Executive Director: Jim Langford
Jim Langford, Executive Director of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP), brings many years of business, public service and nonprofit experience to the organization and its efforts to transform poverty studies in the United States. In recent years, Mr. Langford has served as the co-founder and President of the Georgia Meth Project and the Georgia Prevention Project. Both organizations focus on reducing the first-time use of dangerous drugs and other substances among teens and young adults.
Mr. Langford is also the founder and Chair of the Substance Abuse Research Alliance (SARA) – an organization that fosters substance misuse research and collaboration among academic institutions, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations in Georgia. SARA also assists elected officials and governmental agencies in crafting legislation and setting public policy agendas.
A native of Calhoun, Georgia, Mr. Langford has been appointed by five Georgia governors to a variety of commissions and boards in the state. He also served as the State Director of the Trust for Public Land where he conceived and implemented the connected park system of the Atlanta BeltLine. He is the founder of three other land conservation, greenway and archaeology education organizations. Mr. Langford has been named by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of Atlanta’s 100 most influential people.
In his business life, Mr. Langford founded and managed successful high technology companies over a 20-year period. Prior to his high technology career, he was an executive of The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, New York, Puerto Rico and Argentina. He serves as a member of the Board of Councilors of the Carter Presidential Center and the Board of Advisors of the Ivan Allen College at Georgia Tech, and he is a former member of the Georgia Board of Natural Resources, the Georgia Humanities Council and the Emory University Board of Visitors.
Mr. Langford earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and his MBA from the Harvard Business School. [email protected]
Academic Director: Stephanie Rolph
Stephanie Rolph is Associate Professor of History at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. A native of Mississippi, Stephanie received her Ph.D. from Mississippi State in 2009. In addition to her work with SHECP, she also serves as Director of Community Engaged Learning at Millsaps and offers college classes to women at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. Stephanie is an active scholar of the post-1945 American South. Her publications have appeared in The Right Side of the Sixties and the Journal of Southern History. Her first book, Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954-1989 will be available June 2018 from Louisiana State University Press. [email protected]
Internship Director: Amy K. DeHart
Prior to joining SHECP in October 2014, Amy was Assistant Director for Conferences, Programs, and Marketing for the Virginia Military Institute – Center for Leadership and Ethics, 2009–2014. This position capped her 15 year association with conference and program development for the Institute. She previously served senior account executive for Kearns & West, Inc., a national public affairs consulting firm; assistant press secretary for a U.S. Presidential campaign (1988); and a press assistant for a Vice-Presidential Campaign (1984). In between, she raised two children and held a variety of interesting part-time jobs, including working for a start-up internet provider and taking photos for a weekly newspaper. She and her husband and partner of more than 35 years, Morris Trimmer, live in Lexington, Virginia. She earned her B.A. from Earlham College. [email protected]
Alumni Engagement Specialist: Danielle Breidung
Danielle Breidung is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and an alumna of the SHECP program. During the summer of 2011, she completed a SHECP/Kemper internship at Mujeres Latinas en Acción, a Chicago-based organization that strives to empower Latinas through service and advocacy. In Lexington, Danielle was a Bonner Scholar, a regular volunteer at the Campus Kitchen Project, an English tutor with English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), and a Spanish teacher/volunteer coordinator at Fairfield Elementary School with the Rockbridge Teacher Education Consortium. In 2011, Danielle conducted a community-based research project about Latinos’ access to social services in Rockbridge County, VA that informed her poverty and human capability studies capstone. Since graduating in December 2012, Danielle has been busy exporting superfruits from the Brazilian Amazon, serving with AmeriCorps VISTA, consulting nonprofit organizations in South Carolina, participating in fellowships in Asia, visiting all 50 U.S. states, and pursuing additional education in the fields of international higher education, social work, and nonprofit management. Danielle is passionate about empowering women and girls. She is currently a member of Wellspring Living’s Young Professionals Board, a CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate for Children), and a volunteer at the Mediation Center of the Coastal Empire. Danielle previously served as president of the Rotary Club of Bluffton. [email protected]
Work-study Students
Alex Woodward
Alex Woodward is a Senior at W&L who is majoring in Global Politics and Religion and minoring in Poverty and Human Capabilities Studies. She enjoys serving as president of the W&L chapter of Alpha Delta Pi and on Campus Kitchen Leadership Team. As a Shepherd student she has enjoyed interning with other non-profits in South Africa and in Lexington. She hopes to go into political think tank or non-profit work.
Governing Board
Immediate Past Chair: Alan Tinkler, Ph.D., Missouri State University, [email protected]
Acting Chair: Brian Doyle, Ph.D., Marymount University, [email protected]
Vice Chair: Kristin Harper, Birmingham-Southern College, [email protected]
Secretary: Mindy Wilson, Centre College, [email protected]
Treasurer: Atin Basuchoudhary, Ph.D., Virginia Military Institute, [email protected]
Richard Cancelmo, Bridgeway Capital Management, Inc., [email protected]
Larry Connolly, Connolly Family Foundation, [email protected]
Margaret Finucane, Ph.D., John Carroll University, [email protected]
Andrew Hogue, Ph.D., Baylor University, [email protected]
Andrew Kumpuris, MD, Cardiologist, Little Rock, AR, [email protected]
Tiffanie Spencer, University of Vermont, [email protected]
Howard Pickett, Ph.D., Washington and Lee University, [email protected]
SHECP Council
Nina Banks, Ph.D., Bucknell University, [email protected]
Atin Basuchoudhary, Ph.D., Virginia Military Institute, [email protected]
Kevin Blair, Ph.D., Niagara University, [email protected]
Lauren Bowen, Ph.D., Juniata College, [email protected]
Katy Gray Brown, Ph.D., Manchester University, [email protected]
Richard Cancelmo, Bridgeway Capital Management, Inc., [email protected]
Joel Clark, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison, [email protected]
Larry Connolly, Connolly Family Foundation, [email protected]
Kim Cosgrove, PACT’s Therapeutic Nursery, [email protected]
Brian Doyle, Ph.D., Marymount University, [email protected]
Cindy Ferguson, University of Lynchburg, [email protected]
Margaret Finucane, Ph.D., John Carroll University, [email protected]
David Gandolfo, Ph.D., Furman University, [email protected]
Kristin Harper, Birmingham-Southern College, [email protected]
Andrew Hogue, Ph.D., Baylor University, [email protected]
Elyssa Klipsch, Millsaps College, [email protected]
Brooke Krause, Ph.D., The College of Wooster, [email protected]
Andrew Kumpuris, MD, Cardiologist, Little Rock, AR, [email protected]
Matthew Lawrence, Middlebury College, [email protected]
Connie Snyder Mick, Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, [email protected]
Cathy McConnell, Ph.D., The College of Wooster, [email protected]
Kelly Nichols, Woollard Nichols & Associates, Austin, TX, [email protected]
Rebecca Todd Peters, Ph.D., Professor, Religious Studies, Elon University, [email protected]
Howard Pickett, Ph.D, Washington & Lee University, [email protected]
Stephen J. Scanlan, Ph.D., Ohio University, [email protected]
Tiffanie Spencer, Ph.D., University of Vermont, [email protected]
Alan Tinkler, Ph.D., Missouri State University, [email protected]
Christina Willemsen, Hamilton College, [email protected]
Sara Whipple, Virginia Military Institute, [email protected]
Mindy Wilson, Centre College, [email protected]
Andrea Woodward, Ph.D, Berea College, [email protected]
Ana “Monica” Yepes-Rios, MD, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, [email protected]
Updated November 30, 2020