Meet Our Staff
Caroline Blackwell, Executive Director
Caroline Grace Blackwell has spent the last 20 years in both public and private schools and organizations educating and advocating for an orientation to diversity and inclusion that values the broadest range of human experience as fundamental to personal, professional, and institutional excellence and strength.
Ms. Blackwell holds an undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland, and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work from Boston University. She is a Rule 31 Listed Civil Mediator, lead facilitator of the National Association of Independent School’s Summer Diversity Institute, and an experienced consultant and trainer who designs and delivers customized, interactive workshops focusing on diversity education, conflict resolution, and the art and skills of dialogue. Ms. Blackwell is certified to deliver the Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) inventory, the only statistically valid and reliable assessment tool for understanding culturally learned approaches to conflict.
Ms. Blackwell is a contributing author to A Guidebook to the NAIS Principles of Good Practice. An excerpt of her chapter on socioeconomic diversity was published in the Winter 2006 issue of Independent School magazine. Ms. Blackwell’s work is acknowledged in From Assimilation to Inclusion: How White Educators and Educators of Color Can Make Diversity Work, and currently she and a colleague are nearing completion of True Partners, a resource book on long-term systemic change in schools.
Shirley
Sims-Saldana, Compliance Services Manager
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Shirley Sims-Saldana
earned her baccalaureate degree in Psychology from Converse
College (Spartanburg, SC). She is a trained mediator and a
facilitator for national and international dialogues on race
relations. Her experience in building inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic
coalitions has included work with The White House Race Initiative,
The U.S. Justice Department, UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization), and several national
foundations. She is an experienced strategic planner and has
developed programming initiatives for non-profit and for-profit
organizations.
Denise Bowers Hopgood, Compliance Inspector II
Denise Bowers Hopgood is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she earned her baccalaureate from Concordia University and her MBA from Cardinal Stritch University. Denise gained her experience in Title VI and Title VII Employment law while working in the Office of Diversity, investigating employment discrimination complaints for the City of Milwaukee. Denise has been trained as a Rule 31 mediator.