First in Future: Where Emerging Ideas Take Flight

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In this episode, we focus on "After the Flood Waters Recede" with guests Jim Fox, former Director of NEMAC; Mayor Zeb Smathers of Canton NC; Jeff Howell, Yancey EMC; and NC House of Representatives Majority Leader, John Bell. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube, as well as Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, and TuneIn+Alexa.

In this episode, we focus on the "Power of Local Support of Educational Attainment" with guests Dale Jenkins, former CEO Curi and co-chair, myFutureNC Commission; Dr. Laura Leatherwood, President Blue Ridge Community College; Rev. James Gailliard, Senior Pastor Word Tabernacle and member, NC House of Representatives. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on the "Power of Affordability In Increasing Attainment" with guests Toni Blount - Regional Impact Manager, myFutureNC; Abdur-Raqib Gant - NCA&T student, and Martha Quillin - News and Observer reporter. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on the "Power of Sports" with guests David Joyner of the Rocky Mount Events Center, Hill Carrow of the 2027 World University Games and Gabbi Cunningham - NCSU Alum and 100M Hurdles Olympian. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on the "Power of STEM" with guests Peter Harries - Dean of NCSU Graduate School, Jamila Simpson of NCSU College of Science and Thomas Redd of NCA&T State. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on the "Power of Historical Fiction" with guests Carole Boston Weatherford, Authorof “Freedom on The Menu”; John Hood, Author of “Mountain Folk”, and A.J. Mayhew, Author of “Tomorrow's Bread”. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on the "Role of Counties in Recovery" with guests Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union; Kevin Leonard, Exec. Dir. NCACC; Paige Worsham, Assoc. General Council, NCACC. Pandemic financial relief is coming from the federal government. We discuss about how do we make sure we use it wisely to make a full recovery, and possibly even come back stronger than we were before the pandemic? Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this episode, we focus on "Back to Business: The NC Small Business Recovery" with guests Byron Hicks of the Small Business and Technology Development Center, Dr. Henry McKoy of NC Central University and Kevin Price of National Institute of Minority Economic Development. Find this also on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

In this First in Future episode, we focus on the return to school resembling something normal, and how do we get our kids back on track and recover from what they lost? Our guests are Michael Maher, Executive Director of the Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration at the state Department of Public Instruction, and Rev. Dr. Dawn Baldwin Gibson, Superintendent of the Peletah Center for Academic Excellence in eastern NC.

The Institute for Emerging Issues, in a four part series, will be focusing on the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities – a group of 10 colleges and universities stretching across the state formed to ensure that African Americans had access to higher education. This episode is with Dr. Johnson Akinleye and Dr. Deepak Kumar of North Carolina Central University.

The Institute for Emerging Issues, in a four part series, will be focusing on the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities – a group of 10 colleges and universities stretching across the state formed to ensure that African Americans had access to higher education. This episode is with Dr. Paulette Dillard, President of Shaw University and Suzanne Walsh, President of Bennett College.

The Institute for Emerging Issues, in a four part series, will be focusing on the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities – a group of 10 colleges and universities stretching across the state formed to ensure that African Americans had access to higher education. This episode is with Dr. Karrie Dixon and Dr. Kuldeep Rawat of Elizabeth City State University.

The Institute for Emerging Issues, in a four part series, will be focusing on the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities – a group of 10 colleges and universities stretching across the state formed to ensure that African Americans had access to higher education. This episode is with Dr. Harold L. Martin Sr., Chancellor of NC A&T State University.

In this First in Future episode, our guests represent two different groups that have been looking at reforms to make our justice systems work better. First the co-chairs of a task force appointed by the Governor, the “Task Force on Racial Equity in Criminal Justice,” Associate Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls and Attorney General Josh Stein, and next the co-chair of the House Select Committee on Community Relations, Law Enforcement and Justice, Rep. John Szoka.

Twenty years ago, three Latino couples, made up of an engineer, a scientist, an IT professional and three teachers, took a look at what was going on with Latino education in the state, and didn’t like what they saw. About half of the students were dropping out of high school and they saw that was going to cause big problems for them, and the state. That is when this episode’s First in Future guest Marco Zarate, his wife and others stepped up and assisted in forming the North Carolina Society of Hispanic Professionals, a nonprofit focused on “promoting education among Hispanic youth,” with a special focus on increasing high school graduation rates. North Carolina Society of Hispanic Professionals have raised corporate contributions, brought in members and volunteers, and through it all Marco has stayed with the organization, as president on a voluntary basis.

Last year, we did a two part First in Future series called “the lost speeches of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,” focusing on two speeches Dr. King gave in North Carolina. Both stories involve NC State Professor of English Dr. Jason Miller, to whom we revisit the conversation. This First in Future episode we hear a different story about the second speech, which is remarkable, because we know almost nothing about what he said. Coming up soon we are going to convert First in Future to a live format show featured on YouTube and Facebook live!

A year ago we did a two part First in Future series called “the lost speeches of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,” focusing on two speeches Dr. King gave in North Carolina. The first was remarkable because we only recently discovered what he said, the other was remarkable because we know almost nothing about what he said. Both stories involve NC State Professor of English Dr. Jason Miller, to whom we revisit the conversation. This First in Future episode, “King’s first dream”, tells the story of the first time Dr. King used the phrase I have a dream – in Rocky Mount in 1962. We now know exactly what he said that day because, believe it or not, of Dr. Millers long time obsession with African American poet Langston Hughes.

February is Black History Month, a month where you hear more than you normally do about some of the bridgebuilders in the African American community, people you may not know enough about. This episode of First in Future, we revisit our conversation with Dr. Rupert Nacoste. He is the author of several books and his latest is "To Live Woke: Thoughts to Carry in our struggle to Save the Soul of America". Dr. Nacoste is retiring this year after 32 years as a professor of psychology at NC State, but he has also lived some important parts of Black History.

The pandemic is affecting everyone in our country. Almost any indicator you look at, the impacts have been greater on people of color in the state. The infection rates are 3x higher among African Americans than whites, and death rates are 6x higher. According to CDC data, COVID hospitalization rates are 5 x higher for American Indians and African Americans and 4x higher in the LatinX community. So you would think that when it comes to vaccinations, people of color might be receiving priority treatment. Not initially, says our First in Future guest, Dr. Jim Johnson. He looked at data from six states that are reporting COVID vaccination rates by race, and found that North Carolina has the widest gap in race and ethnic disparity.

In this episode of First in Future, we have the first five time guest, Sarah Langer Hall, the Institute for Emerging Issues Senior Policy and Program Manager. We talk with her about the 35th Emerging Issues Forum, which happens virtual over four days with a range of exciting guests. We learn how she pulls it all together, what she has learned along the way and attending this forum, what will we come away with.

The percentage of people showing “empathy” has nosedived over the past 40 years – down 48%. Four years ago, a group in Transylvania County decided to do something about it. Project Empathy has led to tough conversations about guns, racial equity, rural urban divides and other topics. Two years ago, IEI lifted up the program as one of five state examples of how to “connect rural and urban.” Project manager Mark Burrows talks with us about what he has learned, and is learning, about the power of empathy.

A little more than a year ago a report that was in many ways 25 years in the making came out. Over the course of 287 pages, it recommends a series of changes that the state of North Carolina needs to make to ensure that it meets its constitutional obligation to provide each child a sound basic education. In this episode of First in Future, we are joined by two members of the Governor's Commission on access to sound basic education, Patrick Miller and Brad Wilson, to discuss the report and actions needed going forward.

This episode of First in Future features Paula Henderson of SAS. We get to hear about growing up on a farm in rural eastern North Carolina and how it has shaped her approach to working with people. She talks about make the world a better place through analytics and how it is solving healthcare finance issues and her thoughts on developing more woman in technology.

Recently, the US has been getting more serious about an idea that European countries have been doing for a long time, apprenticeships. What happens when you connect apprenticeships to a fast-growing career field. The answer is great things happen! Our First in Future guest on this episode is Tony Marshall, president and CEO of Innovative Systems Group. We hear about how hard a sell apprenticeships are in the tech world and his pitch for apprenticeship as an approach for companies.

North Carolina lost a really important citizen, Kel Landis. Kel was a North Carolina zealot. Someone who lived a life where, as our farmers would say, he “plowed to the end of the row.” He was, in a very real way, a doer. He was CEO of Centura Bank, cofounded the Foundation of Renewal for Eastern North Carolina, Trustee of UNC Chapel Hill and ECSU, NC Community Foundation, and Golden LEAF Foundation. We wanted to replay our First in Future interview we did with him on UNCTV back in October 2017. In it we focused on his life, his thoughts about the future of small town North Carolina, and on a book he had just written. He called it “The Little Book of Do.”

This episode of First in Future we hear from Dan Barkin of Business NC. As the as former managing editor of The News & Observer, he has great insight and institutional knowledge about the rapid development of North Carolina and we hear about his thoughts on broadband, which is a key issue on many minds these days.

Starting in 1998 and with over 1,000 shows, North Carolina's longest running show came to close at the end of 2020. This episode of First in Future we feature the host of NC Spin, Tom Campbell. Tom brought together opinionated people from across our state to take a tough look at whatever is going on in the news in a given week. We get to hear how it all started and why.

When the pandemic hit, calls to United Way NC's 211 line for assistance tripled. Now the organization has taken a close look at what is happening to families across the state during the pandemic. No surprise there are a lot of people that are hurting. We talk with Laura Marx and Anita Barker about some of the surprising findings of their new survey and how people across the state can help respond to the needs.

In the final part of our three-part series on NC’s political center, we talk with Chris Fitzsimon, Director and Publisher of The Newsroom and John Hood, President of the John William Pope Foundation, both two long-time political observers who see the state from the left and right. Are the two major political parties too far apart to get anything done? Are people in the center a dwindling minority or a silent majority?

North Carolina’s fastest growing group of voters are “unaffiliated.” About 1/3 of those registered don’t register with any party. That should mean that there’s a big group of voters open-minded, and ready to vote on issues, not politics, or for the person vs. the party, or for candidates running closer to the “center." Right? Well, based on the experience of Page Lemel and Mike Hawkins, two long-time elected officials from Transylvania County, maybe not. This is part 2 of our First in Future series “Doughnut Hole: Is NC’s Center Disappearing?”

NC has a long history of governing from something more or less resembling a middle. But this election season the state appeared to divide people more extremely into one party camp vs. the other. What came out of it was what looks like divided government for the foreseeable future. Our three part series looks at a question from three different angles, with a series called “Doughnut Hole: Is NC’s Center Disappearing?” In Part 1, First In Future talks with Education NC CEO Mebane Rash. Is what she calls “relationship-based politics” the way forward? Or is it coffee?

This episode of First in Future, we hear from North Carolina's Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green. She speaks to our hearts with a message about our personal power to connect to something important within ourselves and to the power we have in common cause with each other. She noted that historically pandemics have been times for radical change and a chance to move through a gateway to new kinds of thinking. We wanted you to hear her words with the message that she called "harvesting light and grace", as you go over the river and through the woods for the holidays or even if you're staying at home. This holiday season. These are words of healing and hope.

This is part three of a three episode series of First in Future, where we focus on community, specifically what people and places in North Carolina are doing to make the places we live special. In the final part of our special focus on what transforms a place we live into a true community, we talk with Zach Barricklow of Wilkes Community College about the regional approach Wilkes, Ashe and Alleghany counties are taking to build off of their collective assets (especially high speed internet) to hold on to young people, retrain adults and attract new residents to the area.

This is part of a three episode series of First in Future, where we want to focus on community, specifically what people and places in North Carolina are doing to make the places we live special. Small towns everywhere complain about "brain drain", young educated people who move away for college and don't come back. In the second part of our series on what makes the places we live special, we talk with Dante Pittman, who chose to move back home to Wilson, NC, with the help of a new effort called "Lead for North Carolina." And we explore the question: how do we retain and retrain and stop brain drain?

This is part of a three episode series of First in Future, where we want to focus on community, specifically what people and places in North Carolina are doing to make the places we live special. This episode starts with the story of Hayesville, NC, in the far western corner of the state, and we talk with Caroline Parker of Education NC about her new series, "Anchored in Hayesville," about how the people in that community are working together to maintain their uniqueness and strength in a town that is "two hours from everywhere."

There is a pretty good consensus that online learning is better this fall than it was last spring for K-12 students. But there’s also a pretty good consensus that it is not going great, and everyone agrees that learning face-to-face would be better. One thought is to get students more 1-1 help. That’s the idea behind the North Carolina Education Corps, an effort just launched by the State Board of Education, designed to get hands-on assistance to struggling students. This First in Future episode's guests are, two people who are leading the thinking behind that effort. Mike Ward is the former state superintendent of public instruction and chair of the steering committee for the NC Education Corps. Deanna Townsend-Smith is director of operations and policy for the State Board of Education.

The latest surveys from the CDC show 41% of survey respondents report mental health issues, three times the number at the same time last year. Mental health is the topic of the third and final part of the Institute for Emerging Issues fall webinar series, which is titled ReCONNECT to Move Forward. It is a three hour conversation, focused on mental health and well-being and what we can do to address the crisis. It is coming up October 29, 8:30-11:30 am. This First in Future episode guest is Alicia James, Institute for Emerging Issues Program and Policy Manager, who is leading our thinking on this topic. She talks about the topics you are able to learn about and participate in the ReCONNECT to Move Forward discussion.

Recently, many have been trying to help our kids with digital homework, or our local government officials have been trying to figure out how to make our community more accessible or competitive in this digital world. This First in Future episode's guest is the Institute for Emerging Issues' own Maggie Woods, Policy and Program Manager, who is looking at the idea of "digital inclusion." She explores what a difference it can make for our state to take full advantage of high speed internet.

One of the most complicated challenges the Coronavirus has been the need for more broadband. It has been a challenge that the Institute for Emerging Issues has been working on for awhile. We have been working with the state Broadband Infrastructure Office to get grants out to school systems, nonprofits, and communities. Our First in Future guest this episode is Jess George, who represents one of the critical private investors in infrastructure, Google Fiber. Jess is their government and community affairs representative.

As of April this year, 45% of people were self-reporting that their mental health had declined. A survey found 70% of people were screening for mental health challenges, with the highest increases among the 18-44 year olds. Our First in Future guest on this episode is Dr. Lindsey Haynes-Maslow. She has written a remarkable first-person summary of her ongoing battle with bulimia, an eating disorder, and what it has been like for her during this pandemic. Dr. Maslow is an associate professor and extension specialist at NC State in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Department of Ag and Human Sciences.

Three years ago myFutureNC looked at NC’s future economy and came to the conclusion that to meet the needs of the future, we need more people with some sort of meaningful credential beyond high school. The Institute for Emerging Issues has been looking at this issue over the past few months, and we’re bringing together a big discussion of all those issues in a few days. This episode features the head of the nonprofit myFutureNC, Cecilia Holden and their research director, Jeni Corn.

myFutureNC looked at NC’s future economy and came to the conclusion that to meet the needs of the future, we need 2 million more people in our state in the next decade with some sort of meaningful credential beyond high school. And that if we do nothing, we will fall 300,000 people short of that goal. The pandemic has caused 1.2 million North Carolinians to be laid off, disproportionately those without high school degrees. They may need to come back to college, but how can they afford it? The Institute for Emerging Issues has been looking at this issue over the past few months, and we’re bringing together a big discussion of all those issues in a few days. This episode features IEI Senior Policy and Program Manager Sarah Hall, who’s been putting together the webinar and expounds on what we will be hearing from and the sessions we will have.

Host Leslie Boney, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues, talks with special guests William Lassiter (Deputy Secretary, Juvenile Justice, NCDPS), Dave Richard (Deputy Secretary for NC Medicaid) and Elizabeth Simpson (Associate Director, Emancipate NC).

This First in Future episode features Dr. Rupert Nacoste, author of the new book "To Live Woke: Thoughts to Carry in Our Struggle to Save the Soul of America". Dr. Nacoste is a native of Louisiana, but for the past 32 years has been a professor of psychology at NC State. Dr. Nacoste’s research and public service efforts have focused on developing a systematic understanding of the social psychology of social change, and using that scholarly understanding to help people manage the social changes that are influencing their everyday lives.

In celebration of 19th amendment that secured all women the right to vote over 100 years ago, this episode of First in Future, we are joined by Dr. Katherine Mellen Charron, Associate Professor of history at NC State. We explore what the amendment meant and did not mean and about how Tennessee passed it and NC did not.

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 (COVID-19 and Child Trauma: Where do we go from here?) with guest host Patrick Cronin (IEI Assistant Director) and guests Sharon Hirsch (President & CEO, Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina), Jennie Kristiansen (Director, Department of Social Services, Chatham County) and Dr. Charlene Wong (Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Policy, Duke University).

Wit Tuttell is Executive Director of Visit NC and VP of Tourism and Marketing for EDPNC

Back to school is back, but this year it is complicated. Universities are trying to have at least face-to-face classes, but it’s not clear that’s going to work out. About 70% of public school students are starting their year totally online. It’s been a rollercoaster few months for folks across the world, around the country and throughout North Carolina, as we ask them to figure out how to move big chunks of their lives online from their homes. Figure out how you can take care of your health from home. Figure out how you can work from home. Figure out how you can learn from home. Our guests on this episode are two people working on two very different parts of the problem. Amy Huffman is the Digital Inclusion Manager for the state Broadband Infrastructure Office. Her job is to figure out how to overcome the challenges we have getting every student, every adult worker, every senior citizen online. Dr. Dawn Gibson is the founder of Peletah Ministries in Craven County. Among a lot of other projects, she’s trying to figure out how to get individuals able to take full advantage of the Internet.

Host Leslie Boney, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, talks with special guests Eric Davis (Chair, State Board of Education), Eliz Colbert, Ed.D., (Executive Director, NC Virtual Public Schools), Terry Stoops, Ph.D., (Director of Education Studies, John Locke Foundation) and Tabari Wallace (Principal, West Craven High School and NC 2018 Principal of the Year) as they discuss the current state of learning within the K-12 space and what will need to happen to ensure students are receiving a high quality education this fall, despite some of the obvious challenges.

The rural part of our state were already facing a broad range of challenges before the pandemic with shaky economies and health care challenges. Our First in Future guests on this episode is Calvin Allen, the first Rural Forward NC director and we hear his thoughts on these issues and so much more.