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Melissa Nobles is Associate Professor of Political Science. Professor Nobles teaching and research interests are in the comparative study of racial and ethnic politics, and issues of retrospective justice. Her book, *Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics* (2000), examines the political origins and consequences of racial categorization in demographic censuses in the United States and Brazil. *The Politics of Official Apologies*, (2008), comparatively examines the political uses of official apologies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. It explores why minority groups demand such apologies and why governments give them (or not). Nobles holds a BA in history from Brown University and an MA and PhD in political science from Yale University. Shades of Citizenship received the Outstanding Book Award for 2001 from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, as well as an Honorable Mention for the Ralph Bunch Book Award from the American Political Science Association. Nobles has also been a Fellow at Boston University's Institute on Race and Social Division (2000-01) and Harvard University's Radcliffe Center for Advanced Study (2003-04).

Glenn C. Loury is currently university professor, professor of economics, and director of the Institute on Race and Social Division at Boston University. Previously he has taught economics at Harvard, Northwestern and the University of Michigan. He earned a BA in mathematics at Northwestern University and holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Loury is a distinguished academic economist. He has made scholarly contributions to the fields of welfare economics, game theory, industrial organization, natural resource economics and the economics of income distribution. He has presented his research before numerous scholarly meetings and academic societies throughout the world. He has been a scholar in residence at Oxford University, Tel Aviv University, the University of Stockholm, the Delhi School of Economics, the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Professor Loury has received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support his work. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and was elected Vice President of the American Economics Association for 1997. Professor Loury has had the honor of giving the University Lecture at Boston University in Fall 1996 ("The Divided Society and the Democratic Idea,") and the prestigious DuBois Lectures at Harvard University in Spring 2000 ("The Economics and the Ethics of Racial Classification.") His collection, *One by One, From the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America* won the 1996 American Book Award and the 1996 Christianity Today Book Award. His most recent book, *The Anatomy of Racial Inequality*, appeared in February 2002 from Harvard University Press.

Marvin Kalb, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice, Emeritus, and Senior Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, was the Shorenstein Centers Founding Director and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy (1987 to 1999). He was also recipient of the 2006 National Press Club Fourth Estate Award. His distinguished journalism career encompasses 30 years of award-winning reporting for CBS and *NBC News*, as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief, and host of *Meet the Press*. Kalb has authored or coauthored 10 nonfiction books and two best-selling novels. His most recent book, *The Media and the War on Terrorism* (coedited with Stephen Hess), explores the interaction between the government and the media during times of war and national emergency. Kalb is currently writing a history of the impact of the Vietnam War on American presidential politics. He hosts *the Kalb Report*, a discussion of media ethics and responsibility at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and he is a regular contributor to Fox television and National Public Radio.

Donahue, vice chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, has maintained a private law practice since 2001. Prior to establishing his private practice, Mr. Donahue was partner in Donahue & Donahue Attorneys from 1951 to 2001. Mr. Donahue was an assistant to President John F. Kennedy in the White House from 1960 to 1963. He was president and chief operating officer for NIKE, Inc. from 1990 to 1994. He currently serves as vice chairman of the Board for NIKE where he has been a director since 1977. Mr. Donahue is a former president of the New England Bar Association and of the Massachusetts Bar Association from which he received the Gold Medal in 1979. He is the recipient of several honorary degrees. Mr. Donahue is a graduate of Dartmouth College and of Boston University Law School, which honored him with the Silver Shingle Award in 1991. Mr. Donahue is an original member of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award Committee, which he served and chaired from its inception in 1989.

Cecil W. Stoughton, who was President John F. Kennedy's White House photographer, whose photographs of JFK and his wife and children shared their personal lives with the American public, and who took the iconic photograph of Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as president aboard Air Force One in Texas after JFK's 1963 assassination, died at him home in Merritt Island, Florida. Stoughton was 88 and had been ill for some time, according to his family and friends. He struggled with a heart problem after having hip replacement surgery several years ago, according to his family. He was the personal photographer to presidents Kennedy and Johnson before the position had a formal name.

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Pinker is one of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind, and the the author of seven books, including *The Language Instinct*, *How the Mind Works*, *Words and Rules*, *The Blank Slate*, and *The Stuff of Thought*.

Billy Collins distinguishes himself through his clear, accessible poetry–and by reinterpreting many traditional poetic forms. His poem "Sonnet" begins "All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now." Collins speaks out against the over-interpretation of poetry, as well as the writing of poetry strictly for an academic audience. As United States Poet Laureate (2001-03), he created a poetry collection called "Poetry 180," a project whose aim was to increase poetry's popularity among teens by exposing them to a meaningful contemporary poem each day of the school year. Although its accessibility is in part responsible for the popularity of Collins's work, humor, irony, and ambiguity also play an important role. The poet Stephen Dunn once wrote of Collins's appeal, "We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going."