Tom Gallagher, Chairman
Tom Gallagher has served as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, chief administrative officer and general counsel of another such company, chief executive of a private holding company for a well-known entertainment entrepreneur, and as a senior partner in one of the world‘s premier law firms. In his 35-year career as a businessman and lawyer, he has been a trusted adviser to domestic and foreign government bodies and international investors, as well as to elected officials at federal and state levels. Gallagher founded and currently serves as head of a private real estate development and management firm in Las Vegas. Additionally, he is the publisher of NevadaTODAY, an on-line daily news magazine. In 2004, Gallagher was nominated by the Democrats of Nevada‘s 3rd Congressional District to serve in the US House of Representatives. Gallagher received his JD degree with honors from the Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude from the College of the Holy Cross.

Diana Bennett
Diana Bennett is chief executive officer of Paragon Gaming, a Las Vegas-based developer and operator of gaming properties. As an executive of Circus Circus Enterprises‘ leadership team, Bennett opened and operated gaming operations at multiple landmark properties, including the Luxor and Excalibur. She led the merger of the executive staffs of the Edgewater Hotel and Casino and the Colorado Belle Hotel and Casino. She also directed the purchase, takeover, and integration of new management into one of the timeless icons of the Las Vegas Strip, the Sahara Hotel and Casino, acquired by Gordon Gaming in 1995. Bennett has been personally responsible for management of multiple casino operations, and has been licensed in 45 jurisdictions. She is recognized as an expert in establishing gaming manufacturing systems, and served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Casino Data Systems (CDS), where she planned, grew, and managed one of the major gaming manufacturers in North America. Bennett serves on the boards of the I Have A Dream Foundation and the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, and is the vice president of the Nevada chapter of the International Women‘s Forum. She is also chair of the Black Mountain Institute Founders Circle.

Russell Banks
Russell Banks' novels include The Relation of My Imprisonment, Continental Drift, Success
Stories, Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter, The Angel on the Roof, The Invisible Stranger (with Arturo Patten), and most recently, The Darling. Two of his novels have been adapted for feature-length films: The Sweet Hereafter (directed by Atom Goyan, winner of the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival) and Affliction (directed by Paul Schrader). Banks has won numerous awards and prizes for his work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowships, an Ingram Merrill Award, the St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, O. Henry and Best American Short Story awards, the John Dos Passos Award, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, University of New Hampshire, New England College, New York University and Princeton University. Banks has been president of Cities of Refuge North America (formerly the North American Network of Cities of Asylum) since 2004.

Harriet Mayor Fulbright
From 1997 to 2000, Harriet Mayor Fulbright was the executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Before that, she served as unofficial ambassador for the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program and to numerous countries on all five major continents and all over the United States to speak about the importance of international education exchange and the pivotal role played by the Fulbright Program. She is formerly the assistant director of the Congressional Arts Caucus and executive secretary of the International Congress of Art Historians at the National Gallery‘s Center for the Advanced Study in the Arts. In 1987, she became executive director of the Fulbright Association, where she served for three years. From 1990 to 1996, she was president of the Center for Arts in the Basic Curriculum. Fulbright has a BA from Radcliffe College and an MFA from the George Washington University. She has also received honorary degrees from the University of Scranton, Long Island University, and the Bank Street College of Education. Panama presented her with its highest civilian award, El Orden de Manuel Amador Guerrero, and the Republic of Hungary gave her a similar honor, the Middle Cross of the Order of Merit. She also serves on the boards of the Wendy and Emory Reves Center for International Studies, the International Child Arts Foundation, and the International Institute of Leadership and Public Affairs, where she is chairman.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Chair of African and African American Studies, and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University. He is the author of several works of literary criticism, including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the 'Racial' Self; The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1989 winner of the American Book Award); and Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars. He has also authored Colored People: A Memoir, which traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 60s; The Future of the Race, co-authored with Cornel West; and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man. Gates has also edited several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of African American Literature and The Oxford-Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers. In addition, he is a co-editor of Transition magazine. Gates earned his MA and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. He received a BA summa cum laude from Yale University in 1973. Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell, and Duke Universities. His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," the George Polk Award for Social Commentary, Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" list, a National Humanities Medal, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Christopher Hudgins
Christopher Hudgins is interim dean of UNLV‘s College of Liberal Arts. He has taught at Emory, Old Dominion University, and, since 1976, UNLV, where he was instrumental in establishing the creative writing program and was chair of the English Department. The recipient of two NEH grants and an Eisenhower grant, Hudgins served on the Nevada Humanities Committee from 1993-2000, chairing the state division of the NEH for the last two years. He also served as a member of the Commission for Cultural Affairs, State of Nevada, as one of five commissioners who distributed $18 million in state funding for historical preservation. Hudgins received the Governor's Award for Service to Humanities in 2001, and the Donald Schmiedel Award for Service to the University and Community in 2000. His writing and scholarship include a co-edited book, Gender and Genre: Essays on David Mamet, and nineteen articles or chapters in collections on Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Stanley Kubrick, and others.

Alex S. Jones
Alex S. Jones is Laurence M. Lombard Lecturer in the Press and Public Policy and director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. He covered the press for The New York Times from 1983 to 1992 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. In 1991, he coauthored (with Susan E. Tifft) The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty. In 1992, he left the Times to work on The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times (also coauthored with Tifft), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, a host of National Public Radio's On the Media, and is currently the host and Executive Editor of PBS's Media Matters. He is on the advisory board of the Columbia Journalism Review, the International Center for Journalists, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Marta Meana
A graduate of McGill University, Marta Meana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at UNLV. Her research focuses on women‘s health and sexuality and on the deconstruction of traditional conceptualizations and treatments of female sexual function and dysfunction. Meana‘s innovative empirical research and theorizing has been disseminated through numerous refereed articles, chapters, and conference presentations. Highly regarded by her peers, Meana also sits on the editorial board of two prestigious journals, the Archives of Sexual Behavior and Assessment. UNLV recognized her research efforts with the Barrick Scholar Award in 2006. Her excellence in research is matched by her teaching record, as evidenced by her being the recipient of the College of Liberal Arts William Morris Teaching Award, the UNLV Distinguished Teaching Award, and the statewide Nevada Regents Teaching Award. Also very active in national and international professional societies, Meana is currently Secretary-Treasurer of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research.

Thom Reilly
Thom Reilly is vice president of community reinvestment and social responsibility for Harrah‘s Entertainment, charged with leading the company‘s national philanthropic and community reinvestment efforts. He oversees the company‘s nationwide partnerships with community and charitable organizations, and administers the Harrah‘s Foundation, a nonprofit organization that donates to charities in communities where Harrah‘s operates. Reilly also oversees the administration and promotion of Harrah‘s social responsibility programs, particularly its Code of Commitment, the company‘s corporate code of conduct. Reilly previously served as manager and chief executive officer of Clark County, Nevada, where he oversaw daily operations of a government with more than 1.8 million residents, a $5.8 billion annual budget and nearly 12,000 employees. He joined Harrah‘s from the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center, where he served as vice chancellor and chief operating officer. Prior to being named Clark County Manager in 2001, Reilly served as an associate professor and assistant director of the school of social work at UNLV. He also held senior administrative positions in the Clark County Department of Administrative Services; the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services; and the Nevada State Welfare Division. Reilly holds a doctorate in public administration and a Master‘s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California, a Master's in social work from Arizona State University, and a bachelor's degree from Memphis State University.

Michael Saltman
Michael Saltman is president and owner of The Vista Group, a Las Vegas-based real estate development company. Saltman and his wife, Sonja, are the founders of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law. The Saltmans also sponsor The Vista Group Award, given annually to UNLV's outstanding liberal arts graduate. Mr. Saltman's community activities include the UNLV Foundation Board of Trustees, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve Foundation, the Nevada Development Authority Board of Trustees, and the World Presidents' Organization. In 2004, Mr. Saltman was awarded the Silver State Award, bestowed by UNLV as its most prestigious annual recognition presented to a non-graduate of the University.

Glenn Schaeffer
Glenn Schaeffer founded the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), which in 2006 was folded into the Black Mountain Institute. Formerly president and chief financial officer for the Mandalay Resort Group–a public corporation operating 16 casino properties and 27,000 hotel rooms nationwide–Schaeffer is now CEO and president of Fontainebleau Resorts. He graduated summa cum laude in English Literature from UC Irvine, where he was elected its youngest Phi Beta Kappa Scholar. He then went on to receive a Master's degree from UC Irvine and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Schaeffer sits on the board of the National Poetry Series and is a member of the executive committee and chairs the nominating committee of the American Gaming Association, the primary trade organization for the gaming industry. He was also a founding director of the Center for Responsible Gaming and its research institute at Harvard Medical School.

Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. A member of the Yoruba people, Soyinka attended Government College and University College in Ibadan before graduating in 1958 from the University of Leeds in England. Upon his return to Nigeria, Wole founded a national theatre, The Masks (later the Orisun Theatre), and wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests, for the Nigerian independence celebrations. Soyinka‘s novels are The Interpreters and Season of Anomy. His volumes of poetry include Idanre and Other Poems, Poems from Prison (republished as A Shuttle in the Crypt), and Mandela‘s Earth and Other Poems. He wrote most of Poems from Prison while a political prisoner in 1967-69, and later chronicled his arrest and imprisonment in The Man Died. Soyinka‘s principal critical work is Myth, Literature, and the African World, a collection of essays in which he examines the role of the artist in the light of Yoruba mythology and symbolism. An autobiography, Ake: The Years of Childhood, was published in 1981, and a companion piece, Isara: A Voyage Around Essay, in 1989. In 2006, he published You Must Set Forth at Dawn, his chronicle of exile from Nigeria.

Michelle Tusan
Michelle Elizabeth Tusan is an Assistant Professor of History at UNLV. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 and later served as a Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University. Her book, Women Making News: Gender and Journalism in Modern Britain, is an account of how British women came to have a public voice in modern democratic political culture through print journalism, well before they obtained the vote. Funding for the book and other related research projects carried out in archives throughout the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland has included grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Historical Association. Her next project explores the successes and failures of liberal democratic political culture in a wider global context and is tentatively entitled "Imperial Discourses: Gender, Politics, and Religion in the British Empire."