People Behind GTL
Board of Directors
Mary Schwartz, President and Chair of the Board, EDD, of Holden, MA holds a Bachelor and Masters degree in Nursing from the University of Detroit, Mercy and Wayne State University, respectively. She also earned a Doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Massachusetts. Mary is currently working as a Healthcare Quality Consultant after working many years in nursing and hospital administration and serving as faculty in nursing education programs. She has served on multiple healthcare committees at state and national levels and has served the Town of Holden by sitting on several boards and commissions. Mary became interested in GTL after traveling to East and South Africa where the plight of women without education became evident as a critical factor impacting the future development of those areas.
Richard A. Jenson, Vice President, of Lexington, MA has been an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Boston College since the early eighties with a mathematical interest in algebraic coding theory and computer science. He graduated from Dartmouth with a BA and earned his PhD in mathematics at the University of Illinois in Chicago. After bringing his family to Tanzania in the year 2000, he has returned to the country twice: each time to assist two primary schools in the Arusha region by supplying computers and text books, and by teaching math to a group of 13 year old Tanzanian children during their school vacation.
Donna Lazorik, Vice President, of Somerville, MA is a registered nurse with an MS in Community Health Nursing from Boston University. She coordinates the Adult Immunization Program for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and is on the board of the Massachusetts Public Health Association. She spent fifteen months working in Khmer refugee camps in Thailand in the early 1980’s and assessed primary care programs throughout Vietnam for the William Joiner Foundation in 1990. In 2002, she spent three months volunteering as a technical consultant with the World Health Organization on the Global Polio Eradication Program in Kenya.
Roger L. Whiting, Founder/Director of Development, of Paxton, MA has an A.B. in Psychology from Brown University. He was associated with Allmerica Financial for over 44 years as an insurance and financial services representative and is currently retired. He is a Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant. His activities include past president and director of several non-profit and financial industry associations. Since 1996 he has worked virtually full-time developing Growth Through Learning, a non-profit organization committed to providing scholarship aid to the girls and young women of East Africa.
Jeanne B. Lynch, Treasurer, of Paxton, MA has a B.A. in Thanatology from the University of Massachusetts and an Associate Degree in Nursing from Quinsigamond Community College. She is an advocate for children and has been a volunteer with the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Department of Social Services. Her interest in African children's education was heightened by her travels in South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Judith Nielsen, Clerk, is an R.N.from Sturbridge, MA. She has a M.S. in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts and a M.S. in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, Ca. She is currently participating in a research project, teaching meditation to hospitalized patients. Judith has worked at the UMassMemorial Medical Center since 1978 and has a long time commitment to quality of life issues.
Beverly A. Alexandre, of Abington, MA attended Elmira College and New York University graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education. She received her M.ED. from Tufts University and taught for several years before joining her family-run insulation and real estate management business started in 1949 by her father. Beverly is President of her family’s small private foundation, The Anderson Foundation. Following a safari to Tanzania in 2002 she became interested in the educational system in Tanzania and in one school in particular, the Shinda Basic School where she has committed her time and resources to improving the quality of the education there.
William F. Jones, of Paxton Massachusetts has a BSME from Case Institute of Technology and MSEA from Case Western University. He has served on Boards for the Chamber of Commerce, YOU Inc., and the Quinsigamond Community Foundation. He is president of Tuthill Energy Systems, a global manufacturer of Steam turbines, with locations in Iowa, Massachusetts, Germany, and Singapore. His wife had been an Assistant Professor and Director of an Early Childhood Program. He became interested in GTL following a Safari in Tanzania.
Margaret Wambega Njenga of Worcester, MA is a native of Kenya, East Africa. She was raised by parents who emphasized and advocated for education. Following high school Margaret studied in Kisii Town where she obtained a college diploma in secretarial studies. Then, she volunteered at several non-profit organizations, including a school for disabled children in Mumias, Kenya. Ms. Njenga moved to the US about 10 years ago with her four daughters. She currently cares for the sick and elderly, a cause to which she is strongly committed.
Advisory Board
Eugene McCarthy, Ph.D. - Chair Professor McCarthy of Worcester, Massachusetts has been teaching African American literature, and to an extent African literature, through most of his thirty- five years of teaching at Holy Cross College. He also teaches English eighteenth century literature. He was one of the founders and was Director of the African American Studies program for nine years at the College. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
Barbara Bullas Barbara Bullas of Pacific Grove, California and Arusha, Tanzania is the founder and Project Director of the former Afya Bora Mobile Medical Unit and currently the Afya Bora Education Project U.S.A. Her interest evolved from extensive travel in East Africa in 1988. Her previous experience includes being a Certified Court Reporter, Office Manager for a medical malpractice law firm in Santa Barbara, CA, a Certified Medical Transcriptionist, and a Surgical Technician. A multi-linguist, Barbara is fluent in Kiswahili, Ki-Maasai, Spanish, French, and Navajo.
The Afya Bora Education Project provides free schooling in English language skills, contemporary academic subjects, and health education to young adults, adults and seniors who wish to avail themselves of the project's services. Barbara's experience and wisdom have been invaluable to Growth Through Learning during its formative years.
Robert V. Lange, Ph.D. Robert V. Lange received his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1963 at Harvard and is a faculty member of Brandeis University. His scientific research has spanned condensed matter physics, human vision, and visual system neurophysiology. In addition to his normal professorial duties at Brandeis he has been teaching basic mathematics and physical science in the Transitional Year Program, a program serving inner-city students in transition from inadequate secondary education to first class colleges. He has organized and been involved in a variety of domestic and international projects in educational development and teacher training.
After serving as a visiting physics professor at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1986, he was an advisor in science education to the Ministry of Education of Zanzibar and founded the Zanzibar Science Camp Project. He has had numerous consultancies internationally including work with the Donors to African Education on access to science education for women and girls in Africa. He founded the International Collaborative for Science, Education, and the Environment, the ICSEE, an independent non-profit corporation, which has mounted and overseen a variety of national and international educational and environmental projects. The ICSEE has created an after-school science and technology teaching and learning center for Boston inner-city youth.
Since December, 1997, he has served as the coordinator for science and environmental education for the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul to create environmental education opportunities for clergy, journalists, and others in the Black Sea region.
Richard Ford, Ph.D. Dick Ford received his Ph.D. from the University of Denver in 1966 and joined the Clark history department in 1968. His research interests include community-based participation, resource management and sustainable development in the changing African context. In collaboration with Barbara Thomas-Slayter and Charity Kabutha in Kenya, Dick developed the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method, adapted from rapid rural appraisal methods. He is the director of the Center for Community-Based Development, the field research and training arm of the International Development Program at Clark University.
Last modified: Feb 20, 2008, 22:11 EST