Robert Leavitt

CHAIR

BA and MAT – Harvard University
Robert is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, CA. With the late David A. Francis, he co-wrote the 19,000-word Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Dictionary, developed it as one of the first online indigenous-language dictionaries, and coordinated the linking of that to the Language Keepers video database archive to become the Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Language Portal: PMPortal.org. He has produced numerous educational materials and has traveled and lectured widely in Latin America.

Ben Levine

CO-DIRECTOR

FOUNDING MEMBER

BA Earlham College, MA (Clinical Psychology) Duquesne University

Ben was originally trained as a Clinical Psychologist where he developed the use of documentary video feedback with schizophrenic adolescents and heroin addicted Vietnam era veterans. Integrating diverse approaches from public health outreach, technology, the civil rights movement, and cinema verité filmmaking, he has created a methodology for community engagement whose results offer optimism that individuals and groups can wake up and gain the awareness they need to address daunting social challenges. He is recognized as a video pioneer, and his work has been presented on American and European Television as well as in diverse venues, including the Museum of Modern Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Haydn Planetarium. His three feature documentaries on endangered languages have been featured at numerous festivals and community and university presentations. He was the first person not of French-Canadian descent to be inducted into the Franco-American Hall of Fame for his filmmaking work that led to language and cultural revival.

JAN ROSENBAUM

TREASURER

BFA Wayne State University, MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, MS (a.b.d) Imaging and Photographic Science Rochester Institute of Technology, MS Management of Technology Polytechnic University of New York

Jan Rosenbaum has been involved in photographic imaging for 50 years. He worked as a photojournalist for several years, then for Agfa, designing imaging systems for medical and computer graphics systems. His mathematical modeling of the color reproduction problem was published in The Proceedings of the American Optical Society and remains a standard method in the computer graphics industry.

After moving to Maine in 1997 he returned to the creative photographic community, becoming faculty advisor to the MFA Program and teacher of Photography at Maine Media Workshops + College. His work is in the collections of the Cranbrook Museum, The New Museum, and private collectors.

Julia Schulz

SECRETARY

CO-DIRECTOR

BA Hamilton College, MA (Anthropology) McGill University
Julia is co-founder and past president of the Internationally recognized Penobscot School, where she developed its innovative immersion language teaching methods. She originally trained as an anthropologist and did graduate fieldwork in French-Canadian communities. She has been recognized as a leader in French language education emphasizing heritage cultures as a resource for curriculum and has actively created programs in reacquisition of “hidden” or “forgotten” heritage language. As Co-Director of Speaking Place, Schulz focuses now on minority and endangered language documentation and revitalization. Her collaborations with researchers and community language advocates include New England French, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet, and numerous indigenous languages of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Margaret APT

Margaret Apt is a fluent speaker, student and teacher of her language, Passamaquoddy, and community research coordinator for the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary. Beginning in 2006, Margaret worked with the Speaking Place team to develop the critical role of Facilitator in documenting natural group conversation. She is a leader in Passamaquoddy language revitalization, most recently as Director and Head Teacher in the Passamaquoddy immersion preschools. A grandmother and great-grandmother, Margaret writes, "I have lived in Sipayik all my life, except for the few years I was gone to educate myself about the other world I really knew nothing of, except what I read."

Elizabeth goldstein

BA Psychology and Philosophy George Washington University, PhD Clinical Psychology University of Maine

Elizabeth Goldstein PhD is a clinical psychologist living in Burlington, Vermont where she maintains a private practice.  Her multicultural values have been a grounding force throughout her career, including exploring ways in which psychotherapy can be beneficial in indigenous communities. She conducted her PhD research in the Passamaquoddy community and has since worked with veterans, developing expertise in helping individuals recover from trauma, as well as teaching, consultation, supervision, and administration. She recently has expanded her professional interests in cultural self-expression, including the intersection of depth psychotherapy and artistic self-expression.

Lynn Mitchell

Lynn Amakehs Mitchell is a Wabanaki Matriarch, language teacher and cultural knowledge bearer. She is the Passamaquoddy Culture and Language Educator for Calais High School. She has worked at Maine Indian Education, the Superintendent’s office for the three tribal schools in Maine, for 38 years as a bookkeeper and currently as Facilities Manager for the main office building, known as the Wabanaki Culture Center. She is Co-Director of the Passamaquoddy Fluent Comprehender Program and is very active in language and ceremony revitalization efforts in Passamaquoddy homelands. Lynn has a deep love for her community, and it is her passion to advocate for the members of her tribe and their language and cultural journeys. Lighting fires in her students’ cultural spirits is what she loves the most. Lynn made a short video to introduce herself to the Speaking Place Family.

Brianna Smith

Brianna “Sipsis” Smith is Passamaquoddy from Sipayik, Maine, where she grew up immersed in the Passamaquoddy language and culture. Brianna has worked with and mentored youth on the reservation and later transitioned to Communications and Digital Media. A filmmaker and photographer, Brianna created a short documentary with Co-Director Geo Neptune named Weckuwapasihtit (Those Yet to Come). Brianna’s photography has been featured in Vogue, People and DownEast magazines. She is passionate about language revitalization efforts. Brianna was a participant, and more recently a facilitator, in the Speaking Place-Maine Media College sponsored Lapomosine language self-documentation workshops in Sipayik and Indian Township, as well as Fluent Comprehender Training. She hopes to inspire community members to continue their language journeys together and dreams of a day where children speak fluently without shame or self-doubt. Brianna made a short video to introduce herself to the Speaking Place Family.

SAM LOW 

BA Yale University; PhD Harvard University

Dr. Sam Low, Anthropologist, has explored his Hawaiian heritage through films and biographical writing. He has produced an award winning Public Broadcasting Television Series on anthropology and has documented and been active in the Hawaiian cultural and language renaissance. Sam published his book Hawaiki Rising in 2013. His documentary film, The Navigators, on the revival of traditional Hawaiian and Pacific islander seafaring culture, is a classic.

WILLIAM R. MCFARLANE

BS Earlham College, MD Columbia University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. McFarlane is Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. Early in his career Dr. McFarlane was active when community mental health outreach was just starting. This led to his developing community-based treatment paradigms that have resulted in his becoming a world leader in the field of Psycho-Education. He develops methods for community treatment of psychotic illness and rehabilitation of adolescents with psychotic illness. Dr. McFarlane's methods have informed the Speaking Place approach for communicating with constituencies that may be hard to reach.

Lissa Widoff

BS SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government

Lissa is former Executive Director of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, an environmental foundation based in Belfast, Maine that supports graduate Fellowships and a Leadership Grant Program supporting NGO partnerships on critical environmental issues in the US. Lissa has extensive experience in managing philanthropic initiatives such as the Lila Wallace Program for enhancing Arts in the Community, where she encouraged the use of film to engage minorities in contemporary issues.