The Story We're Still Becoming: James MacLeod on History, Students, and the Future We're Shaping

Throughout this year, we’ve listened to the voices that make up this place, stories rooted in memory, shaped by experience, and carried forward in community. In this final episode, we sit down with James MacLeod, the professor of history and chair of the Department of History, Politics, and Social Change, who reminds us that history is not simply something we inherit. It’s something we interpret, wrestle with, and pass on. For him, teaching history isn’t about delivering settled answers. It’s about making space for the voices in the room, especially the voices of students, to enter the larger human story. In their questions, their challenges, and their hopes, he sees something more than academic curiosity. He sees the possibility of change. This episode explores how listening to the stories around us deepens the story we’re living in and how the next chapter may already be taking shape in the lives of those we’re teaching, mentoring, and learning from.