Shakeel Syed is the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. In 2006, the council organized a meeting between hajj tour directors and imams leading the pilgrimage and U.S. Customs and TSA officials at Los Angeles International Airport. The council repeated the meeting in 2007 and 2012 as a town hall event open to […]

A national director of Teen-Aid, a nonprofit organization started in 1981 to try to reduce teen pregnancies. The group, based in Spokane, Wash., believes the best method is abstinence education. Its Web site lists laws and statistics pertaining to sexuality, education and government funding for all 50 states.

Stephanie Ventura heads the reproductive statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics.

The University of Pennsylvania professor who led the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine study. He says it’s now possible to assert that abstinence-only education can be effective, although the journal published an editorial with the study cautioning that public policy should not be based on the results of a single study alone. In a […]

The Right Reverend George E. Packard is the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies for the Episcopal Church. He is in charge of all Episcopal chaplains attached to the armed services. He describes the rosaries, prayer beads and medals soldiers carry into battle as “companion object[s] which God uses to heighten moments of insight, prayer, and sometimes deep sorrow.”

Phil and Elise Okrend are co-founders of MixedBlessing, a company in Raleigh, N.C., that produces interfaith cards, music and other holiday items. The Okrends, both Jewish, also are co-authors of the children’s book Blintzes for Blitzen (MixedBlessing, 1996).

Cheryl Kirk-Duggan is a professor of theology and women’s studies at the Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, N.C. She can discuss the current celebration of Kwanzaa in black communities and congregations in the South.

Akinyele Umoja is a professor of African-American studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He attributes the popularity of Kwanzaa to its nonreligious nature.

Ama Mazama is a professor in the African-American studies department at Temple University in Philadelphia. She wrote a book about Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa ou la Célébration du Génie Africain, that was published in France in 2006.