2026 National HBCU Voting Summit

David Goodman is the brother of Andrew Goodman and the Chairman of The Andrew Goodman Foundation’s Board of Directors. Professionally, David is a civil engineer and holds an MBA from Stanford University. He was the founder and CEO of United American Energy Corp., an electric generation and power company operating in 8 states throughout the U.S. David is a member of the Global Leadership Council of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), member of US Green Building Council, member of American Solar Energy Society, member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, on the Advisory Board of the Natural History Museum of The Adirondacks, and a Trustee Emeritus of the Antioch College Board of Trustees. He brings extensive experience in developing, operating, and expanding organizations.

Professor Sonia R. Jarvis is an accomplished attorney and scholar whose research and teaching have focused on race, politics, and the media. Her legal practice focuses on civil rights, civil liberties, minority businesses and counseling nonprofit organizations. She served as a law clerk for renowned Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. when he was the US District Court Judge for the Middle District of Alabama and also when he was elevated to become a US Circuit Court Judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Jarvis has written several book chapters and papers and is currently focused on voter suppression in a book she is co-authoring entitled "States of Confusion: How New Voter ID Requirements Fail Democracy and What to Do About It" (under contract with NYU Press). An active member of several professional associations and academic organizations, she has served in a variety of administrative positions, including most notably as the Executive Director of the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation, Inc., and Managing Director of the Center for National Policy Review Clinic formerly based at Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law.

A frequent commentator on public and political issues, Professor Jarvis has testified before Congress and has been interviewed by almost every major media outlet in the country, such as National Public Radio, the Washington Post, PBS News Hour, and CNN. Prior to joining Baruch College, CUNY, she served as a Senior Consultant for the President’s Initiative on Race in the Clinton White House tasked with drafting its final report and has been invited to teach at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, Georgetown University’s Law Center, and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey’s Eagleton Institute of Politics.

Professor Jarvis has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on race and politics, public policy, intergroup dialogue, communications and media analysis, law and public policy, and women's rights while bringing a wealth of practical and theoretical knowledge to the courses she teaches at Baruch. She first joined Baruch’s Marxe School of Public & International Affairs in 2004 as the Lillian & Nathan Ackerman Visiting Distinguished Associate Professor of Equality and Justice in America and was appointed a Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the Center for Equality, Pluralism and Policy in 2007. Professor Jarvis graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Political Science with Honors and Distinction, and a B.A. in Psychology, followed by a J.D. from Yale University Law School. She was recently acknowledged by Stanford University as its first African American Female Varsity Athlete in university history when she served as Captain of the Stanford Women’s Basketball Team.

Dr. Cynthia Neal Spence is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Spelman College and Director of the UNCF/Mellon Programs. Her teaching and research interests in the areas of sociology, criminology, law, and violence against women support the Law and Criminology concentration in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Dr. Spence has served in the capacities of Assistant Dean for Freshman Studies, Associate Academic Dean and Academic Dean at Spelman College. Her interest in issues of higher education access, service-learning, gender role socialization and violence against women frame her research, writing, community service involvement, and public speaking. Her publications include “A Woman’s College Perspective on the Education of Men” (2004) New Directors for Student Series and “The Spelman College Total Person Commits to Positive Social Change” (2006), Engaging Departments: Moving Faculty Cultures from Private to Public, Individual to Collective Force for the Common Good. Her most recent publication “Does Race Trump Gender? Black Women Negotiating their Spaces of Intersection in the 2008 Presidential Campaign” is included in the edited volume “Who Should Be First? Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign” (2010). As Director of the UNCF Mellon Programs, Dr. Spence creates, manages and oversees a suite of future faculty development and faculty career enhancement programs for UNCF (United Negro College Fund) students and faculty. The UNCF/Mellon Programs are housed at Spelman College and funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

In her newest role, Dr. Spence serves as the Faculty Lead for the Spelman College Social Justice Fellows Program. Dr. Spence is committed to helping Spelman women fully actualize their commitment to “making a choice to change the world “through social justice advocacy. She has served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation Institutional Transformation Project, the University of Chicago Provost Initiative on Minority Affairs, the Agnes Scott College Center for Teaching and Learning and the Georgia Department of Corrections. She currently serves as Faculty Trustee on the Spelman College Board of Trustees and is the former chair of the Board of the non-profit agency Men Stopping Violence. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Georgia Women for Change and the Women’s Solidarity Society for the Center for Civil and Human Rights. Dr. Spence is a graduate of Spelman College where she earned her B.A. degree. She earned both the Masters and Ph.D. degrees from Rutgers University. She is married to Harold W. Spence and they are the proud parents of two daughters, Christie ’05 and Courtnee ’08.

Christina Sanders (she/her) is the Founder of the PoliChic Engagement Fund and a seasoned leader in voter engagement and policy advocacy. With a strong background in youth voting, she served as Senior Program Manager at The Andrew Goodman Foundation and State Director at the League of Young Voters Education Fund. Her leadership was crucial in the Texas v. Holder case, which secured voting rights for 700K Texans by challenging the Texas Voter ID Bill.

Christina has also been an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Texas Southern University for over a decade, winning multiple “Professor of the Year” awards. She served on the Texas Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, co-authoring a notable manuscript on voting rights and disenfranchisement in Texas, published in the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy.

Her work has earned numerous accolades, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights “Young Champion of Justice” Award and recognition in Marie Claire as one of the women "changing the face of Texas politics." Christina was also a catalyst candidate for Houston City Council in 2013 and authored Get Your Weight Up: Things We Can All Do To Make America Better in 2015.

Christina holds degrees from Texas Southern University, Georgetown University, and Columbia University, with expertise in public administration, policy leadership, and climate studies. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Caroline Smith is the Director of Programs at The Andrew Goodman Foundation. Caroline is a proud Jersey girl living in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA in Sociology and a certificate in Community Action/Public Policy at Connecticut College in 2018. After graduation, she began her organizing career with the Student PIRGs at Rutgers University-Newark, where she trained and mobilized students to run campaigns around voter engagement, affordable textbooks, and environmental issues on campus. She then jumped into national electoral work on Senator Cory Booker's presidential campaign for the 2020 primary cycle. In her third year with AGF, Caroline is excited to continue working with young organizers across the country to institutionalize civic and voter engagement.

Andrew Tomback is a partner in the Global Commercial Litigation Group and is based in the New York office. He focuses his practice on litigations and investigations involving federal securities laws, complex litigation and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Andrew has over 25 years of experience drawn from business, private practice and government service. He handles a full range of civil and criminal litigation before the courts, US Securities and Exchange Commission and various other regulators.

Before entering private practice, Andrew was deputy general counsel of the Resolution Trust Corporation, where he managed several hundred attorneys handling federal savings and loan resolutions. He also served as senior advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement at the US Department of the Treasury. Earlier in his career, he served as an Assistant US Attorney in the criminal division of the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he conducted grand jury investigations and prosecuted criminal cases, concentrating on complex securities frauds, including stock manipulations, insider trading, international tax evasion enterprises and penny stock schemes. He tried 12 cases, all to conviction, and successfully argued over a dozen appeals. Andrew also clerked for the Honorable Stanley Sporkin of the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Prior to joining McLaughlin & Stern, Andrew was senior vice president and general counsel at Scientific Games Corporation. Andrew also practiced litigation at another global law firm.