Leadership: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - 11-5

James Black is a first-generation college student who ended up building a career in higher education. While establishing a solid track record for assisting students with meeting educational goals, he became a bit obsessed with addressing systemic inequities that have little to do with academic rigor. He values collaboration with faculty, staff, students, and others who champion higher education as an inclusive public good. James currently serves as Assistant to the Dean in the Zeigler College of Business at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He is a PhD candidate in the Higher Education Leadership program at Colorado State University. Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, he lives in Northumberland with his husband and their three dogs.

Dr. Hogan is a scholar-practitioner, strategic adviser, executive leadership coach, and a higher education thought leader in the Ed Tech sector. He is an internationally recognized subject matter expert on business ethics, diversity, equity, inclusion, and civil discourse in the workplace. Dr. Hogan is a Professor of Practice in Human Resource Management at the Pennsylvania State University, School of Labor and Employment Relations. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in-residence and on-line. His signature class is Ethics in the Workplace. His research interests include Global Leadership Development, Global Diversity and Inclusion, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, and Ethical and Socially Responsible AI. In August 2020, he was appointed to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Blue Ribbon Commission on Racial Equity. Dr. Hogan currently represents Penn State University as a member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In this role, he is involved in developing and representing the U.S. position on global HR standards to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In December 2016, he was appointed and continues to serve on the ISO Work Group responsible for developing a global HR standard on diversity and inclusion. In November 2016, he was appointed and continues to serve on the SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Special Expertise Panel. Dr. Hogan also served on the Penn State University President’s Commission on Racial/Ethnic Diversity from 2015 – 2018. He was elected Co-Chair for Academic Year 2017-18. He has been appointed to serve as Diversity and Inclusion Director and voting board member of the Pennsylvania SHRM Council for a two-year term beginning January 2020.Dr. Hogan has over 30 years of experience as a practitioner and has served in leadership positions in higher education and the corporate sector. Prior to joining the Penn State University School of Labor and Employment Relations, he held the position of Interim Associate Provost, Office of Faculty Affairs at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC). Prior to working for UMGC, he spent 23 years with AT&T in a variety of assignments including sales, sales support, business development, marketing, and human resources. These assignments involved leading teams, operational and P&L responsibility. In his last assignment at AT&T, Dr. Hogan served as Director of Strategic Talent Acquisition and Retention, Workforce Diversity and EEO/AA. This real-world grounding underpins his research and anchors his classroom teaching with the next generation of students and leaders.

Barbara’s career encompasses more than 30 years of Information Technology experience in supply chain, large scale global project management, application development and vendor management. Leveraging her diverse business knowledge and strong technical background, Barbara has led cross-functional teams in fast-paced environments across the retail, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceutical, financial services and healthcare verticals.

Barbara is currently Director, Office of the CIO for South Jersey Industries, an energy services holding company providing natural gas to more than 681,000 customers in New Jersey and Maryland. Responsible for cross-functional IT leadership, governance and strategy across the infrastructure, applications, operations, and financial budgeting for the Information Technology organization with more than 110 employees supporting 1200 corporate employees in 15 locations.

Russ Starke is CEO of Think Company, a service design and digital experience design and development firm based in Philadelphia. He's been a professional designer for over 20 years, working with corporate and nonprofit clients as an award-winning digital strategist, experience designer, information architect, instructional designer, business analyst, and project manager. In addition to his work at Think Company, Russ serves on the board of LEADERSHIP Philadelphia (Class of 2015), the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Pennsylvania Small Business Development Centers, and as the executive chair of the Hospitality & Corporate Council for Broad Street Ministry, an organization dedicated to tackling homelessness and hunger in an innovative way by bringing public and private sectors together.

Jake graduated from Bloomsburg in 2016 with a Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration Management, and then again in 2017 with a Master's in Business Administration (MBA). Throughout university, Jake managed and was a member of multiple programs, including the school radio station, then WBUQ (manager), Program Board, CLE, and PBL. For the past three years, he has been working at Geisinger Health, within the company's data team. During this time, he has had many roles, including but not limited to; managing large complex data migration projects, building and running multiple agile multifunctional teams at once, developing complex data flows using Informatica, workflow and process design, as well as implementing policies around data security and quality.