The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell
Director of Religion, Chautauqua Institution

John Carr
Director, Department of Social Development and World Peace
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Paul Gorman
Executive Director

Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon
General Secretary, National Council of Churches U.S.A.

Dr. John Ruskay
Executive Vice President & CEO, UJA Federation of New York

Dr. David Saperstein
Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Dr. Ronald Sider
President, Evangelicals for Social Action

Board Biographies

Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell is presently the Director of Religion at the historic Chautauqua Institution. Before coming to Chautauqua, Dr. Campbell, a distinguished life-long ecumenist, was the first ordained woman to serve as General Secretary of the National Councils of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. She served from 1990 through 1999. Prior to her time at the NCCC U.S.A., Dr. Campbell served as Director of the U.S. Office of the World Council of Churches. During those years her commitment to peace with justice, crafted during her life-changing time with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was deepened in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. Today, Dr. Campbell, long-time activist, serves as Chair of the Global Women's Peace Initiative. There she has given leadership to the Initiative's important work with women in the Middle East. She chaired a December conference in Jordan that brought together 97 Israeli women and 77 Palestinian women to explore with international peace leaders the hope for justice reconciliation. During her time as General Secretary to the NCCC, Rev. Campbell, in concert with Paul Gorman, Carl Sagan, Dean James Morton, and Albert Gore, was a founder of what is today the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Rev. Campbell is the mother of three grown children and grandmother to eight.

John Carr has served as Director of the Department of Social Development & World Peace for the past decade. Mr. Carr oversees the Conference's policy development and advocacy efforts on poverty, health and housing, human rights, religious freedom and development, environment, arms control, and peacemaking. For 25 years, Mr. Carr has been involved in Catholic social ministry, serving in the 1980's as Cardinal Hickey's Secretary of Social Concerns in Washington, D.C., as Education Director of the Campaign for Human Development, as Coordinator for Urban Issues at the USCCC, and as Legislative Coordinator for the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minnesota. Mr. Carr currently serves as chair of the Board of the Center for Community Change and is a board member of Bread for the World, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and the Catholic Health Association. He is a regular participant in Preaching the Just Word retreats offered to priests around the country. Mr. Carr is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, and has received honors and awards from Barry University, University of St. Thomas, Crosier Seminary, the Roundtable of Social Action Directors and the Archdiocese of Washington.

Paul Gorman, founder and Executive Director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment since 1993, received the Heinz Award for the Environment in 1999. Mr. Gorman, a graduate of Yale and Oxford University, worked in the U.S. Congress and served as press secretary and speechwriter to Senator Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 presidential campaign. He taught at the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College and Adelphi University, hosted a public radio program for 29 years and co-authored How Can I Help? From 1985-91, Mr. Gorman served as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine's Vice President for Program, overseeing community-based initiatives and helping organize international conferences on religion and environment in Assisi, Oxford and Moscow.

Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon is general secretary of the National Council of Churches U.S.A, a member of the Governing Board and chair of the Council's Justice and Advocacy Commission. With 36 Protestant and Orthodox member communions, whose congregants number approximately 50 million, the NCC is a leading expression of the ecumenical movement in the United States.  Rev. Kinnamon is a Disciples of Christ clergyman and a long-time educator and ecumenical leader.  He was General Secretary of the Churches Uniting in Christ, from 1999 to 2002; executive secretary of the World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order from 1980 to 1983; and chaired the NCC's Ecclesiology Study Task Force from 1993 to 1997.  Rev. Kinnamon has been the Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission, Peace and Ecumenical Studies at Eden Theological Seminary since 2000. He was professor of Theology and Ecumenical Studies at Lexington, Ky., Theological Seminary from 1988 to 2000 and was dean of the seminary from 1988 to 1998.  Rev. Kinnamon was Assistant Professor of Theology at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, from 1983 to 1988 and Acting Dean from 1986 to 1988.  Rev. Kinnamon has written extensively on the ecumenical movement, including The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How it has Been Impoverished by its Friends; he is the co-editor of The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices; and has contributed to The History of the Ecumenical Movement and the Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. He is married to the Rev. Katherine Kinnamon, and has two daughters, Anna and Leah.

Dr. John Ruskay is the Executive Vice President & CEO of the UJA Federation of New York. After earning his doctorate in Political Science at Columbia University, Dr. Ruskay served for six years as Educational Director of the 92nd Street Y and then eight years (1985-1993) as Vice Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He came to UJA-Federation in 1992, where he served in several positions before being appointed Executive Vice President and CEO in October 1999. In this post, he serves as the senior professional of the largest federation in North America and the largest local philanthropy in the world.

Rabbi David Saperstein is the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He represents the Union for Reform Judaism to congress and the administration. During his 30-year tenure as Director of the Center, Rabbi Saperstein has headed several national religious coalitions. He currently co-chairs the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, comprised of over 50 national religious denominations and educational organizations, and serves on the boards of numerous national organizations including the NAACP, People for the American Way and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. In 1999, Rabbi Saperstein was elected as the first Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, created by an unanimous vote of Congress. Also an attorney, Rabbi Saperstein teaches seminars in both First Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law School.

Ronald J. Sider (Ph.D., Yale) is Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy and Director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and President of Evangelicals for Social Action. A widely known evangelical speaker and writer, Dr. Sider has spoken on six continents, published twenty-seven books and scores of articles. His Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger was recognized by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred more influential religious books of the twentieth century. Dr. Sider's most recent books are The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World; Just Generosity: A New Vision for Overcoming Poverty in America; and Churches That Make A Difference: Reaching Your Community with Good News and Good Works (with Phil Olson and Heidi Unruh). Dr. Sider is the publisher of PRISM magazine and a contributing editor of Christianity Today and Sojourners. He serves on many advisory boards including Pew forum on Religion and public Life, and Faith and Service Technical Education Network on the National Crime Prevention Council. He has lectured at scores of colleges and universities around the world, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford.