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  • Dr. Donald G. Kyle is a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is an internationally recognized expert on ancient sport and spectacles who has delivered numerous invited lectures, been interviewed by the media, and consulted and appeared on History Channel shows on Roman gladiators and on the Ancient Olympics. He has also served on the editorial boards of three journals of sport history. Dr. Kyle's book publications include \_Athletics in Ancient Athens\_ (1993), \_Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome\_ (1998), and \_Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World\_ (2007, second ed. 2015). He has additionally co-edited volumes such as \_Essays on Sport History and Sport Mythology\_ (1990) and \_A Companion to Ancient Sport and Spectacle\_ (2014) and written articles and book chapters on his topics of expertise.
  • John Foster is a leading naturalist and environment educator. He has conducted wildlife research for the US Fish and Wildlife and the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. He has also trained staff for Americorps, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, Project Learning Tree, National Park, and Audubon. Foster has written natural history articles for Yankee, Wild Earth and Backpacker. He is a Commonwealth Award nominee for excellence and leadership as a naturalist; the state's highest awards for a variety of Humanities. Foster has appeared several times on TV; including WCVB's Chronicle, having reported on New England's flora and fauna species populations.
  • David P. Driscoll is the former commissioner of education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has worked in public education and educational leadership for forty three years. A former secondary school mathematics teacher, Driscoll was named assistant superintendent of Melrose, MA, schools in 1972 and then superintendent in 1984. He served in that role until 1993, when he was appointed Massachusetts deputy commissioner of education, just days after the states Education Reform Act was signed into law. Driscoll became interim commissioner of education on July 1, 1998, and was named commissioner on March 10, 1999. As deputy commissioner, Driscoll held several key leadership roles, both in the external affairs of the education department and in internal management. He was the principal investigator for the National Science Foundations mathematics and science program in Massachusetts, PALMS, and was instrumental in gaining the NSF's approval of a second five-year round of funding for this initiative in 1997. He was also appointed to oversee the implementation of the state agreement on management and governance of the Lawrence Public Schools. Driscoll is currently the outgoing president of the Council of Chief State School Officers and serves on the board of the National Assessment Governing Board.
  • James Smith is currently employed as an Associate Professor of English at Boston College, where he specializes in modern and contemporary Irish literature and culture, and cultural studies. His book,* Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment *(2007), focusing on cultural representations of institutional care, reflects his interest in twentieth-century Irish narrative from a post-colonial perspective. Similar interests inform Smith's recent graduate seminars, "Twentieth Century Irish Fiction," "Contemporary Irish Fiction," and "Ireland: The Colonial Context." He have taught undergraduate electives on contemporary British Isles fiction, American realism and naturalism, major Irish writers, and both 19th and 20th century Irish literature surveys. Smith am also interested in recent scandals in Ireland's Catholic Church and the manner in which these affect relations between church, state, and society.
  • Lawrence Lucchino, (born 6 September 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is the current president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, and a member of John W. Henry's ownership group. Lucchino graduated from Princeton University in 1967 and later attended Yale Law School. At Princeton, Lucchino was on the basketball team with Bill Bradley who later became an NBA star and United States Senator from New Jersey. After law school, Lucchino practiced law with the Washington, D. C. law firm of Williams & Connelly. The founder, famed litigator, Edward Bennett Williams, had ownership interest in both the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Orioles. Lucchino's law practice at Williams & Connelly included a substantial amount of work for those two sports teams. Through that work he ultimately became president/CEO of the Baltimore Orioles and later, the San Diego Padres. Under his watch, both teams built new stadiums Camden Yards and Petco Park.
  • From February, 1976, to January, 1977, Mr. Gibson was a White House correspondent for ABC News. During this time, he covered Gerald Ford's 1976 Presidential campaign. Mr. Gibson came to ABC News in May, 1975, from a syndicated news service, Television News, Inc. His first job in broadcasting was Washington producer for RKO Network in 1966. The National Endowment for the Humanities named Mr. Gibson a National Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan in 1973, and he has served as a board member of the Michigan Journalism Fellows since 1988. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he was news director for the University radio station, WPRB-FM. Mr. Gibson was honored with the 1992 John Maclean Fellowship, awarded to Princeton University alumni "who have made a major contribution to American society." Mr. Gibson, a native of Evanston, Illinois, grew up in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Arlene, a school headmistress, reside in New Jersey. They have two daughters.