Jessica Klein

Jessie Klein, PHD, MSW, M.Ed. is the Founder and Director of the Creating Compassionate Communities (CCC) for schools, families and beyond program and an Associate Sociology/Criminal Justice Professor at Adelphi University specializing in bullying prevention, building compassionate and empathy-focused communities, school shootings, gun access/control, depression, anxiety, social isolation, marriage, friendship, conflict resolution, gender and sexuality. Her book, The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America’s Schools, is published by NYU Press (2012).

Dr. Klein has written widely about school bullying, school shootings and other forms of school violence; issues related to building compassion and empathy in schools and families; as well as increased depression, anxiety, and social isolation in America—especially among youth. Her work has been featured in USA Today, Newsday, New York Times, Huffington Post, CNN.com and more. She has also contributed chapters to trade and academic books (including textbooks) and her articles are published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Dr. Klein offers student, teacher/faculty and family workshops for universities, high schools, middle and elementary schools on how to build compassionate and empathy-focused communities in order to eliminate school bullying. Dr. Klein is also a compassion and empathy-focused life coach for families. She can also comment on the areas mentioned above especially on school shootings—why they happen, what we can do to prevent them –and how our larger society feeds and encourages a related bully society endemic to our schools. She can explain the rise in despair indicators (depression, anxiety and social isolation; and the decrease in empathy and trust) as a social and cultural phenomenon of post-modernity.

Since 1997, Dr. Klein taught sociology, social work, and criminology at public and private colleges including Adelphi University, Barnard, College and the City University of New York (CUNY)/Lehman College. Dr. Klein worked for 11 years in New York City public schools as an Acting Assistant Principal of Guidance, school social worker, conflict resolution and mediation coordinator, social studies teacher and substance abuse counselor at both mainstream and small progressive schools including Stuyvesant High School, Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities, and Humanities Preparatory Academy.

Dr. Klein has been quoted as an expert on school violence in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Newsday, and Huffington Post among others; she has been featured on television shows including CNN, Fox 5 and 20-20 and interviewed on radio programs such WNYC Brian Lehrer, WNYC Leonard Lopate and 1010Wins. She speaks often at colleges and universities, bookstores, national and academic conferences and think tanks; as well as at elementary, middle and high schools on school bullying prevention and how to build compassionate communities and empathy.

Dr. Klein received her doctorate in sociology from CUNY Graduate Center in 2002 (specializing in School Violence); her masters in social work at Yeshiva University in 1995 (specializing in casework and supervision); her masters in education at the University of Massachusetts in 1989 (specializing in high school social studies teaching and conflict resolution); and a B.A. in sociology and women’s studies at Hampshire College. She was born and raised in New York City where she still lives.

Expertise includes: online harassment & free speech