appointed by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Commission of the Historical Sciences at the Vatican, Sanneh is currently on sabbatical at the Library of Congress as the John W. Kluge Chair of Countries and Cultures of the South.
Camara Phyllis Jones
Visit the CDC website to read Dr. Jones’ paper
Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD, is Research Director on Social Determinants of Health in the Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation.
From 1994–2000, she was Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, and she is currently Adjunct Associate Professor at both the Morehouse School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health (Emory University). In May 2003, she was honored as the first recipient of the David Satcher Award by the Association of State and Territorial Directors of Health Promotion and Public Health Education.
Kenji Hakuta
Visit Professor Hakuta’s web page
Kenji Hakuta is the founding Dean of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at the University of California-Merced. He is best known for his research on the psychology of bilingualism and second language learning, as well as his work in education policy and equal educational access for minority students. He recently published Compelling Interest: Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities (2003). Prior to his current administrative position, he was the Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University. For eight years he served as Chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board, and he presently serves on the Education Advisory Committee for the General Accounting Office.
John Sibley Butler
A professor at the University of Texas, Austin, John Sibley Butler is the Director of the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and the Director of the Institute for Innovation and Creativity (IC2). A researcher in organizational behavior and immigrant and minority entrepreneurship, he has occupied the Distinguished Visiting Professor position at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan, for the last seven summers.
Professor Butler is a consultant for businesses and the U.S. military, and he advised George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential Campaign. He often appears on radio and TV, and his work has been cited in national newspapers and magazines. His books include Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black Americans: A Reconsideration of Race and Economics and All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (with Charles C. Moskos).
Ann Akiko Kusumoto
Ann Akiko Kusumoto is President of A. A. Kusumoto, Inc., a multicultural team of business consultants with expertise in diversity strategies. Prior to forming her own company, she was a certified Education and Training Associate of The American Institute for Managing Diversity, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia. There she designed and conducted seminars on managing diversity for a wide range of clients. She has particular expertise in diversity issues for Asians and Asian Pacific Americans in corporate America.
Before establishing herself as an external consultant, she worked for many years with Atlantic Richfield Company specializing in the management, recruitment, and development of a diverse workforce. In addition, she was responsible for company-wide technical compliance with all EEO and AA laws and regulations as well as the recruitment and development of protected group employees.
Allan Gilmour
Allan Gilmour retired in February 2005 as vice chairman of Ford Motor Company. He was responsible for the areas of Finance, General Auditor, Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, and Corporate Strategy. During his career, he held a variety of senior management positions, including president of Ford Automotive Group; executive vice president, International Automotive Operations; and executive vice president and chief financial officer. Other assignments included vice president, External and Personnel Affairs; vice president, controller, and president of Ford Motor Credit Company.
A member of the boards of directors of DTE Energy Company and Whirlpool Corporation, he is also the principal owner of a Ford and Chrysler dealership located in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Veena Das
Veena Das, Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, examines questions of violence, social suffering, and subjectivity. Other research interests include feminist movements, gender studies, sectarian violence, medical anthropology, post-colonial and post-structural theory, and South Asia and Europe. Her most recent project is a study of the burden of disease and health seeking behavior among the urban poor in Delhi. The project will track the relationship between local ecology, health, and family processes in decision-making.
The author of Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste Ritual and Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, she has also edited several books and articles, including Social Suffering; Violence and Subjectivity; and Remaking a World.
Gerald Gipp
Appointed as the Executive Director of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) in January 2001, Dr. Gerald E. Gipp supports the work of 32 Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), institutions that serve 30,000 students from over 250 federally recognized tribes. AIHEC serves as their collective voice, advocating on behalf of the institutions of higher education that are defined and controlled by their respective tribal nations. A member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (Hunkpapa Lakota), Dr. Gipp has served as Executive Director for the Intra-Departmental Council on Native American Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was the first American Indian appointed as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Indian Education, in the U.S. Department of Education.
Richard Haverkate
A member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Richard Haverkate has been a health educator in Michigan and Hawaii since 1989. He is currently Health Services Director of Michigan’s Inter-Tribal Council. With an annual budget of $6.5 million and a staff of 28, the Health Services Division plans and implements programs that help to elevate the health status of Indian families. Mr. Haverkate works with Michigan’s federally recognized Indian tribes and urban Indian programs while overseeing 17 Native American-specific health promotion/disease prevention programs. He earned a Masters of Public Health in 1993.
Beverly Geltner
Dr. Beverley Geltner returned to Michigan’s Southfield Public Schools as Superintendent in July 2004 after a 15-year absence. Before leaving K–12 education in 1989 to become an associate professor of education, she was the district’s Associate Superintendent for Instruction. She promoted school improvement and professional development while expanding instructional programs and support services.
As a full professor in the Department of Leadership and Counseling at Eastern Michigan University, she prepared hundreds of graduate students who subsequently assumed positions as teachers, assistant principals, principals, and superintendents. She is currently working with U-M Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Lester Monts, to forge close relationships between students and faculty of the University of Michigan and Southfield Schools.
Elizabeth Bunn
In 2002, Elizabeth Bunn was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the United Auto Workers, the highest post held by a woman in UAW history. She is the chief financial officer of the UAW and directs the Technical, Office, and Professional (TOP) Department and the Women's Department.
During her tenure as Vice President from 1998–2002, Bunn won bargaining rights for more than 18,000 academic workers; led campaigns that won collective bargaining for 6,000 new members at health care facilities in Ohio and Michigan; and directed a campaign that achieved UAW representation for more than 4,000 employees of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
An attorney, Bunn holds a BA degree from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the Wayne State University Law School. Bunn is a longtime member of the Michigan Democratic Party, a lifetime member of the NAACP, and a member and officer of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW).
Ann Chih Lin
Ann Chih Lin is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author of Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison (Princeton University Press 2000) and the co-editor, with Sheldon Danziger, of Coping with Poverty: The Social Contexts of Neighborhood, Work, and Family in the African-American Community (University of Michigan Press 2000). She is currently finishing a book manuscript, Inclusion, Exclusion, and Opportunity: The Political Socialization of Arab immigrants in Detroit, a project supported by the Russell Sage Foundation. Dr. Lin is also a co-principal investigator on the Detroit Arab American Study, a landmark multigenerational survey of Arab Americans in Detroit.
Linda Lim
Linda Lim is Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where she also directs the Southeast Asia Business Program. She will assume the position of Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies in July 2005. She is a faculty associate of the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for Japanese Studies, and the Center for South Asian Studies. A native of Singapore, Lim obtained her degrees in economics from the universities of Cambridge (BA), Yale (MA), and Michigan (PhD). Her recent publications include The Globalization Debate: Issues and Challenges (for the International Labor Organization) and “State Power and Private Profit in Southeast Asia” (for Asia-Pacific Economic Literature). She is the founder and editor of the refereed Journal of Asian Business.
Thylias Moss
Thylias Moss is a performer as well as a poet. Her books of poetry include Slave Moth: A Narrative in Verse (Persea Books, 2004), Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler (1998), Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (1993), Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky (1991), At Redbones (1990), Pyramid of Bone (1989), and Hosiery Seams on a Bowlegged Woman (1983). She is the author of a memoir, Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress (1998), and two plays, Talking to Myself (1984) and The Dolls in the Basement (1984). Among her honors are a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Dewar’s Profiles Performance Award, a Witter Bynner Award for Poetry, and a Whiting Award. She is a professor of English at the University of Michigan.
Elisabeth Gruskin
Dr. Elisabeth Gruskin, who earned her doctorate at UC-Berkeley, is a research scientist in the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. Her research topics include sexuality, drug use (including tobacco and alcohol), and lesbian, gay, and bisexual health. She has written and lectured extensively about health disparities in the LGBT community. Her book Treating Lesbians and Bisexual Women explores the socio-cultural influences on the health of lesbians and bisexuals. She uses case histories to explore such questions as: “What are our health risks and what are we doing to protect ourselves?” and “Can we trust medical confidentially?”
Lee Knefelkamp
A Professor of education and psychology at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, Lee Knefelkamp prepares future teachers to take into consideration cultural complexities and concepts of intercultural communications. Her research interests include student identity development, multicultural curricular transformation, and moral and ethical development in the context of race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. She is the author of Applying New Developmental Findings and The Practice-to-Theory-to-Practice Model, standard texts in graduate programs in counseling psychology and higher education. She also co-authored with AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider the article “Educating for a World Lived in Common with Others” in the College Board anthology Education and Democracy.
James Steward
Since early 1998, James Christen Steward has been Director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. He is also Professor in the Department of the History of Art and in the School of Art and Design. With over 15 years of service to the field, including work as Chief Curator of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, he has curated and organized numerous exhibitions, many of which have traveled internationally.
Steward is the sole author of The New Child: British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood, 1730-1830, and has served as editor of and contributor to many major exhibition catalogues. Steward’s research interests include 18th-century European art, architecture, and visual culture; representations of domesticity; and 18th-century landscape design and its representations.