2024-2025 Class of Fellows

Cameron C. Beatty, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department at Florida State University. Dr. Beatty teaches courses in the undergraduate leadership studies program and the higher education graduate program, as well as conducting research with the Leadership Learning Research Center. He is a faculty affiliate with the African American Studies Program.

Dr. Beatty's publications center on topics that include navigating racial battle fatigue for campus student leaders, supporting undergraduate Black women through Sister Circles, gains in leadership capacity for high-achieving Black men leaders, and supporting undergraduate men in leadership education through liberatory pedagogy. In 2019 Dr. Beatty co-edited a monograph titled: Critical Considerations for Race, Ethnicity and Culture for Fraternity and Sorority Life. He is a scholar passionate about deconstructing race, systemic racism, and hegemonic masculinity in postsecondary education environments. Dr. Beatty recently co-authored four books for the Information Age Publishing series, Contemporary Perspectives on Leadership Learning. The first book, Engaging in the Leadership Process: Identity, Capacity, and Efficacy for College Students, is co-authored with Dr. Kathy Guthrie and Dr. Erica Wiborg. The second book, also co-authored with Dr. Kathy Guthrie, is titled Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning and was published in 2021. Engaging Black Men in College Through Leadership Learning is co-edited with Dr. Jesse Ford and was published in 2023. Dr. Beatty’s forthcoming book, Moving Toward Action: Centering Anti-Racism in Leadership Learning, is co-edited with Dr. Amber Manning-Ouellette and will be released in late summer 2024.

He has served as the Coalition on Men & Masculinities Chair and a Directorate Board member for the Commission for Faculty and Graduation Programs with ACPA (College Student Educators International). Dr. Beatty was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) as a member-at-large (2023-2025).

Dr. Beatty co-hosts Scholar Tea, a fun and witty podcast with Dr. Shawna Patterson-Stephens that explores current issues in higher education from a critical perspective.

Derron Bennett serves as a Legislative Director and Senior Advisor in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he has done extensive work in the policies around free speech and civic engagement on college campuses. Before this role, he served as the chief of staff and staff director for the Florida House of Representatives Democratic Caucus, where he led a policy team that focused on varying topics, including fighting attacks on free speech throughout the State University System of Florida. With a robust background in public administration, Derron has facilitated numerous legislative initiatives to foster dialogue and understanding across diverse communities. He rounds out his policy experience with previous work in issue advocacy and campaigning.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Master’s in Public Administration from Florida A&M University. Certifications in Public Policy from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Legislative Negotiation from a collaboration of the Harvard Kennedy School and American University further complement his professional development.

Robert Cohen, a professor of social studies and history at New York University, is a historian of student protest, whose books have explored the history of the struggle for free speech, peace, and racial justice on campuses in the US during the 20th century. Among his more recent books are The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s: Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s; Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s, and Confronting Jim Crow: Race, Memory, and the University of Georgia in the 20th Century.

Yi Ding (Ding) is a tenured faculty librarian at California State University Northridge (CSUN), committed to democratizing information access in educational and civic spaces. As a first-generation immigrant of color, Ding's personal journey overcoming financial struggles and cultural barriers fuels her advocacy for educational equity and civic empowerment. At CSUN, a Minority-Serving Institution, she spearheads the Library Online Instruction Team and the Affordable Learning $olutions initiative to support students from underserved backgrounds. She also serves as the AB963 designated Civic and Voter Empowerment Coordinator, driving the CSUN Act Now (CAN) campaigns for voter registration and civic engagement. Through strategic partnerships with organizations including the American Democracy Project and League of Women Voters, Ding’s leadership contributed to a 400% increase in CAN membership, earning CSUN recognition as the inaugural ALL IN Most Engaged Campus for College Student Voting in 2022.

In response to challenges of civic engagement in the immigrant community, Ding co-founded the nonprofit organization Community for Holistic Education and Empowerment of Civic Responsibilities (CHEER), which fosters intergenerational, cross-racial service projects. Ding also serves on the Los Angeles County Commission for Women, focusing on women’s empowerment, and co-leads the Xīn Shēng | 心声 Project, a political-education and counter-disinformation initiative, featured in media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, Vox, Foreign Policy, and MIT Technology Review.

Tara Donnelly is a high school librarian at Foreman College & Career Academy in the Chicago Public Schools. Previously, she taught English and Special Education at several high schools nationwide. As a school librarian, she focuses on adolescent literacy, media literacy, and research skills. Her local initiatives include spearheading efforts around First Amendment issues. She is a founding member of Library Defense, a Chicago-based collective that organizes to raise awareness of elected officials whose platform involves banning diverse books. Tara is interested in using collaborative methods to strengthen and explore the relationship between k-12 and higher education librarians and in ways to improve information literacy for students transitioning from high school to college. Her education includes an MA in Secondary Education from Johnson State College, a BA in English Literature from Ithaca College, and a school librarian certification through the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Tara is also a proud member of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Dr. Susan Haarman is the associate director at Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship where she facilitates faculty development and the university's service-learning program. She has degrees from Marquette University, Loyola University of Chicago, and the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and previously served as the faith and justice campus minister, also at Loyola University Chicago, where she ran service immersions. In addition to having a PhD in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, she holds a Masters in Divinity, a Masters in Community Counseling, a certificate in directing the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, and is a licensed therapist. Her research focuses on the intersection between social justice education, community-based learning, civic identity, and imagination.

Leslie Watland is the Associate Dean of Students at DePaul University where she facilitates care resources and case management for students experiencing personal crises and administers the student conduct process, including cases that fall under Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies and Title IX. She has degrees from Columbia College Chicago and DePaul University and is completing her PhD in Sociology at Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on student mental health, sociology of higher education, emotion work and higher education policy.

Dr. Tara Hudson is Associate Professor in the Higher Education Administration program at Kent State University. Dr. Hudson’s research examines the relationship between interactional diversity and college students’ prosocial learning and development. Her dissertation, which received the 2015 Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), developed a model of how college students develop and sustain interracial friendships. In 2018 she received a collaborating scholar award from the IDEALS research study to examine college students’ friendships across worldview identity differences. Prior to becoming a faculty member, Dr. Hudson worked as a higher education professional for 12 years, including five years as an academic advisor. Dr. Hudson’s theoretical, conceptual, and practitioner-based expertise regarding college students’ diverse friendships and prosocial development guides the design and theoretical framing of this study. Her previous research on college students’ friendships across social boundaries also informs data generation methods and provides the theoretical sensitivity necessary for translating project findings into meaningful educational interventions.

Dr. Alyssa Rockenbach is Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development at North Carolina State University. Her interdisciplinary research centers religious diversity and marginalization in higher education and college student friendships. Dr. Rockenbach is a respected voice in and beyond the field of education; she has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications. As co-principal investigator of the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), which tracked thousands of college students attending 122 U.S. colleges and universities over four years (2015-2019), Dr. Rockenbach has cultivated in-depth expertise regarding how educational experiences, including friendships, affect college students’ capacity to engage and cooperate across social differences. Given her co-leadership of the IDEALS study, Dr. Rockenbach is prepared to draw on the momentum generated by IDEALS and build on its success in meaningful ways. IDEALS was the first study of its kind to reveal the transformative potential of religiously diverse collegiate environments, educational experiences, and peer relationships in college students’ lives. The power of friendships to inspire prejudice reduction and positive attitude change emerged as a key finding in the study and also raised critical unanswered questions about how to create the conditions conducive to friendship formation across lines of difference—including political differences. Dr. Rockenbach has also had considerable success reaching the public with her work. Since 2015, IDEALS has been featured more than 50 times in a wide range of media outlets, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Christian Science Monitor, and The Washington Post.

Anil Kalhan is a Professor of Law at the Drexel University Kline School of Law and a Professor (by courtesy) at the Drexel University Center for Science, Technology, and Society. He also is an Affiliated Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project and an Affiliated Faculty Member at the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Center. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.P.P.M. from the Yale School of Management, and an A.B. from Brown University, and after law school he served as law clerk to the Hon. Chester J. Straub (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and the Hon. Gerard E. Lynch (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York). He also previously worked as a litigation associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he served as co-coordinator of the firm’s immigration and international human rights pro bono practice group, and with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project in New York. Before attending law school, he worked for Cable News Network, PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and the New York City Department of Transportation.

Professor Kalhan writes and teaches in areas including immigration law, constitutional law, legislation and regulation, privacy and surveillance, and international human rights, and he has worked extensively on academic freedom issues in a variety of capacities. Since 2020, he has served as a member of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, and he also has served as a member of AAUP’s Special Committee on Florida, which investigated and published two reports in 2023 examining the politically motivated attacks on academic freedom and shared governance in the state’s public higher education system. He previously served on the Law and Society Association’s Task Force on Academic Freedom and the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the Association of American Law Schools. He also has contributed extensively to the work of numerous committees of the New York City Bar Association, including its International Human Rights Committee (which he chaired from 2015 to 2018), Task Force on the Rule of Law, Immigration and Nationality Law Committee, International Law Committee, and Task Force on National Security and the Rule of Law.

During the 2021–22 and 2022–23 academic years, Professor Kalhan was a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He also has taught at New York University School of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, Fordham University School of Law, and Columbia Law School and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. An elected member of the American Law Institute and fellow of the American Bar Foundation, he received the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty’s Chris Kando Iijima Teacher and Mentor Award in 2018.

Penelope Lusk is a PhD Candidate at the University of Pennsylvania in the Education, Culture, and Society program, with a Certificate in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies. Prior to beginning doctoral studies, Penelope worked at NYU’s medical school in her hometown, New York City. She holds a master’s degree in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, and in 2020-2020 was a US-UK Fulbright student fellow at the University of Exeter, where she worked with the Shame and Medicine Project. Penelope’s dissertation, “Shame and the Student Body,” examines the relationship between shame and identity in learning institutions, bridging her interests in the philosophy of education, the medical humanities, and gender studies. Penelope has also completed a Certificate in Teaching and Learning through Penn; learning from students is a guiding light for her in research and doctoral work.