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The Northwestern Alumni Association’s career programs moved to an all-virtual format after the pandemic began. Amid increasing uncertainty in the job market and high unemployment rates, the NAA offers a range of virtual learning and mentorship programs for alumni at all stages of their careers, whether they are looking for their first job, making a change or seeking professional development.

Read about the NAA’s career programs

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Seeing her own family members treated unfairly in health care settings gave Melissa Simon ’06 the resolve to become a doctor and change health care from the inside. Today, she combines research and community outreach to reduce gaps in health care services for medically underserved communities.

Read more about Melissa Simon

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Broadway actor Adam Kantor ’08 co-founded StoryCourse, which mixes food and theater, creating “a multisensory, delicious, profound, moving experience,” says Kantor. He and his StoryCourse team are now developing at-home interactive theatrical culinary experiences.

Read more about Adam Kantor’s StoryCourse

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Through award-winning mystery novels and popular TV scripts, Attica Locke tells stories of Black Americans’ experiences that probe the inequities of class and race.

Read more about Attica Locke

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Emergency medicine physician and former Wildcats offensive lineman Ryan Padgett ’97 was one of the first healthcare workers in Washington state to test positive for COVID-19. His harrowing story has become both a symbol of hope and a cautionary tale about the ­­­dangers of the global pandemic.

Read more about Ryan Padgett

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When New York's Montefiore Medical Center admitted its first COVID-19 patient on March 11, Albert Einstein School of Medicine professor of medicine Kenneth J. Schaefle ’90 was pulled in alongside many others to help with the COVID response.

Read more about Ken Schaefle

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In a time of challenge and struggle, Northwestern alumni answer the call to help heal a wounded world in the wake of the coronavirus.

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Beginning in preschool, Black students are disproportionately disciplined in schools, from teacher-issued referrals, to corporal punishment, to police arrests and their attendant violence. And it is not simply that Black students are over-represented in these areas, but rather it is about the ways our presence — have always represented a dangerous intrusion within educational institutions structured by anti-Black solidarity.

Read the essay

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Northwestern gave Bill Healy the skills and the confidence to pursue a career as a journalist. It also gave him an opportunity to return to the classroom, where he teaches students to find genuine emotion that cuts to the core of our shared humanity.

Read Bill Healy's essay

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How can corporate leaders prepare for the unknown, build trust in their companies and transition their teams online? Three Kellogg School of Management professors share their insights.

Read about leadership during COVID

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