Archives

We broadcast our forum, taped earlier in the week at Manchester Central High School, on the immigrant and refugee experience in New Hampshire...as seen through the lens of education and ask what we have learned, where we are now and where we are headed in the future. Laura's guests are Christine Noon, Education Consultant for the New Hampshire Department of Education's English for Speakers of Other Languages Program (ESOL) and the English Language Learners Program (ELL) and June Rojas Tumblin, Department Head for the English Language Learners Program at Manchester Central High School. We'll also hear from John Rudolph, the man behind the documentary "Culture Lessons: Stories of Students at Manchester Central", Robert Cioppa, Director of ESL for the Nashua School District and two students from Manchester Central- Alena Golovnya from Russia and Igrain Fermait from Puerto Rico.

Author and long time Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne will be visiting the Granite State later this week to be the Keynote Speaker for the New Hampshire Humanities Council 17th Annual Dinner. He'll be addressing the attendees with a speech entitled "Can Religion Unite Us Rather than Divide Us: Why Americans Should Seek Peace in our Wars over Culture and Faith". But first, he comes on the Exchange to talk about the upcoming mid-term elections and how these culture wars may play out in them. Laura's guest is E.J. Dionne, Columnist for the Washington Post and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

There’s a new development going up in the small town of Hurley, New Hampshire, and the old time Hurley residents are not happy about it, so much so that they’ll engage in guerilla tactics to have it stopped. Joseph Freda’s 1995 book Suburban Guerrillas gives a comical look at our state’s conflicted feelings of growth, about those looking to find a home in small town New Hampshire and the old-timers who want to have the door shut behind them once they move in. We’ll explore the issue of growth with author Joseph Freda and through the pages of his book Suburban Guerillas on the next Granite State Stories. We'll once again broadcast live from the Political Library Reading Room at the State Library building in Concord. The event is free and open to the public. Laura's guests are Joseph Freda, Author of Suburban Guerrillas and Jeff Taylor, Former Director of the New Hampshire Office of State Planning from 1989 to 2003 and current President of Jeff Taylor & Associates, Inc., a community planning and economic development group in Concord, New Hampshire.

Does evil exist? If so where? Satanic ritual abuse? Tribal genocide? Cannibalism? Torture? Terrorism? David Frankfurter, a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of New Hampshire explored these ideas in a new book "Evil Incarnate". "People have been obsessed by evil for centuries", says Frankfurter "obsessed with what evil is, who is evil, and how to avoid evil - and the 21st century is no exception". We'll look at how our culture and other cultures have looked at the idea of evil and how recent events have shaped our recent perceptions. Laura's guest is David Frankfurter, a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of New Hampshire and author of "Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic, Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History".

A new report ranks the Granite State at the top of the list for saddling our college students with the highest level of student debt in the nation. We’ll ask why, and look at what other states are doing to help their students manage- and minimize their debt load. Richard Ager hosts. His guests are Tara Payne, Director of the New Hampshire Higher Education Assistance Foundation (NHHEAF) Center for College Planning and Robert Shireman, Founder and Executive Director of the The Institute for College Access and Success. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley ’s Center for Studies in Higher Education and serves as a congressional appointee to the Federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Robert's group released the study (pdf) under The Project on Student Debt, which is part of the T-I-C-A-S. We'll also hear from Lou D'Allesandro, State Senator from Manchester who is Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and also Chairman of the New England Board of Higher Education.