Dr. Ella Mae Piper, an African American woman born in Georgia in 1884, moved to Fort Myers in 1915 and immediately opened businesses including a beauty salon and a soda bottling company. Her entrepreneurial spirit formed the foundation of a life focused on philanthropy and community building — including the Dr. Piper Center for Social Services that has supported low-income seniors, frail elderly, at-risk youth, and special needs children since 1976.

When gyms and yoga studios closed, instructors had to get creative. Gil Gonzalez of Gil's Zumba and yoga teacher Jackie Chiodo tell us how they managed.

Florida Gulf Coast University will soon be presenting its fourth Cannabis Professional Certificate Program that focuses on things like cannabis history, laws and policies relating to the plant, and cannabis as a business. And, it's going entirely online this time. We're joined by Dr. Martha Rosenthal, professor of neuroscience and physiology and Director of FGCU’s Cannabis Research, Education, and Workforce initiative to learn more.

Marine researchers of all kinds began studying the ecological impact caused by the Piney Point pollution release, including those with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which was asked by the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration to expand its monitoring efforts to include the dolphin population near Piney Point. While that research work is still in its infancy, we're checking in with Dr. Randy Wells, director of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which is the world's longest-running study of a dolphin population.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 233 into law on June 22. Under the new law, the Florida Board of Education will require Florida’s public colleges to survey students, faculty, and staff every year to assess “the intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” at each institution. We spoke with Florida Gulf Coast University President, Dr. Mike Martin, to get his take.

When our guest today came to Florida Gulf Coast University in 2007 the school didn’t even have a minor in entrepreneurship. But she immediately went to work to change that and is still here today working to grow the program. Dr. Sandra Kauanui is now Director of the FGCU School of Entrepreneurship. Since its founding in 2016 the school has rapidly grown. Its mission is to infuse an entrepreneurial mindset all across the university by offering an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship major, minor, and graduate certificate.

The UF/IFAS Industrial Hemp Pilot Project is approaching its two-year mark with plants in the ground. University researchers have been experimenting with different varieties to determine whether industrial hemp — which is an extremely low THC variety of cannabis sativa — might have a future as a cash crop in Florida. We spoke with the pilot project’s Lead Oversight Manager to get an update.

Concerns that a summer slide could become a Covid freefall has parents and educators worried for how students spend the next couple of months. According to a study of more than five million students by the Collaborative for Student Growth, that same summer slide already occurred during this past school year thanks to school closures due to outbreaks of Covid, distance learning and less time in a traditional learning environment.

In this documentary special, we learn about a remarkable agency: the Freedmen’s Bureau, established by Congress to help this population as the war drew to a close. We find out about the journey of millions of newly freed people toward citizenship. And we hear about the spiritual faith that enabled them to hang on — against past horrors and the new hostility they would endure: the terrorist backlash against emancipation including the Ku Klux Klan, which arose in this period.

Last month Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 337 into law. It limits the ability of local governments to raise impact fees, the primary tool local governments use to finance required infrastructure for new developments. Critics argue that the bill will place the burden of paying for a developers’ needed infrastructure, like roads, water treatment facilities, emergency and fire services onto taxpayers.