In this episode, we speak to Christa Barfield, founder of FarmerJawn, about urban agriculture, local sourcing, food deserts, and sustainability.
This conversation was recorded in March 2022, and my apologies to Christa and our listeners that it’s taken so long to edit and post this episode!
Christa Barfield is an entrepreneur and founder of FarmerJawn, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) business, which follows regenerative farming practices that concentrate on soil health and increasing access to organic food to marginalized communities. She’s a lifelong Philadelphian and a graduate a George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science and St. Joseph’s University. After a decade in health-care administration she founded Viva Leaf Tea, dedicated to providing high quality, healthful tea with traceable and local origins. These efforts that have grown into a CSA with two greenhouses in Elkins Park and plots in Roxborough and a storefront, FarmerJawn Greenery in Mount Airy.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
Ellen Hwang is the Philadelphia Director at the Knight Foundation. Previously, she was with the City’s Office of Innovation and Technology, overseeing the creation of SmartCityPHL, a roadmap guiding the use of technology in serving the community and improving services. Ellen also directed programs at the Asian Arts Initiative, collaborating with artists, cultural organizations, and schools to develop and implement youth programs to engage them in arts and community development projects. She is a regular speaker on topics such as Smart Cities, community-driven technology planning and design, and engagement strategies for local government. She has presented at prominent events including SXSW, the Smart City New York Conference, and Tech Foundations for Congressional Staffers at the Georgetown University Law Center. Ellen grew up in Greater Philadelphia and has Bachelors and Masters degrees from Temple University.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
In this episode, we speak to Rob Cottman, Executive Chef and Director of Food & Beverage at World Cafe Live, about how restaurants and food service have adapted to the challenges of the pandemic.
Chef Rob Cottman’s road to professional kitchens was driven by an entrepreneurial spirit when a unique opportunity presented itself to operate his own restaurant. After selling his first establishment, he decided to return to the basics and climb the ranks in established kitchens. Absorbing every ounce of knowledge around him, he accepted a position at World Cafe Live’s former location in his hometown of Wilmington, DE and spent years covering all aspects of the business from large scale a la carte service to formal catered dinners to specialty pairing menus. Now as the Executive Chef and Director of Food & Beverage at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Rob is responsible for the dining experience of over 100,000 guests a year, overseeing service in two spaces daily and over 200 catered events annually while playing an integral role in the next stages of the organization’s development.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
In this episode, we speak to Donald Nally, music director of The Crossing, Philadelphia’s Grammy-award winning chamber choir, about creating choral performances through the pandemic and the process of “musical journalism”, to capture and reflect our times.
Donald Nally collaborates with creative artists, leading orchestras, and art museums to make new works for choir that address social and environmental issues. He has commissioned over 125 works and, with his ensemble The Crossing, has produced over 25 recordings, with two Grammy Awards and six nominations. His 60-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, gained national attention and was featured in The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR’s Performance Today; it has been archived by The Library of Congress as a cultural artifact as an “important part of this collection and the historical record.” Donald has served as chorus master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Recent projects have taken him to London, Osaka, Cleveland, Boston, Edmonton, Houston, Helsinki, Haarlem, Riga, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Donald is professor of conducting at Northwestern University.
There are some minor glitches and dropouts in this episode. Our apologies to Donald and our audience for the audio issues, but it’s still well worth a listen!
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
In this episode, we speak to Sarah Williams of Opera Philadelphia about creating and commissioning new work amidst the pandemic and developing what is essentially a new genre of short operatic films.
Sarah Williams is the Director of New Works & Creative Producer at Opera Philadelphia. Since 2014, she has cultivated 15 award-winning world premieres, numerous co-commissions and creative works, making the company an industry leader in producing new work for the physical and digital space. In continuing to expand artistic practice and celebrate the intersection of the arts, Sarah champions digital experiences including creating the digital commission series in which the New York Times said, “One of the great treasures of the pandemic has been Opera Philadelphia’s digital shorts.” She’s been widely recognized as a multidisciplinary leader and producer who in 2020 was named one of Philadelphia Business Journal’s Women of Distinction. In 2019 Sarah was named among the top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America. Sarah serves on the board of American Composers Forum and the executive board of Young Women Composers Camp, is a member of New Opera Dialogues, and a mentor for Utopia Arts.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
In this episode, we speak to Lisa Nelson-Haynes about adapting Philadelphia Young Playwright’s creative education program to online learning and the ways young people have found to express themselves in response to the pandemic.
Lisa Nelson-Haynes is the Executive Director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights (PYP), where she helps young people discover their potential through the art of the play. PYP is currently in 43 schools, throughout Philadelphia, Delaware and Montgomery counties, and in 92 classrooms with students in grades 2 – 12. Lisa is an award-winning storyteller and teacher and has facilitated digital storytelling workshops for Storycenter for more than ten years. She is the executive producer of Mouthful, a Philly-based podcast that digs into the experiences and perspectives of young people to start conversations about big ideas and important issues.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
In this episode, we speak to museum leader Sean Kelley about the challenges for cultural sites wrought by the pandemic, but also the opportunities for expanding audiences through mission-driven innovation.
Sean Kelley is Senior Vice President and Director of Interpretation at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia. He produced the site’s award-winning audio tour, now heard by more than a million visitors, and has curated more than 100 site-specific artist installations in the building. He conceived and developed The Big Graph, a 16-foot infographic sculpture that illustrates the skyrocketing US Rate of Incarceration, and curated the companion exhibit Prisons Today: Questionsin the Age of Mass Incarcerationwhich won the 2017 Overall Award for Excellence from the American Alliance of Museums. From 2017 to 2019 he oversaw “Hidden Lives Illuminated,” a project which resulted in 20 original films made by currently incarcerated individuals and projected them for a month onto Eastern State Penitentiary’s façade.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
We’re approaching the return of large conferences and festivals, in person. Yes, the Delta variant is causing concerns and we’re all monitoring the return of schools & colleges closely, but I think everyone hopes to return to in-person events (safely) in the coming weeks and months.
B.PHL 2021
I’ve been a planning partner for the B.PHL Innovation Festival since it started in 2019. Last year was all-virtual, but this fall (fingers crossed) the B.PHL program will be hosted at an in-person venue in the city and also available for streaming (and could move to all-virtual, if necessary). The full festival program will be available soon, but I can assure you there will be some fantastic sessions featuring local creatives, innovators, change makers, and celebrities. Free virtual tickets, with access to all sessions, are available until August 15 (and afterwards they increase to $20), so register now!
SXSW 2022
In 2020, SXSW (held annually in Austin, TX) was among the first large-scale events to be cancelled due to COVID-19. This enormous conference & festival plans its in-person return in March 2022, highlighting the most important breakthroughs in education, technology, film, culture, and music. Given the organizers’ belief that “the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together”, you can see why I’m a fan.
The planning for SXSW 2022 is well underway, and this is the time when anyone can vote on proposed sessions. In the PanelPicker process, public votes weight 30% in the selection criteria. With Drexel colleagues Kareem Edouard and Chris Wright, I had planned to present a session at the cancelled 2020 conference. We’ve revised this proposal for 2022, adding the amazing Prof. Rasheda Likely of Kennesaw State University (and Drexel School of Education PhD alum) to our team. Our session proposal is “Building an Inclusive Maker Community”, and I humbly ask that you read our session description and vote for its inclusion in the program. Voting is open through August 26!
Thank you for considering our SXSW EDU 2022 session proposal. Let us hope all our in-person plans for this academic year can be realized!
(Socially) Distant Creations
The TikTok Medley [Penn Masala] Fantastic audio and video production in this medley of international hits, new & old, presented TikTok style by the “World’s First South Asian A Cappella Group”. Great group of students from the other U. across the street!
AAPI Representation in American Musical Theater [CollaborAzian] A discussion of AAPI representation on the musical theatre stage, and the future for AAPI theatre artists in the industry as we emerge from the pandemic, while still fighting for racial justice and contending with the rise of anti-Asian hate and violence. Part of a fundraiser for Stop AAPI Hate.
Deep River [VOCES8 & Chineke!] From the Live from London 2021 Summer Festival, just a beautiful performance and arrangement of this classic spiritual. The festival continues through the end of August.
Anita Baker Medley [Kings Return] Just 4 guys harmonizing in a stairwell… back with another great performance of hits by R&B giant Anita Baker.
Dear Evan Hansen in 10 Minutes [Titled Keyboard Studios] Wow. Amazing performers and a cappella arrangements in this abridged version of the hit musical. Just an incredible effort to put this together! (I’m also eagerly awaiting the movie version coming out in September.)
Co-host Melinda Steffy and I will be taking a summer break from podcasting, but we’ll be back in September with more guests from Philly’s creative community!
In this episode, we speak to science & technology writer and editor Michelle Sipics about changes in work culture, the challenge of communicating complex topics, and opportunities for mentoring Philadelphia youth.
Michelle Sipics is a science writer and editor with a focus on technology, its applications, and its implications across society. She started her career as an engineer and continues to bring an engineering mindset to her professional and personal pursuits. Michelle has also worked as a contributing editor for a professional mathematics society; content developer for the History of Vaccines website from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; news director for Yale’s school of engineering and applied science; director of content for a privacy-focused startup; and shopping cart chaser for a grocery chain. She draws on these and all of her varied career experiences for perspective on a daily basis. Michelle has a particular interest in education in all its forms, and currently serves on the board of Philadelphia Futures, a non-profit that serves low income, first-generation-to-college students in Philadelphia. She is currently the editorial lead for Accenture Technology Innovation.
Listen here or subscribe
Direct subscription links for your preferred podcast player
A few weeks ago, I asked: After a year of remote learning, what can we take back into the classroom? Here’s another thought on that topic.
As Instructors, we are predisposed to make things appear easy, for a variety of reasons. One is simply as a motivational tactic… we tell students “it’s not hard” (even when it is), to try to avoid early frustration and discouragement. If we make it sound easy, maybe it won’t be as hard for them. But the more common reason is that an experienced teacher has taught the material many times before. As with all things, mastery of the material does make it feel “easy”, even when it’s not. And I think we internalize that feeling and sometimes forget that a topic or concept is not easy at all.
Over the past year, instructors facing teaching online experienced the opposite: the enormous difficulty of creating instructional videos or other digital content. All of us (students and instructors) have access to an incredible amount of high quality learning content on YouTube, and let’s be honest, YouTube is the primary source of learning content for our students. I don’t mean that these videos are misleading, rather that both the amount and the quality reinforces the notion that they are easy to produce. There’s usually a high degree of technical, pedagogical, and video production experience that goes into creating a well-crafted learning video.
It’s also true that it’s never been easier to be a digital content creator. I’m not referring the common reaction to the latest TikTok: “That got a million views? Hmph, anyone could do that!”. But making a good video no longer requires a big studio and lots of expensive equipment… You really can do it with your phone and a laptop. There’s a huge industry of tutorials and how-to videos to show us just how EASY it is to make content: videos, music, apps, etc. So, it’s never been easier, but that doesn’t make it easy. It’s an entirely different skill set from creating a good classroom lecture or in-person activity. And it takes an enormous investment of time and practice to become proficient. Anyone who took on this challenge last year had to learn many new skills.
The forced shift in perspective from the past year could benefit our students (and improve our teaching) as we start preparing for a new academic year, whether in-person (fingers crossed!) or online. Too often, we forget that education is not a simple or automatic process. It’s difficult to teach and learn new material at any level in any circumstance. Lean into your experiences with online and digital content creation to let go of the idea that learning should be easy. It’s not, and sometimes it’s really hard. Instead, let’s embrace the degree of difficulty, emphasizing the challenging but rewarding nature of learning for our students. I believe that’s something truly useful we can take away from the last year.
(Socially) Distant Creations
Why Aren’t You Making Math Videos? [3Blue1Brown] If you’re interested in making great learning videos, here are tips from one of the best (Grant Sanderson). He’s also launching a “Summer of Math Exposition” contest for math learning videos (deadline August 22).
Butter [VoicePlay, featuring Deejay Young & Cesar De La Rosa] I dare you to sit still through this a cappella cover of BTS’ mega-hit!
Helium Life Jacket [VOCES8 with Elsa Bradley & Calie Hough] A beautiful ambient vocal arrangement and performance of this piece, originally by composer Slow Meadow (Matt Kidd), shot in super widescreen.
007 Theme [MayTree] Like many, I’m eagerly awaiting the new Bond film. Here’s another great rendition by this Korean a cappella group.
Creating at a Distance 