Joyce A. Ladner, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and the first woman to serve as president of Howard University, where she was also vice president for academic affairs and professor of social work. She is chair of the Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy and a board member of the Maya Angelou Charter School. She is the author of The Ties That Bind: Timeless Values for African American Families (Wiley).

Theresa Foy DiGeronimo, M.Ed., is the author of several successful books, including How to Talk to Your Kids About Really Important Things and other titles in the Jossey-Bass How to Talk series.