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Staff Biographies

Jamil S. Zainaldin, President

Dr. Jamil S. Zainaldin is President of the Georgia Humanities Council, a position he has held since 1997 when he moved to Georgia. Before assuming his present position, he was president of the Washington-based Federation of State Humanities Councils. He has also served as the staff director of a U.S. Congressional Task Force on Social Security and Women, as issue development director of the National Council of Senior Citizens (where he wrote a book-length literature survey of aging and public policy), and as deputy director of the American Historical Association.

Zainaldin attended Warner Robins High School in Georgia and holds the BA in History from the University of Virginia and the PhD in History from the University of Chicago. He has taught at Northwestern University and Case Western Reserve University, and presently is visiting Professor (part-time) at Emory University. He is author and coauthor of two books on American history as well as articles.

He is a frequent writer and speaker on the importance of history, literature, and ethics, the value of the liberal arts for life preparation, character education, and civic values. He also lectures on the perils and the possibilities of the World Wide Web. He serves on the boards of local, state, and national educational organizations, is a past member of the Governor’s Commission on History and Historical Tourism, and a Governor’s appointee to the Georgia Historical Records and Advisory Board. In 2006 he served on Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s planning committee for a new Atlanta-based Human Rights/Civil Rights Museum. He is president-elect of the Georgia Association of Historians.

He co-founded the Georgia Center for Character Education, a three-year partnership of the Georgia Humanities Council, Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Power Foundation to assist in the implementation of the 1999 Georgia statute that mandated the teaching of character in Georgia’s schools. He developed the council’s Leadership Forum series (1999-2003), a nationally innovative civic dialogue. In 2005-2008 he is serving as Lead Scholar in a Teaching American History grant (U.S. Department of Education) on “Seeds of Democracy.” At present he is involved in an effort to create a Georgia State History Museum.

Since 1999 he has spearheaded the development of The New Georgia Encyclopedia, a GHC project in partnership with the Office of the Governor, the University of Georgia Press and the University System of Georgia/GALILEO. The Georgia online encyclopedia is a pioneering effort that has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and USA Today. It became available on the World Wide Web in February 2004 and was named by the Library Journal as a “Best Reference Source on the Web” for that year. Georgia’s online encyclopedia is also the recipient of an award for Excellence in Documenting Georgia’s History, the Helen and Martin Schwartz Prize for national programming excellence awarded by the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and the Excellence in Media award of the Georgia Historical Society.

Laura McCarty, Vice President

Laura McCarty grew up in South Carolina, the daughter of a United Methodist minister. She is a graduate of Wofford College with a double major in French and English. Laura attended graduate school at the University of Georgia where she received a Masters degree in Comparative Literature and has completed all course work toward the doctorate. She joined the GHC staff as program assistant in 1994. Since that time, she has served as program officer, director of grants and programs, associate director, and in 2003 was promoted to the position of vice president of the Georgia Humanities Council (the first person to hold that position).

She is responsible for managing the GHC’s partnership with National History Day, and coordinates with the senior accountant on the preparation of monthly financial statements, the annual budget, the annual audit, and preparation of financial reports for NEH. She works closely with Arden Williams and Jamila Owens.

She serves on the executive committee of the New Georgia Encyclopedia and assists the President in a variety of administrative, programmatic, and fund raising initiatives. She serves on the board of the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries, and the advisory committee for the Georgia Center for the Book. She also serves in an advisory capacity to other nonprofit and humanities organizations in Georgia.

Latonda S. Milner, Senior Accountant

Latonda Milner, a native of DeKalb County, is a graduate of Georgia State University. Her field of concentration was business administration. While in college, she worked part-time for Georgia Tech in an accounting role. After graduation, she was retained as a full-time employee at Tech in the area of grants and contracts. She has also worked for Equifax.

Latonda was hired in 1998 as the council’s part-time senior accountant. Her responsibilities include working with the vice president and president in budget development, preparation of monthly financial reports, and monitoring federal and state accounting guidelines. Once each year she coordinates with a CPA/auditor who prepares the council’s annual audit for presentation to the Board. She also handles all routine payments and deposits through Emory University and through the council’s SunTrust bank accounts.

Jamila S. Owens, Senior Program Officer

A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Jamila was hired in 1998 as GHC’s grant program assistant and in 2000 was promoted to the position of Program Officer. In 2006 she became the Council's Senior Program Officer. In her new capacity, she manages Council communications including preparing the quarterly newsletter and annual report, managing the council websites, and coordinating with the National Endowment for the Humanities Humanities Magazine. She is also staff-lead for the Governor's Awards in the Humanities, our Prime Time Family Reading Time partnership and for “Thoughtful Giving.”

Arden Williams, Program Officer

Arden Williams joined the Georgia Humanities Council staff on August 1, 2005. She has primary responsibility for the grant program, provides support for the Teaching American History Grant Programs of Cobb, Henry and Fayette County school systems (where she has also been an active board member), and is staff lead for the upcoming Council-sponsored exhibition Key Ingredients. Arden holds a BA from the University of West Georgia, where her focus was American history and women’s studies. She also has a Master of Arts degree with a Public History concentration. Prior to arriving at the GHC, Arden worked for the National Archives- Southeast Region in Morrow. Her primary work was as Archives Technician, but she also worked extensively within the community by presenting educational programs on NARA to various historical societies and genealogy groups. She considers all of her recent work her second career as she spent over 20 years at Delta Airlines as a flight attendant, flight attendant lead instructor and supervisor.

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