Simpson's softball team doesn't just excel on the field — it's in the Top 10 of all college softball programs in the country when it comes to academic achievement. The 30 members of the Storm's squad had an average GPA of 3.68, tied for fourth in the nation in a poll conducted by the American Fastpitch Coaches Association. (And that bastion of academic rigor, MIT, came in fifth!) This week, Coach Brent Matthias and scholar-athletes Emily Bell and Camrey Leo come on the podcast to talk about balancing the demands placed on them on the field and in the classroom.

About 40 percent of Simpson students are in the first generation of their families to attend college — meaning neither of their parents completed a four-year degree. That can present unique challenges for first-generation students who are learning to navigate not just the college classroom, but the whole culture of undergraduate life. In this week's episode, Simpson's Marzia Corni-Benson, Stephanie Neve and Barb Ramos talk about best practices in helping first-generation students survive and thrive in the college environment.

Simpson graduate Christian Coon '90 is co-founder and lead pastor of Urban Village Church in Chicago. He was back on campus to speak with members of the first-year class about resilience in Failing Without Failure. Coon is the author of Failing Boldly and hosts a podcast by the same name. You can find more information at christiancoon.com. (This episode includes brief usages of adult language.) 

Simpson College welcomed Jackson Katz to campus on Nov. 6 to the deliver the 2019 McBride Lecture. Katz's talk was titled 'The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women & How All Men Can Help.' He is an educator, author, and global thought leader who is renowned for his pioneering scholarship and activism on issues of gender, race and violence. Katz is co-founder of the multiracial, mixed-gender Mentors in Violence Prevention program, one of the longest-running and most widely influential gender violence prevention programs in North America and beyond. 

Simpson students in Multimedia Communication get to practice journalism of statewide impact when they report and write at Iowa Watch, the nonprofit news source that covers public affairs in the Hawkeye State. Suzanne Behnke, the executive director of the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism and an adjunct instructor of Multimedia Communication at Simpson, comes on the podcast this week to talk about her work with Iowa Watch and how it involves student journalists with real journalism that has real impact.

Simpson College announced its $25 million 'Imagine The Impact' comprehensive campaign at Homecoming weekend on Oct. 19, 2020. The campaign aims to transform teaching and learning at Simpson College, and to grow the college's endowment by May 31, 2020. On the podcast this week, Bob Lane, the college's vice president for advancement, talks about the campaign and its goals. For more information on Imagine The Impact — and to participate — go to impactsimpson.com.

This week's edition of the podcast focuses on the 2019 Carver Medal ceremony at Simpson College. This year's winner is is Luther S. Williams, who has provided leadership and dedication to creating opportunities for minorities in the sciences. He has served prominently as the Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation and Chair of the White House Biotechnology Coordinating Committee. His research career provided foundational insights into the properties and cellular regulation aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.

Miguel De La Torre of the Iliff School of Theology delivered the annual Matthew Simpson Lecture on Oct. 10, 2019, speaking on 'Resurrecting a Badass Christianity' before a crowd of more than 100, students, faculty and staff. De La Torre is a professor of social ethics and Latinx studies, and his work centers on how religion affects race, class and gender oppression. His argument at Simpson was a critique of what he calls a 'myopic American Christianity.'

Voting is all the rage — or at least that's what students working with Simpson's John C. Culver Center for Public Policy are wanting to encourage. The good news is that they've had considerable success, making Simpson one of the top colleges in the nation when it comes to encouraging students to turn out to vote. This week on the podcast, Culver fellows Abby Schulte and Levi Lefevbure stop by along with Culver Center Director Seth Andersen to talk about a new Tufts University study that shows huge turnout increases among students at Simpson and nationwide in the 2018 midterm election. The Culver Center students are hoping to see similar upturns in voting in the 2020 and 2022 elections.

Simpson College recently was named Iowa's best online college, and No. 15 nationally, by EDSmart. So Instructional Designer Manda Gibson stops by to talk about growing online prograsm at Simpson. It takes a lot of work for Simpson faculty and staff to convert face-to-face courses to online versions, and it take a new set of skills and mindsets for students to be successful in them. You can learn more about Simpson's online courses and degree programs at: https://simpson.edu/academics/evening-online-programs