Board

Should QuERI become an independent not-for-profit organization, the QuERI Board of Advisors will become the Board of Directors with Elizabethe Payne and Melissa Smith also serving as initial Board members.  The Advisory Board currently advises QuERI graduate students on research projects and works to create Institute sustainability.

 

Barbara K. Dennis, PhD, Board Chair

Dr. Barbara K. Dennis is Associate Professor of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana,  focusing on methodology and methodological theory. She has been actively involved in social justice research and teaching throughout her career, winning awards for her liberatory teaching and research practices. She has been especially dedicated to social justice issues in schools and education writ large.

 

Cris Mayo, PhD

Dr. Cris Mayo is Associate Professor, Educational Policy Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Her research interests include philosophy of education, gender and sexuality studies, environmental education, and multicultural theory. Her current work focuses on gay/straight alliances in public schools and their work in the formation of associational identities, examining how such groups organize around and address differences of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, and sexuality.

Mayo’s book Disputing the Subject of Sex (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004, reprinted in paperback, 2007) details clashes over AIDS education and gay inclusive multicultural education in New York State in the 1980s and 1990s. Her next research projects examine environmental education programs and the implications of relatively low-impact technologies for gender and mobility.

Glennda Testone

Glennda Testone is a leader in the field of social justice and civil rights.  As the first female Executive Director of the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Community Center, Testone’s strong passion compels her to fight diligently to assist LGBT New Yorkers in need, to empower queer young people and to assist her community to achieve their individual and collective dreams.  So far in her tenue, Testone has revised the strategic plan to focus on LGBT New Yorkers most in need, has reinvigorated the Center’s cultural programming and has planned a $6M capiral project to transform the Center space.  Testone was appointed to the NYC Mayor’s Commission on LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth in June 2009 and completed the Tenenbaum Leadership Initiative Fellows Program at Milano, the New School for Management & Urban Policy.  Testone currently sits on the board of CenterLink; the community of LGBT Centers, the Human Resources Administration (HRA) Citizens Advisory Committee and the National Council for Research on Women’s Emerging Leaders Advisory Committee.

Testone has acted as a spokesperson for GLAAD and for the LGBT movement, appearing on CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC, and in outlets such as The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time Out and W magazine.

Originally from Syracuse, New York, Testone has a Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism and Philosophy from Syracuse University and a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies from The Ohio State University.  She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

James Scheurich, PhD

Dr. James Scheurich is Professor of Urban Education Studies and Coordinator of the PhD Program in Urban Education Studies at Indiana University-IUPUI.

Scheurich has been the editor of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education for over 15 years and the associate editor for Educational Administration Quarterly. He served for six years on the executive committee for the University Council for Educational Administration, the premier education leadership national research organization. He is among a small group of scholars who led changes in the national education discourse about the importance of race in education, the possibility of success for schools and districts of color, and about social justice as a focus for departments of educational leadership. As an indicator of his national reputation, in 2007 Professor Scheurich was nominated for president of the American Education Research Association.