Author: Magazine Editor

Focusing on two goals—creating a better place to work, and a better way to source food—Irene Li shared her mission for responsibility operating her popular Boston restaurant. Irene owns the Mei Mei Street Kitchen and Restaurant, where she balances environmentally sound kitchen practices, the use of fresh, local ingredients, and ethical labor practices. Irene has collected accolades from publications such as Eater, Bon Appetit, Boston Magazine and the Improper Bostonian, and was named a semifinalist by the James Beard Foundation in its Rising Star Chef of the Year awards for three years in a row. In 2017, Zagat named her one of its “30 Under 30.” Mei Mei began as a food truck in 2012, then as a restaurant in 2013, and includes a successful catering business as well as its own line of sauces for retail sale. “I’m not a church-going person, but I imagine that people who go to church feel the way I felt about going to the farmer’s market every...

The differences we bring to institutions strengthen those institutions and our relationships within them, says Dr. Kedra Ishop, the vice provost for enrollment management at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Speaker, Dr. Ishop reviewed legal battles for racial and ethnic inclusion in higher education, from Plessy v. Ferguson, a 19th-century Supreme Court case that ruled public institutions may be “separate but equal,” to modern legal challenges to university admissions processes. Dr. Ishop serves on multiple national and international committees and advisory boards related to university diversity, affordability, assessment, admissions and enrollment. She holds three degrees from the University of Texas-Austin, where she began her career in admissions: a B.A. in sociology, a master of education in higher education administration, and a Ph.D. in educational administration. “Who you are matters. The color of your skin matters, your economic background matters, your sexual identity matters, your political affiliation matters, and we should do our work to try to craft the diverse environments we are seeking. We are no longer using these things to keep people out, but to bring them...

Veterans Day speaker, Army Brig. Gen. Richard F. Johnson P ’19, encouraged students to ask themselves two questions: “What inspiration can I draw from the service of veterans?” and “How will I serve?” Brig. Gen. Johnson is the Land Component Commander, Massachusetts Army National Guard. He is responsible for training, readiness, and force development for a formation of over 6,000 soldiers, and serves as a Joint Task Force Commander and Contingency Dual Status Commander in domestic security and natural disaster response operations. He is a highly decorated veteran of four combat deployments: as a platoon leader in Iraq and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, company commander in Afghanistan in 2009–10, and as a senior combat advisor with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan in 2012–13. Brig. Gen. Johnson is a senior executive fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He completed the National Security Management Fellowship at Syracuse University and holds graduate degrees in criminal justice and public affairs from the University of Massachusetts, and he was a national security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. “In a world that’s fraught with peril and those that would do harm, your veterans have been the guardians of freedom and the protectors of peace and humanity. Celebrate their service and sacrifice by making...