Nova Institute Faculty

Jack Petrash, Director is the founder and director of the Nova Institute. He is an educator with over twenty-five years of classroom experience and a teacher of teachers. He has written extensively on issues pertaining to innovative classroom instruction, is on the editorial board of the journal Encounter, and is the author of Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out. In addition, Petrash travels extensively to work with parent education. His parenting pieces have appeared in the Washington Post and on National Public Radio and he is also the author of Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball, which received the National Parenting Publication's gold award. His latest book, Navigating the Terrain of Childhood: A Guidebook for Meaningful Parenting and Heartfelt Discipline was released in August of 2004, the Nova Institute Press' first publication.
E-mail Jack Petrash.

 
Nova Institute Board

Anne Wotring, our board-president, has her doctorate in human and organizational development. She consults with schools and other institutions, mentors individuals in a variety of fields, and writes journal articles in an effort to foster new leadership models based on collaboration and consensus. She is a member of the International Enneagram Association and the Enneagram Society of Greater Washington and offers workshops in this field to promote self-knowledge and harmony in the workplace and in the home. Dr. Wotring is intrigued by the intersection of psychology and spirituality and believes this intersection provides practical models for the renewal of society. A former teacher and administrator, Anne has a Masters degree in English Education with an emphasis on interdisciplinary learning and writing.

Cheryl Dodwell is the vice president of the Nova Institute. She is the founder The Village Green, an organization dedicated to supporting parents, children and families through therapeutic massage therapy and workshops. Before founding The Village Green, Ms. Dodwell was the senior manager of Development and Creative Enterprises at Share Our Strength, a leading anti-hunger organization. There she developed Share Our Strength's community wealth program, leveraging the strengths of for-profit companies to support the mission driven activities of nonprofit community organizations. Cheryl previously served as publisher and general manager of Who Cares, Inc., an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization which published the national magazine: Who Cares: The Toolkit for Social Change. Before joining the nonprofit sector, She worked as a private banker at J.P. Morgan in New York City. Cheryl holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University, where she received the Arbuckle Award for Outstanding Service to the Community. She is also a graduate of the Potomac Massage Therapy Institute and a nationally certified massage therapist.

Carol Petrash is the secretary of the Nova Institute board. She is currently a Waldorf teacher working with young children and Parent/Infant and Parent/Toddler classes. Carol has previously taught public school kindergarten and has over twenty five years of classroom experience. For a number of years, Carol was the Registrar/Administrator of the Rudolf Steiner Institute, an organization working with adult education. She is an avid environmentalist and a trained bio-dynamic gardener, as well as the author of Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children.

Robert Engelman is our treasurer. He is also Vice President for Research at Population Action International (PAI), a policy research and advocacy organization working to slow population growth through improved access to reproductive health services and quality education for all women. Engelman chairs the board of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization working to reduce consumption of natural resources in North America. A former newspaper reporter and a founding member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Engelman has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. Awarded a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship upon graduation with a Masters of Science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Engelman worked for the Associated Press in Mexico and Central America. He served as Washington correspondent for the Kansas City Star and the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, and covered national affairs, health and the environment for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington.

Ken Courage s the chief executive officer for the Psychiatric Institute of Washington D.C. He has his Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Courage has worked for years in a leadership capacity in hospitals and health care organizations, in the non-profit sector. He has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities. Courage is a veteran of the United States Army, having served in the Vietnam War. He has also served on the board of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation, the Washington Waldorf School, and the Kushi Institute, where he is currently president. In addition, Mr. Courage is a proud, card-carrying member of The Red Sox Nation.

Greg Mueller is a a professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and Genetics for the Uniformed Services University where he teaches neurophysiology and endocrinology in the university's medical school. He has received repeated awards for teaching excellence, published numerous articles in his field, and has received significant grants for advanced research. Dr. Mueller is also involved in non-profit endeavors. In addition to serving on the Nova Institute board, he has been the chairman of the board of the Acorn Hill Children's Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Waldorf kindergarten and parent education facility.

Jack Petrash

  See Jack's biography above.

Nova Institute Advisory Board

Laura Birdsall, M.A., has been a Waldorf teacher for over 20 years. Her broad teaching experience spans grades one through eight, and she has worked with students from diverse backgrounds. As a class teacher at Milwaukee's Urban Waldorf School, the first public Waldorf school in the United States, she played an integral role in developing and adapting curricula and assessments to meet the unique needs of under-served urban children. She consults and has co-authored with Jack Petrash the Enlivened Literacy Project, an after-school curriculum developed for inner city children in Baltimore. Currently. Ms. Birdsall teaches in the middle school at Kimberton Waldorf School and is the director of Side by Side, PA, a community based program designed to bring Waldorf-inspired experiences to at-risk children while providing mentoring opportunities for high school students.

Colleen Cordes is the former coordinator of the Task Force on Computers and Childhood for the Alliance for Childhood, and the co-editor of the Alliance's report, Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood. Colleen was also the primary author of Alliance's report, "Tech Tonic: Towards a New Literacy of Technology." Before working with the Alliance, Colleen was a journalist covering science and technology for more than sixteen years, many of those years as a reporter for The Chronicle for Higher Education.

Barbarina Heyerdahl grew up in New York City and attended the Rudolf Steiner School and Barnard College. She graduated from college with a degree in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. After over a decade of work in organic agriculture and environmental advocacy, she helped found a Waldorf School and took up a career of marketing Waldorf education, both locally and nationally. Currently a resident of Vermont, and mother of four children, she now works in parent education, helping to bring the insights in child development found in Waldorf education to other parents.

Jeffrey Kane, Ph.D., is the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Long Island University. He has written essays and articles on existential issues in teaching and on educational policy. Most recently, he authored a book of poetry entitled life as a novice and has been lecturing on Kabbalah.

Peter Lehman, M.A., began his career as an organic dairy farmer. In 1983 he left farming to become an elementary school teacher at the Kimberton Waldorf School. He still misses the cows, the spring plowing, and the hay-making, but what he has gained teaching three classes of children has been immeasurable. Peter has his masters degree in education and has an abiding interest in the role of meaningful work in the lives of children.

Steven Levy, M.A., is a consultant for Expeditionary Learning Schools. He coaches teachers in active pedagogy, literacy and assessment and conducts workshops on project-based learning throughout the country. Mr. Levy has been recognized as the 1992-93 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, as the National Outstanding Educator by the Walt Disney Company in 1994-95 and has received the Joe Oakley Award and the John F. Kennedy Prize for the teaching of history. Mr. Levy has written various articles for educational journals and his book, Starting From Scratch, was published by Heinemann in 1996.

Bruce Libonn, M.A., is a graduate of William and Mary and the Waldorf Institute at Adelphi University. He has been an educator for more than thirty years and has served as the Assistant Headmaster for curriculum and Interim Headmaster at The Master's School in Simsbury, CT. Bruce is currently Lower School Head at Ensworth School in Nashville, TN. He has been involved with teacher development and with spiritual issues in education throughout his career.

Ron Schneebaum, M.D., Originally from New York, Dr. Schneebaum is a seasoned pediatrician with over twenty years of pediatric experience. With a longstanding commitment to children, he worked as an elementary school teacher with a MasterÕs Degree in Education, before his career in medicine. Dr. Schneebaum has been an instructor in pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine as well as at the Harvard University and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Schneebaum is interested in all aspects of pediatric health, but child behavior and development - how children become solid, centered, happy adults - is his particular fascination.

Patti Smith, Ed.D., is the Director of the Center for School Design at the national Academy Foundation in NYC. She is also the director of the Teacher's Studio and the Program director of the Barfield School at Sunbridge College. She is the author of More Lifeways: Changes in Family Life in the 90's, and Service Learning: Students at the Heart of Learning, as well as the video, Taking a Risk in Education and several articles on the importance of Student Voice in the school change process.

Anne Wotring, Ph.D.,

  See Anne's biography above.