New York 11th district Congressman Major R. Owens, elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982 from New York's 11th Congressional District. Representative Owens is a member of the vitally necessary Education and the Workforce Committee, which guides all federal involvement in education, job training, labor law, employee safety and pensions, programs for the aging and people with disabilities, and equal employment opportunities. Representative Owens also serves on the Government Reform Committee. As Ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee for Workforce Protections, Representative Owens has led the fight for minimum wage increases, blocked the attempt to eliminate cash payments for overtime, confronted the steam rolling attempt to repeal Davis-Bacon, defeated the conspiracy to dismantle the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and spearheaded the fight against legislation designed to gag labor unions. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Select Education and Civil Rights for six years, Representative Owens' record for passing legislation was second only in New York to Adam Clayton Powell. As Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Haiti, he led the successful three-year fight which restored the democratically elected President.

Professor, University of Hawaii Professor, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Previously, she worked as a researcher, curriculum developer, teacher educator, and classroom teacher at the Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP) in Honolulu. She is currently directing a teacher education program aimed at increasing the number of Native Hawaiian teachers in schools in their own communities. Dr. Au's research interest is the school literacy development of students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. She has published over 70 articles on this topic, as well as a textbook, Literacy Instruction in Multicultural Settings. Kathy is a member of the board of directors of the International Reading Association. She drafted that organization's resolution on cultural awareness. She has been the guest editor for a themed issue of The Reading Teacher and has served on many IRA committees. She is past president of the Aloha State Council and was the program chair for Hawaii's first state IRA conference.

Professor and Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Excellence at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she is a nationally and internationally-known speaker and writer whose work has focused on the education of children of color and the perspectives, aspirations, and pedagogical knowledge of teachers of color. She has used her training in ethnographic research to spark dialogues between educators on issues which have impact on students typically least well-served by our educational system. Dr. Delpit is particularly interested in teaching and learning in multicultural societies, having spent time studying these issues in Alaska, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and in various urban and rural sites in the United States. Her recent work has spanned a range of projects and issues, including assisting national programs engaged in school restructuring efforts; working with the Professional Standards Commission; establishing the Peachtree Urban Writing Project in Atlanta; creating high-standards, innovative schools for poor, urban children; and developing urban leadership programs for teachers and school district central office staff.

Dean of the School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University MARY HATWOOD FUTRELL, Ed.D., an internationally known educator and former president of the National Education Association (NEA), is the dean of The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GW/GSEHD) in Washington, DC. She was appointed dean in 1995. Dean Futrell is a Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for Curriculum, Standards, and Technology. Through the institute, GW/GSEHD has taken a leadership role in supporting teachers participating in the National Board for Professional Standards voluntary certification process. In addition to her unprecedented six-year term leading the NEA, Dean Futrell is the president of Education International, which represents 23,000,000 educators worldwide. She is a former president of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession and was a senior consultant for Quality Education for Minorities Network. Dean Futrell serves on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Kettering Foundation, and the Institute for Educational Leadership.

Director, Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute, UNCF, serves as the second executive director of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). The Patterson Research Institute is the first African American-led research institute in the country to focus solely on education. Dr. Freeman received her Ph.D. from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan in 1998. In 1999, Dr. Freeman was awarded the Dimond Best Dissertation Award from the University of Michigan School of Education. Dr. Freeman also received her M.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan. Before attending the University of Michigan, Dr. Freeman attended Spelman College where she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Dr. Freeman’s research interests include the motivation and achievement of African American children and adolescents; equity and access to academic resources; teacher training; and the nature of learning contexts in impoverished schools serving African American students. Her dissertation consisted of two studies examining the motivational characteristics of young African American and White adolescents during the transition into middle school.

Antoine Garibaldi is the sixth President of Gannon University, a Catholic, diocesan university in Erie, Pennsylvania with more than 55 undergraduate majors, 17 master’s programs, and a doctoral program in counseling psychology. Prior to his appointment as President of Gannon University in May 2001, he was a Senior Fellow in the Office of the Vice President for Collaborations and Corporate Secretary at the Educational Testing Service in 2000-2001; he served as the first Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Howard University and a tenured Professor in the School of Education between 1996 and 2000; and, between 1982 and 1996, he was Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Chairman of the Education Department at Xavier University of Louisiana. Between 1977 and 1982, he was a federal government administrator and researcher at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Education (1977-1982), where he was also a staff member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which produced the landmark report, A Nation At Risk. Garibaldi is the Chairman of the American Association for Higher Education’s Board of Directors, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and the author of ten books and monographs, and more than 70 research articles and chapters.

Donna Gollnick

Donna M. Gollnick is Senior Vice President of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) where she oversees all accreditation activities. In this role she staffs the Unit Accreditation Board which determines the accreditation status of professional education units. She helps institutions prepare for accreditation visits, trains and assigns Board of Examiners teams to conduct on?site reviews, and writes articles and handbooks on the accreditation process. She has held this position since 1991. In the past, Dr. Gollnick served as NCATE's Interim Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director. Dr. Gollnick is finishing a two-year term as president of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). Donna has been writing about multicultural education for over 20 years. She is the co-author with Philip Chinn of the textbook, Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society, which was released in the 6th edition in 2001. She is a contributor to the Handbook on Research in Multicultural Education and the 1992 AACTE publication on cultural diversity and teacher education. She is a member of the writing team for the 10th through 12th editions of Introduction to the Foundations of American Education. In addition, she has written and made numerous presentations on teacher education and accreditation.

Professor, English & Education, Stanford University and Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of teaching, is a linguistic anthropologist whose primary interests are sociocultural contexts of learning and relations between oral/written language socialization across cultures and institutional settings. She has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Science (1988-89) and has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim (1984), MacArthur Fellowship (1984-89), and the Graemeyer Award in Education (with Milbrey McLaughlin). She has been a visiting professor in numerous universities in the United States, as well as Great Britain, South Africa, Australia and India. Her books and articles include work on race relations, intergenerational conflict and cooperation, and youth based organizations. Recent work centers on the role of the arts in enhancing pro-social, academic, and long term values of youth from economically depressed rural and urban areas.

Irving McPhail

Chancellor, Community Colleges, Baltimore County Irving McPhail, is the chief executive officer of The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), a premier, learning-centered, single college, multi-campus public institution serving approximately 60,000 credit and non-credit students annually. Upon assuming the chancellorship of CCBC in February of 1998, Dr. McPhail immediately set an ambitious agenda for the college which was enthusiastically embraced by the Board of Trustees and College community as the College's first-ever, five-year strategic plan, LearningFirst. His current research examines culturally-mediated instruction and the implications for literacy education with African-American children, youth and adults. A prolific writer, he is the author of more than 25 scholarly articles, book chapters, and monographs. Dr. McPhail is currently serving a two-year term on the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) Advisory Committee of Presidents. He is one of 10 chancellors/ presidents appointed by the League for Innovation in the Community College to a project on developing and certifying student learning of 21st century skills. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Alliance, the Baltimore County Executive's Education Advisory Board, and the Board of Directors of the Regional Manufacturing Institute. He also serves on such professional and civic organizations as the National Council on Black American Affairs, the SCT Executive Advisory Council, the National Association of Black Reading and Language Educators, the International Reading Association, the College Reading Association and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

is Director of Publications and Senior Vice President, Essence Communications, Inc. Previously as editor-in-chief of Essence Ms. Taylor guided this publication through a period of phenomenal growth, making it a very popular magazine for African American women, with a monthly readership of more than eight million people. A graduate of Fordham University and a current graduate student at Union Theological Seminary, Taylor is the recipient of numerous awards and citations as well as honorary doctorate degrees from Lincoln University, Delaware State University, and Spelman College. She is the author of two best-selling books, Lessons in Living, and In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor, a collection of her monthly columns from Essence.

Henry T. Frierson, Jr

Director of the Research Education Support Program and Professor of Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Frierson teaches educational psychology and program evaluation. Since 1996, he has directed the Research Education Support Program, a large multi-faceted program, largely supported by the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation, designed to encourage and support students of color from underrepresented groups to attain Ph.D. degrees. The program involves undergraduate and graduate students. Born in Kansas and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Frierson received a BS in psychology from Wayne State University and a master's in educational psychology; he holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Michigan State University. Dr. Frierson has been at the University of North Carolina for 26 years and has served as the Associate Dean of the Graduate School and a Professor in the School of Medicine where he founded and directed the Learning and Assessment Laboratory, an academic support unit for Medical School and other students. His current interests rest in program evaluation and in increasing the number of individuals of color in doctoral programs and research careers.

Dr. Irving Hamer, Jr.

Dr. Irving Hamer, Jr. was appointed to the New York City Board of Education by Manhattan Borough President, C. Virginia Fields on July 1, 1998. As a Member of the New York City Board of Education, Dr. Hamer presides over the nation's largest public school district, serving more than one million students. Currently, Dr. Hamer is co-chairman of TestU.com, a start up educational service, where the Internet is a key distribution tool. Previously, Dr. Hamer was Executive Vice President of Simon & Schuster, Secondary Education Group. He managed strategic planning, technology integration, operational and product development, communications, operations and new business development for a group of companies with $180 million in revenue. During 1986 to 1988, Dr. Hamer was Deputy Commissioner of Education for Comprehensive School Improvement Planning in New York City for the New York State Education Department. Dr. Hamer managed and coordinated State and Federal aids to the New York City Board of Education, monitored all State and Federal regulations, developed programs, implemented school improvement mandates in schools determined to be in need of assistance, and developed educational policies. Dr. Hamer was also founder, developer, and leader of Street Academy Schools in New York and other parts of the country and Senior Research Affiliate at the Institute for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. Dr. Hamer earned his undergraduate education from Ottawa University in Sociology, an M.Ed. in Administration from Harvard University, and his Ed.D. in Learning Environments and Social Policy from Harvard University.