R. Barbara Gitenstein

Kathryn interviews Author Jodi O'Donnell-Ames.Jodi O'Donnell-Ames lost her 36-year-old husband, Kevin O'Donnell, to ALS in 2001. She now takes readers inside her own deeply emotional journey through caregiving, loss, grief and those hardest, ubiquitous lessons of adult life. She has devoted herself to giving back to others touched by a life-limiting diagnosis or other challenging transitions in life. She is the founder of Hope Loves Company, the only nonprofit dedicated to supporting the children and grandchildren of people living with ALS. She is also a motivational TEDX speaker, life coach and host of the podcast, Gratitude to Latitude: Stories of Hope and Resilience, through which she celebrates the people and the stories that have fueled her purpose and passion for personal growth and healing.Kathryn also interviews Author R. Barbara Gitenstein.Being a female administrator was relatively rare when R. Barbara Gitenstein rose to the highest level of academia in 1999, becoming the first woman and first Jewish president of The College of New Jersey, a position she held until 2018. Now a consultant for institutions of higher education, she draws upon valuable lessons she learned across more than four decades in academia — plus personal and historical obstacles she overcame — to help today's college administrators find solutions to modern-day challenges. Gitenstein chronicles her path to the presidency and acknowledges the impact that people, places and perceptions had on her personal and professional identities. She is the author of some 30 academic articles on Jewish-American Literature and academic administration as well as the monograph Apocalyptic Messianism and Jewish-American Poetry.