Terry Newell is currently director of his own firm, Leadership for a Responsible Society. His work focuses on values-based leadership, ethics, and decision making. A former Air Force officer, Terry also previously served as Director of the Horace Mann Learning Center, the training arm of the U.S. Department of Education, and as Dean of Faculty at the Federal Executive Institute. Terry is co-editor and author of The Trusted Leader: Building the Relationships That Make Government Work (CQ Press, 2011). He also wrote Statesmanship, Character and Leadership in America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and To Serve with Honor: Doing the Right Thing in Government (Loftlands Press 2015).
In Western Art, a “fig leaf” was used to hide embarassing parts of human anatomy. In politics, the term applies to efforts to hide or mislead about the intentions of actions. Fig leaves are bad for democracy; only thinking citizens can uncover them.
Barbara Johns, a fifteen-year-old student in a segregated school decided she’d had enough. The fight she led ended up in the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v.. Board of Education.
This musical tribute celebrates the joy, energy, determination and hope that the world’s children bring to facing our difficulties and the possibilites for correction and community.
With artificial intelligence (AI) students can offload their thinking to technology but AI can improve thinking skills with proper structure and guidance from teachers.
Supreme Court justices who rely solely on the concept of originalism to interpret the Constitution ignore its limitations and may contribute to eroding trust in the judiciary.
The need for civic virtue in Americans’ personal and public lives needs to be highlighted. That is the focus of my new book, Democracy’s Champions.
For our republic to thrive, Theodore Roosevelt said, it needs people with character and commitment to the common good.
Americans might soften their divisions and foster much-needed civility if they would allow more humor to grace their politics.
Bullies, from the playground to politics, are a danger to civility, social trust and self-government. Standing up to bullies is essential.
With preserving the Union under the Constitution his overarching goal, Henry Clay helped forge compromises over slavery and other sectional issues during the tumultuous period preceding the Civil War.
The personal habits and preferences of those we love add unexpected joys to a relationship, making it a fun, flavor-filled and rich recipe for our own happiness.
When “where you stand depends on where you sit” dangers may lurk in your personal life and far beyond.
In our politically polarized country, Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us that love not hate is the only answer that works to heal our wounds.
Downzing our possessions is inevitable at some point in our lives. It often comes with feelings of loss but can also be a positive experience.
The American story contains a multitude of proud achievements. It also contains shameful episodes. Acknowledging these failings plays a key part in spurring us to correct them - and doing so instills pride.
Enslaved Americans cannot celebrate the Fourth of July, Frederick Douglass said in 1852. Yet the Constitution can deliver their liberation he proclaimed in his sermon to the nation.
Reviled as the military leader of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee worked to heal the nation after surrendering his army as the Civil War ended.
Americans have 35 percent of the world’s wealth yet millions struggle with medical debt, poverty and unsafe schools. The Constitution’s promise to “establish Justice” demands a moral response not polarized politics.
People often use labels to attack policies or political opponents. Labels may generate anger and fear and get voters to the polls, but they are a poor substitute for the thinking democracy requires.
Human decision making requires integrating reason and emotion. Yet AI systems have no feelings and lack moral responsibility. That can be dangerous.
