Getting along in life is challenging enough, but the COVID-19 pandemic has placed medical and emotional challenges on all of us. Ellie Olson, Simpson College's associate dean for counseling, health and leadership, is our guest this week to talk about how students, faculty and staff — and, well, everyone — can take better care of their emotional needs. It comes down to three tips that she explains here.

Moodle. Zoom. Zencastr. Kahoot! Panopto — all terms you might not have known even a few weeks ago but are now commonplace at Simpson College, where all instruction has moved online in the time of the coronavirus. Faculty Development Director Kate Lerseth and Instructional Technologist Manda Gibson join the podcast this week to talk about the challenges that the online move have presented Simpson, its faculty and its students. Also in the conversation: How conquering those challenges now will help Simpson be on the forefront of liberal arts education in the future.

The newly named president of Simpson College, Marsha Kelliher, joins us on the podcast to talk about her life, career and plans for when she becomes the 24th president of Simpson College — the first woman to hold the position. Kelliher is now president and CEO of Walsh College in Michigan, an institution for nontraditional learners that focuses on business-related degrees.

Interim President Bob Lane comes on the podcast to talk about Simpson College's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. From moving classes to entirely online delivery to determining how to conduct the Spring 2020 commencement and future athletic seasons, the outbreak has presented challenges for all at Simpson. Bob talks about the immediate responses to COVID-19, along with the college's continuing Imagine The Impact fundraising campaign and the emerging #OneSimpson information campaign to make certain Simpson's sense of community remains in a remote world.

21st Century college students face mental and emotional challenges that previous generations didn't: While students always felt pressure, today's generation faces significant college debt, new social and cultural pressures, and an uncertain global economy when their educations end. Ellie Olson, associate dean of counseling, health and leadership at Simpson College, stops by the podcast to talk about how Simpson's counseling programs have grown and now reach every student on campus.

Dr. Sara Egge of Centre College in Kentucky delivered the 2020 Women in America Lecture at Simpson College on March 4. Egge's talk, 'Radical Women Go To Your Homes: The Fight for Women's Suffrage in Iowa & The Midwest' is part of Simpson's Women's History Month celebration of the centenary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave most American women the right to vote. Egge, a native of South Dakota, is the award-winning author of Woman Suffrage & Citizenship in the Midwest, 1870-1920.

March is Women's History Month at Simpson College and around the nation, and the college will use the month to celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage in the United States. Simpson's Women's and Gender Studies director, Maeve Callan, stops by the podcast to talk about WHM at Simpson along with how W&GS fits into the larger liberal arts mission of the college.

Simpson women's basketball coach Brian Niemuth recently passed 600 career victories, making him one of the winningest coaches in the nation. He's in his 33rd season guiding the Storm, with only two losing seasons in that run. Brian stops by the podcast to talk about passing this important milepost in his career, his recruiting and coaching philosophies, and why the wins are far from the most important thing he wants to achieve on the basketball court.

Simpson not only played host to several Democratic and Republican presidential candidates during the run-up to the 2020 Iowa political caucuses, it also provide an insight into American presidential politics for more than 30 faculty and students from Australia's Adelaide University. This week's podcast features interviews with Adelaide faculty member Tom Buchanan and two of the students who spent several days at Simpson mixing with candidates and attending the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

STEM education — Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics — are a major part of the Simpson program in the liberal arts, and this edition of the podcast brings two outstanding professors to the program. Heidi Berger is a faculty member in mathematics, and Jackie Brittingham is a professor of biology and head of the Division of Natural Sciences. They talk about the role of STEM education at Simpson