At the December 4, 2017 meeting in Dayton, Ohio, the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) elected four new board members who will begin their three-year terms at the next meeting in May, 2018. The new members are Cristin Brawner, Nancy Kranich, Charles Moses, and Jule Zimet. Outgoing members are Jerry Brown, William DiMascio, Dolores Foley, and Stacie Molnar-Main.

More about the new directors:

   Cristin Foster Brawner
Cristin Foster Brawner is the Executive Director of the David Mathews Center for Civic Life in Montevallo, Alabama. Cristin coordinates Mathews Center signature programming, moderates deliberative community forums across Alabama, and collaborates with K – 16 schools and community partners to facilitate active civic learning for young Alabamians. A graduate of the University of Montevallo, Cristin has worked for the Mathews Center since 2011.

   Nancy Kranich

Nancy Kranich teaches at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information and conducts special projects for the Rutgers University Libraries. She served as President of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies. She has chaired and served on a number of ALA committees that deal with intellectual freedom, information policy, copyright, privacy, information commons and public engagement. In addition, Nancy founded and chairs the ALA Center for Civic Life and ALA’s Libraries Foster Community Engagement Membership Initiative Group, and was instrumental in launching ALA’s partnership with the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation and advising the Libraries Transform Communities: Models for Change, in partnership with NIFI.

Most of Nancy’s library career was based at New York University, where, as Associate Dean of Libraries, she managed NYU’s libraries, archives, press, and media services. She also worked in public libraries in Bridgeport and Windsor, CT, and Madison, WI.  After retiring from NYU, Nancy served as Senior Research Fellow at the Free Expression Policy Project in New York, where she authored The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report.

Kranich has worked internationally to advance libraries and democracy in Eastern Europe and to promote universal service and information commons in France, China, Mexico and Taiwan. In 2011, she helped plan and lead the workshop, Beyond Books: News, Literacy and Democracy for America’s Libraries, which asked what’s possible when journalists and librarians come together. An active proponent and convener of dialogue, deliberation, and community engagement, she works closely with the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation, and the Kettering Foundation, including participating in the Libraries and the Public Learning Exchange, serving on the board of its National Issues Forum Institute (NIFI), moderating and participating in the U.S./Russia Dartmouth Conference dialogues, and chairing the NIFI local affiliate in State College, PA. In September 2017, Nancy joined the U.S. delegation in Zavidovo, Russia, for the 43^rd plenary meeting of the Dartmouth Conference. 

Kranich earned a master's degree and studied for her doctorate in Public Administration from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, and an M.A. in Library Science and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin--Madison. 

   Charles T. Moses

Charles T. Moses is the Interim Dean of the Austin Peay State University College of Business. A specialist in strategy and entrepreneurship, he also consults on the local, state and international level.  He previously served as the Interim Dean of the School of Business Administration at Clark Atlanta University and as Academic Director of the University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.

He is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Mona School of Business and Management at the University of the West Indies, in Kingston, Jamaica, where he teaches MBA classes in strategy and a doctoral level seminar: “Internationalization of SME’s.”

In 2010-2011 he was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of the West Indies where he researched emerging market entrepreneurship and taught classes in international entrepreneurship. He was also a Kettering Foundation “Public Scholar”.

From 1994-2001, he was a consultant based in South Africa and in 1996 he served as the Dean of Edupark, a business school at the University of Limpopo.  His consulting work centered on change management and international trade. A few years later, as managing director of a mid-sized holding company in South Africa, he was a key member of the team which took the company public, raising in excess of USD 60 million on the South African Stock Exchange.  He later founded, then sold, a technology start-up in South Africa.

Previously, in 1995 as a cabinet-level aide to former New York State Governor Mario M. Cuomo, Dr. Moses created the State’s South Africa policy. He was also a consultant to USAID in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Prior to joining the Governor’s staff, Dr. Moses was a deputy press secretary in the Office of the New York City Comptroller. He developed and implemented media strategies for the city’s billion-dollar annual bond sales.

From 1985 to 1987, Dr. Moses was a strategic planning and budget executive for Newsday, one of America’s largest daily newspapers.  He was a member of a team which went on to launch New York Newsday, one of the newspaper industry’s success stories of that time. He also developed and launched a $30 million electronic information service for the newspaper.

He received a Doctorate in Management from Case Western Reserve University.

  Jule Zimet

Jule Zimet owns Daniel’s Moving & Storage in El Paso, Texas. She first became interested in National Issues Forums when she heard David Mathews speak at a National Association of Community Leadership Organizations meeting in 1983. It was obviously a lasting fancy as she still chairs a local committee of volunteers who produce and hold forums that are broadcast on the PBS El Paso affiliate, KCOS Television. Forums are also held at the University of Texas at El Paso and the El Paso Community College. Ms. Zimet received her Bachelor of Arts in political science from UCLA.