What's really happening in the Mountain State? Cardinal Direction brings you in-depth conversations on the policies affecting West Virginia, from the economy and education to healthcare and infrastructure. Produced by the Cardinal Institute for WV Policy.
What Work Remains at the State and Federal Levels? with Les Ford
Getting help shouldn’t become a full-time job. Yet families can face different applications, eligibility rules, renewal schedules, and caseworkers for each safety-net program they need. In the final episode of this Cardinal Direction series, Jessi Troyan talks with Les Ford, president of Ford Policy Solutions and senior fellow at the Alliance for Opportunity, about what it would take to make that system easier to navigate and better connected to work. They discuss lessons from the 1996 welf...
24 Sept 2026
State-Level Transformation in Louisiana with Susie Schowen
What does it take to turn a fragmented safety net into a pathway to work? Louisiana Works Secretary Susie Schowen joins Jessi Troyan to discuss Louisiana’s “one door” approach to connecting public benefits and workforce services. From gas cards that help students stay in training to changes across state agencies, they explore the practical work of reform, the importance of frontline staff, and lessons West Virginia can apply to its own efforts.
17 Sept 2026
Alternative Model in Action: Utah's Story with Nic Dunn
What if getting temporary help also meant finding a clearer path back to work? On this episode of Cardinal Direction, Jessi talks with Nic Dunn of the Sutherland Institute about Utah’s “one door to work” approach, which brings assistance and employment services together. They discuss why benefit cliffs can make a raise feel risky, how complicated programs take time away from work and skill-building, and what West Virginia can learn from Utah. Dunn also makes the case for giving states room to...
10 Sept 2026
Vision for a Better Safety Net with Mason Bishop
Getting a job or earning a raise should help a family get ahead. But benefit cliffs and a maze of disconnected programs can make that harder than it should be. In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessi Troyan, Director of Policy and Research at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, welcomes Mason Bishop, Principal at WorkED Consulting and Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Drawing on his role in creating Utah’s Department of Workforce Services, Bishop ...
3 Sept 2026
Overview of the American Social Safety Net with Angela Rachidi
In the season premiere of Cardinal Direction, host Jessi Troyan sits down with American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Angela Rachidi to examine America’s social safety net and why programs intended to help families can sometimes stand in the way of stability and upward mobility. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience in government, research, and the private sector, Rachidi explains how overlapping programs and conflicting rules create administrative burdens, marriage penalties, be...
30 Jan 2026
How to Believe in Both Justice and Policing
In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky is joined by Brianna Neufer, Chief Operating Officer at Americans for Public Safety, to unpack one of the most polarized issues in American life: public safety. Brianna shares how her work across the criminal justice landscape, from managing national strategy and grants at Stand Together to helping launch a new organization focused on policy and elections, has shaped her view that public safety is not a partisan talking point, but ...
30 Jan 2026
The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform
Host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Beverly Sharpe, a former federal prison officer and administrator who spent 30 years inside the corrections system before turning her experience toward reentry and reform through West Virginia’s REACH Initiative. Together, they explore what happens after the sentence ends, when people returning home face hundreds of “collateral consequences” that block housing, work, education, and even basic stability, often setting them up to fail before they’ve had a c...
30 Jan 2026
Second Chances: Life After Incarceration
In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Vikrant Reddy, senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, to explore one of the most consequential and complicated issues in American life: how we punish, how we forgive, and what justice actually requires. Drawing on his experience launching the Right on Crime initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Reddy explains how criminal justice reform can resonate with conservatives and libertarians, especially through ...
26 Dec 2025
The Frontline Crisis, Teacher Training
In the final episode of Cardinal Direction’s civics mini-series, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Tiffany Hoben to unpack a problem hiding in plain sight: teachers are expected to deliver strong civics instruction even when many never received deep content training themselves. They explore the difference between teacher prep and effective professional development, why knowledge should come before “action civics,” and how civics, history, economics, and geography work best when taught tog...
12 Dec 2025
Standards, Curriculum, and the Battle for Content
In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down again with Tiffany Hoben, Director of Education, Partnerships, and Strategy, to unpack the real battle in K–12 education: not just how we teach, but what we teach. They walk through the difference between standards, curriculum, lesson plans, and instruction, and explain how each piece shapes what students actually learn about civics, government, and economics. Using side–by–side examples from West Virginia and Florida, Je...
28 Nov 2025
Government in Action
In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, Tiffany Hoben, to explore what happens when schools skip over the basic structure of American government. Using West Virginia’s civics standards as a case study and comparing them to states like Florida, Tiffany explains why students need clear, detailed expectations about concepts like rule of law, federalism, separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights long before t...
14 Nov 2025
The American Founding and its Uniqueness
How can teachers tell the full truth about slavery, injustice, and national failure without teaching students to hate their own country? In this episode, hosts Jessica Dobrinsky and Tiffany Hoben examine what makes the American founding unique and how its principles have powered reform movements from abolition to civil rights. Drawing on primary sources like the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, Jessica and Tiffany exp...
17 Oct 2025
Foundations of a Free People
How did Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson craft one of the most significant documents the world has ever seen? In this episode, hosts Jessica Dobrinsky, Chief of Staff at the Cardinal Institute, and Tiffany Hoben, Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, explore the intellectual foundations that shaped America's Founding Fathers. Discover the prior thinkers and ideas that influenced the hearts and minds of the leaders who would build a nation on the principles of freedom. Jess...
3 Oct 2025
Preserving the Republic
Cardinal Direction launches with a conversation about the cornerstone of American society: the republic itself. Host Jessica Dobrinsky welcomes Cardinal's Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, Tiffany Hoben, to discuss the principles that sustain our republic, the challenges it faces, and the role education plays in preserving it for the next generation.
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