Access to Excellence Podcast

60 seconds to nuclear war

Professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Martin J. Sherwin discusses his new book about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and tells a terrifying, and not well-known, story of how close we came to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

We all have skin in the game

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, assistant professor in the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, explains how using our democratic freedoms will help overcome racism in America.

Would a Trump election loss benefit the Republican Party?

Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell provides an unbiased analysis of the stakes heading into the presidential debates -- with some debate history thrown in as well.

The U.S.'s approach to immigration is like 'policy formaldehyde'

Mason's Justin Gest, an expert on immigration and the politics of demographic change, explains why the U.S., from the outside looking in, appears to be a "closed angry giant."

Is the U.S. experiencing a third Reconstruction?

Mason's Charles Chavis, a historian of the early civil right movement, puts the current protests for racial justice in historical context.

Investigating the Olympic Spirit

Did you know the torch relay began at the 1936 Berlin Games? With this summer’s Tokyo Olympics on hold, Mason Olympic scholar Chris Elzey examines the Games as an athletic, cultural and political event.

The ups and downs of policing since Ferguson

Mason professor Laurie Robinson, who during the Obama administration was co-chair of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing, explains a complicated legacy.

The economics of COVID-19 in the Washington, D.C. region

Jeannette Chapman, director of Mason's Stephen S. Fuller Institute, says the region's primarily knowledge-based economy provides a strong foundation for recovery, but some sectors could take two years to rebound.

Let's talk (from home) about telework

How does Monday and Friday as work-at-home days sound? Mason professors Matt Cronin and Kevin Rockmann discuss how the pandemic could change how we view the office.  

Thomas Lovejoy: The Amazon is at a tipping point

University Professor Thomas Lovejoy, known worldwide as the "godfather of biodiversity," explains why the great rainforest is so imperiled, and how he fell in love with the region he has visited since 1965 and calls "a biologist's gigantic Christmas stocking."