Curriculum vitae of gwendolyn zoharah simmons 857 sw 50th Way gainesville, florida 32607

FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS:

Summer 2003 Cooleridge Fellowship from CrossCurrents & the Association for Religion & Intellectual Life

Summer 2003 University of Florida’s Center for African Studies for WARA (West African Research Association) symposium on “Islam in Africa, focus on Senegal

Summer 2002 AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) grant for month long travel in the Middle East countries of Israel, Jordan, Palestine, & Syria as a member of an International Quaker Working Party (IQWP) on Peace in the Middle East

Summer 2000 ARIL (Association for Religion & Intellectual Life) Time Out: Scholar in Residence

Spring 1999 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

Fall 1998 Senior TA Award for Exemplary Teaching

Spring 1998 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

1996 Fulbright Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

Academic 9 month Award for Dissertation Research in Amman, Jordan

(Research topic: “Women’s Status In The Middle East and Legal reforms:

The Connection”)

1996 USIA/ACOR Fellowship (American Center for Oriental Research)

Four month Scholarship for Dissertation Research in Amman Jordan

(Research topic: “Women’s Status In The Middle East and Legal Reforms:

Fall 1995 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

Fall 1994 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University “

1993-94 Fund For Theological Education (An Educational Fund for Black Scholars in Religion)

Spring 1993 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

1992-93 Davis Potter Scholarship Fund (An Educational Fund for Civil Rights & Social Justice Activists)

Fall 1992 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

Spring 1992 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

Fall 1991 Teaching Assistantship/ Temple University

PUBLICATIONS:

Spring 2007, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Mama Told Me Not To Go in the Struggle for Social Justice section of Time It Was: American Stories From the Sixties, ed, by Karen Manners Smith and Tim Koster, Pearson- Prentice Hall.

Spring 2004, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, “A Prayer for Healing” in Lori Robinson and Julia A. Boyd’s I will survive: The African American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse, Seal Press.

October 2002, MetaNexus Institute Conference on Spiritual Transformation, Philadelphia, Pa. Paper topic: “Spiritual Transformation in the Islamic Mystical Tradition.”

February 2002, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, VOICES Of HOPE Conference. Paper Topic: “Finding Strength for the Struggle.”

January 2000, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, The Program in African-American Culture – Panelist on topic, “Fighting For My Rights” in Commemoration of birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

November 1999 AAR (American Academy of Religion) Panelist on Special AAR Panel on Jerusalem from the Perspective of the three Abrahamic Faiths. My lecture was on “Jerusalem from an Islamic Point of View.”

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September 1999, Temple University - Presentation to Honors Class on “Personal History in the Civil Rights Movement and the Continuing Role for College Students in the Struggle for Justice in the U.S.”

November 1995, DelMarva Chapter of WILPF’s (Women’s International League For Peace & Freedom Annual Meeting “The Beijing Agenda and Beyond.”

CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, MEETINGS:

June 1994 Fact-finding Mission to the Middle East

I joined with 19 other persons (Christians, Jews & Muslims) on a fact-finding/peace and reconciliation tour to the Middle East sponsored by The Interreligious Committee for Peace In The Middle East. We traveled to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine and Syria over 14 days meeting with government officials, business leaders, reporters, scholars and others to learn about the situation on the ground and their recommendations for a solution to the crisis. We also visited the holy sites of the three faiths and did what we could to promote Interreligious harmony just by our presence. The group hammered out a consensus statement with suggestions for resolving the conflict, which was submitted to the U.S. President, all the members of Congress, UN officials and the news media.

July 1992, 93, 94 African-American Interreligious Spirit & Justice Retreats

For three consecutive summers, I was a presenter and a participant in an Interreligious weeklong retreat involving Christians, Buddhist, & Muslims convened by Dr. Vincent Harding and the Iliff School of Theology.

Religious leaders and laypersons gathered for three consecutive summers to assess the current role of religion within the African-American Community as a vehicle for health and healing and for carrying forward the struggle for justice.

January 1990, 91, 92 Silent Retreat Weekends

For three consecutive New Years Weekends, I co-lead Spiritual Retreats at Pendle Hill. I introduced the participants to Sufi (Mystical Islam) prayers and meditations and led the group in Zikr each morning and evening of the Retreats.

November 1980 The National Black Independent Party Founding Convention (NBIPP)

I was one of the principal planners and organizers of the Founding Convention of NBIPP which brought 4,000 African-Americans to Philadelphia to form a political party which it was hoped would represent the interest of African American people at the national and local level. I was elected as National Treasurer for NBIPP and served in that capacity for three years.

TRAVEL:
North & West Africa:

June 2003, Travel to Senegal, West Africa on a UF CAS and Religion Dept sponsored symposium on “Islam in Africa, focus on Senegal.” In route to Senegal, I spent one week in Morocco, visiting Islamic Holy Sites and other historical places.

June 2004, Enrolled in a six weeks Arabic intensive study program at the ALIF (Arabic Language Institute) in Fez, Morocco. Traveled rather extensively and interviewed Moroccan feminist scholars about the new Shari’ah (Islamic) Family Law of Morocco.

The Middle East:

June - July 2002, Traveled to Jordan, Syria, Israel and Palestine as a part of a Religious Society of Friends International Study Group focused on the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.

June 1996-November 1997, while on my ACOR & Fulbright Fellowships based in Amman, Jordan, I traveled several times to Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Syria. I traveled extensively within Jordan visiting each of the major population centers on one or more occasions. I interviewed women and men in each country about the status of women and changes in Shari’ah (Islamic law) in their countries and how it has affected women. I also visited the holy sites of the three major religions as well as the incredible archeological sites and ancient monuments like the Pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt and Petra in Jordan among others.

June 1994, I traveled to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine and Syria on Interreligious Fact-Finding Mission. (See above).
Saudi Arabia:

December 1995-January 1996, I traveled with 80 members of my religious community to make UMRA (what is called the small Pilgrimage or the lesser Hajj). We visited the holy places in Mecca and Medina and traveled to many of the other holy sights in other areas of this country.

Beijing, China:

August and September 1995, I traveled to Beijing and visited in the immediate area for 4 weeks as the leader of the AFSC’s delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women (see details above). I walked the Great Wall, visited the Forbidden City and saw many of the other wonderful historic monuments of this ancient culture. Quite by accident, I visited a 1000 year old Mosque and Islamic Community in Beijing where I was warmly welcomed by the Imam and other Mosque officials.
Caribbean Islands:

1982 until 1995, Vacation Travel to many of the Caribbean Islands including; Antigua, The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Martin. I have also traveled to Cancun and the Yucatan Peninsula.

Mexico:

1980, I spent three weeks in Mexico beginning in Mexico City and traveling to several AFSC project sites in other areas of the country to familiarize myself with the country and the issues confronting its people and to learn first hand about the AFSC’s work in response to the needs of the Mexican people.

Special Sessions:

July 1998, Participation in The Ghandi, Hammer, King Center for Religion and Social Change’s documentation project of participants in late 20th Century Social Justice Movements. I was interviewed for 4 to 5 hours on each of 2 days on video before a live audience at both the Iliff School of Theology and in the Denver Community. My 2nd day of interviewing took place at the Denver headquarters of the AFSC. Drs. Vincent Harding (founder of the Center) and Sardashan Kapur.(Executive Director of the Center) interviewed me about my role in the

Civil Rights Movement and the role my religious upbringing played in motivating my involvement. I also addressed questions from the audience about my movement history and what I saw as the future of race relations and overall social change in the U.S.

The Center is in conversation with both PBS The History and the A&E Cable Channels about the possibility of a series being developed for television from the material after the completion of the interview project. Persons interviewed so far include; Dr. Bernice Reagan, Prof. Sonia Sanchez, Dr. Prathia Hall Wynn, Bob Moses, Rev. James Lawson, Dr. Grace Lee Boggs, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, Stokley Carmichael and others.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE (Partial Listing):

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Spring 2005 Islam in America (new Course)

Spring 2003 Introduction to the Qur’an (New Course)

Spring 2003 Introduction to African American Religious Tradition & Women and Islam

Fall 2002 Introduction to Islam & Women, Religion and Society

Spring 2002 Race, Religion & Rebellion & Women and Islam

Spring 2001 Race, Religion & Rebellion & Women and Islam

Spring 2000 Introduction To Islam & Introduction to African American Religious Tradition

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY

Summer 1999 Racial Justice

Spring 1999 Racial Justice

Summer 1998 Women, Religion, & Society

Spring 1998 Intro. to African-American Religion

Fall 1995 Women, Religion, & Society

Fall 1994 Religion in America

Spring 1993 Religion in America

Fall 1992 World Religions

Spring 1992 World Religions

Fall 1991 Religion in Sociological Perspective
PENDLE HILL: A QUAKER CENTER FOR CONTEMPLATION & STUDY

Spring 2003 Sufism, The Mystical Stream in Islam

Spring 1998 Islam, From Its Early Beginnings Until the Modern Era

Spring 1995 The Mystical Stream w/in The Religious Traditions

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (Partial Listing):

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA - Gainesville, Florida

2000- Assistant Professor of Religion/Islamic Studies
Began duties as full time faculty in the religion department with a primary focus on Islamic Studies. Additional areas of teaching include; African - American Religious Traditions and Women, Religion & Society courses.
2000- Affiliated Faculty, Women’s Studies
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE (AFSC)

1977-1996 Development Officer

AFSC is a Quaker-based international non-governmental peace and justice organization with an annual budget of 30 million dollars. As a Development Officer, I have served in several capacities during this period raising over five million dollars during my tenure as a fund-raiser. These have included, Fund-raiser for the AFSC’s Middle Atlantic Region & Southeast Regional Offices. In this capacity, I raised money from the AFSC’s Major Donors who lived within the geographical boundaries of these two regions. I also developed proposals for these region’s programs, which I submitted to national and regional foundations, corporations and national church funders for grants. Subsequent to these assignments I also served as Development Officer for the organization’s Community Relations and Peace Education Divisions. In these two assignments, I represented these units’ works to national foundations and to major donors along the East Coast. This assignment also required proposal development as well as program evaluation and reporting. My last assignment within this Department was as the Coordinator of Institutional Fundraising. My duties in this position were to organize a national database of institutional funders to which each of the organization’s 17 fund-raisers had access. Utilizing this database and other systems I developed, I also coordinated the approaches of these fund-raisers to foundation, corporation and national church funders.
1995 Chairwoman of AFSC’s Delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women/Beijing, China
I led the AFSC’s 9-person delegation to the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. In my capacity as chairperson, I oversaw the several workshops sponsored by the AFSC in the areas of peace and justice, economic justice, & Transnational Corporations’ impact on women & development. I represented the delegation in meetings with women representatives from the North Korean Women’s Commission. Due to my own academic research interests, I held meetings with Muslim women delegates from Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Morocco, the

Sudan and Turkey, interviewing them about the impact of Islamic Law on Women in their countries. Upon my return from Beijing, I spoke to numerous audiences about the Platform for Action adopted in Beijing and the needed strategies to assure its implementation.

1979 - AFSC Delegation to Southeast Asia
I was a member of a 5-person 6-week delegation to those countries in Southeast Asia in which the AFSC ran humanitarian assistance projects. Our delegation visit began in Singapore where the AFSC’s Quaker International Affairs Representatives (QIARS) were based. From there we went to Malaysia and the Island of Palou Bedong where 30,000 Vietnamese Boat people were being sheltered. The AFSC had staff there providing emergency relief and assistance to these “boat” people. We next traveled to Thailand where I visited with Vietnamese refugees who were housed in UN refugee camps along the Thai/Laotian Border. The group then traveled to Laos where AFSC ran reconstruction and humanitarian aid projects to help the Laotians in the rebuilding of their country. Our delegation met with government officials to negotiate for continued AFSC assistance. Next we traveled to Vietnam where we held high level negotiations with Vietnamese officials about continued AFSC relief activities in both the Northern and Southern areas of the country. We were permitted to visit the North, South and Central Highlands of the country. We saw first hand the devastation caused by U.S. saturation bombing and napalming of both Laos and Vietnam.
While there had been talk prior to our departure of a possible visit to Cambodia, it seemed that the chances were quite slim that we would actually be permitted to enter given the on-going war between Vietnamese backed Cambodian forces and the Pol Pot regime. We were, however, permitted to enter the country as the first official delegation of Americans to visit Cambodia since the Pol Pot regime took power. After our entry into the desolate weed filled Phnom Penh airport, we drove in government provided cars through the completely still and eerie streets of the Capitol City without seeing one living being. We spent three days visiting the “killing fields” and interviewing the handful of survivors who had returned to the Capitol. From them we learned first hand about the holocaust, which wiped out half of Cambodia’s population. We met with members of the skeleton government to deliver the small packages of food and medicine we had brought with us and to discuss the large-scale humanitarian assistance that the AFSC would mount upon our return to the states.
For military reasons, we were unable to fly out of Cambodia and were forced to make a harrowing 12-hour drive through the countryside back to Ho Chi Minh City. We were warned that it was imperative to reach the Vietnam Border before sundown or our lives could be in danger as the Pol Pot regime still had forces in the areas we were crossing. All along the way, we saw ragtag bands of Cambodians carrying their cooking pots and other meager possessions on their persons as they desperately sought food and shelter.
As the first Americans to actually see ravaged Cambodia, our delegation held press conferences all across Southeast Asia. The delegation held a major press conference in Bangkok . As my return travel route included Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Honolulu, I held press conferences in each city about the dire condition of the ravaged land and its survivors and the need for an immediate large-scale humanitarian aid effort if the survivors of the massacres were to be saved. Upon my return to the mainland, AFSC assigned me to work full time raising funds for the Cambodian relief effort. I spent the next 6 months speaking to audiences of high school and college students, Friends Meetings, Churches and public meetings re: the dire situation in the country and the need for massive U.S. humanitarian assistance. I appeared on television and radio programs describing what I had seen and heard from the Cambodians themselves about their needs. I also appeared on ABC’s TODAY Show in a discussion with a State Department Official regarding the situation in Cambodia and the need for U.S. government involvement in the assistance effort if these people were to be saved.
1975-1976 Associate Director of Program on Government Surveillance And Citizen’s Rights
My first assignment at the AFSC was as the Associate Director of the Program on Government Surveillance And Citizens Rights for 22 months. This Program was created to investigate the role of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the other federal and state intelligence agencies in the illegal surveillance and disruption of peace and civil rights organizations in the U.S. As the Associate Director, I traveled throughout the U.S. interviewing individuals and organizational representatives who had been victims of illegal surveillance and “Cointel Pro” activity. I organized and supported the work of local AFSC anti-surveillance projects in Boston, Chicago, Jackson, Miss., Los Angeles and Seattle that focused on the role of local police intelligence agencies (red squads) in illegal intelligence gathering activities. In conjunction with the ACLU, National Lawyers Guild and other civil liberties organizations, we were able to get laws passed making spying and disruption of legally protected civil disobedience activities by government agencies illegal.
1976-1992 Member AFSC’s Third World Coalition (TWC)
The Third World Coalition is made up of minority ( Third World ) persons related to the AFSC as staff, committee members and community persons related to AFSC programs. TWC’s mission is to bring the perspectives of Third World persons into the vision and programs of the AFSC. I served as a lecturer, meeting facilitator, recorder, and in several other capacities during my active service with the TWC.
1972-1975 CRIME PREVENTION ASSOCIATION

Parent Effectiveness Trainer & Primary Drug Prevention Counselor

I worked at the R.W. Brown Community Center in North Philadelphia as a trainer of parents of the youth involved in the Crime Prevention Association Primary Drug Prevention Program. My duties included: to educate selected teenagers about the dangers of drug usage and to expose them to a range of activities which would raise their consciousness about African-American History and Culture; to develop programs to enhance their study skills and information base; and to expand their world through trips to historically significant places and activities in the Delaware Valley. Working with the parents of the youth involved in the drug prevention program, I developed and facilitated “Parent Effectiveness Training” workshops whose goal was to increase the parents involvement with their children and to significantly improve their parenting skills.

1967-1969 NATIONAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO WOMEN (NCNW)

I was the Mid-West Regional Director of NCNW’s Project WomanPower. This nationwide Project funded by the Ford Foundation recruited and trained low to middle-income African-American women for community service. I recruited and trained women in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus & Elyria, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan for increased effectiveness in their volunteer work in their communities. The training program included sessions on African-American History and Culture; U.S. & State government history and operations, citizenship training, voter education, basic community organizing and fundraising. In addition to developing the training modules for the women whom I had selected as potential leaders (called Vanguard Women), I then helped these Vanguard Women to set up training sessions for other women in their communities who desired to become activists for social change. I also helped the women identify programs needed in their communities and to write proposals and secure funding for these projects.
1964-1967 STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC)
SNCC was the premiere Black (African-American) Student Civil Rights Movement in the 60s &70s. In my freshman year at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, I became involved in the Atlanta student movement initially as an office volunteer and later as a participant in demonstrations and sit-ins to desegregate restaurants, hotels, and other public accommodations in the city. In my sophomore year, I was selected to be one of two of the Atlanta University Complex (made up of Atlanta Univ., Clark, Morehouse, Morris Brown and Spelman Colleges) representatives to the governing body of SNCC, its Coordinating Committee. As a member, I helped to develop the plans for the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Program. I was one of the 1000 plus college students who volunteered to spend the 1964 summer in Mississippi organizing voter-registrations drives, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as well as Freedom Schools, literacy training and other activities which would lead to the end of Mississippi’s State sanctioned racial apartheid. What began as a summer volunteer experience developed into an 18-month stint in what was called the “worst state in the Union for African-Americans” as the project director of the Laurel, Mississippi project. After my time in Laurel, I was stationed in SNCC’s New York headquarters to serve as their Northeast high school and college campus organizer. Three months later, I returned to the South to become the Associate Director of SNCC’s Atlanta Project , which was initially organized as the re-election campaign for Julian Bond who was kicked out of his duly elected seat in the Georgia State Legislature for his endorsement of SNCC’s public statement against the War in Vietnam.
The Atlanta Project was SNCC’s first major urban organizing effort. It was out of our work that SNCC’s concept of Black Power arose. My Atlanta Project colleagues and I wrote the position paper, which defined a newly articulated vision of Black Power and the necessity for its development at that stage in African-American life. My colleagues and I mounted the earliest major Black anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft efforts, gaining national attention with our “Women In Black” demos held every morning for 6 months in the Five Point Area of downtown Atlanta. During these demos, I and the five other SNCC women volunteers paraded in downtown Atlanta heavily shrouded in black cloth and veils carrying pictures of napalmed women and children in Vietnam juxtaposed with pictures of lynched and burned bodies of African-Americans. We distributed daily 10,000 newly composed flyers, which updated people about the War from an African American liberatory perspective.

MEMBERSHIPS:

American Academy of Religion (AAR)

Member of the Islamic Section Steering Committee

American Academy of Religion’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession

Womanist Approaches to Religion & Society Group/AAR

American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies (ACSIS)

Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship & Mosque

Board Member, The Muslim Peace Fellowship

American Association of University Women

National Committee Member - Nationwide Women’s Program /AFSC

Advisory Board Member University of Florida, Center for African Studies

Advisory Board Member University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Race & Race Relations Committee

United Faculty of Florida Union

Board Member, Spelman College’s Sister’s Chapel Wisdom Center

February 28, 2005

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