elect! | teach-in & speak-out




	Voter Guide NY The Candidates Forum NYC Board of Elections Smart Voter League of Women Voters' Easy Voting Guide Campus Activism Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action		Move On True Majority Alternet BBC World News Political News Daily League of Pissed off Voters Demos Election Newswire



	Caron Atlas political campaign consultant		Caron Atlas is a Brooklyn-based freelance consultant working to strengthen connections between community-based arts, policymaking, and social change. Caron was the founding director of the American Festival Project and worked for several years with Appalshop, the Appalachian media center. Consultancies include the Ford Foundation's Animating Democracy Initiative; National Voice; A Cultural Blueprint for New York City; 651 Arts; Arab Arts Project; Urban Institute; National Arts Administration Mentorship Project; and the Irvine, Leeway, and Rockefeller Foundations. Caron teaches at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and in the fall of 04 will be offering the course, "Is this what Democracy looks like? Arts, Elections & Beyond." She has a master's degree from the University of Chicago and was a Warren Weaver fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation. She is also the author of numerous articles on the topic, including "Cultural Policy: in the board rooms and on the streets."

	Jim Costanzo multimedia artist, activist		Jim Costanzo is an artist based in New York City whose work has been exhibited in this country and in Europe. The starting point for his art is the expanded photographic image which includes film and video. This work has evolved to the point where all of the media is currently processed through the computer. His most recent work has taken the form of multimedia installations which combines these various forms of media with objects and text. Mr. Costanzo is also charter member of the artist’s collective REPOhistory. The collective creates site–specific public art works based on issues of race, gender and class and sexuality. They have received numerous grants to create site–specific public art projects in New York City, Atlanta and Houston. He is currently doing a billboard series based on human rights and global justice. MA University of Iowa 1981 MFA University of Iowa 1983

	Nisi Jacobs documentary filmmaker		Nisi Jacobs is a video/sound artist in NYC. Her work has screened in festivals in Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, the UK, San Francisco, New York, and was featured as part of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003. She received her BFA from Cooper Union for painting. She has been active in the anti-war movement since it began days after the attacks of 9/11, which she witnessed from four blocks away. Nisi works as an editor for social and political documentaries and projects, and is active in voter drives. She also edits a political email list that sends out alternative news on an irregular basis.

	Letitia James City Council Representative		Letitia James is the New York City Council Member for the 35th Council District, representing Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, and parts of downtown Brooklyn. James, a lifelong Democrat, was elected in 2003, as the first City Council member ever elected on the Working Families Party line. Prior to her election she served as chief of staff for New York State Assemblyman Roger Green, and as assistant attorney general and deputy state attorney general under New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer. In the past, she has championed such causes as the family day care registration bill in the City Council, a bill that expanded day care for working families across the city. She also helped in expanding health care services under the Primary Health Case Development Bill in 1994, and later pushed the 1996 Welfare Reform Act in the New York State Assembly. James has also served as the Counsel to State Assemblymember Albert Vann. In addition, she established the Urban Network, a coalition of African-American professional organizations aimed at providing scholarships for young people. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Letitia James resides in Prospect Heights, and is a graduate of Howard University School of Law. She completed her Master's Degree in Public Administration from Columbia University1s School of International and Public Affairs.

	Neil Rosenstein NYPIRG, election specialist		A lifelong New Yorker, Neal Rosenstein is the Government Reform Coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and the NYPIRG Fund. NYPIRG is a statewide student-directed good government, environmental and social justice organization which maintains an ongoing presence in the halls of power and streets of New York. Over the past 20 years he has worked for NYPIRG's (c) (3) and (c) (4) as an organizer and lobbyist on their government and election reform work. He began his work on voter participation issues in college when he led a successful lawsuit against the local and New York State Board of Elections that had been denying his and other student's their right to vote. In 2000, New York City enacted one of the country's most aggressive agency-based voter registration programs based on legislation he drafted. For the last decade he has coordinated NYPIRG's hands-on voter participation efforts on colleges and in communities under represented in the political process resulting in more than 250,000 registrations. This year, he directed NYPIRG's voter participation campaign that registered more than 43,000 New Yorkers, more than any other non-partisan effort in the state. He helps coordinate the organizations voter guides, candidate forums, election day surveys, voter pulls and phone banks. NYPIRG's election day helpline typically fields more than 1,000 complaints and calls for assistance on election day. He currently serves as co-chair of the Citywide Coalition for Voter Participation, a dynamic and diverse group of non-profits working to coordinate their participation efforts and press for electoral reforms.

	Julie Talen filmmaker, screenwriter		Talen's long-standing interest in multichannel narrative began with seeing a three-monitor piece by the artist Juan Downey in 1981. She has since studied multiple imagery in both narrative and non-narrative forms, including the history of abstract film, current work in video and film installations and the major directors who created split-screen films in the late 60's. She has written on this subject for Salon.com. Her own work in this field began in 1997, when she used her digital cameras to shoot two-camera scenes in preparation for Pretend. Pretend, about two sisters who try to scare their parents into staying together, is her first fiction feature,, and features divisions of many sizes and numbers throughout the film. It won first prize for fiction film at the international digital cinema festival, FESTIVALITO in the Canary Islands, Spain. It has been shown at the Vancouver Film Festival, and SENEF in Seoul Korea after premiering in the NY Video Festival in the summer of 2003. Her second multichannel work, 60 Cameras Against The War, weaves together footage shot by sixty different protestors at the Feb 15th 2003 demonstration against the US war on Iraq. It has shown in the Imagine Festival during the Republican National Convention and has been screening at the Whitney Museum in the films series, "War! Films of Protest, 1965-2004" for the past two months, Over the next two weeks, it will play in more than 25 venues in six battleground states as part of the series "Films To See Before You Vote." It can be downloaded from her website, glimpseculture.com. Julie Talen worked as a reporter and essayist after graduating with honors from Brown and getting a Master's degree from the Columbia Journalism School. She's written for the Village Voice, American Film and other major magazines before becoming a screenwriter. Talen s first studio assignments began in 1991, on the strength of a spec script - A Simple Wedding - which sold to Academy-award-winning producer Douglas Wick at Columbia Pictures. She has since written adaptations, original screenplays and worked with leading directors Gillian Armstrong, Paul Verhoeven and Robert Altman. She shared credit on the 1996 Paramount film Harriet the Spy, starring Rosie O'Donnell and directed by Bronwyn Hughes. She is currently writing Mata Hari for Altman starring Cate Blanchett, and produced by Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love).

	Archie Tse The New York Times		Archie Tse has been a graphics editor at The New York Times since 1995. He has coordinated the graphics coverage of nearly every election since 1998. Last December, he went to Iraq on assignment to report and create information graphics. He is one of the first graphics reporters from the United States to be sent to the region. In recent years, he has been assigned to projects and has coordinated the graphics coverage of the release of data from the 2000 Census. In 1999, he redesigned The Times' weather page.

	Sarah Walker NYPIRG, Pratt student, activist		Currently a junior painting major at Pratt. For the past two years, Sarah has served as Pratt's representative on NYPIRG's state-wide board of directors. She has also led the environmental project group for two years, and helped with NYPIRG's voter registration campaign which registered 500 members of the Pratt community to vote. Sarah has also been actively involved in student initiated endeavors at Pratt including co-directing Pratt Colaboratives and acting as a student representative on the Sustainable Pratt Committee.

	Ivan Zatz-Diaz Pratt Institute		Assistant Professor, Social Science and Cultural Studies, Pratt: ABD, Sociology CUNY Graduate Center; MFA Film and Television, NYU; graduate work in Brazilian/Spanish American Literature at the National Autonomous University Of Mexico; B.A. Culture and Society SUNY Purchase. Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, CUNY, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies Courses: Making the News; Modern Social Theory & the Avant-Garde; The Production of Space & Everyday Life; Value, Wages & Social Relations; Introduction to Sociology; Anthropology; Cultural Studies; Latin American Societies; Mass Media; Perception & Creativity; Controversies in Cultural Theory; Globalization Research/Professional Interests: Media Studies; Globalization; Art & Politics

	Axis of Eve		The Axis of Eve is a coalition of brazen women on a mission to EXPOSE and DEPOSE President Select George W. Bush and his deceitful administration. Convinced that effective political action can be irreverent and exciting, we have launched a titillating campaign of TRUTH-FLASHING coordinated around our provocative line of protest panties, emblazoned with anti-bush slogans like "expose bush", "weapon of mass seduction," and "ballot box."



	Amy Guggenheim Pratt Institute		Amy Guggenheim is a writer, director and teacher in the English Department at Pratt Institute. She is currently editing Bill and George, the first of a trilogy about three sets of fictional identical twins, as part of a "Cuts and Burns Residency at the Outpost in Williamsburg", shot in August on a Co-Production Residency at The Banff Center in Canada.

	Brad Lander Pratt Institute		Brad Lander is director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED). The Pratt Center supports community-based organizations in New York City in their work to combat poverty and inequality, to promote sustainable and equitable community development, and to plan and realize futures shaped by community voice and vision. The Center leverages the skills of the planning and architectural professions to provide technical assistance to communities, conduct policy research and advocacy, and offer training and education for students and community development practitioners. Lander is also an adjunct professor in Pratt's Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. From 1993 to 2003, Brad served as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community development organization whose mission is to advance social and economic justice in South Brooklyn by developing affordable housing, creating economic opportunity, organizing residents, and offering adult education opportunities. He serves on the boards of the Jewish Fund for Justice, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development in New York City, and Grassroots Leadership. He holds a MS in City and Regional Planning from Pratt, an MS in Social Anthropology from the University College London, and a BA from the University of Chicago. Brad lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Meg Barnette, and their children, Marek and Rosa.



	Ann Holder		Assistant Professor, Social Science and Cultural Studies. Pratt Institute. Ph.D., History, Boston College, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies Courses: World Civilizations; Representing the Real; Making the Body Politic Research/Professional Interests: Politics of Citizenship; US Social/Cultural History; US Women’s History; African-American History; Gender/Sexuality Studies; Post-colonial theory; Urban History; Studies in Visual Culture; European Intellectual History

	Amy Lesen		Assistant Professor, Biology. Department of Math and Science, Pratt Institute. B.S., University of Massachussetts at Amherst; Ph. D., University of California, Berkeley

	James Reeves		Visiting Instructor, Art and Design Education. Pratt Institute. B.F.A., University of Michigan (Graphic Design); M.S., Pratt Institute (Art & Design Education); graphic/interactive designer; co-founder Red Antenna, design/music/criticism collective; co-founder Prizefight Design Studio, motion/print/web design for profit & non-profit organizations; program director, Pratt Summer Design Program; lab manager, ADElab; Kino-Glaz project

	Beth Warshafsky		Adjunct Associate Professor, Computer Graphics and Interactive Media. Pratt Institute. B.A., Fine Arts Antioch College; M.F.A. Printmaking/Painting Columbia University; Independent artist, animator, producer and director specializing in video, computer graphics and animation. Works exhibited at ACM SIGGRAPH, MadCat Film Festival, Rochester Contemporary Gallery, NSA Festival, Havana Cuba’s 5th Digital Art Exposition, Imagina, Paris; Awards: CLIO, Broadcast Design Association; Ohio State Excellence in Education.



	This event is organized by the Academic Initiatives Committee of the Academic Senate. The views expressed in this event are those of the individual presenters and not necessarily those of the Academic Senate or Pratt Institute, which express no position on the topics.