Past Board of Directors Members

2016-17 Officers

President:  Clare Counihan

Program Coordinator, Carolina Women’s Center

As program coordinator, Clare Counihan supports faculty and staff’s work by helping them access resources for gender equity in the workplace. She works with units across the university to reduce barriers to success based on gender. She helps to improve policies and procedures that impact gender equity and supports faculty and staff achieving professional and person success. In addition to providing programming like “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” she develops programs upon request and assists with HAVEN and SafeZone trainings.

After graduating from Duke in 1999, Clare Counihan completed a Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests focus on experimental southern African fiction that explores the relationship between the nation and excluded subjects.

Vice President: Vacant

Treasurer: Sharbari Dey

Assistant Director of Education and Special Initiatives in Diversity and Inclusion

Dey designs and coordinates the delivery of  diversity trainings on issues related to implicit bias and cultural competency within hiring and workplace climate. Dey facilitates a diversity and cultural competence course curriculum for select student programs. She also co-coordinates programs related to increasing diversity in education, access, and research in higher education such as the annual faculty and staff Diversity THINKposium,the Diversity in Higher Education Speaker Series and consults with campus units on strategic planning initiatives related to increasing diversity through recruitment, access and workplace climate.

Her research interests include gender equity, undocumented student’s access to higher education and women’s leadership in higher education settings.

Sharbari earned her master’s degree in social work with a concentration in criminology and correctional administration from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India and a bachelor of science in electronic sciences from the University of Pune, India. She is currently a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership, Policy and Human Development program at North Carolina State University – School of Education

Secretary:  Vacant

Web Manager: Kristen Dunivant

Finance Applications Analyst

Kristen manages the functional aspects of the Time Information Management (TIM) system.

She joined the Finance Department in 2006 to assist with implementing a new automated timekeeping solution.  The Time Information Management (TIM) system went live in 2007 and is utilized to track SPA employee hours worked for accurate calculation of payment as well as to track leave for accurate reporting records for SPA and EPA Permanent employees.  TIM is a Kronos timekeeping system.  Kristen manages the TIM functional configuration, training and communications, and support.

Kristen is a Carolina alumna, graduating in 1998 with a BA in International Studies.  It was her experience working in the University computer labs that gave her an interest in Information Technology (IT) and helped her get her first job as a Technical Associate with Lucent Technologies.  Before joining UNC, Kristen worked for companies such as, Accenture and Blue Cross Blue Shield and has demonstrated success in IT project management and business analysis.

2015-16 Officers

President: Tanya Shields

Associate Professor

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

Tanya Shields is an associate professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and recent recipient of the Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Fellowship.  Dr. Shields’s first book, Bodies and Bones: Feminist Rehearsal and Imagining Caribbean Belonging (2014) examines the ways in which rehearsing historical events and archetypal characters shapes belonging to the region.   Feminist rehearsal helps us explore the ways in which people continually negotiate terms of membership and how these transactions reveal structures of resistance, oppression, and inequality. Dr. Shields is also editor of The Legacy of Eric Williams: Into the Postcolonial Moment (2015), which examines the contributions of Williams as an individual, a leader, and a scholar. Dr. Shields is currently at work on her second monograph, “Gendered Labor: Place and Power on Female-Owned Plantations,” a comparative study of women who owned plantations in the Caribbean and U.S. South. Shields hopes that this work will not only excavate this seldom studied group, but will also provide insights into women and work in our contemporary period. Additionally, her work is published in Cultural Dynamics, Women, Gender, and Families of Color, and Identities. Dr. Shields teaches classes on Caribbean women, the arts of activism, growing up girl globally, and the continuing influence of plantation economics and politics. She is president and board member of the Association for Women Faculty and Professionals (AWFP) and a board member for the Maryland-based Carivision Community Theater, which seeks to use theater as space of exchange between Caribbean and U.S. theater audiences. Dr. Shields earned her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Maryland at College Park.

2014-15 Officers

President:  Sue Coppola

Clinical Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine

scoppola@med.unc.edu

Sue Coppola joined the UNC Faculty in 1996. At UNC she coordinates fieldwork for occupational therapy (OT) students, and teaches about older adulthood, perspectives on disability, and OT practice. Her interests are focused on meaningful occupations in older adulthood, interdisciplinary teamwork, and building global connections in OT and disability. Sue serves as the USA Delegate to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) and as the WFOT  Programme Coordinator for Research.  Favorites: swim-bike-run with friends, bookclub books, being in the woods, admiring craftwork, and occasionally making a quilt.

Vice President: Christi Hurt

Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief of Staff, Student Affairs Director, Carolina Women’s Center

christihurt@unc.edu

Christi Hurt is the Interim Director of the Carolina Women’s Center. Christi is a Carolina alumna, graduating in 1993 with a BA in History and in 1998 with a Master of Public Administration degree. She has been a lifelong advocate for women, with extensive experience in organizational development and leadership transitions. She has worked on the local, state, and national level in nonprofit organizations that advocate for an end to violence against women. For over nine years, she worked with the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs in Olympia, Washington. She also worked for the Orange County Rape Crisis Center, on whose Advisory Board she now serves. She lives in Chapel Hill with her partner, two children, and a very loud dog.

Treasurer:  Jennifer Willis

Director of State Relations, Communications and Public Affairs

jenwillis@unc.edu

Jennifer Willis is the Director of Public Affairs for UNC-Chapel Hill.  In this capacity, she serves as the University’s principal subject matter expert and focal point on issues that impact both State-level support of and relationships with state government.  This includes advocacy with the state legislature, State elected officials and agencies, and members of the general public.  Jennifer is a Carolina alumna, graduating in 1993 with a BA in Political Science and a graduate of NCSU in 1995 with a Master of Public Administration degree.  Prior to joining Carolina in August 2012, Jennifer served as Director of Government Relations for the North Carolina Community College System and its 58 constituent institutions, where she developed and managed the System’s state legislative agenda.  Her career also spans into local government, where she led Wake County’s intergovernmental relations efforts and also served as a lead budget analyst for multiple county departments  as well as the county’s capital improvement program. Her life in and love for politics began in the North Carolina State Legislature, where she served as the lead legislative staff for the House and Senate Natural and Economic Resources appropriations committees for nearly seven years. When she’s not in Raleigh, she is busy at home in Cary, managing her three children’s crazy schedules alongside her husband Andy.

Secretary: Connie Walker

President and General Manager, WUNC Radio

cwalker@wunc.org

Connie Walker has been President and General Manager of North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC since March of 2009. Connie started at WUNC in 2005 as news director and served as interim program director from July, 2008 until moving into the GM role. North Carolina Public Radio covers most of central North Carolina and also reaches much of the Outer Banks. The station produces two national programs, “The Story” with host Dick Gordon, and “The People’s Pharmacy”. WUNC has three news bureaus and produces an hour long weekday talk program focused on North Carolina issues, “The State of Things”.Connie previously worked at Wisconsin Public Radio for 17 years. She was a reporter, an on-air host, and then News Director. Connie also served as President of Public Radio News Directors Incorporated from 2001 to 2005. Connie has received many reporting awards from journalism organizations and the programming staff at both WPR and WUNC also have received numerous awards under her direction.

Immediate Past President: Amanda Hughes

Director of External Affairs, Ackland Art Museum

hughesa@email.unc.edu 

Christi Hurt currently serves as the Assistant Vice Chancellor/Chief of Staff for the Division of Student Affairs and the Director of the Carolina Women’s Center (CWC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She chaired the Task Force to revise the University policy on prohibited discrimination and harassment, including sexual misconduct, which was enacted across the campus in August 2014.  Christi has been working to end violence since 1991, when she began working as a crisis line volunteer at the Orange County Rape Crisis Center.  Since that time, she has worked on the state and national levels with the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs and the National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project to end violence in all communities.  Christi enjoys building partnerships to achieve big goals and is always happy to figure out ways to connect with people who are doing great work.  She earned her Master in Public Administration and her undergraduate degree at UNC.

Web Manager: Anne Whisnant

Deputy Secretary of the Faculty, Office of Faculty Governance

Adjunct Associate Professor of History and American Studies

anne_whisnant@unc.edu

Anne Mitchell Whisnant joined AWFP in the fall of 2006, just after coming to UNC as the first Director of Research, Communications, and Programs for the Office of Faculty Governance. As the only woman in a small office, she gave an immediate “yes” to her invitation to attend the fall 2006 AWFP reception. She found AWFP’s embrace of both faculty and administrative women especially appealing, as she straddles those boundaries in her own professional life as an administrator in an office that deals with faculty issues and a scholar who continues to do research, publish and teach in the field in which she received her Ph.D. from Carolina in 1997 — American history. In 2006 UNC Press published her book, Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History. Anne and her husband also do historical consulting work for the National Park Service. She is the mother of two sons and is pleased recently to have (re)learned to ride a unicycle!

Board Members, Terms Ending 2015

Connie Eble

Professor, English and Comparative Literature

cceble@email.unc.edu

Connie Eble has been the English department’s linguist since 1971.  Her research interests in the historical development of the English language focus on English in the USA, particularly American college slang.   She has enjoyed a long career of active participation in professional organizations and has served as the president of the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics, the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, and the American Dialect Society.  She is currently a member of the board of the Dictionary Society of North America.  She was a founding member of the Association of Women Faculty when it was drawn up in Mary Turner Lane’s living room three decades ago and has twice served on the Board.  University service has included Chair of the Humanities Division and membership on  Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure; Faculty Executive; Athletics; Grievance; and the Administrative Board of the Graduate School.  In May 2012, she was honored to be named Friend of the Royster Society of Fellows. She is a native of New Orleans (with a recent article on words for food there) and is an active parishioner at the Newman Catholic Student Center and Parish.

Amanda Hughes

Director of External Affairs, Ackland Art Museum

hughesa@email.unc.edu 

Connie Walker

President and General Manager, WUNC Radio

cwalker@wunc.org

Jan Johnson Yopp

Walter Spearman Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Dean, Summer School (Academic Affairs)

jyopp@email.unc.edu

Jan Yopp is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and dean of Summer School. She has taught a variety of skills courses from newswriting to reporting to public relations writing and focuses creative activity on language, writing and editing. She advises the Carolina Association of Black Journalists. She has written three books, including the co-authored text, Reaching Audiences: A Guide to Media Writing, heading into a sixth edition. She has been a coach for the multimedia, award-winning News21 project in the School, an educational, motivating experience that brought her full force into the digital age—essential to keep up with students today.

2011-2012 Officers

Board Members, Terms Ending 2012

 Board Members, Terms Ending 2013

 Board Members, Terms Ending 2014