On behalf of the AFS-USA leadership, I am pleased to share the news that five new board members were elected at the annual AFS-USA Board meeting on June 24th, along with a new slate of officers. AFS-USA is poised for the future and is fortunate to have a roster of impressive professionals on the Board of Directors to support implementing our strategic priorities that will enable us to further our mission of creating more global citizens.
Departing the Board as Directors are Debra Maly, Sudip Mukherjee, Clara Berger, Julia Vollmers, and Bob Stableski. We greatly appreciate all of their contributions and outstanding service to AFS-USA. In particular, we want to thank Bob Stableski for his longstanding service as a Director from 2015 to 2022 including Board Chair from June 2020 through June 2021 which, due to the coronavirus pandemic, was one of the most challenging periods in our organization’s history. Bob was instrumental in ensuring the very survival of our organization when the Coronavirus pandemic affected every corner of our world.
Additionally, a special resolution was passed expressing sincere gratitude to Sarah Yancey for her exemplary leadership as Chair of the Board of Directors from 2021 to 2022. Sarah is known to many people in the network and is a visionary who led the recovery efforts for AFS-USA and is a strong advocate for the board and staff partnership. We are indebted to Sarah for her outstanding leadership in many areas of the organization.
Joining the AFS-USA Board of Directors are: Mari Treviño Glass, Vice President of Treviño Consulting Group (TCG), a non-profit consulting firm that works with non-profit organizations across the country to assist organizations with all aspects of fundraising, Board governance, image and reputation in the community, and advocacy; Zenith Houston, CEO of GaillardHouston Enterprise, Inc. a management consultant firm that provides professional counsel to diverse nonprofit and high net-worth clients in philanthropic services, executive leadership coaching, strategic planning, program development, board recruitment, fundraising, strategic philanthropy, marketing, and volunteer management; Gisele Marcus, Professor of Practice – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis; Ann Sweet current Vice Chair of the National Council (AFS-USA’s volunteer representative body); and Christina V. Wood, the National Development Director for Stand for Children, an education equity and racial justice advocacy nonprofit.
The newly elected officers are: Chair, Wendy Kuran (Alumna U.S. to Finland), Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement at Duke Kunshan University and Duke in China; Vice Chair, Barbara Olson (Alumna U.S. to Turkey), who served for nearly 25 years as a communications director for K-12 public school districts in suburban Minneapolis; Secretary, Ambassador (ret.) Patrick Moon (Alumnus U.S. to Brazil), retired Senior Foreign Service Officer with the State Department; and Treasurer, Alan Williams (Alumnus South Africa to U.S.) who most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Executive Director at NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
Collectively, the Board will work with the organizational leadership on its strategic goals with priorities placed on: providing more schools with resources for educators to facilitate global learning among their students; increasing scholarship support to enable more high school students to study abroad; enabling more families, including those from diverse communities, to benefit by hosting international exchange students; increasing support for the organization’s 2,600+ volunteers based throughout the U.S., and furthering the organization’s mission of creating a more just and peaceful world.