Profiles of CCT Teachers and Advisors


Core faculty, part-time faculty, and associates from other Departments are important members of the CCT Community. Here are their profiles, contact info, office hours, and syllabi.

Core faculty

Lawrence Blum (Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education) has written two books in moral philosophy (Friendship, Altruism, and Morality; and Moral Perception and Particularity), dealing with issues of compassion, friendship, moral motivation, moral development, community, and morality during the Holocaust. Currently he works in race studies and multicultural education, especially the moral dimension of those areas, and is the author of the 2002 book, "I'm Not a Racist, But...": The Moral Quandary of Race. Larry teaches "Issues and Controversies in Antiracist and Multicultural Education" (CCT 627) and gives workshops on antiracist education to K-12 teachers in a variety of settings.
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Phone: 617-287-6532
Email: lawrence.blum@umb.edu
Office: W-5-012
Office hours:
CCT Syllabi: CCT 627

Nina Greenwald (Professor, CCT Program) is an educational consultant, national teacher trainer and keynote speaker with specializations in critical and creative thinking, problem-based learning, multiple intelligences, and gifted education. An elected member of the Danforth Associates of New England, an organization of selected higher education faculty distinguished for excellence in teaching, she has taught courses in creative thinking, critical thinking, and humor for the program for over a decade. Her publications include articles on teaching thinking and problem-based learning (PBL), teaching gifted children, and teaching thinking through multiple intelligences. She is former director of K-8 programs to develop critical and creative thinking for a Massachusetts educational collaborative, and an advisor to the exhibits department of the Museum of Science, Boston, on the development of innovative exhibits that engage visitors in thinking and problem solving. Nina is a founding member and past president of The Massachusetts Association for Advancement of Individual Potential (MA/AIP), an advocacy organization in behalf of gifted education.

Her published articles include instructional models for teaching thinking and curriculum for gifted students. Curriculum publications include those which promote thinking and problem solving in science for the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research, The National Institute of Health, The American Medical Association,The New England Aquarium, and NOVA. She is co-author of a chapter on cultural impediments to creative development in Fostering Creativity in Children, Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Her book, Science in Progress, containing authentic issues and dilemmas in biomedical science, and a PBL model for guiding students in the use of this material, has been adopted by the Pennsylvania State Department of Education as a basis for promoting instructional reforms in science education. Currently, she is collaborating on a new book focused on concept-based teaching of biology with two colleagues from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
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Phone: 617-287-6523
Email: nlgreenwald@Comcast.net
Office: W-2-142-03
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:30-3:30
CCT syllabi: CCT602

Arthur Millman (Associate Professor of Philosophy) teaches in the Philosophy Department as well as in the CCT Program. For CCT, he regularly teaches "Critical Thinking" (CCT 601) as well as "Foundations of Philosophical Thought" (Phil 501). He is in the process of developing a new course that explores recent developments and controversies and relates critical and creative thinking to applied and professional ethics. Arthur's research is in both the philosophy of science and applied ethics, and he has worked to help students with the integration and application of critical and creative thinking in a wide range of areas including elementary and secondary education and business.
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Phone: 617-287-6538
Email: arthur.millman@umb.edu
Office: W-5-020
Office hours
CCT Syllabi: Phil 501

Carol Smith (Associate Professor of Psychology)
I joined the Critical and Creative Thinking Program in 1980, when I was hired as an assistant professor in Psychology who would participate in the CCT program. Over the years, I have taught several courses in CCT: Advanced Cognitive Psychology (Psych 650) a required course in the CCT Program; Children and Science course (CCT 652) a specialty course in the science track of CCT, and the Seminar on Scientific thinking (another specialty course in the science track of CCT co-taught in the past with Prof. Arthur Millman in the Philosophy Department.)
My research focuses on characterizing student intuitive theories (in particular, student matter theories and epistemologies of science) and understanding the dynamics of conceptual change both in children and adults. My research with children has examined the role of models, analogies, and metaconceptual understanding in facilitating the process of conceptual change within schooling contexts as well as the general impact of schooling on metacognitive development. I have also collaborated with Arthur Millman in the Philosophy Department in doing a case study of the reasoning processes used by Darwin in the development of his theory of natural selection, based on an analysis of his scientific notebooks.
In my work with CCT and M.Ed. students, I have taught them how to devise and analyze clinical interviews in order to assess student thinking and conceptual understanding. I have also worked with them in creating curriculum interventions that would enhance both students' domain specific knowledge and their metacognitive understandings of how knowledge is created and justified in science.
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Phone: 617-287-6359
Email: carol.smith@umb.edu
Office: McC 4-265
Office Hours: on leave 2008
CCT Syllabi: CCT 652

Peter Taylor (Professor, CCT Program) I joined the Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) Program in the Graduate College of Education (GCOE) at UMass Boston in the fall of 1998 and have been enjoying new challenges teaching experienced educators, other mid-career professionals, and prospective K-12 teachers. Working in the CCT Program also provides opportunities to promote reflective practice in ways that extend my contributions to ecology and environmental studies (ES) and social studies of science and technology (STS). In those fields I focus on the complexity of, respectively, ecological or environmental situations and the social situations in which the environmental research is undertaken. Both kinds of situation, I argue, can be characterized in terms of "intersecting processes" that cut across scales, involve heterogeneous components, and develop over time. These cannot be understood from an outside view; instead positions of engagement must be taken within the complexity. Knowledge production needs to be linked with planning for action and action itself in an ongoing process so that knowledge, plans, and action can be continually reassessed in response to developments -- predicted and surprising alike. In this spirit, ES, STS, and critical pedagogy/reflective practice have come together for me in a project of stimulating researchers to self-consciously examine the complexity of their social situatedness so as to change the ways they address the complexity of ecological and socio-environmental situations. (See my book Unruly Complexity: Ecology, Interpretation, Engagement, U. Chicago Press, 2005.) Recently, I have begun to take these interests in a new direction through historical and sociological analysis of social epidemiological approaches that address the intersections of environment, health, and development. Through collaborations in and beyond the GCE* I also seek to promote a vision of critical science and environmental education that extends from improving the teaching of scientific concepts and methods to involving citizens in community-based research. (* See Program in Science, technology & values, Intercollege faculty Seminiar in Science and Humanities, New England Workshop on Science and Social Change

This project had its beginnings in environmental and social activism in Australia which led to studies and research in ecology and agriculture. I moved to the United States to undertake doctoral studies in ecology (Harvard 1985), with a minor focus in STS. Subsequently I combined scientific investigations with interpretive inquiries from the different disciplines that make up STS (working, among other places, at U. C. Berkeley and Cornell), my goal being to make STS perspectives relevant to life and environmental students and scientists. (This is evident in my contributions to a book I co-edited, Changing Life: Genomes, Ecologies, Bodies, Commodities, U. Minnesota Press, 1997.) Critical thinking and critical pedagogy became central to my intellectual and professional project as I encouraged students and researchers to contrast the paths taken in science, society, education with other paths that might be taken, and to foster their acting upon the insights gained. Bringing critical analysis of science to bear on the practice and applications of science has not been well developed or supported institutionally, and so I continue to contribute actively, to new collaborations, programs, and other activities, new directions for existing programs, and collegial interactions across disciplines.
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Phone: 617-287-7636
Email: peter.taylor@umb.edu
Office: W-2-143-09 (opposite Dept. School Counseling & Psychology
Office hours: Mondays by signup, or by arrangement
CCT Syllabi: CCT649 (PPol 749)CCT692 | CCT694 | CCT693 | CCT640 | CCT645
Website: www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor

Part-time faculty

Allyn Bradford (part-time instructor of CCT616 and 618 online, CCT Program) regularly teaches CCT616, Dialogue Processes, through Continuing Education and the Teamwork part of CCT618, Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Organizational Change (plus the whole course on-line).

Allyn has a strong background in organizational and human resource development. A Congregational Minister for 12 years, he worked at Synectics Inc. for 6, and then became an Independent Consultant and Trainer. In addition, he is currently teaching at both the college and graduate levels, using a highly innovative approach which makes extensive use of group process and action learning.

Among the education centers where he has designed and conducted training are the American Management Association, the American Society of Training Directors, the Association of Field Service Managers, the Mecuri Institute in Sweden and the Accelerated Management Institute in England.

In the private sector he has designed and conducted training for such companies as Block Drug, General Foods, Avon Products, Honeywell, Digital, Stop & Shop, Johnson & Johnson, Warner Lambert, Monsanto, New England Electric, Telex, Fidelity Trust, Kodak, New England Nuclear, Burger King, FW Faxon, Becton Dickenson, Semicon, The First Years and Matritech.

In the public sector he has designed and conducted training for the Personnel Commission of the State of Idaho, the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, the Office of Personnel Services of the United Nations, the Boston Neighborhood Development and Employment Agency, and Massachusetts Half-Way Houses, Inc.
Publications: He is the author of "Freedom of Information Changes the Rules" published in the Journal of Management Consulting,"Team Communications" in the Honeywell USMG Mgr. "Suspending Judgement: How to Build Teams Through Critical and Creative Thinking" in The New England Non-Profit Quarterly Journal, "Modern Art and Modern Organizations" in Context, an on-line publication and co-author of Transactional Awareness, a book published by Addison-Wesley.

Allyn teaches Leadership and Management and Effective Team Building at Wentworth Institute of Technology and Dialogue at U-Mass, Boston and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
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Email: allynb@aol.com
CCT Syllabi: CCT616

Suzanne Clark Wally Clausen (part-time online instructor of CCT618)
has been an Independent Facilitative Consultant, Clausen Associates, Weston, Massachusetts, since 1967
Practices include assessment, research and planning (including surveys, culture studies, needs analyses, and interim reviews or evaluations of change projects); strategic planning and team building, including process design and the facilitation of planning meetings; programs for self-assessment, feedback and training; and systems work in organizational and community planning, management and related areas. Public and nonprofit clients have included Federal agencies (US Fish and Wildlife Service, Customs Service, Departments of Education and Commerce, military agencies, and others), state and local agencies (Massachusetts State Departments of Education, Public Welfare and Public Health; Quincy Public Schools; and others), and associations such as American Baptist Churches and the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company. Corporate work has included pharmaceutical, high technology, utility, financial services and franchise organizations.
Illustrative projects: Email: wclausen@comcast.net

Delores Gallo (Professor Emerita, CCT Program and co-instructor of CCT602 online)
one of the three original founders of the CCT graduate program, was a central member of the Program since its inception. Her interests include Creativity and Learning, Professional Development, Curriculum Design, Elementary and English Education, and Invention. She led a six year staff and curriculum development process and an Invention Convention involving over 1000 students at the Quincy Public Schools. She has been widely sought after as a speaker or as a consultant on Professional Development workshops in educational and corporate settings.
Email: delores.gallo@umb.edu

Renae Gray
is executive director of the Boston Women's Fund. A founding member, she has been involved with the fund for more than 20 years. She has more than 30 years of nonprofit experience, having worked with the Haymarket Peoples Fund, the Women's Theological Center, and the Cambridge Algebra Project; for the past several years she has been a consultant with Visions Inc., a nonprofit consulting organization that deals with issues of race and multiculturalism. Renae has served on the boards of many groups in the Boston area. She was also involved in creation of the Funding Exchange, a national funding organization in New York.

Olen Gunnlaugson (part-time online instructor of CCT616)
is an integrally-informed educator and coach with an eclectic mix of life, travel and career experiences. More recently serving as a program coordinator, lecturer, personal coach and integral visionary at Holma College of Integral Studies (Sweden), Olen played a number of roles initiating the transition from a Holistic to Integral College. Funded by a full Canadian Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC), Olen is completing graduate studies at UBC, Vancouver, Canada where his research focus is how generative dialogue & presencing foster transformative learning in groups. Olen is also presently serving as an advisor and contributing member of the Integral Education domain of Integral University (Boulder, Colorado) and "The Undergraduate Semester of Dialogue" signature program at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). Additionally, Olen has become a recent adjunct faculty member at Langara College (Vancouver) where he co-teaches seasonal courses on generative dialogue. Finally, Olen is presently developing an online course on dialogue to begin delivery in February 2006. Olen is delighted to be joining the Critical and Creative Thinking Program at U. Mass. and looks forward to hearing from students who are interested in taking the CRCRTH 616 course.
Email: gunnlaugson@hotmail.com

Bob Schoenberg (part-time online instructor of CCT601)
is a graduate of the Critical & Creative Thinking Program at UMASS, Boston. He created and teaches the online course in Critical Thinking. Prior to teaching at UMASS, Boston, he taught Critical Thinking at MassBay Community College in Newton, MA. He has also served as a consultant and trainer to the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), where he has given workshops in Critical Thinking and has taught at Regis College. Prior to teaching Critical Thinking, Mr. Schoenberg served as a software trainer and stress management consultant. He incorporates stress management into his course in Critical Thinking based on the premise that one can’t think critically if one is stressed.

Bob has an extensive background in training and curriculum development. Combining his background as a software trainer, educator and curriculum developer, he provides a comprehensive and highly effective online experience for his students. He brings practical business experience to the online classroom as well. Believing that all professions can benefit from critical thinking skills he is especially interested in promoting those skills in the business world. An entrepreneur and trainer, himself, Mr. Schoenberg is writing a book entitled, Critical Thinking in Business.
Email: bobsch3@gmail.com
CCT Syllabi: CCT601 (online) (follow links)

Ben Schwendener is a pianist, composer, and educator who has been a part of the vital Boston music scene since the early 1980's. A former student of jazz legends George Russell, Ran Blake, Jimmy Guiffre, Miroslav Vitous and Joe Maneri, Schwendener is currently on the jazz faculties of both New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music. In addition to his jazz teaching and work as a leading lecturer on Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, Schwendener teaches courses on Creative and Critical Thinking at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and directs the arts education non-profit, Gravity Arts, which he founded in 1997. Gravity Arts provides customized music and dance education opportunities for individuals and various groups, and oversees the independent label, Gravity Records.
A critically acclaimed performer, Schwendener has appeared throughout the United States, Europe and Japan with his group, as a sideman and solo pianist, produced commissioned works for dance companies, independent film, and television commercials and released three recordings as a leader. He is currently supporting his two newest releases, 'Road Trips', with his quintet, Falling Objects, and a recording of piano duets with fellow Boston pianist Marc Rossi, 'Living Geometry', while working on forthcoming recordings, volume II of George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept, and the publication of original children's music.
Ben has taught Creativity courses as an adjunct since Spring 2000. His website is http://gravityarts.org. Email: ben@gravityarts.org
CCT Syllabi: CCT 630

Gregg Turpin (part-time instructor CCT618)
has taught at Boston Latin since 1985, where he is a Mentor Teacher, and an Instructor of Foreign Policy and World History. He also teaches Communications technology at Framingham State and has served as a Lead Teacher for the Center for Leadership Development in the Boston Schools Department.

Abby Yanow Facilitator, Trainer, Consultant
Boston Facilitators Roundtable (BFR), President, 2001-Present
Trainer - Design and deliver paid workshops: Current
Jewish Vocational Service (JVS), Trainer 1999-Present
Dept. of Public Health / AIDS Bureau 1995-2001
Email: abbyyanow@hotmail.com

Luanne Witkowski (part-time instructor CCT602 online)
Studio artist in Boston & Wellfleet with works in collections throughout the United States. She represented by: Kingston Gallery, Creiger-Dane Gallery, & J.P. Art Market Gallery, Boston, MA; Hutson Gallery, & Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Provincetown, MA. Luanne is Communication Design Studio Manager and instructor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Faculty at UMass/Boston, and an independent curator/art consultant (www.lewstudio.com).

Other credits include: Memberships include: M.A. Critical & Creative Thinking, University of Massachusetts/Boston(UMB)
B.F.A. Art History & Fine Arts/Printmaking, Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt)/Boston
Special & Art Education, Lesley College/Cambridge
Workshops: Provincetown Art Association; Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown; Art New England, Bennington,VT; Haystack Mountain School, Deer Isle, ME; Harvard University Museums.

Luanne's work will be shown in a solo exhibition at Kingston Gallery, Boston in October 2009.
A summer 2009 exhibition at Hutson Gallery in Provincetown is also planned.
She shows regularly with the Provincetown Art Association, United South End Artists, Mission Hill Artists Collective, and other groups.

Associates from other Departments


Janet Farrell Smith (Philosophy Department)
has taught CCT601, Critical Thinking, Foundations of Philosophy, and Biomedical ethics for the Program. Her interests include Biomedical ethics, Political Philosophy, and Philosophy of Language.
Phone: 617-287-6547
Email: janet.smith@umb.edu
Office: W-5-11

Ted Klein
a Professor of Theology and Philosophy at the Swedenborg School of Religion, teaches Moral Education (CCT620) for CCT as well as courses in ethics and philosophy of education for the UMass Boston Philosophy Department. Among his accomplishments, Ted has: taught a variety of adult learners, including prison inmates, adults returning to school, and adults involved in career changes; developed ways to relate abstract concepts to life decisions, career concerns, and social issues; and authored a wide variety of accessible publications relating abstract concepts to practical concerns.
Email: TKlein3388@aol.com
CCT Syllabi: CCT620

Brian White (Biology Department)
has interests in Biology Education, and in Educational Software and Multimedia.
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Phone: 617-287-6630
Email: brian.white@umb.edu
Website: www.faculty.umb.edu/brian_white
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Last update 12 Oct 08