Expert Speakers
Katherine Anderson, Fitness and Wellness
Born and raised in London, England, Katherine has circumnavigated the globe as both a competitive athlete and as a student on-board Semester at Sea. After graduating from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, she went on to receive her certification in Sports Nutrition and presently competes as an Ironman Triathlete. As founder of KCA Wellness, a corporate wellness consultancy, Katherine and her team develop and implement nutrition and fitness-focused wellness programs for fortune 500 companies. Katherine is currently completing her first book, A Non-Chef’s Guide to Office Eating – Awesome Meals Using a Microwave, Butter Knife, and Kitchen Sink. She is looking forward to sharing her passion of food and healthy living through her lecture series, Balanced Lifestyles for Dummies.
Dr. Robert Atkinson, Writing Instructor
An internationally recognized authority in life story, autobiography, and memoir writing, Dr. Atkinson is professor of human development and religious studies, and director of the Life Story Center at the University of Southern Maine. His workshops will focus on the power of story, the value of each life story, finding your voice, writing from your deepest source, and turning the personal into the universal. His books include: Mystic Journey: Getting to the Heart of Your Soul’s Story (2012); his memoir, Remembering 1969: Searching For the Eternal in Changing Times (2008); an autobiography with Babatunde Olatunji, The Beat of My Drum (2005); The Life Story Interview (1998); and, The Gift of Stories (1995).
Julian Bond, Civil Rights
From his college days as a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) through his Chairmanship of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Julian Bond has been an active participant in the movements for civil rights, economic justice, and peace as well as an aggressive spokesman for the disinherited. Bond has been on the cutting edge of social change since he was an undergraduate student leading sit-in demonstrations at Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1960. Time Magazine named Bond as one of America’s top 200 leaders in 1984, he received the Legislative Service Award from the Georgia Municipal Association “In Recognition of Outstanding Service to Cities.” He received the 1985 Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. He received the 1999 James Weldon Johnson Award and a Good Guy Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus in 2000. In 2002, he received the prestigious National Freedom Award and the Eugene V. Debs Award. Bond’s teaching experience includes being a Pappas Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Professor at Drexel University, Harvard University, and Williams College. He is currently a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American University in Washington, D.C., and a Professor Emeritus of the University of Virginia Department of History.
Dr. Alice Christie, Media
Dr. Alice A. Christie earned her Ph.D. from Arizona State University, her M.Ed. from Boston University, and her B.A. from Denison University. With 45 years of experience as an educator, numerous awards for teaching excellence, extensive knowledge of how to use technology in teaching and learning, and an internationally acclaimed Web site, Alice uses her humor, high energy, ability to inspire, and her deep understanding of the learning process to provide workshops for audiences wishing to learn more about Web 2.0 tools and emerging technologies that are increasingly ubiquitous in our digital-age environment. Dr. Christie loves to travel, documenting her travels through her still photography, movies, blogs, social networks, virtual tours, GoogleTreks™, and her website. She is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to share her technology expertise with Enrichment Voyage participants.
Ying Compestine, Author
Award-winning author Ying Compestine is a prolific author, with 18 books to her name. Her keen interest in food has led to her weaving food into all of her writing–cookbooks, novels, and picture books for young readers. She has been featured on numerous national television programs, and is regularly profiled in prestigious news media, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Huffington Post. Her highly acclaimed novel about her life growing up in China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party, and has received over 33 national awards. Ying was the food editor for Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine. She is a regular contributor to Cooking Light, Eating Well, Self, and Men’s Health. Ying was born and raised in China.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in El Paso, Texas, March 26, 1930. She received her B.A. and LL.B. from Stanford University. She served as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952–1953 and as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954–1957. From 1958–1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965–1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in1969 and was subsequently reelected to two two-year terms. In 1975 she was elected Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. President Reagan nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat September 25, 1981. Justice O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006. In 2009 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award from President Obama at the White House. She married John Jay O’Connor III in 1952 and has three sons–Scott, Brian, and Jay.
Dr. Charles Ingrao, History
Since receiving his B.A. at Wesleyan (1969) and Ph.D. at Brown (1974), Charles Ingrao has published a dozen books and over 50 articles in six languages in the fields of German, Habsburg, and Balkan history, and has been a Fulbright Fellow three times. In addition to his permanent position as Professor of History at Purdue University, he has held visiting appointments at Brown University, University of Chicago, and more, as well as abroad at Cambridge and multiple institutions in Cyprus and New Zealand. Ingrao is a regular commentator for print, radio and television media across the USA and Europe, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS). In addition to serving as editor of The Austrian History Yearbook, and general editor of Central European Studies book series, he founded the Internet’s first history discussion group exactly twenty years ago.
Dean Jacobs, Photographer
Since 2001, Dean Jacobs has spent four and half years traversing across the globe exploring over 51 countries on a low budget adventure, propelled by a desire to understand the world. He graduated from Wayne State College, earning a degree in biology, with minors in earth science and art. Eventually, this path led him to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals where he was employed in sales/marketing for 10 years. After a great deal of soul searching, Jacobs left the security of corporate America, and decided to pursue other dreams. This was the beginning of a process that would lead to a travelling adventure that would span 22 ½ months and cover 28 countries. Taking photos became a natural expression of the journey for Jacobs as he documented the common ground of our humanity. Since this beginning Jacobs work has included working for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other adventures have taken him on journeys to explore the Nile in Africa and the Trans-Siberian railway of Asia. These days, when Jacobs is not travelling, he keeps busy as a contributing newspaper columnist, photojournalist, children’s book author and keynote presenter across the country.
Dr. Hugo Kottler, Spanish Instructor
Born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and raised in Southern California, Dr. Hugo Isidro Kottler has had both an academic and a diplomatic career. He holds degrees in Spanish and linguistics from University of California, San Diego and UCLA, and has a doctorate in higher education administration from George Washington University. He served as a professor of Spanish at California State University at Los Angeles until he was appointed as a Foreign Service officer by the U.S. State Department. His overseas assignments included service at U.S. embassies in Japan, Mexico, and Peru as a cultural attaché and educational exchanges officer, and in Washington as a program officer for the Fulbright Program. He currently teaches humanities and philosophy at Strayer University in Virginia, and continues to consult in international education projects. An avid traveler and story-teller, Hugo speaks 6 languages fluently.
Charles Leavell, Biology
Leavell earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biology from California State University at Fullerton. He is an emeritus professor from Fullerton College, where he taught for 32 years. He is an avid bird watcher and photographer. Although he is retired, Leavell has not lost his love of teaching and travel. He has been a naturalist and lecturer on multiple cruises to the Caribbean and Central America as well as to other areas of the world. Through Fullerton College, he offered overseas travel classes to Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands, East Africa, Madagascar, Malaysia/Borneo, and Fiji/New Zealand.
Douglas Mack, Author
Doug Mack is a writer based in Minneapolis and the author of the travel memoir Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day: One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide (Perigee Books/Penguin). His stories tend to focus on fresh, offbeat takes on familiar topics and places, and have appeared in such publications as World Hum, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Onion AV Club, and the Lonely Planet travel writing anthology A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures Around the World. He graduated from Carleton College with a degree in American Studies, and has since turned his attention to the rest of the world.
Rosie McCormick, Publisher
Rosie McCormick has worked in children’s publishing for over twenty-five years. Born and raised in the UK, Rosie began her publishing career in the early 1980s in New York. While studying for a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature at Columbia University, she began working for Oxford University Press. A year later, Rosie responded to a somewhat vague job advertisement in the New York Times only to discover that the company advertising was none other than Marvel Comics. Rosie’s first ever publication (in 1987) was issue No. 12 of the comic book Psi-Force, entitled ‘The Candy Man’. After Marvel, Rosie became an in-house writer at Scholastic, working in their elementary classroom magazines department. In 1991, Rosie returned to the UK to take up a position as a Senior Editor at DK. In 1997, after the birth of her daughter, Anna, Rosie finally left the world of corporate publishing to become a freelance writer and editor. Primarily published in the UK, Rosie has written more than thirty children’s books. She has however just completed six new fiction and non-fiction titles for the forthcoming Core Knowledge (US) Language Arts program. Rosie is looking forward to sharing her experiences in the world of children’s publishing and to talking about writing non-fiction for this market.
Jonathan Murray, Television Producer
Widely credited with inventing the modern reality television genre, Jonathan Murray inspires, influences, and entertains television audiences worldwide. Since the 1992 launch of The Real World (MTV), he has created and executive produced some of the industry’s most innovative, unscripted television programs. Under Murray’s leadership, Bunim/Murray Productions created the first reality game show, Road Rules (MTV), in 1995; the first reality sitcom, The Simple Life (E!), in 2003; and the first reality soap opera, Starting Over, in 2003. Bunim/Murray’s current programming includes The Bad Girls Club, Love Games and Best Ink (Oxygen), Keeping up with the Kardashians, Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami, Kourtney and Kim Take New York and Khloe and Lamar (E!), The Real World and The Challenge (MTV) as well as Project Runway and Project Runway All Stars (Lifetime). Murray has won two Emmy awards, one for Autism: The Musical (HBO), and one for Starting Over (Syndication). He was recently inducted into the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame.
Sarah North, Dance Instructor
Sarah North has studied dance for over 19 years and has taught dance for eight. She has taught many styles, including ballet, tap, and Argentine tango. North earned a degree in Accounting and Economics from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Co. When she was 17, she danced professionally with the Paradise Ballet Theater in Key West, Florida. She has performed many lead roles, including Kitri in Don Quixote, Cinderella in Cinderella, Canary Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, and Prayer in Coppelia. Additionally, she is a ranked a Grade VII dancer in the Cecchetti method. In spring 2012, she choreographed for five separate shows, including a university performance of Beauty and the Beast, which sold out every show. North loves all styles of dance and can’t wait to share this passion with Enrichment Voyages participants.
Erica O’Rourke, Author
Erica O’Rourke’s debut novel, Torn, won the Romance Writers of America’s 2010 Golden Heart Award for Best Young Adult Manuscript and was the launch title for Kensington Books KTeen imprint. The Torn Trilogy also includes Tangled and Bound. The first book in her new series, Dissonance, will be published in Fall 2103 by Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers. Raised on a steady diet of sci-fi and fantasy, she now spends her days making up worlds and words of her own. A lifelong resident of the Chicago area, she currently lives outside the city with her husband and three daughters. On this voyage O’Rourke will speak about writing.
Louis Patler, Social Anthropologist and Futurist
Award-winning author, speaker, and consultant, Louis Patler is President of the B.I.T. Consulting Group, a strategic and organizational development company. Louis brings pioneering technologies for identifying emerging business and consumer trends, organization culture/integration solutions, and strategic initiatives to Fortune 500 companies, multi-national corporations and foreign governments. England’s BBC-TV, SKY-TV and Canada’s CBC-Radio praised him as one of America’s new breed of business thought leaders and J. Walter Thompson Agency named him one of “The 20 Most Creative Minds in America.” Louis has held faculty positions at three universities and lectured at schools such as the University of San Francisco, Stanford University and Mendoza School of Business, Notre Dame.
Jairek Robbins, Results-Oriented Strategy
Jairek Robbins is the foremost authority of developing creative solutions for accelerated results. At 23 years old, Robbins was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal from the U.S. Congress. By 25, he became an international phenom by developing a revolutionary approach to accelerating results for businesses in different industries. Today, the 27-year-old is unlocking secrets to maximizing personal performance and organizational success—and he’s able to help you actualize your business or yourself in the near future. By evaluating strategic objectives, Robbins is able to build a customized roadmap for you to achieve your goals with speed and precision. “My goal is to assist people in the process of rapidly achieving their goals so they are able to live the life of their dreams. My hope is that they will eventually pay-it-forward and help those that they care about the most to do the same.”
Dr. Rocky Rohwedder, Sustainability
Rohwedder earned a baccalaureate degree from the University of California, Irvine, an M.S. in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. He is Department Chair and Professor of Environmental Studies and Planning at Sonoma State University in northern California. Rohwedder is a member of Education Caucus of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the Research Commission of the North American Association for Environmental Education, and the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Environmental Education and Communication. He has been a consultant in the Middle East Peace Process, led the first group of Peace Corps volunteers to work in the former Soviet Union, served as a Visiting Scholar at the George Lucas Education Foundation, and has taught sustainability-oriented courses on three previous SAS voyages.
Dr. Peter Sanchez, Political Science
Peter M. Sanchez is professor of political science at Loyola University Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. and MA in government from the University of Texas at Austin, and his BA in political science from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Dr. Sanchez is the author of Panama Lost? U.S. Hegemony, Democracy, and the Canal (University Press of Florida, 2007). He is also author of articles published in numerous journals such as International Politics, The Latin Americanist, Annals of Tourism Research, and Journal of Developing Areas. Dr. Sanchez was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Panama in 1997-1998. He has also conducted research in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. Prior to teaching at Loyola, he taught at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado. In 2010, he won the highest teaching award at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Sanchez is currently working on a new book, Priest Under Fire: The life and times of Padre David Rodríguez, about a Salvadoran priest who joined the armed insurgency in the 1980s and after the war was elected to the Salvadoran congress.
Susan Singer, Art Instructor
Susan Singer has spent the last fifteen years following her heart to become a full-time artist. In 2003, she earned a Masters of Independent Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University. Singer’s work expresses a decided emphasis on the human form. Singer shows her work locally and nationally and has recently had her writing and artwork published in several national publications, such as Alzheimer Association’s care ADvantage magazine, Ars Medica, and Calyx Journal. On this voyage, Singer will be teaching art workshops focused on visual journaling. Each session will focus on an aspect of creating a visual record of the voyage.
Fran Cannon Slayton, Author
Fran Cannon Slayton graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Psychology and Religious Studies, briefly working on Capitol Hill before going back to earn her J.D. from UVA’s law school. After five years as a child sexual abuse prosecutor and several years as a legal publisher, Slayton found her true calling as a children’s book author. Her debut novel, When the Whistle Blows, is a coming of age story described by Kirkus Reviews as “an unassuming masterpiece.” When the Whistle Blows was named a CBC Notable Social Studies Book, one of the best kids’ books of 2009 by Scholastic’s Instructor Magazine, and was the only book chosen to represent two states (Virginia and West Virginia) at the 2010 National Book Festival in Washington D.C.. When the Whistle Blows was also nominated for children’s book awards in Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, and Alabama. Slayton is currently working on a middle grade fantasy novel, several non-fiction educational books, and is looking forward to sharing her theory of writing “life stories on a string” as part of her lecture series on the Enrichment Voyage.
Bhante Sujatha, Meditation
Bhante (Venerable Sir) Sujatha was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka. As a child he knew he wanted to become a Buddhist monk, but as their only son, his parents did not want to see him leave home at a young age. His persistence never waned, and at age 11, his parents gave their permission for him to enter the monastery. In school he studied the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. Theravada is regarded as the teaching lineage closest to the original writings of Buddhism and was brought to Sri Lanka around 250 BCE. After his higher ordination at the age of 20, he taught in Sri Lanka, Australia, Canada, and Michigan before making his home in Illinois. He is the founder and director of the Blue Lotus Temple in Woodstock, IL, and in 2012 Blue Lotus celebrated its 10th anniversary. Sujatha’s hope is to blend traditional Buddhist teachings with American culture to bring peace and balance into our fast-paced and sometimes stressful lives. He teaches Loving-Kindness, Mindfulness, and Insight Meditation, and stresses their applications in our everyday lives. Bhante is a kind, wise, and gentle teacher whose open and easygoing style makes meditation accessible and understandable for all levels of interest and experience.
Jim Todd, Law and Politics
James S. (Jim) Todd received a B.A. from Gettysburg College in 1965 and J.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Georgia in 1969 and 1971, respectively. He practiced law for ten years in Washington, DC, from 1971 to 1981, the last seven years with the Interstate Commerce Commission. From 1982 to 1985 he pursued doctoral studies in government at the University of Virginia and received his Ph.D. in 1993. He taught courses in American government, constitutional law and history, and international law for a year at Tulane and 21 years at the University of Arizona, where he won many teaching and mentoring awards. He retired in December 2007 and moved back to Charlottesville where he teaches occasional seminars for the UVA Department of Politics and courses in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UVA. He will lecture on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s career, the role of the United States Supreme Court in American government, and the nature of the judicial process.