Newcomb College Institute Leadership Summit


	As a long-term public servant in Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s political career has been marked by a series of firsts. On January 12, 2004, Blanco became the first woman to serve as governor of Louisiana. She had been in office less than two years when Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States, struck the Louisiana Gulf Coast. In March 2007, she decided not to seek re-election, saying that she would focus her time and energy for the rest of her term on “the people's work, not on politics." Before being elected governor, Blanco served two terms as lieutenant governor (1996-2004). In 1984, she became the first women elected to represent Lafayette, La., in the state legislature. Five years later, she was elected to the Public Service Commission, and became the first woman to chair the commission in 1993. A 1964 graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Blanco started her career as a high school business teacher. Click here to see Kathleen Blanco's scheduled time.	Photo courtesy of Kathleen Blanco

	Veteran Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she served as presidential campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore. She currently serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a senior lecturer at the University of Maryland, a political contributor on CNN, a consultant to ABC News, a regular commentator on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and a frequent contributor to NPR’s Political Corner. In print and online, she is a columnist for Roll Call and Ms., and a content contributor to BlackAmericaWeb.com. Founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates, a consulting, grassroots advocacy and training firm based in Washington, D.C., Brazile also serves as chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute. In addition, the New Orleans native recently published her autobiography, Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics. Click here to see Donna Brazile's scheduled time.

	A professor at the University of Toronto, Megan Boler teaches philosophy, cultural studies, feminist theory, media studies, social equity courses in the Teacher Education program, and media studies at the Knowledge Media Design Institute. She also is the associate chair of the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, and an associate faculty member of the Center for the Study of United States at the university. Her books include Feeling Power: Emotions and Education (1999) and Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (2008). She currently is completing a three-year funded research project, “Rethinking Media, Citizenship and Democracy: Digital Dissent after 9/11.” Using interviews and surveys, she examines the motivations of producers of “digital dissent”–practices of digital media to counter mainstream media. Click here to see Megan Boler's scheduled time.

	Co-founder and chief executive officer of the microfinance Web site Kiva.org, Matt Flannery began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project with while working as a computer programmer at TiVo, Inc. In December 2005, he left his job to devote himself to Kiva full-time. As CEO, Flannery has led Kiva's growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships across the globe and millions in dollars loaned to low income entrepreneurs. Flannery is a Draper Richards Fellow and a featured blogger on the Skoll Foundation's Social Edge Web site. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Symbolic Systems and a master's in Analytical Philosophy from Stanford University. Click here to see Matt Flannery's scheduled time.	Photo courtesy of kiva.org

	A specialist in American medical and social history, Carole Haber is the dean of Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts. Her particular interests are in aging and death in the 19th century. Before coming to Tulane this past fall, Haber was the Richards Professor of History and chairperson of the history department at the University of Delaware. A scholar and author with extensive administrative experience, she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in history from Washington University in St. Louis in 1973 and received her doctorate in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. Her current research focuses on changing medical and cultural beliefs about Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia, and the medicalization of death in America at the turn of the 20th century. Click here to see Carole Haber's scheduled time.

	As president of the microfinance Web site Kiva.org, Shah leads efforts to scale its partnerships and member base. Prior to Kiva, Shah was a principal product manager at PayPal, an eBay company, and a strategy consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in New York. Shah has had a longstanding interest in microfinance. In 1997, he was awarded a grant from Stanford University to research microfinance in Gujarat, India. More recently, he co-founded the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network and spent two months in India working to refine/validate Kiva's model. In 2006, Shah was a featured speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and Global Microcredit Summit. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Stanford University. Click here to see Premal Shah's scheduled time.	Photo courtesy of kiva.org

	Therese Shechter is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her first documentary feature, I was a Teenage Feminist, had its New York premiere in September 2005. She is currently in production on a new documentary The American Virgin, which is about sex education in America. After attending Columbia College Film School in Chicago in the mid-1990s, Shechter worked for Robert De Niro’s production company, Tribeca Films, as producer’s assistant to his partner Jane Rosenthal. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Shechter spent 16 years in journalism and graphic design. Click here to see Therese Shechter's scheduled time.	Photo courtesy of Therese Schecther

	A producer/director at the Downtown Community Television Center in New York, Shannon Sonenstein’s producing credits include Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana (HBO 2008) and The Bridge: Egyptian American Exchange (Hallmark 2007), which she also co-directed. She associate-produced both Addiction (2007) and House Arrest (2005) for HBO and also runs a program that produces videos for non-profits. Her latest project is Talkin' Water, which follows four teenage girls discovering the strength of a community and the power of their own voices to change the world around them. Disillusioned by the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the girls – two from New Orleans and two from New York City– set out to tell the “real” story. Click here to see Shannon Sonenstein's scheduled time.	Photo courtesy of Shannon Sonenstein

	Joyce Zonana is an associate professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College, a part of the City University of New York. Currently, she is coordinator of First-Year English, and teaches courses in basic writing, autobiography, women and literature, Middle Eastern literature, world literature, and the short story. Zonana has published numerous academic and personal essays, and recently the published her memoir, Dream Home: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile’s Journey. Zonana earned her doctorate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. Before moving to New York, she taught for 15 years at the University of New Orleans, where she also was the director of women's studies. Click here to see Joyce Zonana's scheduled time.

	Founded in 1984 by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women are a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. The dance company weaves contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of African Americans and the African Diaspora. Urban Bush Women have been presented extensively in New York City and have toured throughout the United States and in Asia, Australia, Europe and South America. The dance company includes among its honors a 1992 New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”); the 1994 Capezio Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance; and 1998 and 2004 Doris Duke Awards for New Work from the American Dance Festival. Click here to see Urban Bush Women's performance time.

	Known as the Blues Queen, Marva Wright didn't turn professional until 1987, when she was creeping up on 40. Even then, she began singing as a way to support her family with a second job. Although she made a career out of music late in life, Wright began to sing much earlier when she was 9 years old. Like many artists, her first public singing efforts were heard in church, with her mother as her accompanist. She made her debut on national television in 1991 when New Orleans, her hometown, was the setting for a special that revolved around the Super Bowl. She ultimately landed gigs around the world. Wright has performed with such artists as Harry Connick Jr., Bobby McFerrin, Aaron Neville and Fats Domino. Click here to see Marva Wright's performance time.