Educational Leadership of Women & People of Color

An advocate of women’s issues for more than 30 years, Marie C. Wilson is founder and President of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World (Viking 2004). 

In 1998, Wilson founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy – one where women lead alongside men in all spheres. Since its inception, The White House Project has been a leading advocate and voice on women’s leadership.

Before she took the helm at The White House Project, Wilson was, for nearly two decades, the President of the Ms. Foundation for Women. She is an honorary “founding mother” of the Ms. Foundation. In honor of her work, the Ms. Foundation has created The Marie C. Wilson Leadership Fund.

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Donna Stewartson, is the Associate Director of the Program for Women in Politics and Public Policy. She received her MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management and a BA in Political Science from Boston College. She has worked as the Special Project Manager at Dimock Community Health Center, Testing Coordinator and Mortgage Scam Consultant at Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Program Technician at New Boston Pilot Middle School. Additionally, as a community activist in Boston, she is an Executive Board Member of the Columbia Washington Street Neighborhood Association, an active member of the Four Corners Action Coalition and a member of the Blue Hill Avenue Early Education Center's Parent Council. She recently, joined the Center in November 2004, bringing policy experience in Education, Homelessness, Housing & Mortgage Scam, Community Organizing and Health Education.

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Dr. Julianne Malveaux is the 15th President of Bennett College for Women. Recognized for her progressive and insightful observations, she is also an economist, author, and commentator, and has been described by Dr. Cornel West as “the most iconoclastic public intellectual in the country.” Dr. Malveaux’s contributions to the public dialogue on issues such as race, culture, gender, and their economic impacts, are shaping public opinion in 21st century America. A committed activist and civic leader, Dr. Malveaux serves on the boards of the Economic Policy Institute, The Recreation Wish List Committee of Washington, DC, and the Liberian Education Trust. She is the Founder/President/CEO of Last Word Productions, Inc. a multimedia production company headquartered in Washington, DC. Dr. Malveaux received her BA and MA degrees in economics from Boston College, and earned a Ph.D in economics from MIT.

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Carol Hardy-Fanta is Director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston's John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Brandeis University's Heller School, an MSW from Smith College, and a B.A. from Occidental College. Dr. Hardy-Fanta is author of three books: Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, and Political Participation in Boston (Temple University Press, 1993), Latino Politics in Massachusetts: Struggles, Strategies and Prospects (Routledge Press, 2002), and Intersectionality and Politics: Recent Research on Gender, Race, and Political Representation in the United States (Haworth Press, 2006) . She is a nationally recognized scholar on Latina/o politics and has published widely on the intersection of gender, race and ethnicity in politics and public policy.

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Dr. Lisa McClain is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of Gender Studies at Boise State University. She researches the issue of domestic violence and sexual assault perpetrated against women with disabilities. She serves as a board member of the Idaho Equal Access Collaborative, a partnership of the Boise State University Gender Studies Program with statewide disability and domestic violence/sexual assault organizations. Through this work, McClain examines and proposes changes to the systems responding to women with disabilities who experience sexual and domestic violence. In history, her fields of specialty include the history of Catholicism, the history of religion during the Renaissance/Reformation era and gender and popular culture in early modern Europe.

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