Dr. Janice R. Welsch
Dr. Janice R. Welsch, a Western Illinois University Faculty Emerita, has degrees in English and Film Studies and taught courses in film and women’s studies, writing, and cultural diversity during her 30-year teaching career. During that time she served as coordinator of Faculty Development and for 25 years co-directed the Expanding Cultural Diversity Project. Her publications include the co-edited anthologies Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism and Cultural Diversity: Curriculum, Classroom and Climate Issues.
Dr. Tracy Davis has published widely on gender and men’s development, identity, sexual assault prevention and social justice. Among the books he has co-authored are Advancing Social Justice: Tools, Pedagogies, and Strategies to Transform Your Campus and Developing Social Justice Allies. He directs the College Student Personnel program in the department of educational leadership at Western Illinois University and teaches courses in student development theory, leadership development, multicultural competency and counseling theory and techniques.
Dr. Sharon Stevens earned her doctorate from Arizona State University in educational psychology and teaches courses in cognition development and motivation, decision making with quantitative data, human development throughout the lifespan, and quantitative research and statistics at Western Illinois University. She has participated in a number of research projects that encompassed in-depth quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, developing situation-specific surveys and other tools to strengthen the validity of the research.
Dr. James Cohen, Associate Professor of ESL/Bilingual Education at Northern Illinois University, has made the education of immigrants and culturally and linguistically marginalized students central to his teaching and research. He teaches courses in language and identity, multicultural education, and foundations of language minority education as well as methods of teaching linguistically diverse students. He has received a NIU College of Education teaching award and several university-wide cultural diversity awards, including one specifically for his outreach to Latino communities.
Dr. Edwin Úbeda
Dr. Edwin Úbeda earned his Ph.D. in Reading and Language Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, IL. His focus is on working with English language learners, bilingual education, and multicultural education. His experience includes six years as an elementary bilingual teacher and adult English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor in a rural setting. Currently, as an assistant professor at St. Ambrose University, he teaches ESL courses, including foundations of ESL/bilingual education, the pluralistic classroom, and language arts and reading in the elementary schools.
Mr. Jabari Adams
Mr. Jabari Adams has worked with urban children and adolescents as a social worker/therapist for the Sugar Creek Charter School and at the Behailu Academy, an arts-based after-school-program, in Charlotte, NC; and as a Muay Thai martial arts instructor to promote both the mental and physical wellness of his students. Mr. Adams has a BA in psychology from Illinois Wesleyan University, and MAs in human resources from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and in clinical counseling from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has collected and analyzed data for multiple research projects in urban and suburban communities.