Chairman, CASEL Board of Directors
Timothy Shriver is a civic leader, social entrepreneur, and chairman and CEO of Special Olympics. Since 1996, he has empowered persons with intellectual disabilities to realize their voice, gain confidence and skill through sport, and become agents of change for acceptance and inclusion in communities around the world. He has helped transform Special Olympics into a global movement that advocates for acceptance, inclusion, and respect for more than 3.4 million individuals with intellectual disabilities in more than 170 countries. Under his leadership, Special Olympics has encompassed a variety of programs aimed at supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families, including a global athlete leadership network, cross-cultural research, and education and family support. One of these, Special Olympics Healthy Athletes®, has become the world’s largest public health screening and education program for people with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics Get Into It®, together with Unified Sports®, provides opportunities and training for young people to become respected leaders in their schools and communities.
Before joining Special Olympics, Tim was an educator, counselor, author, and speaker focusing on school prevention issues such as substance abuse, violence, school dropout, and teen pregnancy. He worked with the New Haven Public Schools’ Social Development Project, a leading school-based prevention effort in the US. He has applied his educational interests to TV and film, co-producing DreamWorks Studios’ 1997 release Amistad and Disney Studios’ 2000 release The Loretta Claiborne Story. He is Executive Producer of The Ringer, a Farrely brothers’ film, and Front of the Class for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. He has also produced or co-produced shows for the ABC, TNT, and NBC networks. In addition to chair CASEL’s board of directors, Tim serves on the boards of the WPP Group and Neogenix Oncology, Inc. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Vice-Chairman of the CASEL Board of Directors
Ann Nerad’s community work has focused for the past three decades on mental health advocacy, with an emphasis on children and prevention education. While serving on the board of the National Mental Health Association from 1982-1990, she became involved in prevention activities related to schools. She testified before the NMHA Prevention Commission about the importance of mental health education in the schools. Since 1986, she has served in collaborative initiatives to implement research-based social and emotional learning programs in the Chicago Public Schools and in Illinois’ DuPage County, including her own school district.
She has served on the boards and as president of the Mental Health Association in Illinois; Prevention First, Inc., in Illinois; the DuPage Federation on Human Services; and the Elementary District 181 Foundation. She also served on the advisory board of Futures for Kids, an initiative of the former First Lady of Illinois.
Member, CASEL Board of Directors
Stephen Arnold is co-founder and venture partner at Polaris Venture Partners, where he has focused on investments in information technology and digital media. Prior to starting Polaris, Steve served more than ten years in executive positions in software companies and the digital media industry. He is also co-founder and vice chairman of the board of directors of the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), an operating foundation that promotes innovation and advocates for exemplary programs in K-12 education (edutopia.org). Steve also serves on the boards of several early stage technology companies and on a number of other nonprofit boards involved in educational innovation.
Member, CASEL Board of Directors
Jennifer Buffett joined CASEL’s board in 2010 and has been a collaborator, adviser, and investor since 2007. As president of NoVo Foundation in New York, she leads the foundation’s strategic direction, program development, advocacy, and partnerships. Jennifer co-chairs the foundation’s board with her husband, composer and producer Peter Buffett. NoVo Foundation has made social and emotional learning a priority in its pursuit to advance whole child education and social and emotional learning for U.S. school districts at significant scale.
Jennifer began her work in philanthropy in 1997 in Milwaukee, focusing on early childhood education for at-risk children and families. She serves on the board of the Nike Foundation, promoting “The Girl Effect,” the social and economic change brought about when every girl has the power to participate equally in her community, as well as the boards of V-Day, BRAC USA, Apne Aap Women Worldwide, and Women Moving Millions.
Jennifer and Peter are recipients of the Clinton Global Citizen Award for their “visionary leadership and sustainable, scalable work in solving pressing global challenges.” In 2010 Jennifer was selected by President Clinton to be a founding member of the Clinton Global Initiative’s young global leaders cohort, CGI LEAD. She was recently named one of “150 Women Who Shake the World” by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. The Ms. Foundation for Women honored the Buffetts’ philanthropic boldness and commitment with a 2010 “Gloria Steinem Award,” and Barron’s ranks them in the top 25 list of most effective philanthropists.
Member, CASEL Board of Directors
Carl Cohn is the co-director of the Urban Leadership Program and clinical professor in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. Most recently, he served as superintendent of schools in the San Diego Unified School District. From 1992 to 2002 he was the superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District. In 2002 he won the McGraw Prize, which annually recognizes outstanding individuals who have dedicated themselves to education innovation. In 2003 the Long Beach district won the Broad Prize, which is awarded each year to honor urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students.
Carl has worked as a faculty advisor for both the Broad Superintendents Academy and the Harvard Urban Superintendents Program. He serves on several educational boards and school reform committees such as the Gates Foundation’s Empowering Effective Teachers Advisory Committee and the U.S. Department of Education’s Technical Advisory Committee.
Member, CASEL Board of Directors
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network and served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teacher quality, and educational equity. From 1994 to 2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching in the United States. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education, and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation’s ten most influential people in the realm of educational policy over the last decade. In 2008-09, she headed President Barack Obama’s education policy transition team and continues to serve as a policy adviser to the President.
Among Linda’s more than 300 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press, 2010); Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass, 2006); Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do (with John Bransford; Jossey-Bass, 2005), winner of the AACTE Pomeroy Award; Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes; Jossey-Bass, 1999), which received the National Staff Development Council’s Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass, 1st edition, 1997), recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Book Award for 1998.
Member, CASEL Board of Directors and Co-Chairman, Research Advisory Group
Mark Greenberg holds the Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research in Penn State’s College of Health and Human Development. He is the director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development. He is one of the authors of the PATHS Curriculum, which is used in thousands of schools in more than 20 countries. He is also a senior investigator on numerous national and international research projects including Fast Track, PROSPER, the Family Life Project, REDI, and PATHS to Success. He is the author of more than 200 journal articles and book chapters on developmental psychopathology, well-being, and the effects of prevention efforts on children and families. He received the Research Scientist Award from the Society for Prevention Research in 2002 and the Society for Child Development Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy for Children Award in 2009. One of his current interests is how to help nurture awareness and compassion in our society.
President and CEO, and Member, CASEL Board of Directors
Roger Weissberg is CASEL’s president and CEO. For more than 30 years he has dedicated himself—through collaborative action research with colleagues and students—to answering this question: How do schools, parents, and communities come together to promote positive behavioral outcomes in young people? Roger has worked with thousands of scholars and practitioners to design, implement, and evaluate family, school, and community interventions focused on evidence-based social and emotional learning practice. He has authored more than 200 publications focusing on preventive interventions with children and adolescents. As a leader and collaborator in the field of social and emotional learning, he believes that all children deserve a balanced education and the opportunity to become knowledgeable, responsible, caring, and contributing individuals who are well equipped to meet the complexities and challenges of the future.
Roger is NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and an LAS Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He also directs the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Research Group at UIC. Among his major published works are Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators (1997); Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? (2004); and Sustainable Schoolwide Social and Emotional Learning (2006).
Roger has received many awards for his scholarship, including the 2000 American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contribution Award for Applications of Psychology to Education and Training, the Society for Community Research and Action 2004 Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award, and the 2010 Nan Tobler Award for the Best Review of Prevention Research from the Society for Prevention Research. He also received the 2008 “Daring Dozen” award from the George Lucas Educational Foundation for being one of 12 people who are reshaping the future of education. Roger and his wife, Stephanie Wright, a clinical psychologist, have two wonderful children, Elizabeth (age 24) and Ted (age 20).