COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD
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The Community Advisory Board (CAB) originated with the passing of the Public Telecommunications Financing Act of 1978, which mandates the establishment of a council “broadly representative of the communities served by WHUT. The CAB is composed of citizens who represent the diverse interests of the communities served. The CAB advises WHUT’s management on a wide variety of programming and outreach issues relating to our communities served. Through its work, the CAB strives to develop stronger connections between WHUT and the communities it serves.
Quarterly Advisory board virtual meetings will be held at
WHUT – Howard University Television from 8:30 am-10 am on the following dates:
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2023 Meeting Dates
September 20, 2023
The link for joining the meeting
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December 20, 2023
The link for joining the meeting
All meetings will begin at 8:30 am E.T. and will be held in a virtual environment using Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or by way of a standard conference call or in person.
dvisory Board Members
John Chambers
Albert Mokhiber
* (chair)
Sherri N. Blount
Sherri N. Blount is a partner at the DC law offices of Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery and focuses on Intellectual Property, Entertainment and Media issues. She represents media clients, including national cable, television radio networks, television and video producers, website operators, wireless telephone companies, new media entrepreneurs, music publishers, recording artists, and authors. Previously, she served as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Ms. Blount is a frequent speaker on entertainment, intellectual property law, and other legal issues. Her professional achievements were recognized by the Washington Business Journal in 2007, when she was named the Top Intellectual Property Lawyer in Washington, DC and by the Washingtonian magazine when she was named one of Washington’s top intellectual property lawyers in 2006 and again in 2008. She is the recipient of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia 2011 Women Lawyer of The Year Award. Ms. Blount is also a member of the Ellington School of the Arts Fund Board and a past board member of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA).
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John Chambers
John Chambers is the founder of BloomBars, an award-winning arts and culture non-profit in Washington, DC founded in 2007. He was born in Turners Falls and raised in Greenfield, MA. He spent the first two decades of his life as a communications executive working with nonprofits, foundations, and civil rights organizations on campaigns designed to raise awareness and change behavior. Work that helped send millions of malaria nets to Africa, got millions of people to wear their seat belts, and engaged the nation in challenging issues like foster care, adult illiteracy, judicial elections and global poverty and police brutality.
BloomBars seeks to unite communities through the arts and nurture artists serving the community. Established in 2008, BloomBars offers programs for all ages and was awarded Best Arts & Culture Non-profit by the Washington City Paper's Readers Poll seven years in a row. John brings more than 25 years of experience in advocacy, communications strategy, media relations, crisis communications, global campaign strategy in the government, nonprofit, and foundation arenas. In from 2001 to 2008, John was a senior vice president at GMMB where he led the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for The Poor team, and the foundation’s Global Libraries team. John also managed the Fetzer Institute’s Lincoln Leadership Series Congressional Roundtable, and led the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets team.
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He directed campaigns for clients including, Casey Family Programs; the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign’s national Click It or Ticket mobilization; the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Read Out Loud adult literacy campaign; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Faith in Action program; the Justice at Stake Campaign; and the ONE Campaign's Live 8 concert. John has also developed creative, written speeches and scripts, directed radio and TV commercials, and is a published essayist.
Prior to joining GMMB, John was the director of communications for the Presidential Members of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, an oversight body charged with monitoring and encouraging participation in Census 2000. Prior to his census work, he was the general manager of the Capitol Radio Network, and a senior account manager for Walls Communications. John’s community service work has included serving as President of the Board of Directors for the United Movement to End Child Soldering (UMECS), board of the Black Administrators in Child Welfare (BACW), and the Board of Trustees for Solebury School in New Hope, PA.
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Eric Easter
Eric Easter is the founding Partner of Rock the Content, LLC. He is a multi-platform digital content producer and developer of vertical websites and mobile applications targeted to specialized audiences. Mr. Easter has extensive experience working in the “new media” arena. He has served as Vice President of Digital & Entertainment for Johnson Publishing Company, responsible for the digital strategies for Ebony and Jet magazines. He was responsible for developing and supervising all aspects of online, new media and Internet strategy for the Johnson Publishing Company. While at Johnson Publishing, he initiated and executed a partnership with Google to digitize the company’s vase archival assets. Prior to joining Johnson Publishing, he managed the communications strategy, branding and promotion for the Washington Post and Newsweek’s Interactive websites including washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com, slate.com, and several other sites. He is the creator and co-author of the best-selling Songs of My People (Little Brown 1992) a historic book and international photo exhibition on the lives of African Americans.
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John W. Franklin
John W. Franklin is the Director of Partnerships and International Programs, at the Smithsonian’s 19th museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He has worked on African American, African and African Diaspora programs for the past 24 years at the Smithsonian. Initially, he served as researcher and French language interpreter for the Smithsonian’s African Diaspora program of the 1976 Bicentennial Folklife Festival while living and teaching English in Dakar, Senegal. Franklin developed symposia and seminars for the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies from 1987-1992. At the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, he curated Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs on the Bahamas (1994), Cape Verdean Culture (1995), Washington, D.C. (2000) and Mali (2003). Franklin served on the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture from 1998 to 2008 and the board of the Reginald Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture from 2000 to 2009. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies. He edited, My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin with his father, John Hope Franklin.
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Nancy Gist
Nancy Gist is a Non-Profit Consultant with thirty years of experience building, managing and leading organizations in the public and non-profit sectors. Ms. Gist was appointed by President William J. Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate, to the position of Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the U.S. Department of Justice’s largest grant-making agency. She was previously Deputy Chief Counsel of the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state public defender agency, and a founding Assistant Director of the United Auto Workers Legal Services Plan. Ms. Gist established The Legacy League, a non-profit organization designed to promote and strengthen philanthropy among professional athletes, and has consulted extensively on organizational and program development in the non-profit sector. She has served as an elected member of boards of directors and on committees and commissions, of numerous community-based and national non-profit and alumni organizations; as a political appointee on commissions and boards. Ms. Gist is a graduate of Wellesley College and of the Yale Law School.
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Timothy L. Jenkins
Timothy L. Jenkins is Chairman of Unlimited Visions Multimedia, Inc. and a Director of The Lion’s Jewel Importers. Mr. Jenkins was formerly President at University of the District of Columbia; Governor of the United States Postal Service; Outstanding Professor at Howard University School of Law; Consultant to United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland; Consultant to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to develop national afterschool/distance learning networks; Publisher of “American Visions,” and “Education, Science and Technology” Magazines. He was twice elected an Alumni Trustee of Howard University. He served as outside counsel for the creation of the University Press, as well as, the acquisitions of WHUR-FM and WHUT-TV. He was a Founder and Congressional Lobbyist for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He is a Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Howard University and received his Juris Doctor degree from Yale University Law School with honors.
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Albert Mokhiber
Mr. Mokhiber is an attorney in the Washington DC area with an extensive background in immigration, government affairs, political consulting, and public relations. A partner in the law firm, Mokhiber & Moretti, PLLC, Mr. Mokhiber has an international practice dealing with individual and corporate clients concentrating in areas of administrative, corporate, international and immigration law.
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Mr. Mokhiber served as national president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) from September 1990 to October 1994. In that capacity, he has represented ADC in public and private forums across the United States, Europe and the Middle East and North Africa on issues ranging from civil rights, human rights, international relations, and expanding markets.
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Mr. Mokhiber has served on the national boards of the Association of Arab-American University Graduate (AAUG), the American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ) and ADC, for which he served on the National Board and Executive Committee. In addition, Mr. Mokhiber has served as a co-chair of the Ethnic Affairs Committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He served as a member of an international observer team for the 1997 elections in Yemen.
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A frequent media guest and lecturer, Mr. Mokhiber has been featured on numerous American and foreign radio and television shows from Larry King Live and Crossfire to print media pieces ranging from The New York Times to People Magazine.
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Mr. Mokhiber holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and History from the State University of New York (SUNY) Binghamton and a Juris Doctorate from the SUNY Buffalo Faculty of Law and Jurisprudence. Mr. Mokhiber is the fourth generation of Lebanese-Americans in his family, who emigrated at the beginning of the last century.
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Esteban Olivares
Esteban Olivares is a seasoned higher education professional, parent and advocate for equity in education and developing opportunities for DC metro area youth and adult learners. He has worked with many local and national organizations and institutions of learning to advance college access and student success for both pre-college and undergraduate students. He has led and participated in a number of major collaborative projects that combine investigating students’ learning, development and retention in general education and new student orientation courses with the development and evaluation of new curriculum materials, academic advising models, learning technology, and educational programs for students and educators.
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He has worked at American University’s School for International Service and assisted in the development of the Community of Scholars program for high school students. At the University of the District of Columbia, he developed nationally recognized summer bridge and retention programs and then served as the Director of Pre-College Programs for the George Washington University. Currently, Mr.Olivares is the Assistant Dean of High School Programs at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies. As a community member, educator, researcher, and administrator Esteban focuses not only on assisting institutions to develop holistic student experiences to maintain vitality, but also to engage learners for success, cultivating free civic-minded individuals, leaders, graduates, and lifelong learners. Esteban is a graduate of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA and The School for International Training, Graduate Institute of World Learning in Vermont.
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Royal Kennedy Rodgers
Royal Kennedy Rodgers is an Independent Media Producer with more than 20 years of experience in local and network news and public affairs broadcasting. She began her career as a reporter for NBC stations in New Orleans, Cleveland, and Chicago. Later, as an ABC network correspondent based in Los Angeles, she covered assignments as diverse as presidential politics and the entertainment industry. She spent ten years as a producer/reporter for “Chicago Tonight” at WTTW, the PBS station in Chicago. Her professional awards include a local Emmy and recognition from the San Francisco State School of Journalism and the American Association of Trial Lawyers. She is currently an independent producer based in Washington, DC.
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Kathleen McCampbell Vance
Kathleen McCampbell Vance is an Emmy Award-winning television producer and media consultant with an extensive background in TV program development, broadcast management, news and community affairs. During her more than twenty-year career at NBC4 Washington, she created, produced, or executive produced, scores of programs ranging from newscasts to documentaries, news series, entertainment, public interest, children’s programs, and live events, some of which were broadcast nationally and internationally, as well as on the NBC network and NBC local stations. As Director of Programming, Community Affairs, and Broadcast Standards, she was responsible for the purchase and schedule of the station’s syndicated programming, and all locally produced non-news broadcasts, as well as for the creation and marketing of station public service campaigns, some of which received national recognition. She also managed her department staff, and oversaw the station’s licensing and adherence to FCC requirements; and was part of the top management team charged with marketing and branding the station. Her NBC4 career began as a trainee reporter, following her completion of the Michele Clarke Minority Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University. She is also a freelance writer, editor, and author. She is a board member of the National Home Library Foundation and serves as Chairman of the WHUT-TV Community Advisory Board. Ms. McCampbell Vance comes from a family of Howard University graduates including her grandfather, father, brother, and niece.
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Joanne Williams
Joanne Williams, Principal Associate, Barrington Associates, Inc. earns her respected place in the communications field by designing award-winning programs and developing cutting-edge strategies. Her inter-disciplinary approach has served a client base representing the corporate, public, and nonprofit sectors. She formed Barrington Associates in 1991. Since then, she’s managed the multifaceted communications needs for an impressive client base, and developed a presentation skills practice for foreign and domestic corporate leaders, political candidates, or organization heads seeking to perfect their message content and delivery skills. She launched Barrington’s Caribbean and African Affairs Practice to help companies become “market ready.” Most recently, Joanne entered into collaboration with an innovative market research firm to explore the myriad of untapped uses for market segmentation data and advanced analysis leading toward more predictable outcomes.
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