Greenfield Community College is launching Candor with Prez Yves, a biweekly internet conversation series hosted by GCC president, Dr. Yves Salomon-Fernández, with guests from Western Massachusetts and beyond.

Salomon-Fernández was inspired to create Candor with Prez Yves by the wealth of extraordinary leaders and activists engaged in crucial work in our region and throughout the state. "There's so much that we can be sharing during this time, that we can be celebrating, and there are challenges that we are all facing," she explains. "We are finding ways that work, and we're also learning a lot through those struggles. I thought it would be a great opportunity to engage these thought leaders and action-oriented leaders in sharing some of those."

The half-hour episodes of Candor with Prez Yves will become available every other Monday beginning the week of April 12. Guests will include leaders in politics, philanthropy, business, career development, and the arts. "We talk about everything from politics to diversity, equity and inclusion, to motherhood, to the environment," says Salomon-Fernández. "It really spans our imagination."

In the first episode, Salomon-Fernández speaks with Katie Allen Zobel and Leo Hwang of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts about supporting organizations through the pandemic and helping them become more resilient. In the second, her guests are state senators Adam Hines and Jo Comerford, discussing the recent passage of the seminal climate and economic justice bill and the further progress they'd like to make in this area.

Future guests will include state representatives Natalie Blais and Mindy Domb, Traci Talbert and John Waite of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, and Stacy Klein and Carlos Uriona of Ashfield's Double Edge Theatre.

Watch online at https://www.gcc.mass.edu/candor.