Between 2011 and 2013, the Social Justice Practitioner-in-Residence program brought to the Five Colleges individuals with experience shaping or creating public policy. While the program did not limit the field in which residents have worked, residents’ endeavors had to be focused on policies that advance social justice.
Fall 2013
Tina Reynolds is the co-founder and executive director of Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH), a nonprofit organization in New York City that works with currently and formerly incarcerated women to confront barriers they and their families face during and after prison. Through organizing, leadership development, mentoring and mutual support, WORTH transforms the lives of women affected by incarceration and works to change public perceptions and policy. Reynolds and WORTH have been instrumental in passing state legislation that protects the rights of incarcerated women, and recently launched a national campaign called Birthing Behind Bars to address broad issues of reproductive justice in prisons. Reynolds speaks widely on the role of storytelling in promoting social change, the use of direct action to impact public policy, prisons as tools of reproductive justice, and the abolition of prisons. She is the co-author of Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the U.S., and holds a master of social work from Hunter College.
Pete Tridish was a member of the founding collective of Radio Mutiny, 91.3 FM Pirate Radio in Philadelphia, and a founder of the social justice media advocacy organization, the Prometheus Radio Project. Tridish has helped to build dozens of radio stations, provided advice to hundreds, and been a key actor in the policy arena that has created opportunities for thousands of new stations. Though not trained in law, he has been a leader in major lawsuits, the rewriting of federal regulations, and the passage of a federal law re-allocating radio spectrum. He’s organized all sorts of demonstrations and stunts, from a pirate march on the Federal Communications Commission to a Hula Hoop blockade of the National Association of Broadcasters. Tridish has taught radio trainings in 20 countries on five continents. He holds a bachelor’s degree in appropriate technology from Antioch College, and he is a certified radio engineer by the Society of Broadcast Engineers. Over the years he has been a carpenter, an environmental educator, a solar energy system installer, a squatter, a homeless shelter volunteer and an activist in many social movements since the age of 16.
Spring 2013
N.B. Sarojini is the founder and director of the Sama Resource Group for Women and Health, a New Delhi-based nonprofit that conducts action research and promotes appropriate health policies around issues ranging from population growth to malaria treatment during pregnancy. Sarojini has been advocating for women’s rights and their health care for more than 18 years. As Sama’s director, she has coordinated national research studies concerning the potential impacts on women of reproductive and medical technologies, the implications of the two-child norm for marginalized communities, and alternative systems of medicine. In her role as activist, she has campaigned against population control policies and the unethical implementation of HPV vaccine “demonstration projects” in tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh. Sarojini also serves on the steering committee for India’s Health Care Planning Commission, is a joint convener of India’s chapter of the People’s Health Movement, and is an organizing committee member of India’s National Bioethics Conference. She consults with numerous national and international organizations, including the Save the Children Fund (UK). Sarojini is the co-author of the book Touch Me, Touch Me Not: Women, Plants and Healing.
Fall 2012
Kim Gandy is former vice president and general counsel of the Feminist Majority Foundation and served as president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 2001 to 2009. During her presidency, she led NOW’s campaigns on issues ranging from Supreme Court nominations to the rights of women and caregivers, and from Social Security reform to ending the war in Iraq. Gandy also led NOW’s 40th anniversary celebration, was a lead organizer for the March for Women’s Lives in 2004, created NOW’s Campus Action Network, fought to expand equal marriage rights and benefits for same-sex couples, and worked to improve the portrayal of women and girls in advertising and the media. In the legislative arena, Gandy helped draft two groundbreaking federal laws: the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which gave women the right to a jury trial in sex discrimination and harassment cases; and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Gandy has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, and received her law degree from Loyola University in 1978.
Spring 2011
Nia Robinson is currently the environmental justice representative for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. From 2006 to 2011, she served as director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, bringing the voices of low-income communities, people of color and indigenous communities to the debate over national climate policy. She is the co-author of A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. Robinson also has worked as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Earth Tomorrow program and served as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union.
