1. Harmonizing a New Pulse of Leadership with Jabari Mahiri and Robyn Ilten-Gee

Episode 1 Transcript

In this first episode, Simon Fraser University Assistant Professor Robyn Illten-Gee PhD '19, MA '15 interviews Berkeley School of Education Professor Jabari Mahiri, who discusses what led him to start the Equity Leadership Now! Podcast at the UC Berkeley School of Education (BSE). Mahiri, faculty chair of BSE's Leadership Programs, shares his story and highlights how his lived experiences have shaped and formed his identity as an educator, researcher, and leader. 

As an experienced leader and scholar, Dr. Mahiri imparts the wisdom of practicing and teaching to listen deeply, empathetically, and critically to foster true dialogue and conversation. 

Ilten-Gee takes a critical approach to moral development, investigating ways in which a developmental framework can illuminate possibilities for critical pedagogy and critical moral reasoning. She is interested in how digital media production (e.g. podcasting, multimedia journalism) in classroom settings facilitates a process of students rethinking and revising conclusions and judgments about the world and themselves. Illten-gee most recently published Moral Education for Social Justice
(link is external), an approach that integrates social justice education with contemporary research on students’ development of moral understandings and concerns for human welfare in order to critically address societal conventions, norms, and institutions. 

Mahiri shares how his own lived experiences — from serving in the military to teaching high school students in Chicago — have shaped his research and practical solutions as he continues on the journey to bring more equity in education. 

Equity Leadership Now! hosts conversations with equity-conscious leaders from pre-K through university settings who transform structures and strategies for educating students, particularly for those from historically marginalized communities.