AUTHOR
NILE HARPER
Dr. Nile Harper is director of Urban Church Research, Minneapolis. He is a Presbyterian minister and sociologist who served as director of field education and professor of church and society at New York Theological Seminary, and professor of sociology of religion at the Schools of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa (Catholic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian seminaries). He served Presbyterian congregations in Michigan and Iowa. He was associate executive of East Iowa Presbytery, serving its ninety congregations in the areas of congregational life and leadership education. For a decade Dr. Harper was the Presbyterian campus pastor and director of the Ecumenical Campus Center (a residential program for international students) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. From 2000 to 2006 he served on the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and chaired the committee for three years.
After graduation from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, he earned a master’s degree in religious education at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a master’s degree in sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York City, and the doctorate in social foundations of education at Columbia University in New York City. Among his previous publications are Social Conflict and Adult Christian Education; Will the Church Lose the City? (with Kendig Cully); and Urban Churches, Vital Signs: Beyond Charity Toward Justice.
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Dr. Jane Asche served as associate professor of education and a community development specialist at Virginia Tech University. For a decade she was director of development and vice president of the National Association of Partners in Education (NAPE) in Washington, D.C. She has worked as a curriculum designer, organizational leadership developer, strategic planner, and technical consultant to schools and government agencies. Currently she is a volunteer leader in the Parole Empowerment Partners project in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Rev. Daniel Erdman serves the New Mexico Conference of Churches as coordinator for congregation and community outreach focusing on ministries with high-risk youth. He is an ordained minister is both the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is pastor of a Spanish-speaking United Church of Christ congregation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Erdman served as co-director of a Witness for Peace program of citizen action for change of U.S. foreign policy toward Nicaragua and Central America. He served as manager of the Lancaster Interfaith Network for Central American Refugee Action, and he has worked as a translator for the Latin American Desk of the Mennonite Central Committee.
Joseph Errigo is director emeritus of CommonBond Communities. He served as president and chief executive officer of CommonBond and retired in 2006 after thirty-five years of leadership. He was the initiating organizer of CommonBond, and led the organization through three and a half decades of growth to become the largest nonprofit provider of affordable rental housing with supportive services in the upper Midwest. Errigo has given leadership on a number of national boards of directors for public, private, and nonprofit organizations. He does consulting with nonprofit community development entities and is a frequent lecturer at university schools of business, urban studies, and political science.
Dr. Peter Goodwin Heltzel is assistant professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary. He is a theologian and active leader of the evangelical social justice movement. He was a participant in the 2007 Alaskan environment expedition of scientists and evangelical religious leaders. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and an active speaker and advocate on faith-based social responsibility. Dr. Heltzel is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics (Yale 2009).
Dr. Harvey K. Newman is professor of public administration and urban studies in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Concurrently, he has served as the director for the Faith And The City program at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. He has taught in the field of urban policy studies for more than thirty years and has served in a variety of community and professional activities. He is the author of a book on public policy history in Atlanta.
Dr. Carl Safina is co-founder and president of the Blue Ocean Institute, a research and teaching center in Norwich, New York, and adjunct professor at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. Dr. Safina is a keen student of how the oceans are changing, the decline of creatures living in the oceans, and the implications for the peoples of the world. He helped lead campaigns to halt the use of high-seas driftnets, rewrite U.S. fisheries law, and achieve a United Nations fisheries treaty. His best known books are: Song for the Blue Ocean; Eye of the Albatross; and Voyage of the Turtle.
Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry is a minister in the United Church of Christ and a national leader in ecumenical movements for social justice. He served as the national coordinator for the Living Wage campaign, Let Justice Roll, from 2004-2007. He is a past president of the United Church of Christ denomination. He has served as a pastor, the executive director of the Community Renewal Society in Chicago, and coordinator of the Anti-Poverty Program of the National Council of Churches, New York City. He is an executive officer of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. He is co-author with Holly Sklar of the book, A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future.
