Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Meet the change leaders: Katie Hyten of Essential Partners

Katie Hyten
Essential Partners

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Katie Hyten is the co-executive director of Essential Partners.

She completed her master’s degree in international negotiation and conflict resolution at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, where her research addressed foreign policy in religious conflicts. Hyten has held appointments as a visiting fellow and lecturer at Tufts, where she developed and co-taught “Dialogue, Identity, and Civic Action,” and as a consultant for Harvard Medical School’s Scientific Citizenship Initiative to co-design a course on science communication for ethical community engagement.


During Hyten’s tenure at Essential Partners, she has served as the program lead on collaborations with local grassroots groups, churches, foundations and colleges, training stakeholders to design, convene and facilitate dialogues across differences. She has helped communities hold dialogue about topics such as the role of guns in American life, ethnic violence and civil society, racial and ethnic diversity, as well as campus inclusion and belonging.

Prior to joining Essential Partners, Hyten served as a mediator and independent consultant in conflict resolution processes and helped develop and manage the first university-wide interreligious institute at Pepperdine University. She was awarded Harvard’s Program on Negotiation summer fellowship to support her research and work with Search for Common Ground in Lebanon.

Raised in a military family, Hyten lived in six states before entering college. She and her partner now live in Massachusetts when they’re not visiting family in Colorado, Alabama and Australia.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Hyten in April for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of her democracy work:

The Fucrum interviews Katie Hyten, the Co-Executive Director of Essential Partnerswww.youtube.com


Read More

Windows of a house

Low-angle view of two dormer windows protruding from townhouse roof

Grace Cary, Getty Images

Go Home

The distance from Washington, D.C., to my hometown of York, Pennsylvania, is 100 miles. When I worked as a Congressional staffer in D.C., I could get out of town and be back where I grew up in about an hour and a half, at least so long as I avoided rush hour traffic. Those last miles as I crossed the Pennsylvania-Maryland border brought a sense of gratitude for the relationships I would be keeping up. At my nephew’s soccer game, at an English-style pub with my long-time best friends, with my mother at the breakfast table having a local newspaper in her hands, life was ordinary.

I would return to work in D.C. feeling grounded. I felt better connected to

Keep ReadingShow less
Two children playing baseball during the Little League World Series Consolation Game at Howard J. Lamade Stadium on August 25, 2024 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Jonathan Landaeta #9 of the Latin America Region team from Barquisimeto, Venezuela slides into third base past Dylan Burke #9 of the Southwest Region team from Boerne, Texas in the fifth inning during the Little League World Series Consolation Game at Howard J. Lamade Stadium on August 25, 2024 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Dylan Buell/Getty Images

For Two Weeks in August, Sports Still Belong to the Kids

Late August in America has a certain sound and scene. For me, it is an ESPN broadcast and the persistent drone of a camera somewhere above a baseball diamond in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Beneath it: a collection of 11- and 12-year-olds doing something completely ordinary and, these days, increasingly extraordinary. They are playing baseball.

The Little League World Series, as I understood it as a kid, wasn't merely a sporting event. It was a fever dream. Kids from Seoul, Tokyo, Curaçao, and Texas suddenly occupied the same outfield. Different uniforms. Different languages. Same sweat. Same tears. Same inexplicable desire to chase a high fastball with two strikes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Our Conservative and Liberal Union
An american flag flying high in the sky
Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

Our Conservative and Liberal Union

How are Americans supposed to make a more perfect union when we can’t agree on whether we need to turn our cultural clocks forward or backward?

This question is among the more difficult that people can pose to their fellow countrymen. Not just because it has no obvious or easily agreed upon answer, but because it’s more likely to be asked during contentious times, like the one we are in today.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Anthem and the Civic Thread That Still Holds America Together

Baseball players place their caps over their hearts during the playing of the national anthem. Tacoma, Washington, USA.

Getty Images

The Anthem and the Civic Thread That Still Holds America Together

Each year, from the first buds of spring to the turning of autumn leaves, America is captivated by baseball. From Major League parks to Little League fields, from minor league stadiums to collegiate summer diamonds, the game transcends geography, generation, and ideology. Fans gather to watch today's stars and tomorrow's prospects, united by America's pastime.

Change has been abundant in the century since America celebrated its 150th birthday. Yet, as Field of Dreams reminds us, "There has been one constant throughout the years… baseball." Accompanying that constant is a nearly century-old civic ritual, forged in moments of national challenge and renewed before nearly every first pitch: the singing of the National Anthem.

Keep ReadingShow less