Summer Leadership Conference

Robert Putnam

is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. Professor Putnam is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy, and past president of the American Political Science Association. In 2006, Putnam received the Skytte Prize, the world's highest accolade for a political scientist, and in 2012, he received the National Humanities Medal, the nation’s highest honor for contributions to the humanities.  Raised in a small town in the Midwest and educated at Swarthmore, Oxford, and Yale, he has served as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. The London Sunday Times has called him “the most influential academic in the world today.” He consults widely with national leaders, including the last three American presidents, the last three British prime ministers, and the last French president.  He has written fourteen books, translated into twenty languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and more recently Better Together: Restoring the American Community, a study of promising new forms of social connectedness. Since 2010, he has been focused on one major empirical project: Inequality and opportunity: the growing class gap among American young people and the implications for social mobility. His book on this subject, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis was published in March 2015.  

Katherine Merseth, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, creates a culture of reciprocity in her classroom, where students and instructors alike are expected to both teach and learn. “The two words are often interchanged because they are inextricably linked — learners need teachers, and teachers need learners,” Merseth says. In her popular undergraduate course, Dilemmas of Equity and Excellence in American K-12 Education, Merseth encourages students to lead the discussion, promoting new perspective and understanding. “When I teach, I get back more than I put out, because I acknowledge this relationship between teachers and learners. I teach, basically, because I love to learn.” Merseth also works with the Harvard Teacher Fellows, a program created in response to the growing interest in education among Harvard undergraduates and designed to respond to the need for more well-prepared teachers by drawing Harvard undergraduates into the teaching profession. The program prepares teachers in three distinct ways: train students to teach specific subjects, prepare students to be competent teachers through field-based training from their first day on the job, and provide continued resources and supports necessary to enable students to remain in teaching. Merseth has served as a curriculum developer, teacher, and administrator in K-12 schools.

Steve Dembo

is a former kindergarten teacher and school Director of Technology.  Currently serving as Discovery Education’s Director of Social Media Strategy and Online Community, Dembo was among the first educators to realize the power of blogging, podcasting, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 technologies in connecting educators and creating professional learning communities.  Dembo is the co-author of the book Untangling the Web: 20 Tools to Power Up Your Teaching. The National School Board Association named him one of 2010's "Twenty to Watch," a list honoring individuals finding innovative ways to use technology to increase classroom learning.  During Dembo’s presentation, we'll explore the risks, benefits, and transformations that can occur when a school embraces risk and is willing to step up and be first.  Schools seem to be terrified of being the first ones to adopt new ideas in technology. Somewhere between kindergarten and our last faculty meeting, the role of line leader seems to have gone from the best job on the board to a position that's just a little terrifying.

is a highly experienced National public speaker and the author of See Poverty, Be The Difference, a resource book for professionals who work with people in poverty. Donna has worked and written articles providing insights and strategies for communicating more effectively across race, class, gender and generational barriers. Donna is the only member of her family who has not been incarcerated. After growing up in generational migrant labor poverty, leaving school for marriage at 15, having two children and continuing to cope with poverty, she found herself, at 25, with no husband, little education, and no job skills. What followed in 10 short years were: self-confidence, a G.E.D., an A.A. in Journalism, a B.A. (with honors) in Communications, a Master’s Degree in Communication with a minor in Gender Studies (with honors), and completion of a Doctorate Degree. Donna completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Portland State University in 2000, where she taught speech communication courses for eight years. She is currently president of Communication Across Barriers, a consulting firm devoted to improving communication and relationships. Donna is also founder of the new nonprofit, Poverty Bridge which is dedicated to changing lives for people in poverty

Eric Rowles is a nationally recognized trainer, speaker, and consultant whom has worked with over 150,000 youth, adults, administrators, professionals, and policy makers within the past 15 years. His presentations are legendary - by combining the energy and innovation of a master trainer, while at the same time reaching each of us through his stories, research, and on-the-ground strategies. Eric runs a customized consulting and facilitation practice that, through a network of over 20 dynamic and diversely talented trainers, works with for profit and non-profit organizations to achieve progressive and dynamic change. Through his double bachelors and Master of Science degrees in Ethnic Studies and Educational Leadership, he has served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte as well as Rutgers University (NJ) and has over a decade of innovative and cutting edge classroom instruction and facilitation experience. Get ready to laugh, play, think, work, challenge, and MOVE! This is NOT your ordinary training, and NOT your ordinary speaker. Get ready for the EXTRAORDINARY.... LEADING TO CHANGE!

Jason Corosanite is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of String Theory Schools.  He holds an Educational Leadership Degree from Central Michigan University and has been honored as an Apple Distinguished Educator.  Dr. Corosanite speaks nationally on integrating technology and is the creator of String Theory Schools’ Particle Accelerator, a venture activator designed to meld physical and digital infrastructure with a network of entrepreneurial initiatives that seek to change education through invention, entrepreneurship, and storytelling.