Dr. Marvin Haire was born and raised in Youngstown, OH, the son of Marshel & Jamie C. Haire, two outstanding & innovative small Black business owners and leaders in the McGuffey Heights community. He attended East & Ursuline High Schools, Youngstown State University (Psychology/Black Studies/Philosophy) and completed graduate studies in Political Science at The Atlanta University. 

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Dr. Haire remains a highly respected educational specialist who has acquired over 30 years of direct experience in adult and continuing education and over 20 years of formal experience as a senior-level administrator at the collegiate level. He has taught in both traditional and non-traditional post-secondary institutions, earning six Teacher-of-the-Year awards, and is a former Vice President for Academic Affairs & Dean at Morris Brown College, Chairman and Associate Professor of Political Science at Clark Atlanta University, and a past President of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. He also served as Director of the Delta Research & Cultural Institute at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, MS. Most notably within DRCI, he designed a public-accessible on-line action research e-Forum, an in-house Delta Database - Civil Rights & Human Wrongs, a Blues Database – The Blues & Abstract Truth, a regional Delta Experience Blues Tour, as well as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Dr. Haire is internationally recognized as an expert on the music history of Africans in America, and as a curriculum design specialist. He holds the distinction of having served as a Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi and National Endowment of Humanities Scholar. He has been involved in public radio production and broadcasts in Atlanta, Dayton & Yellow Springs, OH, and Itta Bena, MS, and has been invited to lecture in Southern Africa, the Caribbean and nationally on a range of interdisciplinary issues including such topics as the political economy of Black music, and pedagogical issues confronting educators of multi-cultural students. 

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Under his company, The Gourd of Wisdom Institute, Dr. Haire has consulted with public and private organizations throughout the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. He maintains an active involvement as a consultant/trainer in such areas as Cultural Diversity, Distance Learning, Critical & Creative Thinking, and Enhancing Strategic Learning. He has completed consultant agreements leading to the creation of distance education delivery systems for adult learners, a faculty development workshop series on web-assisted academic support systems for strategic learners, and action research projects on best practices in early childhood learning and care among marginalized rural populations, and on infusing civil & human rights content into K-12 curriculum.