You can watch the recording HERE.

You are invited to join the DTL Community for the next DTL Open Forum on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 10:00am EST. All current, prospective, and Alumni students are invited, as well the PORs for the DTL courses. The guest speaker will be Dr. Jody Veler, Mayor of Salem City, New Jersey. She will share how her DTL project has impacted her career as a public servant and life in ministry. We will also share program and BGU updates relative to the academic planning and program completion.

Please find here the Zoom LINK.

Meeting ID: 831 9693 1536

Find your local number HERE.

Dr. Jody Veler's bio:

Dr. Jody Veler is a public sector professional with over twenty years of experience in the field of community economic development. Dr. Veler holds a B.S. in Nonprofit Management, an M.S. in Community Economic Development and has recently received her Doctorate of Transformational Degree from Bakke Graduate University. Her dissertation was on the glass cliff phenomenon in which women and people of Color are hired for leadership positions in circumstances where the rate of failure is high.

Dr. Veler has worked in a wide range of nonprofit organizations gaining knowledge in a variety of subject matters including human services, housing development, urban agriculture, youth services and grant writing and management.

Dr. Veler currently works as a grant manager for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and as a part-time adjunct Professor at City Vision University specializing in leadership and cultural transformation courses.

Dr. Veler has spent her career working in distressed communities, and now calls Salem City, New Jersey, her home. Salem City is a very small historic city with very large problems. Listed as the second most distressed city in the State of New Jersey, the city has high rates of crime and poverty and low rates of employment and education.

In 2021, in true glass cliff fashion, Dr. Veler became the first woman, and the first woman of Color to ever be elected to the position of Mayor of Salem City.