Scott Bezsylko, M.A., is the Executive Director of the Winston Preparatory Schools and The Winston Institute. He supervises the leadership teams at the New York and Connecticut schools both educationally and organizationally ensuring the delivery of 'education for the individual' -a model for socially and emotionally informed middle and high school learning disabled students. Scott is also a member of the Board of Trustees, the Board's finance committee, and is currently leading the development of a research and outreach branch of the schools called "The Winston Institute". He received a BA in Finance and Economics at LaSalle University, studied Secondary Education at The Pennsylvania State University, and received a MA in Learning Disabilities at Teachers College Columbia University. Mr. Bezsylko is also a Co- Director of the Nonverbal /Social and Emotional Disorders Research Project, author of related research articles on NVLD and Social Emotional Learning, former adjunct faculty member at the Teachers College Columbia University Child Study Center, former Director of Education at The Janus School in Lancaster, PA, has been a faculty member at Center for Social Emotional Education Summer Institute, and is a member of the NYU Child Study Center Advisory Board. Mr. Bezsylko is a frequent featured speaker on a variety of topics related to the education of learning disabled students.

Philip M. Brown, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Social and Character Development Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. His most recent publication is a chapter on evaluation in “Effective Character Education: A Guidebook for Future Educators”. His accomplishments during his career directing programs in the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the New Jersey Department of Education included the creation of the first educational credential in substance abuse prevention and directing the largest state project in the country supporting the development of character education. He established of the Center for Social and Character Development at Rutgers University through two consecutive federal grants under the NCLB Partnerships in Character Education program, conducting process and outcome research in schools throughout New Jersey on the development of social and character development programs.

Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D. is the Director, Summer Institute, co-founder and President, CSEE; Adjunct Professor, Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University; Adjunct Professor in Education, School of Professional Studies, City University of New York; and co-author and editor of many papers and books including Making your School Safe: Strategies to Protect Children and Promote Learning (2007).

Bill Eyman is a member of CSEE’s consultation staff. He re¬cently retired from the Rhode Island Department of Education after a forty-four year career in public education and children’s mental health. Bill has been a classroom teacher, alternative school director, co-founder and coordinator of a community-based children’s mental health program and educational consultant and trainer. He is a co-author of the Breaking the Bully-Victim-Passive Bystander Cycle: Creating a climate for learning and responsibility.

Darlene Faster is the Communications Director and Chief Operating Officer at CSEE. She holds an M.A. in English and American Literature from CUNY, Queens College, and a B.A. in English from Hofstra Uni¬versity and is pursuing a doctoral degree in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, focusing on Education Policy. Her research and policy interests include understanding and improving the social and emotional development of students with learning disabilities as well as implementing successful transitional supports for students from high school to postsecondary life. Darlene has done preliminary research in urban schools in Chicago and New York, and worked with the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) before joining the CSEE.

Ann Higgins-D’Alessandro, Ph.D. is a professor and the Director of the Applied Developmental Program at Fordham University. She is the author (with Clark Power and Lawrence Kohlberg) of Lawrence Kohlberg’s Approach to Moral Education (1989), editor (with Katherine Jankowsky) of Science for Society: Informing Policy and Practice Through Research in Developmental Psychology (2002), and consultant/co-author of the US Department of Education’s publication Mobilizing for Evidence-Based Character Education (2007). She is also CSEE’s senior research advisor.

Kim McLaughlin, MS Ed, M Ed, C.A.S. is the Executive Director of the New York State Student Support Services Center. Kim is a school administrator, educator, capacity builder and learner who has worked with K-12 school communities and as higher education faculty to develop, enhance and sustain healthy, safe and supportive schools and classrooms through the meaningful involvement of key stakeholders. She is the lead for the NYS Supportive Learning Environment Leadership Initiative, NYS Health Education Leadership Institute and the NYS Olweus Bullying Prevention Program Initiative.

Kevin Jennings (Keynote Speaker) is an assistant deputy secretary and director of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the US Department of Education. Jennings founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 1990 and directed it until 2008. He is a former high school history teacher. He is the author of many books, most recently including Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, which was named a Book of Honor by the American Library Association.

William Preble is Professor of Education at New England College in Henniker, NH and the founder of Main Street Academix, an educational research and consulting firm he created in 2001. Bill has worked on the issues of youth leadership, social justice and civic engagement for many years. Bill is a former elementary school principal. He is the co-author (with Stephen Wessler) of The Respectful School: How Educators and Students Can Conquer Hate and Harassment, with (ASCD, 2003) and many other papers.

Howard Rodstein is the director of and a 10th grade English teacher at the Scarsdale Alternative High School. As the head of this “Just Community” school, he has co-led numerous workshops, most recently at national conferences of the Coalition for Essential Schools in Charlotte and Chicago, on the application of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development to the A-School’s six core structures. Raised in a small town in north Georgia where he attended public school, Howard completed his undergraduate work at Brandeis University, and he holds two Masters degrees from Teachers College and Bank Street. He is also an Annenberg Institute trained Critical Friends Group coach; using this model of reflective practice, he has been co-facilitating a teacher study group in Scarsdale for more than a dozen years, and he has been training teacher-leaders in the East Ramapo school district in Rockland County for four years.

Kristin Page Stuart is a member of CSEE’s consultation staff. She began her work in the New York City public schools ten years ago as a teaching artist in the areas of creative writing and theater. Working with the FEMA’s Project Liberty and later the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility (formerly Educators for Social Responsibility, Metro Area), she has trained staff, administration, parents and teachers in a variety of socially, emotionally and civically informed ways. Kristin has served as a mediator for conflicts between all members of the school community, and implemented numerous peer mediation programs from the training of student mediators, providing support for these mediators, and filing mediation records for administration officials. She now leads a CSEE project – the Emotionally Responsive Classroom – focused on adult social, emotional and civic learning.

Charles Elbot served as a school principal for twenty-one years including at a K-8 Denver Public School, which in 2001 was honored as one of eight schools in the nation as a National School of Character. This school was also recognized for its excellence in student academic achievement. These accomplishments attracted educators from around the country who spent days observing “how” things were done at the school. In 2002, Charles founded the Office of Intentional School Culture and since then has shared school culture building with schools in Denver and beyond, including work with educators in New Zealand. Then in 2008, Corwin Press published his book, Building an Intentional School Culture by Elbot and Fulton. Charles graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. and earned an Ed. M. from Harvard University.