Sally Kohn to Headline 2021 Mentor Send-Off

Sally Kohn, the political commentator who focuses on finding the compassion and humanity in everyone in the search for common ground, will speak at the 2021 Mentor Send-Off, the cap-stone event of the Harris Mentor Program. A former contributor for Fox News who now regularly appears on CNN, Kohn is community organizer and founder and chief executive officer of the Movement Vision Lab, which focuses on liberal and progressive ideas and positions.

A much sought-after speaker, Kohn’s talks are filled with powerful personal stories and thought-provoking research. She has been Senior Campaign Strategist with the Center for Community Change and held a program fellowship at the Ford Foundation. She was also strategic advisor to the Social Justice Infrastructure Funders, Executive Director of the Third Wave Foundation, a distinguished Vaid Fellow at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, and a consultant with the Urban Justice Center.

“We are thrilled to have Sally Kohn share her wisdom and insights with our mentors and mentees,” said Dr. Nichole Horn, Student Engagement Specialist at Harris. “From working on campaigns, managing multimillion dollar budgets, and more, all with a focus on social justice, Sally Kohn is the kind of voice we all need to hear following a tumultuous 2020.”

Kohn received a joint degree in law and public administration from New York University and was a Root Tilden public service scholar at the New York University School of Law. Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Kohn now in Brooklyn, New York, with her partner Sarah Hansen and their daughter Willa.

The Mentor Send-Off formally closes out the mentor-mentee relationship in the Mentor Program. Student-nominated Mentor of the Year Award recipients will also be honored at the event.

Despite taking place in a virtual world, the organizers want to ensure that the event includes the traditional component of a networking session, with breakout rooms following the formal presentation.

In existence since the school was founded, the Harris Mentor Program is based on the fact that it’s just as important to create a professional network as it is to practice problem sets. The program broadens students’ real-world learning experiences and professionally relevant knowledge base – and helps them build powerful professional networks.

Harris mentors – including city and government officials, executive directors of non-profits, policy analysts, consultants, and other policy practitioners – call on their experience to help students connect academic training with practical opportunities and to navigate the transition to professional careers. 

The event will take place on Monday, May 17, at 6pm. Previous speakers at Mentor Programs include Dr. Sybil Madison (CLA’19), Chicago’s Deputy Mayor for Education and Human Services; Pat Quinn, Governor of Illinois from 2009 to 2015; and Arne Duncan, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Harris who served as Secretary of Education from 2009 to 2016.

If you are interested in influencing the next generation of policy professionals, please consider joining the Harris Mentor Program.