Sara Ducey is a faculty member at Montgomery College and Director of the Paul Peck Humanities Institute (PPHI). The Institute’s initiatives include:

• • MC-Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship;
  • PPHI Honors Internships at the Library of Congress,

   Smithsonian Institution and US Holocaust Memorial Museum;

• • Digital Storytelling (DS) Internships;
  • Portraits of Life: Holocaust Survivors of Montgomery County traveling exhibit; and
  • The annual Humanities Days at Montgomery College (HD@MC).

Generating various programs, collaborations and national and local partnerships, the Paul Peck Humanities Institute serves the community by providing growth opportunities and by demonstrating the relevance of the humanities in all areas of life.

Sarah Reddinger, Vice President of Community Development for Habitat for Humanity Montgomery (also known as simply “Habitat”), oversees advocacy, homeowner services and lending, project management and feasibility, home clinic before becoming a banking analyst.

Under her leadership, the new and rehab potential project pipeline has grown from a few dozen projects to over 160 new units with projected budgets of over $35 million. She’s also grown the Repair and Weatherization Programs from about 30 projects a year to over 100, with a budget around $2,000,000 annually. She launched the Repair and Accessibility Modification Program and a Veteran Repair Program to assist residents in their abilities to remain safely in their homes long term and ensure their ability to transfer wealth to the next generation.

Sarah’s work to break down barriers to homeownership extends beyond the organization as well. She sits on the Executive Committee of the Montgomery Housing Alliance, served on the Housing Equity Advisory Team with the Montgomery County Planning Department and coordinated an Aging in Place Learning Exchange. She also co-founded the Life Long Homes Coalition in Montgomery County. Sarah is a member of HFHI’s Policy and Advocacy Professionals Group and recently joined the Community Development Network of Maryland’s Public Policy Committee. As a Global Village Team Leader, she has led ten volunteer build trips to four continents.

Club Member Claes G. Ryn is the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America (C.U.A.), where he has also been Professor of Politics. He was Chair of his department for six years. He has taught also at Georgetown University, the University of Virginia, and Louisiana State University. He was a doctoral and undergraduate student at Uppsala University in his native Sweden.
His teaching and research have combined study of ethics, culture, epistemology, and the history of Western political thought with study of American political thought, U.S. foreign policy, and international relations. He is Editor of the scholarly journal Humanitas. Claes was Chairman and co-founder of the National Humanities Institute, President of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters, and President of the Philadelphia Society. He has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia, especially China. A frequent visitor to China, he gave the Distinguished Foreign Scholar Lectures at Peking University in 2000. These lectures were published as a book in Chinese translation by Peking University Press in 2001. In 2012 he was named Honorary Professor at Beijing Normal University. Three of his books and many of his articles have been published in China in Chinese translation. He is an Honorary Member of Sweden’s oldest and largest student association, Heimdal, at Uppsala University.