Category Archives: Transforming

Projects that are making a difference, improving lives, and building communities.

Authors A-H, Politics

Political Commentary #1: Vernon Jones – by Terry Howard

“Black Donald Trump!”
C’mon Vernon, really? 

Terry Howard
ADR Advisor Terry Howard

Vernon Jones and I are both African American. The only other thing we have in common that I’m aware of is that we are both graduates of HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) colleges 80 miles apart in North Carolina. But it is on those two facts that our similarities end. Period, I must add!

The truth is that I’ve observed Jones over the past few years more out of curiosity turned mild amusement, turned comedic relief, than anything else. As with many politicians, when it comes to party affiliation and loyalty it is often political opportunism more than anything that explains their behavior. “Political chameleons” is one way to define them. So, it comes as no surprise to me that Jones, once a democrat is now a republican. Blind ambition can do that to a person.

Continue reading Political Commentary #1: Vernon Jones – by Terry Howard →

Authors A-H, Education

Diversity and Speech No. 28: Teaching Diversity across Generations at Harvard – by Carlos E. Cortés and Joseph Zolner

A Co-Authored Interview

Carlos:  Joe, it’s been more than two decades since we started working together at the Harvard Summer Institutes for Higher Education.  Lots of continuities, but also lots of changes.

Joe: Yes, I first attended your sessions on diversity in higher education in the late 1990’s.

Carlos: Even through I’d been doing diversity workshops for a couple of decades, using the Harvard case study method was a brand new experience.

Joe: The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s summer programs have a distinctive leadership development structure.  Very immersive, retreat-like experiences for cohorts of a hundred or so higher education administrators.  I recall framing your early sessions as “diversity and community.”

Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 28: Teaching Diversity across Generations at Harvard – by Carlos E. Cortés and Joseph Zolner →

Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

African American History Month: what else don’t we know? – by Terry Howard

This piece explores another African American bit of history. It is about John Lewis and James Zwerg.

Like many, I would love to have been a proverbial “fly on the wall,” listening intently to candid conversations between those two men. Of course, we –well, most of us anyway – know about the late congressman John Lewis. But James Zwerg?

Academic Articles, Education, Healthcare

Challenges of Teaching about Diversity and Health Equity – by Carlos E. Cortés

A Difficult Conversation about Difficult Conversations forDeveloping Medical Educators of the 21st Century:
New Ideas and Skills
for Adaptable and Inclusive
Learning Environments Conference

February 4, 2022 (Revised, February 6, 2022)

 Let’s start with today’s ground rules.  None.  No rules; no powerpoints.

But three hopes.  That you speak honestly without obsessing about maybe saying the wrong thing, a bane to diversity discussions.  That you contemplate divergent ideas.  And that you reflect openly on your own perspectives by posting comments and questions in the chatbox as we go along.   

So let’s turn to our theme, difficult conversations about diversity and health equity.  Health equity conversations necessarily involve discomfort because they address the idea of group diversity, not just random individual differences.

Continue reading Challenges of Teaching about Diversity and Health Equity – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Black-Jewish Dialogue, Transformation Podcasts

ANDREW FEILER PODCAST: The Rosenwald Schools

Rosenwald schools
Andrew Feiler (Photo by Paul Perdue)

Andrew Feiler is a fifth generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South.  Feiler has long been active in civic life. He has helped create over a dozen community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to numerous elected officials and political candidates. His art is an extension of his civic values.

Feiler’s photographs have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Architect, Preservation, The Forward as well as on CBS This Morning and NPR. His work has been displayed in galleries and museums including solo exhibitions at such venues as the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC, and Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C.

Rosenwald SchoolsAndrew documents the history of the Rosenwald schools program which transformed education for African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. The founders were Julius Rosenwald, born to Jewish immigrants, who rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and Booker T. Washington , born into slavery, who became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with Black communities to build public schools for African American children. Andrew examines the role of education as the onramp to the American middle class as well as  the past, present and future of the Black/Jewish progressive alliance.

Hear Andrew discuss:

  1.  What was most innovative about how Rosenwald and Washington structured the schoolhouse construction program?
  2. What was the impact of the Rosenwald schools program?
  3. How he developed his approach for telling this story visually.

    CLICK for PODCAST

Black-Jewish Dialogue

Black-Jewish Dialogue: February 2022

History R Us!

Hear this very personal look at history from both an African-American and Jewish perspective. Don’t miss this amazing online discussion.
Scroll down for the link.  

Gr

KEN GRANDERSON

In 1992, Ken Granderson, a graduate of MIT, launched his first software development company Inner-City Software, Brains in the Hood. He was committed to closing the Digital Divide by creating technology products and solutions by & for people of African descent. For a decade, he introduced Boston’s communities of color to computers and the Internet, giving local organizations and Boston’s Black newspaper an online world-class presence. Moving back to New York City, he was born in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, his achievements in technical design, education, and empowerment are nationally and internationally impressive.  His website, BLACKFACTS, is an affiliate of the ADR. (CLICK to access)

DEBORAH LEVINE
Editor-in-Chief Deborah J. Levine

DEBORAH LEVINE

Deborah coordinated the 1990 National Workshop on Christian Jewish RelationsIn  and created her first Holocaust video in Rockford, Illinois, where she served as of the Jewish Federation’s  executive director . She went on to become the Community & Media Liaison of the Tulsa Jewish Federation shortly after the OK City bombing and is the former exec. director of Chattanooga’s Jewish Federation.  She carries on the work of her father who became the CFO of the American Jewish Archives. He served as a US military intelligence officer during World War II assigned to interrogate Nazi prisoners of war. CLICK for more information about her memoir, The Liberator’s Daughter, and to hear an interview with her father about his wartime experiences.

CLICK TO HEAR DIALOGUE

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda.

Authors A-H, Education

Diversity and Speech No. 27: Training Future Psychologists Using the Lens of History – by Carlos E. Cortés, Marjorie Graham-Howard

A Co-Authored Interview

Carlos: Marjorie, as a historian, I was blown away by the richness of your class syllabus.  How did you come up with the idea of using history to ground a clinical psychology course?

Marjorie: I was a history major in college, so I have always loved it.  I remember when I first discovered that history is not just facts about wars and dead people, but was an interpretation of past events.  Then I began to learn that most history was controlled by those with power and privilege, which meant there were those whose voices were silenced or never heard from.  I knew it would be important for therapists.  Once I began teaching at Azusa Pacific University, I found that students were often overwhelmed when working with older adults and clients from a different historical era.  They did not know their history, which became a barrier to providing effective treatment.  We decided to add a class to close this gap.

Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 27: Training Future Psychologists Using the Lens of History – by Carlos E. Cortés, Marjorie Graham-Howard →

Authors A-H, Politics

Alas, poor Mitch – by Terry Howard

1 Comment

“Hold up! Did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say what I thought he said?” rhetorically asked columnist Jonathan Capehart.

Well, yes, Jonathan, your ears didn’t lie. You heard what you heard. And if you are any person of color, neither did it come as a surprise.
Now as much as I’d like to cut McConnell some slack because of his “caught with his pants down” moment, I couldn’t resist the opportunity. In case you missed it, here is what he said when asked about concerns about voter participation by African Americans:

Continue reading Alas, poor Mitch – by Terry Howard →

Authors A-H, Education, Of Women, Social Issues, Trends 2022

The exam paper that stumped all – by Mona Bopanna

How will India respond in 2022 to this regressive stance towards women?

In December, 2021, millions of secondary school students in India appeared for their Class X (Grade 10) exams conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

Since its inception in the 1920s, the Board has gone through several changes and emerged as one of the largest such organisations in the world, with more than 25,000 school — based in India and other countries — affiliated to it. Each year, about 2 million students take the secondary board exams.

Continue reading The exam paper that stumped all – by Mona Bopanna →

Black-Jewish Dialogue

Black-Jewish Dialogue – January 2022

Media and Community

Hear the online dialogue between two television / media experts discuss their ties to their respective communities, how they’re shaped by them, and how they report stories about them.
                               * Scroll down for the link. *

LaTriceLaTrice Currie  is a native Tennessean who  graduated from Hampton U. LaTrice joined Chattanooga’s Channel 3 Eyewitness News in 1995. She now co-anchors news at noon and 5:30 and also serves as Eye On Health Reporter and host of Trends on 3.

LaTrice’s awards include Chattanooga Woman of Distinction, Hamilton County Outstanding Citizen, Black Excellence Chattanooga “Best Media Personality,” Times Free Press “Best Chattanoogan, and NAACP Image Awards. She serves as ambassador for Go Red For Women and  on various boards:  Moccasin Bend Girl Scout Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Chattanooga, advisory board for Volunteers in Medicine, and Partnership for Families, Children, and Adults. 

Ilene Gould Ilene Gould is a photographer, writer, illustrator and full time news producer for NewsChannel9 in Chattanooga where she has produced every show from mornings, to dayside evening shows, to nightside. She also co-produced an hour long Town Hall called “Changing Chattanooga”. Ilene is a Michigan State Graduate with a degree in Media and Information, a concentration in Film and Video Production, and minors in Fiction Filmmaking and Music.

Ilene also works part-time as Community Manager at Better Sax, where saxophonist Jay Metcalf teaches and creates online lessons to learn to play the saxophone by ear.

CLICK TO HEAR DIALOGUE

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda