Tom Williams

  "Eight years ago, Bob Inglis ran for a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives and didn’t even make it out of the Republican primary. He lost by nearly 3 to 1. His estrangement from South Carolina voters ran deep, friends-gone-missing and allies-turned-enemies deep.

Utah State University has signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concluding its Title IX compliance review of USU’s policies and procedures for responding to reports of sexual misconduct involving students between 2013 and early 2017.

The review found university-wide failures in USU’s processes to prevent and respond to incidents of sexual misconduct. It also echoed the findings of USU’s own internal inquiry, conducted in fall 2016.

We’re heartened by all the good being done in our communities by dedicated individuals and nonprofits. They sometimes don’t get the recognition they deserve, and you may want to help but don’t know where and how. Today we’re opening the phone lines, email and Twitter to give you the opportunity to spotlight a nonprofit or individual doing good in your community.

The U.S. Senate has acquitted President Trump of both impeachment charges brought against him by the U.S. House of Representatives. Sen. Mitt Romney was the lone senator to break party ranks when he voted to convict the president on the first impeachment charge. today we’re going to look back on this historic impeachment and look forward to the presidential election.

An alternative prison ranch in New Mexico conducts a daring experiment: setting the troubled residents out to retrain an aggressive herd of horses. The horses and prisoners both arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many— the horses often abandoned and suspicious, the residents, some battling drug and alcohol addiction, emotionally, physically, and financially shattered. Ginger Gaffney’s job is to retrain the untrainable. With time, the horses and residents form a profound bond, and teach each other patience, control, and trust.

Co-directors of the USU Digital Folklore Project Jeannie Thomas and Lynne McNeill (USU English Department Head and USU Assistant Professor of English, respectively) will join Tom Williams to talk about the 2019 Digital Trends of the Year.

Jason Gilmore is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University. He recently traveled to Iowa and attended events presented by various Democratic presidential candidates, in attition to a Trump Rally as part of research for a book he is writing. 

Sadie Hoagland’s new book “American Grief in Four Stages,” a collection of short fiction, asks the question: why does our country do so little for the bereaved? Why do we have only empty cliché to address the grief of others? Why do we expect people to just "get over" insurmountable tragedy?          

Retired USU professor Richard Ratliff has developed what he calls the theory of Relationism, which he hopes will help us bridge the many divides we’re experiencing in our increasingly polarized society. He’ll join Tom Williams to explain.

Over the span of fifty years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture—hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some twenty years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself. 

It's the opening day of the 2020 Utah Legislature, and Access Utah is back at the state capitol. We’ll speak with Senator Lyle Hillyard, Senator Evan Vickers, Senator Karen Mayne, and Representative Brian King. We’ll also hear from Bill Tibbetts with Crossroads Urban Center, Rusty Cannon with Utah Taxpayers Association, and Courtney Bullard with Utah Health Policy Project. You can get us your questions and comments by email to upraccess@gmail.com.

Today, as a part of our series: Stopping Sexual Harassment, we’ll talk with Susan Madsen and Robbyn Scribner of the Utah Women and Leadership Project at Utah Valley University. We’ll talk about sexual harassment and sexual assault. We’ll also talk about voting, leadership, body image and other topics.

Barrie Gilbert's fascination with grizzly bears almost got him killed in Yellowstone National Park. He recovered, returned to fieldwork and devoted the next several decades to understanding and protecting these often-maligned giants. He has spent thousands of hours among wild grizzles in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, Alberta, coastal British Columbia, and along Brooks River in Alaska's Katmai National Park, where hundreds of people gather to watch dozens of grizzlies feast on salmon.

Andrew J. Russell is primarily known as the man who photographed the famous “East and West Shaking Hands” image of the Golden Spike ceremony on May 10, 1869. He also took nearly one thousand other images that document almost every aspect of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. 

In fighting to pass the 19th Amendment, brave suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Emmeline B. Wells fought to end laws and take down barriers that prevented them from voting. Champions of Change introduces young readers not only to Anthony and Wells, but also to a diverse group of firsts and freedom-fighters in America’s fight for equality, such as:

Reimagining a Place for the Wild contains a diverse collection of personal stories that describe encounters with the remaining wild creatures of the American West and critical essays that reveal wildlife’s essential place in western landscapes.

From Utah State Magazine, "In the parched black desert of northeast Jordan, archaeologists recently unearthed a stone hearth containing loaves of flatbread more than 14,000 years old.

“Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement” is a collection of essays, fiction, and poetry. Whether reflecting on their teenage selves or their modern-day workplaces, each writer approaches the subject with authenticity and strength. Together the pieces create a portrait of a cultural sea-change.

From Wikipedia: “Sylvia Mendez (born June 7, 1936) is an American civil rights activist of Mexican-Puerto Rican heritage. At age eight, she played an instrumental role in the Mendez v. Westminster case, the landmark desegregation case of 1946. The case successfully ended de jure segregation in California[1] and paved the way for integration and the American civil rights movement.[2]

The holiday season is back, and so is the Access Utah holiday special. This season is time for special music old and new. It’s also time for wonderful stories humorous and poignant. We’ll hear music for the season performed by the Lightwood Duo (Mike Christiansen on guitar and Eric Nelson on clarinet). We’ll also hear readings for the season by the author of The Christmas Chronicles, playwright Tim Slover. 

“Unselfish: Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Selfie” compiled by Paul Parkinson, features 99 inspiring stories of people putting others before themselves. Everyone is trying to get noticed. Selfies are taking over the internet. We live in a world where success and achievement seem to be determined by how many “likes” or “followers” one has on social media. Selfish behavior seems to be at an all–time high.

We’re answering your questions about Electric Vehicles today. Our guests include USU student and EV owner Samuel Bona; EV owner and early adopter John Loveless; EV and Electric Bicycle owner and USU Associate Professor of Computer Science Nicholas Flann; and Rep. Raymond Ward, who is working to develop an EV charging infrastructure in Utah.  

Linda Hirshman, acclaimed historian of social movements, delivers the sweeping story of the struggle leading up to #MeToo and beyond: from the first tales of workplace harassment percolating to the surface in the 1970s, to the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal—when liberal women largely forgave Clinton, giving men a free pass for two decades. Many liberals even resisted the movement to end rape on campus.

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world’s oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.

George Bird Grinnell, the son of a New York merchant, saw a different future for a nation in the thrall of the Industrial Age. With railroads scarring virgin lands and the formerly vast buffalo herds decimated, the country faced a crossroads: Could it pursue Manifest Destiny without destroying its natural bounty and beauty?