Tabbye M. Chavous is a professor of education and psychology at the University of Michigan (U-M) and Vice Provost for Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer. Dr. Chavous’ research examines identity and motivation processes among Black secondary and postsecondary students, and impacts of diversity climates in secondary and higher education settings. This work includes a focus on contextual- and individual-level factors influencing STEMM identity development among racially minoritized students and implications for academic persistence. Dr. Chavous’ scholarship has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Spencer Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Chavous also served as co-director of the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context, supporting research and training of students, postdocs, and early career scholars around the positive development of diverse Black youth and families. Dr. Chavous has held leadership roles at department, college, and central administration levels over her 25 years at U-M. Currently as Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer, she leads the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), working on policies and initiatives for faculty, students, and staff in collaboration with campus units, and local community and national partners. She works directly with the Provost in academic affairs, including faculty recruitment and retention, tenure and promotion, and faculty development. As Chief Diversity Officer, she serves as a Presidential adviser on DEI issues, including oversight and implementation of U-M’s DEI Strategic Plan.
Karla Goldman is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work and Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan where she also directs the Jewish Communal Leadership Program. Her research focuses on the American Jewish experience with special attention to the history of varied Jewish communities and the evolving roles and identities of American Jewish women. She serves or has served on the boards of the Jewish Women’s Archives; the Association for Jewish Studies; Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor; Adamah Detroit; and Keshet. She is Vice Chair of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society. She previously taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and served as historian in residence at the Jewish Women’s Archive in Boston. She is the author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (Harvard University Press, 2000).
Mostafa Hussein is an assistant professor of Jewish-Muslim studies in Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. His scholarship offers fresh perspectives on Jewish-Muslim intersectionalities, shedding light on the complex cultural and historical interconnections between these communities. Dr. Hussein’s forthcoming book titled Islam and Jewish Culture in Palestine, 1881-1948 (Princeton University Press, 2025) provides a fresh perspective on how Arabo-Islamic civilization influenced Jewish thought in Palestine from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries in the recuperation of Jewish indigeneity in the Middle East. He also examines various perceptions of Jews in the Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and the evolution of Jewish imageries from the late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries. Dr. Hussein has recently published a new book titled: Remembering Jews in Maghrebi and Middle Eastern Media (Penn State University Press, September 2024). Remembering Jews places loss as a new conceptual approach to the study of Jewish-Muslim memories. It draws on the remarkable literary and cinematographic output of the last twenty years to examine how literature and film address the loss of hundreds of thousands of local Jews in the Maghreb and the Middle East. At the University of Michigan, Dr. Hussein teaches a variety of courses that explore the intersections between Jews and Muslims, with a focus on shared spaces, scriptures, and histories. His courses delve into the complex and intertwined relationships between these communities, examining their cultural, religious, and historical connections.
Matthew Kaplan has been Executive Director of U-M’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) since 2015, and he has been at U-M since 1994. The nation’s first teaching center, CRLT partners with faculty, GSIs, and academic leaders to advance a university culture that values and rewards teaching and creates learning environments in which diverse students and instructors can excel. Under Dr. Kaplan’s leadership, the center has established a reputation on campus and nationally for programming that enables instructors to create inclusive classrooms that can address difficult topics effectively. Recent examples include dissemination of web guidelines for discussing difficult or high-stakes topics, workshops on handling hot moments, and roundtables for chairs and associate deans on balancing free speech and academic freedom. He also works closely with the director of the CRLT Players Theatre Program on using theatre to advance equity in teaching and institutional climate. Dr. Kaplan was co-PI for a Ford Foundation grant on Difficult Dialogues, and his publications include “Advancing Diversity and Inclusion through Strategic Multilevel Leadership” (Liberal Education, 2017), and an edited volume on Advancing a Culture of Teaching on Campus: How a Teaching Center Can Make a Difference (Stylus Publishing, 2011)
Tim Lynch is the University of Michigan’s Vice President and General Counsel. He joined the University after serving in a variety of legal roles in the public and private sector, including at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he served as Deputy General Counsel for Litigation and Enforcement and Acting General Counsel, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, where he specialized in fraud and public corruption cases. Tim teaches at the University of Michigan Law School; and he served as a lecturer at the University of Virginia Law School and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center before coming to Michigan. Tim began his career as a law clerk to Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He received his law degree from Georgetown, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Journal, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester. In 2024, Tim served as chair of the Advisory Committee on the University of Michigan Principles on Diversity of Thought and Freedom of Expression. Tim is the chair elect of the National Association of College and University Attorneys board of directors and chair elect of the general counsel steering group of the Association of American Universities. He is also a member of the board of directors for the University Musical Society.
Terrence J. (Terry) McDonald joined the Michigan Department of History after completing his doctorate at Stanford University. He is a prize-winning historian of the American city, has been a Guggenheim fellow and a fellow of the Michigan Humanities Institute, and has received almost every undergraduate teaching award conferred by the University. From 2002-2013 he served as Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the University’s largest college for undergraduate and graduate students, and from 2013 to 2022 he was Director of the University’s Bentley Historical Library which contains the archives of the University and important archives of the people and organizations of the state of Michigan.
Steven Ratner is the Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School and the Director of the University's Donia Human Rights Center. He teaches and writes in the field of public international law on issues of war and peace, human rights, the United Nations, foreign investment, ethnic conflict and border disputes, and business and human rights. His theoretical interests include the intersection of international law and political philosophy, as well as the role of international law in political settings. He founded and directs the law school’s Geneva externship program for law students. Outside his teaching and scholarship, he has served as a member of three expert panels on accountability for human rights abuses set up by the United Nations Secretary-General and Human Rights Council – for Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia. He has also worked for the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in The Hague. As the faculty director of the Donia Center, he has introduced an undergraduate fellows program, expanded the summer externship program, and overseen the Center’s administration of the Raoul Wallenberg Medal, lecture, and endowment.
Mark Tessler is Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor of Politics at the University of Michigan, where he also served for nine years as Vice-Provost for International Affairs. He attended university and/or has conducted field research in Tunisia, Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), and Qatar. Professor Tessler is co-founder and co-director of the Arab Barometer, which he co-founded in 2006 and which, since that time, has carried out scores of political attitude surveys in MENA countries. He has also written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His 1,000-page book, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, has won national awards. Among his fifteen other books are Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinians: From Camp Davidto Intifada, Religious Minorities in Non-Secular Middle Eastern and North AfricanStates, Public Opinion in the Middle East: Survey Research and the Political Orientationsof Ordinary Citizens, Islam and Politics in the Middle East: Explaining the Views of Ordinary Citizens, and Social Science Research in the Arab World and Beyond: A Guidefor Students, Instructors and Researchers. The latter book has been translated into Arabic, and both the original and the Arabic translation are open access and may be downloaded without charge.
Jeffrey Veidlinger is Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. His latest book, In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award, a Vine Book Award, and was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Wingate Literary Prize. He is also author of the award-winning books The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (2000), Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire (2009), and In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine (2013). Professor Veidlinger is Vice-President of the American Academy for Jewish Research, former chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History, a former Vice-President of the Association for Jewish Studies, and a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Globe and Mail, Times Literary Supplement, Smithsonian Magazine, Tablet Magazine, and The Forward. He was Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies from 2015-2021 and Director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University from 2009-2013.
Geneviève Zubrzycki is the William H. Sewell Jr. Collegiate Professor of Sociology and the Weiser Family Professor of European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan, where she directs the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia and the Copernicus Center for Polish Studies. A historical and cultural sociologist, her research focuses on nationalism and religion; collective memory and national mythology; anti/philo-Semitism; and cultural politics in Eastern Europe and North America. Her publications include the award-winning books The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland (Chicago 2006); Beheading the Saint: Nationalism, Religion and Secularism in Quebec (Chicago 2016); and Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival (Princeton 2022). Zubrzycki serves on the Boards of Directors of The Reckoning Project, an international NGO investigating war crimes committed against civilian populations in Ukraine; the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America; and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (Canada). A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, she has held visiting professorships at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the University of Regensburg.