Alumni-Faculty Forum: Breaking Down Barriers: Intergenerational Perspectives on Social Issues

Location:  McCosh Hall, Room 10

Moderator:

Kevin Hudson ’97
Associate Director for Diversity and College Opportunity

Panelists:

David Addams ’78
Executive Director, Graustein Memorial Fund

John H. Hammond, III ’98
Learning Technology Manager, The Nature Conservancy

Pam Shisler Starsia ’03
Managing Partner, Starsia Law PLLC

Cliff Whetung ’13
Operations Associate, GreenLight Fund

Moderator

Kevin Hudson ’97
Associate Director for Diversity and College Opportunity

Panelists

David Addams ’78
David Addams ’78 is executive director of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, which aims to achieve equity in education by working with those affected and inspiring all to end racism and poverty. Over the last 20 years, he has served in leadership for various nonprofits including the Oliver Scholars Program, Associated Black Charities and the New York Urban League. David was also deputy Manhattan borough president and chief of staff at the Manhattan borough president’s office, deputy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and director of affiliate diversity and strategic initiatives for the American Civil Liberties Union. He served as a visiting distinguished professor at Brooklyn College and an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College Graduate Center, City College of New York’s Center for Legal Education and City University of New York Law School at Queens College. David received his MSJ from Columbia University School of Journalism and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.

John H. Hammond, III ’98
John Hammond worked in auto insurance with GEICO Insurance for almost twenty-three years in various capacities; including corporate training, coaching and management development. He is also an accomplished Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging facilitator and served as the national co-chair for GEICO’s GO BOLD, African American Employee Resource Group (ERG). He is currently the learning technology manager for The Nature Conservancy.

Pam Shisler Starsia ’03
Pam Starsia is an estate planning and strategic business lawyer counseling individuals, families and closely-held companies on a wide range of legal matters, especially in connection with estate, tax, business succession and philanthropic planning. She is highly regarded for her values-driven approach to multi-generational family wealth planning, which fosters intergenerational communication and age-appropriate transparency in the estate and family wealth transfer planning process. Starsia guides families to look beyond material wealth, focusing instead on identifying a family’s core values and non-financial metrics of well-being. She helps families intentionally shape the stewardship and management of their resources, equipping family members to flourish and pursue fulfillment for generations to come.

Cliff Whetung ’13
Cliff Whetung is an Ojibwe scholar whose research is focused on the relationship between structural discrimination and health inequities in Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States. He employs longitudinal quantitative methods to explore how inequities in social determinants of health modify cognitive outcomes in later life. This scholarship is informed by cumulative stress and inequity theories, productive aging frameworks and critical race/Indigenous theories. His work has been funded by the National Institute for Aging, the Grand Challenges for Social Work and the REC Scholars program. Prior to his Ph.D. training at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work, Whetung worked in venture philanthropy and as a clinical mental health counselor. He received his master’s degree in social work from the Columbia School of Social Work and his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University.