The Perkins Platform

Emmy-winning filmmaker, author, activist and son of civil rights icon, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, Loki Mulholland, joins us to discuss his amazing work. Loki’s work has received over 40 Telly Awards and his films on race and social justice issues have won 20 Best Documentary awards. His first book, "She Stood For Freedom" was nominated for the 2017 Amelia Bloomer Award. His films have appeared on Showtime, PBS and Amazon where “The Uncomfortable Truth” has been viewed over two million times. Loki is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated and speaks all over the country on issues of race and social justice. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation which was created to end racism through education. Tune in on Wednesday, December 14 @ 6pm EST!

Credentialed Leadership Development Coach, Trainer, and Founder of Tajan Renderos Coaching, LLC, Tajan B. Renderos joins us to share her thoughts about the 9 HabitsThat Lead to Successful 1:1 Meetings. Tajan helps companies integrate a coaching approach to management for their leaders so they can easily navigate the most challenging parts of people management, such as conflict and tough conversations with ease, utilizing workshops, coaching,and  consulting. She has managed national training centers, served as a former Equity Director at JSI, and conducted trainings for companies including Twitter, Cooley, LLP, Intel and others. She's coached hundreds of clients based on her proprietary MCDC framework, and has been featured in Thrive Global, Modern Health, Noomii, and TEDx BU. (www.tajanrenderos.com; LinkedIN). Tune in on Wednesday, December 7 @ 6pm EST!

Join us for the 2nd installment in a yearlong exploration of world religions on Weds, November 30 @ 6pm EST.  This is a conversation with writer, educator, and activist Dr. Simran Jeet Singh to discuss Sikhism and his new book, The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. Dr. Singh is the executive director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion and Society Program, a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, a Senior Adviser on Equity and Inclusion for YSC Consulting, and a Visiting Professor at Union Seminary. In his work and contemplative talks, he offers a fresh approach to ethical living—one in which love, caring, and service go hand-in-hand with personal happiness. He shares the skills and insights that kept him engaged in his commitment to activism, and how to use compassion as the antidote to anger, self-pity, or social justice burnout.

Join us on Monday, November 21 @ 6pm EST for an informative conversation discussing strategies on teaching structural racism in schools with Ayo Magwood. Ayo is an educational consultant (Uprooting Inequity LLC), specializing in in-depth, evidence-based education on historical and structural racism. Her presentations include primary and secondary historical evidence, data, quantitative maps, research studies and original diagrams/images. She breaks down grad-school-level social science research, data, and abstract concepts into engaging narratives and visuals. She is also working on her book ProEquity: Teaching Honest, Appreciative, and Civic-Minded U.S. History.  Ayo has a B.A. in economics and international relations from Brown University and a M.Sc. in applied economics from Cornell University. She is the author of the book chapter “Why ‘Elite’ Independent Schools Can’t Retain Black and Brown Faculty” in K. Swalwell & D. Spikes (Eds.) Anti-Oppressive Education in “Elite” Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales, 2021, and co-author of the article “Using Conceptual Tensions and Supreme Court Cases to Increase Critical Thinking in Government and Civics Classrooms”, in Social Education Vol. 77 No. 4, Sep 2013.

Assistant professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, Chenhao Tan joins us to share his research on language and persuasion. Chenhao obtained his PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University and bachelor's degrees in computer science and in economics from Tsinghua University. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, he was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and a postdoc at the University of Washington. His research interests include human-centered AI, natural language processing, and computational social science. His work has been covered by many news media outlets, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also won an NSF CAREER award, an NSF CRII award, a Google research scholar award, a Salesforce research award, an Amazon research award, a Facebook fellowship, and a Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges award.

Educator, author, Tedx speaker and co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), Zoe Weil, joins us to share her thoughts about making the world what we teach. IHE is where she created the first graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, The World Becomes What You Teach. She is the author of seven books including #1 Amazon best seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine’s 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award. Tune in on Wednesday, November 2 @ 6pm EST!

Join us on Wednesday, October 26 @ 6pm EST for an exciting conversation with Ronnie Sidney II, LCSW, on his work, books and experiences as a special education student. Ronnie is a therapist, self-published author, activist, motivational speaker, and business owner from Tappahannock, VA. He is a 2014 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Social Work master's program. In 2017, Ronnie became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has spent nearly 15 years in the mental health field. He released Amazon bestseller Nelson Beats the Odds in 2015, a semi autobiographical comic book about his experiences in special education. He went on to self-publish Tameka's New Dress, Rest in Peace RaShawn Reloaded, Educators Guide to the Nelson Beats the Odds Series and Nelson Beats the Odds Activity Guide. After being blessed with three beautiful daughters, Sidney and his wife are awaiting the arrival of his first son in February!

Join us on Wednesday, October 19 @ 7pm EST for a special episode discussing on-screen representation and why it matters with a panel of diverse voices and special guest, Kiersten Adams. Kiersten is a Philadelphia-based freelance journalist and creative writer whose work centers Black culture and experience at the intersections of the natural and unnatural world. As a journalist and creative writer Kiersten has written for The Philadelphia Tribune, Grid Philly, Salty Mag, Carefree Black Girl, Midnight & Indigo, and more! Interested in media, entertainment, pop-culture, Kiersten is concerned with how Black entertainment will impact the larger cultural zeitgeist. When she isn’t writing she’s wandering the woods of Philly’s Wissahickon, listening to Sun Ra, and re-reading Blood Child by Octavia Butler. Also, on the panel, Arin Perkins (Univ of Utah Law School) and Tony Shade (Univ of Utah Graduate School) who will share their work and experiences advocating for representation in US graduate and professional schools.

Join us on Thursday, October 13 @ 6pm EST for an informative conversation on racial discourse in schools with research scientist, Camilla Mutoni Griffiths, and developmental and social psychology Ph.D. student, Nicky Sullivan.

Camilla Mutoni Griffiths is a research scientist at Stanford SPARQ - a “do tank” that brings researchers and practitioners together to reduce disparities using behavioral science. She studies how our interactions with American institutions contribute to our racial attitudes and biases. Griffiths also received her Ph.D. in social psychology from Stanford.

Nicky Sullivan is a Ph.D. student in developmental and social psychology at Stanford University. In his research he explores how families have conversations about race and racism, and what the consequences of those conversations are for children. His current research focuses specifically on how to encourage White families to have more frequent and effective conversations about race and racism.

Author, licensed clinical psychologist, executive coach, and organizational consultant, David C. Tate, joins us to discuss his new book, Conscious Accountability: Deepen Connections, Elevate Results. David is the co-founder and CEO of Conscious Growth Partners, a consultancy that focuses on helping organizations thrive through better leadership, teamwork, and culture. He is on the faculty at Yale University in the schools of medicine and management, where he teaches leadership courses within graduate and executive education programs. He coaches global leaders within the Yale Greenberg World Fellows Program. David received a BS from Cornell University and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia. He completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University before joining the faculty.