Our Team
Bill Romani, PT, PhD. Producer, Director, Writer
Director of Design and Innovation for the Public Good, University of North Carolina.
Dr. Romani is the Director of Design and Innovation for the Public Good at Innovate Carolina. He was previously the Founding Entrepreneur in Residence and directed Loyola’s interdisciplinary minor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He has served as an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and has held visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering and in the Temple University Klein College of Communication. Dr. Romani’s courses in Design Thinking and Investing in Black and Women Entrepreneurs have reimagined a more equitable process of wealth creation from the perspective of entrepreneurs in communities that have historically been left behind by traditional investment models. At Temple University his course in Communication and Civic Engagement focused on values-based storytelling and TED-like presentations. He has designed undergraduate and graduate curricula, has been a Principle Investigator on several federal, state and foundation level grants and is a widely published author in peer reviewed journals. Outside of his academic roles Dr. Romani was engaged in social entrepreneurship in Baltimore for 25 years where he worked for the AARP Foundation and led non-profit ventures focused on improving equity and access to quality education, housing, and healthcare. Stories, Context, and Lived Experiences of the Black Entrepreneur is funded by the International Association of Jesuit Universities and Loyola’s Office of Mission Integration to collect firsthand accounts of Black entrepreneurs who are disrupting long term anti-black structural inequities in redlined communities.
Dr. Raenita A. Fenner, Co-Producer, Curriculum
Associate Professor. Chair, Engineering Department, Loyola University Maryland.
Dr. Fenner has been at Loyola since 2011 and held the Clare Luce Boothe Professorship until she was tenured in 2016. Her research includes several peer reviewed publications and conference presentations in electromagnetic material characterization. Dr. Fenner is a Senior Member of the IEEE and currently serves as the director of the African and African American Studies (AAAS) interdisciplinary minor. She is passionate about teaching and has taught courses in electromagnetics, communication theory, electronics, signals and systems, and linear circuit laboratory. Her innovative teaching methods have resulted in two grants; An award from the Engineering Information Foundation to develop a curricular framework and a peer tutoring program for engineering students focused on technical writing and intramural award to improve methods of integrating differential equations into engineering courses. Dr. Fenner is a graduate of the National Effective Teaching Institute-1 and National Effective Teaching Institute-2 workshops.
Jesse Goldstein, Film Editor
Assistant Director, Loyola Office of Digital Teaching and Learning.
Herbert Jay Dunmore
Television and Studio Manager, Greycomm Studios, Loyola University
Fr. Tim Brown, SJ
Associate Professor. Sellinger School of Business, Information Systems, Law, & Operations
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Stories, Context, and Lived Experiences of the Black Entrepreneur
About
As anchor institutions, Jesuit Universities have a social responsibility to understand the current social reality that historically discriminatory practices have created for Black entrepreneurs and provide the leadership necessary to engender positive change. The Inspirational Paradigm re-imagines how Jesuit business schools will prepare students with the essential skills to lead this positive change. Storytelling is one of those inspirational skills. However, students have access to very few firsthand stories that capture the Black entrepreneur's experience amidst disparate access to economic opportunity. In order for students to lead inclusive and just social reforms, they must hear Black entrepreneurs' stories in their own words.
The purpose of this project is to present a series of learning modules that are centered around on location video interviews that capture the personal stories and lived experiences of Black entrepreneurs in communities that have been subject to long-term anti-Black structural inequities. Each module contains a video story from a local entrepreneur accompanied by self-directed assignments and discussion questions that will facilitate student learning, discernment, and reflection consistent with the Inspirational and Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigms. Moreover, the combined modular format of the video and accompanying assignments are structured for any faculty or instructor who wants to contextualize the black entrepreneurial experience in either curricular or co-curricular programming.