A Life in Numbers and Community

A McGowan alum finds a professional home in a company that walks the walk For Adam Davis, choosing an MBA program was fairly easy. Not only was Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business one of the top-ranked schools in the country, but also, he says,...

In the Wake of a Wild Year

As it reopens to in-person learning, Vertus High School chooses a Word of the Year Vertus High School in Rochester, New York, was never fully remote during the pandemic year. Half the students whose families agreed to a hybrid model had in-person learning Monday and...

Lead, Code, and Look Forward

A McGowan alumna takes on gender imbalance and tech leadership in stressful times As a kid, Brigid Johnson fell in love with programming. “You change a few lines of code and make what you want to happen happen,” she says, as if writing code is akin to casting a magic...

What Are Grant Makers Thinking?

A tumultuous 2020 yields streamlining, new planning, more collaboration For a nation already mired in problems of poverty, racism, and inequity, 2020 brought fresh storms.  With COVID threatening lives and communities, nonprofits staggered under increasing demand,...

Thank You, She Wrote

A young girl makes the case for wraparound services and forgiveness Jason Branch was the kind of father who taught his daughter to fish and borrow books from the library. “Then he didn’t come around for a while,” she wrote a few years ago. Her mother told Jaslyn that...

What Bill Would Do

Late in the fall of 2019, 10 talented second-year MBA students from 10 top-tier programs across the country tackled the notion of social identity. Working independently from their perches in Philadelphia (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania), Durham, North...

Resilience at Work

A McGowan alum sees opportunity in the COVID era and other crises Jon Erdtsieck loved his job at United Airlines. Among his duties: negotiate fees and contracts and address legal issues at 65 small airports. Among the benefits: the chance to learn and work across...

If This, Then What?

For those awash in uncertainty, scenario planning can help What if, with a vaccine for COVID, the economy returns to normal, but leaves us scrambling to reconnect with donors and constituents? What if the economy continues to suffer and landlords in the area—including...

Homeward

Are there housing lessons to be learned from the pandemic? In late March, Dr. Thomas Huggett spent much of his time scouring homeless shelters. A physician who works for Lawndale Christian Health Center, he was recruiting residents to live in Hotel One Sixty-Six...

School Days

In the age of COVID, Cristo Rey’s tuition-free schools face more challenges than most For Elizabeth Goettl, CEO of the Cristo Rey Network, the COVID pandemic is raising tough questions. She’s facing the operational questions most educators are facing—How do you social...

Flex and Feed

With COVID-19 mounting, a food program buys, bargains, and packs anew When COVID-19 closed down ski operations and restaurants in Vail, Colorado, recently, truckloads of food that were headed for upscale restaurants suddenly had nowhere to go. Eagle Valley’s The...

A Fresh Approach to a Debilitating Disease

It’s a grocery store—and much more Tom Shicowich felt powerless to reclaim his life from the type 2 diabetes that seemed to have taken over. He was more than 100 pounds overweight and on a tight budget due to $200,000 in medical bills incurred from diabetes-related...

Making Healthy Habits Accessible

David Vawdrey, then chief data informatics officer at Geisinger’s Steele Institute for Health Innovation, addresses the intersection between disease and the challenging world patients live and work in. Watch more videos on the McGowan Charitable Fund YouTube...

Look Who’s Talking

Jason Jay, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, offers insights into the power of conversation and ways to achieve open discussion in a divisive time. Watch more videos on the McGowan Charitable Fund YouTube...

Don’t Blame VUCA

Col. Charles D. Allen (retired) and Col. Joseph LeBoeuf (retired) address the enduring principles of leadership that operate in VUCA conditions. Watch more videos on the McGowan Charitable Fund YouTube...

For Working Mothers in Africa—a Boost

A McGowan Alumna Rethinks the Breast Pump As a breastfeeding mom returning to work, you’re likely face barriers. In the U.S., just half of employers provide lactation support programs for new mothers, and many pink-collar jobs don’t support breaks for pumping....

Beating the Poverty Odds

Impoverished, talented boys make it to college—and more A family weakened by addiction. A school system with a 50 percent dropout rate. A community blighted by poverty. For 11-year-old Cecil Keyes, the future looked rough. Today he’s an alumnus of Kansas State...

Mobile Health

Healthcare for people without an address—or a place to stow their medicines Dr. Thomas Huggett’s patients face hypertension, asthma, diabetes, mental health issues, and more: the dangers of exposure in wintry Chicago, the ravages of addiction, and even difficulties...

Cooking Up New Solutions

WOW offers job training, housing help, and now a mobile classroom Living in Denver with no job and few skills is a rough ride. Add probation and a one-year-old son, and Maggie’s prospects looked worse than dim. After an unsuccessful stay with her parents, she was...

What Philanthropy Can Do

Rhett Mabry, president of The Duke Endowment, one of the nation’s largest 501(c)(3) private foundations, discusses how philanthropic seed funding can lead to government systems change. Watch more videos on the McGowan Charitable Fund YouTube...