The 92 Report
Show Notes: Kellie Doucette describes her journey as zigs and zags, with three distinct chunks defined by her location: Northern Virginia, Bermuda, and New Jersey. She worked for a small health policy consulting firm called the Lewin Group in Northern Virginia, DC, where she met her future husband, John Doucette. A 13-Year Stint in Bermuda Kellie, an actuary, began her career in the Bermuda market after taking the actuarial exams. She and her husband moved to Bermuda in 1996, and they enjoyed the adventure of visiting family on the East Coast and raising their children there. The reinsurance...
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Show Notes: Gregory Mose, an English major, currently lives in Aix-en-Provence where he is the director of international relations and professor of International Law at a small American University program called the American College of the Mediterranean. When he graduated, his parents wanted him to go to Law School, but Greg wanted to travel. He was offered a teaching fellow position at Athens College in Greece, and he fell in love with the place and the experience. He returned to the US and law school at Duke where he met his wife. Working for United Nations Greg's interest...
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Show Notes: Reverend John H. Finley starts the conversation with a nod to family connections and some good news. He also mentions working at the Unilu Shelter, and how it was a transformative experience for him. Throughout the conversation, the importance of recognizing and valuing the contributions of individuals to the institution is mentioned. The Priesthood and Nativity Prep John describes his experience working at the shelter and how it led to the decision to work with younger people. He decided to become an Episcopal priest, but the bishop wouldn’t ordain him since he was openly gay....
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Show Notes: Kendalle Cobb, a family physician, has been practicing in Cleveland since 2004. She graduated from George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC and completed her family medicine residency at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Fontana, California. After a year in Boston, she returned to serve on the faculty at her former residency program. She met her husband, who taught at a boarding school in Claremont, California, and after they got married, they moved to Cleveland to be closer to his family. Family Physician and Physician Advisor Kendalle shares that family...
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Show Notes: Pete Zorn, a lawyer and biotech executive, spent nine years in North Carolina, attending law school at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill. He moved back to the Boston area with his wife and child where he stayed with his law firm, working remotely before taking an in-house position with one of his clients. He took the company public and stayed there for 11 years. He has since worked with three other biotech companies in various business and legal capacities, and is currently the president and Chief Legal Officer of Genevant. The Leading Nucleic Acid Delivery Company in the...
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Show Notes: Lawrence Steyn moved to Los Angeles to work with Walt Disney, where he helped think through financing new theme parks and movies. After leaving Disney, he went into traditional investment banking. He also mentions that he was a character in a theme park training program, where he was a penguin in full costume. His experience in LA and his role as a character in the training program were both memorable and challenging, and being a penguin was the hardest job he had in the 30+ years since graduating. From Investment Banking to the Tech Industry Lawrence moved to New York and...
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Sandi DuBowski discusses the one-year anniversary of his film Sabbath Queen, which he spent 21 years making. He reflects on the journey of the 21st-century radical rabbi and how it has shaped their life. He discusses the inspiration behind his film, Tomboychik, the concept of which was developed after conversations with his grandmother. The film is a living video memorial to her spirit; it won several awards, including the Golden Gate award at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Whitney Museum program, and launched Sandi into the film world. Documentary Films and Festivals ...
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Show Notes: Lili Barouch, a cardiologist, went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. After moving to Baltimore, she became a cardiologist specializing in heart failure and transplant. She joined the faculty in 2003 and worked on basic science research, research lab, and inpatient and outpatient care for heart failure and transplant patients. Lili stayed in this role for about 10 years before transitioning to outpatient cardiology. She moved to Howard County, Maryland, where her children have grown up. Founding the Sports Cardiology Program Lili started becoming more athletic around 20...
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Show Notes: Tanya Selvaratnam shares her journey from high school to present day. She moved to New York after graduating and worked at Columbia Law School’s Center for Chinese Legal Studies. She also assisted Anna Deavere Smith on her show “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” about the LA riots. Tanya went back to Harvard for graduate school, studying Chinese language and the history of law. An Adventure in Theatre After her father passed away, she returned to New York, where she was working on the Beijing Women's Conference. Wandering the streets one day, she came across The Performing...
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Show Notes: Bo Rutledge, a professor and dean at the University of Georgia Law School, opens the conversation by talking about his parents, who made sacrifices to support their children's education, and how he felt called to serve and worked for the governor in California where he met many inspiring civil servants. A Graduate Degree and Long-Distance Relationship In Scotland, he obtained a graduate degree and met his wife Birgit, who is Austrian. They had a wonderful year together overseas and then spent three years in a long-distance relationship while Bo attended law school and...
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Angela Romans, a graduate of Harvard, has been an educator since graduating. She studied engineering but wasn’t sure she wanted to pursue this field. A serendipitous ad set her on a new path in education. She realized that she had a passion for education and wanted to make an impact on young people's lives. She began her career as a high school science and math teacher, working in alternative high schools in New York and Boston. Angela also worked in college admission at Brown University, where she worked as an admission officer for eleven years before she became the director of minority recruitment and academic advisor. She missed working on the ground, and moved into a position that focused on coalition building, cross-sector collaboration, and systems change work in education. She worked at an organization that supported opportunity youth and transitioned students who had stopped out of high school back into school.
In 2009-10, she was invited to participate in the education campaign of Providence Mayor Angel Divaris, who was passionate about education. She was appointed the first Senior Education Advisor in Providence and served for three years of his administration. Angela also had other system building roles, including working with a nonprofit consulting firm that focused on social sector organizations. She led their racial equity work and education work, and was selected as a fellow for Innovation for Equity. She moved on to work in a non-profit consulting firm that worked with social sector organizations. She has since worked with various organizations, including the Annenberg Institute and Innovation for Equity, and continues to work on a variety of projects and initiatives.
Innovation for Equity
Innovation for Equity (IFE) is a unique organization that focuses on connecting, convening, and supporting senior black education leaders across the entire education ecosystem. It includes senior leaders at various levels, including CEOs, directors, and C-suites in education organizations, superintendents, college presidents, nonprofit leaders, and private sector investors. The organization focuses on two levers: connecting, convening, and supporting black education leaders, and helping to identify and scale solutions specifically working for black learners of all ages. The organization offers a Senior Leadership Fellowship, which is a year-long fellowship that connects black senior leaders for building themselves as a cohort, improving their leadership skills, and connecting them to resources such as mentors and consultants. Learning events throughout the year, such as the annual Black Education Forum and HBCU EdTech summit, help college students understand the power and potential of ed tech careers. IFE is expanding its research agenda this year to identify what's working for black learners and what black leaders need to be successful in their work. They are also expanding their research agenda to identify what black leaders need to be successful in their work to stay in organizations across education and build their coalitions and power to be as effective as possible. One of the solutions for black learners is targeting universalism, which suggests that what works for some of the most underrepresented and least well-served people tends to lift all boats. For example, having a black teacher in the classroom significantly increases the likelihood of black students graduating high school and having one during their career. Research shows that having a black teacher in the classroom leads to better outcomes for all students across the classroom. In conclusion, Innovation for Equity is a unique organization that focuses on connecting, convening, and supporting black education leaders to identify and scale solutions specifically working for black learners of all ages.
Angela shares her experience as a black student of a single mom and has found that telling her story explains her why to employers and organizations to help pull all parties together. She talks about how to support black leaders and shares a story from a recent EdTech Summit. As a leadership coach for executive leaders, Angela talks about the importance of identifying common patterns and understanding experiences to help black leaders solve those problems.
Angela’s Role as Senior Education Advisor
As the Senior Education Advisor, Angela has been instrumental in bringing people together and improving outcomes for students in Providence. She led the Providence Children Youth cabinet, which aimed to bring together school districts and higher education businesses to work towards improving student outcomes. Major accomplishments include increasing FAFSA completion, helping the mayor prevent the city from going bankrupt, and building community coalitions at individual and larger city levels. Angela is particularly proud of her work on raising awareness about early literacy skills and the role of families and communities in this process. As the director of minority recruitment at Brown University, Angela has a unique perspective on the recent Supreme Court ruling on Students for Fair Admission versus Harvard. She believes that the decision will have a significant impact on selective colleges as an engine of social mobility. She believes that colleges need to have black students who are doing well economically and whose families are doing well, as well as black students whose families are not. To recruit a more diverse class, colleges should be more active in recruiting and visiting schools where diverse groups of students and communities are present. This can help create pipelines of students in specific areas, where some of these students are now graduates and doing amazing things in the world. Brown University has been successful in recruiting students from diverse backgrounds, including students of color, low-income students, and first-generation college bound students. By doing more of this, colleges can continue to diversify their student body and create a more inclusive and supportive environment for all students.
How to Promote Diversity in Education
Angela discusses the importance of supporting black learners in education, focusing on two or three options. The first is to increase the presence of black teachers in classrooms, providing them with professional development opportunities and networks for collaboration. This could lead to their growth and development in leadership roles within schools, districts, and charter school networks. However, barriers to this include policy and practice awareness, as well as the lack of support from school leaders and other black teachers. Paying teachers more at the college level can help bridge these gaps, but it's essential to ensure that black teachers have access to the right resources and networks to progress in their career. Additionally, creating after-school opportunities for all students in communities with curriculum and resources steeped in black culture can supplement what they receive in school. Investing more in black entrepreneurs who want to start companies can make a difference in the education sector, as having the right people with the right lived experience and technical experiences can make a difference.
Harvard Professors and Courses of Influence
As a woman of color in engineering thirty years ago, Angela had a difficult time in her program. She mentions that Professor Howard Stone and Doug Mazur were supportive and helped her through her program. She also mentions the course Black Women Writers in African American Studies, and the course Greek Heroes with Gregory Nagy.
Timestamps:
04:48 Angela’s path to becoming an education leader
10:05 The role of innovation for equity leaders
15:34 Solutions that work for black learners
20:43 How to effectively convene a group of leaders
30:00 Impact of the supreme court ruling on diversity
35:20 Supporting non-selective colleges and universities
40:17 The importance of getting more black teachers in the classroom
45:36 The importance of diversity in the classroom
50:49 Courses and professors that continue to resonate with Angela
Links:
Website: https://innovationequity.org/
CONTACT:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-romans/