Forum Network

New York Times reporter Chris Hedges is author and 20-year war correspondent who shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of global terrorism. In his 20 years as a journalist for many of the most respected news organizations in the United States, Hedges has reported from the world's most war-ravaged regions, from the Middle East and Central America to the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. For more than a decade, Hedges covered hot spots for *The New York Times*, first in 1991 in Operation Desert Storm, then in Bosnia and Kosovo from 1995-98, and more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, he was part of a team of *Times* reporters that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for the paper's 2001 coverage of terrorism. The winner of numerous other awards for his coverage, he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.

Nancy Faust Sizer is a career teacher who has worked in public and private high schools, including Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Phillips Academy, and the Wheeler School. With her husband, Theodore R. Sizer, she has taught at Brown University and currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Both Nancy and Ted recently served as Acting Co-Principals at the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School where Nancy also was Transition Counselor, helping to lead its first graduating class through the transition to postsecondary education. *The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract* (Beacon Press, 1999) is her most recent book, written with her husband Ted.

Professor Orfield received his B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota and his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Chicago. He is primarily interested in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. He was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project and is now co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. Orfield's central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. Orfield received the 2007 "Social Justice in Education" Award by the American Educational Research Association for "work that has had a profound impact on demonstrating the critical role of education research in supporting social justice." He is a member of the National Academy of Education. Professor Orfield, together with Professor Patricia Gondara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, received two new research grants since June 2007. The first initiative, funded by the Eleanor Foundation of Chicago, is entitled, "The Future Rests on Working Moms: Unequal Opportunity and Policies to Help Them Realize Their Dreams for Their Children." The second study, funded by the Ford Foundation, is called "Breaking the Chain of Failure: Moving from Weak High Schools to Strong Community Colleges for Students of Color."

Giovanna Negretti is the founding Executive Director of Oeste? (Translation: Have You Heard?), the first and only statewide Latino political organization in Massachusetts. Oeste? is a membership organization with a mission to promote the principles and practice of democracy and to advance the political, social and economic standing of Latinos and Latinas in the state. Oeste? offers programs in leadership development, civic education, campaign training and advocacy. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Giovanna arrived to Massachusetts in 1992. She began her local political work serving as a legislative aide to State Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Senior Advisor to the Joint Committee on Insurance. Simultaneously, she served as President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, an organization which advocates for civil rights of Puerto Ricans in the United States while promoting independence for Puerto Rico. On a national level, Giovanna is part of the Executive Committees of the National Boricua Human Rights Network, Boricua Initiative, Santiago's List and the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. She has coordinated rallies and demonstrations in Washington DC, including March for Amnesty for the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners (1997); A Un Siglo de Invasion, Marcha Nuestra Nacion (1998); and the National Day of Solidarity With the People of Vieques (2000) and the March for Legalization of Immigrants (2002). Giovanna has also coordinated several humanitarian delegations to Central America and South America and the Caribbean. Giovanna was listed by Boston Magazine as one of 40 Bostonians to Watch (June 2002) and as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Boston (May 2003). She graduated from Emerson College with a BFA, magna cum laude, is a fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and has a MPA with a concentration in Leadership from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Albie Sachs' career in human rights activism started at the age of seventeen, when as a second year law student at the University of Cape Town, he took part in the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign. Three years later he attended the Congress of the People at Kliptown where the Freedom Charter was adopted. He started practice as an advocate at the Cape Bar aged 21. The bulk of his work involved defending people charged under racist statutes and repressive security laws. Many faced the death sentence. He himself was raided by the security police, subjected to banning orders restricting his movement and eventually placed in solitary confinement without trial for two prolonged spells of detention.In 1966 he went into exile. After spending eleven years studying and teaching law in England he worked for a further eleven years in Mozambique as law professor and legal researcher. In 1988 he was blown up by a bomb placed in his car in Maputo by South African security agents, losing an arm and the sight of an eye. During the 1980s working closely with Oliver Tambo, leader of the ANC in exile, he helped draft the organization's Code of Conduct, as well as its statutes. After recovering from the bomb he devoted himself full-time to preparations for a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. In 1990 he returned home and as a member of the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive of the ANC took an active part in the negotiations which led to South Africa becoming a constitutional democracy. After the first democratic election in 1994 he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court.

Lois E. Horton teaches in the UH Department of American Studies and serves as Professor of History at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Horton is co-author of several books with James Oliver Horton, including Slavery and the Making of America (2004), Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America (2001), In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (1997) and Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (1979; 1999). Horton received her PhD from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her work on African-American communities, race, gender, and social change has been published in the US and Europe, and she has lectured extensively around the world.

Professor Burnham began her career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund litigating school desegregation cases. She has served as a Boston municipal court judge and a partner in a Boston civil rights firm with an international human rights practice. Her areas of interest are civil and human rights, comparative constitutional rights, and international criminal law. Professor Burnham directs the Northeastern University Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project , which engages students in legal matters relating to the 1960s US civil rights movement.

James Oliver Horton is a distinguished professor of American Studies and History. He has published ten books, most recently The Landmarks of African American History in 2005, Slavery and the Making of America (Oxford University Press, 2004) the companion book for the WNET PBS series of the same which aired in February of 2005 and Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, edited in 2006 with Lois E. Horton. James Horton has been historical consultant to, and appeared in, numerous film and video productions including those seen on ABC, PBS, The Discovery Channels, C-Span TV, and The History Channel. In 2006 Professor Horton was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the George Washington University President's Medal for scholarly achievement and teaching excellence.

Paul Hayes Tucker, who has taught art history at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 1978, is currently The Paul Hayes Tucker Distinguished Professor of Art, a Chair established in his name by two Boston patrons of the arts, Barbara Lee and Ellen Poss. Hailed by *Time Magazine* as one of America's foremost authorities on Claude Monet and Impressionism, Professor Tucker earned his B.A. from Williams College and his Ph.D from Yale University. Professor Tucker has served on the faculties of the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), Williams College, and the University of California Santa Barbara, and has been honored with many awards and grants, including the Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Scholarship (UMass Boston); the Yale Press Governor's Award for the best book published by an author under 40; and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies as well as from the Florence Gould Arts Foundation. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Professor Tucker served as the President and Chairman of the Board of the Terra Foundation for the Arts and is the founder and Director of Arts on the Point, a public sculpture park in Boston. In addition to his many publications, Professor Tucker has served as guest curator for more than half a dozen major exhibitions, including The Sculpture of William Tucker (2002); Renoir. From Outsider to Old Master. 1870-1892. (2001); The Impressionists at Argenteuil (2000); Monet in the 20th Century (1998-99); Monet. A Retrospective (1994-5); and Monet in the '90s. The Series Paintings (1990).

Jennifer Jordan is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and screenwriter, with over twenty-five years experience as a journalist, broadcast producer, radio and television news anchor, voice-over/narration talent, and motivational speaker. Jordan spent most of the 1990s at WGBH-FM in Boston where she anchored National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She also worked with public television’s most prolific production house—WGBH Channel 2—as an on-air talent, segment producer and host, researcher, and writer. She is the author of *Savage Summit: The Life and Death of the First Women of K2* and *The Last Man on The Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2*. *Savage Summit* won the 2005 National Outdoor Book Award for Best Mountain Literature and was selected as an Editors’ Choice by The New York Times Book Review. She also has produced and written several documentaries, among them Kick Like a Girl, which won several international film festivals and was bought and aired by HBO. She co-owns Skyline Ventures Productions with her husband, cinematographer and adventurer Jeff Rhoads, in Salt Lake City, where she spends as much of her free time as possible exploring the backcountry of the Wasatch Mountains.

Andrea Lee was born in Philadelphia and received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard University. She is a former staff writer for *the New Yorke*r, and her fiction and nonfiction writing has also appeared in *The New York Times Magazine* and *The New York Times Book Review*. She is the author of *Russian Journal*, the novel Sarah Phillips, and the short story collection "Interesting Women." She lives with her husband and two children in Turin, Italy.