Mondaire Jones is serving his first term as the Congressman from New York’s 17th District, encompassing all of Rockland County and parts of central and northern Westchester County.

A product of East Ramapo public schools, Rep. Jones was raised in Section 8 housing and on food stamps in the Village of Spring Valley by a single mother who worked multiple jobs to provide for their family.

After graduating from Stanford University, Rep. Jones worked in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy, where he vetted candidates for federal judgeships and worked to reform our criminal legal system to make it more fair and equitable. He later graduated from Harvard Law School.

Prior to running for Congress, Rep. Jones worked as a litigator in private practice, where was awarded by The Legal Aid Society of New York for his pro bono service investigating claims of employment discrimination and helping families defrauded during the Great Recession recover funds. Subsequently, he served as a litigator in the Westchester County Law Department.

Rep. Jones began his activism in high school through the Spring Valley NAACP Youth Council. He would go on to serve on the NAACP’s National Board of Directors. Rep. Jones is a co-founder of the nonprofit Rising Leaders, Inc., which teaches professional skills to underserved middle-school students in three American cities, and has previously served on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jones continues his lifelong advocacy for civil rights and civil liberties, and the strengthening of our democracy. In Congress, Rep. Jones is fighting for COVID-19 relief, a living wage for all, universal health care, racial justice, climate action, and restoration of the SALT deduction.

Rep. Jones serves as the Freshman Representative to Leadership in the 117th Congress, making him the youngest member of the Democratic House leadership team. He also serves as a Deputy Whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus and as a Co-Chair of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus.

Rep. Jones was raised in Rockland County and resides in Westchester County.

As Senior Vice President for Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice, Melanie Hart focuses on elevating the strategies, values, and practices of equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice across The New School. Melanie brings to this work a deep connection to the university and deep experience in social justice-based institutional management and change. Melanie is an alum of the university’s MA program in Public and Urban Policy at the Milano School, where she is presently completing her PhD. She received her JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and practiced law as a corporate and securities attorney before returning to public service in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors and with city agencies. Most recently, she served as the Deputy Commissioner for Workforce Development at the New York City Department of Small Business Services. Before that, she was the Executive Vice President of Community Programs and Development at the New York City Housing Authority.

Mia Charlene White is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies in the Environmental Studies Program at the Schools of Public Engagement, with a co-teaching appointment at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment. She is a faculty-affiliate of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, as well as with the Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies. She has a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Political Science from the State University of NY at Stonybrook, a Master of International Affairs (Environmental Policy) from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and a Ph.D in Urban Studies and Planning (Housing and Environment) from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Given the diversity of her training, Mia's work is interdisciplinary and she situates herself among radical geographers (race geography) and applied anthropologists, planning/urban theorists (fugitive planning), radical sociologists/historians and those others seeking to link social science concepts of space and race, to the humanities via art and protest.

William is the co-director of the Institute for Transformative Mentoring. As a restorative justice practitioner William focuses is to heal, develop, and lead systems impacted individuals on a journey to rebuild community, decrease violence and incarceration. William is the founder of Neighborhood Benches, an organization increasing the presence of local neighborhood leadership to focus on youth violence and incarceration. He serves on the advisory boards of Public Allies NY, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, PS x18 in the Bronx, and as a member of the Restorative Roots Collaborative. William is a graduate of ITM and a 2019 Echoing Green Fellow. 

Robert Hurwitz served as President of Nonesuch for thirty-two years, beginning in September 1984. When he took over Nonesuch, it was a classical label and the home of the legendary Explorer series. After he became the head of the label, he redefined its role in contemporary classical music and modern composition, expanded its mission in world music, and began recording and releasing artists from a wide range of musical genres, including jazz, music theater, folk, bluegrass, and rock.

Among the artists he has signed or worked with are composers including John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Henryk Gorecki, Philip Glass, Adam Guettel, Nico Muhly, Astor Piazzolla, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewki, Stephen Sondheim, and John Zorn as well as performers and songwriters including Björk, Devendra Banhart, David Byrne, Jeremy Denk, Bill Frisell, Gipsy Kings, Richard Goode, Tigran Hamasyan, Kronos Quartet, Gidon Kremer, k.d. lang, Lake Street Dive, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Audra McDonald, Natalie Merchant, Stephin Merritt (and the Magnetic Fields), Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Mandy Patinkin, Punch Brothers, Randy Newman, Joshua Redman, Chris Thile, Dawn Upshaw, Caetano Veloso, and the World Saxophone Quartet.

The Boston Globe said, “Under Robert Hurwitz, Nonesuch Records has been an oasis of artistic excitement. When one picks up a Nonesuch CD, there is a sense of occasion, the feeling that the artists in question have been assembled not as an exercise in star power, but as an exercise in artistic exploration.” And the New York Times Magazine said, “In a business now largely run by accountants and M.B.A.’s, Hurwitz is, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, ‘one of the few left who practice the making of records as a craft.’”

Hurwitz has remained closely involved with Nonesuch’s creative activities as an Executive Producer on a dozen projects a year; he is also the Chairman Emeritus of the company. He has taught at the New School for more than a decade, and has been teaching at UCLA for the past few years as well.

Prior to arriving at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art as Curator of Education and now Interim Director, Makeba Dixon-Hill has held positions at museums of all sizes throughout the nation. Her work focuses on bringing the vision and mission of the museum to life by curating programming and engagement experiences that scaffold the institution’s world-class exhibitions and special projects.

In addition to her institutional work, Makeba is a writer, yoga instructor, and arts professional. Born and raised in Atlanta, she developed a love for the outdoors before she could walk or talk. With her family, she traversed the country and was first exposed to yoga and meditation from her mother. Makeba is a 200 YTT registered yoga instructor and is currently working on a series of books about mindfulness for children.

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Jelani Cobb is an American writer, author and educator. The Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, Cobb was previously an associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. Since 2015, he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker. He has received Fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford Foundations. He is also the recipient of the Walter Bernstein Award from the Writer’s Guild of America for his investigative series Policing the Police, which aired on PBS Frontline.

Photo credit:  ©2013 Peter Morenus/The University of Connecticut

The Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice is committed to collaboration and partnership to address and support the critical issues of equity, inclusion, and social justice throughout The New School community. For questions or more information contact eisj@newschool.edu.