KQED's Forum

In the 1970s, two female professors at Oberlin College coined the phrase “imposter phenomenon” to capture that feeling of intense self doubt and fear of being discovered as a fraud in the workplace. Their published paper on the topic has since spawned an industry of seminars, self-help, and empowerment. And while today, it feels like everyone suffers from “imposter syndrome,” some experts argue that people should not be saddled with a deficit model that labels them as “imposters.” We’ll talk about imposter syndrome and hear from you: Have you ever felt like a fraud?

Guests:

Jodi-Ann Burey, writer and speaker - Burey is the co-author, of the Harvard Business Review article "Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome"

Leslie Jamison, author and essayist - Jamison wrote the recent New Yorker article "Not Fooling Anyone" about imposter syndrome. She is also the author of "The Empathy Exams" and an essay collection, "Make It Scream, Make It Burn," among other books.

Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin, psychologist - Orbe-Austin is the co-author of "Own Your Greatness: Overcome Imposter Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life.

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Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate, has announced she's not seeking re-election in 2024. Many Californians hail her accomplishments in gun safety, environmental protection and her trailblazing role for women in public office. Yet at a time when her approval rating has hit an all-time low, some say the announcement is coming far too late. We'll hear your reflections on Feinstein's political career.

Guests:

Scott Shafer, senior editor for KQED’s California Politics and Government desk and co-host of Political Breakdown

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Long before the pandemic, hospitals and their services were under strain. But throughout the state, some hospitals are now at risk of closing for good, which would leave thousands of Californians without basic access to healthcare. In many rural counties, local community hospitals are the only option for both primary care and life-saving emergency services. The abrupt closure of Madera County’s only such hospital is the first in what could become a string of hospital closures, requiring remaining facilities to pick up more patients at a time when staff and resources are stretched thin. We’ll talk about this vulnerability in California’s healthcare system and what is being done to remedy it.

Guests:

Kristof Stremikis, director of market analysis and insight, California Health Care Foundation

Carmela Coyle, President & CEO, California Hospital Association - CHA represents the interests of more than 400 hospitals and health systems in California.

Glenn Melnick, health economist, professor and director, Center for Health Financing, Policy and Management, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California

Luis Abrishamian, attending physician, Department of Emergency Medicine, Providence Torrance

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In January 2020, Atlantic senior editor John Hendrickson wrote an article about Joe Biden’s stutter. Like Biden, Hendrickson has a stutter. And while stuttering wasn’t something that Hendrickson hid, it wasn’t something he liked to talk about either. But the viral response to his piece led Hendrickson to reconsider how to talk and think about his stutter. His relationship with stuttering and its impacts, both good and bad, on his life, are the focus of his new book, “Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter.” We talk to Hendrickson, and hear from you: Has your life been affected by a stutter, yours or someone else’s?

This segment originally aired Jan. 17, 2023.

Guests:

John Hendrickson , Author, "Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter" - Hendrickson is a senior editor with Atlantic magazine.

Courtney Byrd, Professor, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Texas at Austin - Byrd is also the founder and executive director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research

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Singer and songwriter Valerie June defies genre – she can be a little country and a little rock and roll and there’s also folk, blues, soul, Appalachian and a sound that’s downright ethereal. But her music is all her own, she’s called it, "organic moonshine roots music," and it’s beautiful. She joins us to play a few songs on her banjolele and to talk about her latest album "The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers," her West Tennessee roots, her poems and her new children’s book, "Somebody to Love."

This segment originally aired Dec. 7, 2022.

Guests:

Valerie June, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist; author of the new children's book "Somebody to Love" - and a recent book of poetry, "Maps for the Modern World"

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Many of life’s very biggest decisions – should I quit my job? Should we move in together? Is it time to get pregnant? Divorce? Retire? – are at the crossroads of money and love. We don’t learn how to navigate either in school. Unless you happened to take labor economist Myra Strober’s class on work and family at Stanford. Now she and one of her former students, Abby Davisson, have written a book about how to approach life’s biggest quandaries. We talk with Strober and Davisson about “Money and Love: An Intelligent Roadmap for Life’s Biggest Decisions”.

Guests:

Myra Strober, coauthor, "Money and Love;" labor economist and Professor Emerita at the School of Education and Professor Emerita of Economics, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University

Abby Davisson, coauthor, "Money and Love;" a social innovation leader and career development expert

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Every Californian knows that the Big One, that catastrophic magnitude earthquake, is coming. Earthquakes like those in Turkey and Syria, and Mexico City before that, and Haiti even before that, have all offered experts lessons in how to build better. But have we taken those lessons to heart? What more could we be doing in California to strengthen our infrastructure, and if we haven’t done it yet, why not? We’ll talk to experts and a member of the Los Angeles County fire department search and rescue team on the ground in Turkey, and we’ll hear from you: What have you done to prepare your home and yourself for earthquakes?

Guests:

Dr. Lucy Jones, author, "The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them);" founder, the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society; research associate, the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech

Frank Infante, Battalion Chief, Los Angeles County Fire Department. Infante is stationed with the USAID Search & Rescue team in Adiyaman, Turkey

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“Black history,” writes award-winning artist and graphic designer George McCalman, “tends to mean the ten people who are lauded every Black History Month of every Black History Year.” McCalman upends that constricted notion in his most recent book, “Illustrated Black History,” a tribute to 140 pioneering – but sometimes unseen – Black artists, advocates and thinkers who have “sacrificed their lives and livelihoods or forfeited their homes and sanctuaries” in the course of defining American history. We talk to McCalman about those he chose to profile, paint and celebrate.

Guests:

George McCalman, artist, graphic designer and creative director; His most recent book is "Illustrated Black History: Honoring the Iconic and the Unseen"

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Empty storefronts have peppered neighborhoods across San Francisco and the Bay for decades. One stretch of Mission Street, from 19th to 30th streets, has more than 70 commercial vacancies. In the last few years, the pandemic exacerbated the problem as hundreds of small businesses have closed up shop for good. Cities and business owners are grappling with how to bring back foot traffic to support small businesses, but they face a multitude of challenges. We’ll talk about why so many retail spaces remain vacant and whether blight has seeped into your neighborhood.

Guests:

Heather Knight, columnist, San Francisco Chronicle

Sharky Laguana, former president, San Francisco Small Business Commission; founder and CEO, Bandago; founder and CEO, Campago

Ilana Preuss, founder and CEO, Recast City LLC; author, "Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing"

Alice Kim, owner, Joe’s Ice Cream

Ryen Motzek, president, Mission Merchants Association

Michael Gaines, membership secretary, Lower Haight Merchants and Neighbors Association

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California is one of only 10 states that don’t require public elementary schools to screen for dyslexia. But research shows that detection of dylexia's early warning signs can lessen reading challenges for kids down the line. We’ll hear why California has been an outlier and about the renewed push for legislation to mandate early screening. And, with a collective $28.7 million of the past two annual state budgets allocated to UCSF’s Dyslexia Center for research on dyslexia and the development of a new, multilingual and free screening tool, we’ll hear about how the tool works and the latest neuroscientific research.

Guests:

Joe Hong, reporter covering the students, teachers and lawmakers who shape California's public schools, CalMatters - recent article is "Why California still doesn’t mandate dyslexia screening"

Dr. Marilu Gorno Tempini, professor of neurology and psychiatry, UCSF - and co-director of the UCSF Dyslexia Center and the UCSF-UCB Schwab Dyslexia and Cognitive Diversity Center.

https://albalab.ucsf.edu; https://dyslexia.ucsf.edu/

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