Curriculum Vitae

Bush Leadership Fellowship 2009-2010 ($96 K)

Editor-in-Chief, William Mitchell Law Raza Journal

Associate Editor, Litigation News (An American Bar Association Publication)

University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1997
American Studies & Graduate Minor in Feminist Studies

University of Georgia, Postdoctoral Fellowship, Summer 1996

Rockefeller Humanist-in-Residence at the Womanist Studies Consortium, Institute for African-American Studies.

University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1991

American History and Afro-American Studies:Minor in English.

Yale University, New Haven. CT. Attended The Women’s Campaign School. Inc. affiliated with the Women’s Studies Program. Studies included a history of women in 20th Century politics, creating an effective campaign plan, fund raising, selecting staff and volunteers, dealing with the media, handling fieldwork, scheduling and opposition research, and getting out the vote. June 1994

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Attended the Center for Afro-American and African Studies as a C.I.C. traveling scholar. Studies included Scholarship on Women of Color, Black Women’s History, and Reading, Difference, and Afro-American Literature and Culture. Sept. – Dec. 1992

University of Oxford, Oxford England. Attended Oxford Centre for African Studies under the auspices of St. Hugh’s College. Studies included two literature courses: Women’s Literatures of Africa and the African Diaspora, and Resistance in South African Literature. June – Aug. 1990

University of Ibadan, lbadan, Nigeria. Attended Institute for African Studies. Studies included African Folklore and African Political Science July – Aug. 1989

The Commission conducts research, consults with the Executive Branch and members of Congress, convene public forums and issue periodic report cards to grade presidential administrations on issues of importance to African Americans. The Commission will offer policy recommendations for advancing black interests. 2010

Policy Fellow, Partners in Policymaking Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities Government Training Service, 2002-03

Policy Fellow, Hubert. H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs,
(Emphasis on Health Care Policy). Responsibilities included attending monthly policy seminars in MN and Washington, DC, appearing on a broadcast of the KMOJ Public Policy Forum, participating in the joint Hennepin/Ramsey County Medical Societies’ Community Internship Program, and authoring an article for MetroDoctors, the publication of the Hennepin and Ramsey County Medical Associations. 1998-99

2005 August Urban Faculty Seminar

2004 April Wallace Travel Grant $3000

2004 July Co-Mentoring Grant $1000 from the Center for Scholarship and Teaching

2003 April Got Synergy? grant $3600 (funded by the Hewlett Foundation) to launch Voices From the Gaps, a World Wide Web project that focuses on the lives and works of women writers of color in North America

2002 August Gustavus Adolphus College Faculty Development Program: Service Learning for Social Justice–Northern Ireland: Democracy and Social Justice at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland Queen’s University in Belfast in Northern Ireland, UNESCO School of Education, University of Ulster at Coleraine

2002 January Macalester Faculty Exchange Program, Miyagi University of Education in Japan

2001-02 Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship ($30,000)

2001 Summer Minnesota Humanities Commission’s Teacher Institute, “Harlem Renaissance: African-American Art and Culture in the Jazz Age”

2001 Summer Bush Course Development Grant
$2400 to design “Blacks in Paris” course

2000 Featured in Who’s Who Among African Americans 13th Edition edited by Ashia N. Henderson

2000-01 Bush Teaching and Advising Seminar on Race and Diversity

2000 Summer Bush Course Development Grant
$2400 to revise “Race, Ethnicity and Politics” Course

2000-03 Summer Macalester College Hughes Summer Science Institute
Co-Instructor (with Psychology Professor Kendrick A. Brown) of a non-credit seminar on “The Politics of Black Identity: Malcolm as Metaphor.” Responsible for developing an original syllabus, lecturing, and grading the papers of eight in-coming pre-science students of color.

2000 Summer The Association of American Colleges and Universities Pedagogical and Course Development–Boundaries and Borderlands: The Search for Recognition and Community in America–A Ten Day Faculty Development Summer Institute at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island

2000 Summer Mellon Technology Grant
$600 stipend to create PowerPoint lectures for Policy Issues in Health Care Course

2000 Macalester College Faculty Development International Seminar, “Transformation and Multiculturalism, in the New Millennium” University of Capetown in South Africa

1999 Featured in Julian Okwu’s As I Am: Young African American Women in a Critical Age Chronicle Books 1999

1999 Keck Faculty-Student Collaboration Grant ($3800 allocated from the Faculty Professional Activities Committee at Macalester College)

1998 National Endowment for the Humanities Research Institute at Dartmouth College “Back to the Futures: An Institute in American Studies.”

1998 Macalester College Curriculum Development Grant ($4500 allocated from the Provost’s Office to develop Introduction to Afro-American Studies)

1997 Named one of thirty Young Leaders of the Future under the age of thirty in the December 1997 Issue of Ebony Magazine

1995-96 Committee on Institutional Cooperation Dissertation Fellowship
University of Minnesota American Studies Small Research Grant

1994 (used to work with the Pauli Murray papers at Schlesinger Library)

1991-95 Committee on Institutional Cooperation Pre-doctoral Fellowship

1989-91 Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship

1990-91 Mortar Board National Senior Honor Society

1990-91 Onyx Senior Honor Society

1991 Althea K. Hottel Award
(Highest Senior Honor Award given at the University of Pennsylvania)

1991 Alice Paul Award

1991 Raymond Pace Alexander Award

1990-91 U PENN Woman of Color

1987-88 Outstanding Undergraduate Assembly Representative

1988 Outstanding College Students of America

1987 Minority National Merit Scholar

1987 Who’s Who Among American High School Students

1983-present MENSA

Acting Coordinator of the African American Studies Program

The African American Studies Subcommittee of the American Studies Steering Committee. One of seven faculty members to work with Cheryl Townsend Gilkes (John and Cathertine T. MacArthur Associate Professor of Sociology and Afro-American Studies at Colby College) to create a minor in African American Studies

Human Rights and Humanitarianism Interdepartmental Program Steering Committee. One of nine faculty members to create a core in Human Rights and Humanitarianism

Academic Leadership Program

Capital Campaign Planning Committee (secured a $250,000 donation)

Resources and Planning Committee

Faculty Professional Activities Committee

Task Force on the Budget

Trustees Committee on Advancement

Center for Global Studies and Citizenship Planning Committee

Multicultural Advisory Board

Faculty Mentor, Hewlett Foundation Pluralism and Unity Program

Faculty Mentor, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program

Faculty Mentor, McNair Scholars Program

Political Science Search Committee (Three Times)
Comparative North American Studies Search Committee

Dean of Multicultural Affairs Search Committee

Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity Search Committee (Twice)

Steven J. Sochet Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Studies
Committee for Awards for Excellence in Scholarship and Creativity in GLBT Public Policy Studies (University of Minnesota)

The Politics of Black Identity: Malcolm as Metaphor (one week seminar)

Senior Seminar: Transition to Life After Macalester

Ms. Megan Bayles, “A Patchwork Quilt of Reality: Individuality, Collectivity, and the Narrative Community in Toni Morrison’s Novels”

Mr. Brendan Bell, “Turning on Power: California’s Deregulation Disaster and the Fight for Sustainable Energy Future.” * (Primary Advisor)

Mr. Tinbete Ermyas, “The Politics of Liminality: The Public Sphere and First Generation Black American Identity in the Works of Shirley Chisholm, Colin Powell, and Barack Obama” * (Primary Advisor)

Ms. Freda Fair, “The Construction of Queer Space in Twentieth Century African American Science Fiction and in Medical Discourses of the Eugenics Movement”

Dr. Darlene Fry, “Experiences of African American Women in Higher Education in the State of Minnesota” Ed.D. University of St. Thomas Minneapolis, MN

Ms. Mollie Gabrys, “Bloody Sunday in Black and Green: Towards a Trans Atlantic Understanding of Civil Rights Campaigns in the United States and Northern Ireland.” .* (Primary Advisor)

Ms. Alysia Garrison, “The Sound that Broke the Back of Words: Black Motherhood in Selected Novels of Toni Morrison.”

Mr. Alex Grant, “Considering Brixton and the Bronx: Using Path Dependence and the Effects of Migration to Explain British and U.S. Urban Housing Policy Development” .* (Primary Advisor)

Dr. Nalo M. Johnson, “The History of the Founding of the Legal Rights Center: A study of Coalition Building between the Black and American Indian Communities of Minneapolis.” American Studies Ph.D. University of Minnesota

Ms. Kaori Mashio, “Female Black Voices in the Print Media: How popular African-American women’s periodicals deal with the social and personal issues of their readerships.” Miyagi University of Education Sendai, Japan

Ms. Amanda Pezalla, “A Way out of No Way: Women’s Experiences in the Minnesota Family Investment Program.”

Ms, Carmen Phillips, “Public Sphere, Pop Culture, and Politics in the Post- Civil Rights Era: The Role of the Black Public Intellectual in the Modern Day.” * (Primary Advisor)

Ms. Elly Searle, “Voices from Beyond the Platform: Black Female Activist Autobiography as Protest Rhetoric.”

Ms. Karin Smith, “A Taxonomy of Jonestown” M.A. Design & Visual Criticism, California College of the Arts

Mr. Minh Ta, “A Genealogy of Welfare Queens: Social Welfare Policy and African American Women, 1935-1996.”

Mr. Joel Ulrich, “Organizational Alliances: Promoting or Provoking Democratic Participation”

Ms. Phoebe Vaughn. “Time Significance and Power of Multiple Identities: A Critical Review of the Research on Lesbian Parenting and an Ethnographic Study of African American Lesbian Motherhood.”

Ms. Shaun Walsh, “A New Breed of Female: Black Female Rappers and Black Feminist Theory.” * (Primary Advisor–1999 Women’s & Gender Studies Prize)

Mr. Adam Waterman, “A New and More Possible Meaning: the Legacy of the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention.” * (Primary Advisor–Keck Faculty-Student Collaboration Grant)

Ms. Katherine Wiik, “Blood on the Walls: Irish Republican Women Prisoners and the Rhetoric of Resistance.”

Ms. Alessandra Williams, “A Piece of Land: Black Women and Land in South Africa and the United States of America.”

Mr. Dan Zemans, “One Baptism, One Faith: Two Races Two Churches: Race and the Southern and National Baptist Conventions.”

2008 May “From Scholarly Pages to Political Stages: Law Writing to Promote Political Change” Eighteenth Annual Midwestern People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference Hamline University School of Law (Discussant)

2007 June “Sex, Color, and Power: Feminist Perspectives” Social Science Research Council Mellon Mays Graduate Initiative Program Annual Summer Conference (Re)Defining Diversity Columbia University (Discussant)
2007 April “ ‘Race,’ ‘Blackness,’ and the Condition of Modernity” Seventh Biennial Conference “Blackness and Modernities” at the Collegium for African American Research at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, Madrid

2006 July “A Look at Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond’s Legacy: Racial Intimacies in the American National Identity” First International Conference on Interdisciplinary Sciences University of the Aegean, Island of Rhodes, Greece (virtual presentation)

2004 July “Blacks in Paris and Whites in Selma: National Boundaries and Racial Borders” 2004 Australia/New Zealand American Studies Association Conference “Borders and Boundaries” University of Auckland

2003 March “Gender, Sexuality, and Citizenship: Negotiations of Feminist Theory” Second Annual “What is Radical History?” Conference, University of Minnesota

2003 March “Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South 1960-1980″ Fifth Annual Women’s History Month Conference, Sisters in Struggle: Honoring Civil Rights Veterans of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York

2001 Sept. “Queering the Presidency: National Elections and the Movement for GLBT Rights” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA (Discussant)

2000 April “Public Policy and Minority Communities” Midwest American Political Science Association. Chicago, Illinois (Discussant)

2000 March “Babylon is Burning, Or Race, Gender, and Sexuality at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention,” The International Conference ‘Focusing the Vietnam Era: Contemporary Views of American Literature and Culture in the Great Sixties,’ Universidad de Sevilla. Seville Spain (Co-Presenter with Adam Waterman)

2000 March “For Colored Girls Who’ve considered Clinton’s Cabinet: Thirty Years of Black Feminism in America.” National Conference of Black Political Scientists 2000 Thirty-First Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.

1999 Nov. “The Politics of Representation,” First Annual Macalester College Afro-American Studies Program Conference (Discussant)

1999 Sept. “Deconstructing Racial Privilege: Lessons Learned from History,” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science, Atlanta, Georgia (Chair & Discussant)

1999 June “Personal Narratives of Transformation: Political Perspective on Black Autobiography,” Black Women in the Academy II: Service and Leadership-2nd National and International Conference, Washington. DC.

1998 Nov. “Black Women’s Cultural and Political Production in the 1970s,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Seattle, Washington

1998 June “Why Sister Joycelyn Elders was Sister Outsider,” 7th Annual Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Conference, Bryn Mawr College

1997 Oct. “Migrants and Maids: A Comparative Analysis of Swedish and Black Migrant Domestic Service in the Midwestern United States ” National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies Midwest FOCO Regional Conference ‘Nuestra Historia, Nuestrc Futuro: Commemorating 25 Years of Chicano Studies’

1997 Sept. “Taxation in a Democracy: A Workshop” State University of New York at Buffalo Law School Buffalo, New York (Discussant)

1997 Feb. “All of Who I am in the Same Place: The Combahee River Collective,” 11t Annual Midwest/Mid-Atlantic feminist Graduate Student Conference. Feminist Challenges: Theories, Practice, & Politics. Loyola University, Chicago

1996 Feb. “Keeping Prissy at Tara: Why Black Intellectuals Collect Memorabilia.” National Association of African-American Studies
National Conference. Houston, Texas

1995 Nov. “Are We Reclaiming our Culture or Commodifying Contempt with Black Collectibles?’ CIC fellows Conference, Pennsylvania State University

1994 Oct. “Theorizing Black Feminism in American Studies,” American Studies After 50 Years, Retrospect and Prospect at the University of Minnesota University of Minnesota.

1993 Nov. “Sass as Resistance in Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life at A Slave Girl,” Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Convention, University of Minnesota

1993 Jun. “Toward African-American Gender Studies,” 2nd Annual Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Conference, Princeton University

1993 May “Linda Brent’s Contribution to the Discipline of American Studies,” Fifth Annual National Black Graduate Student Conference, University of Minnesota

1993 May “Have You Stolen Anything!: Alice Walkers Revolutionary Definition of Motherhood in Meridian.” Sin, Stigma, and Risk in American Culture California/Rocky-Mountain American Studies Association, University of Nevada

1993 Apr. “Malcolm on the Mountain,” Annual Conference of the Mid-American Studies Association, University of Minnesota

1993 Mar “Tell Jesus to Kiss My Ass!,” The Black Diaspora: An Interdisciplinary Symposium–Hurston James Society of Duke University, Duke University

1993 Feb. “Religious Conversion as Cultural Consciousness in the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee’s Film ‘X’,” University of Michigan–Beyond Black and White: Problematizing Race in a Global Society”–Students of Color of Rackham Graduate School Conference, University of Michigan

2006 April Talk Back for Suzan-Lori Parks’ play, “Venus” at the Frank Theater in Minneapolis

2006 March “Gender and Black Politics: What is it? What does it look like, and how do we do it?” National Conference of Black Political Scientists 2006 Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA

2005 April “History of Feminism: What has it become?” Feminist Jurisprudence Day at William Mitchell College of Law

2004 November “A Conversation on the Status of Ethnic Studies in the Academy” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Atlanta, Georgia

2000 October “Realities in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Personal Reflections on Human Rights in Africa and the United States” Conversations on Diversity hosted by the Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies and Building Bridges at California State University at Chico

2000 March “New Faculty Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century” Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Coordinators’ Conference, Columbia University School of Internationalism and Public Affairs, New York

1998 September “Dreaming boldly about our roles in our personal lives, in the Macalester communities, and all the communities we touch.” Discussion with Opening Convocation Speaker, Dr. Johnetta Cole

1998 April “Complicating the Knowledge-Gender, Sexuality, Class, and the Politics of Race,” Into the 21st Century ETHNIC STUDIES… in the State…and Nation, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs

1998 Feb “Images of Pan Africa and the Diaspora” Office of Multicultural Affairs, Macalester College

1993 Feb. “A Gendered analysis of Black Women in the Nation of Islam” Women and Religion: Women and Islam in Black America and the Middle East, Women’s Studies Department, University of Michigan

1992 Dec. “Spike Lee and the Black Agenda” Center for Afro-American and African University of Michigan

2005 April “Disciplining Feminism and American Studies: The Regulation of Intellectual and Generational Boundaries” Annual Conference of the Mid-American Studies Association, University of Minnesota

2004 July “African-American Cultures of Opposition, 1920-1945″
2004 Australia/New Zealand American Studies Association Conference “Borders and Boundaries” University of Auckland

2003 April “Racial/Ethnic Conflict,” Midwest American Political Science Association. Chicago, Illinois

2002 August “Qualitative Methods” Women of Color Studies in Political Science Conference at Northeastern University in Boston, MA

2002 June “(Re-) Wrighting Subjects” 11th Annual Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Conference, Dillard University

2002 April “The Uncertain Home and Political Economy of Race: Baldwin, Lorde, DuBois, Fanon, and Marx” The W.E.B. Du Bois Graduate Society Fourth Annual Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

2002 March “African-American Women in Politics: Power, Perceptions, and Possibilities” National Conference of Black Political Scientists 2002 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA

2001 March “Unpacking Intersections: Black Folks, Gender, and Political Participation,” National Conference of Black Political Scientists 2001Thirty-Second Annual Meeting, Richmond, VA

1998 Dec. “Seeing Whiteness: An Introduction to Ngozi Onwurah’s film, “The Body Beautiful” and Sam Fuller’s film, ‘White Dog.” Hungry Mind Review & The Loft Literary Center

1998 Nov. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved –The Book and the Movie: A Discussion’ Barnes and Noble Bookstore in St. Paul

1998 July “Future for all in the Construction Trades: Preparing Women and People of Color for jobs in the Trades St. Paul Technical College, St. Paul, MN.

1997 Oct. “Long Way to Go: Black and White in America, A Conversation with Jonathan Coleman” Hungry Mind Bookstore, St. Paul, MN.

1996 Nov. “Child Development, Race, Poverty, Policies and how they act upon Resiliency and Building Resilient Systems” Protective Systems: Resiliency in Childcare, Hennepin County Medical Center. Minneapolis. MN.
1995 Sept. “Western African Views of Feminism – Complimentary or Contradictory” When Minds are One, What is Far Comes Near, Sixth Annual Connecting With Africa Conference, Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN

1994 Apr. “Writing the Self: African-American Women Writers” Constructing a Dialog: Current Work on America(s) 4th Annual American Studies Graduate Conference, U of MN

2003 September University of Minnesota Law School, “Law and Violence Against Women” course

2002 February American Association of University Women, St. Paul Branch, Black History Month Keynote Speaker

2002 January Miyagi University of Education, Sendai, Japan, “Japanese Perceptions of Blacks: The Problem is More Than Little Black Sambo.”

2000 October California State University, Chico, “Staying out of the Bushes: The day after the second Presidential debate.”

2000 July Williams College, “Where Political Science and American Studies Meet: The Future relationship of area studies to traditional disciplines.”

1998 September Bryn Mawr College, “The 35th Anniversary of the Birmingham Church Bombing: Commemorating Carole, Cynthia, Addle Mae, and Denise.”

1998 February Macalester College, Philosophy 81 “Advanced Feminist Philosophy.”

1997 September Minnesota Humanities Commission’s Teacher Institute, “Gone With the Wind: South in Myth and Reality.”

1997 July University of Minnesota, American Studies 1003 “American Cultures, 1945-Present: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars.”

1997 May Macalester College, Queer Union “The State of Queerness at Macalester.”

1997 April Macalester College, Afro-American Studies 50 “Contemporary Black Arts and the Black Self” (Faith Ringgold, Bettye and Alison Saar)

1997 March University of Minnesota Commission on Women Winter Quarterly Meeting “What We Know: How Does Research on Women Impact our Lives?”

1996 September Minnesota Justice Foundation “Pro Bono Projects Training.”
1995 March Lewis House Battered Women’s Shelter “Administrative Staff Diversity Training.”

1995 March Hungry Mind Bookstore “Women and the Civil Rights Movement: A Focus on Assata Shakur.”

1992 May University of Minnesota, English 3592 “Black Women and Reproductive Rights.”

1992 March University of Minnesota, Chicano Studies 3213 “Black Protest Music: The 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery.”

1996-99 Genesis II for Women, Inc. Board of Directors Vice President

1993-95 University of Minnesota Leadership: Elected Representative to the American Studies Graduate Student Assembly

1990-91 University of Pennsylvania Student Body President. Duties included lobbying on behalf of 9,000 undergraduates to the administration, and exercising vetoing power over a $650,000 budget. Other responsibilities included active participation on the following committees” the School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board, the President and Provost Advisory Board, the Provost’s Planning Subcommittee on Financial Aid, the Executive Board of Trustees, and the Student Life Committee of the Board of Trustees.