Smaller Font  Bigger Font  Print Page  Bookmark page

Release Date: October 12, 2007 

The Malone College Worldview Forum series will present Grace or Law? Faithful Responses to Illegal Immigration in the United States, Monday, November 19, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. in the Johnson Center for Worship and the Fine Arts, located at 2600 Cleveland Avenue N.W. in Canton.  Proponents for the forum will be James R. Edwards, Jr., Ph.D. and Helene Slessarev-Jamir, Ph.D. Moderator for the evening will be Jane Hoyt-Oliver, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Social Work at Malone College.  

 

James R. Edwards, Jr. is co-founder of Olive, Edwards, & Brinkmann, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm.  He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech communication at the University of Georgia and his doctorate at the University of Tennessee in mass communication. He has taught at the Claremont McKenna College (Washington Semester Program); Regent University (Washington Journalism Program); Union University, and Carson-Newman College. He is an adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute. 

 

Edwards co-authored The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform (Allyn & Bacon, 1999) and contributed a chapter to Business and Religion:  A Clash of Civilizations? (M.& M. Scrivener, 2005).  He contributed a chapter on Christianity and immigration for the forthcoming book The Immigration Debate; and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Times, and National Review, and Hudson’s American Outlook magazine. He has spoken on CBN News, CNN, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio, and talk radio programs across the country. 

 

On Capitol Hill, Edwards has worked in the administrations of U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant and U.S. Rep. John Duncan, Jr. He was senior speechwriter at the Republican National Committee and on Capital Hill was active in Faith and Law, Christian Embassy Bible Studies, and the Republican Communications Association.  The Edwards family belongs to McLean Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Northern Virginia, where they live.

Helene Slessarev-Jamir is the Mildred M. Hutchinson associate professor of Urban Ministries at the Claremont School of Theology. 

 

She received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, a master’s degree in public policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago.  Slessarev-Jamir previously taught at Wheaton College where she founded and directed the Urban Studies Program. She worked for the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign and was staff economist at the Chicago Urban League. 

 

She authored The Betrayal of the Urban Poor and co-authored The New Federalism. She wrote a chapter for an anthology on Black church community development that compares community ministry among immigrant congregations to that found among African-American churches; and has published several reports on Asian and Hispanic immigrant ministry for the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She is writing a book tentatively entitled Prophetic Public Engagement in a Time of Empire.  She is on the board of and a contributor to Sojourners magazine.

 

Slessarev-Jamir is a member of the United Methodist Church’s National Hispanic/Latino Ministry Plan Committee and their task force on immigration.

The daughter of immigrants, she is married to the Reverend Dr. David M. Jamir, a native of Nagaland, India who pastors in Santa Ana, California. They have three children; Stephan, Jessika, and Talirenla.

Jane Hoyt-Oliver is professor of social work at Malone College where she chairs the social work department and is director of general education. She has been teaching at Malone since 1984.  She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Syracuse University and completed a doctorate in philosophy and social welfare at Case Western Reserve. A Who’s Who in Human Services and Who’s Who in the Midwest recipient, she is licensed by the Independent Social Workers of Ohio and the ACSW.

 

Hoyt-Oliver has been the recipient of Malone College’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Service, the Gund Foundation Grant, and in 2000, the Ohio Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers named her the Social Worker of the Year. In 2006, she was acknowledged with Malone’s Distinguished Service Award.  She has served the Stark County community as a consultant for Aultman Hospital Hospice Program, Windsor Medical Care, McKinley Life Care Centre, Timken Mercy Homecare Network, Manor Care, and Hospice of Stark County.

 

Hoyt-Oliver is married to David, a pastor, and they have a daughter, Michelle.