Community Speakers Series

Dopamine Kids

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

7:00pm – 8:30pm 

Register

In Person at Hinsdale Middle School

 Parenting advice around screens is woefully outdated. It hinges on psychology and neuroscience from 25 to 50 years ago. It doesn’t work and often makes our lives harder.  

Michaleen Doucleff, author of Dopamine Kids, offers you an easier and more effective approach. With a 5-step protocol, you’ll learn how to retrain your children’s brains so they naturally seek out activities and foods that bring gratification and true joy. The healthy option becomes the default in your home.  . 

Soccer Dad: 

 Helping Children Find Their Passion and Excel Without Steering, Pushing, and Smothering

Thursday, November 5, 2026

7:00pm - 8:30pm 

In Person at Hinsdale Middle School

David Murray is a soccer-ignorant, sports-ambivalent writer who saw his daughter from the kiddie leagues, through the travel soccer gauntlet and the college athletics recruiting process, to a coveted Division I scholarship. And then realized his work had only begun. 

On that journey, David contends with some of the essential questions facing parents of young athletes or any child focused on excelling in a competitive discipline: How do you guide without steering, motivate without pushing, and protect without smothering? And how do you learn from other parents―their good instincts, and their bad? 

David is an award-winning journalist whose writing on sports and other subjects has appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, and many other publications 

The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better

February 2027

Webinar

6:00pm – 7:30pm  

Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop help parents and educators understand why teens disengage from learning and how to help them reconnect. They identify four modes of student engagement—Resister, Passenger, Achiever, and Explorer—and offer practical, data-driven strategies to move teens from disengagement toward curiosity-driven exploration, focusing on building resilience and connecting school to their real-world interests. 

Hacking College: Why Major Doesn't Matter-- and What Really Does

Tuesday, April 27, 2027

7:00pm – 8:30pm

Hinsdale Central Auditorium

College is a complex, high-stakes game, according to authors Ned Scott Laff and Scott Carlson, but students can learn how to win it. Hacking College is a guide to rethinking higher education so that students can succeed in an increasingly complex world. Drawing from extensive research and real student experiences, this essential book exposes the hidden challenges and bureaucratic traps that undermine student success, from convoluted transfer processes to a single-minded emphasis on majors.

Carlson and Laff provide actionable strategies to help advisors lead students to tailor their education to their aspirations. They advocate for a proactive approach to education—encouraging students to "hack" their college experience by crafting a personalized field of study. This method challenges the traditional focus on declaring a major and empowers students to link their personal interests with academic pursuits so that their education aligns with future career and life goals. 

 Ned Scott Laff has decades of experience working directly with student affairs and higher education administration. His work focuses on student success initiatives, advising, and helping undergraduates navigate academic bureaucracy to build personalized educational paths. Scott Carlson is a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he has spent more than two decades reporting on university finance, technology, and the evolving challenges of higher education. The book itself expanded from a popular article he wrote for The Chronicle in 2020.