Previous Conferences | Kean University

16th Annual Human Rights Conference

Ndaba Mandela Grandson of Nelson Mandela, Co-Founder & Chairman of Africa Rising Foundation

Nelson Mandela had a “long walk to freedom,” yet his footprints still remain. Following in the footsteps of his beloved and iconic grandfather, Ndaba Mandela has taken the torch – and ran with it. Today, Nelson Mandela’s legacy lives on as Ndaba continues to keep its beacon of hope bright, fueling its fiery message that one person can make a difference. Thankfully for all, the legacy lives, as Ndaba was recently named one of the “28 Men of Change” by BET. His recent book, Going to the Mountain: Life Lessons from My Grandfather, Nelson Mandela, is the first-ever to tell Nelson Mandela's life through the eyes of the grandson who was raised by him, chronicling Ndaba's life living with, and learning from, one of the greatest leaders and humanitarians the world has ever known.

Today, Ndaba is showing the world, through his actions and orations, that Nelson Mandela’s voice and message of freedom still carries and rings true – sounded by a child that became a man under the warm embrace and expert tutelage of one of history’s greatest teachers. Currently, Ndaba is organizing the 95th celebration of Nelson Mandela Day and was also instrumental in creating the International Day of Happiness at the United Nations. He continues to keep Mandela on the world’s mind.

Now, Ndaba Mandela entertains and inspires audiences with tales only he could tell in his presentations exclusively through American Program Bureau. With pride and presence, Ndaba speaks passionately about Africa, its people and its future – which is looking brighter than ever. This is good news, not only for the continent, but also for corporations looking to get in on the ground floor of a steadily rising nation, embracing its vast potential and natural resources. In fact, Ndaba is the co-founder and co-chairman of the Africa Rising Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting a positive image of Africa around the world and to increasing its potential for growth in the areas of education, employment and international corporate alliances for profit and partnership. Ndaba also serves as an executive director UN AIDS, which seeks to end discrimination around HIV/Aids through the power of football.

Sophia Kianni Founder of Climate Cardinals & Youngest Appointed United Nations Advisor

Sophia Kianni is an Iranian-American activist studying science, technology, & society at Stanford University. She is the founder and executive director of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit with 9,000 volunteers in 40+ countries working to translate climate information into over 100 languages. She represents the U.S as the youngest member on the inaugural United Nations Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. She sits on boards and advisory councils for The New York Times, World Economic Forum, Web Summit, Inkey List, Iris Project, JUV Consulting, Ashoka, and American Lung Association.

Sophia has amassed a following of over 200,000 across social media platforms and her work has been featured in news outlets including Forbes, CNN, Vogue, Business Insider, BBC, NPR, ELLE, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, NBC, and even on the front page of The Washington Post. She was previously a fellow with PBS NewsHour and has written for news outlets such as The Washington Post, MTV News, Cosmopolitan, and Teen Vogue. She is a prolific public speaker and has spoken at universities across the world including Columbia University, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Cambridge University, and Harvard University. She won the TED global idea competition and her debut TED Talk has 1.5+ million views.

She has been named VICE Media's youngest Human of the Year, a National Geographic Young Explorer, among Business Insider’s Climate Action 30, one of Teen Vogue's 21 under 21, and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree.

John Prendergast Co-Founder of The Sentry

John Prendergast is a human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as a New York Times best-selling author. He is the Co-Founder with George Clooney of The Sentry, an investigative and policy team that follows the dirty money connected to war criminals and transnational war profiteers.

John has worked for the White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.  During his time in government, John was part of the negotiating team behind the successful two-year mediation led by Anthony Lake which ended the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the deadliest war in the world at the time. He was also part of peace processes for Burundi (led by President Nelson Mandela), Sudan, and DR Congo.

John is the author or co-author of eleven books, two of which he co-authored with Don Cheadle. John has been awarded seven honorary doctorates. John also co-founded The Enough Project, a policy organization aimed at countering genocide and crimes against humanity and the predecessor to the Sentry. He has been a big brother in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program for nearly 40 years to ten different boys, as well as a youth counselor and basketball coach.

To learn more about The Sentry, visit www.thesentry.org.

15th Annual Human Rights Conference

Aidan Allman-Cooper ’23, Outstanding Students Human Rights Activist

Based on his own experience as a student with disabilities, Aiden Allman-Cooper ’23 established SECA Organization, LLC, a business to address student issues in the education field through personalized advocacy. SECA provides customized, wide-ranging services to a diverse clientele, including the development of IEP/504 plans to prioritize actions and establish long and short-terms goals related to clients’ educational programming; consulting with public school districts on student-related issues while providing problem-solving advice and recommendations. Mr. Allman-Cooper is the author of This is Autism, an Amazon.com #1 best-seller in multiple categories. As a volunteer, he engages in outside community initiatives while maintaining a robust pro-bono clinic devoted to provide select clients with service due to financial circumstance.

Dr. Nicole Schroeder, Hank Kaplowitz Outstanding Human Rights Educator

Nicole Schroeder, Ph.D., is a member of the inaugural cohort of Equity in Action Presidential Postdoctoral Fellows at Kean University. She received her Ph.D. in Early American History in 2021 from the University of Virginia. Nicole is a historian of disability, medicine and welfare in early America. She studies processes of medical ableism and political disenfranchisement throughout U.S. history, with a particular focus on the intersectional relationships between poverty, disability, race, and gender. Over the past few years, Nicole's research has been funded by predoctoral fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Dolores Liebmann Fund Foundation.

In her spare time, Nicole is also a disability rights activist and the founder of the DAC (Disabled Academic Collective). The DAC provides outreach and support to disabled faculty, staff, students, and independent scholars who identify as disabled. On social media, Nicole uses the DAC platform to talk about academic ableism and to raise awareness about issues of access and accessibility in higher education. The DAC also houses a website for outreach and resources, and maintains a private Discord server for disabled academics to secure support, community, and academic resources.

Isabel Mavrides-Calderon, Outstanding Young Human Rights Activist

Isabel Mavrides-Calderón is an 18-year-old Latina disabled disability rights activist and organizer who focuses her work on campaigning for policy change, anti-ableism, and accessibility, with a key focus on advocating for intersectional disability justice. Recently she has hosted campaigns for disability rights bills with the American Civil Liberties Union, The Center For Disability Rights, and Gen-Z for Change. She was also an accessibility consultant for protests such as The Australian Climate Strike, and the head organizer of the CVS vs. DOE protests which successfully lead to the take down of the case which threatened to gut section 504.

Digital media has provided Mavrides-Calderon and many other Gen-Z activists with the tools to spread their advocacy with others all over the world. On TikTok and Instagram, Mavrides-Calderón seeks to educate others on disability rights and issues, disability history, her personal experiences, and more. Teen Vogue recently featured Isabel in an article entitled 11 Disability Rights Activists on Where the Fight for Justice Stands, where she shared her thoughts around the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on disabled people. “The pandemic highlighted the ableism ingrained in all aspects of society. There has never been the appropriate infrastructure in place to support disabled people. For years, disabled and chronically ill students begged for remote options when they were hospitalized or couldn’t get to school, and we were always told it was not possible. The medical system and mental health services were inaccessible to people who could not physically get to the facilities. If society would have listened to disabled folks in the first place, our transition to a more digital world would have been smoother. I hope this showed us that accommodations benefit everyone.”

Isabel is a senior at Horace Mann School in New York, New York where she is the President of both the Speech Team and the Latinx Advocacy Club. When Isabel is not in school, campaigning for policy change, and participating in community outreach, she is visiting communities across the country sharing her message of advocacy, hope, and social change.

Eric LeGrand, Outstanding Human Rights Activist

In October 2010, Rutgers University football star, Eric LeGrand, sustained a spinal cord injury at his C3 and C4 vertebrae during a fourth quarter play at MetLife Stadium. While the initial prognosis was grim, Eric demonstrated his titan strength by shattering all expectations for his recovery and rehabilitation. However, recovery was not enough. With close to six million Americans living with some form of paralysis, including 1.3 million spinal cord injuries, Eric harnessed the national spotlight he attracted from his injury to give back to the community and inspire those living with and impacted by paralysis to bELieve.

Team LeGrand was launched in September 2013 as a fundraising arm for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to carry forward the legacy of the late Christopher Reeve. Since its inception in 2013, Team LeGrand has raised well over two million dollars for the Reeve Foundation.

Eric not only carries the torch of Team LeGrand’s mission, he continuously leads by example. During his time as a participant of the Reeve Foundation’s NeuroRecovery Network (NRN), he took part in a rigorous rehabilitation regime, including locomotor training, to re-teach his body how to walk and improve his quality of life. Since beginning therapy, he has regained movement in his shoulders and improvements to his overall health.

From becoming an author, sports analyst for ESPN, Sirius, the Big Ten Network and Rutgers radio, to a much sought after motivational speaker, Eric has given a voice to the paralysis community to mobilize support for critical initiatives, policies and cutting-edge research over the past five years. Additionally, he has extended his versatility by becoming a savvy entrepreneur who is involved in a number of different business initiatives.

Eric was recognized by Sports Illustrated with “The Best Moment of 2011” and the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPY Awards in 2012. Further, he was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2017, receiving the Warrior Award. He also realized his NFL dream when his college coach and then Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach, Greg Schiano, signed him to a professional contract in 2012.

In May 2014, Eric graduated from Rutgers University where he was an honored speaker at the commencement ceremony. When addressing his fellow graduates, he reminded them that “anything is possible,” and the importance of establishing a legacy of giving.

Since his injury, Eric has shown the world that obstacles can be transformed into opportunities, and he will continue to drive his mission forward until he delivers on Christopher Reeve’s dream of a world with empty wheelchairs. To Eric, it is not a matter of if he walks again, but rather when.

14th Annual Human Rights Conference

Chamique Holdsclaw was born and raised in Queens, NY, where she made her mark as a high school basketball star at Christ The King High School. She later accepted a full athletic scholarship to play for the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers and Hall of Fame Coach Pat Summit. She went on to lead the Lady Vols to three straight NCAA Championships.

After her illustrious college career, Chamique would go on to be the #1 pick in the 1999 WNBA Draft by the Washington Mystics. Her rookie season was capped with a WNBA Rookie of the Year Award as well as her first of six WNBA All-Star appearances. In 2000 she had the honor of winning an Olympic Gold Medal with Team USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Hosted by Kean’s Human Rights Institute, the event, Stop the Stigma: Mental Health and Human Rights, will feature WNBA Hall of Fame basketball player Chamique Holdsclaw as keynote speaker. Also speaking will be Kean alumnus and therapist Francesco Rizzo-Duffy '13 and UNA-USA Youth Observer to the United Nations Cynthia Yue.

“Mental health is a pressing issue for our world today, yet not enough is done to help those who are in need, and stigma still discourages many of those who are suffering from seeking help,” said Kean President Lamont O. Repollet, Ed.D. “Mental health is an equity issue; it is a quality-of-life issue; and it is a human rights issue. Kean is proud to explore this crucial topic through the Human Rights Conference.”

The Conference will take place in Wilkins Theatre on the Kean campus in Union, from 9 a.m. to noon on March 25. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

The last Human Rights Conference, on voting, took place online due to the pandemic.

Research cited by the National Institute of Mental Health shows that nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.

Human Rights Institute Director Lauretta Farrell, D.Litt., said research shows how the experiences of individuals living with mental health conditions are shaped by the marginalization of mental health in laws and public policy.

“My hope is that this conference and the incredible speakers we have lined up will indeed stop the stigma attached to seeking help,” Farrell said.

Keynote speaker, mental health advocate and WNBA Hall of Famer Holdsclaw said her experiences have led her to become a motivational figure for people dealing with mental health issues today.

“I hope to use my own story and voice to destigmatize mental illness and to create awareness of available resources to the best available mental health care,” Holdsclaw said. “Regardless of mental health, everyone is deserving of being treated with dignity and respect.”

Rizzo-Duffy said his interest in mental health began early in life. “For as long as I can remember, I was usually the go-to for loved ones when they needed support.

“As I understood more concepts in the field, I saw just how much mental health has an impact on our day-to-day interactions with everyone we encounter and how important it is to maintain a healthy mindset in order to feel a sense of satisfaction with life,” he said.

Yue said her focus is combating the widespread lack of mental health treatment.

“I hope to promote equitable, affordable access to mental health resources and to destigmatize mental health-related issues and conversations,” Yue said. “Though we've made great progress, our society has yet to fully embrace the idea it's okay to not be okay.”

At the conference, Kean will also recognize educators and students who are committed to human rights.

13th Annual Human Rights Conference

Poster exhibiting voting with a subtitle of Human Rights in Action

To celebrate National Voter Education Week, the Human Rights Institute at Kean University is proud to present the 13th annual Human Rights Conference, VOTE: Human Rights in Action.

You may recall that the Conference was originally scheduled for Friday, March 27, 2020, and was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our newly-imagined program has been pre-recorded, and is available on-demand to the general public.

It consists of four segments, varying in length from 15 to 30 minutes, which can be watched all at once or one at a time, and comes with discussion questions that can augment in-class instruction or serve as homework assignments. Complementary, age-appropriate lesson plans are also available.