Luis Alberto Urrea - Dinner in the Library San Diego-raised novelist and UC San Diego alumnus, Luis Alberto Urrea '77 is the featured speaker at the UC San Diego Library annual gala. Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has written about the border and has knitted together stories in a way that makes them familiar and impactful for everyone. Recorded on 09/21/2018.
	Why Legislators Don't Compromise and What to Do About It Overcoming gridlock to achieve solutions to society's pressing problems usually requires compromise but around a quarter of legislators reject compromise proposals if they perceive that their voters – especially their primary voters - are likely to punish them for compromising. But political scientist Sarah Anderson shows that only a small slice of primary voters who oppose a particular policy really do punish compromise. Solutions that insulate legislators from the small groups of legislators who punish for compromise may allow legislators to more easily support a beneficial compromise. Recorded on 07/16/2018.
	An Evening with E.J. Dionne - Writer's Symposium by the Sea Feb 2019 E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post, and is a government professor at Georgetown University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. He is a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio. Before joining The Post in 1990 as a political reporter, Dionne spent 14 years at The New York Times, where he covered politics and reported from Albany, Washington, Paris, Rome and Beirut. His coverage of the Vatican was described by the Los Angeles Times as the best in two decades. In 2014-2015, Dionne was the vice president of the American Political Science Association. Recorded on 02/20/2019.
	Leadership and Change with Jennifer Granholm - Conversations with History Harry Kreisler welcomes former Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm for a discussion of lessons learned from her political career. She recalls her formative experiences, analyzes the essential qualities of leadership, and recounts the cascade of crises she confronted as a governor because of the failure of Michigan to recognize and adapt to challenges posed by international economic competitiveness and technological innovation. Leading at a time of structural manufacturing decline, she had to navigate transition to a new economy. Granholm concludes with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the two parties in meeting these challenges. Recorded on 11/18/2018.
	Does Trump Have a Middle East Policy? The Trump Administration has an anti-ISIS military policy but has zeroed out reconstruction support for areas that have been liberated from ISIS in Syria. It has an anti-Iranian policy both rhetorically and economically, but it leaves containing the spread of Iran and the Shia militias in Syria to Israel and to the Russians and leaves Israel on its own to deal with the Russians. It has declared it will present a peace plan for the Israelis and Palestinians but at this point is unable to deal directly with the Palestinian Authority. In all these areas, there are elements of a policy but inconsistencies as well. The gap between objectives and means remains wide. Can it be bridged? Will we see an effective strategy for the area? And, what would an effective strategy look like? Dennis Ross will cover all this in his lecture. Recorded on 10/21/2018.
	Health Policy and Politics With Drew Altman Drew Altman, President and Chief Executive Office of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, talks with Claire Brindis, Director of UCSF's Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, about public health policy and the future of the ongoing healthcare debate. Recorded on 01/23/2019.
	Law Policy and Community Organizing: Direct Democracy as a Vehicle for Criminal Justice Reform This panel explores how statewide direct democracy measures, including ballot initiatives, have propelled affirmative criminal justice reforms in jurisdictions with large Latinx populations. Panelists discuss the ways in which Latinx people were and were not meaningfully incorporated into the campaigns and subsequent implementation efforts for Florida's Amendment 4, California's Propositions 47 and 57, and a handful of drug referendums. This discussion focuses on lessons learned and highlight best practices as they relate to the ballot box and criminal justice reform. Ultimately, this discussion informs the capacity for meaningful reforms to integrate the needs of the Latinx community, including the potential for scale in other jurisdictions with large Latinx populations, like Arizona. Moderator: Sonja Diaz, UCLA Luskin School of Public Policy. Panelists: Tomas Robles, LUCHA; Juan Cartagena, LatinoJustice PRDLEF; Marisa Arrona, Californians for Safety and Justice.
	Black Power Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s Undermining widely held beliefs about the black-Jewish alliance, Marc Dollinger, Professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, describes a new political consensus, based on identity politics, that drew blacks and Jews together and altered the course of American liberalism. Dollinger's most recent book takes a new and different look at Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, showing how American Jews leveraged the Black Power movement to increase Jewish ethnic and religious identity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Recorded on 01/14/2019.
	Shaney jo Darden - No. HerPower: Education Vision Empowerment "I use art to start conversations about something that is serious and complex." Shaney jo Darden, Founder and Global Creative Chief of The Keep A Breast Foundation, shares her journey in the world of art and activism. As someone who has carved out a career path focused on community and compassion, she stresses the importance discovering your unique talents and finding a place for them in your everyday work. Recorded on 03/12/2019.