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Project Syncere: Diversifying the population of people who enter the STEM fields is a matter of access, education, and recruitment. Executive Director of Project Syncere, a non-profit that is trying to tackle this issue, Jason Coleman, tells us how they’re getting it done.
Obit of the Day: Personal Note
May is National Foster Care Month. I note this because Mrs. OOTD and I are foster parents. We began doing foster care in December 2008 and have had six children over that time. We adopted our son, Jamari, in 2011 and are on the way to adopting our three daughters sometime this year.
Note: We also have a biological son, Andrew, who is the oldest of our five.
I don’t write this for compliments. I write this to ask you think about foster care. FInd out more about it. Ask questions. Get information.
Yes it’s hard. Why does everything have to be easy? And what’s harder, being a foster parent or being a foster child? (Hint: Not the parent)
I know not everyone is suited to be a foster parent but many who are don’t explore it. They are afraid of the children. They are afraid of the children’s biological parents. They are afraid of the process. They are afraid of attaching to a child and having her return home. (We’ve done that, twice.) They are afraid of not attaching to the child.
I’m afraid of children spending their entire lives as wards of the state and aging out of the system at the age of 18 with no real family. With no place to call home. With no parents to call when they need advice or help. With no one to meet their boyfriend or girlfriend. With no family to come to graduation. With no family to call when they need help.
And doesn’t everyone deserve to have a family?
If you have questions, I am happy to answer any, especially regarding questions on foster care in the state of Illinois. Just ask.
And also check out the site for National Foster Care Month.
Thanks for your time.
Garland Gantt, 47, has been a vendor for 12 years and already has a table set up next to the Green Line station.
“I sell snow cones, chips, pop, bottled belts, purses, watches, you name it and I probably sell it,” Gantt, a Bronzeville resident, said Tuesday as he waited on customers. “I definitely expect to do more business starting Sunday. Unlike other vendors selling limited items like water, socks and towels, I sell a variety of things and I even accept credit cards.”
Indeed, as customers walked to the corner of 55th Street and Calumet Avenue Tuesday, some paid with their debit cards.
“As long as you are spending $5 you can use your card with me,” added Gantt. “And yes, I do have a peddler’s license to sell.”
“Downwardly mobile doesn’t necessarily mean that your parents are paying your rent. But it does come with a certain set of expectations. Most of these people are educated - most of these people thought that they were going to get an awesome job out of college and now all of a sudden they’re either living with their parents, or they’re living with five roommates and they’re still 30 [ years old], or they’re just not making very much money: they don’t have health insurance, they don’t have a 401K, they don’t have any of these markers of adulthood. When you hear people obsess about Millennials they’re usually talking about downwardly mobile Millennials they’re not talking about the permanent poor. […] The word ‘broke’ kind of connotates not that you’ve been in a family that is in generations worth of poverty. It means that you’re cash poor but you have a certain set of expectations.”
-Nonna Willis-Aronowitz on her latest work concerning the struggle towards employment for the Millennials.
Writers April Scissors and Nona Willis-Aronowitz (a Founding Member of the Council) joined the AMp hosts Brian Babylon and Molly Adams this morning to discuss Nonna’s latest research on how the economy—especially employment rates—has yet to turn up for young people. If you’re interested in knowing more about the downwardly mobile Millennials, check out Nonna’s article published on the Atlantic Cities.
It’s graduation season and intern Erica DeAngelis is in the studio talking about a commencement controversy at Boston College.
Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley is boycotting Boston College’s graduation ceremony because of who the commencement speaker is: Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny. Kenny supporting new legislation that allows Irish physicians to perform emergency abortion procedures only in cases when the life of the mother is in immediate danger. Erica talks with hosts Molly Adams and Brian Babylon and fellow interns Maggie Dziubek and Gillian McGhee, about whether Cardinal O’Malley’s actions help the pro-life movement or are just a distraction.
Then, everyone goes around to discuss who their all-time commencement speaker choice would be (spoiler: someone’s includes the Nutty Professor).
THE INTERNS HAVE TAKEN OVER FEMINIST WEDNESDAY!
Gillian McGhee, Maggie Dziubek, and Erica DeAngelis came prepared with some discussions of their own. In Gillian’s segment, we take a look at a video dubbed “The Ted Talk that Might Make Every Man a Feminist.” It has been getting a lot of hype on various social media platforms. Brian, Molly, and the interns discuss why it has received so much attention, its shortcomings, and the valid points speaker Jackson Katz makes about sexism and rape culture in the US.
“He tries to make it gender neutral, but is also like ‘Let’s be real about who commits these crimes…’ This is a human issue, we all live on this planet together.” —Molly Adams on “Violence and Silence” TedxTalk.
The interns are coming, the interns are coming!
Maggie Dziubek, Gillian McGhee and Erica DeAngelis have taken over the Morning AMp. With their Jedi masters hosts Molly Adams and Brian Babylon sticking around as guides, the intern crew is in the studio for a very full hour of Feminist Wednesday.
In this segment, Maggie Dziubek revisits two stories from previous Feminist Wednesdays with updates and further discussion. First, checking in with the Steubenville rape trial as a Grand Jury gathers evidence at a digital forensics company, a possibly involved head football coach has a contract renewed and girls who wrote so-called ‘bad tweets’ about the victim are charged with ‘telecommunications harassment’.
Then, an exploration of radical parenting techniques in the digital age. How do parents effectively discipline their young kids online? The interns had an issue with Brian’s take on a Dayton man who whipped his daughters for posting ‘twerking’ videos online. A similarly extreme, but more creative and not physically harmful approach comes from the YouTube-famous ‘laptop Dad’.
Intern Takeover:
(via thatcuriouslove)
