Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is the decision making body for Students for the Family. It is comprised of distinguished individuals from various professions who care about young adults and their ability to strength the family in society. These individuals were integrally involved in previous conferences planned by this organization, along with extensive personal and professional involvement in family advocacy, and have volunteered invaluable time and expertise in leading the organization forward.
William C. Duncan, J.D.- Board Member
Bill Duncan is the director of the Marriage Law Foundation. The Marriage Law Foundation was founded in November 2004 on the one-year anniversary of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision to redefine marriage. The Foundation works closely with other pro-family organizations to accomplish its mission of reaffirming the legal definition of marriage as the union of a husband and wife. Mr. Duncan formerly served as acting director of the Marriage Law Project at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and as executive director of the Marriage and Family Law Research Grant at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, where he was also a visiting professor.
Jenet J. Erickson, Ph.D.- Board Member
Jenet Erickson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Family Life, at Brigham Young University, Utah. Jenet is a member of the National Council on Family Relations and a member and reviewer of the Association for Research on Mothering. She has published a variety of peer-reviewed family related issues in Human Relations, Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Family Psychology, Family Relations, Early Child Development and Care, the Family and Consumer Research Journal, International Journal of Family Sociology, The Psychologist-Manager Journal, and Open Family Studies Journal.
Jenet has also published a variety of book chapters and commissioned reports, and has presented at the National Council on Family Relations Conference, the Utah Council on Family Relations, the Work-Life Summit,and the BYU Families and Work Research Conference.
Lee Sheppard, B.S.- Board Member
Lee has been living in Provo for three years, having moved here with his family from the United Kingdom. He has a degree in business management and leads a software product team which serves television stations throughout the world. He is married with four children, three of whom attend BYU.
Lee’s involvement in the current marriage debate, and his desire to do what he can to help strengthen the traditional family, arises from being a father and religious leader, from his concern about the consequences to society of current trends, and, as he says, “from my own rich family experience, for which I am deeply grateful.” Lee was a speaker in the 2011 conference, and has been involved in family issues and public dialogue in many civic endeavors.
Stan Swim, MBA- Board Member
Stan has been involved as a supporter of Students for the Family since its inception in 2010. He has been very involved in other organizations around the US and the world that are involved in strengthening the core institutions of society, including marriage and family, education, and correct government. His business knowledge and expertise has been invaluable in the organization and structure of the project.
Nicole Kay, MS, MPA- Executive Director
Nicole Kay is the 2012-2013 Executive Director of Students for the Family. She recently graduated from BYU with a research degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development (MS), along with a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) in Non-Profit Management. She previously worked with such organizations as The Heritage Foundation in Washington DC as a Research Fellow, and The National Organization for Marriage/The Ruth Institute as the Director of Programs and Outreach. While a student in her first masters degree, Nicole was the President of a student organization called Stand for the Family, which co-sponsored the first Students for the Family conference in March 2010. She has planned, attended or spoken at many family issue conferences over the years. She has extensive experience in student involvement, conference planning, and directing and managing programs.
Advisory Board
The advisory board functions as an invaluable resource for Students for the Family, and represent many important organizations and groups. Members of the Advisory Board lend their experience and guidance to ensure a high level of quality and success for Students for the Family and its projects.
Robert P. George, J.D., Ph.D.
Robert George is founder of the American Principles Project, a chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, and co-founder of the Renewal Forum, an organization fighting the sexual trafficking and commercial exploitation of women and children.
He served from 1993 to 1998 as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and from 2002 to 2009 as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. He has served on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), of which he remains a corresponding member. He is a member of the boards of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for American Values, the American Enterprise Institute, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and several other organizations. He serves on the editorial boards of Touchstone, First Things, and Public Discourse magazines, as well as several academic journals. He is of counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee PLLC in Charleston, West Virginia, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In December 2008, George was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush. On May 4, 2010, in Warsaw, he received the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland. He is a recipient of the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and he was one of four winners of the 2005 Bradley Awards for Civic and Intellectual Achievement. He is also a winner of the Sidney Hook Memorial Award of the National Association of Scholars and the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Liberal Arts of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. In 2007, he gave the annual John Dewey Lecture in Philosophy of Law at Harvard University, on the subject of natural law. He has given the annual Judge Guido Calabresi Lecture at Yale University, the Sir Malcolm Knox Lecture at the University of St. Andrews, and the Frank Irvine Lecture at Cornell University. George holds honorary doctorates of law, letters, science, civil law, humane letters, ethics, and juridical science.
Supreme Court Justice and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan praised George as “one of the nation’s most respected legal theorists,” saying that the respect he had gained was due to “his sheer brilliance, the analytic power of his arguments, the range of his knowledge,” and “a deeply principled conviction, a profound and enduring integrity.”
Lynn Wardle, J.D.
Lynn Wardle is Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law at Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, and is an expert in family law. Lynn Wardle served as President of the International Society for Family Law (ISFL) from 2000-2002, currently serves on the ISFL Executive Council, and is a member of the American Law Institute. He has lectured, been a visiting professor, or made academic presentations about family law and family policy issues in more than twenty nations. He is coauthor of Fundamental Principles of Family Law (2002), and principal editor of a four-volume treatise, Contemporary Family Law: Principles, Policy, and Practices (1988). He has testified before legislative committees about many family policy issues including federal and state Defense of Marriage Acts and marriage amendments.
Alisa Rogers, J.D.
Founder of the Strengthening the Family Symposium, 2010 Executive Director
Elicia Hansen, J.D.
2011 Executive Director