💡 Leisurely Conversations with Rob Jackson – Featuring Magatte Wade

Magatte Wade was born in Senegal, educated in France, and launched her entrepreneurial career in San Francisco. She is fluent in and conducts business in Wolof, French and English. Magatte’s current product line, manufactured in Senegal, is skin is skin, a lip balm dedicated to reducing racial discrimination. Her previous companies, Tiossan and Adina, brought Senegalese recipes and ingredients to U.S. markets in skin care and beverages.

Based on her experiences creating consumer brands and building agricultural and manufacturing capacity in Senegal, Magatte has spoken at dozens of universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, etc., as well as at global conferences on innovation and economic development in France, England, Dubai, Guatemala, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Gabon, Senegal and more. She writes for the Huffington Post, Barron’s, and the U.K. Guardian. She is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum at Davos and has appeared on the cover of Forbes Afrique. She was also named one of the “Twenty Young Power Women of Africa” by Forbes U.S.

Magatte’s work was recently profiled in a FEE documentary, “Made in Meckhe” and TED recently released her talk “Why it’s too hard to start a business in Africa – and how to change it”.

💡 Leisurely Conversations with Rob Jackson – Featuring David Bobb

David Bobb from the Bill of Rights Institute sits down with Rob Jackson to discuss the classical education K-12 movement.

David joined the Bill of Rights Institute as president in 2013 and has worked for twenty years at the intersection of civic engagement and education reform.

Having taught courses in American politics and public policy in the history and political science departments of Boston College and Hillsdale College, he was also founding director of a national civic education program for high school teachers at Hillsdale College, as well as the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Studies, in Washington, D.C. David has designed online educational programs used by more than half a million participants and is a nationally-recognized proponent of civic education that engages the hearts and minds of students. Author of Humility: An Unlikely Biography of America’s Greatest Virtue (HarperCollins, 2013), David has written for the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company, among many other publications. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Boston College, where he received fellowships from the Pew, Earhart, and Bradley Foundations.

💡 Leisurely Conversations with Rob Jackson – Featuring Carol Reynolds

Professor Carol Reynolds is a uniquely talented and much sought-after public speaker for arts venues and general audiences. She combines her insights on music history, arts, and culture with her passion for arts education to create programs and curricula, inspire concert audiences, and lead arts tours. Never dull or superficial, Carol brings to her audiences a unique mix of humor, substance, and skilled piano performance to make the arts more accessible and meaningful to all.

Carol has led arts tours to Russia, Poland, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, San Francisco, and Broadway on behalf of several arts organizations and has recently teamed with Smithsonian Journeys for cruises to the Holy Land, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Baltic Sea, Indian Ocean, and across the Atlantic. Her enthusiasm and boundless energy give tour participants an unforgettable experience.

For more than 20 years, Carol was Associate Professor of Music History at the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

She now makes her home in North Carolina and maintains a second residence in Weimar, Germany — the home of Goethe, Schiller, Bach, and Liszt, and the focal point of much of Europe’s artistic heritage.

💡 Leisurely Conversations with Rob Jackson – Featuring David Diener

Dr. David Diener began his formal post-secondary education at Wheaton College where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Philosophy and Ancient Languages. After putting his philosophical training to work by building custom cabinets and doing high-end finish carpentry for an Amish company, he moved with his wife to Bogotá, Colombia, where they served as missionaries for three years at a Christian international school.

He then attended graduate school at Indiana University where he earned an M.A. in Philosophy, an M.S. in History and Philosophy of Education, and a dual Ph.D. in Philosophy and Philosophy of Education. He has taught at The Stony Brook School and Taylor University and has served as Head of Upper Schools at Covenant Classical School in Fort Worth, TX, and Head of School at Grace Academy in Georgetown, TX. He currently works at Hillsdale College where he is the Headmaster of Hillsdale Academy and a Lecturing Professor of Education. He also is an Alcuin Fellow, serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Classical Learning and the Board of Academic Advisors for the Classical Learning Test, and offers consulting services through Classical Academic Press. He is the author of Plato: The Great Philosopher-Educator and serves as the series editor for Classical Academic Press’ series Giants in the History of Education. The Dieners have four wonderful children and are passionate about classical education and the impact it can have on the church, our society, and the world.