The Jefferson Educational Society Turns 15

Jessica Hunter

The annual Global Summit presented by the Jefferson Education Society is one of the organization's largest events and considered one of their biggest accomplishments, bringing in renowned and diverse speakers from all over the world to give presentations in Erie.

"The Jefferson is a bit of a Swiss army knife," says Ben Speggen, vice president of the Jefferson Educational Society (and contributing editor to this publication). "It does civic education, programming, and publications. And in the publications, it's not just about environmental justice, or politics, or poetry, or foreign affairs. It's all of it."

I spoke to Speggen over Zoom in late May to assess the 15 years of programming our local think tank has offered. When I asked him to name an especially impressive accomplishment, he began to reminisce about their annual Global Summit. "The idea behind the Global Summit was that we wanted to import big ideas to our little corner of the world," says Speggen. "People shouldn't have to go to Chicago, New York, D.C., or San Francisco to learn from the best and brightest. That should be happening in Erie, Pennsylvania."

It's safe to say that the Global Summit has delivered on this promise. Across its first 14 years, it has featured ex-presidents (George W. Bush) and noteworthy presidential hopefuls (Howard Dean). The Summit has featured a former CIA director (General Michael Hayden), a former Secretary of Defense (Chuck Hagel), a former director of the National Security Agency (General Michael Hayden), and two former Pennsylvania Governors named Tom (Ridge and Wolf). And it's not all politics either. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book Team Of Rivals inspired a Stephen Spielberg movie and the original cabinet of the Obama administration, has taken the stage twice. In 2016, sociologist and ordained minister Michael Eric Dyson assessed the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. At the tail-end of quarantine in 2021, physician and Washington Post columnist Leana Wen offered her controversial thoughts about COVID-19. And Erie's own Joan Chittister assessed her work with the Benedictine Sisters in 2014.

When I asked Angela Beaumont, the Jefferson's director of programming, to recall an impactful partnership cultivated through the Summit, she thought of one guest immediately. "When I think about the Jefferson's impact," says Beaumont, "our work with renowned urban planner Bruce Katz comes to my mind." In 2014, the former director of the Brookings Institution arrived to discuss post-industrial economies in the Rust Belt. The connections he made led to sustained involvement in Erie. "The Jefferson has gathered community leaders and stakeholders on numerous occasions to learn from Katz and other policy experts about how to build on Erie's momentum," according to Beaumont. "These conversations spurred the interest in, and the support of, strategic urban renewal, the potential of innovation districts, a focus on Erie's advanced industries, and more. Most recently, this impact has led to the development of an investment playbook detailing some 35 projects totaling more than $1.1 billion of potential investment. A 'living document,' Infinite Erie is now executing the playbook, and the JES continues to deploy its think tank resources to the cause."

Speggen also stresses the value of regional partnerships developed through the Summit: "We are not a parachute think tank where you come off the tarmac, go give a talk, receive a check, and get back on the plane. We like to show people around and ensure that they can meet people working directly in the fields that they're discussing. Last year," says Speggen, "a student working on an undergrad thesis had the chance to interview Judy Woodruff (PBS NewsHour anchor) and Al Hunt (Bloomberg View columnist) for a half hour. They were willing to sit down and just talk."

Speggen has enjoyed similar conversations personally. "I once got to walk from the Sheraton up to Logistics Plus with Fiona Hill (foreign affairs specialist and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution) because she didn't want to drive," he says. "So we got to walk through our downtown and talk about similar things happening in her hometown in the UK. What they're experiencing and the role that public art is playing in their revitalization."

Some of these conversations lead to direct action in Erie. Prior to her lecture for the Summit in 2021, Camille Busette (Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution) became involved with the Erie Racial Justice Policy Initiative. "She came in as a consultant because the Better Together Council formed under Mayor Schember had wanted to do a policy review," according to Speggen. "They asked the Jefferson to help identify those on the national level that understand Erie and could work with us for a year to help guide that process. So I'm able to get Busette and suddenly she's working with Erie for a year on this, identifying real solutions that can empower a resident-driven model to approach racial inequities in our community."

The Jefferson Civic Leadership Academy (JCLA) gives participants ages 25-45 a chance to learn about the inner workings of local and state governments to help them to enact positive change in the Erie Community. Moving into its ninth year, the JCLA will focus on studying early childhood educational access in the Erie region.

The think tank's Jefferson Civic Leadership Academy (JCLA) is even more directly focused on local impact than the Global Summit. The project came about because President Ferki Ferati wanted to ensure that "emerging leaders and people that have an appetite to find their way into leadership are being equipped to do so," according to Speggen. "And the incredibly challenging thing about Pennsylvania is that municipal governments are just wholly balkanized. In Erie County alone, we have 38 municipalities. So it's important that people understand the form and function of municipal government – and to find a cohort that can work together to address a critical issue facing the region."

The JCLA, which completed its eighth year in 2022, has mentored an impressive who's-who of local leadership. Its alumni include the former executive director of our library system (Erin Wincek), Erie City Councilwoman Susannah Faulkner and former Erie County Councilman Jay Breneman, the former president of our NAACP branch (Tiffany McCloud), the executive director of the Urban Erie Community Development Corporation (Veronica Rexford), and the executive director of the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority (Perry Wood). Many local entrepreneurs have also completed the program, such as Hannah Kirby (Ember + Forge) and Shawnta Pulliam (founder of the child advocacy nonprofit Nurturing Hearts, Inc.).

In its first year, Angela Beaumont completed the program herself. "I had recently moved to Erie from overseas and needed to find myself professionally and personally again," she says. "When I graduated from the JCLA, I knew so much more about Erie's past, present challenges, and future potential."

Cut to 2023 and she is in charge of its programming. "This year the JCLA is exploring childcare and early childhood education in our region," according to Beaumont. "Since many participants are in the age bracket where this is a big concern, we are poised to get some real buy-in and energy for this potentially transformative and actionable topic. It also touches on the repeated issues previous cohorts were exploring: how do we make and keep Erie an attractive and livable city for younger people and how do we raise the next generation as one community?"

Over the years, as enthusiasm about the JCLA continued to grow, the Jefferson's Raimy Fellowship Program was founded to offer a more intensive experience for certain students and alumni. The Fellowship requires long-term investigative scholarship and offers business trips to Washington, D.C., where participants have met with Senator Bob Casey and Congressman Mike Kelly. "Raimy Fellows study leadership and apply their knowledge to a practical policy problem in the local region," according to Beaumont. "For instance, a study on the Wattsburg School District area and the lack of high-speed internet served as reference in an Erie County broadband expansion project. Another project resulted in a practical guide on how to navigate the paper barriers to employment for a transgender applicant." Much of the scholarship produced by the Fellowship is published by the Jefferson itself.

In its first 15 years, the Jefferson Educational Society has offered between 100 to 175 programs per year. Sometimes that means that a nationally recognized media figure comes to town, as will be the case when New York Times columnist David Brooks arrives for the 15th Anniversary Gala on June 10 at the Bayfront Convention Center. Sometimes, more homegrown investigations take the spotlight, like Baher Ghosheh's upcoming lecture about New American demographic trends in our region on July 20. Over the next 15 years, I'm confident that their work will play a key role in local policy debates — as well as everyday conversation in Erie.

More information can be found at jeserie.org

Dan Schank can be contacted at danschank@gmail.com