"The middle class is shrinking -- we need to expand it. So that means we have to lift those on the lowest end."

- Marianne Haver Hill on Free Food for Thought

Shivani and Skip sit down with Marianne Haver Hill, executive director of Propel LA, to chat about her work with MEND, the volunteer model, and the implementation of Propel LA.

“Make sure your education is opening your mind to new ways of thinking about things and that you will get a chance to be with people who oppose your values and the ways you think about things. I really do think that progress in this country will come from getting together because we are so polarized right now.“

- Susannah Wellford on Free Food for Thought

Melanie and Shivani sit down with Susannah Wellford, founder of Running Start, to talk about reaching across the ideological aisle and empowering young women both inside and outside of the classroom.

Amal Kassir on U.S. intervention in Syria: “Politics is exhausting. The United States’s responsibility, and I’m not talking about the leaders so much I am the people … our responsibility is to take care of the refugees and help the humanitarian situation. That’s someone who has lost hope; that’s my solution.”

- Amal Kassir on Free Food for Thought

Will Frankel and Shivani Pandya sit down with poet and activist Amal Kassir to talk about Syria, the power of art, and what it means to be American.

Edited by: Michael Waters

[Ken and I are] talking about doing a history of crime and punishment in America -- it would go back to before the pilgrims came here, people coming here enslaved, [and ask] what are our notions of what is a crime? What is the proper punishment? What is the role of the criminal justice system? How has it evolved? We’re in a very bad place right now, and we have been for a very long time, and we have to try to figure out how we got here so we can get out of it.”

Lynn Novick on Free Food for Thought

Skip and Shivani sit down with director and producer Lynn Novick to discuss her upcoming projects on Lyndon B. Johnson and crime and punishment in America.

“I do think there is a line [in free speech]. The line should not be 'I disagree with what you’re saying.' The line should not be 'what you’re saying is disrespectful.' The line should not be 'what you’re saying is obnoxious, or even offensive.' But I do think there is a line when someone becomes dangerous. And in that regard, you have to say, 'I don’t think that it’s responsible to present this person with a forum.'"

Professor Jelani Cobb on Free Food for Thought

Shivani Pandya and Skip Wiltshire-Gordon sit down with Professor Jelani Cobb to discuss to contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King and free speech on college campuses.

“As a thought experiment, if I was in charge, I would create incentives for experimenting and for making mistakes. Because it turns out that every time that I made a mistake, I learned something! … But how can we get to a point where you are rewarded for taking the chances, for getting out of your comfort zone?”

Professor Steve Kotkin on Free Food for Thought

Shivani Pandya and Nick Sage sit down with Professor Steve Kotkin to discuss higher education incentives in pursuing intellectual experimentation.

Professor Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, sits down with Wesley Whitaker and Shivani Pandya to discuss morality, decision-making, and the complex relationships between science and society.

"You [must] go out of your zones--you have people demanding things you don’t have, so you have to go out with people, to be with them, to belong to them, to understand them, and to help them, so it was a different role."

-Valentino Deng on Free Food for Thought

Kate and Melanie sit down with South Sudanese education activist Valentino Deng to discuss his relationship with his home country and his approach toward education reform.

"To me success is waking up and feeling that you’re contributing to enlightening society--and that may be through the science I’m doing, it might be through the history I’m doing, it might just be through talking to people like I am here."

Lee Dugatkin on Free Food for Thought

Nick and Connor sat down with Professor Dugatkin to discuss how his life and career built up to his new book, How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog). The conversation ranged from the history of science to the role of behavior in genetics research to his own scientific experiments in Siberia!

"I don’t think we’re necessarily destined to have a democracy, I think it’s something we have to fight for."

Professor Michael Klarman on Free Food for Thought

Melissa and Melanie sit down with Professor Michael Klarman to discuss the role constitutional law played in the nation's founding and continues to play in politics today.