If one has not experienced prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping personally, it can be difficult to see an environment that perpetuates bias toward others.

The first step toward creating a welcoming and equitable space is to start with self-examination.

Angell Howard is an educator and business consultant.  In this episode she discusses identifying cultural biases, understanding and addressing microaggressions, and talking about racism.

View the transcript here.

Equity across the healthcare industry doesn't end with access.  Patients can be marginalized by practices that don't acknowledge the complete picture of an individual's situation or background.

Efforts are being made to educate practitioners to recognize barriers to quality care for vulnerable populations.  In this episode, a health care professional, and a patient advocate discuss gaps in addressing gender diversity, LGBTQ+ identities, and historically marginalized populations.

View the transcript here.

Sculptor Emma Oliver makes knit and crochet techniques to create engaging, and sometimes unlikely works that challenge the viewer to investigate thoughts about boundaries.

In the exhibition “Have Your Cake” the artist’s knit and crochet sculptures depict shapes like multi-tiered cakes, which are designed to surprise with their realistic look while remaining inedible. 

In this podcast, Oliver discusses what inspires her ideas and how she came to sculpt with yarn.

View the transcript here.

Author and sociology professor Cristina Prestin-Beard discusses her effort to take lessons from her life–warts and all–to help others gain perspective with her unique memoir "Finding Mercy in the Madness."

View the transcript here.

The documentary film 'San Isidoro 2021' shows a typical day during the COVID-19 pandemic at a public high school in Seville, Spain.  As staff and students work to simply teach and learn, the pandemic challenges many regular tasks. 

Director Carlos Pineda Gonzalez discussed making the film, and what he took away from the simple observation of people trying their best to carry on during a global health crisis.

View the transcript here.

Approximately 400,000 individuals are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Perhaps the most famous of those are soldiers whose names are not known.

The Tomb of the Unknown Solider is the final resting place for a group of servicemen who remain unidentified. The Tomb is guarded 24-7 by a detail of solders who stand long hours and conduct specific rituals.

Matt Kreeb served served as a Tomb guard for over three years. His service was interrupted in a surprising way. He says his experiences at the Tomb resonate with him even today.

View the transcript here.

Joking around at work might not sound like it would help with productivity, but members of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor beg to differ.

The president of the AATH says that research shows a little humor in the workplace goes a long way.  he key is knowing the right (and wrong) way to inject the funny into the workday.

View the transcript here.

Between 1977 and 2011, 298 men and women were sentenced to the Illinois death row. 20 of those individuals were exonerated when new evidence, or a new look with DNA analysis, proved them to be wrongfully convicted.

Attorneys with the Illinois Innocence Project discuss how people can become wrongfully convicted, and the efforts made to free those serving time for crimes they did not commit.

John Hanlon and Steven Beckett with the Illinois Innocence Project will speak at the Heartland Community College "Hawk Talks" event on April 21.

Artists often use their work to create a conversation about their environment, their innermost feelings, or concerns.  In some places, such attempts at speech are silenced. 

An Iranian artist speaks about her work, and the work of other women who face barriers not only of government censorship but even of self-censorship.

View the transcript here.

Landscape painter Douglas Johnson's exhibit "A Sense of Place" collects an array of midwestern scenes.  Some of the subject matter may seem modest: autumn farm fields and grain elevators; a laundromat or an abandoned auto repair station.

Yet Johnson says the paintings that depict familiar locations near his home town are met with moments when the light plays against the subjects and evokes mood and story.

View the transcript here.