In this episode of the Caring, Character, & Community Podcast, Hardin interviews Mossik Hacobian, Executive Director of Boston’s Higher Ground. Mossik speaks to the importance of taking meaningful risks and having courage to make mistakes when it comes to meeting the needs of historically marginalized communities — particularly their youth.
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BU Wheelock College of Education and Human Development
Center for Character and Social Responsibility
“Caring, Character, and Community” Podcast Series
To prepare the next generation to become caring and effectively engaged citizens requires a multi-faceted approach. It includes a focus on personal development, professional development, program development and implementation, and on systems change. As part of the CCSR’s focus on personal and professional development of educators, parents, and community leaders, we are pleased to announce our upcoming podcast, “Caring, Character, and Community.”
Season One of this series will focus on how leaders integrate the ethic of caring, their own and others’ character development, and a commitment to serving the needs of others to guide and inform their leadership in times of crisis. Part One will focus on PK-12 leaders, Part Two will focus on Higher Education Leaders, and Part Three will focus on leaders of youth-serving, community-based leaders. Each part will include 4 podcasts and an interactive webinar, during which listeners can participate in a Q&A with the leaders who have shared their stories in the podcasts.
In this episode of the Caring, Character, & Community podcast, the fifth of our community-based organizations series, Mossik Hacobian, Executive Director of Boston’s Higher Ground, speaks to the importance of taking meaningful risks and having courage to make mistakes when it comes to meeting the needs of historically marginalized communities — particularly their youth.
Mossik Hacobian has served as the Executive Director of Boston’s Higher Ground since June 2011. Prior to serving at Higher Ground, he worked for 33 years at Urban Edge, a recognized leader in community development corporations (CDCs) in the Northeast. During his tenure at Urban Edge, he served for three years as President and 22 years as Executive Director. When recognized as a Barr Fellow in 2005, Mossik was executive director of Urban Edge.
Mossik has worked briefly as a consultant with Serrafix, a strategic consulting group focused on advising clients on ways to save energy, improve transportation systems and implement smart growth. His awards include: Citizens Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) Community Service (1998), LISC Mike Sviridoff Leadership (2005), Mass. Association of CDCs Richard Smith (2010), UMass Robert H. Quinn Award for Outstanding Community Leadership (2011) and Mass. Immigrant and Refugee Alliance (MIRA) Coalition Give Liberty a Hand (2011).
Mossik is a Trustee of the Foley Hoag Foundation, member of the Boston Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, member of the Advisory Committee of the Boston City to City Leadership Exchange and board member of MIRA and Thompson Island Outward Bound. He has a BA from Columbia College and studied architecture at Columbia University.
Welcome to Semester One of “Caring, Character, and Community,” a podcast from the BU Wheelock College of Education and Human Development Center for Character and Social Responsibility. In this season, we will focus on learning from leaders about how they integrate the ethic of caring, a focus on their own and others’ character development, and a commitment to serving the needs of their community, in order to guide and inform their leadership in times of crisis.
Part One: PK-12
September 7, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part One, Episode One: Karen Bohlin, Principal of Practical Wisdom Group, discusses the importance of developing a caring and compassionate framework, a compass, for guiding a leader’s and community’s response to crisis.
September 14, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part One, Episode Two: Brenda Cassellius, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools shares with us how centering on the needs of children, with commitment to caring, helps organize the efforts of adults in the community to help children flourish-- even, and especially, in times of crisis.
September 21, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part One, Episode Three: Julie Lawton, Chief Academic Officer of YueCheng Education in Beijing PRC shares the a story of how creating a school that is centered on caring and compassion facilitates positive outcomes in times of crisis
September 28, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part One, Episode Four: Dana Weeks, Head of Germantown Friends School, discusses the importance of integrity and trust in building and sustaining a caring school community that helps children to flourish.
Part Two: Higher Education
October 14, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Two, Episode One: Nicholas Covino, President of William James College, shares with us the importance of showing up — being present and available to one’s community — as foundational to effective leadership in crisis. He discusses the challenges this commitment can pose to one’s sense of well being, and how gratifying this level of commitment can be.
October 21, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Two, Episode Two: Kenneth Elmore, Associate Provost and Dean of Students at Boston University, discusses being guided by compassion, along with attention to detail and a willingness to actively navigate the tension between upholding community values and also holding space for disagreement and thoughtful discourse. When it comes to caring for one’s many community members in the higher education space, it is important to highlight opportunities to see and harness “unity of feeling,” where groups with different goals can find common ground in their core values.
October 28, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Two, Episode Three: Pam Eddinger, President of Bunker Hill Community College, shares with us the importance of meeting the needs of community college students with both deep care and great expectation.
November 4, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Two, Episode Four: Don Pope-Davis, Dean of The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology, shares the challenges of transforming a school to be centered on using its research and teaching mission to meet the needs of local communities, particularly those that have been historically marginalized, while also creating a community that is caring and supports the personal and professional development of all its members.
November 21, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Two, Special Episode: Nicholas Covino (President of William James College), Kenneth Elmore (Associate Provost and Dean of Students of Boston University), Pam Eddinger (President of Bunker Hill Community College), and Don Pope-Davis (Dean of The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology) gather to share their ideas about what is next in higher education to create a more caring community. While there was no consensus as to what are the most important levers of change, there was a shared sense that we need to work across multiple settings to increase access to opportunity, and that we need to learn how to better cooperate across our silos. They leave us to wonder how we can find common cause across the world of late-adolescent and early-adult learning.
Part Three: Community-Based Organizations
November 11, 2021 CCC Semester One, Part Three, Episode One, Ayele Shakur, Executive Director of BUILD speaks to the importance of giving space to youth to find their place in their community by learning how to create an enterprise.
November 27, 2021 CCC Season Two, Part Three, Episode Two, Charmane Higgins, Executive Director of Boston Trinity Connects, shares the challenge of providing children who have been in traumatizing situations with a sense of being valued and cared for, and discusses the demands that such care places on the adults who serve them.
December 4, 2021 CCC Season Two, Part Three, Episode Three, Will Parish, Founder and President of 10 Strands, describes character as a function of one's actions, and centers the importance of developing environmental literacy as a key component of character development in the modern era.
December 18, 2021 CCC Season Two, Part Three, Episode Four, Alex Oliver-Dávila, Executive Director of Sociedad Latina, discusses the importance for culturally and linguistically diverse youth of being part of a community that represents them.
December 26, 2021 CCC Season Two, Part Three, Episode Five, Mossik Hacobian, Executive Director of Boston’s Higher Ground, speaks to the importance of taking meaningful risks and having courage to make mistakes when it comes to meeting the needs of historically marginalized communities — particularly their youth.
Thanks to Lizzie Barcay for the editorial and production work.
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Caring, Character, & Community