Staff Biographies

JANE M. SAKS, Executive Director
Ms. Saks came to Columbia in March 2005 with a strong and diverse history of involvement in women, gender and race issues, media, the arts, partnership building, and philanthropy.  She has developed numerous visiting artists, and artist-in-residence programs, public and private collaborations, and interdisciplinary projects during her career.  She has created projects in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Chicago Housing Authority; the Joyce Foundation; The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation; the Center on Halsted; Amigas Latinas; Crossroads Fund; Human Rights Watch; South Africa Constitutional Court; the Chicago Park District; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Chicago Public Schools; the National Endowment for the Arts; The Mexican Fine Arts Museum Center and many arts and community groups, individual artists, scholars, activists and public entities.

She sits on several advisory boards including the Chicago Foundation for Women, National Public Radio's "Radio Diaries," OUT at Chicago History Museum, the Experimental Station, Human Rights Watch- Chicago Committee, African Women's Development Fund- Chicago Committee, the South African Constitutional Court and Architecture Programme Committee, and was a 2003/2004 Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow.  In addition, she has published poetry and essays in literary and art magazines and, as a writer, has collaborated with visual artists including Kerry James Marshall, Jim Hodges, and Inigo Ovalle-Manglano.  She has been a visiting lecturer and critic at institutions and organizations, which include, Northwestern University, Guild Complex, Support Centers of Chicago, Chicago Public Library, DePaul University, Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New York University, PEN International, Cape Town Writer's Forum, Gender Commission of South Africa and the Writer's Voice.

K. SUZANNE SAULSBERRY, Assistant to the Executive Director
Ms. Saulsberry joined the Institute staff in April 2006 from the Kohler Company's Baker Knapp & Tubbs showroom at the Merchandise Mart.  She graduated from Wellesley College with a concentration in History, Women's Studies and French language.  While there, she developed a keen interest for issues related to gender and race, which led to her employment with the Centers for Research on Women, a research institute based at Wellesley College, and Facing History and Ourselves (Chicago).  She received a summer Fellowship in 1999 from the UONGOZI Institute to study conflict resolution at the University of Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania.  While there, she also traveled to Kenya and Zanzibar.  After college, Ms. Saulsberry pursued her other interest in language by accepting an English teaching position through the French Ministry of Education.  She taught high school students at Lycee Georges Brassens in Evry-Courcourrones, a suburb of Paris, and became proficient in French.  She is pleased to be a part of the Institute where she can use her knowledge and interest in gender, culture, history, and language in her work.  Her hobbies are reading, dining with friends and traveling.  The apple of her eye is her tiger-striped tabby, Jordan.
 
SARA SLAWNIK, Program Director
Ms. Slawnik joined the Institute staff in February 2007 as Program Director, bringing five years experience as a development officer for various arts organizations and museums, as well as a considerable interest in visual arts and media that relate to issues of gender and community.  Ms. Slawnik was a key member of development teams at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, The Drawing Center in New York, and the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.  She also has a background as an Associate Editor at Bedford/St. Martin's publishing house, working in the the Communications and Media textbook division.  Ms. Slawnik holds a Bachelor's Degree in the History of Art from the University of Michigan and is an independent artist and writer in her spare time.

SHEREE GREER, Research Assistant
Ms. Greer is currently a graduate student in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.  A writer and art enthusiast, she has recently been awarded an Honorable Mention in the Chicago Union League's Civic and Arts Foundation Writing Competition.  Her work has been published in the Windy City Times, Fictionary Magazine, Reservoir Magazine, Hair Trigger 30, and The Story Week Reader for Columbia College's Story Week Festival of Writers.  A featured reader for Serendipity Theatre's 2nd Story Collective, Ms. Greer has also performed her work at various venues throughout Chicago including Women and Children First Bookstore, the Center on Halsted, and the Affinity Community Space for the Saving Our Sisters Anti-Violence Weekend where she taught creative writing workshops.  Ms. Greer also undertakes personal research projects on Black Sexuality, artistic trends in literature, the intersection of art and activism, and Afro-Caribbean religion.  She also completes freelance writing projects such business and marketing materials, art reviews, interviews, and articles on artistic expression and social transfer.  Her most notable engagements include marketing materials and annual report composition for Centers for New Horizons in Bronzeville; newsletter composition for Affinity Community Services, an organization that provides a wealth of services for Black, Lesbian, and Transgendered women on Chicago's Southside; business plan preparation for Cool Classics! with award-winning journalist Mara Tapp; and visual art exhibition reviews for Reservoir Magazine.  Ms. Greer will be completing her MFA coursework at Columbia College Chicago in Spring 2008 before devoting herself fully to completing her thesis, a cross-generational novel-in-stories, and exploring story through photography.