In a Pre-Made Podcast first, I have not one but three guests. They were Amherst College classmates who became colleagues in the creation of a charter school, and they have a remarkable story to tell.
Yutaka Tamura (Amherst Class of 1994) founded Excel Academy in 2003. He recruited classmates Owen Stearns and Seth Reynolds to join him on his board. Serving primarily lower-income households in East Boston, Excel nearly collapsed after its first year. This episode reveals not only how and why Yutaka created the school. It takes us inside its first tumultuous year and explains how, with the support of Owen, Seth, and others, he laid the foundation for the academy to become one of the top performing public schools in all of Massachusetts. I learned so much about the importance of culture – what it is and how to build it right. You will, too.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why a crisis of culture nearly doomed the school – and what we all can learn about how to build and nurture a distinctive, healthy culture in our own workplaces
How Excel Academy pulled itself back from the brink to become one of the top public schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in just a few years
The ways in which the Amherst College liberal arts vision informs Excel Academy even to this day
The Amherst classmates Yutaka, Owen, and Seth want me to interview next
To learn more, visit:
Excel Academy (excelacademy.org)
nXu (nxueducation.org), Yutaka’s latest endeavor. According to their website, nXu “helps young people explore the unique set of joys, strengths, and values that intersect to drive each of us in a meaningful direction.” In doing so, participants “learn to see our identities as powerful and essential for charting fulfilling future pathways.”
If you were thinking of becoming a therapist, you’d be hard pressed to find a better instructor and mentor than Dr. Aki Hosoi.
Now a senior staff psychologist and the director of training at Colorado State, where she oversees a graduate-level training program that provides clinical training master’s and doctoral level clinicians, her career path is winding and varied.
After graduating from Amherst College in 1994, Aki spent a year doing internships, including working with endangered cranes and conducting whale research. While completing her dissertation in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she began volunteering at the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center. That’s where she found her true calling.
She went on to earn a second PhD, this time in Counseling Psychology, at Colorado State University, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the San Francisco Veteran’s Hospital. For the last 13 years, she has worked as a therapist for university students at the Colorado State University Health Network.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Aki’s take on the state of mental health on college campuses today
How the tactful introduction of clinician authenticity and vulnerability can improve care and results
How the mental health market, including both the supply and demand-side, has evolved post-Covid
The surprising and most memorable professional feedback she ever received
The Amherst classmates she wants me to interview next
For more information on Aki and the work she does, click this link to her training website. You also can email her at aki.hosoi@colostate.edu.
For many people, devotion to both science and faith is impossible. That’s not the case for my Amherst College classmate, Stephen Jackson.
Stephen earned a PhD in cellular and molecular biology and immunology; these days, he consults pharmaceutical companies, medical schools, and nursing homes. He also is an ordained minister and a man of deep faith. But that’s not all. He teaches dance, runs a videography business, and he founded a not-for-profit that helps underprivileged communities learn about the basics of human health so that they can better advocate for themselves when seeking care.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
The ways in which Stephen finds evidence of the divine in the natural world and in human society
The parallels between the symbiotic, complex ways communities and genes both work
How surviving bullying during his upbringing in South Central Los Angeles fortified his sense of self
What prompted him to leave corporate America to start not-for-profit and for-profit enterprises
The remarkable method he used to make his college decision
The Amherst classmate he wants me to interview next
For more on Stephen, visit:
smjpec.com
steviejdance.com
In this episode, I talk to Zenzi Gadson. She’s the co-founder of Maurice Gadson, an interior design firm based in Venice, CA. Interior design has become the subject of dining room conversations in my home ever since my eldest child entered the field, so it was such a treat to talk to someone who has been doing it so thoughtfully and at such a high level for more than 20 years. If you’ve ever wondered what skills and perspectives it takes to be an interior designer, or if like me, you’re parenting or mentoring someone who is pursuing that career, Zenzi’s story is a must-listen.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
The surprising skill that every aspiring interior design needs to refine
Her approach to producing delighted customers
The “Art of War”-like technique she uses to minimize the chances that her clients will make bad design choices
The travel destinations that inspire her design thinking
The three people she wants me to interview next
For more on Zenzi and her work, visit https://www.mauricegadson.com/
Rob Bernstein, like many in the Amherst College Class of 1994, graduated just as the internet became a consumer-facing proposition. But unlike yours truly, Rob hitched his career to the internet. As a result, over the last 30 years he has managed to stay ahead of the curve, navigating a pivot from print media to digital, and from the WWE to agency work at the highest levels.
As Chief Innovation Officer for Ketchum, a global communications firm, Rob spends his days peering around corners. The top question on his clients’ minds these days: what will be the impact of artificial intelligence on the way we work, live, and create? (Full disclosure: AI helped me write the title of this episode.)
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why Rob is ambivalent about AI
How we can learn more about AI, and the ways in which it’s already changing the way many of us work
What the WWE was like from the inside, and what it was like to work with the likes of wrestling superstars John Cena and The Rock, as well as WWE founder Vince McMahon
The Amherst College classmates he’d like me to interview next
Here are links to the resources Rob recommends to learn about AI:
Newsletters: Neuron (https://join.theneurondaily.com/), TLDR (https://tldr.tech/)
AI tools: Claude (https://claude.ai), ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/), Gemini (https://gemini.google.com/)
To connect with Rob, visit his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbernstein/
In this episode, I catch up with one of the smartest guys I knew at Amherst College, Professor Allen Hurlbert.
Many of Allen’s college classmates will remember him for his fondness for birds. While that interest has flowered into a successful and prolific teaching career, birds provide just one input into the focal point of his research today: building an understanding of the processes that shape global patterns of biodiversity and how those patterns are being impacted by global change.
For the last several years, he also has spearheaded a citizen science project that invites all of us to track, record, and share information on the insects we find in our own backyards. It works a lot like birdwatching and can be just as fun and important for the advancement of our understanding of biodiversity.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
All about Allen’s citizen science project, Caterpillars Count, and just how easy and fun it can be to participate
The ways in which climate change may produce winners, losers, and species that are likely to adapt
Why overall bird populations have declined over the last several decades
What attracted him to the study of biodiversity in the first place
The Amherst College classmates he’d like me to interview next
To contact Allen, email him at ahhurlbert@gmail.com. You also can learn about Caterpillars Count at https://caterpillarscount.unc.edu/.
When Michael Elliott attended Amherst College, he never imagined he’d one day become its president. But now that he has the job, he brings a perspective that the office hasn’t seen since the last time an Amherst graduate held that office (in 1983). Like animals that can detect light in the infrared spectrum, President Elliott’s student and alumni experience enables him to see things others may miss. As Amherst Reunion 2024 approaches, I thought, who better to talk about coming back to campus and how to make the most out of the brief time we’ll have?
In this interview, which I recorded live with about 25 of my classmates attending virtually, you’ll learn:
What a day-in-the-life as Amherst College president is like
The aspects of Amherst that have changed the most, as well as those that haven’t changed much over the last 30 years
Amherst’s “secret sauce”…
…And how much I miss chicken pucks
Why building a strong community at Amherst is one of President Elliott’s top priorities – and how alumni can help
Recommendations on how to get the most out of coming back to campus, including options for families with children
His answers to alumni attendee questions, including how he thinks about attracting and nurturing diverse talent through Amherst and beyond, and how campus life amid the war in Gaza fares in comparison to colleges and universities that have made headlines
If you’d like to learn more about President Elliott or get in touch, email him at president@amherst.edu, follow him on Instagram (@amherst_president), or watch his interview series, Between 2 Mammoths (https://www.amherst.edu/about/president-college-leadership/president/between2mammoths).
In 2018, Emad Sharghi, an American citizen, was wrongfully detained and given a 10 year prison term by Iran while he was visiting family. His crime? Simply being American. It took more than five hard years to win his release. Neda Sharghi, Emad’s sister and my Amherst College classmate, has advocated tirelessly for Emad and all Americans wrongfully held abroad through high profile media appearances and meetings with US government officials, urging them to have the political courage they need to bring American detainees home alive.
In this episode, she details:
How Emad is doing today
The terrifying moment she learned of his having been taken captive
The stages that families of the wrongfully detained often go through as they come to grips with the unimaginable
The playbook she recommends to help win their release, including governmental and private resources that aid these efforts (see links below)
The Amherst College friends who supported her through this ordeal
How the US government’s policy and resourcing toward hostage negotiation has evolved following the execution of American journalist James Foley by ISIS in 2014
How others can support families trying to win the release of Americans wrongfully held abroad by hostile governments or terrorist organizations
The conversation covers lighter topics, as well, including Neda’s fond memories of Amherst College, her decision to pause her career to be a full-time mom, and the Amherst classmates she’d like me to interview next.
If you, your family, or friends have a loved one who is being wrongfully detained, here are the resources Neda recommends:
The Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/secretary-of-state/special-presidential-envoy-for-hostage-affairs/)
Bring Our Families Home (https://www.bringourfamilieshome.org/)
The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation (https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/)
Post-Isolation Support Activities (operated by the Department of Defense, as described here: https://www.c6f.navy.mil/Press-Room/News/Article/1845496/post-isolation-support-activities/)
The official Hostages and Wrongful Detainees Flag for use in your social media (Hostages and Wrongful Detainees Flag.jpeg)
This episode’s guest has come face to face with some of the darkest parts of the human condition. That’s a result of her social work on behalf of those suffering from mental illness. In addition to providing relief and advocacy to some of the United Kingdom’s most vulnerable, she has captured some of their stories in music that I find moving, lovingly crafted, and soothing.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
About Ming’s music, including three snippets of songs inspired by her social work and featuring a world exclusive from her band’s latest album
Her path to becoming one of the first female Master motorcyclists in the UK
The book and luxury item she’d bring with her to a desert island
Whom in the Amherst College Class of 1994 she’d like me to interview next
Show notes:
Ming’s band website: projectblackbird.band
“If This Is The End” music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgBne3iO9p4
The guitar shop she and some friends operate: moonflowerguitars.co.uk
Her internet radio station, which is home to her weekly music show: exilefm.com
Ming’s email: mingyuin13@gmail.com
I interrupt my regularly scheduled programming to fulfill Amrita Sethi’s request that I take a turn in the hot seat and sit for an interview on my own podcast. This episode is all about your humble host.
In describing this episode’s guest, I’m tempted to borrow a version of Mad magazine’s self-effacing claim that it is suitable for wrapping fish. But that would be a disservice to the episode’s guest host, Howard Chung. Thank you, Howard, for stepping in and making it look easy.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
The origin story of this podcast
My commitment to community institutions, including faith and local government
How I learned a chunk of the Amherst College songbook before I started kindergarden
The portfolio of classic video game brands I once managed
The Amherst classmate I want to hear from next
If you’d like to get in touch with me, you can find me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcollins1/) or email me at amherstmatt@gmail.com.
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