Speakers:
Larry Griffith
Larry A. Griffith began his career in secondary and postsecondary education as an undergraduate admission officer at The College of William and Mary (VA).
In 1989, he joined the counseling department at Gonzaga College High School (DC) as director of college counseling. Larry left Gonzaga in 1995 to serve as the associate director of admission and director of multicultural recruitment at Brown University (RI).
In 1998, Griffith returned to public education as director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Delaware where he completed his tenure in 2003 as assistant dean in the College of Arts and Science. He moved on to the College Board where, until 2007, he served in the roles of executive director for national higher education relationship development and assistant vice president for the Middle States Regional Office. Griffith currently serves as a vice president at the United Negro College Fund where he is responsible for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.
Griffith has held several leadership positions in his professional associations including president of the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admissions Counseling, and a number of roles with NACAC. He is active in his community through his involvement and membership in civic organizations like the Urban League.
In addition to his undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary, he holds a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from the University of Delaware.
Mai Neng Moua
Mai Neng Moua was born in Laos in 1974. After several years living in refugee camps in Thailand, her family came to Pittsburgh (PA) in 1981. Mai Neng graduated from St. Olaf College (MN). She has also completed graduate work at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Being one of the first in her family to go to college, she remembers struggling to fill out the financial aid forms in high school. She worried that her public assistance family would not be able to pay for college. When she received a scholarship from St. Olaf, she felt she had to accept it before they took it back.
Mai Neng has worked with undocumented students on the DREAM Act at the state and federal levels. Her current job is with Fieldstone Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen the performance of the nonprofit sector. At Fieldstone, she helps manage the Kellogg Action Lab.
Mai Neng is also a creative nonfiction writer. She is the founder of Paj Ntaub [pronounced "pa dao"] Voice, the 14-year-old Hmong literary arts journal, where she nurtured and published more than 200 emerging Hmong writers and artists from across the U.S. in 12 different issues. She is also the editor of Bamboo Among the Oaks, the first Hmong American anthology in the U.S. Her writings appear in publications such as Where One Voice Ends, Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry. Her awards include the Bush Artist Fellowship, the Jerome Travel Grant, and the Loft Literary Center's Mentor Fellowship.
She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and daughter.