👨‍🏫 Lectures from the Institute: Wilfred McClay

One month ago, we gathered in Phoenix for the 2nd annual National Classical Education Symposium, where we explored “The Historian’s Craft and the Art of Teaching History.” One of our informants, Dr. Wilfred McClay, was delighted by the conversation we hosted and the colleagues we invited. McClay’s new book, Land of Hope, was the general topic for his talk, as he shared with us the historian’s perspective on writing history–a discipline that unites the science of historical observations with the art of story-telling.

Today we are launching the first of more than two dozen videos from Symposium 2020, interspersed with some from Symposium 2019 (with its topic of literature and the pedagogy of seminars). So, today we will begin with McClay’s lecture.

💡 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.