Campus Women Lead

Our Workshop Facilitators

Our facilitators are distinguished and expert workshop leaders from a variety of backgrounds and institutions. To read more about their respective experience and expertise, please see their individual bios below.

Facilitator Biographies

Gladys Brown
A commitment to education, social justice and equity is the driving force in Gladys Brown’s professional and personal life. She is a Senior Fellow at the James M. Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland, (UMD), Co-Coordinator of the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education, Co-Director of the University of Maryland Study Abroad Program in the Cameroon, and Executive Director of Gladys Brown and Associates, An Equity and Diversity Consulting Firm. She has conducted hundreds of workshops and keynotes on institutional transformation, diversity, equity, and leadership development throughout the United States and in Germany, China, Norway, South Africa and Cameroon. Currently, she serves on several boards—the Goddard College Board of Trustees, the Diversity and Leadership Project of the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) in NYC, the Cotty College Diversity Transformation Project, the Saint Mary’s Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership and the Harbour Square Housing Co-op, a 450 unit development in DC. Her publications include Diversity Blueprint: A Manual for Colleges and Universities (1998) in partnership with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) and several ACE publications: From Where We Sit: Presidential Perspectives on the Presidency (2001), Breaking the Barriers: Presidential Strategies for Enhancing Career Mobility (2001) and Breaking the Barriers: A Guidebook of Strategies (2002). She received a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law and a B.S. from Morgan State University, complemented by the Harvard Development Management Program and the Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education.

Gertrude Fraser
Gertrude Fraser is currently vice provost for Faculty Advancement at the University of Virginia. Under her leadership, UVa achieved the highest acceptance rates for African American and women faculty candidates in its history. Among her successful faculty development efforts at UVa is a search committee diversity training program, a chair leadership initiative and a program to enhance faculty's success with scholarly writing. She is also an anthropologist with a keen interest in and admiration for people and the organizations they create to do good in the world. With twenty years experience at large research universities, she has developed the tools and insights to help underrepresented groups of both genders thrive in these complex organizations. She is a learner and a teacher and believes that the resources for leadership lie in all of us­requiring us to go deep within ourselves as well as to rely on others. An African American women with Caribbean roots, she values laughter as essential to negotiating the difficult terrain of being a minority woman in higher education. She always has been a path breaker, opening the way for others. Dr. Fraser earned her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and her doctorate in medical anthropology from The Johns Hopkins University. As a Program Officer in higher Education at the Ford Foundation she managed an influential grant-making portfolio that included the Ford Fellowship program, campus diversity initiatives, African American and Women’s Studies and affirmative action grant-making. She is the author of African American Midwifery in the South: Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory (Harvard University Press). In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Gertrude continues to conduct scholarly research on African American health.

Lynn Gangone
Lynn Gangone has over twenty years of experience in higher education as a senior campus administrator, faculty member, lobbyist and policy analyst, consultant, and national and state association executive. She is currently dean of the Women's College of the University of Denver, and also maintains a relationship with Kaludis Consulting, a higher education firm specializing in strategic planning with mid-sized colleges and universities. She is a unit coordinator and member of the faculty of the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration. Her teaching and research interests include higher education history, higher education policy, leadership theory and development, women’s career advancement, gender equity, community colleges, and non-profit organizational viability. She has served on numerous boards and advisory groups including Higher Education Resource Services (HERS), the Maryland ACE NETWORK, and The College of New Rochelle Alumane/i Board of Directors, as well as the Association of American Colleges and Universities Campus Women Lead Project. Dr.Gangone received an Ed.D. and M.Ed. in higher and postsecondary education from Columbia University Teachers College, a M.S. and C.A.S. in counseling psychology and student development from the State University of New York at Albany, and a B.A. in political science/history minor from The College of New Rochelle.

Susan Henking
Susan E. Henking is professor of religious studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York. Her scholarly and pedagogical work focuses on theories of religion and their relation to feminism, women’s lives, gender, and sexuality. Susan has also published on the relation of religion to higher education in the United States. She has led teaching workshops that focus on developing an inclusive pedagogy both under the auspices of the American Academy of Religion and at the Colleges. She is also founding series editor of “Teaching Religious Studies,” published by Oxford University Press, and has been Senior Research Associate at HERS (Higher Education Resource Services), as well as the elected secretary of the American Academy of Religion, where she has served on the board for nine years. Susan spent six years as department chair, has been a leader in interdisciplinary programs, and served three years in senior academic leadership at the Colleges. Dr. Henking earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Chicago in religion and psychological studies and her B.A. from Duke University.

Carol Hollenshead
[No Bio]

Pat Lowrie
Patricia (Pat) M. Lowrie is the director of the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) at Michigan State University and also serves as the assistant to the dean in the College of Veterinary Medicine. As WRC director, she leads a staff in developing and implementing educational, leadership, social justice, and advocacy programs. The Center serves as a focus for coordinating resources and referrals that catalyze institutional change through understanding and valuing difference and empowering faculty, students, and staff to be effective change agents. In veterinary medicine, Pat’s role is to enhance and increase educational and professional opportunities for underrepresented groups in the health professions. As part of a collaborative broad-based university team, she also advises university leadership on effective methods to engage various constituent groups in synergistic activity that moves beyond anti-discrimination teachings and begins to infuse social justice education more comprehensively into the institution. This team collectively addresses the issues of individuals who are members of oppressed groups, including persons with disabilities and persons who are historically victims of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. A graduate of Howard University, she is the recipient of several awards, including the University Diversity Award and the All-University Distinguished Academic Staff Award. Pat chairs the executive committee of Campus Women Lead, an affiliate of AAC&U’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Global Initiatives and the Project on the Status and Education of Women.

Donna Maeda
Donna Maeda is a professor in the Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. She has served as special assistant to the president, working with students, faculty, administrators, and staff members to develop short- and long-term strategies for addressing issues of diversity, equity, multiculturalism, and campus climate. Dr. Maeda has also served as academic director for the Multicultural Summer Institute, an intensive four-week program that combines academic and co-curricular components in an intensive community-building environment. Dr. Maeda’s research and teaching interests focus on interactions between legal and social discourses in the production and transformation of race, gender, culture, sexuality, ability, and other forms of difference. Dr. Maeda received her Ph.D. in Social Ethics from the University of Southern California, a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), and a B.A. in Music History and Literature from St. Olaf College. 

Linda Marchesani
Linda S. Marchesani has over twenty years of professional experience and scholarly work in social justice education, higher education administration, faculty, staff and organizational development. She is currently the Director of Workplace Learning and Development (WLD) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  WLD provides comprehensive training and organizational development services for the campus and for other higher education institutions and regional organizations.  Dr. Marchesani is also an adjunct faculty member with the Social Justice Education Program in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and maintains an independent consulting practice.  She has consulted and published on issues of diversity and social justice as it relates to faculty development, curriculum innovation, and multicultural organizational development (MCOD). She has provided leadership for a comprehensive MCOD initiative at UMass Amherst and has consulted with other higher education institutions on implementing the MCOD process.  Dr. Marchesani has created innovative undergraduate social justice curricula, conducted faculty and teaching assistant training on teaching and learning in the diverse classroom, and mentored graduate students in social justice education.  Currently, she is on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, a social change philanthropic organization. Dr. Marchesani received her B.A. in health education from Lehman College, CUNY, her M.A. in health and affective education from Hunter College, CUNY, and her Ed.D. in humanistic psychological education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1987.

Anny Morrobel-Sosa
[ No Bio]

Caryn McTighe Musil
Caryn McTighe Musil is Senior Vice President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and oversees the office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives, where AAC&U’s Program on the Status and Education of Women is housed. Before moving into national level administrative work in higher education, she was a faculty member teaching English and women’s studies for eighteen years. She spent most of her teaching career at an institution that had become co-ed only one year before her arrival. Dr. Musil has special expertise in curriculum transformation, faculty development, U.S. and global diversity, and women's issues. From 1984-1991, Dr. Musil served as Executive Director of the National Women's Studies Association, and in 1992 she moved to AAC&U. Working with more than 150 different campuses, she has directed dozens of funded projects on subjects like women's studies and student learning, women and scientific literacy, U.S. diversity and democracy, liberal education, and global citizenship. In 1995 she was named in Who's Who of American Women, and in 2005 she received the Donna Shavlik Award for Sustained and Continuing Commitment to Women's Advancement in Higher Education from the American Council on Education. Author and editor of numerous publications, Dr. Musil is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop leader who has been writing, teaching, and speaking about women, gender, and diversity throughout her career. She received her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. 

Sharon Parker
Dr. Parker is currently Assistant Chancellor for Equity and Diversity at the University of Washington Tacoma (UWT). She has enjoyed a thirty-year career in public administration addressing issues of social justice and equity as a diversity practitioner, researcher, and consultant. Prior to joining UWT, she served for six years as Principal Investigator with the Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI) Evaluation Resource Project based at Claremont Graduate University in southern California. Her service also has included work in higher education institutions where she led initiatives on diversity and social responsibility; non-profit advocacy organizations, such as the National Institute for Women of Color, the National Commission on Working Women, and the American Institute for Managing Diversity; and independent consulting. Dr. Parker is a USA citizen of Native American (Susquehama, Tslagi) and African American heritage.

Laura Rendón
Dr. Laura I. Rendón is Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University, College of Human Sciences.  Her current research focuses on access, retention and graduation of low-income, first-generation students and the transformation of teaching and learning addressing intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual student development. Her scholarly work has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the PBS documentary, The College Track.  She is co-editor of Transforming the First Year of College for Students of Color, Educating a New Majority, and Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education ASHE Reader.  She serves on the editorial boards of the Review of Higher Education, Educational Researcher, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, NASPA Journal, Journal of Latinos and Education and Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies. She is past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the nation’s premier scholarly organization focusing on higher education research.  She has been a fellow of the Fetzer Institute and has directed research projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.  Dr. Rendón earned her Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; her M.A. in counseling and guidance and psychology from Texas A&M University-Kingsville; her B.A. in English and journalism from the University of Houston; and her A.A. from San Antonio College.

Donna Shavlik
[No Bio]

Shirley Tang
Shirley Suet Ling Tang is an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and American Studies at the University of Massachusetts--Boston. Having led public health community-centered research and young women organizing projects in immigrant/refugee communities in Massachusetts, she is currently focusing on research and writing about race, (im)migration and development. Her research and teaching interests include: comparative urban cultural history; Southeast Asian American community studies; social consequences of war; and creative expressions at local and transnational levels. She is working on a book manuscript that examines the development and displacement of the Khmer (Cambodian) American community in Revere, Massachusetts. Her most recent published works include: "Community-Centered Research as Knowledge/Capacity-Building in Immigrant and Refugee Communities" in Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship, edited by Charles R. Hale (CA: California University Press, forthcoming 2008); "Challenges of Policy and Practice in Under-Resourced Asian American Communities: Analyzing Public Education, Health, Development Issues with Cambodian American Women," Asian American Law Journal (CA: University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, forthcoming 2008); and Peter Kiang and Shirley Suet Ling Tang, "Translocal Mobilization and Local Politics: An Analysis of Asian American Electoral Victories in Metro Boston," in The Transnational Politics of Asian Americans, edited by Christian Collet and Pei-te Lien (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, forthcoming). She received her Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo in American Studies and her B.A. from Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Sharon J. Washington
Sharon J. Washington is executive director of the National Writing Project. Throughout her career she was been engaged in work that contributes to a greater understanding of equity and inclusion. Her professional experiences encompass teaching and conducting research, academic administration, and consultation in higher education. Washington’s scholarly activities have focused on: exploring the dynamics of forming and sustaining multicultural alliances; the impact of social identities on teaching, leadership and research; and the impact of courses with a social justice theme on students’ attitudes and beliefs about diversity. Her career in higher education has included: Interim Director of Faculty Equity Programs at the University of California, Office of the President; Special Assistant to the President for Diversity Initiatives at Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, NC; Provost and Professor of Education at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA; Professor of Education at Springfield College in Springfield, MA; and Assistant Professor in Leisure Studies at Kent State University, Kent, OH. In addition, she spent a semester as a Visiting Scholar in the Office of the President at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in higher education administration. Dr. Washington earned a Ph.D. in Education at The Ohio State University, M.A. at Central Michigan University, and B.S. at The Ohio State University.

Judith White
Judith S. White is the executive director of Higher Education Resource Services (HERS), an educational non-profit that provides leadership and management training for women in higher education administration. The main offices of HERS are located on the campus of the University of Denver. Previously Dr. White was assistant vice president for campus services and adjunct professor of women’s studies at Duke University. She has taught and held administrative positions at Dartmouth College, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte, and Queens College. Dr. White was a Senior Fellow of the Association of American Colleges and Universities from 2003-05, serving as an advisor to AAC&U’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Global Initiatives and the Project on the Status and Education of Women and as chair of the advisory board of Campus Women Lead. Judith attended Salem College before finishing her B.A. at Princeton University. She received her M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia.

Kathleen Wong(Lau)
Kathleen Wong(Lau) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University, where she joined the faculty in Fall 2005. Her areas of specialization are in intercultural and intergroup communication, and gender and communication with a specific focus on women of color in higher education. Her dissertation is an analysis of how intergroup communication situations of evaluation shape social and organizational identities and emotional labor for women of color faculty at predominantly white research extensive institutions. For four years while in the Intergroup Relations Center (IRC) in the Office of the Provost at Arizona State University, Dr. Wong(Lau) spearheaded diversity research initiatives, diversity training, and intervention for campus faculty. Dr. Wong(Lau) has also served as a professional consultant and trainer on diversity issues at numerous universities and has presented nationally on diversity issues in higher education. She is a co-Principal Investigator on a research project funded by the Ford Foundation to examine diversification in higher education with a focus on faculty women of color and administrators. She is part of a multi-institutional research team on intergroup dialogues involving researchers at ten institutions and funded by the Spencer Foundation and the W.T. Grant Foundation. Dr. Wong(Lau) is currently working on training faculty on race and gender leadership among STEM faculty. Kathy received her B.S. in Intercultural Speech Communication from the California State University at Hayward. She received her doctorate in Intercultural Communication at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.