Dorothy Cotton Institute – Steering Committee
Dorothy Cotton was the Education Director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for twelve years under the direct supervision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Working closely with Dr. King, Dorothy served on his executive staff and was part of his entourage to Oslo, Norway, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. She served as the Vice President for Field Operations for the Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. Dr. Cotton was the Director of Student Activities at Cornell University for nine years, and served as the Southeastern Regional Director of ACTION, the Federal Government’s Agency for volunteer programs for three years. She holds a Masters Degree from Boston University in the area of Special Education.
Dorothy serves as a valuable resource to organizations on diverse topics addressing race relations, multiculturalism/diversity, communication, personal development, spiritual growth, human relations, citizenship education, civic organizing for the 21st century and nonviolence education.
Currently she is involved in the expansion of the National Citizenship School in conjunction with Civic Organizing, Inc. of Minnesota. Dorothy’s upcoming book will focus on lessons from the historic citizenship education program and her work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dorothy is also a DCI Distinguished Fellow.
Laura Ward Branca is a managing partner of Training for Change (TFC) Associates, founded in Ithaca, New York in 1982. With her partner, Kirby Edmonds, TFC provides consulting and customized interactive training to local, national and international organizations–business, unions, government, educational, not-for-profits and grassroots groups. She leads training workshops and retreats focused on planning, organizational change, leadership development, communication, shared decision-making, managing conflict, diversity inclusion, and building culturally competent organizations and coalitions.
Laura is the Board President of Moosewood, Inc. and has been a co-owner since 1980. She has co-authored nine of their twelve cookbooks. Bon Apetit Magazine named Moosewood “one of the thirteen most influential restaurants of the 20th Century.” Moosewood has a long history of supporting organizations committed to community service, health, education, social change and the arts.
Laura designs and leads the Multicultural Resource Center’s Talking Circles on Race and Racism and other safe, respectful dialogues on diversity and inclusion for the community, Cornell, Ithaca City School District, Tompkins County and City of Ithaca governments. She is a trained mediator with the Community Dispute Resolution Center, and has twenty-five years’ experience resolving interpersonal, organizational and community conflicts and teaching conflict management and facilitation skills courses for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, SUNY Cortland, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and the Institute for the Transformation of Conflict, among other audiences.
Laura is also a DCI Senior Fellow.
Millicent L. Clarke-Maynard is a veteran educator in the Ithaca City School District. She currently teaches third grade at Beberly J. Martin Elementary School. She holds a BS. degree in Elementary Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Arts degree in Curriculum Development/Early Childhood from Teacher’s College, Columbia University and a MS. Degree in Administration and Supervision from City College of New York.
Millicent is committed to community service. She is particularly interested in the academic and cultural development of young people. She has served as a board member of the Southside Community Center and the Tompkins County Human Rights Commission. She continues to play an active role in the Ithaca Rotary Club, Ithaca Teachers Association, Order of Omicron Nu Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Order of Eastern Stars.
She is married to Willoughby Maynard and proud godmother to Asia Savell, David F. Brown, and Amir R. Lee.
Kirby Edmonds is the managing partner of TFC Associates, a human relations training and consulting firm based in Ithaca, New York. Kirby is a management consultant, facilitator, mediator, facilitator and trainer with experience in the areas of managing conflict, team-building, supervisory issues, building and valuing diversity in the workplace, and stress in the work environment as well as network organization and management. He has over 20 years of experience working in the public and private sectors, in higher education and with public schools. He has been a consultant to public-private partnerships and networks throughout the country and has worked directly with many work groups tasked with developing diversity initiatives for large organizations. He has written many training manuals on conflict management, cultural competency, communication skills, and group facilitation to name a few.
Kirby is also a DCI Senior Fellow and Program Coordinator.
Dr. Margo Hittleman is a co-founder and the coordinator of the Natural Leaders Initiative (NLI) in Ithaca, NY. The Natural Leaders Initiative supports the growth of grassroots and “everyday” leaders, particularly from low/moderate-income communities and communities of color, and helps the entire community build its capacity to welcome, include, support and develop diverse community leadership.
Margo also leads community-based and professional development workshops on leadership; staff and organizational development; supporting diversity and inclusion; effective strategies for social and organizational change; action research; and participatory evaluation. She has been worked in and with community service, educational and social change organizations for nearly three decades.
In 2008-9, Margo was a Civic Leaders Fellow at Cornell University. She has taught courses (at Cornell) on leadership, education and social change, and is the recipient of three teaching awards from Cornell’s Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines. Her published writing includes Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time (Doubleday, 2002), Counting Caring: Attending to the Human in an Age of Public Management (Cornell Cooperative Extension, 2007), and a chapter in the Research Companion to Leadership Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines (forthcoming). She received her PhD in Adult Education from Cornell University.
Margo is also a DCI Senior Fellow.
Mimi Melegrito
Jack Roscoe is a 43 year resident of Ithaca and has been a friend of Dorothy Cotton for 23 of those years. His career as a commercial woodworker had him managing projects as large as 4 million dollars. His work includes courthouses, libraries, academic buildings and churches. He has a strong background in computers and software, having written business and engineering software for his industry. Jack has a longstanding commitment to our community. He was a counselor for 10 years with Suicide Prevention and served on their board and as their president. He is a past board member of the Learning Web, a youth program providing hands-on experiential education through the mentor-apprentice model. He is president of the Savage Club of Ithaca, a non-profit performing group that provides entertainment to seniors, youth and hospice programs. He is currently president of the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Church and serves on their adult religious education committee and often preaches from their pulpit.
Jack holds a BA from Cornell University and lives in Ithaca with his wife and twin sons.
Photo by George Gull
Cal Walker is a native of Tuskegee, Alabama, and has lived in Ithaca over thirty years. He worked 15 years in sales for Procter & Gamble before transitioning to Cornell University where he has held several positions since 1993. He and his wife, Glenda, are parents of three adult children and, to date, have been foster parents to more than twenty-five others. He has also tutored, mentored or counseled scores of other young people in the Ithaca, NY community over the last three decades.
Cal is a co-founder of the “Village at Ithaca” and now serves as its first Executive Director. The Village is working to ensure that students, particularly African American, Latino and low-income students, more consistently meet or exceed district and state standards of academic achievement. The organization has been recognized for its advocacy in expanding educational opportunity, increasing access and furthering the cause of social justice in the local community. Cal is also Cornell’s first Outreach Liaison to the Ithaca City School District, the first to serve in this role. His two concurrent positions are separate and distinct, but have significant overlap in focusing on core equity issues within the local schools.
Dr. Anke Wessels (ex officio) is the Executive Director of the Center for Transformative Action, an affiliate of Cornell University. Operating in the cradle of Cornell University with all the creative energy it draws and develops, the Center for Transformative Action’s programming animates the power of the heart to remake the world such that bold action results! CTA has over 35 years experience in cultivating change makers with bold ideas to resolve social problems and mobilize others to action. Our approach, Transformative Action, is an alternative paradigm for social action that moves us beyond complaint, competition and us vs. them thinking. Inspired by the non-violent organizing that erupted in the last century, Transformative Action has three basic components: (1) breaking the silence that surrounds injustice, (2) building an inclusive movement where anger is transformed into understanding, hatred into goodwill, and enemies into allies, and (3) articulating an inspiring, proactive vision.
Dr. Wessels also teaches Social Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Problem Solvers, an undergraduate course at Cornell. She received her BA in French and Economics, her MS in Agricultural Economics, and her PhD in Geography, specializing in Environmental Politics and Social Movements. She was previously on the faculty at Syracuse University, teaching and conducting research in the areas of Environmental Sustainability and Environmental Politics.
She lives in Lansing, NY with her husband and three daughters.