Harry C. Boyte is founder and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship now at Augsburg College, and a senior fellow at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. For more than twenty years, Boyte has helped to organize and direct action research partnerships and projects aimed at developing practice-based theory for what works to engage citizens in public life. Boyte is also the founder of Public Achievement, a civic and political education initiative that aims at developing the civic agency of young people now in hundreds of communities in 23 countries. Boyte has authored eight books on democracy, citizenship, and community organizing.  In the 1960s, Boyte was a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization directed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Harry Boyte is married to Marie Louise Ström, a democracy educator with Idasa, the African democracy organization.

Mary Kirlin is an associate professor in the department of Public Policy and Administration at California State University Sacramento. Kirlin teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in management, finance and government. She has served in a variety of leadership roles on campus including strategic planning and budgeting. Her research interests are in the area of civic and political engagement with a particular focus on the development of civic skills. Kirlin spent 15 years working for California elected officials in state and local government before entering the academy. She worked on policy issues ranging from transportation to housing, finance and education serving in a variety of roles including chief of staff to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. She was a member of the faculty at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) for five years before returning to California with her husband and two children.

Miguel Vásquez is a professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University whose work over the past 25 years has focused on the diversity of the human experience, particularly as it relates to long-term, indigenous and cross-cultural insights into social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. Currently, he is helping develop public achievement and other culturally engaged curriculum projects for Native and Latino children in Arizona. Other activities have included; community-based assessment work with the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, collaboration with the Hopi Tribe in the restoration of ancient terrace gardens, and development work with Mayan communities in Guatemala. Vásquez chairs the Coconino County Hispanic Advisory Council, and in 2009 he was the recipient of the University’s President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award. Vasquez received his BA in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS in International Agricultural Development and PhD in Anthropology at the University of California, Davis.

Caryn McTighe Musil is the Senior Vice President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and oversees the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives. Dr. Musil’s expertise in civic issues is rooted in the history of the civil rights and women’s movement. For AAC&U’s initiative American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning, Dr. Musil directed three generations of a faculty and curriculum development initiative that involved 130 institutions. That work led to the Tri-National Project with educators from India, South Africa, and the United States exploring the role of higher education in diverse democracies. She is currently director of Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility that engages students with essential questions about their ethical and civic responsibilities to self and others. Dr. Musil received her B.A. in English from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University.