Events - Event View

Laurie A. Gray, JD
Legislative Coordinator for Indiana N.O.W.

An experienced attorney, author, and advocate from Fort Wayne, Laurie earned her B.A. from Goshen College and her J.D. from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. In 2005, she founded Socratic Parenting LLC as her writing, speaking and consulting firm. Laurie’s a former sex crimes prosecutor, adjunct professor, child forensic interviewer, public high school Spanish teacher, and currently works as a court-appointed Guardian ad Litem in Allen County and as a Certified Professional Life Coach.

Sue Errington, District Representative to Indiana House

State Representative Sue Errington served on the Delaware County Council and in the Indiana State Senate before her first election to the Indiana House of Representatives in 2012.

Errington currently serves as the ranking minority member of the Environmental Affairs Committee. She is also a member of the Elections and Apportionment Committee and serves as vice chair of the Statutory Committee on Ethics.
As president of Indiana NOW, Sue was active in Indiana’s ERA ratification. 

PATRICIA ANN MORK NELSON, metals artist, BSU Emeritus faculty

Patricia Mork Nelson was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, in the time of late modernism.  Her education in metalsmithing and enameling began in Seattle  at the University of Washington and continued at the State University of New York at New Paltz where she received her MFA. She began her teaching career in Muncie Indiana, and throughout the three decades that she was at Ball State University, she taught all aspects of metals and foundation design.  As an artist and educator, she has been active in SNAG and in the Enamelist Society. She has exhibited metal work and enamel work throughout the US for over three decades as well as presenting lectures and workshops nationwide.  Awards and grants have included BSU Outstanding Creative Endeavor and Outstanding Professor Awards, College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Creative Endeavor Awards and numerous university and Indiana Arts Commission grants.  In 2014 she was named as the first George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Art.  

After her 2016 retirement from Ball State University, she assumed the presidency of The Enamelist Society, an international group of artists who use vitreous enamel (glass fired on metal) as an art form.  She continues to produce work and teach classes in person and online.  

While an undergraduate, Pat mixed up her education and became a registered nurse. She worked at the University of Washington Medical Center and at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.  These experiences added immeasurably to her life experiences.  She could bandage a cut, assist a burn, and understand medicine and research which she continues to do today, much to the delight and / or consternation of all who know her.

Dr. Rona Robinson-Hill, Biologist. 


Dr. Rona Robinson-Hill is the first African American Associate professor in the Ball State University (BSU) Biology Department. Her passion is serving diverse underserved/marginalized students in grades K-16 under the umbrella of The Training Future Scientist (TFS) Program. Her mission is to reduce the bias and fears of her students and colleagues and to remind them to center and design their teaching for the students and/or people in front of them to ensure all students and/or people are included and learn.   

She will be speaking on her experiences as a woman of color science educator and first black female faculty (tenured) in the Department of Biology at Ball State. 

Melissa Gentry, GIS Research and Map Collection Supervisor, BSU

 Melissa Gentry is the Supervisor of the Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection since 2001. She provides instructional sessions and programs and curates special exhibits at Ball State University and in the Muncie community. Melissa also creates custom maps for the library collection and open education resources for use in K 12 and college classroom projects, including distance and home school learning.
 
After publishing a custom set of women’s history maps, Melissa was invited to the Library of Congress’ Women’s Suffrage Centennial Reception in Washington, DC in 2019 and served on the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial Speakers Bureau in 2020 and 2021. She is a board member of the Delaware County Historical Society and Coordinator of the Notable Women of Muncie and Delaware County project. Her grandmother worked for Senator Birch Bayh, an advocate for Title IX and the Equal Rights Amendment.