Marc Claude-Charles Colitti is a counselor at Battle Creek Central High School in Michigan and a doctoral student at Michigan State University in East Lansing where he is pursuing a degree in Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Policy. Raised in Wiesbaden, Germany during the Cold War era, Marc has always had a love for history and asks the question ‘how did we arrive here?’ to examine possibilities for the future. A progressivist teacher, counselor and student advocate at heart, he has a tendency to take on issues that thwart individual growth in many areas of education and is relentless in his criticism of any authority that would attempt to restrict the choices individuals make to foster their own development. He received his BA in Music from Olivet College and MA in Counseling from Sienna Heights University. He left a public accounting career to become an educator where he has served as a counselor and taught middle-school through undergraduate students in music, government, physical education, psychology, philosophy and ethics.

Maxine Greene, Ph.D., is William F. Russell Professor Emerita of philosophy and education at Teachers College, Columbia University where she still teaches. She is also “philosopher in residence” at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education and founder of the Maxine Greene Foundation for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education. A past president of the American Educational Research Association, the Philosophy of Education Society, and the American Educational Studies Association, she continues to be focally concerned about equity, quality, and the uses of imagination in the schools. Her writings include Teacher as Stranger, The Release of Imagination, Variations on a Blue Guitar, and The Dialectic of Freedom. She remains privileged to have been one of Lorraine Kasprisin’s teachers.

Julie Hilden is a FindLaw columnist, attorney and freelance writer. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1992, she clerked for then-Chief Judge Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for Judge Kimba M. Wood of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. From 1996-99, she practiced First Amendment law as a litigation associate at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. Hilden, who received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Cornell, has published her first novel, 3. In reviewing 3, Kirkus Reviews praised Hilden's "rather uncanny abilities," and Counterpunch called it "a must read.... a work of art." Hilden's website, www.juliehilden.com, includes free MP3 and text downloads of the novel's first chapter.

Lorraine Kasprisin, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Educational Foundations at the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. She is the director of the Center for Educational Pluralism at Woodring and editor for the Journal of Educational Controversy. She has presented papers at national and international conferences including the conferences in Belgium and Norway for the International Network of Philosophers of Education, and at Oxford University at the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain conference. Her articles have appeared in Studies in Philosophy and Education, Philosophy of Education, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, the Multicultural Education Journal, Prospero: A Journal of New Thinking in Philosophy of Education, and Teachers College Record. A social activist as well as a scholar and teacher, she has been active in the American Civil Liberties Union as former chapter president and state board member, and the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force.

Daniel Larner, Ph.D., is Professor of Theatre, Fairhaven College, Western Washington University. Larner is a playwright and theatre scholar. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington for 30 of the last 36 years, and has chaired the Whatcom County Chapter of ACLU-WA. He teaches a course at WWU called “Rights, Liberties and Justice in America,” has lectured widely in the northwest on issues of civil liberties and national security since 9/11, and has published a series of articles on Justice and Drama in Legal Studies Forum and Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature.

Nel Noddings, Ph.D., is Lee Jacks Professor of Education Emerita at Stanford University. She is a past president of the Philosophy of Education Society, the John Dewey Society, and the National Academy of Education. In addition to fifteen books, she is the author of more than 200 articles and chapters on various topics ranging from the ethics of care to mathematical problem solving. Her latest books are Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy (2002), Educating Moral People (2002), Happiness and Education (2003), Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (2005), and Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach (2006).

Karen Paiva, Ph.D., is an instructor of sociology at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. She received her doctorate in higher education leadership from the University of Miami in 1997. She is both a scholar and an accomplished folk artist whose on-going project is the study of Amish folk art with regard to place and space. Her current research, with Bonita Freeman-Witthoft, involves the influence of Old Order Amish culture and generational cohorts on changes in community and child rearing. Her research focuses on cognition and sensemaking within organizations and communities, myth and reality intersections, and implications of broadening the public "stage."

Shelby Sheppard, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Secondary Education Department in the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. Her area of expertise is philosophy of education. Dr. Sheppard has presented papers at both national and international conferences in Philosophy of Education and has publications in journals which include Educational Theory, the Philosophy of Education Yearbook, and Roeper Review. Her research centers on the relationship between the concepts of mind, knowledge and education and draws on interdisciplinary literature from cognitive science, psychology, philosophy of mind, epistemology and philosophy of education.

Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law at New York Law School, has written, lectured and practiced extensively in constitutional law, civil liberties and international human rights. Since 1991, she has served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation’s oldest and largest civil liberties organization. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America’s "100 Most Influential Lawyers." Strossen makes approximately 200 public presentations per year, before diverse audiences, and she also comments frequently on legal issues in the national media. Strossen's more than 250 published writings have appeared in many scholarly and general interest publications. Her book, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights, was named by the New York Times a "notable book" of 1995. Her co-authored book, Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, was named an "outstanding book" by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America. Strossen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College (1972) and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1975).

Clyde Winters, Ph.D, teaches in the College of Education at Governors State University. Dr. Winters is the author of numerous articles and books on education. His work has appeared in Adolescence, International Review of Education, Yearbook of Correctional Education, The Journal of Correctional Education, Thresholds in Education, and TC Record among others. Dr. Winters most recent book is Brain Based Learning and Special Education. Presently, he is working on methods to make brain based learning strategies an effective tool in improving the academic achievement of regular and special needs students.