A Conversation with President Barack Obama
Recorded at Colgate University as part of the Kerschner Family Global Leaders Series, this conversation explores community organizing, the American people, the media divide, and the responsibility of leadership — themes at the heart of the Purpose & Public Health Media Network Fellowship.
Why This Conversation Matters at Voice Up
This is not just a political interview. It is a living example of purpose, public service, and the power of listening. President Obama began as a community organizer — someone who listened first, before he spoke.
He describes how our media and politics divide us — how social media silos people and feeds fear. The Voice Up Media Network was built to do the opposite: begin with people and purpose, tell the truth of lived experience, and connect people across differences.
That is the same principle at the heart of the Purpose & Public Health Media Network Fellowship.
Key Themes — From the Conversation to the Fellowship
Purpose Is Uncovered Through Listening
President Obama learned about America by listening — in rural Iowa, in southern Illinois, in inner-city Chicago. Purpose is not assigned. It is uncovered through lived experience. That is the first principle of the Voice Up fellowship: begin with Humility. Listen first.
We Are Not as Divided as Our Media Suggests
President Obama says the country is not as divided as our politics and media would suggest. The Voice Up Media Network was built to prove that — by telling stories that connect people across differences instead of driving them apart. The fellowship asks you to help build that network.
The Truth of Lived Experience
One thing matters more than anything else in this fellowship: the truth. The truth of what we have actually been through, seen, and survived. When you tell the truth of your own life, it reaches other people. That is how one person's truth becomes another person's turning point.
A Campus for Positive Social Change
President Obama describes the Obama Center as a campus for learning how to bring about positive social change. The Voice Up Media Network Fellowship is that kind of campus — a place where people learn from each other, discover their purpose, and build media that helps communities.
How the Five Voice Up Principles Show Up
Collaboration
·"All are welcome."President Obama learned from farmers, organizers, students, and families across every kind of community. The fellowship is open to people from every discipline and background.
Humility
·"We all have much to learn."He began as a community organizer — listening before he spoke. The fellowship begins with two weeks of Humility: listening, exploring, and not assuming you already know the answers.
Precision
·"All the details matter."He taught constitutional law — where every word matters. The fellowship asks you to be exact and clear about your audience, your story, and your purpose.
Patience
·"We all need forgiveness."Change takes time. The fellowship is an eight-week experience designed to take you from discovery to a finished product — not an overnight transformation.
Empathy
·"We must understand your why."He describes the connection people have with their pets, their communities, and their memories. Empathy is what makes media that helps people instead of dividing them.
"When you're on the ground, what's striking is — I remember the first time I started campaigning in Iowa, and look, there is a lot of corn there. But you'll go into a rural community in Iowa and discover that here's a town that was founded by hippies and there's an Orthodox Jewish community living side by side with a bunch of farmers, and people work together and they extend grace towards each other in ways that you do not see in your doom scrolling."
— President Barack Obama, Colgate University
That is what the Voice Up Media Network is built to show.
We connect people to purpose — on the ground, beyond the scroll.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Her Journey
President Obama's conversation about public service and listening on the ground connects directly to another Voice Up featured conversation: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, sitting down with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson on the IMO podcast. Both conversations are about purpose uncovered through lived experience — from a kitchen table in Miami to the highest court in the land, from campaigning in Iowa to the White House. Both connect to the five Voice Up principles and the Naming Gap Trilogy.
When Technology Divides Us — The AI Safety Connection
President Obama describes how social media silos people and feeds fear — how our media and politics divide us. That same question sits at the center of Voice Up's AI Safety content. When the most powerful AI leaders — Bill Gates and Sam Altman — publicly call for a slowdown, and when Anthropic's Jack Clark argues that the liberal arts must shape AI, the question is the same one President Obama raises: who is this technology for, and who is being left behind? The Voice Up Media Network Fellowship asks you to answer that question with the truth of your own lived experience.
Both conversations ask the same question: how do we build technology that connects people to purpose — instead of dividing them?
Purpose & Public Health Media Network Fellowship
This conversation is a living example of what the fellowship is built to do: connect people to purpose through media that tells the truth of lived experience. The fellowship is remote, flexible, and open to student athletes, journalists, historians, nurses, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, researchers, academics, social workers, and people who are just trying to figure things out.