First in Future: Where Emerging Ideas Take Flight

The Institute for Emerging Issues is hosting a series of conversations around early childhood learning focused on how we develop stronger systems in the midst of ongoing uncertainty. This episode (Parenting Education Beyond COVID-19) is with guest host Patrick Cronin (IEI Assistant Director) and guests safiyah jackson (early childhood systems director, North Carolina Partnership for Children), Cindy Boger (Lead Parent Educator, Parents as Teachers, Hickory City Schools) and LaKeisha Ross-Johnson (Minister of Music, Arts and Worship, Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Chief Financial Officer, Young People of Integrity).

Our US colleges and learning institutions are in unique situations with the uncertain times with safety and quality of education. Our First in Future guests on this episode is Buck Goldstein, University Entrepreneur in Residence and a Professor of the Practice at UNC in Chapel Hill. He is looking at it all from the outside and the inside as a entrepreneur, author and a university professor.

African Americans make up 22% of the state's population, but have 24% of the COVID cases and 33% of the deaths. Ten percent of the state's population are Latinx, but Latinx people have 46% of the COVID cases. What is going on and why, and what can we do about this? Our First in Future guests on this episode to address this are Dr. Deepak Kumar, Director of Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute of NCCU, and Juvencio Rocha Peralta, Executive Director of the Association of Mexicans in North Carolina (AMEXCAN).

Leslie Boney, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues, hosts a series of virtual conversations discussing the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) and some of the ways our state is responding. As we begin to reopen the economy, we start a series called Jumpstarting NC. Each week we’ll be talking with those responsible for jumpstarting critical parts of North Carolina. Join us for this episode (Jumpstarting K-12 Learning) with guests Dr. Evan Lefsky (Director of Education Consulting, Public Consulting Group), Dr. Lynn Moody (Superintendent, Rowan-Salisbury Schools), Dr. Steve Ellis (Superintendent, Nash-Rocky Mount Schools) and Amy Jones (VP Leadership, Wake PTA Council).

To celebrate the Fourth of July, First in Future revisits a special conversation with an American history scholar. Dr. Craig Friend is an NC State Professor of Public History, specializing in the Revolutionary War period. He first caught the bicentennial bug growing up near Kings Mountain, NC, the site of the first major patriot victory after the British invasion of Charleston. In this episode, Dr. Friend gives us some perspective on the Declaration of Independence, what it meant to the colonists and soldiers, what women and slaves would have thought about the phrase “all men are created equal,” and how the holiday has evolved over time.

Join us for this episode, Jumpstart Connectivity: Eliminating the Digital Divide in North Carolina’s Cities and Towns. How cities and towns across the state are addressing the digital divide and emerging from the pandemic with key strategies to increase digital access and skills. Join guest host Maggie Woods (IEI Policy and Program Manager) and guests Veronica Creech (City of Raleigh), Seth Ervin (Charlotte Mecklenburg Library), Michael Abensour (Kramden Institute) and Sherrell Dorsey (Build the Good).

Juneteenth or sometimes called Freedom Day, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Our First in Future guests on this episode is Rev. James White, Pastor Christ Our King Community Church and Executive Vice President, Organizational Relations at the YMCA of the Triangle. We have the opportunity to hear more about the holiday and learn what it means at this time in our world.

Leslie Boney, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues, hosts a series of virtual conversations discussing the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) and some of the ways our state is responding. As we begin to reopen the economy, we start a series called Jumpstarting NC. Each week we’ll be talking with those responsible for jumpstarting critical parts of North Carolina. Join us for this episode (Jumpstarting Local Government) with guests Avril Pinder (Buncombe County Manager), Paige Worsham (NC Association of County Commissioners), and Gloristine Brown (Mayor of Bethel and Chair, NC Mayors Association).

So far this year only a little over half of NC households have self-responded to the Census, and we lag behind other states and behind where we were this time last Census. The idea of the Census was to count every person living in the United States, and every decade since 1790. This is a Census year, but COVID-19 is making it tough to get accurate numbers. Our First in Future guests on this episode want to talk to you about that, and they are Rebecca Tippett, founding director of Carolina Demography, part of the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill (and chair of the NC Counts Coalition), and Stacey Carless, an attorney and Executive Director of the NC Counts Coalition.

Leslie Boney, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues, hosts a series of virtual conversations discussing the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) and some of the ways our state is responding. As we begin to reopen the economy, we start a series called Jumpstarting NC. Each week we’ll be talking with those responsible for jumpstarting critical parts of North Carolina. Join us for this episode (Jumpstarting Tourism) with guests Bill Cecil (President and CEO of Biltmore Estate), Duarte Morais (Associate Professor of Equitable and Sustainable Tourism at NC State University), Wit Tuttell (Executive Director of Visit NC) and Jeff Eidson (Explore Elkin).

In a time when we are desperate for local news and are slowly being offered less of it due to downsizing and internet-based operations, how do we find out what is going on in our community? In this First in Future episode, we had the opportunity to talk with two individuals working on solutions for local news: Lizzy Hazeltine, the coordinator of the North Carolina Local News Fund, and Melanie Sill, journalist veteran and former news executive, who is leading the North Carolina Local News Workshop at Elon University.

IEI are hosting conversations around the issues of parenting, policing and systemic racism that the people of our state and nation are grappling with right now. This episodes guests are Troy Johnson (founder of Young Men 4 Christ Enterprises (YM4C), which works with young men aged 8-17), Tonya Lynch (founder of Black Light Project, mother of 5 sons and 3 daughters) and Tony Godwin (retired Cary Police Chief, co-founder of Building Bridges, a partnership between African-American pastors, community members and Cary PD).

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated more attention for telemedicine. As more people access health care through their phones and computers, the John Locke Foundation and Brookings Institution have prepared a new telemedicine report. In this First in Future episode, we had the opportunity to talk with Jordan Roberts, Health Care Policy Analyst at the John Locke Foundation and co-author of that report. We hear about the interesting path of recent increase in telehealth and how it advanced 10 years in just a couple of months.

Leslie Boney, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues, hosts a series of virtual conversations discussing the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) and some of the ways our state is responding. Join us for this episode (Civic Conversations in Time of Pandemic) with guests Pearce Godwin (Listen First Project), Cyrus Rad (Class of 2021 Caldwell Fellow at NC State University), L.B. Prevette (Forward Wilkes) and Tru Pettigrew (Tru Access).

A new series of reports from the Urban Institute at UNC Charlotte took a closer look at who has wealth in the Charlotte region and who doesn’t. The series of reports tried to understand where the wealth gap came from, taking a look at bank lending policies, transportation policy, housing policy, business ownership, and savings to try to understand how we got to where we are. In this First in Future episode, we are joined by two people who played a key role in the reports, James Ford, former NC Teacher of the Year and currently executive director of the Center for Racial Equity in Education and Dr. Lori Thomas, the Director of Research and Faculty Engagement at the Urban Institute and Director of the Institute for Social Capital.