Critical Conversations Speaker Series

Barbara Pierce Bush

CEO and cofounder, Global Health Corps

Barbara Pierce Bush cofounded Global Health Corps (GHC) in 2009 to mobilize a global community of young leaders to build the movement for health equity. To date, GHC has fostered almost 1,000 young leaders who believe health is a human right and who take an innovative approach to solving some of the world’s biggest global health challenges. In 2015, Bush was recognized as one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. Previously, she worked at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Red Cross Children’s Hospital in South Africa, UNICEF in Botswana, and the UN World Food Program. Bush is a member of UNICEF’s Next Generation Steering Committee and on the board of directors of Covenant House International, PSI, and the UN’s Social Entrepreneurship Council.

Jenna Bush Hager

Contributing Correspondent for NBC's TODAY

Jenna Hager has seen firsthand how small change can make a large difference in a single life. Currently the chair of UNICEF’s Next Generation, an initiative dedicated to reducing the number of preventable childhood deaths around the world, Hager traveled throughout Latin America and the Caribbean with UNICEF where she saw firsthand the plight faced by the underprivileged. Her experience inspired her to write Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope, a New York Times best seller based on the life of a 17-year-old single mother living with HIV and determined to shield her child from the abuse and neglect that riddled her own childhood.

Hager shares her own stories of creating change in someone’s life and leaves audiences with a call to action on how they too can improve people’s lives in their own community. A contributing correspondent for NBC’s TODAY, Hager shares positive, uplifting messages of regular people doing extraordinary things. Passionate about literacy, education, and improving inner-city schools, Hager was herself a teacher in Baltimore, MD.

In addition to Ana’s Story, she also co-wrote Read All About It! with her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush. Hager and Mrs. Bush recently released a second children’s book, Our Great Big Backyard, which celebrates the Centennial of the National Park Service and encourages children to go outside and explore America’s parks. Hager is currently writing a book of short stories with her sister Barbara Pierce Bush titled Sisters First for release in October 2017. It will take readers on an extraordinary and deeply personal journey behind the scenes of what it is like to be born into a political dynasty, reveal never-before-told stories about their family, and uncover the enduring sisterly bond that kept them sane through it all.

Derald Wing Sue

Best-selling author of critically acclaimed book, Microaggressions in Everyday Life

Derald Wing Sue is professor of psychology and education in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Teachers College and the School of Social Work, Columbia University. He has served as a training faculty member with the Institute for Management Studies and the Columbia University Executive Training Programs. He was the cofounder and first president of the Asian American Psychological Association, past presidents of the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race, and the Society of Counseling Psychology.

Dr. Sue is a member of the American Counseling Association, Fellows of the American Psychological Association, and numerous other organizations. Dr. Sue has served as editor of the Journal for Counseling and Development, associate editor of the American Psychologist, editorial board member to Asian Journal of Counselling, and serves on the council of elders for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. He is author of over 160 scholarly articles, 20 books, and numerous media productions.

Two of his books, Microaggressions in Everyday Life and Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence are critically acclaimed. As evidence of Dr. Sue’s stature in the field, two studies (1989 and 2012) of multicultural publications and scholars concluded that “Impressively, Derald Wing Sue is without doubt the most influential multicultural scholar in the United States.”

Frank Bruni

New York Times columnist and best-selling author

The Critical Conversations speaker series event with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, originally scheduled for 4:30 p.m. today, has been canceled due to inclement weather in New York City. Questions? Contact the Office of Inclusion and Diversity at 334-844-4184.

Frank Bruni has been an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times since June 2011. In his columns, which appear every Sunday and Wednesday, he reflects on diverse topics including American politics, higher education, gay rights, and his own life as a gay man in a close-knit Italian-American family.

He joined the newspaper in 1995 and has ranged broadly across its pages. He has been a White House correspondent, the chief restaurant critic, a staff writer for the Times Magazine and the Rome bureau chief. He is the author of three New York Times best sellers, the most recent of which, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, was published in March 2015 to widespread acclaim. His previous best sellers were the 2009 memoir Born Round, about the joys and torments of his eating life, and a 2002 chronicle of George W. Bush’s initial presidential campaign, Ambling into History.

Donna Brazile

Veteran Democratic political strategist, adjunct professor, author, and syndicated columnist

Veteran Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile is an adjunct professor, author, syndicated columnist, television political commentator, former Vice Chair for Civic Engagement and Voter Participation at the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and former chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute.

Brazile has worked passionately in the rebuilding and recovery efforts in her beloved hometown of New Orleans. Additionally, she loves working with young people, encouraging them to vote, to run for office, and to work within the system to strengthen it. Since 2000, Brazile has lectured at over 200 colleges and universities across the country on such topics as “Inspiring Civility in American Politics,” “Race Relations in the Age of Obama,” “Why Diversity Matters,” and “Women in American Politics.”

She first got involved in politics at the age of nine when she worked to elect a city council candidate who had promised to build a playground in her neighborhood; the candidate won, the swing set was installed, and a lifelong passion for political progress was ignited. Brazile worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she became the first African American to manage a presidential campaign.

In addition to her work an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Brazile is the author of the best selling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics and is on leave from her writing columns. She continues to be on leave with ABC News, where she regularly appears on the Sunday morning show This Morning. She is especially pleased to have made three cameo appearances on CBS’s The Good Wife, and two cameo appearances on the Netflix series House of Cards. She most recently appeared on BET’s Being Mary Jane. Ask her and she’ll tell you that acting, after all, is the key to success in politics.

In 2014, Brazile was appointed by President Obama to serve on to the board of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. In addition, she serves on the National Democratic Institute, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, the BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund, and as co-chair for Democrats for Public Education.

In August 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine chose Brazile as one of its 20 Remarkable Visionaries for the magazine’s first-ever O Power List. In addition, she was named among the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian magazine, Top 50 Women in America by Essence magazine, and received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement. In 2016, Brazile was awarded Wonk of the Year from the Kennedy Political Union at American University.

Brazile is the proud recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Louisiana State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Grambling State University, Spelman College, LeMoyne Owen College, Northeastern Illinois University, Medgar Evers College, Morehouse Medical College, Bethune Cookman University, Thomas Jefferson University, and Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically black, Catholic institution of higher education in the United States.

She is founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates, a general consulting, grassroots advocacy, and training firm based in Washington, DC.

Last but never least, she is a proud native of New Orleans, Louisiana. In the aftermath of the two catastrophic hurricanes that made landfall in the Gulf region, Brazile was appointed by former Governor Kathleen Blanco to serve on the Louisiana Recovery Board to work for the rebuilding of the state and to advocate for the Gulf recovery on the national stage. Brazile was recently appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to serve on the Tricentennial Commission.

Brazile assumed the role of interim chair of the Democratic National Committee shortly before the start of the historic 2016 Democratic National Convention that nominated Secretary Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

Ann Compton

Legendary ABC News White House Correspondent, from 1973-2014

Ann Compton has always been a pioneer. As the first woman assigned to cover the White House on network television and with 41 years on the air for ABC News, her longevity and impact are unparalleled. After retiring from daily coverage in 2014, Compton reignited her legendary career by returning to ABC to cover the 2016 political conventions, as well as accepting a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government focusing on media coverage of the 2016 election. She now combines her personal experiences on the White House beat with fresh scholarship from the prestigious Miller Center for presidential studies at the University of Virginia.

Compton’s career at ABC News spanned seven presidents and 10 presidential campaigns. Assigned to the White House in 1974, she reported for ABC News broadcasts from Washington and around the globe, traveling with Presidents, Vice Presidents, and First Ladies. President Barack Obama announced her retirement when calling on her at a West Wing news conference saying, “Ann Compton, everybody here knows, is not only the consummate professional but is also just a pleasure to get to know.”

Compton was traveling with President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, and was the only broadcast reporter to remain on Air Force One to report on behalf of all the press during the chaotic hours following the terrorist attacks, when the President was unable to return directly to Washington. For that coverage, which she considers the most significant story of her career, Compton received special recognition in the awards bestowed on ABC’s coverage, including an Emmy, a Peabody, and the Silver Baton from the DuPont awards at Columbia University.

Her colleagues elected Compton as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for 2007–2008. She was chairman of the Radio-Television Correspondents’ Association on Capitol Hill in 1987–1988. The Commission on Presidential Debates selected Compton to serve as a debate panelist in 1988 and 1992. Additionally, she has been inducted into six halls of fame and has received five honorary university degrees.

Compton is married to Dr. William Hughes, a physician in Washington, DC, and they are the parents of three sons and a daughter and the proud grandparents of three granddaughters. Compton says her most valued award is a golden statuette bestowed by the National Mothers’ Day committee naming her a Mother of the Year in 1988.

Robert Shibley

Executive Director of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

Robert L. Shibley, executive director of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), is a native of Toledo, Ohio, and a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law. He is the author of Twisting Title IX (Encounter Books). Shibley’s experience serving as the managing editor of a college newspaper that frequently decried (and faced) censorship and bias led him to a career defending the rights of college and university students and faculty members. Since starting at FIRE in 2003, Shibley has aided students and faculty members at hundreds of colleges and universities.

Along with traveling to various campuses to speak about First Amendment issues, Shibley has represented FIRE on The O’Reilly Factor, CNN Tonight, Stossel, Fox and Friends, and Lou Dobbs Tonight, in national and international radio and TV interviews, and in op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, and TIME, as well as the New York Post, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Reason, National Review, and many other newspapers and magazines. He is a member of the bar in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Shibley and his family live in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, home to the Duke Blue Devils and several other, lesser intercollegiate athletic teams.

Reshma Saujani

Executive Director of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology and prepare young women for jobs of the future. In her groundbreaking book, Women Who Don’t Wait in Line, Saujani advocates for a new model of female leadership focused on embracing risk and failure, promoting mentorship and sponsorship, and boldly charting your own course—personally and professionally.

After years of working as an attorney and supporting the Democratic party as an activist and fundraiser, Saujani left her private-sector career behind and surged onto the political scene as the first Indian-American woman in the country to run for US Congress. Following the highly publicized race, she stayed true to her passion for public service, becoming deputy public advocate of New York City, and most recently running a spirited campaign for public advocate on a platform of creating educational and economic opportunities for women and girls, immigrants, and those who have been sidelined in the political process. A true political entrepreneur, Saujani has been fearless in her efforts to disrupt both politics and technology to create positive change.

Saujani is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law School. She was recently named to CNBC’s "Next List"; Crain’s "40 Under 40"; Fortune’s "40 Under 40"; Forbes’ "Most Powerful Women Changing the World"; Fast Company’s "100 Most Creative People"; Ad Age’s "Creativity 50"; and Business Insider’s "50 Women Who Are Changing the World." She has also been recognized as one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in New York" by the New York Daily News, as the Wall Street Journal "Technology Innovator of the Year," and as an AOL/PBS "Next MAKER."

Peter Wood

President of the National Association of Scholars

Peter W. Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (2007), Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (2003), and The Architecture of Intellectual Freedom (2016). He is co-author What Does Bowdoin Teach? (2013), Common Core: Yea and Nay (2014), Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism (2015).

He is a graduate of Haverford College (1975), Rutgers University (1977), and the University of Rochester, from which he received a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987. He previously served as provost of The King’s College in New York City, and as the president’s chief of staff at Boston University, where he was also a tenured member of the anthropology department.

Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “height”) is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, and taught for 16 years in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia.

Haidt’s research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures––including the cultures of American progressive, conservatives and libertarians. Haidt is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis, and of the New York Times bestseller The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. His third book will be published in September 2018: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (co-authored with Greg Lukianoff).

At NYU-Stern, he is applying his research on moral psychology to business ethics, asking how companies can structure and run themselves in ways that will be resistant to ethical failures (see EthicalSystems.org). He is also the co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, a collaboration among nearly 2000 professors who are working to increase viewpoint diversity and freedom of inquiry in universities.

Article: The Coddling of the American Mind

Frank Bruni

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Stevenson recently won an historic ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court banning mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and has been awarded 34 honorary doctorate degrees. He is the author of award winning and New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy.

In April 2018, EJI opened a new museum, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, built on the site of a former slave warehouse in downtown Montgomery. This is a companion to a national memorial to victims of lynching, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened at the same time.

Anthony Jack

Anthony Jack, sociologist and assistant professor of education at Harvard University, is transforming the way we address diversity and inclusion in education. His new book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students, reframes the conversation surrounding poverty and higher education. In it, he explains the paths of two uniquely segregated groups. First, the “privileged poor”: students from low-income, diverse backgrounds who attended elite prep or boarding school before attending college. The second are what Jack calls the “doubly disadvantaged”—students who arrive from underprivileged backgrounds without prep or boarding school to soften their college transition. Although both groups come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the privileged poor have more cultural capital to navigate and succeed—in the college environment and beyond.

“It’s one thing to graduate with a degree from an elite institution, and another thing to graduate with the social capital to activate that degree,” Jack explains. In many ways, rather than close the wealth gap, campus culture at elite schools further alienates poor students by making them feel like they don’t belong. To challenge these deeply ingrained social, cultural and economic disparities on campus, we must first begin to question what we take for granted. Jack reveals how organizations—from administrators and association organizers, to educators and student activists—can ask the right questions and bridge the gap.

Anthony Jack is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His research has been cited by The New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The National Review, The Washington Post, American RadioWorks, WBUR and MPR. His book, The Privileged Poor, was named the 2018 recipient of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize by Harvard University Press.

Lynn Pasquerella

Lynn Pasquerella has served as the president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities since July 2016. A philosopher whose career has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, she has continuously demonstrated a deep and abiding commitment to ensuring all students have access to excellence in liberal education, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Pasquerella is a graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College and Brown University. She joined the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Rhode Island in 1985, rising rapidly through the ranks to the positions of vice provost for research, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school. In 2008, she was named provost of the University of Hartford. In 2010, she was appointed the 18th president of Mount Holyoke College. Pasquerella’s presidency of Mount Holyoke was marked by a robust strategic planning process; outreach to local, regional, and international constituencies; and a commitment to a vibrant campus community.

Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy and the philosophy of law. She is president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a member of the boards of the Lingnan Foundation and the National Humanities Alliance and sits on the advisory board of the Newman’s Own Foundation. In addition, Pasquerella is host of Northeast Public Radio's The Academic Minute. She has received honorary doctorates from Elizabethtown College, Bishop’s University, the University of Hartford, the University of South Florida and the University of Rhode Island.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Ph.D.

The James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. is currently the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. Born on the coast of Mississippi, in a small town called Moss Point, Glaude brings to his scholarship and public service a sense of passion and vocation shaped by the tradition of African American struggle. As a graduate of Morehouse College, he was inspired by the courage and devotion of Martin Luther King, Jr., the institution’s most famous graduate. Following in that tradition, in his scholarship and in his public work, Professor Glaude seeks to prod and to provoke, to insist and to incite, to encourage and to embolden fellow citizens to rise to the profound challenges of our day. He is the author of several books. His latest book, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, has been characterized as “a tour de force.”

Porter Braswell

Porter is the CEO and co-founder of Jopwell, a technology platform that helps Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals unlock opportunities for career advancement. Under Porter’s leadership, Jopwell has formed partnerships with more than 100 of America’s leading companies and has facilitated tens of thousands of connections between the Jopwell community members and its clients. In 2017 alone, the company was recognized as Entrepreneur Magazine's “100 Most Brilliant Ideas,” Fast Company's “World's Most Innovative Companies,” and Business Insider's “One of The Hottest NYC Companies to Watch.” Porter's professional awards and recognitions include LinkedIn's 2015 “Next Wave, Top Professionals Under 35,” Inc. Magazine's 2016 “30 Under 30,” Fast Company's 2017 “100 Most Creative People In Business,” Crain's 2018 “40 Under 40,” Vanity Fair's 2018 "Future Innovators Index," and most recently Adweek's 2018 "Young Influentials."

As an African American CEO, Porter regularly speaks about the importance of diversity in the workforce and has been featured in numerous publications and articles discussing the topic. Additionally, Porter is a LinkedIn influencer where he frequently shares his thoughts and opinions on the state of diversity in the workforce with his more than 110k followers. In early 2019, Porter released his book entitled "Let Them See You - The Guide for Leveraging Your Diversity at Work," published by Penguin Random House, which addresses both the complexity of and necessity for diversity in corporate America. Porter started his career at Goldman Sachs on the Foreign Exchange sales desk. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Porter graduated from Yale University in 2011, where he was a four-year member of the men's varsity basketball team.