John W. Slocum
Director, Migration and Human Mobility, and Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Russia

Email: jslocum at macfound dot org

John Slocum is the Director of Global Migration and Human Mobility, and Co-Chair of the Higher Education Initiative in Russia.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 1997, Slocum was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, and held a postdoctoral position at Cornell University's Peace Studies Program. He has traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union and is the author of several publications on issues of nationality and state-formation in Tsarist and contemporary Russia, and on the external relations of Tatarstan, part of the Russian Federation.  In Summer 2005, Slocum was a visiting fellow at the Maecenata Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Society in Berlin.  His latest research compares U.S. and German foundation assistance to Russia, and examines the development of Russia’s philanthropic sector.

Slocum's undergraduate degree is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his master's and Ph.D. (in political science) are from the University of Chicago.

Raoul J. Davion
Program Officer and Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Africa

Email: RDavion at macfound dot org

Raoul Davion is the Program Officer for Human Rights and Africa Higher Education in the Program on Global Security and Sustainability. He represents the Foundation within the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, a collaboration of the MacArthur, Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon and Hewlett Foundations, and has responsibilities for human rights programming in Mexico, Nigeria, and internationally.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 2001, Davion was based in South Africa with the Institute of Natural Resources, a non-governmental organization in Pietermaritzburg affiliated with the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Within the Institute’s focus on the nexus between people and environment, his work addressed rights of access to natural resources by rural communities and the social impacts of large-scale development projects in sub-Saharan Africa within an Environmental Impact Assessment Framework. Before this Davion worked at the African Development Bank, where he interned with the Bank’s Social and Environmental Policy division, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago.

In 1993, he obtained his bachelors degree in politics from Princeton University, where he received the Henry Richardson Labouisse fellowship and the Certificate in African Studies. In 1996, he received his MA in sociology from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Kole A. Shettima
Director, Africa Office, and Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Africa

Kole Shettima is the Director of the Foundation's Africa Office in Abuja, Nigeria. He is responsible for grant making in the Population & Reproductive Health area, Human Rights and International Justice, and the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 1999, Shettima taught at the University of Maiduguri (Nigeria), the University of Toronto, and at Ohio University. He was State Coordinator, and National Education Coordinator of Women in Nigeria; Coordinator of the Working Group on Nigeria, Toronto; and Co-chair of the Economic Justice Working Group of the Inter-Church Coalition on Africa, Toronto. Shettima is on the board of several organizations including the Center for Democracy and Development. He has published in several academic journals including Africa Development, Review of African Political Economy, African Studies Review and Journal of Asian and African Studies.

Shettima has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, a Masters Degree from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and his undergraduate degree is from the University of Maiduguri where he has also been a faculty member.