National Advisory Board
Generation Citizen’s Advisory Board consists of non-profit executives, other professionals, and experts in the civic education space that provide the organization with help and advice on a frequent basis. Although it is an informal body, the Advisory Board plays a crucial role in the development of Generation Citizen through its advice and overall support of the organization.
David Flink, Executive Director, Project Eye to Eye
David Flink is the Executive Director of Project Eye-To-Eye, which is a nationally known mentoring program. In Project Eye-To-Eye, using art as a medium, college and high school students with LD/ADHD act as tutors, role models and mentors for elementary, middle and high school students with similar learning differences. The younger students learn to understand and articulate their individual assets and needs and become empowered to find success.
In addition to his work in Project Eye-To-Eye, David graduated from Brown University with Honors with a degrees in Education and Psychology and holds a masters degree in Disability Studies from Columbia University Teachers College. The Orton Gillingham Society has recognized his Honors Thesis on the Treatment of Dyslexia through Multisensory Learning. David has lectured at Brown University, Dartmouth College, Vassar College, Columbia University, Reed College, and at numerous conferences for organizations including the International Dyslexia Association. David has served as an Admissions Officer for Brown University, where he evaluated over 4,000 applications, and was the Disability Admissions Liaison at Brown University, reviewing all applications of those who applied to Brown with disabilities.
Alan Harlam, Director of Social Entrepreneurship, Brown University
Alan works collaboratively with community organizations and leaders and university students and faculty to identify, develop, and guide progress on projects that can respond meaningfully to community needs. In addition, he helps develop courses in social entrepreneurship including a two semester capstone course in Sociology. Alan has been a social entrepreneur at Amos House where he helped launch and manage their institutional and full-service catering business, More Than a Meal, which creates employment opportunity for the poor and homeless of Providence. Prior to his work at Amos House, Alan has been an investor and consultant to financially distressed, turnaround companies and worked for an international IT consulting company.
Alan is a partner of Social Venture Partners of RI which invests and advises Rhode Island social enterprises. He has also served on many community Boards including the Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island and City Year Rhode Island.
Mark Hanis, former President, Genocide Intervention Network
As co-founder and president of Genocide Intervention Network, Mark Hanis led that organization’s merger with the Save Darfur Coalition to create United to End Genocide, where he was the founding president and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors.
Hanis graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Public Policy. He is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors and was raised in Quito, Ecuador. From February-August 2003, Hanis worked for the Office of the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Mark has been awarded several prestigious fellowships for social entrepreneurship, including Ashoka, Echoing Green, Draper Richards Kaplan, and Hunt Alternatives Prime Movers. Mark was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Hanis serves on the Board of Stakeholders of the University of Pacific’s Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and is a faculty member with Public Squared.
Meira Levinson, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Meira Levinson’s current work focuses on documenting and addressing the civic achievement gap: a gap in individuals’ civic and political knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that is starkly tied to race, ethnicity, immigration status, and especially class. Levinson argues that the U.S. civic achievement gap should be taken as seriously by educators and policymakers as the reading and math achievement gaps are, not least because it is unjust, undemocratic, and unnecessary. She is writing about these issues and others in a book on civic and multicultural education in de facto segregated urban schools and communities. Levinson has also written about liberal education and political theory, autonomy, parental versus children’s rights, school choice, and other topics in The Demands of Liberal Education and various articles and book chapters.
A political theorist and philosopher of education by training, Levinson grounds her work in scholarship from a variety of disciplines as well as her eight years’ experience teaching middle school students in the Atlanta and Boston public schools. She believes strongly in the possibility of productive cross-fertilization (without loss of rigor) among scholarship, policy, and practice and attempts to realize this ideal in her work.
Peter Levine, Director, CIRCLE
Peter Levine is Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which is part of Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. Levine is also Research Director of the Tisch College. Levine graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in philosophy. He studied philosophy at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, receiving his doctorate in 1992. From 1991 until 1993, he was a research associate at Common Cause. From 1993-2008, he was a research scholar at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy. Levine helped to launch CIRCLE at the University of Maryland as its deputy director (2001-5) and then its director. In the late 1990s, he was also deputy director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. Levine is the author of The Future of Democracy: Developing the Next Generation of American Citizens (University Press of New England, June 2007), three other scholarly books on philosophy and politics, and a novel. He also co-edited The Deliberative Democracy Handbook (2006) with John Gastil and co-organized the writing of The Civic Mission of Schools, a report released by Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE in 2003. He serves on many governing boards and advisory boards of organizations involved in civic renewal
Kristin J. Moody, Attorney, Berman DeValerio
Kristin is Of Counsel in the Boston office of Berman DeValerio. Previously, she practiced at Holland & Knight LLP and Morrison & Foerster LLP. She has over a decade of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of areas including securities litigation, government and regulatory investigations, and other complex commercial litigation matters. Additionally, Kristin has represented pro bono clients in political asylum and discrimination matters. Kristin has also taught Business Law at Fisher College and is a member of its Advisory Board. She holds a B.A. from Bucknell University, a J.D. from Boston College Law School and an LL.M. from New York University School of Law. In addition to serving on Generation Citizen’s National Advisory Board, she is also the Chair of Generation Citizen’s Boston Advisory Council.
Joseph Kahne, Professor, Mills College
Joseph Kahne is currently the John and Martha Davidson Professor of Education at Mills College. His research focuses on ways school practices and new media may be influencing youth civic and political development. He also studies urban school reform. Professor Kahne is currently chair of the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics. This network brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to examine ways youth participation in online networks is shaping and reshaping youth civic and political engagement in the public sphere.
He is also finishing a California statewide study that examines how both new media practices and school-based curricular opportunities influence high school students’ democratic commitments, capacities, and activities. This work was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Education. Together with Ellen Middaugh and Chris Evans at Mills and Amanda Lenhart, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, and Jessica Vitak at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Professor Kahne also recently completed a nationally representative survey of youth that examined the civic potential of video games. He also recently completed a longitudinal study with Sue Sporte of how opportunities in students’ schools, homes, and communities influenced the civic outcomes of 4,000 students in Chicago’s public schools.
Laurel Stolte, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Doctoral Student
Laurel Stolte is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is working with Generation Citizen to identify instructional practices that support students’ development of civic skills, as well as helping with curriculum and professional development. Laurel taught social studies, English as a Second Language, and Spanish for six years, and has worked with action civics programs in Colorado and Mexico.
John Zola, Educator, Boulder, Colorado
John Zola spent 32 years as a high school social studies teacher; most recently at New Vista High School, a “break the mold” public high school in Boulder, Colorado. He also was Director of School and University Partnerships at the University of Colorado School of Education. Throughout his career, John developed interactive teaching materials and trained colleagues in active learning strategies and Socratic seminars. He has presented keynote addresses on topics such as critical thinking and numerous workshops that help teachers make the work and voice of students central in the classroom. John’s sessions are interactive and participatory with a strong focus on practical classroom applications. In addition to his work in the secondary classroom, John taught Social Studies methods courses for the University of Colorado and still conducts in-service trainings on civic education in a variety of locations around the United States, Central Europe, and Asia.
Regional Advisory Councils
The regional Advisory Councils of Generation Citizen are defined as non-governing bodies whose mission is to provide Generation Citizen with fundraising, networking, and public relations in its specific sites. The Councils are comprised of community members from all sectors, including government, private sector, non-profits, and, importantly, teachers and administrators have worked with the Generation Citizen program. The Council plays a vital part in managing local strategy and fundraising.
Boston
Layla Amjadi, Bridgespan
Timothy R. Bowers, Attorney, K&L Gates LLP
Kristin J. Moody, Attorney, Berman DeValerio
John Natoli, Special Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer at City of Boston
Dana Samuels, Executive Director, Technology Underwriting the Greater Good
Joseph Sinatra, Investor Relations Officer, Root Capital
Nick Way, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Rhode Island
Diana Crowley, Rhode Island Department of Education
Robert Flanders, Partner, Hinckley, Allen, and Snyder
Jennifer Geller, Teacher, Providence Career Technical Academy
Rachel Greenman, Director of Alumni Affairs, Teach for America Rhode Island
Kimberly Luca, Director of Social Studies, Providence Public School District
Michael Obel-Omia, Superintendent, Paul Cuffee School
Betsy Shimberg, Member, Rhode Island Board of Regents
Kate Trimble, Deputy Director, Swearer Center at Brown University
New York City
Elliot Epstein, Learning and Investment Manager, Two Sigma Investments
Pamela Gettinger Tucker, President and Founder, Creative Fundraising Partners
Ben Shuldiner, Professor, Hunter College
Luciana Jabur, Marketing Strategist
Sameer Jaywant, New York University Democracy Coach and Chapter Director
John Wilson, World Bank
Peter Block, IS 230: Magnet School for Civics in the Community
Dr. Stephen Preskill, Professor, Wagner College
Eric Cortes, Teacher, Franklin D Roosevelt High School