21 episodes
Almost There Emerson Collective
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- Society & Culture
On Almost There, a new podcast from Emerson Collective, poet and lawyer Dwayne Betts talks to creative problem solvers—architects, doctors, writers, voyagers, organizers, and artists—about their approach to making meaningful social change. In each episode, we’ll learn about the journeys that have led our guests to the big questions driving their work: How do we keep our families and communities healthy? How do we build a fairer immigration system and promote civic participation? How can we stay alert to the beauty around us and harness human ingenuity to protect our planet? The conversations on Almost There will explore these pressing questions and new possibilities. Produced by Magnificent Noise.
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You can do WHAT with seaweed???
Joan Salwen has a thing for cows. After all, she grew up helping her grandfather tend to the livestock on his farm in Iowa. But as an adult, Joan was shocked to learn that cows are pretty terrible for the environment: they burp huge amounts of methane, a destructive greenhouse gas driving climate change. So she built a company, Blue Ocean Barns, around a surprising solution: making feed with a red seaweed native to Hawaii that dramatically reduces cows’ methane emissions when they eat it in small amounts. It’s an innovation that could make farmers like Joan’s Grandpa Mo heroes in the fight to slow climate change.
In the Season One finale, Joan tells Dwayne about her many professional pivots, from software engineer to middle school English teacher to startup founder; and shares what she’s learned from farmers about how we can all care for our planet. Plus, Joan shares fun facts about cows!
For more on the work of our guest, Joan Salwen: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/joan-salwen
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there-podcast
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com. -
Want to protect democracy? Hug an election official.
Across the U.S., local election administrators are the unsung heroes of democracy, helping to protect our right to vote. But who is protecting them? Scarce resources and increasing threats of violence are causing many in the profession to find new jobs. Fortunately, Tiana Epps-Johnson has big ideas on how to make their jobs easier. Tiana and her nonpartisan organization, Center for Tech and Civic Life, provide local officials in the U.S. with the funding, technology, and training they need to administer secure, modern elections. “We are laser-focused on a vision where our country’s election officials have the funds, tools, and skills they need to administer professional, inclusive, secure elections for all of us,” Tiana says.
In this episode, Tiana reflects on why she considers the 2020 election, which happened in the midst of a global pandemic, so successful; what she has learned about how to help election officials orchestrate successful elections; and what she has learned from her mother and grandmother. Plus, Dwayne reads Tiana his poem, “White Peonies”.
For more on the work of our guest, Tiana Epps-Johnson: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/tiana-epps-johnson
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there.
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com. -
The marvelous connections between poetry and medicine
Sri Shamasunder likes to say he was a poet before he was a doctor. His college mentor, the legendary poet and activist June Jordan, passed away from cancer during his first year of medical school, but had a lasting impact on his practice of medicine. She encouraged him to harness righteous anger and to use his voice to fight inequity, inspiring Shamasunder’s work as a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and as the co-founder and director of the HEAL Initiative, an equity-based global health fellowship that provides quality care for communities in need around the world.
In this episode, Sri and Dwayne discuss the surprising similarities between poetry and medicine; how the HEAL Initiative cultivates “noble friendships” across cultural divides; and the impact of the mentorship of June Jordan and Dr. Paul Farmer on Sri’s life and career. Plus: so much poetry! Poems mentioned in this episode include:
"The Gift" by Li-Young Lee: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43010/the-gift-56d221adc12b8
"To Walk in Beauty Once Again" by Sri Shamasunder (for Adriann Begay, June 2020): https://courtney.substack.com/p/to-walk-in-beauty-once-again
"The Guest House" by Jalaluddin Rumi: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/
"In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver: http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_inblackwaterwoods.html
"Our Daily Bread" by César Vallejo: https://www.scribd.com/document/324203734/Our-Daily-Bread#
"It’s Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean" by June Jordan (poem for Sri Shamasunder): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48759/its-hard-to-keep-a-clean-shirt-clean
For more on the work of our guest, Sri Shamasunder: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/sriram-shamasunder
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there.
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com. -
The anti-slavery roots of America’s public parks
When Hurricane Katrina barreled toward her home stretch of the Gulf Coast, Sara Zewde had not yet decided what she wanted to do professionally. But the aftermath of the storm inspired her to work across ecology, infrastructure, and culture as a landscape architect. Today, she runs Studio Zewde, a landscape-architecture practice based in New York City, and is an assistant professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. As one of just a few Black female landscape architects, she is dedicated to building culturally-responsive spaces where people experience a sense of belonging. “People walk around Central Park, around landscapes, around sidewalks and street corners, and don’t realize they are living in somebody’s design,” she says. “Every single tree, every single path, all the topography – it’s a complete work of fiction.”
In this episode, Sara tells Dwayne about her interest in Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture in the U.S. and the designer of New York’s Central Park, who, she learned, traveled the American South as a journalist and documented the horrors of slavery there – an experience that came to fundamentally shape his approach to park design.
For more on the work of our guest, Sara Zewde: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/sara-zewde
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there.
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com. -
If farmworkers picked the food, shouldn’t they get a seat at the table?
Tonight at dinner, you are likely to eat something that was picked by a farmworker. This is back-breaking work, involving long hours in the hot sun. And yet farmworkers, many of whom are immigrants to the U.S., often do not have basic workplace protections like heat standards or overtime pay. “The cruel irony in this country is that the very people who nourish us often can’t afford to put food on their own table,” says Diana Tellefson Torres. The granddaughter of a migrant worker herself, Diana’s work at the UFW Foundation is helping ensure farmworkers have a voice in the conversation about their labor and their rights.
In this episode, Diana tells Dwayne the story of her own family’s journey to the U.S.; what she has learned from the farmworkers she meets every day; and why we should all know the stories of the people who picked the food on our dinner tables.
For more on the work of our guest, Diana Tellefson Torres: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/diana-tellefson-torres
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there.
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com. -
What the AIDS epidemic taught this nurse about keeping the world healthy
Sheila Davis began her career as a nurse working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Boston. Today, lessons from that experience guide her work as the CEO of Partners In Health, the global health nonprofit with nearly 20,000 people, providing care across 11 countries, from Rwanda to Haiti. Building on the legacy of PIH founder and Sheila’s longtime friend Dr. Paul Farmer, who died unexpectedly in 2022, Sheila and her team of doctors, nurses, clinicians, and administrators are working to establish medical centers, educate future generations of health care workers, and directly provide care to those who need it most. “We are fighting for global health equity, boldly and unapologetically,” she says.
In this episode, Sheila talks to Dwayne about the lessons she carries from her time as a nurse into her leadership role at Partners in Health; why joy and beauty are so important to the healing process; and why you should always listen to your driver when you arrive in a foreign country.
For more on the work of our guest, Sheila Davis: https://www.emersoncollective.com/persons/sheila-davis
To learn more about our show and read the transcript of this episode: emersoncollective.com/almost-there.
For more on Emerson Collective: https://www.emersoncollective.com/
Learn more about our host, Reginald Dwayne Betts: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/
Almost There is produced by Eric Nuzum and Jesse Baker of Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Julia Natt, Patrick D’Arcy, Amy Low, Alex Simon, and our sound designers Paul Schneider and Kristin Mueller.
Email us at almostthere@emersoncollective.com.