Biography
Anita Allyn is a cross-discipline photographer with a practice including large format prints, public art, installation, artist books, and video. She received her M.F.A. from The School of Fine Arts, Boston, and her B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute. Currently, she is Professor and Coordinator of Photography and Video at The College of New Jersey, where she's taught for twenty years. In addition, she's had numerous leadership and administrative roles, including Department Chair, curator, and a collaborator with the city of Trenton and County Parks Department combining public art, education, and photography projects. 

Statement
SPE is vital to me. I became a member in 2003 and was the Mid-Atlantic Co-Chair in New Jersey that same year. I value all that SPE offers: the diversity of photographic approaches and broad array of artists who have enriched my creative practice; and the pragmatic and innovative pedagogical exchanges that actively inform my teaching. 

Collaboration is integral in my art-making practice and an essential part of honoring diverse voices. As an artist member of the video curatorial group, VideoSpace, Boston, 1993-1996, and an artist member of VoxPopuli, 2005-2012, I understand working towards common goals and objectives. My experience at Vox Populi includes annual exhibition programming, publications and archiving, monthly meetings, participation in international collective exhibitions, working with the board of directors, and fundraising.

I'm interested in applying my skills to the Communications Committee and  the Affiliated Chapters Committee. 

Biography
Julie Anand is Photography Area Coordinator and Associate Professor in the School of Art at Arizona State University where she has taught for sixteen years. Her projects often explore material culture, body/land relations and issues of interdependency/boundaries. Anand sustains a collaborative art practice with her partner Damon Sauer. Their current project Ground Truth explores Cold War concrete markers in the desert used to train the eyes of early spy satellites. The images are simultaneously historic document, aesthetic artifact and data map (2circles.org). This project has been funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and is held in the collection of Nevada Museum of Art's Center for Art + Environment and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Ground Truth has been published in Wired, Harper's, National Geographic, Hyperallergic and Politiken—the print newspaper of Denmark. Anand and Sauer recently exhibited the work in a solo exhibition at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.

Statement
I won a scholarship to attend SPE as a graduate student in 2002 and have been a member ever since. I have presented at both national and regional conferences, regularly review student portfolios, have worked on a planning committee for a regional conference and served as peer reviewer for a national conference. I know how to collaborate—having served as Assistant Director of the School of Art at ASU for two years and as Area Coordinator for the Photo Area at ASU for several years. I have particular interest in supporting SPE to reimagine the conference model and am also interested in exploring how our conferences and memberships may be enhanced by the ways that photography intersects with other disciplines. I'm inspired to help us adapt and respond with resilience in this time of change. I was appointed to the Board and am now up for election for another term. I've been thus far serving on the Finance Committee, liason to the High School Educator's Caucus and as Chair of the Communications Committee where we've been working on our social media presence amongst other projects. It would be an honor to continue to serve.

Biogaphy
Michael Borowski (he/him) is an artist living and working in occupied Tutelo/Moneton land (Blacksburg, Virginia). He works with an expanded photographic practice, critically examining architecture, technology, and the environment to show that design is not neutral, but reflects political values, personal biases, and desires. His work has been included in national and international exhibitions, and is a 2019 recipient of a Graham Foundation grant. He received his MFA from the University of Michigan, and a BFA from the University of New Mexico. Michael is currently the Chair of Studio Art and Assistant Professor of Photography at Virginia Tech.

Statement:
The Society for Photographic Education has been part of my professional community since I began a full-time teaching career in 2014. I could count on the SPE network whenever I moved somewhere new. Our organization continues to be a lifeline for me while teaching photography in rural southwestern Virginia. I have served on the Pride caucus leadership for the past 4 years and was elected to Secretary in 2020. During that time we have worked collaboratively to build community whether meeting in person at conferences or virtually throughout the year. I will bring this commitment to collective action and community building to my work on the Board of Directors. I am interested in nurturing SPE's year-round engagement with members through social media, publishing, and discourse. I have perspective from being part of established arts organizations like SECAC, as well as part of grassroots art communities that meet over Discord, a social media platform I would like to help SPE explore further. I am deeply committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice across my work, pedagogy, and local activism. I am enthusiastic about the changes SPE has been making over the past year, and hope to contribute to the organization's future. My goal is to work collaboratively with others to find what adrienne marie brown calls the most elegant next steps. Thank you for considering me for the opportunity to serve on the Board of Directors.

Biography
After 8 years teaching in the Photography program at the University of Iowa, John Freyer joined Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013 where he is an Associate Professor of Cross Disciplinary Media. Freyer is an elected member of the Faculty Senate at VCU; a long-serving editorial board member of the Iowa Review and is on the steering committee for VCU's Collegiate Recovery Community. Freyer received a Faculty Fellowship at the VCU Center for Teaching and served as Co-Chair of Tasmeem, an art and design conference at VCUarts Qatar in Doha in 2017. He earned his B.A. from Hamilton College and M.A. & M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Freyer is a Fulbright Scholar, a Macdowell Colony Fellow and was an Artist in Residence at Light Work. Freyer has brought his social practice projects to the TEDx stage, Mixed Greens Gallery in New York, the Liverpool Biennial Fringe in Liverpool, UK and was a 2018 Tate Exchange Associate at Tate Modern in London. He joined SPE in 2001.

Statement
The friendships, mentorship and professional development opportunities of SPE have made me who I am as an artist, educator and activist. I believe photography education is facing an existential crisis caused by institutional overreliance on adjunct and term faculty. The termination/non-renewal of tenured and tenure-track lines eliminates core leadership in our discipline, thwarts institutional memory and shifts power from photography programs/ departments to central administrations with budgetary and enrol lment agendas antithetical to our pedagogical priorities. If I am elected to the board I will propose partnering with our disciplinary sister organisations like the AAUP, CAA, SGC - to lobby colleges and universities on behalf of our memberships to ensure fair contracting, liveable wages for full time faculty and the importance of faculty governance. I would be honored to serve.

Biography
Margaret LeJeune is an image-maker, curator, and educator from Rochester, New York (USA). She received an MFA from Visual Studies Workshop. Working predominantly with photographic-based mediums, LeJeune explores our precarious relationship to the natural world. Her work has been widely exhibited at institutions including The Griffin Museum of Photography (USA), The Center for Fine Art Photography (USA), ARC Gallery (USA), Circe Gallery Cape Town (South Africa), Science Cabin (South Korea), and Umbrella Arts (USA). LeJeune has been invited to create work at several residency programs which foster collaboration between the arts and sciences including the Global Nomadic Art Project - The Ephemeral River (England), University of Notre Dame Research Center (USA), D'art et de Reves (Canada), and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences (USA). She has been awarded a Puffin Fellowship, The Sally A. Williams Artist Grant, and a Bradley University Research Excellence 'New Directions' Grant for her interdisciplinary project Growing Light. Her works have recently been published in Culture, Community, and Climate: Conversations and Emergent Praxis and Evolving The Forest from art.earth press. LeJeune is an Associate Professor of Photography at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. She is currently serving as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Fine Art Photography program at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Statement
As a long-time member of SPE I am honored to be on the ballot for the 2022 Board of Directors. I have served the organization in several capacities including as co-chair of the 2017 Midwest Chapter Conference Developing Spaces/Places (with Jason Reblando) and the 2020 Midwest Fall Virtual Conference (with Jason Reblando, Millee Tibbs, and John Steck, Jr.) Additionally, I have been a portfolio reviewer, professional development mentor, and conceptual development workshop instructor and have worked with the Women's Caucus to develop the Feminist Resources Archive. I have also had the privilege of presenting my creative research at both National and Chapter conferences. These various roles have provided me with an intimate understanding of SPE and the strength and challenges of the organization. I am eager to work with the BOD to help expand membership to global partners, further develop the SPE website and online resources, and continue the mission of creating a space that is inclusive and welcoming for all image-based artists. I will bring to the Board extensive experience with event planning, grant writing, exhibition coordination, website development, and community organizing.  

Biography
Marivi Ortiz is a Puerto Rican born, Chicago based photographer, commercial photo retoucher and adjunct educator. She holds an MFA from the University of Chicago at Illinois. In her art practice she investigates the desire for human connection, personal loss and trauma. She is interested in the process of healing after a traumatic event and the lingering effects of what remain during the process. 

Her work has been shown at numerous museums and galleries including University of Texas in San Antonio, Collective Experiences, Chiang Mai Photo Festival in Thailand, Awakening Foundations literary magazine, Poke Artists and Online Social Media at Foto Fest in Houston. Other exhibitions include Extended Family for the School of Art in Collaboration with local high schools at Night Gallery in Tempe, Arizona, and Family Matters at Northlight Gallery on the campus of Arizona State University. She has been a longtime member of SPE and previous Co-Chair of the multi-cultural caucus at SPE. 

Statement
SPE has come far in terms of diversity. It is important to remain relevant by maintaining an inclusive dialogue that incorporates the acceptance of all learners and educators. Along with maintain an inclusive dialogue of practice, I want to promote a broader representation of commercial photographic opportunities and new technological processing innovations to the field of photography. My committed to maintaining a progressive environment of relevant issues facing image makers and image making is relevant to the principles held at SPE.  

Biography
Jason Reblando is an artist and photographer based in Normal, Illinois. He received his MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, and a BA in Sociology from Boston College. He is the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship to the Philippines, two Artist Fellowship Awards from the Illinois Arts Council, and a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Jason's work focuses on labor, migration, and the socioeconomic forces that shape communities. His projects have been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, Politico, Camera Austria, PDNedu, Slate, Bloomberg Businessweek, Marketplace, MAS Context, Real Simple, Places Journal, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune. His photographs are collected in the Library of Congress, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Pennsylvania State University Special Collections, the Midwest Photographers Project of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His monograph New Deal Utopias was published in 2017 by Kehrer Verlag. He is an Assistant Professor of Photography in the Wonsook Kim School of Art at Illinois State University.

Statement
SPE has been an invaluable professional and personal resource for me as a graduate student, as an adjunct professor, and now a tenure-track professor. I've greatly benefited from every SPE event I've had the opportunity to attend since 2008, including co-chairing two successful chapter conferences for the Midwest region. I would be honored to give back to the creative community of SPE as a member of the Board of Directors.

If elected to the SPE Board, I would like to focus on two areas: first, contributing to the planning and implementation of programming such as conferences, lectures, and exhibitions, and second, developing our membership nationally and internationally. I've found it extremely rewarding to develop conference themes, and work on various aspects of event planning, including logistics, communications, and awards and recognition. I was appreciative to be at the forefront of planning an online conference due to covid, and happy to be able to contribute to a sense community amidst the isolation and distress of the pandemic. I was inspired by the depth and breadth of every region's conference, and would love to contribute to the planning of future innovative virtual and in-person programming on the national level.

I would like to develop membership and outreach efforts to photography departments at community colleges, as more families turn to community colleges for their educational needs in the changing academic landscape. Doing so would not only expose photo students to SPE opportunities early in their photo education, but it would also strengthen bridges and bolster enrollment to photography programs at nearby four-year institutions to where community college students may transfer. Looking outwards on the international level, I would be excited to share my experiences as a Fulbright fellowship recipient and Fulbright Program Advisor with the Board, and intend to explore how SPE can create connections with cultural and higher education systems of other countries. Focusing on membership at the local community college level as well as globally would enhance SPE's efforts toward increasing inclusivity and representing a wide range of life experiences.

Biography
Nick Shepard is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Sacramento State University. Before joining Sacramento State in 2015, he taught at Humboldt State University and Photo Center Northwest in Seattle. He received his MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and his BA in Studio Art and Art History from Carleton College. His work has appeared at the Crocker Art Museum, the Wassaic Project, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He is an active member of Axis Gallery in Sacramento where he shows regularly. His work explores the construction of images and spaces, as well as the relationship between the two. @nickeshep / nickshepard.com

Statement
It is an honor to be included on this slate. I attended my first regional conference in 2007 and have attended many regional and national conferences since. I have been serving as the West Chapter Chair since March. I've seen firsthand how inspirational SPE conferences are for students, especially those who have no idea what to expect. We should work to make these experiences as accessible to students as possible. I also know how valuable it is to reconnect year after year, as I have been fortunate to develop a robust network of friends, mentors, and colleagues through SPE. I have learned so much by listening to SPE's thoughtful, engaged members. SPE must grow with the times; this means the ways we communicate, the makeup of our membership, the ways we connect with each other, and the work we share as artists. I would be honored to contribute my energy, enthusiasm, and experiences as a board member of other organizations to this community that I believe in deeply.