Members of the Board of Trustees

Sandra Bernabei, CSW, CASAC
Secretary

Sandra Bernabei is a community organizer, organizational consultant, and private practitioner. She has over 20 years experience in the field of addictions and has served as director of Barnard College/Columbia University, Alcohol & Substance Abuse Prevention Program, the Council on Alcoholism and other Drug Dependence in Rockland County- New York, and the Chemical Dependency Training Institute for Addiction Specialist.

Sandy is the founder of the Antiracist Alliance, an antiracist organizing, support network and training exchange for New York City area human service practictioners. The AntiRacist Alliance is working to bring an antiracist agenda to social work practice and transform social work education to include a working analysis of structural racism as outlined by the People's Instutute for Survival and Beyond. ARA offices are located in Westchester County and New York City.

Mathilda Catarina, Ph. D.
Treasurer

Dr. Catarina is currently involved in the development of a Multicultural Research Center for the College of Education. She chaired the committee to write the charter for the New Jersey State Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). In November of 2000, the charter for the NJ State Chapter was approved at the annual conference of NAME in Orlando. FL. Dee is President of NJ NAME, which is housed in the College of Education of WPU.

Her research interests, which include student attitudes toward race and gender, inform her work in multicultural counseling and teacher training. Professor Catarina has presented her research at many conferences at both the state and national levels. She also completed a chapter being published this year by Columbia University Press in a book edited by Professor Daphne Joslin, her colleague at WPU. The book addresses issues of grandparents raising grandchildren who have been affected or infected by HIV/AIDS. Dr. Catarina's chapter deals with school related issues. She is continuing her research in this area. and is examining the growth of AIDS in women of childbearing age as well as young men of color.

Charley Flint, Ph. D.
President and Board Chairperson

Activist, educator, and scholar, Charley Flint is Professor of Sociology at William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey. Dr. Flint is also on the Women’s Studies faculty, has served as Director of the Race and Gender Project, and is the founder of ALANA, a program of and for women of color in higher education in New Jersey.

Dr. Flint was the first black woman to receive a Ph. D. in Sociology from Rutgers University in 1981, where she was an active participant in the development of the Women's Studies Program. She is co-editor of the recently published book, Transforming the Curriculum: Teaching Resources from the New Jersey Project (Teachers College Press, 1995).

One of the two co-founders of the Center, Dr. Flint is also President of the Board of Trustees, New Jersey Association on Corrections, and a member of the New Jersey Association of Criminal Justice Educators, Eastern Sociological Society, American Sociological Association, and the Association of Black Women in Higher Education.

Jeff Hitchcock, M.S., M.B.A.
Executive Director and Ex-officio Board Member

Jeff Hitchcock has fifteen years managerial experience in the nonprofit and private sectors, ranging from small organizations to Fortune 100 companies, including the Equitable and American International Group. Prior to his current position with the Center, he was Vice President of Alfonso Associates, a minority-owned diversity and organizational development consulting firm, where his duties included consulting with client organizations on diversity concerns and designing programs, workshops and seminars on diversity-related issues for managers and other work force employees.

Mr. Hitchcock is co-founder of the Center and presently serves full time as the Center's Executive Director. He received his M.B.A. from New York University (Stern School) and his M.A. in Social Psychology from Rutgers University. He is also past-President of GIFT (Getting Interracial/intercultural Families Together), a social organization for interracial families and multiracial individuals based in Montclair, NJ.

Robin Parker, J.D.
Trustee

Robin Parker is the Executive Director of the Beyond Diversity Resource Center. Prior to holding that position, Mr. Parker served as a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He was appointed Chief of the Office of Bias Crime and Community Relations on June 8, 1994. In that position he was responsible for the statewide investigation and prosecution of bias crime. Under his leadership, the office also developed groundbreaking diversity initiatives including the Institute for Human Relations and the administration of the New Jersey Human Relations Council.

Mr. Parker currently facilitates diversity training for individuals, businesses, educational institutions, human relations commissions and police agencies; sponsors conferences on cultural diversity and community dialogue throughout the nation; and lectures extensively on the subject of racism and oppression, and the need for community intervention in solving the problem of prejudice.

He is a 1983 graduate of the University of Illinois Law School where he received a full scholarship. He is also a graduate of Rutgers University where he received a B.A. in 1980.

Jorge Zeballos
Trustee

Jorge Zeballos holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Rutgers University. He is a diversity consultant with particular expertise on matters related to the Latino community. He has developed a unique workshop that explores the racial identity of Latinas and Latinos, which he has presented at various conferences nationwide, such as the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute. His expertise also includes facilitating community dialogues on race and race relations, and workshops on sexual orientation and other topics related to diversity. In addition, Mr. Zeballos serves on various boards and commissions including the Advisory Board of the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development; the Minority Concerns Committee, and Vicinage 13 of the Superior Court of New Jersey. Mr. Zeballos currently resides in Flemington, New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.