Heart to Hustle
Heart to Hustle is for those who believe their passion can become their purpose. Every Tuesday, we share stories from people who’ve turned their hustle into thriving careers. From creative sparks to business breakthroughs, we are diving into what drives them, how they made it happen, and the challenges they’ve overcome along the way. It’s not just about what they do, it’s about why they do it and how they’ve shaped their lives around their passions. Tune in for inspiring stories, unexpected lessons, and a whole lot of hustle. Because when passion meets purpose, incredible things happen!!
Heart to Hustle
Mneesha Gellman, The Educator Behind the Wall
In this episode of Heart to Hustle, my former professor Mneesha Gellman, an influential figure in education and social justice, explains how her lifelong activism led her to found the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI), a program at Emerson College dedicated to bringing higher education to incarcerated individuals at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Norfolk (MCI Norfolk). Drawing on her extensive experience in education and advocacy, Mneesha discusses overcoming challenges like technological barriers in prisons and outdated curricula in schools, offering innovative strategies that empower marginalized communities and drive meaningful change. She also highlights how providing higher education in prisons transforms lives and reinforces the mission that education is a fundamental right for all, paving the way for societal reintegration and lasting reform.
About Mneesha Gellman: Mneesha Gellman is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, at Emerson College, Boston, USA. Her research interests include comparative democratization, cultural resilience, memory politics, and social movements in the Global South and the United States. She is also the founder and Director of the Emerson Prison Initiative, which brings a BA pathway to incarcerated students in Massachusetts.
About the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI): Emerson College launched the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) in 2017 at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord (MCI-Concord), a men’s medium-security prison. EPI acts on the knowledge that college-in-prison programs can interrupt the cycle of incarceration. EPI offers the same courses taught on Emerson’s main campus, taught by Emerson faculty as well as guest faculty from other local colleges, and bearing official Emerson credits. EPI provides a pathway to an Emerson College Bachelor of Arts in Media, Literature, and Culture, a degree that combines Emerson’s unique strengths in media studies, literary studies, and the liberal arts.
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Have you ever had a side hustle, a side gig you picked up for fun or maybe to earn a little extra cash? Maybe you had a lemonade stand as a kid or, like me, were fully immersed in the world of theater and dance, where each experience ignited my passion for the spotlight. As we transition from those early experiences into the professional world, some side gigs evolve into real passions and sometimes even lasting careers. I've always been so curious about these stories, especially the less conventional journeys that redefine what a career can look like. They remind us that success isn't always a straight path and that the heart behind our hustle can lead us to unexpected and fulfilling destinations. I genuinely love exploring how other people's passions have shaped their careers. If you're into that too, join me, layla Palmer, as I chat with a captivating lineup of guests from various industries to uncover how they went from heart to hustle.
Speaker 1:Imagine being in a classroom where education is more than just a degree. It's a second chance, a tool for empowerment and sometimes the first real opportunity to be heard. That's the kind of impact today's guest, minnie Shigelman, is making. She was my professor for human rights, a class that explored the fight for justice, dignity and equality. But Manisha doesn't just study these issues, she acts on them. She's bringing the classroom itself into prisons, ensuring that higher education isn't just for the privileged few but for those who have been shut out by circumstance, by systemic barriers, by a society that too often denies second chances. Through the Emerson Prison Initiative, she's proving that education is a fundamental right, pushing forward with the belief that knowledge is one of the most powerful tools for transformation.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's really also such a pleasure to reconnect with former students and see the amazing creative things that people are doing with their skills, so it's wonderful to be here with you. I grew up in rural far Northern California and I came of age during the conflict over the logging of redwood trees in that area in Humboldt County, california. And I came of age during the conflict over the logging of redwood trees in that area in Humboldt County, california. And so a lot of my early experiences with activism and with trying to figure out how to raise my voice about something I cared about was rooted in trying to prevent the trees from being cut down, because there was the logging industry, which is really the economic backbone. One of the economic backbones of the area was aggressively trying to cut a lot of the old growth redwood trees. And so I remember in high school getting together with friends and going and joining protests and showing up on weekends at protests, and it was really formative in terms of me thinking about the relationship between environmental rights and human rights and the relationship between individuals and communities in a democratic system where we're supposed to have the right to the freedom of assembly and also the freedom to speak for things that we care about. So I took that interest in trying to influence how the world is like, not just accepting that the way that I found the world was the way that the in trying to influence how the world is like, not just accepting that the way that I found the world was the way that the world had to be, and I took that with me when I went off to college.
Speaker 2:I did a lot of studying abroad and traveling abroad in my younger years and became really interested in Latin American social movements and learned Spanish. And then went on and worked in radio journalism for a couple of years after college and was really interested in storytelling and how we communicate issues of social and environmental concern to larger audiences. And then, from there, went and did a master's in peace and conflict studies. That I did abroad in Argentina and Australia and again just was soaking in the exposure to the wider world.
Speaker 2:Like I, came from a very rural, isolated area and was really interested in what is going on in the larger community that inhabits this planet. And how do the things I care about intersect with the kinds of challenges that people are facing in their lives? And after my master's, which was really focused on practical skills of how do we mediate conflict, how do we do post-conflict reconstruction work and transitional justice work, I worked as a freelance journalist for a year while I was waiting to get into a PhD program and then did a PhD in political science at Northwestern University and traveled a lot for several years doing data collection in relation to my dissertation work and eventually eventually landed in Boston with my teaching job at Emerson, where I went on to found the Emerson Prison Initiative. So that was a very condensed life story that I hope can give a snapshot of how I ended up doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:It certainly does. I mean talking about all of the different educational experiences you've had, whether that's in the US or abroad, like you mentioned. I'm really curious about how your experiences abroad shaped your perspective on all of the issues happening in America, but also just the world at large, like how did those experiences impact your viewpoints, your perspectives on those topics?
Speaker 2:I think for me, when I grew up in my bubble of one particular community, I thought this is the way that the world is, this is how the world handles conflict, this is how we handle all the issues transportation, food, education and in my travels and my time abroad both studying and traveling and working I was able to have exposure to so many different ways to live, and that's the mantra now that I repeat with my own children there are a lot of ways to live. It's like become a family joke when we encounter something that is unfamiliar like. Well, there's a lot of ways to live, that's how they do it in their space or in their community, and so I think for each of the global exposure experiences I was able to have, it was a reminder of, hey, there's not one way to do this.
Speaker 2:In my early career, I wrote a series of articles looking at conflict resolution in Cambodia, because I spent three months working at a democracy promoting organization based in Phnom Penh, cambodia, during the time that the Khmer Rouge tribunal was getting underway to address the legacy of the Cambodian genocide, and that was a moment where I really had to confront my own Western, informed expectations about what justice looks like, about what reconciliation looks like, about what conflict resolution looks like, and so that's just an example that each time I step out of my own bubble I'm looking at how else can a community solve the problems that it faces? How else are people raising their voices? What is the cultural context in which those things are happening? And I think it's really easy for people anywhere in the world to lose sight of that comparative perspective, that there are a lot of ways to address the things that shape our everyday lives. That shape our everyday lives, and my interest and what I now try to convey as an educator is that there is no one right answer, there's no one right solution, and having that context helps us inform and make better decisions about how we problem solve in our own communities.
Speaker 1:One thing I really admire about Manisha is how she creates classrooms that feel safe for open discussion. Even when the topics are difficult, she encourages students to question their assumptions, especially those shaped by a Western worldview, and to engage with complex, sometimes uncomfortable, realities. Let's hear how she fosters these spaces, ensuring that every student, no matter where they are, feels heard, respected and empowered to learn.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer that our classrooms should be spaces that are safe but that can also be uncomfortable. So I think a lot of our personal intellectual and emotional growth can come from situations of discomfort, where we are still safe enough to be open to exploring where the discomfort is coming from. So within my classes that's what I try to foster spaces that push people to challenge their own perspectives, but not in a threatening or shaming way, or a space where someone might feel overly vulnerable or be attacked or something I talk a lot about. We call each other in, we don't call out in the classroom. So just a lot about. We call each other in, we don't call out in the classroom.
Speaker 2:So just a couple of weeks ago because I'm teaching human rights this semester and we did the unit you might remember on different kinds of circumcision so in the class we talk about male circumcision versus female circumcision and then have added on to that looking at cosmetic surgeries, predominantly in the West, and so what language do we use to talk about what is sometimes labeled female genital mutilation but could also be called female circumcision in relation to things like vagioplasty or the many cosmetic surgeries that some women elect to have in Western context to change the appearance of their genitals.
Speaker 2:How is that similar or different than the kind of female circumcision rituals that are predominantly practiced outside of the West, in Africa and Indonesia, in the Middle East? And what words do we use to describe those experiences and what judgments come based in the kind of language we use? So I mean, as an educator, I'm always looking for examples that require us to question the bubbles that we're in. So many people take male circumcision as a given because it's widely practiced across many cultures. It's very common in the United States, much more so than in Europe. But I try to push students to say, well, why is that the case and how might that look different in a different cultural context? And I think it brings us to that space of discomfort coupled with curiosity and openness to rethinking long-held assumptions that do come from those bubbles that we're in.
Speaker 1:After gaining insight into what fuels Manisha's passion for justice, we shifted to how she's putting those beliefs into practice. At the core of her work is the conviction that education should be a right, not a privilege. One of the most impactful ways she's making that vision a reality is through the Emerson Prison Initiative, a program that offers incarcerated students in Massachusetts the same education as those on an Emerson campus. Up next, she shares how the program came to be, the challenges of implementing the program and the real impact it's making the challenges of implementing the program and the real impact it's making.
Speaker 2:So the Emerson Prison Initiative is housed at Emerson College and it is a degree-granting program that brings the opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree in media, literature and culture and a minor in economics to people who are incarcerated in the Massachusetts state prison system. We are focused at Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk, MCI Norfolk, which is a men's medium security prison, and we run admissions there. It's a highly selective program. We do try to mirror Emerson College's approach to everything that we do in the prison. So it's a highly selective admissions process. We admit 20 students, usually out of an applicant pool of about 100 people when we run admissions, which we do every couple of years, and those students then move as a cohort through a degree-granting program, working towards their college degree.
Speaker 2:That project, which follows an Emerson curriculum, is taught by Emerson faculty in person at the prison. It is accredited through our accrediting body and really meets the benchmarks of academic excellence in so many ways as we mirror our practices of academic excellence on the Boston campus. And it is a kind of intervention because it's bringing this elite college education to folks who are some of the most marginalized people in our Massachusetts community folks who are serving various kinds of prison sentences, but they are isolated from society and have not had access to this kind of college education in the past, and for many folks it's a continuation of educational disruption or educational trauma, because many folks had really difficult K through 12 experiences for a variety of reasons. So for me it is a way to bring education, educational access, to folks who are most marginalized in society. They're not the only ones, but it is one concrete population where we're able to extend this access and do this kind of intervention.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for sharing that and coming on the podcast to talk about this. I want to talk more specifically about the access to education for incarcerated folks. How have you had to approach that, and are there any things in your approach to teaching or managing the program that you've kind of had to adapt? I'm sure even the system puts barriers in place. I know when I was in your class you talked about, you know, having the access to a laptop, writing a paper, doing research. You know where are your sources coming from, Can you access them online or can you only use physical books or studies? So talk about those differences between your typical college experience at Emerson as a student living on the dorms, living on campus, versus being an Emerson prison initiative student.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So prisons are not set up to be colleges. So all of the components of a college education that we're asking to bring inside require special permission, a lot of paperwork, a lot of things. So we recognize the labor that our partners in both of those fields have to engage in to allow us to function. And yet, even as we try to make them as similar as possible, there still are a lot of differences, as you mentioned.
Speaker 2:So for the first many years of the program we officially started in 2017 as a credit bearing program, and our first cohort that graduated in 2022 did their program entirely without laptops. So it was an entirely analog environment where students wrote draft after draft by hand of their papers, and I know that that was tough. I mean, I think there is a real learning experience in having to engage with one's words the way that one does when you're editing over and over on paper. But in this day and age, when we were finally able to secure permission to purchase laptops for our students, which we do now have they're all offline, so there's no internet permission, but they're able to use the Microsoft Office suite and use Word and Excel to do their coursework. It is a significant impact for students to be able to learn how to edit in that way. When we think about folks that are going to be leaving prison and joining the workforce, these are really fundamental skills that people need to have to be able to survive, and we've seen that with many of our alumni who have come out and gotten jobs with their Emerson degrees at some of Boston area's important nonprofits working in the violence intervention field, for example. They have to know how to type in a Word document, how to edit in that way.
Speaker 2:The lack of internet remains a substantial barrier for people really developing informational literacy. But that's not, you know, that's not something I'm trying to change. Instead, we've developed systems to facilitate research access given that limitation. So our students on the Boston campus, when they don't know something, they Google it. Right, they go to the internet and they Google it. And so for incarcerated students, before we had the computers, we were entirely reliant on research request forms, which were these paper forms we developed that facilitated communication between the students and the librarians on the Boston campus. So faculty would be able to bring in the research request form, students would complete them, we would bring those back to the Boston librarians and they would work with a team of volunteers to fulfill those research requests.
Speaker 2:Over the last year and a half the Emerson Prison Initiative has been one of a handful of programs to be able to pilot JSTOR access, and this is an offline JSTOR database that has tens of thousands of academic articles. Previously our students could access only the abstracts of those articles and then we still had to work with paper copies of the full research articles. Now, on the Department of Correction-issued tablets, incarcerated college students are able to access the full JSTOR database offline, and that has made a huge difference in their ability to just open up that world of academic research. So previously they might write a research paper that had five or six citations because those were all the articles we could manage to bring in for a given paper. Now they're able to draw much more widely on the world of literature that informs their topic, and so there are things like that that they're still not identical to what's happening on the Boston campus, but we are problem solving and we're figuring out how to work with our various partners to make real original research be possible in a carceral environment.
Speaker 2:I think this semester for the first time, we have a journalism professor teaching a class where students need to be reading the news regularly, and so we were able to arrange for physical copies of newspapers to be delivered, so, since they're not able to go online and get the news that way, they are able to get these regular deliveries of newspapers. And so there are inventions like that, which, incidentally, are still more similar to the way that people in a lot of parts of the world do get their news reading the physical paper. In Boston, we're so accustomed to everything being digital, but these are important skills that will serve people in developing the kinds of critical reading and critical communication skills that represent the best that an Emerson College degree has to offer, and it's exciting to be able to bring that to incarcerated students through EPI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's lovely to hear about the evolution of the program from 2017 to now, because last time we spoke, I don't. I mean it's lovely to hear that we can now have these students get laptops, access to JSTOR. I mean that's huge, like that's huge, and so I want to commend you for your work toward making that happen and all of the other administrators in the program for really making this happen, because it's really important.
Speaker 2:Well, and the other thing I just want to mention that I am really proud of is we were able to hire one of our alumni on EPI's staff. So Charles Rosario started with us in September of 24. And having a former student now on staff, he just brings so many insights into how we can best serve that student population. Because, having lived through the program, when we're trying to decide, well, do we approach this problem this way or this other way, we can consult with him and he's like, well, here's how it might be received by the students or here are some of the obstacles to that solution you're proposing. So we really are trying to be led by folks who are most affected by the work and I think him joining our staff has been important for that. He's part of our EPI advisory council, which is one of the governance mechanisms that we use to make decisions about the program, and it feels really impactful.
Speaker 2:The other thing there was a little part of your question I didn't get to just another difference. I started doing a lot of research and developing a training for our faculty and teaching assistants for EPI on trauma-informed education. That actually has now informed what I'm doing on the Boston campus as well. So it's an area where I actually learned in reverse, instead of having all the learning happening in Boston and then bringing that expertise to the prison. Our incarcerated students helped me see not only is the trauma-informed education, both for students and faculty, critical in the prison environment, it's actually critical everywhere and we need to mainstream it. And so I've been able to bring that back to how I do some of my teaching on the Boston campus and share that with colleagues, and it's been a powerful experience of seeing. You know, I am a student in that space as well. I'm still learning and evolving as an educator and I'm really grateful to the EPI students for helping me grow in that way.
Speaker 1:As we were talking, I started to realize that the students aren't the only ones learning in this dynamic. With each class, manisha is exposed to perspectives shaped by experiences far different from her own. I wondered what has she taken away from these conversations? How has teaching inside a prison challenged her views or even changed the way she sees herself?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think one of the big reminders that happens regularly for me from students is just because they are in prison does not mean they do not have free will or agency, nor are they willing to give that up as a part of their personal identity. There was an example years ago I think it was during COVID, and we were trying to decide as a program like how do we continue to move students along the academic pathway during COVID or should we pause? And I was like go, go, go. Let's like keep people on track to get to the finish line. And we went in to meet with the students and was like here's what we want to do with you. We want to keep going and switch to this kind of approach so that we can still keep meeting during COVID. And one of the students raised his hand and was like you need to ask us if we're willing to do that first.
Speaker 2:And it was a moment where my goal of moving students toward graduation really had clouded my vision. I didn't stop to think, oh, these are folks with full agency and full need to be consulted with. And I came back the next week and apologized and said I'm so sorry that I made that assumption. We're going to send out a survey asking who wants to take a pause and who wants to keep going. Given the really hard circumstances of teaching and learning in COVID times and I mean I have moments like that regularly where it just my own assumptions have to be checked over and over again as I am managing the program.
Speaker 1:So where do you see it going in the future? What are you looking forward to in having the program grow, or things that you are looking to add to enhance the program and enhance this experience for the students?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we've been going now for almost eight years. We're going to put on a conference this coming March. That will be our second conference, and we were just saying, oh, our next conference, two years from now, will be 2027. And that'll be our 10 year anniversary. So, even though we might still be a young program, I think we've actually left the infant stage behind and we've moved into the next phase. And one of the indicators of that for me is that we're now looked to support other programs that are dealing with problems or looking to troubleshoot things in their own development. And so folks call us and say, hey, how did you navigate this thing? And we have years of experience and relationship building and system building insight that we can share with them. And so we were just awarded a grant from the Ascendia and American Institute for Research that will allow us to develop program implementation tools for other college and prison programs. And I think that comes as recognition that we've now been around for long enough and we've developed systematic pieces of best practices for how to do this work well that we can share that back to others and help grow the field in a best practices way, because there are a lot of programs out there trying to do this work, and it is really hard work, and so being part of communities of practice and mutual support and sharing information about how we do what we do is one way that I try to guide the field, not just to do this work, but to do this work well Some of my personal hopes.
Speaker 2:I mean we're moving towards every other year admissions as a regular thing, so just being able to extend college access to a larger number of students is important.
Speaker 2:I've floated the idea of trying to create a master's program.
Speaker 2:I would love to see that happen, because once you have people who have graduated college and prison that still are serving long sentences, being able to continue on to additional postgraduate work would be really wonderful.
Speaker 2:And we've also created a reentry program. Epi's Reentry and College Outside program, or EPI Recoup, has been a significant component of what we do, where we now support, on a one-on-one case management basis, our students who have come out of prison and supported them through their reintegration processes, everything from connecting them with partner organizations that work on housing and healthcare and career placement, as well as holding regular wellness workshops and community gathering spaces to continue to skillshare and support each other as people are taking their Emerson College degree through EPI and applying that to some of the leading organizations working on violence intervention in the greater Boston area. So that is really exciting and I look forward to seeing that grow and continue and also figuring out how we can do a better job spreading the word about the program to current Emerson students and to other students and faculty and administrators at other colleges and universities who want to channel some of their knowledge, resources and prestige into these kinds of educational access justice-informed movements through college and prison programming.
Speaker 1:Hearing Manisha speak about the evolution of the Emerson Prison Initiative made it clear that her work isn't just about education. It's about breaking barriers and creating a more equitable world. But I wanted to learn even more, so I asked her to answer a few more questions. It's time for the Career Countdown, a segment here on Hard to Hustle that offers us one last glimpse into our guest's journey in a fresh, inspiring way. Through five rapid-fire questions, minisha will share the creative inspirations and personal moments that have shaped her career path. Let's dive in. So for number five, if you could invite five dream guest speakers to your classes?
Speaker 2:who's the journalist with Democracy Now and I think really represents the essence of a free press and how independent journalism can keep truth happening in society. Dolores Huerta, who is a longtime activist with the United Farm Workers movement and has been just a shining example of the power of community-based activism for change Definitely one of my heroes. Bryan Stevenson, who wrote the book Just Mercy and is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and has worked on legal cases for folks on death row, predominantly in the South Again, just a really inspiring person. And Ayanna Pressley locally I mean, we're here in Boston and she represents democracy in action, literally and figuratively. So I would love to bring her into class, deb, as I think more and more about trauma-informed everything. I think cultivating tools of meditation and self-introspection are really an important component of that, and her writings have been influential to me in that way.
Speaker 1:Lovely, all right For number four. What are four social movements these could be past or present that have inspired your activism.
Speaker 2:Well, I think past. I mentioned Dolores Huerta before, and so the United Farm Workers movement is one of those movements that I learned about as a young person that really shaped my early activism and my understanding of what collective action can look like. So definitely that one. And then, similarly, earth First and other organizations that were doing grassroots environmental activism in the Pacific Northwest in the 90s. I mean, they they showed one model and it's not the only model, but it was one model of how to how to speak out urgently.
Speaker 2:The Zapatista Movement for National Liberation, or the EZLN as it's known with a Spanish acronym, is based in Mexico. It's an indigenous autonomy movement in Mexico and, again, some of my early activism exposure was to that movement, and it's something I teach about in my classes and just really admire the courage that folks have in difficult circumstances and with few resources to speak out. And then so much of the work that I've done since 2016 has been with the Yurok tribe of Northern California and specifically with the Yurok language program there. So it's not a social movement per se, but I think that the Yurok language rights movement and indigenous language rights movements around the world continue to be a deep source of inspiration for me when I think about people in really challenging circumstances asserting the right to cultural sovereignty.
Speaker 1:So number three what are three books or pieces of writing that have shaped your career and perspective?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, the first one's a little embarrassing, to admit, but I got to be real about it. So Lonely Planet Travel Guides have been a source of reading for me for years, because when I didn't know how to get around or engage or figure out the travel logistics of moving around the globe, I turned to those books. And now I read them for pleasure. I read, you know, I'll read the history section. So I'm like, oh, I want the, I want the super quick cliff notes on this particular place before I go there for a conference or something. So I love, I love those books. It's a little little embarrassing, but I'm I'm happy to say I have a bookshelf full of those travel guides.
Speaker 2:Um, another book that has been formative is Michelle Alexander's the New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I know that it's been critiqued in a number of ways. Yeah, and it also says something really important. So I just appreciate her putting it out there and saying what needs to be said and I think people should read it. And then Robin Wall, kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass book. The subtitle is Indigenous Wisdom, scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. When people ask me like, oh, what's a book that you recommend, that's the book I recommend the most. It is beautifully written, it is absolutely political, but it's also requiring a holistic approach to decolonization that I think is rare in a lot of other writings. So those are my three, three of my faves.
Speaker 1:So for number two, if you could have two major policy changes implemented today to improve education equity, what would they?
Speaker 2:be. Education everywhere should be free for everyone, fully free at every level K through postgraduate education. We have the money in the world. People should not be held back from education due to cost barriers, and that includes in situations in many places.
Speaker 2:I've worked in the global South where, theoretically, education is free, but then you have the uniform that has to be purchased, you have the books that have to be purchased. Figuring out how to actually invest in universal, free education would be transformational for everyone on earth. The second thing is to have training for educators that is rooted in philosophies of justice. So the way that people teach and also the substance of what is taught is tremendously informative for how students are formed, and just last year I published a book called Misrepresentation and Silence in United States History Textbooks the Politics of Historical Oblivion and it looks at the way that curricula in high school level US history textbooks distorts what people learn. So I think having educators be trained in a whole range of inclusive and trauma-informed practices, coupled with curricular reform that is rooted in the truth, in facts, rather than in white supremacist informed curricula, would be, again, transformational for many societies.
Speaker 1:So for our final question, number one what is the one thing you always hope your students, whether inside or outside of prison, take away from your teaching?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so hard because I want them to take away so many things from my teaching, so choosing just one is really tough. One of the things that I repeat to students semester after semester is people make policy and we are people, so we can be part of making policy. I want students to see themselves as agents, as being capable of creating and informing the systems that run the world, rather than being passive recipients of those systems. So people make policy and we are people. That's something I find myself repeating time and time again in the classroom.
Speaker 1:Catching up with Manisha Gelman, the educator behind the wall, was both enlightening and inspiring. As I reflect on our conversation, I can't help but think about the opportunities many of us take for granted. This episode has prompted me to think more deeply about how we can use our voices and resources to help open doors for others. As Manisha wisely stated, people make policy and we all have the power to create change, shape systems and fight for equal access to opportunities worldwide. Well, thanks for listening to Hard to Hustle. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it left you reflecting on the power of knowledge and the role we all can play in building a better world for all. Tune in next week for another inspiring journey of passion and purpose. Until then, thank you for listening.
