Colleges & Universities

Olga Custodio, America’s First Latina Fighter Pilot, STEM Advocate and APB Speaker, will receive the 2022 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) during the 35th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards on Sept. 30.  The historic program, which was created by the White House to commemorate the establishment of Hispanic Heritage Month in America, is among the highest honors by Latinos for Latinos and supported by 40 national Hispanic-serving institutions.  

One of APB’s most important speakers and a true friend to all of us has passed away. Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Laureate and Former President of the Soviet Union, died in Moscow at the age of 91. 

Emmy Award winner and bestselling author Sonia Manzano examines the impact of the 1959 Cuban Revolution on four children from very different walks of life in her latest book—Coming Up Cuban: Rising Past Castro’s Shadow, which was released this week. This is the eighth book for Manzano, who is also an APB exclusive speaker and is best known as “Maria” from Sesame Street. It is published by Scholastic Press. 

Sony Pictures Entertainment has announced that APB speakers Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings will become permanent hosts for the syndicated quiz show Jeopardy! The pair have been filling in temporarily since the death of longtime host Alex Trebek in November 2020 and will continue splitting their hosting duties.  

After nearly 50 years of living in the Castro in San Francisco, Author and LGBTQ Activist Cleve Jones is moving from his beloved neighborhood. And that, according to a recent article in The New York Times, is happening across the country as “Gayborhoods” are losing LGBTQ residents. Jones was prominently featured in the article, which focused on why so many are choosing to move from their “gayborhoods.” Many are looking for less expensive areas as neighborhoods become gentrified, while others are finding greener pastures with more amenities in communities that are more accepting than in the past. 

Joanne “Coach P” McCallie, former NCAA Division I women’s basketball head coach for 28 years, has taken on her greatest role yet. She is forging a path to destigmatizing mental health and is coaching those afflicted to paths for full and productive lives. She knows what worked for her as an elite coach under national scrutiny while protecting her secret—a mental health diagnosis hidden across years of her career so as not to impede her success or impact her family’s livelihood. In her high-energy speeches and leadership seminars, Coach P engages, educates and inspires with discussions on mental health, sports, faith and leadership.

50 years ago, Title IX forever changed women's sports when the groundbreaking gender equity law was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, ultimately increasing the participation of girls and women in athletics. However, the significance of Title IX reaches far beyond sports. Touching on themes of gender equity, social change, mental health, overcoming adversity and more, the trailblazing female athletes and coaches below inspire with personal stories of failures and triumphs, reminding us all that it's never to late to achieve our goals in life.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark ruling that ends a woman's constitutional right to abortion and gives individual states the power to allow, limit, or ban the practice altogether. A decision that will create effects going far beyond abortion access, the long-term outcome is a concern for many. The speakers below are at the forefront of the fight for women’s rights. Consider bringing one of them to your campus to talk your students through where we are and where we go next.

"The Education of David Hogg" BY CHARLOTTE ALTER, TIME MAGAZINE | A lot has changed since I first met DAVID HOGG in 2018. He has a beard now, and a girlfriend. He’s about to be a senior at Harvard, studying the history of conservative political movements. His face has lost what little roundness it had. There’s a new President, and a new party in control of Congress. He’s in therapy these days. At the same time, so much has not changed. In the four years since Hogg and his friends in Parkland, Fla., launched the March for Our Lives movement, there have been at least 611 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Firearm-related deaths have overtaken auto accidents as the leading cause of death for children in the United States.

American democracy is at a crossroads and it's time to decide who we are as a nation. Written and narrated by APB exclusive speaker, award-winning author and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., History is US is a six-part audio documentary about race and the history of the United States produced and directed by C13Originals that asks questions about who we are as a nation, and what race might reveal about our current crisis.