2008 Wheelock College Winter Policy Talks
2008 Winter Policy Talks Panel Members and Speakers
Nelda Barrón
Beverly Hugo
Carole Berotte Joseph
Stephanie C. Malone
Terry Meier
Lois Mirsky
Kahris White McLaughlin
Paul Reville
Richard J. Robison
William Rodrigues
Marta Rosa
Hope Haslam Straughan
Eugene Thayer
Michael Vance
Charles Vert Willie
Nelda Barrón
Nelda L. Barrón is Assistant Professor in elementary education. She first came to Wheelock as the Faculty/Director of a three-year mentoring project which partnered Boston middle school students with Wheelock undergraduates. Her current teaching includes Racial and Cultural Identities, Social Studies Methods, Student Teaching, Practicum Seminar, and First Year Seminar.Prior to teaching in higher education she was a Director of Admission/ Director of Finance/Curriculum Director in a K-8 school and an independent consultant. Her previous educational positions include college counseling, directing leadership development programs for grades 6-12, counseling and teaching 5th-12th grade urban students, and college admissions. She has been an educational and organizational consultant on equity, diversity, anti-bias and multicultural organizational development for schools and community organizations nationally.
Currently her international work includes working with teachers from the Middle East and North Africa through the University of the Middle East Project Teacher Education Summer Institute and with youth from Ireland and Northern Ireland through the Border Horizons Program. Her community involvement includes several school and community group boards and the School Site Council for a Boston Public School. Her research interests are Culture, Identity, Race, Preservice Teacher Ideology, Critical Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Urban Education and Multicultural Education.
Beverly Hugo
Beverly Hugo was elected to the Framingham School Committee in 2007. Having overseen an $84,000,000 budget, collectively bargained for nine units, hired an interim superintendent and prepared for the Expanded Learning Time Initiative, she is now working with the District Planning and Review Task Force to implement a new school choice and assignment policy for the 2009-2010 school year. She is a member of and delegate to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and on the Board of Directors to the Health Advisory Council.
In addition to her role as an elected official, Hugo holds several community advocacy positions. She is active in local politics as a member of the Framingham Town Democratic Committee and is a voting member and delegate to the State Democratic Convention. Hugo is also the former president of the American Association for Justice Auxiliary.
Hugo’s professional experience in education spans decades. As a certified K-8 teacher, she began her teaching career in Boston, experiencing the first few years of desegregation firsthand. Currently, she is on the Board of Directors for The Education Cooperative, a regional multi-service agency dedicated to delivering effective and economical solutions to suburban communities West of Boston. Also she is on the Board of Trustees for Framingham Partners in Education, an initiative that builds relationships between businesses and community organizations with Framingham Public Schools. Hugo volunteers as a children’s tour guide at the Garden in the Woods in Framingham.
Hugo is a product of and advocate for public school education. A 1972 graduate of the Girls’ Latin School in Boston, she continued her education at the University of Massachusetts’ School of Education in the program, “Teaching in a Multilingual, Multicultural Setting.” She is a firm believer in closing the access and achievement gap while providing the best quality education for all children. As a lifelong advocate, she has worked collaboratively with community and state organizations to achieve her goals. She lives in Framingham with her husband, Michael, an environmental and product liability lawyer, and three children.
Carole Berotte Joseph
Dr. Berotte Joseph became the fourth President of MassBay Community College on March 1, 2005. Prior to joining MassBay, she served as Chief Academic Officer and Dean of Academic Affairs at Dutchess Community College/SUNY. Before joining the State University of New York system, she served as Vice President of Academic Affairs, at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College/CUNY. Her career in higher education spans over 35 years and began at the City College of New York, City University of New York system, where she served for over twenty years in several leadership positions. As a full professor with tenure, she was the recipient of several major grants and served as the Principal Investigator and first Director of the statewide HABETAC, the Haitian Bilingual/ESL Technical Assistance Center in New York. She has taught at the Bank Street College, Graduate School of Education; New York University’s SEHNAP and Indiana University’s Creole Institute at Bloomington and Haiti, as a Visiting Professor. In 1997, she was selected as a Kellogg Fellow for the prestigious program, “Expanding Leadership Diversity in Community Colleges.”
An expert in the field of linguistics, she was a guest editor for the Special Issue on Haiti of the Wadabagei Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. She is the author of “Haitian Creole in New York” in Fishman & Garcia (Eds.), The Multilingual Apple: Ethnolinguistic Diversity in New York City, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1997. Dr. Berotte Joseph has lectured extensively and has authored, translated and edited numerous articles on educational policy issues facing Haitian communities in the United States as well as in Haiti. She has served on the Editorial Boards of several scholarly journals including the Journal of the International Reading Association, Journal of the New York State Association for Bilingual Education, and the Wadabagei Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. She is a past president of the Haitian Studies Association, an international, scholarly and professional organization that promotes research and scholarship on Haiti and Haitians. She is fluent in four languages: Haitian Creole; French; Spanish and English. Dr. Berotte Joseph was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and grew up in New York. Her service to the community includes several appointments on local and national boards.
President Berotte Joseph serves on the boards of several organizations including: Technical Education Research Center (TERC) in Cambridge, MA; the Executive Committee of the Boston Higher Education Partnership; Honorary Chair of the World of Wellesley Inc.; the Wellesley Chamber of Commerce; the Metrowest Chamber of Commerce; and the Massachusetts Automobile Dealers Association Charitable Foundation. She is also an overseer for Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
Dr. Berotte Joseph lives in Ashland, Massachusetts with her husband Andre Stines. She and her two daughters, Marjorie and Claudine, were featured in a book entitled Nurturing Success (Lee, 2000). She also has appeared on several radio and television programs and has been featured in several “Who’s Who” publications. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish with minors in French and education from York College, CUNY; a master’s in education, with specializations in curriculum and teaching from Fordham University; an advanced certificate in administration and supervision from New York University and a doctorate in sociolinguistics and bilingual education from the Department of Teaching and Learning at New York University.
Stephanie C. Malone
Assistant General Counsel of Jefferson County Public Schools, Stephanie holds a B.A. in Finance from the University of Kentucky and a J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law. She is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association.
Stephanie has dedicated her career to working with public school districts. In her prior position as staff attorney for the Kentucky School Boards Association, Stephanie assisted public school districts throughout the state of Kentucky with the wide variety of legal issues they faced. Since 2005, Stephanie has served as Assistant General Counsel of Kentucky’s largest school district, the Jefferson County Public Schools.
In her position with the Jefferson County Public Schools, Stephanie was a part of the legal team defending the 98,000 student district in the landmark Supreme Court case, Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. In the wake of the Supreme Court Decision, Stephanie continues to play a major role in revising the district’s student assignment plan to ensure that students of Jefferson County, Kentucky continue to be educated in a diverse learning environment.
Terry Meier
Terry Meier is an associate professor in the Language and Literacy Department
at Wheelock College, where she teaches courses in language and culture, language
development, and children’s literature. She is the recent author
of Black Communications and Learning to Read: Building on Children’s
Linguistic and Cultural Strengths (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2008). She
has also written numerous articles on literacy and linguistic diversity and
on the uses of multicultural children’s literature.
Lois Mirsky
Lois Mirsky is a graduate of Wheelock College and a Member of the Corporation. She has held administrrative positions as a writer and fundraising professional for Wheelock, UNICEF and Noble and Greenough School and was Creative Director for a company specializing in direct mail fundraising for non-profit organizations.
Lois lives in Plymouth, MA, where she is a literacy volunteer and works with RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) helping primary grade students improve their reading skills.
Kahris White McLaughlin
Dr. McLaughlin has over 25 years of experience as both a teacher and administrator in public and private education. She has served as a school committee member for both the school districts of Lincoln and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. She has collaborated with the Massachusetts Advanced Studies Program that was sponsored by Milton Academy and the Freedom House in Boston to provide public school students an opportunity to prepare for a rigorous post-secondary school experience. She has been published by the Institute of Responsive Education concerning parent choice in the school selection process and was awarded a Horace Mann Grant from the Massachusetts State Department of Education; she has served as adjunct professor for Wheelock College, Lesley University and Cambridge College. Dr. McLaughlin has an undergraduate degree from Boston University; a Masters in Reading from Salem State College; a Masters and Ph.D. from Lesley University in Educational Planning and Policy; and a post-graduate degree from Harvard University. She is currently employed by the Cambridge Public Schools in Massachusetts where she is the Affirmative Action Officer. Currently, Dr. McLaughlin serves as a co-chair of the Racial Imbalance Advisory Committee of the Massachusetts Department of Education and is a member of the corporation for Wheelock College. Dr. McLaughlin is the president of the Board of METCO, Inc and remains deeply committed to effective education and equitable access for all students.
Paul Reville
Paul Reville is the president of the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, and serves as the Director of the Education Policy and Management Program and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the National Center on Time & Learning. Paul is the former executive director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, and was the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. He also served on the Massachusetts State Board of Education from 1991-96 and chaired the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning, as well as the Massachusetts Education Reform Review Commission. Most recently, Paul was appointed the chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Education by Governor Patrick.
Before this recent appointment, Paul served on Governor Patrick’s Transition Team and as chair of the Governor’s Pre-K – 12 Task Force on Governance. He is a former teacher and principal in urban, alternative schools. Paul is a trustee of Wheelock College and the Nativity School of Worcester, and serves on numerous other boards and advisory committees. Last year, he edited the book, “A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistence and Progress in the Boston Public Schools.” He is a graduate of Colorado College and Stanford University.
Richard J. Robison
Dr. Richard J. Robison became Executive Director of the Federation for Children with Special Needs in April of 1997. Dr. Robison has over 20 years experience with the management of nonprofit volunteer organizations as well as six years experience in state government as a senior policy analyst to the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation. The parent of three children, two of whom have Down syndrome, he is knowledgeable in a broad range of relevant content areas. He was appointed to serve a second three-year term on the State Advisory Council for special education required under IDEA, is an elected member of the Sudbury, Massachusetts School Board, serves on the AAUAP Consumer Affairs Council, and in Spring 1997, he was appointed by Secretary of Education Richard Riley to serve on the Goals 2000 "America Goes Back to School" Steering Committee.
William Rodrigues
Mr. Rodriguez has currently been hired to be the Executive Director of the Boston Campaign for Proficiency. Mr. Rodriguez had served as the Campaign’s co-chair for the last two years. He is also Founder, President and CEO of WR Consulting and Advocacy Group, a Latino strategic consulting and legislative advocacy firm. Recently, he helped organize and mobilize the Latino community across the State of Massachusetts to advocate on key educational and quality of life issues to the legislature. Mr. Rodriguez served for six years as the Executive Director of La Alianza Hispana, the largest multi-service agency serving Latinos in Greater Boston. Previous to La Alianza Mr. Rodriguez was director of the Crime and Justice Foundation, a criminal justice think thank dedicated to bringing about fairness and equality in the administration of criminal justice. For ten years, Mr. Rodriguez worked at Northeastern University promoting the Latino agenda. He is co-founder of the Latino Studies programs, the Latino Student Cultural Center, and Latino Scholarship to help retain Latino students at the University. He has had diversified positions in the area of criminal justice and law including research, corrections, investigation and public policy. He holds a law degree and a masters degree from Northeastern University and a sociology degree from Fordham University in New York. He is a member of many community boards and volunteers countless hours to serve his community. Mr. Rodriguez is married with three children. He grew up in the South Bronx and is the child of Puerto Rican parents.
Marta T. Rosa
Marta, the Director of Government Affairs and Interim Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Learning at Wheelock College, will serve as moderator for all three Winter Policy Talks.
She is an experienced leader that has been involved in the development of many grassroots organizations and efforts focused on education, economic development and social issues. She brings a wealth of expertise in strategic planning, organizational development, diversity planning and capacity building. For fourteen years Marta led the Child Care Resource Center, Inc. with strategic vision, passion, capable and decisive management, and with great entrepreneurship. She has held teaching, management and political positions with determination and effectiveness.
Marta is the recipient of multiple leadership awards—a graduate of Cambridge College with a master's degree in education, Marta was the first Latina elected to political office in the history of the City of Chelsea, MA, serving for six years as a School Committee Member and three years as a City Councilor-At-Large. She is the past President of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) in Washington D.C., where she provided leadership, vision and support to the organization and focused on the needs of children and families at the national level.
Her three adult children and her husband describe her as a strong, compassionate leader who makes a difference. Marta wants to continue her career bringing her expertise to organizations that care enough to embrace change. Her life of service and leadership demonstrates her commitment to her work and her passion for caring.
Marta is a Visiting Scholar at the UMASS Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy and has served on multiple boards and working committees at the city, state and national levels.
Hope Haslam Straughan
Hope's research and scholarship interests include spirituality within social work assessment and intervention, justice-based social work, social work with people with HIV and AIDS, and foster care and adoption. She teaches a variety of courses, including First Year Seminar for a group of freshmen, Social Work Practicum Seminar for BSW seniors, and Human Behavior & the Social Environment: Advanced Applications for 2nd year MSW students, and strives to set up a classroom environment which allows for a learning community to evolve. Hope also serves as a field liaison for the BSW seniors, supporting the student and Field Instructor in the learning and growth process. She views the learning process as a journey, partnered between the faculty and students, paralleling the worker and client partnership, requiring creativity, responsiveness, and knowledge/skill/value expertise. She serves as a volunteer foster care case reviewer for the Department of Social Services and is on the Massachusetts board of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups (AASWG), and a member of the North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW).
Eugene Thayer
Gene Thayer is currently Interim Superintendent of Schools in Framingham where he had served from 1987 to 1996 when he retired. Prior to Framingham, he served as Superintendent in Lawrence from 1979 to 1987. He also served as Superintendent from 1970 in Erving School Union in central Massachusetts and then in Hopkinton prior to going to Lawrence.
Since retirement, Gene has served as interim Superintendent at various times in Concord, Concord-Carlisle, Winchendon, Lawrence and Southbridge.
Gene has also been responsible, as Superintendent, for initially racially balancing Lawrence and Framingham. He has also participated in International Educators teaching through Framingham State College.
Educationally, Gene has received his Doctorate in Education Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Personally, Gene has five daughters and eleven grandchildren and is a veteran of the U.S. Army where he attended the Army Language School majoring in the Arabic language.
Michael Vance
Michael Vance is the Vice President of Field Operations for Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. Action for Boston Community Development is Boston's antipoverty agency, serving more than 100,000 low-income Greater Boston residents through its city-wide network of neighborhood-based organizations. ABCD provides innovative, timely programs that promote upward mobility and a higher quality of life for people and communities.
Charles Vert Willie
Charles Vert Willie is the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, Emeritus at the Harvard University School of Education. He is a sociologist whose areas of research include desegregation, higher education, public health, race relations, urban community problems, and family life. Before coming to HGSE, he was chairman of the Department of Sociology and vice president of student affairs at Syracuse University. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the President's Commission on Mental Health and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council. He has served as vice president of the American Sociological Association and president of the Eastern Sociological Society. He has also served as a consultant, expert witness, and court-appointed master in major school desegregation cases in larger cities such as Boston, Hartford, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Little Rock, Milwaukee, San Jose, Seattle, and St. Louis; and in other municipalities such as St. Lucie County and Lee County, Florida, and Somerville, Cambridge, and Brockton, Massachusetts. Willie is the author or editor of over 100 articles and 30 books on issues of race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, education, urban communities, and family relations. Willie identifies himself as an applied sociologist who is concerned with solving social problems.
Degrees:
• Ph.D., Syracuse University,
• M.A., Atlanta University
• B.A., Morehouse College
