Kitty Eisele reflects on her experience at Salzburg Global Seminar and why she continues to give over 20 years later.
In looking back at her experience at Salzburg Global Seminar, Kitty Eisele points to the international aspect of the programs and the intimate collaboration – the “global webs of trust and interest” as she described it – as the je ne sais quoi of Salzburg Global programs.
“It blew open the shutters,” she reflected, “[Salzburg Global] really brought me into a much bigger world and way of thinking about the work I do […] It gave me a wide-open vision of what my work might be.” Since then, Kitty has gone on to win several accolades and defines her work as helping America tell its stories.
Kitty was early in her career, having produced documentaries with filmmaker Ken Burns, when she first received an invitation to join the 1994 Salzburg Global program Do Films Matter? The Artistic, Political, and Moral Impact of Film. To her, it was an opportunity to learn from others who were doing similar work, posing the same questions, and applying it in different cultural contexts. “It’s a real vote of confidence when you are received as a Fellow,” she said, “someone thinks what I have to add is important and it makes me think I can do that for someone else.”
But she never forgot her time at Salzburg Global, knowing that her monthly donation could provide this experience for others. “I feel like that’s putting my money where my values are,” she explained, “I trust that Salzburg Global is going to find new, great young people to come and have this experience and make the world better and keep the world safer […] For anyone who reads this, I want them to feel like a small amount matters just as much as a big amount.”
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About Kitty Eisele:
Emmy Award-winning producer Kitty Eisele is the creator and host of “Twenty-Four Seven: A Podcast About Caregiving,” about her years as a caregiver for her beloved dad, journalist Al Eisele. An NPR veteran, her radio work has been recognized with DuPont, Peabody, and James Beard awards. She began her career with Ken Burns, as one of the producers of his landmark series The Civil War, along with other Burns’ films for PBS.
A 2014-2015 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, she has contributed to books, plays, digital series, and public events on American history, culture, and politics. She teaches journalism at Georgetown University, and her interviews and essays have appeared on NPR and in the Washington Post. Running through her work is the common denominator of sharing lives and shaping civic culture.
