Stephen Wessler is the former executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, based in Portland, Maine. Before it closed, the center offered anti-bullying workshops in schools across the nation. Wessler is now training and consulting on a variety of civil rights and human rights issues both in Maine, elsewhere in the US and in Europe.

Finn Laursen is executive director of Christian Educators Association International, which endorsed the Common Ground guidelines.

Eliza Byard is executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which endorsed the Common Ground guidelines. The network, based in New York City, has registered more than 3,000 Gay-Straight Alliance student clubs in schools nationwide; coordinates an annual No Name-Calling Week and organizes the national Day of Silence.

Gene R. Carter is executive director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which endorsed the Common Ground guidelines.

Daniel A. Domenech is executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, which endorsed the Common Ground guidelines.

Wayne Jacobsen is founder and president of BridgeBuilders, based in Moorpark, Calif. He co-drafted the Common Ground guidelines. Read Jacobsen’s June 2006 report about the process of creating an anti-harassment policy in Marshalltown, Iowa, public schools.

Robert Wexler is president of the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism and the Brandeis-Bardin Institute) in Los Angeles. Under his presidency, AJU has grown to 10,000 students.

Sharon Feiman-Nemser is a professor of Jewish education at Brandeis University and director of the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. She says Jews need to find ways to help unaffiliated and disaffected Jews discover meaning in the faith. A major challenge, she says, will be to ascertain ways to make this ancient faith […]

Sylvia Barack Fishman is a professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which focuses on women in contemporary Judaism. She is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Life and American Culture (SUNY Series in American Jewish Society in the 1990s) and The Way Into the Varieties […]