Arthur J. Beer, M.F.A., Department of Theatre, University of Detroit Mercy, teaches play directing, history of theatre, acting styles, voice and diction, introduction to theatre, and fine arts. He has directed more than 180 plays, including several world premieres, and acted in a like number. A member of Actor's Equity, SAG and AFTRA, Beer has received Best Actor and Best Director awards from all of Detroit's major periodicals. He is the author of Malice Aforethought: The Sweet Trials, in which he recently played attorney Clarence Darrow. First performed in 1987, this year marks the play’s twentieth anniversary.
Pauline A. Bigby, Ph.D., is a retired teacher and administrator, Ann Arbor (MI) Public Schools; Adjunct lecturer, School of Education at the University of Michigan; President, Splendor Educational Consulting which provides professional development in the areas of literacy education, curriculum development, and student achievement and organizes community-based programs which enhance academic achievement and cultural enrichment for youth through community partnerships.
Libby Balter Blume, Ph.D., CFLE, Department of Psychology, University of Detroit Mercy, is co-chair of the 2007 Groves Conference on Marriage and Family. She teaches courses in human, family, and community development, environmental psychology, visual communications, and women’s studies, and was the founding editor of the Michigan Family Review. Her current research interests are feminist theory in family studies and the social construction of gender and ethnicity in transnational families.
Grace Lee Boggs, Ph.D., is an activist, writer and speaker whose sixty years of political involvement encompass the major U. S. social movements of this century: labor, civil rights, Black power, Asian American, women's and environmental justice. With her husband, the late James Boggs and others, she founded Detroit Summer, a multi-cultural, intergenerational youth program to rebuild, redefine and respirit Detroit from the ground up. The Boggs Center, founded in 1995, is a non-profit community organization based on the east side of Detroit.
Barbara J. Bolz, Ph.D., Department of Communication Studies, University of Detroit Mercy, teaches courses in public speaking, public opinion, mass media, political campaign and organizational communication. Her publications and presentations deal with issues of diversity in higher education and crisis communication including its relevance to the transformation of technologies to Third World countries.