KQED's Forum

Mills College, an Oakland institution since 1852, announced Wednesday that it will end its role as a degree granting college. No more students will be admitted, and the last degrees are likely to be awarded no later than 2023. Alexis Madrigal talks to Elizabeth Hillman, president of Mills College, about how declining enrollment, budget deficits, and the COVID-19 pandemic played into the decision and what's next for the school. And if you went to Mills, we want to hear from you. What's your reaction to the end of the college's 169-year run?

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When schools closed about a year ago, graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton started an online show for kids called DrawTogether. MacNaughton knows art is an important way to process feelings and emotions, and she wanted to help parents get kids to do art using screens to get kids off screens and draw. Alex Madrigal talks with MacNaughton about how art can help kids of all ages, and we want to hear from you. What are some of the things you’ve done to encourage your kids to be creative during the pandemic?

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The number of unaccompanied children crossing the U.S. southern border has increased dramatically in recent weeks, overwhelming immigration authorities as well as organizations that house and care for them. The situation is a test for President Joe Biden, who promised a more humane response to immigration than the previous administration. Meanwhile, Republicans such as California Representative Kevin McCarthy criticized the president’s approach as akin to opening the border, a claim many experts refute. Mina Kim talks with Neha Desai, Nick Miroff, and Dianne Solis about the latest news from the border and the political shifts influencing policy.

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Over the past year of on-and-off shelter in place restrictions, so many of us discovered--and in some cases, rediscovered--places that helped us get through those times. A park we had never known about. A room in our home that was rarely used. A path we had walked passed many times before but never traveled upon. What was your pandemic place? Alexis Madrigal talks with journalists Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, co-authors of the forthcoming book, “Until Proven Safe” which examines quarantines from medieval Venice to outer space to reveal new ideas about quarantine.

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Deb Haaland was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior for the Biden administration Monday, making her the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo and a 35th-generation resident of New Mexico, will oversee the management of federal land and natural resources, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Under President Trump, the Department of the Interior rolled back a number of environmental protections and ceded vast amounts of land to commercial exploitation. President Biden has already reversed or paused a number of Trump’s policies and Haaland, who has voiced opposition to fossil fuel drilling and pipelines in the past, says she’ll be “fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land” in her new role. Mina Kim talks about Haaland’s historic confirmation, its cultural significance and the agenda in front of her with Gregory Cajete, professor of Native American Studies and Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies and Joel Clement, senior fellow at the Arctic Initiative.

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Mina Kim talks about the Atlanta killings with Cynthia Choi of Stop AAPI Hate and sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen.

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For people who lived through the AIDS pandemic, Covid-19 felt familiar: a little understood virus was causing a public health crisis, just as HIV had done forty years earlier. In fact, leading HIV researchers like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx ended up on the frontlines of Covid. What other lessons did AIDS teach us, and what can we learn from survivors of the AIDS generation about living with Covid-19 for the long term? Alexis Madrigal talks to a panel of experts and HIV survivors, Dr. Diane Havlir and Jeff Sheehy, to get their thoughts.

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At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, many people looked to the film “Contagion” as a manual for what lay ahead. The movie became a touchstone, and its stars were even enlisted to do a public service announcement about Covid. Now, a year later, the screenwriter of that movie, Scott Burns, along with UCLA epidemiologist Anne Rimoin, join us to talk about what the film got right and what unfolded in real life that they could never have predicted.

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For more than a decade, Americans have been having fewer children. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has intensified the decline. Researchers expect births in the United States to drop by 3.6 percent this year bringing them to their lowest point since 1969. Many people who were considering becoming pregnant last year changed their minds and unplanned pregnancies also likely fell. Mina Kim discuss what is driving down birth rates and what we can expect after the pandemic recedes with senior reporter at Vox, Anna North, associate professor of economics and gender studies Eliana Dockterman, and author of the article, "Women Are Deciding Not to Have Babies Because of the Pandemic. That’s Bad for All of Us" Samhita Mukhopadhyay.

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One year ago Tuesday, the sun rose, people were out and about, but because of the coronavirus --then still called the “novel coronavirus” ­--the Bay Area was on the cusp of the first stay-at-home order in the nation. Public health officers from 6 counties and the City of Berkeley held a press conference, telling millions of people they would need to stay mostly at home for three weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19, then with fewer than 300 known cases across the 7 jurisdictions. Most people probably had no idea that they were in for a year of lockdowns, restrictions, uncertainty and deaths. Alexis Madrigal reflects with Dr. Seema Yasmin and KQED’s Lesley McClurg back on the day it started a year ago, and the seismic changes that followed.

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