SPSS Advisory Board

Symposium Co-Chair

Lisa Wittorff, LCSW is the Director of Services for Students with Children at Portland State University. She has her Master of Social Work from California State University Sacremento. Lisa has worked as an adoptions social worker for twelve years and has adopted three special needs children as a single parent. Prior to coming to Portland State University in 2012, she worked for Children’s Protective Services for 22 years in Sacremento, California.

Lisa loves helping students with children find the resources they need to overcome tremendous barriers to success, stay in school, and complete their degrees. Under Lisa’s direction, SSWC has grown from a small resource center to an award winning program: NASPA Innovative Program Award, 2014. NASPA Outstanding Undergraduate Student Parent Program award, 2017. Services for Students with Children is proud to be hosting the 2018 NSPSS.

Lisa joined Portland State in her current position in 2012, and completely revitalized the program for students with children. The program now includes a flexible childcare center, a large childcare subsidy program, a dedicated lounge space for students and their children, and much more.

In addition to her contributions to the advisory board, from 2015-2017 SSC received funding from NCSPP to pilot a replication of the Keys to Degrees residential wraparound program model. Prior to this project Lisa oversaw PSU’s participation in the research study, Baccalaureate Student Parent Programs and the Students they Serve.

Lisa is also a regular contributor to Ascend at the Aspen Institute, and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research’s Student Parent Success Initiative.

For more information about Services for Students with Children at Portland State University visit: https://www.pdx.edu/students-with- children/

Symposium Co-Chair

Lisa Dodson PhD, MPH is a retired research professor of sociology (Boston College) and currently, a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at Brandeis University. Her recent pieces have been appeared Scholars Strategy Network [http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/why-higher-education-must-low-income-mothers], in the Huffington Post, The Conversation and The American Prospect. Dodson’s most recent book, The Moral Underground: How Ordinary People Subvert an Unfair Economy (The New Press, 2010) was called a "must-read" by Time Magazine. Recent academic articles include “Social Network Development Among Low-income Mothers” in Family Relations and “Stereotyping Low-Wage Mothers Who Have Work/Family Conflicts” in the Journal of Social Issues. A 2012 policy paper (Ford and Annie E. Casey Foundations) examined How Youth Are Put At Risk by Parents’ Low-Wage Jobs (2012) examines the interaction of youth development, family stability, and parents’ low-wage jobs. Professor Dodson specializes in face-to-face research methods, partnering with community-based organizations and national networks, ensuring low-income people are central in the development of public policy. Her earlier book Don’t Call Us Out of Name: The Untold Lives of Women and Girls in Poor America integrated years of field-based research to uncover an alternative account of welfare reform, told from the perspective of hundreds of single mothers and their children. Lisa Dodson’s work has been funded by the Ford, Annie E. Casey, Kellogg, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, Huffington Post Live, The Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Ed Show, Alternet, and YesMagazine. Dr. Dodson teaches courses on family poverty, policy and field-based research methods. In the past she has presented research findings in numerous US Congressional hearings and to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Teresa Bill is the System-wide Coordinator for the (10-campus) University of Hawaii “Bridge to Hope” program which supports welfare participants attending college. Ms. Bill initiated and slowly developed the “Student Parents At Manoa" (SP@M) program in 2008. The Bridge to Hope motto, “Education to Leave Poverty, Not Just Welfare” reflects Ms. Bill’s ongoing advocacy for college access, and “asset building” policies in Hawai’i. Ms. Bill is an Assistant Faculty Specialist with the UH Mānoa Women’s Center, she holds an MA in American Studies.

Pamela Bock is the Assistant Director for Services for Students with Children. She has more than ten years of experience with marketing, communication, and event promotion. Most recently, she served as the Director of Community Development at Fruit & Flower Childcare Center. Prior to that she served as a Director of Marketing and Strategic Communication at California State University, Northridge.

Shannon Connolly has been passionately working with student parents for the past 5 years. While earning her bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin she created a resource center for students with children which is still providing resources today! Shannon is in the long process of earning her master's degree in Public Policy specializing in family based policies. During the week, she can be seen working the front desk at the RCSC! Outside of work she enjoys biking and spending time with her six year old daughter. Her favorite part about working with student parents is connecting them to resources on campus and within the community. She cites time management and finances as the most difficult part of being a student parent. Shannon plans to one day rule the world (or work for a non profit).

Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield is a senior policy analyst with CLASP's Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success. Ms. Duke-Benfield's focus is access to and success in postsecondary education and training for low-income students. She analyzes and advocates for policies that better serve low-income adults and other non-traditional students and provides technical assistance to federal, state and local advocates and governments in these areas. She also directed CLASP’s Benefits Access for College Completion initiative, which sought to increase access to public benefits and financial aid for low-income students at colleges across the country. She holds an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College and a master's degree from Emory University.

Emily Evans is the first Executive Director of the Women's Foundation of Oregon - a statewide, public foundation that uses the power of women's collective resources to make Oregon a great place for women and girls. Born and raised in Ashland, Ore. Emily spent several years on the east coast attending school and working at several think tanks and philanthropic institutions before returning to Oregon and taking the helm at the Women's Foundation. In 2016, Emily lead the Foundation's production and publication of "Count Her In" the first comprehensive report on women and girls in Oregon in nearly 20 years.

Trish Garner has have been active in promoting social justice for most of her adult life. She currently serves as the State Public Policy Chair for the American Association of University Women of Oregon, and as a member of the National AAUW Public Policy Committee and the Oregon Women’s Equity Coalition (“OWEC”) Advocacy Committee Chair. She also has a strong interest in the dramatic arts and serves on the Board of Directors for Artists Repertory Theater in Portland. She has masters degree in social work, and worked as a mediator and was a practicing lawyer as a criminal trial attorney, working as a prosecutor but primarily for the defense.

Dr. Autumn R. Green is Founding Director of the National Center for Student Parent Programs, and is currently transitioning from Endicott College to join Wellesley Centers for Women as a Visiting Scholar beginning in January 2018. As Director of NCSPP Dr. Green oversaw the Keys to Degrees National Replication and flagship programs, helped to launch a Boston partnership with the Jeremiah Program, coordinated multiple research and program initiatives, and served as PI on the first Center for Best Practices to Support Single Parent Students in Higher Education grant through the US Department of Education, through which she also hosted the 2017 Student Parent Support Symposium. She is a recent co-recipient, with Dr. Amanda Freeman, of the Presidential Award from the Russell Sage Foundation toward publication of their book, tentatively titled, Surviving & Striving: Low-Income Mothers in Higher Education. She is also currently completing fieldwork on a second project, Student Parents on Campus, aimed at comprehensively documenting student parent programs and exploring historical and contemporary best practices. Dr. Green completed her undergraduate studies at Chemeketa Community College and University of Oregon, becoming a young mother of two during community college. Her daughters are now 16 and 18 and beginning their own college journeys. Autumn holds a Master's Degree in Education from Lesley University, and Master's and Doctoral degrees in Sociology from Boston College.

Sahar Haghighat is a doctoral student of public and applied sociology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. As a sociologist, Sahar has always worked closely with various interest groups including Iranian and Afghan families in the California Bay Area and numerous social justice movements with communities of color in the Washington, D.C. area. Sahar’s interest in student parents originates from her experience working with this population as a community college instructor, but her professional interest became personal in 2015 when she became a student parent. Her current research explores women’s participation in the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, closely examining how this participation shaped the gendered aesthetics and transnational frames of the movement. Sahar specializes in participatory, qualitative, and feminist approaches to social research. She strives to use her knowledge and expertise of social movements in support of grassroots activism for the promotion of equitable and just living conditions for all people, starting with the most vulnerable populations. Sahar was the 2015-16 graduate research fellow with the National Center for Student Parent Programs, where she oversaw and conducted the research for the Mid-Atlantic Survey of Student Parent Programs. Additionally, Sahar advised and consulted on the efforts of the National Center to promote a national network of support and awareness to student parents across the United States. She has presented her research at several scholarly conferences including the 2016 Student Parent Support Symposium.

Professor Sheila Katz uses qualitative methodologies to explore women’s experiences in poverty, on welfare, accessing health and human services, in higher education, and during the Great Recession. She conducts longitudinal qualitative research with single mothers who graduated from higher education while participating in the welfare system in the San Francisco Bay Area. She interviewed the same participants three times, in 2006, 2008, 2011 with a 78% retention rate, and her research explores the needs of families who pursued higher education while on welfare, how families fared during/after the “Great Recession,” the role of grassroots advocacy organizations in their lives, and policy issues for welfare reauthorization. This project received national funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Poverty Center. She is currently writing the book manuscript based on this research: Reformed American Dreams: Welfare Mothers in Higher Education During the Great Recession.

Dr. Katz was the Local Arrangements Chair for the ASA’s 2014 annual meetings in San Francisco. She is an elected board member of the Commission on the Accreditation of Programs in Applied and Clinical Sociology. (CAPACS), and also contributes to the ACLU Reproductive Freedom project and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research’s Student Parent Initiative.

Prior to coming to the University of Houston, Dr. Katz was an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Sonoma State University. From 2003-2013, Dr. Katz collaborated with community based organization, Low Income Families’ Empowerment through Education (LIFETIME), conducting community based participatory research in the “Family Violence is NOT an Option” and the “Education Works” projects .

Traci Lewis, who has been the ACCESS Collaborative director since 2007, has brokered partnerships to deepen and expand systems of support for ACCESS students, who have a remarkable success rate. In addition to her work with ODI, Traci has also been invited to serve on prestigious think tanks that are developing toolkits and guidance for universities across the nation to support parent students and their children. Traci is truly a leader who is working tirelessly to change the higher education culture to be accessible and inclusive for student parents. One recommendation stated that the secrets to Traci’s success are that “she stays well-informed about the holistic needs of students parents amid shifting education, political and social landscapes, and she never allows herself, her staff or her students to become complacent.” Another recommender, an ACCESS Collaborative student who is 12 hours shy of graduating, simply stated: “This would and could not be possible if it were not for the work of Ms. Traci Lewis and the ACCESS Collaborative program.”

Dr.Marvin Lynn is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education. He is an internationally recognized expert on race and education and the lead editor of the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education published simultaneously in the U.S. and the U.K. with Routledge Press. He serves as an editorial board member of several journals, and has published more than two-dozen research articles and book chapters in reputable outlets. As Dean of the GSE, Dr. Lynn works closely with an outstanding and diverse faculty and staff to advance the national profile of high quality academic programs while further building and strengthening relationships with local schools.

He earned his PhD in Social Sciences and Education with a concentration in race and ethnic studies in education from the University of California at Los Angeles, a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Teaching with an emphasis on Urban Education from Teachers College-Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education with concentrations in music and language arts from DePaul University in Chicago.

Prior to coming to PSU, Dr. Lynn served as Dean of the School of Education at Indiana University South Bend from 2013-2017. Prior to that, he served as Associate Dean for Teacher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction, Affiliate Faculty member in African American studies and Director of graduate and undergraduate elementary teacher preparation programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Assistant and Associate Professor of Minority & Urban Education—a graduate program he founded and coordinated at the University of Maryland at College Park. He also worked for several years as an elementary and middle school teacher in Chicago and New York City

Dr. Barbara Ramirez Spencer is a former consultant for leadership and organizational development with experience in the public, private and academic sectors. She was responsible for leadership development in the New York insurance and banking industries and was an assistant professor of organizational development at Columbia University. After a career change, she worked in public transportation for over 20 years, serving for 11 years as executive vice president, the second person in charge of the mass transit system in New York City. In 2009 she left her transportation career and moved to Portland for a lifestyle and professional change. Presently she is actively involved in women’s leadership development. She serves as the Chair of the Oregon Commission for Women, AAUW Portland’s college and university relations chair, an advisory board member for PSU’s Center for Women’s Leadership, and an Oregon delegate for Vision 2020 – Women’s Equality. Previously she was the former AAUW Portland Branch co-president (2012-2016), the former board vice-chair and executive committee member for the Portland Streetcar (2010-2016) and as a member of the TriMet Budget Task Force (2011-2014). She has a BA in history from Lehman College and an MA and Ed.D. in organizational development from Columbia University.

Lindsey Reichlin Cruse is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). Lindsey manages projects under IWPR’s Student Parent Success Initiative, which supports the success of college students who are parents of dependent children. She also contributes to IWPR’s research on support service provision in the workforce development system and on global women’s issues, including conducting domestic and international case studies on employer-provided child care supports.

Lindsey has presented IWPR research at numerous events and conferences, including serving as a panelist on private sector strategies to promote work-family balance at UNDP’s Third Global Forum on Business for Gender Equality in Panama City, and serving as a keynote speaker at the 2017 Student Parent Support Symposium. An expert on access to postsecondary education, Lindsey has been quoted in several media outlets including The Washington Post, the National Journal, and Market Watch.

Prior to joining IWPR, Lindsey held positions at the Aspen Institute’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health and at Global Policy Solutions in Washington, DC. Lindsey received her Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she studied human rights, and her Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Traci Rossi has spent her career in service to women in emerging student leaders. Prior to joining the Center for Women’s Leadership in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, Traci led Innovative Changes, which provides financial knowledge and services to overlooked and underserved communities, including women and communities of color. Prior to that role, she was vice president for programs at the "I Have a Dream" Foundation - Oregon, where she built out and led the first Dreamer School in the country.

Samaura Stone is a policy analyst at Ascend at the Aspen Institute. Stone comes to the Aspen Institute after working as a congressional legislative fellow in the office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Representative Karen Bass (CA-37). Originally from Oregon, she received her Master of Social Work degree from Portland State University. Prior to and during graduate school, she held positions within nonprofit organizations, government, and school districts, including a three-year tenure with the office of Senator Jeff Merkley (OR). As a former direct practice social worker, Stone has advocated for vulnerable populations, including foster youth, formerly incarcerated women, homeless families and individuals impacted by mental health and substance use. Stone has served on state, local and national boards, including a government-appointment as the Vice-Chair of the Oregon Advocacy Commission, Washington County Civil Service Commission and the American Association of University Women National Student Advisory Council. She is also a former America’s Leaders of Change, National Urban Fellow.