College Admission in China, Leaders Who Learn, Home Births

Yan Chen is a professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.  Yan Chen and a visiting professor of Economics at Tsinghua University. Her research interests include mechanism design, behavioral and experimental economics, and information economics. Fall marks the beginning of the college application season.  Many students get into the college of their choice… and many do not. The reality is that students both in China and in America don’t get into the Universities of their choice because of a broken system.  All of these students have the same question: Is there a better way to do this?  Yan Chen shows that there may way to fix the admissions system.

Our producer, Liana Tan traveled to many different places over the summer. One of those places she visited was Vermont to spend time with her Grandmother and extended family. She shares some of her adventures and some lessons she learned on how to reconnect with family and embrace a different way of life.

Susan Ashford holds the Michael and Susan Jandernoa Professorship in the Management and Organization at the Steven M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include leader effectiveness and development. There are many types of leaders such as captains of sports teams and parents of families—although not all are effective leaders. Business organizations especially need good leaders and spend more than $24 billion on leadership development every year. Despite this large amount of spending, many leaders who participate in these programs don’t gain the experience they need to make them the best possible leaders. Susan Ashford shares about how to overcome this deficit and become a better leader.

Julie Nelson (the "Child Whisperer") has a master's degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. She teaches classes such as Applied Parenting and Marriage and Relationship Skills at Utah Valley University. She is the author of a couple of parenting books including "Keep is Real and Grab a Plunger". You can read more from Julie at her blog "A Spoonful of Parenting" Dr. Matt and Julie talk about how more and more women are choosing a home birth over giving birth at a hospital