CQCM Board and Staff

 

Ranny Levy

In 1991, concerned about the harmful effects of violent and biased media on children, educator and media producer Ranny Levy co-founded the Coalition for Quality Children's Media (CQCM) and its flagship program, KIDS FIRST!. The CQCM is dedicated to promoting and nurturing quality children's media as a vehicle for social change.

Levy's vision for KIDS FIRST! was to create a program that would empower young people to become critical consumers of media. The KIDS FIRST! Film Critics initiative recruits and trains tweens and teens to attend press screenings, red carpets, and other industry events, and to write and produce reviews of films, TV shows, and other media content. KIDS FIRST! Film Critics' reviews are published on the CQCM website, YouTube channel, and social media platforms, and are also featured in media outlets such as Kidsville News, GRAND Magazine, News-o-matic, SocalCityKids, and many more.

In addition KIDS FIRST ! produces a bi-weekly podcast and the KIDS FIRST! Film Festival. The CQCM's work has been recognized by all the major entertainment studios and in July 2023 Ms. Levy was awarded the Golden Globes Honors Foundation's Noble Philanthropist Award.

The CQCM is a leading voice in supporting quality children's media. Through its programs and initiatives, the CQCM is helping to ensure that children have access to media that is devoid of unsavory content, entertaining, and empowering.

Ms. Levy is a children's media expert and author of three books, including The New York Times / KIDS FIRST Guide to The Best Children's Videos, A Parent's Guide to the Best Children's Videos, DVDs and CD-ROMs, and The Field Guide for Young Women: Finding Your Life Partner. She is a frequent speaker at conferences on children's media, including:

• Kid, Youth and Parent Power Conference
• Vice President Gore's Family Re-Union
• National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
• National Governor's Association Conference on Quality in Education
• Head Start Research Conference
• National Association of Family and Community Educators
• Kidscreen
• Ukraine Matters / SEVIC 2023 Keynote Speaker
  https://youtu.be/6RRrwtyybKs
  

Education: University of Michigan, Connecticut College/American Dance Institute, California State University Long Beach, Naropa Institute, Nikolais/Louis Foundation for Dance.

Ms. Levy is a mother of two grown children, grandmother of two, and has one surrogate son and one surrogate daughter-in-law. She enjoys watching and reviewing films, writing screenplays, staying active, organic gardening, traveling, opera, music, theater, and entertaining friends and family. She is committed to life-long learning and loving.

10 Crazy things you probably never knew about me.

1. My Dad was an engineer and I went to college intending to be an engineer which I found way too boring so I switched majors to dance and theater. My Dad was most unhappy but settled by saying, "Well then, I'll insure your legs." Which he did.
2. I studied dance from the time I was 4 - ballet, jazz and modern dance. I twirled the baton from the age of 8 through high school, competed in baton twirling competitions all over the mid-west and was head majorette for my high school marching band. Simultaneously, I joined the community synchronized swimming team and performed with them throughout my junior and high school years.
3. I had my first job at age 14 teaching dance to Head Start students.
4. I studied dance with famous dancers such as Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, various teachers from the Martha Graham and Alvin Nicolai Companyies, Twila Tharp, Yvonne Rainer, Merce Cunningham and Nancy Stark Smith. It was a blast.
5. I started a dance company in Fort Wayne, Indiana called the Fort Wayne Dance Collective with some of my best friends and brought in guest teachers, like Diane Elliot and John LeFan, to teach summer intensive workshops and to choreograph for the company. I introduced t'ai chi and contact improvisation to dancers and non-dancers of Fort Wayne. The Fort Wayne Dance Collection is still in business today!
6. I taught dance at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, New Mexico State University, Indiana University-Purdue in Fort Wayne and Whitney Young Magnet School. In the late 70s. I started a dance touring company with 3, 4 and 5th graders who were some of the best students I've ever worked with. Years later, I ran into one of them, Rodrick, who told me I saved his life. "Without you, I would be in jail today."
7. I've been married, divorced, and widowed and haven't given up on love! I am happily surround by a loving community of family and friends and am still looking for that special person to share my life with.
8. I was a vegetarian for 20 years, from ages 17 to 37 and raised my kids as vegetarians until they started school and begged to eat lunch at the school cafeteria, which I couldn't refuse.
9. My first child was born when I was 20 and my husband and I owned a wholesale importing business and traveled all over Mexico with our 3-month-old son, buying silver jewelry, pottery and rugs.
10. I produced a magazine format television show for Citizens Cable of Fort Wayne, won an Ace Award and was invited to work for CNN in the early 80s. Instead, I moved to New Mexico, aptly named the Land of Enchantment. I've been enchanted by New Mexico ever since.

My daughter Alanna, my sister and me in Alaska	My grandson, Adensunset, 2023, IAIA Valedictorian
My son, Samsunshine, 2022	My grandson, Sadel, 2016