After seven years and 44 episodes, New Politics podcast host Dr. Max Klau is heading off to his next adventure. In this farewell episode, Max is joined by New Politics Founder Emily Cherniack for a conversation about the early days of the organization, the impact it's had on American politics, and their hopes for the future of this work.
Tiahna Pantovich is an army vet, clinical social worker, lifelong activist, and founder of VetsxHBCU, an organization that supports veterans at our nation's more than 100 historically black colleges and universities. The daughter of immigrants from the former nation of Yugoslavia, she enlisted in the Army after graduating high school. In this episode, she talks about her journey to becoming an outspoken advocate for sexual assault survivors in the military and how she continues to serve as both a clinical social worker and an activist with aspirations to serve through politics in the years ahead.
In this episode, Andre Carroll talks about his unlikely path to politics in his home city of Philadelphia. Since his father was incarcerated and his mother struggled with drug addiction, Andre was raised by his Grandmother. He went on to graduate from college and got deeply involved in Philadelphia politics, serving as campaign staff for a Mayoral candidate and for multiple City Council candidates. In 2022, he decided to enter the arena himself and ran for a seat in the Pennsylvania state legislature to represent the district where he grew up. He lost that race, but earned 43% of the vote and raised more than $95,000 dollars. And now in 2023, he is at it again! Andre just launched his second campaign for the State Legislature and is hoping to harness the momentum he built on his first campaign to win the seat.
Learn more and support his campaign here:
https://www.andredcarroll.com/
Cristina Flores is a lifelong servant leader who currently serves as our Director of Partnerships & Growth here at the New Politics Academy. In this episode, Cristina talks about her experiences serving as an AmeriCorps member and then on the staff of Literacy First in Austin Texas. She also describes our work with Partners, how our partnerships are mutually beneficial, and how organizations interested in partnering with us can connect. It's a great window into this important aspect of our work to bring more servant leaders into politics.
Meet Gideon Culman, one of the facilitators of our Answering the Call program. As a facilitator, Gideon has helped many servant leaders reflect deeply on their own sense of mission and calling. He is a certified Master Coach and is the founder and president of K Street Coaching, an executive coaching firm based in Washington, DC.
In this episode, he talks about his path to becoming a coach and his experiences with holding space for servant leaders in our ATC program. He also talks about how conversations with his most recent ATC group inspired him to jump into the arena himself to run for a local school committee!
Christopher Gilbert is an Air Force vet, a Registered Nurse, and a recent graduate of our Answering the Call program. He's a member of the LGBTQ+ community who feels called to serve through politics because of all the ways that his community is currently under attack in his home state of North Carolina and across the country. In this episode, Chris talks openly about the challenges he faced while serving in the military in the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and how he seeks to use the hard-earned wisdom and lessons of his own journey to support others.
Here's the resource Chris mentions to the find LGBTQ+ services through the VA:
Ed Han is a first-generation immigrant; his family moved to the U.S. from Korea when Ed was two years old. He went on to become a school teacher, a federal prosecutor, a member of the Air Force Reserves, and a university professor. Now, he's decided to enter the arena to represent District 44 in the California State Legislature, where he hopes to represent the town where he grew up.
In this episode, Ed talks about his lifelong commitment to service, path to politics, and how his experience with New Politics programming has influenced his journey. Since we recording this during AAPI Heritage month in 2023, he talks about what it is like running for office as an Asian American, and what he hopes the country is reflecting on this month.
This interview happened on the eighth day of Ed's campaign for the state legislature in California, so he is fresh to the campaign trail in this conversation. He is an amazing servant leader and we are thrilled to lift up his voice on today's episode!
On this episode we meet Derrell Frazier, the lifelong Baltimore resident who grew up as the child of incarcerated parents and went on to run a highly successful campaign for city-wide office. Derrell talks about his early years being raised by a grandmother also raising nine other kids, the mentor who changed his life in middle school, and the many ways that he has found to serve the people of Baltimore over the years.
In 2022, he threw his hat in the ring for a seat on the State Central Committee and found himself in a race with more than 20 other candidates; the top eight vote-getters would win seats on the committee. As a first-time candidate, Derrell came in 10th, just missing the cut to join the board. It was a remarkable outcome for a first-time candidate, and Derrell is clear that he is just getting started.
Emily Cherniack is the visionary Founder and Executive Director of New Politics and the New Politics Leadership Academy. A lifelong servant leader, she did a year of service with City Year in Boston and has been serving ever since. When her mentor, City Year co-founder Alan Khazei ran for Senate in Massachusetts in 2009, she joined his campaign and had her first experience of politics. After seeing how challenging it was for a candidate from the world of service to succeed in politics, she was inspired to start an organization to bring more servant leaders into politics and help them succeed.
In this episode, talks about why she first joined City Year, why she founded New Politics, and what she has learned from her journey. Also, because this is Women's History Month, she talks about her experiences as a woman in the combative world of politics, and how she handles being a Founder, Executive Director as well as a mother to two young children.
Emily is a remarkable servant leader, and her story is the story of our organization. We're excited to (finally!) lift up her voice on our podcast!
Meet Angelo Pascuiti is a former Marine Corps sniper and Reconnaissance Team Leader who is currently involved in an effort to rethink the way the Marine Corps trains its new Marines. He’s also an alum of our Answering the Call program who has become an outspoken champion of our work. In this conversation, Angelo talks about how his own life has been shaped by his experiences in the Marine Corps, and why he believes our politics could be transformed if more servant leaders were in elected office.
Jennifer Marshall is best known as the actress who plays Max's mother on Stranger Things, the smash hit on Netflix. She's also a Navy vet, a mother of four, a licensed private investigator, and an alum of our Answering the Call program. She joins us on today’s podcast to talk about her journey from service to Hollywood and how she manages to stay grounded as a servant leader in the world of entertainment. She also talks about the cancer journey she has been on for the past two years. She's a remarkable servant leader who is finding ways to use her platform as an actress to support military veterans in the entertainment business and beyond.
In this episode, she references the great work done by the Hunter Seven Foundation (https://hunterseven.org/), an organization working to support veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic environments during their service.
Phillip Jones is a Naval Academy graduate and Marine. He grew up in Newport News, Virginia, and dreamed of serving his home community by running for Mayor. In the 2022 election cycle, the opportunity appeared and Phillip jumped into the race. He ran a great campaign and won the election, becoming the youngest Mayor ever in that city (Phillip is 33 years old).
In this episode, Phillip talks about what it was like being the son of two Air Force pilots, why he chose to serve as well, and what is was like seeking to serve again through politics. He also talks about how his journey has been influenced by New Politics Leadership Academy programs.
On this episode we highlight Ashely Dickerson, one of our Answering the Call facilitators who is an alum of FOUR AmeriCorps programs. Ashely grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and participated in her first AmeriCorps program in college. That program was called the Breakthrough Collaborative, and it involved providing academic support to young people in schools. She went on to do another year of education-focused service with City Year San Antonio, and then followed that up with a year of service with Public Allies in Phoenix. Finally, she spent a year working on education policy with AmeriCorps VISTA. Today, she is works as a Program Manager for Foster Ed Arizona, a program that supports foster youth. She has also facilitated multiple Answering the Call programs, and in that capacity is helping other servant leaders get clear about their own desire to serve again through politics.
Ashely is an amazing servant leader, and we're excited to lift up her voice and experience on today's show!
John Walters is an Air Force Vet turned leadership coach who serves as a facilitator for our Answering the Call program. In this episode, he talks about his decision to serve and tells us a bit about his work with the Personnel Recover Agency. As a Training Manager with that agency, he teaches solders how to handle the pressures of isolation and separation, whether that involves finding oneself along behind enemy lines or taken into captivity by enemy forces. He talks about his decision to become a certified Goldman Emotional Intelligence Coach, and why he finds it so meaningful to serve as a facilitator for our Answering the Call program.
John is a remarkable servant leader, and we're exciting to highlight his story on this episode of the podcast.
This episode features interviews with Rene Foster and Janet Newsome, both Navy vets deeply involved in the Women's Veteran's Leadership Program run by TMC. They talk about their own service journeys, explain the work being done by TMC, and discuss why TMC is happy to partner with New Politics in promoting our programs to the veterans in their community.
To learn more about TMC, visit https://www.missioncontinues.org/.
Zach Maurin in a City Year alum who has gone on to spend most of his professional life fighting to expand national service opportunities here in the United States. As the co-founder of ServeNext, he got Presidential candidates campaigning in New Hampshire to publicly support the cause of national service. Later, he served as the Executive Director of Service Nation as well as Service Year Alliance, two organizations dedicated to advancing the cause of national service.
Today, he is the co-founder of Storied Hats, a purpose-driven apparel company that creates baseball hats that are sustainably made and are free from corporate logos. He also serves as a board member for the New Politics Leadership Academy.
In this episode, Zach talks about how his time at City Year impacted his life and shares stories from his lifelong effort to make national service a civic rite of passage for young people here in the U.S.
Sal Ramirez grew up as the fourth of seven children in a big Mexican family in East Los Angeles. After completing undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, he decided to enroll in the Peace Corps and served as a Secondary School Health Educator in Khazakistan. He was supposed to stay for two years, but the program was shut down after his first year due to widespread political instability in that country.
He returned to the U.S., completed a Masters in Public Policy at Brandeis, and launched a career in the non-profit sector back in California. In 2022, he found a unique way to serve again through politics: He campaigned to serve as the honorary mayor of his hometown of Carmichael, California by raising funds for local non-profits. He ended up raising the most money of all the candidates and stepped into the role of Honorary Mayor, a year-long post in which he has found a way to contribute in substantive ways to policy debates impacting his community.
In this episode, Sal talks about his service journey, his experience as a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ plus community, and his experiences serving as an honorary mayor.
Rachel Bailit is an actor and acting coach who teaches at the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute in LA. She's appeared in movies like "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" with Jim Carrey, and on TV shows like "The Conan O'Brian Show", "Desperate Housewives", "NYPD Blue" and "General Hospital". Recently, though, Rachel has begun to coaching and teaching in a different context. She is working with political candidates helping them to develop their presence and communicate with power and authenticity. In this episode, we explore the work of helping candidates find their voice and connect powerfully with others, and we discuss how the art and skill of acting relates to the challenges of running for office.
Learn more about Rachel here: www. rachelbailitteaching.com.
John Scianimanico began his service journey as a Teach for America corps member in Huntsville, Alabama. He went on to complete an internship at the White House, served as a Regional Organizing Director on Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, and currently works on education policy in the state of Connecticut. He also recently joined the Navy reserves, adding military service to the lost list of service commitments he has made over the years.
On this episode, John talks about where his commitment to service comes from, and shares tales from his adventures teaching with TFA, working on a presidential campaign, and serving in the White House and at the state level.
Kathryn York is a Teach for America alum who entered the arena in 2019 to run for a State Representative seat in Mississippi. She lost that race but jumped right back onto the campaign trail to run for school board in 2020; that time she won.
In this episode Kathryn talks about her lifelong commitment to service, her experiences teaching in rural Mississippi and then later in London, England, and why she got into politics. She discusses her experiences campaigning as a Democrat in a red district in Mississippi and explains how she involved her young children in her campaign travels. She also describes how she is making a difference as a member of the Water Valley, Mississippi School Board.
Kathryn is an amazing servant leader and we are thrilled to lift up her voice on this episode!