About the program
Public media leaders across the country are grappling with the systems changes necessary to diversify workplaces, boards, content and audience—changes that go to the heart of public media’s mission. Today’s heightened awareness of racial and other inequities in American institutions has magnified and accelerated organizational and stakeholder expectations that public media leaders establish diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as core values in their organizations and build them into their behaviors, systems and culture.
At this critical moment, South Carolina ETV is partnering with the Riley Institute at Furman University to offer the Public Media Diversity Leaders Initiative (PMDLI). We anticipate PMDLI will become an important element of the emerging professional development pathway that supports public media leadership in this work.
PMDLI is a highly interactive virtual program, modeled after the Riley Institute’s lauded South Carolina Diversity Leaders Initiative, designed with the unique needs of public media in mind. The curriculum incorporates collaborative exercises, scenario analyses and audio/visual tools that introduce strategic DEI frameworks to guide development of actionable plans. Participants will explore selected best DEI practices already in place within public media and content tailored to examine challenges, themes and topics identified by the participants.
Participants will be selected from applicants across the country to reflect the public media ecosystem—region served, audience, station licensee type, affiliate organizations—as well as a variety of diversity dimensions. They will convene virtually in five workshop days over five months. As graduates of the first classes help identify future class participants, PMDLI can quickly scale throughout the national public media ecosystem.
Application and cost
The cost of PMDLI is $2,000 per participant. Apply for a future cohort.
For information: Stephanie Cook, interim president and CEO, South Carolina ETV, sfrazier@scetv.org, or Maria Rodillo, executive assistant and board liaison, NETA, mrodillo@netaonline.org.
PMDLI fellow roster
View the complete list of PMDLI graduates
Meet our inaugural class
Meet our second class
Meet our third class
Meet our fourth class
Meet our fifth class
