ROBERT ABRAHAM is a staff attorney for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a labor organization representing approximately 150,000 teachers and support personnel throughout the State. In this capacity, he represents members and locals in labor and employment legal matters. He is active in the fight to maintain and improve public education. Before joining PSEA, Bob served as a high school English teacher and wrestling coach.
    Bob earned an undergraduate degree from Penn State University, a Master's degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh, and a law degree from Duquesne University. He serves on the board of Outreach Teen and Family Services in Mt. Lebanon, an organization devoted to providing counseling to troubled teens and their families. In addition, he formerly served on the board of the Middle East Forum, an advocacy group comprised of Arab-Americans, Jewish-Americans, and others devoted to promoting a peaceful resolution to Middle East conflicts. He is a member of the ACLU and People for the American Way.
    Bob and his wife Sharon live in Mt. Lebanon, PA. They have three adult children. 4/7/00

LAURA BLAIN helped in the design of PAD’s website, is the current webmaster, and has been Administrative Assistant for Moeller Associates since 1993. She came to that job with accounting and activist experience, and is now adding web skills to her resume.
    Her current primary responsibility is parenting, donning such multiple hats as soccer mom, rec center volunteer, and past scout committee chair, among too many others.
    Besides attention to her sons' activities, she is active in overlapping areas of local politics, environmental protection, and Native American issues. Soon after choosing Bradford County as her family’s home, she began rocking the boat with pointed reports as a township auditor; and served six years as secretary/treasurer of a neighboring borough. She is also the treasurer of the local Chamber of Commerce. On the county level, she spearheaded a drive to pass a protective ordinance in the event Bradford County was selected to site a low level radioactive waste dump. After several years of persistance, it was announced that the entire siting process had been indefinitely suspended, in part due to "local resistance" all throughout the state.
    However, the most pressing issues to her are those of Native American rights, including educating people about the continuing existence of the many separate and sovereign Indian Nations, recognizing and ending the racist use of mascots, and assisting in the repatriating of disturbed burial sites. This focus was sparked as early as grade school, out of the irony of being able to get history of foreign cultures, but only inaccurate or negative stereotypical information of those of her ancestors who lived here on Turtle Island.

GERALD (JERRY) BLUM acquired degrees in physics from Swarthmore College ('64) and MIT ('70), but is currently paid to be a nuclear engineer. He is a feminist physicist, singer and dancer. He has been active with NOW since 1974, mostly at the chapter and state levels, including serving as state Treasurer and state PAC Treasurer. He has served several years as Public Policy chair for the Pittsburgh Branch of AAUW. He is also the membership and by-laws chairs for Western PA Blind Outdoor Leisure Development (W PA BOLD). (BOLD is devoted to facilitating blind people's enjoyment of outdoor activities such as skiing and hiking). Besides working on disability and reproductive rights with NOW, he has worked with the Pittsburgh offices of the ACLU and NARAL from time to time. After 23 years of singing with the Pittsburgh Oratorio Society (which folded in 1995), Jerry is now singing with the Three Rivers Choral Society. Interest in music included interest in the electronics to reproduce it, although for the last decade that has been superceded by an interest in computers, to which he was first exposed in 1960. An avid square and contra dancer, he is currently the assistant Treasurer for the Pittsburgh contradance group.(updated March 2001)

JOSIE BYZEK has been involved with the disability rights movement since 1990, when she began working at the Three Rivers Center for Independent Living.
    While on staff at Three Rivers, she began organizing grassroots groups around the issues of housing and attendant care. Since 1995, Josie has worked at the Pa. Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities as a Civil Rights Specialist on PCCD's Grassroots Advocacy Project (GAP). The GAP is an ambitious project to coordinate the advocacy efforts of all fourteen of Pa.'s CILs, utilizing small Regional Advocacy Groups in each CIL's territory. There are now over 30 of these Regional Advocacy Groups. Their work and ideas have greatly influenced the Disability Rights Movement in Pennsylvania.
    Besides her advocacy work, Josie is currently employed as associate editor for New Mobility, a national magazine geared towards wheelchair users. New Mobility can be viewed on-line at www.newmobility.com. She also writes for various other national disability rights magazines, such as Mouth Magazine and Ragged Edge.(updated 4/20/01)

FREDERICK CLARKSON is a widely published independent journalist, author and lecturer who has studied the religious right for twenty years.
    He has written many ground-breaking exposes. He was the first to report that elements of the Christian Right were encouraging the formation of citizen militias - five years before the Oklahoma City bombing propelled the militia movement into national consciousness. In 1991 he infiltrated the first national strategy conference of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and was the first to expose the group's plans to take over the Republican Party. As an investigative editor, working at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, he supervised the 1994 investigation of how pro-violence antiabortion activists were joining the militia movement. His Salon magazine exposure of the alliance between Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon greatly influenced media coverage of these groups' staging of the Million Family March on Washington, DC in October 2000.
    He is the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, Common Courage Press, (1997), which The Humanist magazine called "the best book yet written about the religious right." Church & State magazine called Eternal Hostility "essential reading for anyone who cares about freedom. No book offers a better description of the religious right and why that movement must be contained."
    He co-authored Challenging the Christian Right: The Activist's Handbook, (Institute for First Amendment Studies 1992; Ms Foundation edition, 1994) for which he and his co-author were named among the "Media Heroes of 1992" by the Institute for Alternative Journalism. They were described as "especially brave at taking on powerful institutions and persistent about getting stories out…journalists and activists who persevere in fighting censorship and protecting the First Amendment," and "understanding the Christian Right's recent strategy of stealth politics early on, and or doggedly tracking its activities across the U.S."
    Clarkson's articles have also been anthologized in scholarly works, notably in: Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements, Routledge, 2000; Harcourt Source Readings for American Government, Harcourt College Publishers, 2000; and Eyes Right: Challenging the Right-wing Backlash, South End Press, 1995.
    Clarkson's views are frequently cited by major news organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, to name a few. He has appeared on numerous local and national radio talk shows and news programs, notably NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation, and Pacifica radio's Democracy Now. His television appearances include Fox News, CNN, and the CBS Evening News.
    He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is currently writing a book on antiabortion violence. 2/20/01

FLOYD COCHRAN is one of the leading experts in the United States on the violent, extreme right wing which includes the Aryan Nations, Ku Klax Klan, and militia groups among others. For the last 5 years he has been lecturing, conducting training programs, and writing full time about the violent right. Floyd lives in Pennsylvania but he is asked to speak in many parts of the country, at colleges, high schools, YMCAs, churches, conferences, on CBS, Good Morning America, at the FBI Training Center. He has provided testimony before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He is on most short lists which recommend resources about the extremeright.
    Floyd speaks with the authority of personal experience. Up to June 1992, he was "the fifth-ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ hristian/Aryan Nations — a white supremacist group that combines Nazi ideas with a racist brand of biblical fundamentalism know as Christian Identity" (Mother ones magazine ). However, in 1992, Floyd rejected the philosophy of the Aryan Nations and began a personal quest that has transformed him into a powerful voice for tolerance. He maintains a web page at http://www.evnetwork.net/

JAYNE CSONKA is currently a teacher in the Sharpsville Area School District, where she has been teaching health and physical education to 6th, 7th and 8th grades, for the last 30 years. In addition to her responsibilities as a teacher, she serves on the District Strategic Planning Committee, District Curriculum and Professional Development Committees, and building Faculty Advisory Committee. For the past 12 years she chaired the Student Assistant Program in the middle school, which deals with student’s at risk and provides prevention programs to the middle school students. She was also an instructor for the District’s Parent to Parent classes for 3 years (currently taking a 1 year leave from these last two programs).
    Jayne has been an active member of the Pennsylvania State Education Association and is currently serving as the Midwestern Region representative on the Committee for Preserving Public Education for the past ten years. In addition, she is a member of the Mercer County Coordinating Council and the Collective Bargaining Council, the Midwestern Region Executive Board and the Region Collective Bargaining Council, PACE, is serving a second term as President of her local organization and has been the grievance chairperson for her local organization for the past 13 years.
    Outside the realm of public education, she is an active member in her church, serving in a variety of capacities, including on the Pastor Parish Relations Committee.

KATHLEEN S. DAUGHERTY is Director of the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania, one of 18 state public policy offices of the Division for Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She advocates with and on behalf of persons whose voices are not heard in the halls of legislative bodies, corporations and other sources of power. Her position also involves interpretation of the Biblical implications of social policy and the social implications of the Bible to Lutherans and other persons of faith.
    Previously, Ms. Daugherty was Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center in Harrisburg, a statewide advocacy and education organization. From 1980 through 1990, she was national Lutheran church advocacy staff, first as Associate Director for Food Policy at the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs in Washington, DC, then as Advocacy Developer for the Lutheran Coalition on Public Policy in Harrisburg.
    Ms. Daugherty graduated from Thiel College in Greenville, PA with a degree in sociology. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Bread for the World and is a member of Zion Lutheran Church, Hummelstown where she sings in the choir and leads a sister ministry effort with Christ Lutheran Church, Harrisburg.     3/2000

LOUISE DOSKOW is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. She was raised in New York City, obtained a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Binghamton University, has worked as an analytical and research chemist, chef, and teacher, and has also sold antiques. Her favorite work, though, is that of an activist or, as she was once called, a "social change agent."
    She serves as an advocate of educational freedom for all children and is Chair of the Freedom to Learn Network (FLN) in Pennsylvania. This all-volunteer, grassroots organization educates local groups and individuals about extremist (especially radical right) attacks on public education, and provides tools on how to deal with issues such as censorship in the public schools. She is FLN's liaison to the Pennsylvania Coalition for Public Education and is now on the Steering Committee for Public Education Celebration 2001. She began as a co-founder of FOCUS (Friends of Cooperation and Understanding in the Schools) in her local school district (Boyertown).
    She has been on the Board of the Pennsylvania Network of Unity Coalitions and is still an active member of the Boyertown Area Unity Coalition (BAUC). She learned first-hand about the Pennsylvania Aryan Nations when their former leader came to BAUC meetings. She helped implement "Project Lemonade" in Boyertown to get the Ku Klux Klan off the street corners, and she appears in a Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) training film, Stopping the Hate with Harmony. In May 2001, she was the recipient of the "Ethnic Harmony" Human Rights Award from the Montgomery County Advisory Council to the PHRC. She works with the Boyertown Community Partnership for Drug-Free and Safe Schools and was part of the "Community That Cares" initiative. Ms. Doskow lives in a small community northwest of Philadelphia and, in her spare time, is a free-lance editor and proofreader of medical and scientific texts. (updated July 2001)

MARY M. DUPUIS is Professor Emerita of Education at Penn State, retired in 1997 after over 30 years on the faculty and as a grad student. She retired as Director of Academic Affairs at Penn State DuBois Campus. Previously, she served as Director of Teacher Education and Associate Dean of the College of Education, following a faculty career in secondary education and reading. She taught secondary school English and reading earlier, in Georgia, Virginia, and Indiana.
    Her work in Intellectual Freedom began early in her career, when she had a discussion with her principal over teaching Catcher in the Rye. Her mother, another former English and reading teacher, helped her determine how to respond to the challenge and still keep the book in her classroom. For the following 40 years, she has been an outspoken supporter of academic, now intellectual, freedom for students and teachers. She has served on the International Reading Association Committee on Intellectual Freedom and as Past President of Keystone State Reading Association, and continues to serve as its Intellectual Freedom chair.
    She has also worked in other human rights areas, beginning with civil rights activities in the 60's in Georgia and Virginia. Since that time, she has worked for racial and ethnic diversity within the university community, serving on Penn State's Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, after continuous service there regarding women's issues. She served as Chair of the Commission on Women and continues to work with women's groups at the University and in the community. Gender equity within school settings is a continuing concern; she chaired and still works with the Commission on Gender Equity for the Association of Teacher Educators. Within Pennsylvania, she has served and now chairs the Pennsylvania Women's Campaign Fund, seeking to elect more women to the PA House and Senate. She is also Vice President of Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy, and chairs PAD's Intellectual Freedom policy committee.
    She welcomes the opportunity to work with other like-minded professionals to ensure that intellectual freedom and equity are preserved and increased in Pennsylvania.

PENNI ELDREDGE-MARTIN is a consultant to Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the former Associate Director of Planned Parenthood of the Southern Tier (NY). With the affiliate for sixteen years, she worked in public affairs, public relations, human resources, grants writing, security and risk management. Penni served on the Professional Development Team of the NYS Association of Planned Parenthoods. She was a co-founder of the Southern Tier Coalition for Free Choice and in 1996, with area rabbis, ministers and imams, developed the Southern Tier Interfaith Coalition. From 1992 to 1996 Penni served as board member and president of the YWCA of Elmira and the Twin Tiers.
    A resident of Bradford County, PA, Penni is a member of the Bradford County Alliance for Democracy (BCAD). During her tenure as chair, BCAD was instrumental in raising issues of church-state separation to area school administrators, boards and local judges, as well as addressing the needs of gay/lesbian youth. The group has spoken out on school vouchers and hate crimes. A member of the Towanda Friends Meeting (Quakers), Penni co-authored Peace In The Family, published by Pantheon Press.
    Penni received a BA from the University of Massachusetts and an MA from Middlebury College. She has done post-graduate work at Cornell University and received a Kellogg Leadership Certification from the School of Management Studies at Binghamton University.

LARRY FRANKEL, ESQ., is a member of the Advisory Board to the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. Mr. Frankel is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1992, Larry began working for the ACLU of Pennsylvania as the organization's Legislative Director. In 1996, he was promoted to the position of Executive Director. Much of Larry's time is dedicated to managing the legislative program of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. He actively lobbies the Pennsylvania General Assembly. He has testified on numerous occasions before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees as well as the House Education Committee. Over the last five years, Larry has articulated the ACLU's position on many issues that have come before the state legislature, including tuition vouchers, family planning funding, death penalty, same-sex marriage, police misconduct, residency requirements for welfare recipients, confidentiality of medical records, parental rights and legal services funding. Larry also manages the Pennsylvania affiliate of the ACLU, which has approximately 10,000 members and offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The ACLU of Pennsylvania also has chapters in the Lehigh Valley, Lancaster County, South Central Pennsylvania, Lewisburg, State College, Altoona-Johnstown, and Northwestern Pennsylvania.
    Larry was born in California and attended the University of California Berkeley as an undergraduate. He attended law school at Berkeley. Larry moved to Pennsylvania in 1981 and practiced law in Philadelphia until he began working for the ACLU. In his free time, Larry reads history and contemporary literature, cooks, tries to improve his Hebrew and Spanish, wanders outdoors and travels (particularly to Maine, Spain and Italy.).

CARRIE GARDNER is currently the chairperson of the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Intellectual Freedom Committee and a member of the American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee. For the past 8 years her professional focus has centered on the First Amendment, specifically freedom of speech and access to information issues. Most recently, Carrie has been involved in the battle to ensure that the First Amendment is applied to the Internet.

JEFFREY GARIS has served as the Executive Director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty for the past 3 & 1/2 years.
  Raised in Bucks County and currently living in West Philadelphia, Jeff is a lifelong resident of the Keystone State. Jeff brings his Mennonite heritage to the fight against the death penalty; he is a 1987 graduate of Messiah College and previously served as the Associate Pastor of the Souderton Brethren in Christ Church. He got involved in the Abolitionists during its first year of existence as a volunteer, and was hired as the executive director in January of 1998.

STEPHEN A. GLASSMAN, AIA, resides on a farm in New Oxford, PA. where he bases his practice of residential and commercial architecture throughout the eastern half of the United States. Glassman grew up in Baltimore, Maryland where he attended the Park School. Subsequently, he graduated with highest honors from both Brown University (B.A.) and Yale University (M. Architecture). He has won numerous awards and citations for his work and has been published more than 100 times in national publications for his architectural projects. He has also made numerous appearances on talk shows, news programs, and in feature interviews as an advocate of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights.
    Additionally, he has a distinguished career of public volunteer service. He has at various times been president of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Baltimore, lobbied as a key spokesperson for the successful passage of the Gay and Lesbian rights bill in Baltimore in 1987, served as Chairperson of the Names Project Quilt Display at the Baltimore Museum of Art, served on the boards of the ACLU, the Gay Rights National Lobby, the Yale University Lesbian and Gay Study Center, The Free State Justice Campaign, the Human Rights Campaign, and served as the first openly gay Commissioner in Baltimore for five years under Mayor Kurt Schmoke. Glassman currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition, and for four years has facilitated the sexual minority youth organization in South Central Pennsylvania known as BIGLYAH.

MARILYN GOLDFARB is currently a secondary math educator at State College's Delta Program, a progressive, alternative school. She earned a B.A. from Temple University and has pursued graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Temple University, Columbia University and Penn State. Ms. Goldfarb was involved in the pioneering efforts of the Alternative Schools' Movement of the late 60's, where she joined a collective of progressive educators who founded the Miquon Upper School in Philadelphia from 1970-1983.
    Marilyn's interests in political activism started in high school, where she developed a strong interest in social justice that led her to work in the Civil Rights Movement. In college, she was active in the anti-war movement. After graduating college, she continued her anti-war efforts by working with Philadelphia Teachers for Peace.
    Into the 70's and 80's, Ms. Goldfarb broadened her political work by volunteering as a rape-crisis-hotline counselor for Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia. Within the same organization, she joined the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Education team, where she wrote curriculum and delivered community-based workshops to parents and educators.
    Upon relocating to State College, PA, she worked with the local NOW Chapter on reproductive freedom issues and organized a public meeting on sexual harassment. Later, she worked in the Central PA Freedom to Marry Coalition, which developed a speakers' bureau to educate the local community on same-gender marriage issues, presented a public education forum on the topic, and organized "the Summit" - a gathering of all the LGB organizations within a 60 mile radius of State College to form a central PA network to work on LGB issues of mutual concern.
    Currently, she is working with an informal grassroots political group of concerned citizens, parents and educators who are trying to lobby the local school board to expand its non-discrimination policy to include "sexual orientation" in its protections from harassment and discrimination.

JEFFREY M. GONZALEZ's activist years began in high school where he developed an interest in 1st Amendment issues. Jeff is a regular contributor to the local newspaper's letters-to-the-editor on privacy (gay rights), woman's rights, church-state issues, and child welfare.
    Jeff has served on the Towanda School District's Strategic Planning Committee, it's Communication Technology steering committee, as a Board member and Secretary of the Barclay Friends School, and he is a member of the Bradford County Alliance for Democracy. In addition, Jeff currently is a PIAA soccer referee, a Youth League coach, and District Head Referee, a Little League Coach and Umpire, as well as Treasurer and Vice President for the local Youth Soccer Leagues. He considers all these activities vital to properly raising three children in an environment that demonstrates the importance of community and social involvement and activism. Jeff and his wife, Diane, are the parents of three children: Lauren; 14, Lindsay; 11, and Jared; 8.
    Jeff is currently a Research and Development Materials Scientist at Osram Sylvania, where he is a he has developed Compact Ceramic Crossflow Heat Exchangers for Industrial Waste Heat Recovery, High Temperature Low NOx Ceramic Burners, Stoichiometric Control Devices, Ceramic Armor Materials for the Defense Department, and Poly-Crystalline-Alumina Lamp Envelope Materials. Jeff has numerous patents and propriatery awards. Jeff received a BA in Mathematics, a BS in Ceramic Science, and an MS from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred.

DR. JACQUELINE G. GOODWIN is Assistant Director of Communications for the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA).
  A graduate of West Virginia University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and English, a masters degree in curriculum and instruction, and an Ed.D. in education leadership with a minor concentration in public administration, she is editor of PSEA's internal publication, the VOICE and is also a member of PSEA's Communication Organizing Program Staff (COPS).
  As a COP, she is responsible for the internal public relations and communications efforts of the Association. She is the primary speechwriter for the Executive Director, a trainer for safe schools issues, a member of the staff liaison for the Association's Foundation and coordinator for special projects.
  Prior to joining the PSEA staff in 1999, Dr. Goodwin was Director of Communications for the West Virginia Education Association for 13 years. She also taught English and journalism as an adjunct faculty member at West Virginia University and Marshall University and was a high school English and journalism teacher.
  Her expertise on communications and dedication is frequently sought by local, state and national groups. She has served on numerous committees and commissions. A former member of the West Virginia Public Broadcast Board of Directors she also served on the Board of Directors for West Virginia Public Radio. She is past president of the National Education Association State Education Editors and the National Education Association Public Relations Council of the States. In 1995, Goodwin was recognized as "Public Relations Person of the Year" by the National Education Association.
  A freelance writer, Goodwin's work has appeared in many publications and newspapers. She is currently section editor for the West Virginia Encyclopedia project.
  Goodwin has won numerous writing awards throughout her career.

STEPHEN D. HERSH’s focus on civil rights began in the early 1960's, where he participated in several marches to end segregation in Virginia and in Southern MD while in college.  After the 1968 Poor Peoples March on Washington, when integration had been achieved and civil rights appeared to be on track, his attention turned to his family.  However, since the early 90's when the KKK first threatened to come to his home town, he has been active locally opposing hate groups, and attempting to set up diversity training in the local school systems.
    As a board member and regional coordinator of PA Network of Unity Coalitions, he has been organizing communities to start Unity Chapters.  Some of those groups include Chambersburg Crisis Intervention Team, Franklin County Coalition, and Franklin County Travelers.  He is also president of Chambersburg United, and a board member of Sons of Isreal Synagogue.  Stephen has been advising religious and community leaders as needed for minor incidents.
    He is currently involved in his biggest battle so far, helping a restaurant-lounge located in Jennerstown, Somerset County, PA,  that caters to gays and lesbians. Initially picketed by the KKK and a self defined “Anabaptists” group, the latter were so vicious in their attacks that  the Klan backed off.  However, the Friday thru Sunday,  4 p.m. till 2 a.m. demonstrations by this religious cult continue, where they stand outside the restaurant screaming insults along with bible verses, constantly intimidating and harassing.  After after 18 months of  FBI, PA Human Relations Commission, and State Police involvement, there has still been no resolution to this injustice.
  Beside this current struggle, Stephen has done writing for various publications, appeared on TV newscasts, and interviews. He has found his voice in these confrontations against hate groups.

ROBERT C. HILLMAN has lived in East Stroudsburg Pennsylvania for the past 47 years. He is a 1961 graduate of East Stroudsburg High School. His advanced education is in the areas of Electronics Technology; Business and Personnel Management; and Equal Employment Opportunity. He left the Stroudsburg area for three years to serve in the US Army and served in Saigon, Vietnam from 1966 to 1967.
    Mr. Hillman has been employed at Tobyhanna Army Depot for the past 33 years. He started his career in Electronics Communications where he worked for 15 years. He moved on to the civilian personnel department for 14 years, where he became the Chief of Position Classification and Employee Development Division. He is currently serving on the Commander's Staff as the Depot's Equal Opportunity Manager.
    Bob is a founding member and Chairman of the "Unity Coalition Of The Poconos", promoting unity and multicultural understanding. He is very active in a number of community based and statewide organizations such as the NAACP, African American Network of the Poconos, Northeastern Pennsylvania Economic Development Counsel, and others. He is also a PAD Board Member, and Chair of PAD's Civil Rights Policy Committee.
    Bob Hillman has received recognition at the National, State and Local level for his work in the area of civil rights and multicultural understanding. He received the NAACP's 1998 Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Department, Roy Wilkins Renowned Service Award. He was in competition with Department of the Army civilians and military personnel worldwide for this honor. He also received East Stroudsburg University's, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award, the Monroe County Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award and the Pennsylvania State Education Association's Human & Civil Rights Award for his work in the area of civil rights.(updated March 2001)

CARL HOWE is currently in his second year as president of the South Hills chapter of NOW, in the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh. He is also a delegate to the PA NOW Board of Directors, and remains chair of the chapter politics and legislation committee.
    Born with slight impairment due to cerebral palsy, Carl graduated from public schools on time and immediately entered the University of Pittsburgh. There he, again on schedule, earned a BA in History, a designation as a premier cynic, and acknowledgment as a spastic with a wry outlook constantly in search of a clever, harmless practical joke. A recipient of bizarre public behaviors and attitudes on occasion, Carl continues to advocate for inclusion for all people through public speaking, involvement with different policy panels, and legislative action.
    The theoretical discussion of academic study appears selfish to him when compared to the cold fact that in the practical world actual faces and bodies are doing without. When he did attend graduate school he also had to work, and he found the most productive use of his talent was on the job.
    Previously, Carl was the last Pittsburgh District Field Office aide for then US Senator Richard Schweiker, followed by a stint in Washington, DC on the governmental activities staff of the United Cerebral Palsy Association. Legislation is his passion; politics the stony path he must travail to accomplish his goal.1/26/00

LIZ HRENDA is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. The Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy is an advocacy organization which is building a network among groups and individuals across the state working to support the principles of our democratic society. These include tolerance and respect for diversity, equal rights, non-violence, intellectual freedom, separation of church and state, and individual rights as guaranteed in the Constitution.
  Previously, Liz served as the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates. In this capacity, she directed state-wide advocacy in support of family planning, health care and women's rights.
  Liz began working at the Bethlehem Steel, Steelton Plant shortly after industrial jobs there were opened to women. She completed the machinist apprenticeship and was an active member of USWA Local 1688. She served as Harrisburg Chapter president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, a national organization serving the interests of working women and their families, and promoting family and medical leave, quality child day care, job opportunities and pay equity.
  After leaving the steel plant, Liz enrolled at Penn State Harrisburg, where she received her Bachelor of Business Administration. Following graduation, she worked as a field auditor in the Department of the Auditor General. There she joined other parents in establishing the first on-site child care center in a state office. Liz continued her union activity, becoming a shop steward in AFSCME Local 972.
   Liz was named to the Governor's Commission for Women by Governor Milton Shapp, and was later re-appointed by Governor Dick Thornburgh. She has also served her community through volunteering with the United Way of the Capital Region and by helping to start The Bail Program, the predecessor of the Dauphin County Pre-Trial Release Agency. She is presently the President of the Women's Legislative Exchange.     (updated Nov. 2001)

JACQUELINE M. JOHNSON is the Director of Administration at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (PCAR) founded in 1975, is the oldest and one of the largest state sexual assault coalitions in the country . PCAR administers both state and federal funding and provides technical assistance to help support fifty-two rape crisis centers across the state. Through both the PCAR web site and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) (a project of PCAR), information, referral and training materials are disseminated nationwide and internationally.
  Jacqueline has been involved in the anti sexual violence movement since 1983, when she began volunteering at the Victim Assistance Center in York, Pennsylvania, a non-profit organization that provides services to victims of sexual violence and other violent crimes. As a volunteer she facilitated support groups for victim/survivors of childhood sexual victimization and rape and advocated on behalf of victim/ survivors and their families within the criminal justice system.
  During that same year she was hired as the staff therapist, providing counseling services to children, women and men and their families. She was later appointed the Direct Service Supervisor, overseeing the development of all direct services and programs to clients. While in this position she developed policies and procedures to help ensure quality services to all victims of sexual violence and their families within York County.
  In 1995, after 12 years of providing counseling services, developing and implementing programs and presenting over 200 workshops on various topics in this field, Jacqueline was appointed executive director of the Victim Assistance Center, the third director in their 20-year history. During her tenure as director, she increased staff 100% and helped in the development of new marketing strategies that contributed towards the financial growth of the center. While fulfilling her responsibilities as the director of the center, she was elected as a board member on the West York Area School District School Board, York, PA
  Jacqueline is a graduate of Bloomsburg State University, married for 26 years to Gregory and the proud mother of three adult children.

STATE SENATOR ALLEN G. KUKOVICHis a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. Senator Kukovich is a Democrat serving the 39th Senatorial District in Westmoreland County. He received his JD law degree from Duquesne University Law School in 1973 and his BA in Political Science from Kent State University in 1969.
    Senator Kukovich was elected to the State Senate in 1996. He was first elected to the state House in 1977, and then re-elected in 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1992 and 1994.
    Senator Kukovich is the Democratic chairman of the State Government Committee and is also a member of four other standing Senate committees: Community & Economic Development; Consumer Protection & Professional Licensure; Judiciary; and Local Government. He is also a member of the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee.
    During his nearly 20 years in the House, Kukovich served on the Consumer Affairs, Appropriations, Judiciary, and Health and Welfare Committees. He also chaired subcommittees on Youth and Aging, and Public Utilities. From 1989 through 1992, Kukovich held a leadership position of Majority Policy Committee Chairman.
    His legislative accomplishments include a Mortgage Foreclosure program that saved the homes of more than 15,000 families; a program to prevent abuse of the elderly; the development of a children's trust fund to prevent child abuse; a funding mechanism for community legal services; and implementation of the Pennsylvania Ethics Act.
    In 1990, two of his more innovative bills were enacted. One, the "Medical Overcharge Measure," has helped senior citizens save millions of dollars. The other, the "Family Caregiver Act," provides help to Alzheimer victims and their families.
    In 1992, Kukovich's "Health Care Partnership Act" became law, which provides free or low cost health insurance to thousands of uninsured children under 16.
    Kukovich has received more than 75 statewide awards and national recognition for his dedication on behalf of families and children. In 1994, he was named Outstanding Advocate in America by the National Easter Seal Society.
    His years of legislative initiatives and accomplishments have generally targeted economic development, unemployment, consumer protection, child care, hunger, homelessness, ethics and government reform. He has earned a reputation for fairness, honesty, and the ability to get things done.

 
MORTON (Mort)L. METERSKY, PhDis a member of the Advisory Board of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. Well before Mort retired in 1974, he became involved in social action and social justice issues. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Interfaith Alliance, the Respect and Diversity Committee of the Greater Delaware Valley, and Old York Road Temple Beth Am. He is also a Vice Chair of the Eastern Montgomery Chapter of the Jewish Community Relations. He writes a lot of letters to the editor, senators and legislators, both federal and state, on issues of concern.
    Mort was Vice President for Community Affairs for his synagogue from 1995 to 1997. During that time, he initiated several new projects of which he is very proud. These were: 1) Ethiopian Children, in which sweaters, hats and gloves were knit for needy Ethiopian children in Israel: 2) chairing the first Mitzvah Project Day, in which many different projects for non-Jewish causes were completed by members of the synagogue, 3) a Critical Issues Advocacy Committee that developed letters to both federal and state legislators, Israeli politicians, and others on issues of importance, 4) Black Jewish Relations, which opened up a dialogue between an African-American church and his synagogue and others, and raised money for the needy, homeless, and hungry. He initiated and was the only member of the Syrian Jewry Committee that raised money to help Syrian Jews escape the oppressive Syrian regime. All but 200 Jews were able to leave Syria after much pressure was put on the Syrian government by the organization that he worked with and other organizations.
    Mort sings with his synagogue choir and will return to singing with a local choral group in 1998. His hobbies are mineral collecting, photography, and reading. He edits and publishes the "SPAR BOX," the quarterly newsletter of the International Calcite Collector's Association, which has members all over the world and which will be going into its 8th year of publication in 1998. He spends time with his grandchildren in Lancaster, PA, Basking Ridge, NJ, and Connecticut, when he can get there. They are a joy!

CLARK MOELLER is a member of the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Alliance For Democracy (PAD) and was its first President for four years, during which time he helped lay PAD's organizational foundation as a full time volunteer. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Kendal at Ithaca, a 220-unit retirement community in Ithaca, NY, Bradford County Alliance for Democracy, and the Troy School District's Facilities Planning Committee. He is an Advisory Member of EPOCH-USA, a national organization devoted to end the physical punishment of children. Clark also serves on the Board of Directors for an international firm in the fragrance and flavors industry.
    He has been President of the Big Brother/Big Sister of Bradford County. He was a founder and member of the Bradford County for Choice, Bradford County People for Peace, Bradford County Taskforce Against Corporal Punishment in the Schools, and Barclay Friends School where he served as a Board member for 20 years. Between 1976 to 1996, he was President of Moeller Associates, a management consulting firm providing services to Fortune 500 companies in the area of organizational development.
    In the 1970's, he was Executive Director of the five-county Northern Tier Regional Planning and Development Commission, Pennsylvania. Before that, he was the first Director of Planning for Rock County, Wisconsin. Clark has an MS in Urban Planning from Columbia University, NY, 1965, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Vermont. 1959. Clark and his wife, Jane, have two sons, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson.

JANE MOELLER has been involved with community concerns most of her adult life. Currently, she is the President of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates and of Planned Parenthood Association of PA. Since 1987, she has been Executive Director of the Abuse and Rape Crisis Center serving Bradford County which she helped found in 1978. She is on the state Boards of Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and is a member of the Bradford County Alliance for Democracy and its predecessor organization, the Bradford County Coalition for Choice. In 1987, she was one of the founders of the Taskforce Against Corporal Punishment In The Bradford County Schools. She was a founder in 1979, and a Board member of Sage House for 10 years. Sage House is a shelter for children with trouble at home in Bradford County. In 1979, she also helped found the People for Peace of Bradford County which advocated peace in the home, community and world. In 1975, she helped found the Bradford County League of Women Voters. She helped found Barclay Friends School, Towanda, PA in 1972, and taught there for 9 years. She taught high school English in both New Jersey and New York for a couple of years in the 1960's. Jane received her M.A.T. from Columbia Teachers College, New York City, in 1964, and a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, in 1963. She and her husband, Clark, have two sons and a daughter-in-law.

LAURA MONTGOMERY RUTT is a grassroots organizer and member of the PAD's Advisory Committee. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Alliance for Tolerance and Freedom. Laura is also the founder of The Interfaith Alliance of Central Pennsylvania, and serves on its steering committee. She is a consultant for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State helping to organizing regional groups in support of church/state separation. She serves in the capacity of National Organizer for Equal Partners in Faith, a national network of clergy and faith-based activists who promote equality and inclusion, and give voice to concerns the faith-based community has about the leaders of the Promise Keepers.
   In 1998, Laura organized local, regional and national events in Lancaster, Philadelphia, Omaha, Nebraska, and Washington, D.C., around issues of separation of shurch and state, religious liberty, and religious support for equal rights for gays and lesbians. She is a frequent speaker and has been published and quoted in numerous publications on these issues.
  Laura has a BS degree in Business Administration from Millersville University, and is enrolled part-time at the Lancaster Theological Seminary, working on a Master of Arts in Religion.

CHUCK PASCAL has been active in progressive causes for many years. As a college student, he helped organize and lead the South African divestment movement at the University of Pittsburgh.
    He has served on the Leechburg Area School Board since his election to the position in 1987. In that position, he successfully proposed policies which banned corporal punishment in the district in 1989 and which added sexual orientation to the district's anti-discrimination policy in 1993. He has led efforts to assure that the school's award winning student newspaper remains free of censorship by school officials, and that principles of the separation of church and state are adhered to in the school district. He has also served on the Lenape Area Vocational-Technical School Board since 1989, serving four years as that board's president.
    A strong advocate of public education, he has been active in the cause of preventing the takeover of school boards by the "Religious" Right, advising and consulting progressive community groups and candidates on fighting the right in their communities.
    A frequent speaker and workshop leader on progressive education issues, he spoke extensively during 1992-93 in favor of the revisions of the state curriculum regulations under consideration at that time. His efforts on this issue and fighting the right were profiled in THE WORLD, the national magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
    Chuck is a vocal advocate for public education, particularly in support of equitable school funding, and opposition to vouchers, unfair testing and state policies which have a harmful effect on public education.
    Chuck developed and taught a course called "Public Education Issues" at a local adult education program, designed to increase public awareness of the complexity of issues faced by public schools.
    He has also been active in organizations promoting civil liberties, equal rights, peace, public education and equality of opportunity. He served as Second Vice President of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association in 1995.
    In 1999, Chuck was the Democratic nominee for county commissioner in Armstrong County, running on a progressive platform against the county's three incumbent commissioners. He lost by 285 votes.
    A strategic communications consultant, he has served as a campaign consultant for numerous progressive candidates for local and statewide office. Chuck earned bachelors degrees in Political Science and Communications at the University of Pittsburgh, and attended Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He is currently a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
    Chuck lives in the small community of Leechburg in Armstrong County, located in Southwestern Pennsylvania.    (updated August 11, 2000)

JOANNA PATTERSON has been involved with reproductive rights issues since 1989 when she and 7 others formed a Planned Parenthood-affiliated, grassroots pro-choice group called Pittsburgh Voices for Choice, who's goal was to inform and educate twenty-somethings about reproductive rights in the political context. The group disbanded when the national Planned Parenthood Action Fund was created to perform similar functions. Joanna chaired the Action Fund of Western Pennsylvania from 1996 through 1999 and now serves as their treasurer. She is also a board member of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania where she has chaired the board development committee and serves on the public affairs committee.
    Joanna has volunteered for NARAL of PA and completed hotline counseling training for Pittsburgh Action Against Rape followed by 7 years of active service as a rape hotline volunteer. Her letters to the editor have been published in In Pittsburgh Newsweekly and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. She has been a guest on a radio call-in show in the anti-choice bastion of Steubenville, Ohio.
    Joanna has an undergraduate degree in communications and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. Between degrees she worked for five years in public relations for a small new product development firm and, most recently, for 4 years as an assistant vice president in corporate lending at Mellon Bank.
    She is currently a full-time parent of a 19- month old son and works part-time for her husband who owns his family's 55 year old luggage retail business.

BETTINA PEARL is currently on the staff of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, responsible for helping to run the advocacy training program for medical residents at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Previously, Bettina was at The Shefa Fund, a progressive Jewish foundation located in Philadelphia. She was Legislative Outreach Director for State Senator Allyson Schwartz from 1993-1999 and prior to that practiced law for Central Pennsylvania Legal Services in Harrisburg. She received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 1989. Her law school "co-op" experiences included a memorable internship with the Judge Leon Higginbotham on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. After graduating from Brown University in 1983, she spent three years working on Capitol Hill in Washington.
   Bettina is also on the Board of The Women's Therapy Center in Philadelphia. She has a passionate interest in maternal and child health issues and is currently facing the joys and challenges of parenting a spirited pre-schooler. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner and her daughter Gabrielle.(2/27/01)

ANDREW PETTO is Associate Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of the Arts (U Arts.) in Philadelphia. PA, and teaches in the biomedical writing program at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His main responsibility has been the development and teaching of a science curriculum for U Arts students, including general introductory courses in physical and life sciences, and upper level courses in genetics, neuroscience, and evolution. For two years, Petto served as the chair of the University Committee on Instruction, the academic body devoted to supporting instruction and instructional programs at the University of the Arts.
    Petto received his PhD in bioanthropology from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, with concentrations in functional morphology, primate studies, and evolutionary anthropology. He has held postdoctoral positions at Harvard Medical School (behavioral biology) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (primate behavioral ecology). He has taught courses in biology and anthropology at several colleges and universities beginning in 1981. From 1993 to 1995, Petto served as Associate Director of the Center for Biology Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Beginning in 1996, he served as an outreach specialist in the Wisconsin Teacher Enhancement Program in Biology (Department of Medical Genetics).
    Currently Petto sits on the boards of directors of the Philadelphia Center for Religion and Science and of the National Center for Science Education, where he also has served as editor since 1995. He is also the co-editor of the revised edition of Scientists Confront Creationism, to be published by W.W. Norton, Co. (4/18/01)

TIMOTHY POTTS, director of the Pennsylvania School Reform Network, is a 29-year veteran of the public policy scene in Harrisburg with credentials in economic development, public welfare, and education.
    Tim is one of very few Harrisburg professionals with a bi-partisan political pedigree. Republican Gov. Dick Thornburgh appointed Potts to the Department of Education in 1984, and Democratic Gov. Bob Casey promoted him to deputy chief of staff, supervising new programs including student testing, teacher testing, and initiatives for at-risk students.
    Tim left the Department of Education in 1990 to work for the House Democratic Caucus as director of communications until 1997, when he became PSRN's director. Based on his legislative experience, Tim's ongoing priority is encouraging conversations between constituents and their elected officials. While he lobbies the legislature on occasion - opposing vouchers and promoting a fairer system for funding public schools - he believes that constituents are the best lobbyists.
    PSRN therefore seeks to provide citizens with clear and accurate information about education policy issues, about how to work with legislators and the media, and about how to use proven reforms to raise student achievement. To spread the word, Tim travels an average of 1,200 miles a month in Pennsylvania, helping his 1989 Honda reach the 300,000-mile mark last Christmas day.
    As a volunteer, Tim serves on the state governing board for Common Cause and the Alumni Council of Dickinson College. He also serves as committeeman in North Dickinson Township for the Cumberland County Democratic Committee. He has previously served in various capacities with the Sierra Club, the Pennsylvania Citizen Service Project, and the National Conference of State Legislatures.
    A native of Bethel Park (Allegheny County), Tim is a 1971 Dickinson graduate (BA, English) and a 1987 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Center of Government (Master of Government Administration). He's married with a step-daughter and granddaughter. He enjoys singing early music, building, gardening, and reading fiction.(Feb. 2001)

Dr. SUE RANKIN is a Senior Diversity Planning Analyst and Coordinator of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Equity at The Pennsylvania State University. She is also the 1998-99 co-chair of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coallition (SPARC). Dr. Rankin has presented and written several papers on the impact of heterosexism in the academy and in intercollegiate athletics. In addition, she has presented workshops on cultural diversity and heterosexism for several companies (AT&T, IBM and Xerox) as well as for local law enforcement agencies, most recently in Shippensburg for the Mid-Cumberland Valley Regional Police.

AL RICHARDSON is a member of the Advisory Board of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. Al was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He graduated from Princeton University (BS Electrical Engineering) in 1949 and from Temple University (LLB) in 1956. He worked as a corporate patent attorney for General Electric Co., and served as Patent Counsel of GE Transportation Systems in Erie, Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1990, when he retired.
    Al is a member of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Erie, ACLU, League of Women Voters, NOW, and several state and national reproductive rights organizations. He is married to Peggy Richardson (she has two children and five grandchildren by first marriage and Al has four children and two grandchildren by first marriage).
    Al says of his political activity, "I regard myself as a "political activist" and advocate for four main progressive causes: preserving religious liberty; reducing military spending; dismantling racism; and protecting the environment. These interests are reflected in my active, volunteer involvement in the following non-profit, social-change organizations:

1. President of Northwest Pennsylvania Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (formerly Citizens Interfaith Council for Democracy) and editor of its newsletter;
2. Cofounder and first president of Erie Regional Peace & Justice Center, now chair of its Military/Peace Committee and editor of its newsletter (Erie Peace Voice);
3. Coordinator, 20/20 Vision Project for 21st Congressional District of Pennsylvania;
4. Member of core group of Citizens Against Racism in Erie (CARE), facilitator of its Economic Justice Committee, and editor of its newsletter;
5. Co-chair, Erie Philharmonic Community Outreach Committee; Political Chair and state delegate (alternate), Lake Erie Group of Sierra Club; and
6. Public access TV producer and Vice-Chair of Board of Trustees of City of Erie Cable TV Access Corp.

DEBORAH A. SIEGER is a 1967 graduate of the Lankenau Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Public Health and School Nursing at West Chester University (of PA).  She entered Temple University to complete the MSW in community organizing.  She holds professional licensure in both nursing and social work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
    In 1994 she complete doctoral studies at The Union Institute where her dissertation title was Policy Practice in Social Work to Achieve Social Justice:  New Perspectives on Systems Theory.  Her master's thesis at Temple was an evaluation report of the Family Court of Philadelphia for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, and she is author of an unpublished manuscript entitled Justice for some:  The fruits of our public policy (1994).
    Since 1979,  Deborah has been a professor of social work at Kutztown University, one of the 14 universities in the PA State System of Higher Education where she teaches policy/practice and community organizing.  She has chaired the academic department since 1990 and was elected to serve as Chair of all of the Department Chairs at KU in 1998.  She has also served on the Strategic Planning and Resources Committee and served as President of the Women's Consortium of the State System of Higher Education for two years.
    In 1986-88 Dr. Sieger took a leave from the University and was elected President of the PA chapter of the National Organization for Women.  Previous to that she was an elected delegate to the 1976 Democratic National Convention and served as Chair of the Joint Planning Commission of Lehigh and Northampton Counties (1983-85).
    Deborah is currently an active Board Member of the Philadelphia Lesbian Gay Task Force, Legislative Chair of SPARC (Statewide PennsylvaniA Rights Coalition), and the LGBT Task Force of the PA National Association of Social Workers.  She is the elected President of the PA Association of Undergraduate Social Welfare Education.

LLOYD STIRES is a Professor of Psychology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1971. He received his B.A. in psychology from Drew University and his Ph.D. in social psychology from Duke University. He teaches courses in social psychology, environmental psychology, and the effects of the mass media. He is a member of the American Psychological Society, The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.
    In recent years, his primary research interest has been the effects of violence and sexuality in the media. He teaches a yearly Senior Synthesis course entitled "Pornography: Critical, Behavioral and Legal Approaches," and is working on a book on this subject. He also does research on structure of political attitudes (liberalism vs. conservatism) and their effects on behavior.
    His main political interest is in preserving freedom of speech. He has served as an expert witness in obscenity trials and was active in the struggle against censorship of the Internet. Hobbies include interests in jazz and blues music and European and Asian films.

JOANNE TOSTI-VASEY, PhD, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy. Joanne is an active member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) at the local, state, regional, and national levels. She has been a member of NOW since 1979. She is currently Treasurer of Ni-Ta-Nee NOW in Centre County and PA, the Treasurer of Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. Joanne is also a member of the National NOW Disability Rights Conference Implementation Committee. She is a past member of the National NOW Board of Directors. She was President of Montgomery County, Virgina NOW and a member of the Virginia State NOW Policy Council from 1980-1981. She was the Chapter Convener of NiTaNee NOW in 1990.
    Joanne was appointed to the Centre County Advisory Board to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in 1991 and was reappointed again in 1996. She has been active in Centre Countians for Choice since 1990. Joanne also serves as Centre County's elected Committee Woman to the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee, where she currently functions as the Treasurer of the Women's Caucus.
    Joanne has a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus on work and family issues. She is self-employed and conducts program evaluation research of social service programs.

JOEL WEISBERG, ESQ. is the Director of the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition, a position he assumed in September, 1996. Joel is also the Chairman of the Board of the Pennsylvania Affiliate of the American Heart Association.
    Joel has had legal experience both in private practice and in state government. He worked as the Director of the Consumer Law Reform Unit for legal services in Philadelphia for one year before moving to Harrisburg to take the position of Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. Joel then had a private law practice for ten years before returning to state government as Chief Counsel for the Department of Community Affairs.
    Joel grew up in Philadelphia. He attended college and law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served two years in the army in the late 1960's, including a year in Vietnam. He left the military as a Captain in the Intelligence Corp.

Z is an organizer.  Employed by Solutions for Progress, she serves as staff for the Pennsylvania Campaign for Public Education, working primarily on outreach and developing organizing resources.  Z also conducts research into federal budget allocations.
    She previously worked for twelve years at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.  As membership associate she worked with WILPF's Southern region to double membership and organized four Leadership Training Institutes.  As resources coordinator, Z developed the Corporate Welfare Poster Boys series, that raised the profile of this issue into national prominence.  As Program Director, she helped to plan and coordinate the Peace and Lesbian Tents at the U.N. Fourth World Women's  Conference in China and organized a U.S. Truth and Reconciliation Conference.
      As volunteer Clinic Escort Coordinator for Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania , she worked to keep clinics open during Operation Rescue and to pass the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances legislation.  Z is the Board Secretary of the Greater Philadelphia Women's Medical Fund, where she serves on the Long Term Planning and Fundraising Committees.  She has been active in a series of grassroots reproductive and lesbian rights groups, helped organize two Take Back the Night marches, a Clothesline Project, a campaign for safe public transit, ad infinitum. Z was an organizer for the Women's Peace Camp in Romulus, NY and has been involved with organizing and civil disobedience at the Nevada Test Site. 
    Z's philosophy of activism encompasses guerilla/street theater, ritual, community building, fun, and creativity, as well as strategic thinking and planning.   Underlying this is long-term dedication and an unshakeable belief that positive change is possible, but its gonna take everything we got.