Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator. Born in 1939 in Chicago, she moved to Los Angeles in 1957 to attend UCLA art school, where she was graduated in 1962. In 1964, she received her MA from UCLA in painting and sculpture. In 1971 Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro jointly founded the CalArts Feminist Art Program for the California Institute of the Arts. Together they organized one of the first-ever feminist art exhibitions Womanhouse. In 1973, Chicago co-founded the Feminist Studio Workshop, a seminal feminist art teaching and exhibition space.

Currently, Chicago is married to photographer Donald Woodman and serves as the Artistic Director of Through the Flower, a non-profit arts organization created in 1978 to support her work. A biography, Becoming Judy Chicago; A Biography of the Artist, by Dr. Gail Levin, was released in February, 2007. Judy Chicago is an advisory board member of the organization Feminists For Animal Rights.

Ofra Backenroth

Ofra Arieli Backenroth is the associate dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The JewishTheological Seminary and an adjunct assistant professor of Jewish Education. Dr. Backenroth has taught Hebrew Literature and Modern Dance in numerous schools in New York City and in Israel. Dr. Backenroth earned an MFA in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in Comparative Literature and an education diploma from Tel Aviv University.

Dr. Backenroth received an Ed.D in Jewish Education in 2004 from The Davidson School with her dissertation The Blossom School: A Portrait of an Arts-Based Jewish Day School. Dr. Backenroth was also an assistant professor of Jewish Studies at Gratz College in Philadelphia and a guest professor in the Revivim program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Eric Cline

Dr. Eric H. Cline, a former Fulbright scholar, is an award-winning author, teacher, and advisor with degrees in Classical Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, and Ancient History from Dartmouth College (1982), Yale University (1984), and the University of Pennsylvania (1991) respectively. Prior to his arrival at The George Washington University in September 2000, Dr. Cline taught at Stanford, Xavier, the University of Cincinnati, and CSU Fresno. Nominated several times for teaching awards, he received the “Morton Bender Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” at The George Washington University in 2004 and the Archaeological Institute of America’s National “Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” Award for 2005. He currently teaches a wide variety of courses, including History of Ancient Greece, History of Rome, History of Egypt and the Ancient Near East, History of Ancient Israel,  & Introduction to Archaeology, among others.

Dr. Cline’s primary fields of study are the military history of the Mediterranean world from antiquity to present and the international connections between Greece, Egypt, and the Near East during the Late Bronze Age (1700-1100 BCE). He is an experienced field archaeologist, with 27 seasons of excavation and survey to his credit since 1980. He has worked in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including seven seasons at the site of Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel, where he is currently the Associate Director (USA). He is also Co-Director of the new series of archaeological excavations at the site of Tel Kabri, also located in Israel. Dr. Cline is also a prolific author with ten books and nearly 100 articles to his credit.

Philip Yenawine

Philip Yenawine was Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art from 1983 to 1993. In 1993, he began as consulting curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and during the academic year from 1993 to 1994, he was Visiting Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art.

Yenawine is the author of an introduction to modern art called How to Look at Modern Art, and has published six children's books about art: Stories, Colors, Lines, Shapes, People and Places. In addition, he has published Key Art Terms for Beginners. He is currently working on a book based on the work of Abigail Housen, a series of biographies for young people, materials for teachers to use in their classrooms as well as consulting on a variety of projects in the United States and abroad.

Minette Cooper

Minette Cooper has been President of Young Audiences–Arts 4 Learning. VA (3 times), the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads, Virginia Symphony, Ohef Sholom Temple, and chair for the first ten years of the Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities, on which she served as a Commissioner for 24 years.  From 1973 to 1988, Minette was also Program Director for Young Audiences of Virginia, an organization which provides quality arts education in the form of musicians, dancers, actors, mimes, storytellers, and visual artists to the schools of Virginia.  She also serves as a National Board Member for Young Audiences, Inc.  Strongly committed to arts administration and advocacy, Minette has served as Vice President for Virginians for the Arts, a state-wide advocacy agency.  She currently serves as a Board Member of Ohef Sholom Temple, the Institute for Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Mississippi, the Future of Hampton Roads and has been a Trustee of the Chrysler Museum of Art.  She also serves on the JAE Advisory Board.

Equally involved in education, she is a former Board Member of the Upward Bound Program at Norfolk State University, a former Director of the YWCA of South Hampton Roads, a former Director and Officer of the Jewish Community Center of Tidewater, and a current Trustee of Virginia Wesleyan College where she served as one of the leaders in the successful “Consider the Harvest” $25,000,000 fundraising campaign.  She was active on the Steering Committee which created the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Minette Cooper is also a singer in the Virginia Symphony Chorus.

David Burton

Dr. Burton has taught at VCU for 25 years. He received his Ph.D. in Art Education from the Pennsylvania State University. He has been honored as an NAEA Fellow (2005), NAEA Higher Education Art Educator of the Year (2001), NAEA Southeastern Art Educator of the Year (1999), VAEA Virginia Art Educator of the Year (2001), VCU School of the Arts Distinguished Achievement in Teaching (2002), and VCU School of the Arts Distinguished Achievement in Service (1997).

He is active in professional art education organizations at the national and state levels. Dr. Burton has published numerous articles on demographics related to art education, secondary analysis of national (NAEP) research in art education, and student art exhibitions, in such publications as Art Education, Studies in Art Education, and Visual Arts Research. His book entitled Exhibiting Student Art was published in 2006 by Teachers College Press.

Sheri Klein

Sheri Klein, Ph.D. is a Professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout with over 20 years experience in higher education. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in art, art education and education. She has published in national and international education, curriculum and art education journals, and is the author of Art and Laughter (2007) by IB Tauris Press.

In addition to writing, Dr. Klein creates visual narratives about her experiences as an artist and educator.  Her work has been recognized for her teaching, research and service with numerous state and national awards. Her degrees include a doctor of philosophy in curriculum and instruction in art education from Indiana University, Bloomington and a BFA and MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Rabbi Dr. Lawrence Arthur Forman

Rabbi Forman was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and received his B.A. from the University of Washington.  He was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and received a Masters of Arts in Hebrew Letters from the Seminary.  Rabbi Forman served as Post Jewish Chaplain in the U.S. Army, where he attained the rank of Captain. Rabbi Forman became an associate Rabbi at the Abba Hillel Silver Temple in Cleveland, Ohio and earned another Master of Arts in Religion and Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University. In 1970, the Rabbi was called to Ohef Sholom Temple in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1987, he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

In May, 1993, Rabbi Forman received his earned Doctoral degree from Boston University's School of Theology. The Rabbi has received numerous awards and honors, including the Brotherhood Citation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Lion of Judah Award from the National Israel Bonds Association. Additionally, Rabbi Forman served Ohef Sholom Temple with distinction for 30 years as Senior Rabbi.

After retiring, he founded the Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding at Old Dominion University.  He is currently writing a book based on his Doctoral Dissertation, which seeks to find a place in Jewish life for the non-Jew who marries into Judaism.