Featured Speakers

Jane Kurtz was born in Portland, Oregon, but when she was two years old, her parents moved to Ethiopia. Jane grew up in Maji, a small town in the southwest corner of the country. Since there were no televisions, radios, or movies, her memories are of climbing mountains, wading in rivers by the waterfalls, listening to stories, and making up her own stories, which she and her sisters acted out for days at a time. When she was in fourth grade, she went to boarding school in Addis Ababa. Her family left Ethiopia in the late 1970s, but a decade later, first her brother and his family and then her older sister and her family went back to teach in a girls' school in Addis Ababa. By the time Jane came back to the United States for college, she felt there was no way to talk about her childhood home to people here. It took nearly twenty years to finally find a way - through her children's books. Now she often speaks in schools and at conferences, sharing memories from her own childhood and bringing in things for the children to touch and taste and see and smell and hear from Ethiopia. "It's been a healing and inspiring experience," she says, "to re-connect with my childhood and also be able to help people know just a little of the beautiful country where I grew up."

Michael Pavel's interests encompass issues relating to American Indian and Alaska Native postsecondary access and achievement, such as American Indian and Alaska Native K-12 characteristics, college access marketing, and persistence to graduation. Pavel teaches History of American Higher Education, Administration in Higher Education, Community and Technical Colleges, Multicultural Issues in Higher Education, College Student Development, Traditional Salish Art Form and Style, Indigenous Plant Medicine, and Twana Song/Dance/Oral History. In the past, Pavel taught at the University of California - Los Angeles, as well as consulted with numerous tribes and indigenous organizations. He is a Traditional Bearer of Southern Puget Salish traditional culture, focused on learning the language, traditions, rituals, history, and ceremonial way of life among the Twana and other Pacific Northwest Salish peoples. Pavel Co-authored The American Indian and Alaska Native Student's Guide to College Success (Greenwood Press, 2007). His recognitions include Washington State Indian Educator of the Year for 2007 and a finalist for the prestigious Buffett Award in 2007. He was selected to serve on the national Research Advisory Committee for the Pathways to College Network, an alliance of 38 national organizations and funders committed to advancing college access and success for underserved students. He is a past member of Editorial Board, American Educational Research Journal: Section on Social and Institutional Analysis, and the Journal of American Indian Education, External Evaluator for numerous nationally funded American Indian/Alaska Native programs. Pavel earned his Ph.D. Higher and Adult Education, Arizona State University; M.Ed. Higher and Adult Education, Arizona State University; and B.A. Urban Affairs, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington.