365 Days until Election 2020. Here’s a Preview. (0:30)

Guest: Kelly Patterson, PhD, Professor of Political Science, BYU; Adam Dynes, Phd, Professor of Political Science, BYU

We’re exactly one year out from the 2020 Presidential Election, so we’ve got BYU political scientists Kelly Patterson and Adam Dynes in studio to talk about what’s ahead.

 

Why is Britain’s Parliament so Unruly? (18:22)

Guest: Joel Selway, Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University

One thing Americans have learned from the Brexit drama in Britain is just how different the British Parliament is from our Congress. We’re hearing members of the opposition Labour Party shouting down Prime Minister Boris Johnson a few months ago during one of his regular appearances in the British House of Commons. The closest thing we get to that in America is when the President delivers his state of the union address and members of the opposing party refuse to clap or stand. Why is Britain’s Parliament so rowdy? And more importantly, how exactly does it work?

 

Mental Health in the Workplace (38:06)

Guest: Kelly Greenwood, Founder and CEO of Mind Share Partners

When you have the flu, you call in sick and your boss is probably glad you do. But what happens if you have a panic attack? A really bad day with your depression?  An extreme bout of insomnia that keeps you up all night? Most of us still aren’t sure how to talk to mental health challenges with our bosses. We’re more likely to fudge the details and say we need to take a day because we’ve got a stomachache or a headache. Physical ailments seem more legitimate.

 

Why Grocery Stores Don’t Help Communities in Food Deserts to Stay Healthy (51:05)

Guest: Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen, PhD Candidate at the University at Buffalo and Graduate Research Assistant at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

In places sometimes referred to as “food deserts” healthy food options are farther and more expensive than normal. The obvious answer would be to just put up another supermarket. But researchers at the University at Buffalo found that new grocery stores actually lead to a decrease in people eating their fruits and veggies.

 

Historically Black Colleges and Universities are Struggling to Survive (1:04:49)

Guest: Delece Smith-Barrow is Senior Editor for Higher Education at The Hechinger Report

Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Spike Lee, Oprah Winfrey, Samuel L. Jackson, Chadwick Boseman –aka Black Panther. That’s just a partial list of prominent African Americans who graduated from an HBCU, which stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. There are more than a hundred HBCUs around the country –Howard, Tuskegee, Spelman, Shaw, Fisk, Morehouse –are some names you might recognize. If you saw Beyonce’s Coachella performance last year –or the Netflix documentary about it -that whole thing was an ode to HBCUs. She had marching bands and step dancers. Beyonce’s HBCU tribute was well-timed, because many of these schools are in crisis. Enrollment is down. Government funding is down. More than a dozen HBCUs have closed.

 

Racial Discipline and Achievement Gaps Are Related (1:26:32)

Guest: Francis Pearman, Assistant Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University

In schools across the US, discipline doesn’t get handed out evenly. Black high school students are twice as likely to be suspended as white or Hispanic students. Black students also lag behind white students on standardized test scores. Are these two gaps –the discipline gap and the achievement gap –linked, somehow?