Volume 7, Issue 1, Fall/Winter 2008

Authors

Edward B. Arroyo, SJ

Edward B. Arroyo, SJ, directs the newly-established Jesuit Social Research Institute (JSRI) in the College of Social Sciences at Loyola University New Orleans. He has special interests in social justice, sociology of religion, and issues of migration, poverty and racism. In the past, he has served as associate academic dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, senior fellow at Georgetown's Woodstock Theological Center, editor of Blueprint for Social Justice, provincial superior of the New Orleans Jesuits, and professor of sociology at Loyola University New Orleans. His PhD in sociology is from Duke University.

Michael Clyburn

Michael Clyburn is a 2009 JD candidate at Seattle University School of Law where he serves as the student content development editor for the Seattle Journal for Social Justice and as a student fellow of the Center on Corporations, Law, and Society. He received his BA magna cum laude in human services from Western Washington University in 2005. Prior to entering law school, Mr. Clyburn raised a family and worked for thirty years as a printer. After law school, he plans to use his writing skills to work for the common good.

Michael A. Cowan

Michael A. Cowan, a psychologist and theologian, is professor and assistant to the president, Loyola University New Orleans. He is the chair of the Human Relations Commission of the City of New Orleans; cofounder of the Jeremiah Group (the New Orleans I.A.F. affiliate), Shades of Praise, and the New Orleans Crime Coalition; former executive director of the Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy; and founding executive director of Common Good, a post-Katrina network of civil society organizations seeking actionable consensus on the rebuilding of New Orleans.

Davida Finger

A 2002 graduate of Seattle University Law School, Davida Finger focuses on public interest litigation, policy work, and community advocacy. A native of New Orleans, Davida works as a staff attorney with the Katrina Clinic at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law where she handles a variety of post-disaster human rights and government accountability issues. She is a 2008-09 Wasserstein fellow at Harvard Law School and an Effective Leadership fellow at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. In addition, she was the founding editor in chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

Barbara Fleischer

Barbara Fleischer is an associate professor of pastoral studies and psychology at the Institute for Ministry of Loyola University New Orleans. She also served as director of the Institute from 1995 until 2002. She earned her doctorate in psychology from St. Louis University, and she holds two master's degrees, one in psychology and another in pastoral studies. Her publications include Ministers of the Future, a research monograph on lay ministry students funded by the Lilly Endowment, and Facilitating for Growth: A Guide for Scripture Study Groups and Small Christian Communities. She also has published articles in the areas of adult religious education, practical theology, and social psychology. At the Institute, she teaches courses in practical theology, pastoral leadership, small Christian community formation, marketplace ministry, and pastoral strategies.

Mark S. Markuly

Mark S. Markuly is dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. He earned a PhD in education from St. Louis University and an MA in systematic theology from Aquinas Institute of Theology. He also has a BA in journalism from the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Prior to joining Seattle University, Dean Markuly was associate professor of religion and education and director of the Loyola Institute for Ministry (LIM) of Loyola University New Orleans.

In addition to his teaching and administrative work, Dean Markuly has published pieces on issues that reach across the religious/secular divide in society, such as the spiritual dimension of student athletics, the tensions existing between Christianity and business leadership in a capitalist-oriented economy, and the cultural dynamics of professionalism that impinge on efforts to professionalize lay ministry. His course text for Loyola University, entitled Faith and Culture, focuses on the dialogue between theology and the social sciences, particularly sociology, anthropology, and economics.

Hazel S. Parker

Hazel S. Parker is a reading specialist consultant and doctoral student in the Department of Education at the University of North Carolina (Charlotte). She served as founding coordinator of the Louisiana Adult Literacy Network and principal researcher for the diversity and inclusion project conducted by the Human Relations Commission of the City of New Orleans in 2007.

Jane Parker

Jane Parker, MPH, LCSW, DCSW, is the director of the Institute for Psychosocial Health at Tulane School of Social Work in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the founder and coordinator of the certificate program in disaster mental health at Tulane. Professor Parker teaches graduate level courses for the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the School of Social Work in psychosocial aspects of disaster, comparative treatments of anxiety and depression, and crisis interventions. She is the recipient of numerous professional and civil awards, including the Hy Weiner Leadership Award from the National Society for Social Work Leadership in Healthcare and an HCA Excellence in Community Service Award. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi and an appointed commissioner for the New Orleans Human Relations Commission.

Maria Fernanda Parra-Chico

Fernanda Parra is a 2009 JD candidate at the Seattle University School of Law. She is interested in immigration and international human rights law. Before entering law school, Ms. Parra worked abroad, mainly in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the townships of Capetown, serving as a representative and voice for the disenfranchised. She has worked professionally in the immigration realm as a legal intern and volunteer, focusing her experience in detention and removal and VAWA cases. As a cofounding member of the Society for Immigrant and Refugee Justice (SIRJ), she has campaigned for equal justice for immigrant communities by establishing a partnership with OneAmerica (formerly known as Hate Free Zone) to create a collaborative organization that assists the immigrant community. She was honored by OneAmerica for outstanding leadership in advancing civil and immigrants' rights. She serves as the president of Seattle University's Latina/o Law Student Association and recently served as regional director for the National Latina/o Law Student Association. Fernanda is a staff member of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

Amy Pritchard

Amy Pritchard is a 2009 JD candidate at the Seattle University School of Law, where she serves as an Executive Editor for the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. Ms. Pritchard received her BA in comparative history of ideas from the University of Washington and worked in community health prior to pursuing a law degree. While at Seattle University, she has served as president of the Public Interest Law Foundation and as an executive board member of the Human Rights Network. Her experiences as a Laurel Rubin Farm Worker Justice intern prompted her interest in the social justice issues of migrant labor. She plans to focus her career on public interest work.

Thomas F. Ryan

Thomas F. Ryan grew up in New Orleans and returned regularly to visit before and after Hurricane Katrina. In August 2007, he returned permanently to become director of the Loyola Institute for Ministry and professor of theology and ministry at Loyola University New Orleans. Prior to that, he taught for ten years at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, FL. Many years before that, he lived and worked at the Catholic Worker community in New York City. He is author of Thomas Aquinas As Reader of the Psalms (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2000) and is at work on a series of translations of medieval biblical commentaries. His research interests more generally include the liberative possibilities of the history of biblical interpretation, the history of spirituality, and religion and popular culture.

Donald F. Tibbs

Donald F. Tibbs is an associate professor of law at the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he teaches criminal law and criminal procedure. Dr. Tibbs holds a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD from the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University. He was a J. Willard Hurst fellow in legal history and a William H. Hastie fellow in law teaching at the University of Wisconsin where he earned his LLM. His research focuses on the legal history of the civil rights/black power eras, race and punishment, and critical race theory. He is the author of the forthcoming book From Black Power to Prison Power, which critically investigates the intersection of prisoners' rights law during the black power era.

Kevin Wm. Wildes, SJ

Kevin Wm. Wildes, SJ, is the sixteenth president of Loyola University New Orleans. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1976 after graduating from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He holds advanced degrees in theology and philosophy. He received his PhD from Rice University in 1993, and his professional work is in the field of bioethics.

Reverend Wildes serves as associate editor to and on the editorial board of a number of ethics and medicine journals and book series, and he is a founding editor of the Journal of Christian Bioethics. Prior to joining Loyola University, Reverend Wildes was a member of the Department of Philosophy and a senior research scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, where he also held a secondary appointment in the Department of Medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is currently a member of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola and teaches undergraduate students each year.

Reverend Wildes has delivered a number of invited lectures and papers and has written widely on bioethics and public policy. He authored Moral Acquaintances: Methodology in Bioethics (Univ. of Notre Dame Press 2000), and has edited four books. He continues to write, lecture, and teach on issues in bioethics.

Tryon P. Woods

Dr. Woods earned his BA from Wesleyan University, his MS from Arizona State University, and his PhD from University of California, Irvine. He currently teaches criminology at Sonoma State University in northern California. He has worked with community organizations in New York City, Seattle, and Oakland on HIV/AIDS prevention, peer education, supportive housing for drug users, and police accountability. His teaching and scholarship deal with the changing forms of social death and policing of blackness across the African diaspora.