Scott Rada, Lee Enterprises social media manager, and Richard Kyte, director of the Ethics Institute at Viterbo University, talk about the intersection of ethics and modern life. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
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MICROCOLLEGE is an exploration of the crisis in higher education and the innovative projects and thinkers working to address it, with a special focus on the human-scaled, place-based, meaning-oriented learning communities we call "microcolleges." The podcast is hosted by Jacob Hundt, Founder of Thoreau College, a microcollege initiative rooted in the Driftless Region of rural southwestern Wisconsin, and inspired by the model of Deep Springs College, the pedagogy of the Waldorf schools, and t ...
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Can summer jobs teach teens lifelong skills?
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Episode 151: Summer jobs are a rite of passage for many teens, offering a first taste of independence and responsibility. But these jobs come with their own set of benefits and challenges. On the one hand, they can teach valuable skills and provide financial independence. On the other hand, they can lead to stress, exploitation, and a delicate bala…
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Episode #57: Dr. Dan McKanan: Camphills, Intentional Communities, and the Spiritual Roots of Radical Change
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This week's guest on the Microcollege podcast is Dr. Dan McKanan, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School who is one of the foremost American scholars of biodynamic agriculture and the Camphill communities, two influential movements applying the ideas of Rudolf Steiner in practical fields. In our conversation, we learn about Dan's own formative …
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Is the self-help industry actually helpful?
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Episode 150: From best-selling books to motivational seminars, self-help has become a billion-dollar industry, promising personal transformation and success. But behind the allure of self-improvement, there are significant ethical questions. How do self-help gurus and authors profit from people’s vulnerabilities? What responsibilities do these lead…
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Is it better to be a pragmatist or an a idealist?
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Episode 149: As the fall election creeps closer, most of us think of our political divide as Red America vs. Blue America. But another way to view our nation’s fractured landscape is to sort people into two camps: idealists and pragmatists. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss these two political philosophies, the benefits of each and whether …
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Why is a feeling of belonging so important for our mental health?
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Episode 148: On last week’s episode, we celebrated the release of Richard Kyte's new book, “Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities and Making Great Friends Along the Way.” But this is such an important topic, we thought we’d dig into it a bit more. For those who don’t know, third places are those community spots, like coffee shops, …
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Why does America need to invest in more third places?
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Episode 147: Richard Kyte’s new book, “Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities (and Making Great Friends Along the Way),” is hitting bookstore shelves this month, and he talks with Scott Rada about why we all need to find somewhere where everyone knows our name. About the hosts Scott Rada is a digital strategist with Lee Enterprises,…
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Episode #56: Dr. Richard Kyte - Finding Your Third Place
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On today's episode we discuss the concept of "third places" with Dr. Richard Kyte, author of the forthcoming book Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities (and Making Great Friends Along the Way). What is a "third place"? According to Dr. Kyte: "Your first place is home, your second place is work, and your third place is where you go …
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How can books expand our view of the world?
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Episode 146: A recent study found that just 53% of American adults read at least one fiction or nonfiction book in the past 12 months, the lowest level on record. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss why instilling a love for reading early is important and why avid readers are better critical thinkers who can focus more deeply. Links to storie…
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Episode #55: Eric Schwarz - College for Social Innovation, Boston, MA
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In this episode of the Microcollege podcast, join me for a fascinating conversation with Eric Schwarz, Co-Founder and CEO of the College for Social Innovation (CFSI), which offers semester-long immersive service learning internships in partnership with community organizations in the Boston area, as well as on college campuses throughout the northea…
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Why a busier life is not always a happier life
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Episode 145: A recent article in The Atlantic by Arthur C. Brooks says that the people whose lives are the happiest are able to find a balance between having enough important, mission-driven things to do in their lives without feeling overwhelmed by stress. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada talk about how to find that middle ground so you can have …
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What is lost when we no longer have a shared culture?
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Episode 144: There was a period of time in America, roughly 1940 to 2000, during which we were largely part of a monoculture. Most of us watched the same TV shows and movies, read the same newspapers, and listened to the same radio stations. Today, however, because of the Internet, that's clearly not the case. And although this feels new to many of…
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Episode #54: Andrea de la Cruz, Nathaniel Williams - The Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland
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Today's guests are Andrea de la Cruz and Nathaniel Williams, leaders in the area of educational courses and the youth movement at the Goetheanum, located in Dornach, Switzerland. The Goetheanum is a remarkable building, a masterpiece of modern architecture nestled in the green foothills near Basel. It is also an organization that lies at the heart …
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Has influx of money made it tougher to be a sports fan?
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Episode 143: Americans’ love affair with sports is stronger than ever. According to a poll earlier this year by Pew Research, about half of Americans say they took part in organized, competitive sports in high school or college; most Americans who played sports in high school or college say their athletic experiences improved their physical health …
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What can be done to make housing more affordable?
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Episode 142: Most economists say that the U.S. economy is in a relatively strong position. Although inflation is still a concern, overall GDP numbers are strong, the unemployment rate is low, and wages are rising. Yet in a poll from earlier this year, just 28 percent of Americans rated national economic conditions as excellent or good. There are ma…
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Can too many choices in life keep us from making decisions?
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Episode 141: Our lives are dependent on the choices we make, and in most cases, we have more choices than ever. A study by Harvard University shows that having fewer choices can promote happiness because the more options you have, the more opportunities you have to regret the choice you've made. There is also a term called the “parallelizing parado…
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Episode 140: Nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, many campuses across the country are dealing with pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments. Some college presidents have chosen to involve the police, which has led to hundreds of students being arrested. In addition, these protests have again stirred up a debate about the lim…
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Are these five things the secret to happiness?
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Episode 139: If you were making a list of superstar psychologists, Carl Jung would be toward the top. According to a recent story by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic, the one-time associate of Sigmund Freud coined the terms extravert and introvert, along with many of the other words we use to describe mental health today. One topic he thought a lot…
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Should AI be used to help us stay in touch with the dead?
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Episode 138: There are 137 episodes of The Ethical Life podcast, and that means there are more than 6,000 minutes of hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada talking about various ethical issues. This also means that AI can stitch together all this information and create replicas that would sound — and possibly even think — like them. Some people already …
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Episode #53: Blake Boles - Unschool Adventures
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Blake Boles is one of the leading voices in the world of unschooling and a passionate advocate for alternative approaches to education of all kinds. He is the founder and director of Unschool Adventures, a travel program for self-directed learners, and is the author of Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?, The Art of Self-Directed Learnin…
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Why should we care about privacy in a digital world?
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Episode 137: With more data accumulating about us each day, hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada talk about whether privacy is still important — or even possible. Links to stories discussed during the podcast: What Gen Z really cares about when it comes to privacy, David Ruiz, Malwarebytes AI hustlers stole women’s faces to put in ads. The law can’t h…
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Episode #52: Christine Deck - Deck Family Farm, Willamette Valley, Oregon
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This week on the Microcollege podcast we explore the deeply important and little discussed question of who the farmers of the future will be and how they will be educated. Our guest is Christine Deck, co-owner of the Deck Family Farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Together with her husband John and their 5 kids, Christine runs a diversified organic…
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Are parents responsible for the actions of their children?
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Episode 136: Earlier this year, James and Jennifer Crumbley were convicted, in separate trials, of involuntary manslaughter. In 2021, their son, then 15, shot and killed four students at his Michigan high school. Six more students and a faculty member were wounded. He is serving a life sentence, with no possibility of parole. The Crumbleys were acc…
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Episode #51: Philip Francis - Seguinland Institute, The Good Life Gap Year, Maine
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Philip Francis is the Director and Co-Founder of the Seguinland Institute, an innovative gap year program provider located in beautiful Georgetown, Maine. Philip is a native son of the region, where his parents settled to become homesteaders under the influence of Scott and Helen Nearing, authors of the early 20th century back-to-the-land classic L…
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Episode 135: It’s common to hear people say they’ve reached the point in life where they don’t care what others think about them. This can either sound like someone who is firm in their convictions, or it can give the impression that they don't value feedback from others about their actions and beliefs. Host Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss when…
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Should celebrities promote their political views?
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Episode 134: It used to be that, with a few exceptions, actors and musicians were simply performers. Yes, we might have had an occasional look into their private lives, but most people simply enjoyed their films and their music. But for better or worse, social media has turned performers into brands — and they often find themselves in the middle of…
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What has the debate about IVF taught us about the meaning of life?
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Episode 133: Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that three couples who had frozen embryos accidentally destroyed in a storage facility could pursue wrongful death lawsuits. After the ruling, three major providers of in vitro fertilization temporarily paused those services in the state because of concerns about civil liability. Those treatm…
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Why do so many people choose not to vote?
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Episode 132: The 2020 presidential election had the highest voter turnout in 120 years, with 66.8 percent of citizens 18 and older voting in that election. But that still means that 1 out of every 3 eligible adults — that’s 80 million people — stayed home. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss why people choose not to participate and whether th…
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Episode 131: Two popular columnists recently wrote about travel, and they had dramatically different views. Agnes Collard wrote for The New Yorker that travel turns us into the worst version of ourselves, while Matt Yglesias wrote about the many benefits of tourism, especially on the economies of the places that are most-often visited. Hosts Richar…
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Have universities changed for the better over the past 40 years?
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Episode 130: Higher education has been in the news a lot lately, and the news isn’t the kind college administrators are hoping to see. Questions about what’s being taught in the classroom, and how that affects admissions and free speech, are all making headlines at campuses across this nation. Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss how the role …
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