audio & features
Black Liberation, Buddhist Liberation: Rima Vesely-Flad, PRX
November 7, 2024
Our experiences in faith communities can be as diverse and layered as the facets of our identities. For Rima Vesely-Flad, a visiting fellow at Princeton University, her winding journey to the Theravada Buddhist tradition has also been a path to finding a community where she feels seen and challenged to live with radical compassion. In this conversation, Rima and Simran speak honestly about what it’s like navigating faith communities and practices as people of color and how to grapple with the tension of balancing the self and the collective.
A Computer Called Watson, Sony Music Entertainment
June 14, 2023
In 2011, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter faced off against an unlikely Jeopardy! opponent: the IBM supercomputer known as Watson. The size of 10 refrigerators — Watson was designed to be a “question answering machine” that could take on the likes of Jeopardy!'s fiercest super champs. This week, hear about how Jeopardy! became the next frontier for testing the limits of artificial intelligence. Plus, what our human players remember about that fateful match.
The Mother of the Disability Rights Movement: Judy Heumann, Sony Music Entertainment
March 30, 2023
Without Judy Heumann, it’s hard to see how we would ever have achieved the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Disabled by polio at just 18 months old in 1949, Judy grew up in a time when nothing prevented discrimination against people with disabilities. In fact, so-called “ugly laws” even outlawed the appearance in public of people who were “diseased, maimed or in any way deformed.” But Judy didn’t let any of this stop her. Instead, she became a trailblazer that transformed the state of disability rights in the United States and the rest of the world. In this special episode, we speak with the legend herself: Judy Heumann.
Judy Heumann passed away on March 4th, 2023. Her life’s work has sparked a growing movement that continues to this day. You can learn more about Judy’s legacy in her memoir Being Heumann, the documentary Crip Camp, and her podcast the Heumann Perspective.
May her memory be a blessing.
Family Secrets, "This Is Uncomfortable" by Marketplace APM
November 4, 2021
"Matthew Chow spent his adult life trying to build a close relationship with his estranged father. In his father's will, he found a decades-old family secret."
ORSL Budget Reductions and Restructuring Spark Strong Pushback from Students, Faculty, and Staff
November 19, 2020
"The University’s Former Muslim Chaplain Omar Bayramoglu was sitting in his kitchen at home in Farmington, Connecticut on Jul. 21 when he received an email from the University’s Catholic Chaplain Father Bill Wallace. Wallace had reached out to Bayramoglu to ask if it was true that he was leaving his position at the University, which he began in Aug. 2019. This news came as a shock to the young imam, who had neither submitted a letter of resignation nor received notice from the University about discontinuing his employment for the 2020-2021 academic year. "
Risk and Resistance: Discussing Hong Kong Protests on Campus
September 16, 2019
"In a small, dimly lit cafe tucked behind National Taiwan University buildings, my friend Emilie approached a mosaic of sticky notes forming one of the many “Lennon Walls,” created internationally in support of Hong Kong, and wrote the words “Hong Konger, Be Water.” Demonstrators in Hong Kong have interpreted Bruce Lee’s famous saying as a call to persist, to adapt, and to innovate in the face of government crackdowns; it has become one of the most poignant rallying cries during this summer of political upheaval."
news
November 19, 2019
"Students from mainland China held a forum on Nov. 12 featuring 14 anonymous stories articulating the diversity of Chinese identities and what it means to navigate college campuses in the United States. The story readings were followed by a discussion, moderated by Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Yu-ting Huang, during which students had the opportunity to respond to the stories and share their own experiences."
SF New Deal extends lifeline to struggling restaurants and vulnerable residents
May 26, 2020
"Weeks before shelter-in-place orders took hold in San Francisco, Alfred Lee, owner of K-Elements BBQ in the Richmond District, saw his restaurant revenue plummet by nearly 90 percent after shutting down all in-house dining due to the pandemic."
October 25, 2019
"Ever since news about Wesleyan’s potential joint-venture campus in China began circulating in late September, members of the Wesleyan community have raised questions about administrative transparency surrounding the venture. Without established channels of communication with University administration, some students turned to protest and online platforms to raise additional concerns about academic freedom and the broader political implications of the venture."
Students Participate in Rally Supporting Hong Kong, Denouncing Hengdian Venture
October 15, 2019
"Students participated in a solidarity rally for Hong Kong outside of Usdan on Friday, Oct. 11, joining 22 other cities that also demonstrated. Organizers of the rally also added the denouncement of Wesleyan University’s proposed joint venture with Hengdian Group to the rally’s platform, declaring the two issues were inextricable from one another, which incited backlash from students online before the rally."
Diversity in Reporting
NBC Profile: Voices Fund Scholarship Offers Scholarships for Low-Income Student Journalists of Color
In 2020, I launched the Voices Fund, an initiative at The Wesleyan Argus to offer paid reporting positions for low-income students of color. NBC profiled the initiative in 2021 as a spotlight on efforts to improve the diversity and quality of reporting in newsrooms.