Lorna Gonsalves, Ph.D. Associate Executive Director and Director of Global Outreach Institute of Comparative Human Rights 241 Glenbrook Road Unit 2124 Storrs, CT 06269-2124 Phone 860.486.0647 Fax 860.486.2545 E-mail ancadm01@uconnvm.uconn.edu

Lorna Gonsalves, Ph.D.

As she works to challenge racial inequality and promote human rights, Dr. Lorna Gonsalves crosses boundaries between different arenas, engages a wide range of constituencies, and employs innovative techniques that emerge from her broad experience. She is currently the Associate Executive Director and Director of Global Outreach at the Institute of Comparative Human Rights, University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Prior to joining the Institute, she was the architect of the Campaign to Promote Racial Justice; a project of the Washington D.C. based National League of Cities. Under her yearlong Directorship, more than 200 cities from 48 states joined the campaign, plotting out their antiracist agendas in a workbook of Dr. Gonsalves' devising. Honest dialogue and concrete action plans-overriding objectives of the campaign and the workbook-have already started coming to fruition. A documentary video, entitled Undoing Racism, which she co-produced, has recently won Aegis and Telly awards.

Before heading up the Campaign to Promote Racial Justice, Dr. Gonsalves served as Associate Provost for Diversity at Bowling Green State University. Her tenure there saw her spearhead Breaking the Silence, a program that brought together members of the campus and city communities to consider the largely unspoken realities of local racism. She produced a documentary video outlining the yearlong initiative, and then-Ohio Governor George Voinovich publicly recognized the program for its outstanding contribution to enhancing race relations in the state.

Dr. Gonsalves has taught courses in the fields of Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, and Critical Pedagogy at Bowling Green State University, winning several awards for her teaching and mentoring efforts. Her courses combined broad theory and history with engagement of local officials, advocacy groups and school children. She continues to use her pioneering Free Expressions exercise with youth. This novel approach has high school and college students convey their gut-level feelings about racism through visual depictions, which they then share with the general public. One set of Free Expressions was displayed in the prestigious Toledo Museum of Art.

A strong proponent of community policing, Dr. Gonsalves has worked extensively with Police Chiefs and law enforcement officials in the State of Ohio. Through her groundbreaking program, Contact Zone, candid conversations between law enforcement officers and students of color were initiated. For her activist efforts in the Northwest Ohio area, she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major Award from the Black Catholic Ministries.

Dr. Gonsalves continues to work with a wide range of groups from students and teachers to elected officials, corporate executives to pastors, prompting them to grapple with their own roles in local, national, and global systems of racism. Her approach is interdisciplinary and action-oriented, combining the methods and insights of sociology, psychology, art, education, theatre, and Ethnic Studies, among other disciplines.

Raised in the four major cities of India, Dr. Gonsalves came to the United States in 1972. Her academic background includes a diploma in Opera Performance, an undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology, a master's degree in Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Sociology.