Members,

We're thrilled to introduce a slate of candidates for your consideration for the ACR-GNY Board of Directors 2022. These individuals were screened by the Nominations Committee and put forward to the Board of Directors for approval. ACR-GNY members will have the opportunity to vote on this slate of Directors hip at the Annual Meeting on Tuesday, January 25th.

We gratefully acknowledge all who came forward and submitted self-nominations for the Board and additionally thank the members of the Nomination Committee, Chris Daly, Genesis Fisher, Glen Parker, and Rebecca Liebowitz, for their work on this process.  

Candidates for Director 1st term:

Stephanie Gilman

Melody Wang

Tony Yost

Candidates for Director for re-election to next term:

Rebecca Liebowitz

Susan Salazar

Candidates for Officer:

President-Elect: Emily Skinner

Treasurer: Craig Coldstream

Secretary: Nick Pozek

Click here to RSVP for the January 25th event

CANDIDATE STATEMENTS

Stephanie Gilman: 

I advocate for, support, and collaborate with court involved and system impacted young  people in my work at the City University of New York, where I founded CUNY Freedom Prep, a college  transition program for justice system impacted young people. I facilitated multiple mediations with  students in the NYC public school system in my previous work at CUNY’s Early College Initiative and at  buildOn, a national nonprofit organization that provides local and global community service  opportunities to youth in urban settings. Over the course of my career, I have also trained public  school students to mediate and helped school leadership set up peer mediation programs to implement more restorative and less punitive solutions to conflict and violence. I am trained in  Collaborative Problem Solving and Restorative Practices, both of which inform my work as a mediator.  

I am a seasoned facilitator and educator and enjoy presenting about the importance of mediation and  how it informs my approach to higher education with system impacted and marginalized students.  Recently I presented to the 14th Annual CUNY Black Male Initiative Conference and at the 2019  National Conference on Higher Education in Prison. My work in this field resulted in my selection as a  CUNY Transformative Learning in the Humanities Fellow. I have recently launched a private mediation  practice and am a new ACR-GNY member. 

I am passionate about peaceful conflict resolution, alternative dispute resolution, and the role  mediators can play in creating a safe, productive space for people to work out conflicts. I would be  honored to serve the field with Board Membership and am specifically interested in joining the board  in the role of Membership Support. I am excited by the opportunity to help build stronger connections  to ACR-GNY members, and to seek new ways to connect with new members, especially young people,  students, people of color, and other LGBTQ+ people.

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Melody Wang: 

I first fell in love with the work in mediation when I was a graduate law student at the University  of Southern California, the opportunity to work as a volunteer mediator for APADRC (Asian  Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center) and Small Claim Courts in Los Angeles opened my eyes up to the possibility of a life-long career. Clients walked away from my mediation room  feeling satisfied and resolved, and I in return, felt more confident that this was what I was born to do.  

As a fellow mediator with four years in the field and a brand-new New-Yorker, I now serve as a  panel family mediator for the NYC Family Court. Since moving to New York City in late  August this year, I have attended several virtual events organized by the ACR-GNY; including the Mediation Settlement Day and the Roundtable Breakfast events. I was extremely impressed  with the Mediation Settlement Day event because I saw the speakers' and the members’ passion  and dedication in the work they do, and it makes me hopeful for the future of mediation and  where it will grow. Moreover, I found that ACR-GNY is an endless thinktank where the brilliant  and the experienced assemble; the open-minded platform for ideas and experience-sharing is  what I found the most attractive about this organization.  

I’m especially interested in the programming support role because I’m a passionate planner; in  the past, as President of the Habitat for Humanity chapter at SMU, I supervised and helped  organize hundreds of college students to go on weekend Habitat builds monthly. While I was a  marketing executive at ACT-Genomics, I led a team of three to plan and execute several  international bio-tech exhibitions in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. I truly enjoy the  process of turning a vision into reality; my past experiences had given me a lot of fulfillments and I hope to be able to do the same at ACR-GNY.  

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Anthony Yost:  

I wish to further my support of the local ADR community by volunteering for a board position. I am a very organized individual, have experience putting on events, and lots of contacts to use for events. I would be honored to assist in any way I can. I am an experienced Practitioner/Researcher/Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the alternative dispute resolution industry. I am skilled in Negotiation, Mediation, Facilitation, Research, Coaching, Conflict Resolution, Public Speaking, and Nonprofit Management. I hold a Master of Arts (M.A.) focused in Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution from Salisbury University.

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WHO CAN VOTE?

In order to be eligible to vote, you must be an active member of ACR-GNY as of Thursday, January 25, 2021. Vote Now! 

We look forward to your participation in this election process.

If you have any questions, please contact us at admin@acrgny.org