Bold Leaders Project
By Critical Mass Leadership Education, Inc.
Click on the advisor's name to view his/her information:
Bill Ury is an expert on the art of negotiation and mediation. He co-founded Harvard's program on negotiation and directs the Project on Preventing War. Dr. Ury has worked as a mediator and negotiation consultant in conflicts ranging from corporate mergers to wars in the Middle East, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, and has authored "Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation." He co-founded and works with the International Negotiation Network, which assists in settling ethnic conflicts around the world. Dr. Ury was a founding member of The Coexistence Initiative and now sits on the Advisory Council.
Timothy D. Sisk is Associate Professor in GSIS, where he also serves as faculty in the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution. Additionally, he is director of the BA Program in International Studies at GSIS. Sisk specializes in international conflict resolution, especially negotiation, mediation, and international intervention in contemporary wars. He is currently finishing a book titled Beyond Bloody Sundays: Violence and Negotiation in Ethnic Conflict. His research is supported currently by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
A former a Program Officer and Research Scholar at the federally chartered US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, Sisk was a Washington-based scholar and analyst of international relations and US foreign policy for 15 years. He is the author of five books and many articles, including Democratization in South Africa ( Princeton, 1995) and Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1995).
Sisk earned a PhD "with distinction" in political science (comparative politics, research methods) from George Washington University, in 1992, an MA in International Journalism (1984) and a BA in Foreign Service and German (1982) from Baylor University.
Before coming to Iliff in 1981, Vincent Harding taught at Pendle Hill Study Center, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Spellman College . Among his publications are The Other American Revolution; There Is a River, Vol. 1; Hope and History; Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero, and We Changed the World (with R. Kelly and E. Lewis). Dr. Harding has had a long history of involvement in domestic and international movements for peace and justice, including the southern Black freedom struggle. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center in Atlanta and served as director and chairperson of The Institute of the Black World. He was senior academic consultant to the award-winning PBS television series, Eyes on the Prize. He currently serves as co-chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal at Iliff, and as Vice President of Institutional Transformation.
The Veterans of Hope Project is a multi-faceted educational initiative on religion, culture and participatory democracy. Our primary mission is to encourage a healing-centered approach to community building that recognizes the interconnectedness of spirit, creativity and citizenship. We produce educational materials, workshops and programming designed to support reconciliation, nonviolence and an appreciation for the value of indigenous and folk wisdom for contemporary times.
Melodye Feldman is the founder and executive director of the internationally known grass-roots organization Seeking Common Ground. She has over 25 years of non-profit experience primarily working with women and children.
Her first trip to Israel was in the late 1960's. In 1987 she witnessed the beginning of the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising) and although well versed in the Israeli/Jewish perspective of the conflict began to explore the Palestinian perspective. This led her to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian women working for peace and reconciliation of the conflict. Melodye has spent extensive time in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza meeting with government officials from both sides as well as meeting and interviewing many private Palestinian and Israeli families, peace activists, and human rights organizations.
In 1993 after the historic Oslo peace agreement Melodye co-founded Seeking Common Ground and the program Building Bridges for Peace. The program brings together Palestinian and Israeli young women for a summer intensive in the United States and on going programming when the young women return to their respective communities. Based on a female paradigm of peace building the program is a model for developing young women's leadership programming. To date as the violence escalates in the Middle East the BBFP program continues to thrive with a waiting list of Palestinian and Israeli women wanting to attend the program. SCG is preparing to open an office in Jerusalem to advance women and girls leadership development and peace work.
In 2000 Seeking Common Ground partnered with Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City to create Face to Face / Faith to Faith, an interfaith program that brings together high school students (male and female) from Israel, S. Africa, N. Ireland and the U.S. to address the role that religion plays in waging war and making peace in the world.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy of Education and Human Services from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, and an MSW from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.
Samuel Williams holds a BS from Central State University and a MS from Cornell University, Ithaca New York . He has completed class work and orals in International Management toward his doctorate at University of Texas, Dallas . He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army having served throughout the Far-East and Europe. Colonel Williams has served in the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years and was elected leader of the minority party. He has served on the Breckenridge Town Council and numerous boards and commissions. He has served as operations officer and acting director of The Youthful Offender System, Colorado Department of Corrections. Williams presently serves as Vice President of The Civil Service Commission, City of Denver and is President of 100 Black Men of Denver.