Grant Reeher

When it comes to health, what does the region do well, and what does it do poorly? What are the next frontiers in making the community healthier? In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Onondaga County Health Commissioner Cynthia Morrow reflects on recent statistics about the county's health, discusses different approaches that communities and government can take toward improving health, and speculates about possible futures.

Younger citizens may be more active in volunteer and service efforts than previous generations, but many remain profoundly uninterested and disengaged from anything they regard as political. One organization trying to combat that is ICivics, created by former Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, to provide online, interactive educational resources for middle school students. On this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Gene Koo, executive director of ICivics, outlines the challenges to civic engagement and how the organization is trying to address them.

Colleges and universities were once seen as national leaders in responsible investing, but they've largely lost that edge. That's the view of this week's guest on the Campbell Conversations, Dan Apfel, executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition.

One of the many controversial aspects of the post 9-11 war effort is the government’s use of military commissions rather than traditional criminal courts to try suspected terrorists. In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Jess Bravin, the Supreme Court correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Jeanne Theoharis has recently published the definitive biography of Rosa Parks.  In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, the Brooklyn College Professor counters the many myths held by the public about Parks's life--describing for example the long history of activism and organizing prior to her famous act of civil disobedience, and her affinity for the black power movement and Malcolm X.

Are colleges and universities failing to meet proper ethical standards in the treatment of their faculties? In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Cary Nelson, a recent past president of the American Association of University Professors and the author of No University Is an Island, argues that many schools are falling short, and that the explosion of what he calls contingent faculty--the faculty outside of the tenure system--hurts all higher education, and furthers social and educational inequalities.

For the past 30 years, the nation has been on an incarceration spree. While some associate that change with lower crime rates, Alan Rosenthal from the Center for Community Alternatives challenges that view, and in this edition of the Campbell Conversations, discusses the harms to society, and to those trying to rebuild their lives, that have been brought about by what he terms “massive incarceration” and its race-based effects.

When he was 15, Guy Stern emigrated from Germany to the United States in order to escape the Holocaust. He then returned to Europe following D-Day, as a U.S. Army interrogator. After the war, he became a distinguished scholar of German studies and literature. In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Guy describes his emigration and his war experiences.

Matt Driscoll was mayor of Syracuse from 2001 to 2009. Since then, he's been the President of a state public authority, and most recently a member of Governor Cuomo's cabinet. In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, he discusses the environmental issues he became known for as mayor, economic development, and the current Syracuse mayor's disagreement with the governor over public pensions.

Stephen Barton was a top honors student at Syracuse University—he delivered the student commencement address at the university’s graduation exercise last May. He had won a prestigious Fulbright grant to teach English in Russia, but before he could go, he was shot by James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater on July 20th. The experience led him to join the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

The daughter of Harry Belafonte and Julie Robinson, Gina Belafonte grew up in a household filled with the leading civil rights activists and entertainers of the day, and she went on to become an actor, producer, and civil rights activist in her own right.

Working in the key battleground state of Ohio, Ashley Bryant was an integral player in President Obama’s internet-based mobilization effort in the 2012 election.  In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Bryant—the Ohio digital director for the President’s campaign—recounts her experiences on the ground and in the trenches, explains how the campaign integrated the Internet into its strategy, and reflects on how marketing a political brand is both similar to and different from marketing a commercial brand.

For eight months in 2008, Matt Zeller was an Army Lieutenant acting as an embedded trainer with Afghan security forces in the Ghazni Province.  Following that, he was a CIA analyst, ran for Congress, and authored a book about his war experiences.  In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, he speaks in powerful and unvarnished terms about his time in Afghanistan, his struggles upon his return to the States, and the shortcomings of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

This edition of the Campbell Conversations offers a wide-ranging discussion with Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner that covers both local and national political issues, and which includes discussions of the pension problem, ideas voiced in her recent state of the city address, and reflections on the conflicts within the city’s criminal justice system.

This edition of the Campbell Conversations completes an extended consideration of gun control and the NY SAFE Act. In prior weeks Grant Reeher has spoken with SUNY-Cortland Professor Robert Spitzer and Onondaga District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick, both of whom saw a need for more regulation of gun ownership, while also noting possible problems with some of the approaches taken in the new state law.

This week the State legislature passed and the governor signed into law a far-reaching set of prohibitions, restrictions, and tracking mechanisms regarding guns, making New York the first state to change its policies in reaction to the Sandy Hook school shootings.

In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick discusses how effective some of the provisions could be, some possible problems with their implementation, and which ones might be overturned through subsequent court challenge.

In the wake of the Newtown killings, the nation and the state are reconsidering gun control. Governor Cuomo recently made restrictions on guns a featured element in his State of the State address. In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with gun control expert Robert Spitzer about what kinds of approaches are most likely to help address the problem of gun violence, and what proposed changes are most likely to actually get passed.

Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle recently ended her term the way she first ran for the office—standing up for conservative principles. She voted against the fiscal cliff compromise, on the grounds that it did not address the deficit and government over-spending.  But she was defeated last November by Dan Maffei, the man she unseated in 2010.

A potentially significant new chapter in New York's political history will be written in January, as the State Senate's Independent Democratic Caucus joins with the Republican Caucus to form a coalition majority.  On this edition of the Campbell Conversations, State Senator Dave Valesky, a founding member of the Independent Democratic group, discusses how this new arrangement will work, and why joining with the Republicans may actually bring more progressive pieces of legislation to the Senate floor.

Zoe Wool is a researcher and writer who has been working with war-injured American soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

New York State Government has long had a reputation as a secretive and guarded place.  Phrases like “three men in a room” come to mind.  In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with the man charged to make government more open and transparent—Robert Freeman, Executive Director of the State’s Committee on Open Government.

"The land next to heaven."

That's the way Lopez Lomong describes his love for and thanks to this country for the opportunities it has afforded him.

The new frontier in international diplomacy is something called "public diplomacy"--it involves expanding the domain and practitioners of diplomacy beyond traditional government-to-government communication, and threatens the long-standing emphasis on controlling the message.  Tara Sonenshine, the State Department's Undersecretary for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy, guides the United States' efforts in this area.

After the barrage of negative campaign ads, nightly robo calls, and daily mailers, most central New Yorkers are probably thinking, Whew!  Glad that’s over.  But the time after “the day after” has just begun.

The race for New York’s 24th congressional district seat has easily been the most intense political contest in this region, pitting incumbent Republican Ann Marie Buerkle against Democratic challenger Dan Maffei, in a bitter rematch. Ursula Rozum has also run a spirited Green Party challenge, which could influence the outcome.

This year’s presidential election has brought up a host of perplexing questions about the relationship between religion and politics, and the importance of a candidate’s faith. In this week’s edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher probes those questions with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy.

Except for a brief stint with Darrel Aubertine, the 48th State Senate district has been a Republican stronghold.  Amy Tresidder is trying to upset that pattern this fall, and in this week’s edition of the Campbell Conversations Grant Reeher engages both Tresidder and the incumbent Senator Patty Ritchie in a debate-style conversation.

The race for New York’s 24th congressional district seat is one of the most hotly contested and closely watched contests in the country. In an interview that took place on September 18th, Democratic challenger Dan Maffei -- the former holder of the seat who’s challenging Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle in a rematch -- looks back on his previous campaign.

In his first term in the State Assembly, Republican Don Miller has been an outspoken and sometimes controversial crusader against taxes and spending in Albany, to the point of voting against his own party leadership.

Who is the real Mitt Romney?  The question is being asked with increasing frequency.  In this edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher goes in search of an answer with Michael Kranish.