Anthony Nicotera, JD, MSW, LSW

Anthony has his law and social work degrees, is a licensed social worker, development professional, executive manager and leader, mediator and educator. He has over 15 years of development, advancement, and nonprofit management and administration experience, and over 12 years of clinical counseling experience.

He serves as Director, Foundation Relations with the Rutgers University Foundation and as Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. He also has taught graduate courses in social welfare policy and services at the Rutgers University School of Social Work and social justice and peacemaking courses at DePaul University in Chicago.

Previously, he served as Chaplain to the College of Law and School for New Learning via DePaul University Chicago’s Center for Spirituality and Values in Practice (CSVP) which he co-founded.  While in this position, he also co-founded DePaul’s Peace, Conflict Resolution and Social Justice Studies program, designed and taught numerous courses in the program, and worked in the community with disadvantaged, gang-involved Chicago youth.

He spent six years as a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), a religious order in the Roman Catholic tradition.  As a Jesuit, he completed the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, a thirty-day silent retreat, and worked internationally and domestically in prisons, hospice facilities, inner-city parishes and schools, and legal and social service centers. Additionally, he lived and worked in India with Mother Teresa.  

He also lived in Latin America, working with community-based organizations and victims of war and violence, and in Camden, New Jersey, with the Jesuits, and after leaving the Jesuits, with the Leavenhouse Catholic Worker community.  

Over the years, he has led numerous peacemaking workshops and healing circles, and presented on panels pertaining to Spirituality and Social Work, Social Justice and Social Work, Public Policy and The Politics and Practice of Peace. He was interviewed for the documentary, Where We Stood, aired on PBS-WTTW in Chicago, nominated for a local Emmy.  He was featured in articles on academics and activism and the living out of Dr. King’s nonviolent vision in both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times. 

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire invited him to speak at a peace-building and human rights conference in Belfast, N.I.  Arun Gandhi invited him to present workshops at Gandhi Institute conferences on peacemaking, where he co-presented with youth leaders. He continues to work tirelessly for peace and justice in his heart, home, community and world.

He received his BA from Georgetown University. He studied law at the Georgetown University School of Law as a Public Interest Law Scholar. He completed his law degree at DePaul University, College of Law in Chicago.  He received his MSW from Loyola University, Chicago where he also completed graduate studies in Philosophy and Theology.