Auto-generated transcript of a recorded Antioch College Virtual Reunion event featuring the JD Dawson Award presentation, October 9, 2020. Machine-transcribed from the event audio; may contain errors. The source video is preserved on file but not linked here.
[0s] And then I’m going to remind you that we’re recording.
[5s] So again, welcome to the Anya College Virtual Reunion and the JD Dawson Award presentation
[12s] for the Alumni Reunion.
[15s] We are now recording the event.
[17s] It may be available on the YouTube site at a later time.
[21s] Your microphones will be muted for the event.
[24s] We expect a look pretty large crowd.
[27s] And so you can post questions in the chat.
[31s] And when the Q&A session opens, so after Mary Evans and Duffy talk for a while, then
[37s] we’re going to open it up so you can ask questions and interact through the chat.
[42s] So please put your questions in there and then Mary will pull your questions out of the
[46s] chat and ask them to Duffy.
[50s] Upcoming events are a whole month of reunion events.
[53s] So this is the very first one.
[55s] I’ll technically it’s the second one.
[56s] We had a social with the class of 1970 on Thursday.
[60s] But tonight at 7 o’clock is Ray Benson’s performance.
[63s] I see he recorded a custom recording for us where he tells a bunch of amazing Anya stories
[70s] and then plays some great music for us.
[72s] So please check that out.
[73s] If you go to the alumni.anyacology.edu website and click the events page.
[78s] You’ll see all of the events there.
[81s] Now, without further ado, I’m going to make Karen Mughalzor co-hosts.
[89s] And then they are going to take it away.
[92s] One moment.
[94s] Karen Mughalzor.
[95s] I’m Karen Mughalzor and I’m honored to be the president of the Anya College Alumni Association.
[103s] And people who know me well know that either I’ve never, ever left Anya or certainly
[110s] Anya has never left me.
[112s] So it’s an honor to welcome you all to the early part of the Anya College reunion
[120s] 2020.
[121s] And it’s a particular honor for me to be part of this program with a JD Dawson Award.
[132s] We all know most people call him Duffy, but I’ve been calling him Snuffy ever since
[138s] one reunion.
[140s] Somebody calls him Snuffy instead of Duffy.
[143s] So I don’t know if I’m the only one who calls him Snuffy, but it’s an honor to be here
[149s] with all of you to honor Snuffy to get the JD Dawson Award.
[156s] And the JD Dawson Award, as you all know, recognizes significant contributions to Anya
[162s] College.
[163s] And we could certainly say that to about Snuffy.
[166s] He’s been making contributions in co-op and in the OK library and throughout his life,
[175s] he’s been helping Anya out college.
[177s] And so it’s a great honor for me to be here with all of you to start the 2020 reunion
[186s] and to honor Snuffy.
[190s] And looks like there’s 52 of us here, so we have a full deck.
[194s] And I’m Karen for right on the other half of the Karen caucus.
[200s] And I’d like to welcome you as well as chair of the reunion committee.
[206s] Back in April at our last at our April board meeting, we made the decision to go virtual.
[212s] And I’m so glad we made it early.
[216s] It’s been a real team effort.
[219s] And I really want to call out and thank April for doing all of the magic behind the scenes to make all of these virtual events.
[231s] At least show up on our screens.
[233s] So without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Mary Evans, one of our newest alumni,
[241s] who will be introducing the JD Dawson Award for service to the college and our awardee,
[249s] the incomparable one and only tied by Snuffy and leading a conversation withuffy.
[257s] So take it away, Mary, and Nuffie.
[260s] Thank you.
[263s] The JD Dawson Award recognizes a significant contributions to any out college by alumni or friends of any out.
[272s] The nominees for this award should be persons who have contributed in a significant way to any out college or program of any out college.
[281s] Perhaps best known for their involvement with the co-op department.
[285s] The reason is that the award is not only for the college, but for the college.
[292s] The recipient that I get to recognize and that’s getting this award today.
[297s] I don’t know about dedicated.
[300s] or hold career to any college,
[303s] for themselves or if it was for the other people in the community.
[307s] Steve Duffy, class of 77,
[311s] was you’ll always be someone who is important to me.
[316s] You were very impactful, my journey at any up,
[320s] in your service, in all your services,
[323s] there’s so many that you’ve done.
[327s] I just, I’m honored to be here,
[331s] to be the one to moderate this event.
[334s] You were a union rep for almost 30 years.
[337s] You served on Comm-Slow and Adsell,
[340s] the budget committee, not only that,
[345s] to me, you were so many things,
[347s] the psychiatrist, a friend, a brother, a cousin,
[350s] a consultant, just all these other different services
[354s] that kind of go on notice.
[357s] I want to tell you how much I appreciate you
[358s] and how grateful I am to have met you
[362s] and to have you to be a part of my life
[364s] and a part of my journey after any end.
[367s] You’re definitely deserving of this award.
[369s] And some of the past recipients was multi-fund,
[374s] Matheson, Dr. Robert Fogretty,
[376s] got it last year.
[379s] There’s a really great list of people that’s gotten this award.
[383s] I’m just glad to be able to present it to you.
[385s] So it’s all further ado, Duffy.
[396s] Duffy, you’re happy.
[398s] Duffy, unmute yourself.
[401s] You’re still muted.
[403s] I shouldn’t, I’m okay now.
[405s] Yeah.
[406s] Well, I’m hoping this’ll be interactive
[408s] because I have 53 years of any oncology in my head.
[413s] And actually thousands of you have passed through my life.
[416s] So, y’all have made my life exciting
[420s] and a real adventure.
[423s] I was trying to think of a theme for this.
[426s] I, looking at what we’ve done in the last 10 or 12 years,
[430s] we reopened a college during the great Bush recession.
[433s] And so, you know, years ago,
[435s] I don’t know if any of y’all out there,
[436s] remember Marion Welch, who taught literature
[440s] and also specialized in teaching folks
[442s] about Alice Walker and stuff.
[445s] She used an essay called,
[447s] We Specialize in the totally impossible.
[450s] Now, I can’t remember who it was.
[452s] It could have been Paula Gittings,
[454s] but maybe one of you people out there
[456s] can give us the answer as to what actually was.
[460s] In fact, there’s an anthology coming out very shortly
[462s] called We Specialize in the totally impossible,
[465s] which is a collection of black feminist essays.
[469s] I’m sure Marion Welch will abuse it
[471s] and the current professor, Kevin McGruder,
[473s] would probably use it also.
[475s] So, if you have an answer, let me know
[478s] because we have specialized in the totally impossible.
[481s] So, do you have any questions for me?
[484s] Mary.
[485s] Oh, absolutely.
[486s] So, you started as a literature major
[490s] and then changed your major to biology.
[493s] What made you do that?
[495s] Well, I had some co-ops and hospitals.
[499s] And I think I started getting interesting
[503s] in the medical field.
[503s] You know, when you’re young, you want to do anything.
[506s] Like one of the current freshmen last year,
[510s] who worked for me, who was from Haiti,
[512s] who spoke four languages, he once told me,
[516s] I want to be a sound engineer.
[518s] I want to be a doctor.
[520s] I want to be a soccer player.
[522s] So, when you’re 18, you can do anything all the time
[525s] and you can change your mind all the time.
[528s] So, I entered in 1967 in ADIV.
[532s] That’s when any office so big, it had part A and part B.
[536s] And part A and part B sometimes never met each other.
[539s] So, I entered summer of 1967,
[542s] which is like, gee, I think it’s 53 or four years ago,
[545s] depending how you count it.
[546s] And they had seam groups.
[548s] So, I was in a group with,
[551s] that was supposed to be writers
[553s] and we had a professor named Nolan Miller.
[556s] And what we did all the time was write short stories
[559s] in critique each other.
[560s] So, my muse sat there for a while
[563s] and then I took some co-ops.
[565s] I think one of the first co-ops I took was in Florida.
[570s] I always wanted to go somewhere with the repomptries.
[573s] And so, I worked on a hospital, I enjoyed it.
[577s] And so, then I worked on a couple more hospitals
[579s] and I started studying some biology
[582s] and then I took a research co-op in California.
[586s] And then you’re learning the power of co-op,
[589s] because I did really heavy duty, immunology research,
[594s] things I didn’t hear about in on TV until 20 years later.
[599s] But the kind of job…
[600s] But it was so restrictive, you know, you wore your lab coat, you work in the lab.
[605s] It was industrial research. You have the lock, you’re there was no internet yet, of course.
[609s] So you had the lock, you’re research up in the safe at the end of the night.
[615s] The structure of that kind of environment just drove me crazy.
[619s] But I loved California because it was just so exotic to me and exciting.
[624s] So I asked my advisor Dan Hottalling to find me another job.
[629s] So I got a job at a place called the LA Freak Clinic.
[633s] And the LA Freak Clinic, well, this was 1971 now.
[636s] I mean, I, I’m the kind of student that I didn’t go through any of the straight because I was one of the poorest people around.
[642s] So every time I ran a money, I had to drop out.
[646s] But in this case, I dropped out because life seems so exciting.
[651s] So I started working at the LA Freak Clinic and I was sort of what you would say a volunteer coordinator.
[658s] A coordinator, 250 doctors, nurses, lab techs.
[663s] And what we did every night was we scheduled free medicine.
[666s] And back then that was the late, the early 70s.
[671s] So if you got a disease and back then they called them venereal disease as they weren’t STDs.
[676s] Nothing killed you.
[678s] So everybody got them like they were head calls.
[681s] And so I kind of enjoyed the chaos of working with volunteers and the excitement of taking care of people.
[690s] And so I said, well, I guess I won’t go back to college for a while.
[694s] So I stayed in LA for about two years.
[698s] And they made me the assistant administrator.
[700s] So what I did was I sort of coordinate all volunteers and ran a free medicine clinic five nights a week.
[708s] Always signed up too many people.
[710s] But there’s many doctors and the volunteers feel like they were part of it.
[715s] So they didn’t complain too much.
[717s] And then of course, unlike current annual teams, always, always seemed to know where they’re going.
[723s] I didn’t.
[724s] And that could be a function of the times, you know, because I don’t think women’s liberation was quite
[731s] up yet.
[732s] Gay liberation was just being born.
[734s] And so I happened to be a co-op in co-op in a place that was, well, some people call it the
[739s] Swiss Alps.
[740s] It was West Hollywood.
[741s] So I was sort of dragged out of the closet by the boy next door.
[748s] And so my life was so exciting.
[750s] I thought I’ll just never go back to Ohio.
[754s] And then sooner or later, though, life became too exciting.
[757s] So I came back to Ohio to recuperate and just work on myself.
[764s] And then when I came back, was right after the financial aid strike, Annie, I had in 1973.
[770s] And so when I came back, they said, guess what?
[772s] We have no financial aid to give you.
[775s] They said, if you sit out for a year and make yourself independent, you can get total aid.
[781s] So I found a job on campus.
[784s] This is like, Annie, I work, it’s only in the very, only back in the 70s.
[788s] So I got a job at the library as a co-op because they had hard money back then.
[794s] I worked $88 a week for a whole year.
[798s] And I worked the front desk.
[799s] So that was my first experience at the library as a full-time worker.
[803s] I mean, before that, I originally had started the library in 1967, working in the language
[810s] lab upstairs when they had things like real-dero recorders.
[814s] And then I co-op, I had work study positions there.
[817s] But you’re in my freedom, and financially, by working there for a year.
[822s] And I took a few more co-ops.
[824s] I worked at a clinic in Oakland and whatnot.
[827s] And I had to work on myself.
[831s] So I put some of these plans on hold.
[835s] And I took what I thought was a temporary job, which was a job at the library.
[841s] And so I’ve been there since 1977 to see all you people coming go and make my life exciting.
[848s] And then see what’s interesting to read.
[851s] I mean, my head is full of titles and whatnot.
[853s] I play a mean game of jeopardy at night.
[856s] Thanks, again, Peter.
[857s] Thank you.
[859s] We talked about some of them role events.
[862s] Do you want to talk about the pay less pay days of 1979?
[866s] Well, you know, Annie Ak has been a roller coaster ride, not just for me, but for everybody.
[871s] I bet you, everybody out there has a war story.
[874s] And so, you know, the Annie Ak idea was so good about taking a work experience and trying
[881s] to plug it in to your academic experience that they started making Annie Ak’s all over the country.
[887s] And at one point, there were, believe it or not, up to 35 Annie Ak’s.
[892s] If you can believe that or not, even in a small place like Beckley West Virginia.
[897s] And so, and this is well before they invented that thing.
[900s] the internet and zoom and everything. So the college back then spent a lot of money it really didn’t have.
[908s] And so and it also started programs that it really didn’t fund. So early in the late 60s and early 70s,
[918s] the Rockefeller Foundation gave any of college a $3 million grant to increase its diversity,
[924s] which is a huge amount of money and today’s money that might be like $30 million.
[928s] Right. And so as that money began to run out, they started a new program called New Directions
[936s] which took the same idea which also included bringing in everybody, you know, poor poor folks,
[943s] white folks. And at the same time around 1973 there was a guy named Nixon, one of those
[951s] great Republicans. And all of a sudden there were budget cuts and what happened from that.
[958s] I mean, it’s a good thing I had dropped out and I was living in California because I didn’t
[961s] have to take aside because when the budget cuts came down, it was virtually poor people fighting against
[970s] people who weren’t poor. I mean, it was that the old dynamics of sex race and class, we were the
[975s] first to deal them. The country’s now dealing with the same issues and maybe not doing a very good job.
[981s] And so what happened then, it was a problem that nobody could solve. So the students closed the
[987s] college down. And so when I came back, that’s why there was no financial aid. What little aid
[993s] there was left, they had to give to the students who were there. But the aftermath of the strike
[999s] was that any ex-biggest class which would have been 898 people, can you imagine that an entering
[1005s] class of 898 people. One third immediately said, we’re not coming now and then other people didn’t
[1012s] come. So a long spiral of what you would say, Sturmondra, you know, disappointment at ourselves,
[1020s] because we weren’t perfect. People being angry for all kinds of reasons, the enrollment started to
[1027s] tank. And at the same time, we were all these satellite camps, all around the country. And so the
[1033s] college was really doing what the government’s doing now is like spending money it doesn’t have.
[1039s] So by 1979, during 78 and 79, the college was borrowing entire payrolls and paying them back.
[1048s] And I don’t know if you know it was Jimmy Carter was president then and we had this thing called
[1054s] Stagflation. So they were borrowing payrolls and paying them back at 13% interest.
[1062s] And then as a union rep, I was sitting up in a room somewhere, could have been a McGregor.
[1068s] And the president of the clerical union said, you know, after April 28th, you might be working for
[1075s] no money. And we all looked at each other and we said, oh, that’s impossible. Well, on May 13th,
[1082s] the phones rang everywhere on campus. And they said, guess what, we can’t make the payroll
[1088s] Friday because Winters Bank and Dayton sucked all the money back. And the college is totally out of money.
[1096s] And so what started then was a movement to keep the college going to graduation.
[1104s] And so we all went to work. We submitted time slips and we didn’t get paid.
[1109s] Those who lived in town got to work more often, like I lived in town then, so it was just a 10-minute walk.
[1116s] Even the work study money’s got to take in a way. So I know you, Mary, you don’t know this guy named Joe Callie.
[1122s] But in our building, only two students stayed devolent here and everybody else did all the work.
[1130s] And there were still a thousand students back then. And so then you had people like Joe Callie,
[1135s] shelving trucks. And then what happened throughout then was everybody took care of each other. We all
[1140s] shared coupons. We all, and believe it or not, we carpooled unemployment together. So a lot of
[1147s] us got like I got $149 every two weeks for going to work for nothing. And trust these at the time,
[1156s] we’re pretty smart unlike they were in 2008. What they just said was, hey, we’re out of money.
[1163s] And they didn’t declare ex-s Agency. And then what they did was they made a fund of about $50,000
[1171s] to pay 12 people to work throughout the summer. And then a volunteer group worked on recruiting
[1177s] freshman. And then by the end of the summer, of course there was only six to a six white collar
[1183s] workers working. There were six blue collars working. And the faculty were all in layoff and
[1190s] administrators were all in layoff. They still got an entering class of 220 people. And then as the
[1196s] entering people came in, they were called back everybody they could afford to come.
[1200s] back. So you see where we’re experts at getting through what you would say the
[1205s] holy impossible because that was a pretty impossible time. I mean, even
[1209s] CG helped that like they did walk a thorns to date into raise money and we
[1213s] made it and started over one more time. So that was the payless payday. Oh, oh,
[1220s] and to finish the payless payday is out. There was a center. Any
[1223s] af Philadelphia. And I guess the showman’s mark and Heidi showman
[1228s] find the lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia for the
[1231s] annual Philadelphia campus. So they we all were given IOU. So we were
[1237s] given IOU’s minus the amount of unemployment received and the judge in
[1242s] the federal court in Philadelphia said we had to be paid every other
[1246s] month at 6% interest. This is during Jimmy Carter years and then
[1252s] they missed the last claim of that too. But we still made it. So that’s the
[1256s] payless paydays. Cool. And then so then that’s when the college
[1263s] revival fund obviously started in no.
[1268s] Or Vibal Fund started after, well, you see after the payless
[1272s] paydays, you know, we struggle for years. Okay. And enrollment kind of
[1277s] vary between well at a slowest point in 1983, it was about
[1281s] 416 FTEs and then Jimmy Williams came along who was a great admissions
[1287s] person. And then we gradually got up to maybe almost 600 students.
[1293s] But we were still just struggling. And meanwhile the university was
[1297s] starting through your range, the it’s financial structure and starting to
[1301s] well, charge just like $700,000 for a payroll off. So there was a lot of
[1306s] smoke and mirrors the college was going to the video. Yeah, yeah, good
[1320s] looks like there are some technical difficulties happening there.
[1326s] He’s processing. Mining in like the cavalry. We are to pay this.
[1330s] Hey, Duffy. We lost you first. Yeah, I see you in a second. So you might want to repeat
[1336s] what you said. Okay. Well, I was right before we were getting ready to go
[1342s] into another financial crisis. Can you hear my okay now? Yeah. Okay. So
[1348s] and what happened toward the end was the university, uh,
[1353s] which was a different corporate entity, which was sort of uh,
[1356s] not in town and not taking good care of us like the current board.
[1361s] They were trying all these crazy things like forcing new programs on the college
[1365s] and making budget cuts. And so what happened was the students became really
[1371s] angry and enrollment tanked again. So we probably lost 20% of enrollment
[1376s] between 2005 and 2006. Um,
[1380s] the faculty that was good enough, they could have probably taught the
[1383s] phone book, you know what I mean. And and students would still come out all right.
[1387s] And so, uh, all of us, I know it’s on the alumni board during this time between 2001
[1393s] and 2007. So in June, 12th or so of 2007, we all got this email saying,
[1401s] come to Kelly Hall. We have an announcement to make. And all of us who are hopeful
[1406s] thought, well, the smartest thing to do would be to merge the adult campus on the edge of town
[1410s] and our current campus. It would be like a year and year and young folks and all folks helping
[1416s] each other learn and get through everything. What they did was they said, we’re going to close you down.
[1421s] And the alumni, uh, well, it was really kind of really stupid at the same time because this was like
[1427s] 11 days before the schedule reunion. Oh, no. So what happened was the normal reunion,
[1433s] usually at like 300 people come, but all of a sudden 700 came. And so, uh, people came and tears,
[1441s] then you really knew how much people love the college. And so this was, which, which you say,
[1446s] the mother of all reunions, um, I, one per, I sense I was on the board, uh, and I had the keys to
[1454s] library. One person said to me, can I make a phone call at the library? So I let them in.
[1459s] And the next thing I know, there were 50 people in the library. There were 20 pieces on the front
[1465s] of porch. People were organizing committees. Um, they were all using the computer lab that
[1471s] April helped create, uh, printing out pledge cards and running them over to the tent. And every time
[1478s] people would come back, they would say someone just pledged $100,000. And so within two, three hours,
[1484s] it became obvious that maybe people wanted to give the college $3 a $4 million to save it.
[1492s] And of course, there were lots of smart people at this reunion, including people like Katherine
[1496s] Jordan and Rick Daley. And what they thought of was something called a,
[1500s] I’ll let’s revive a fund, which was sort of the 501
[1504s] seed to get around the university.
[1507s] And so people started sending checks to Colorado.
[1511s] And that became the first bargaining chip
[1514s] to make us become ourselves again.
[1519s] Eventually, we probably collected well over 4 million,
[1522s] even some pledges evaporated, but still plenty of money
[1526s] came in.
[1526s] And then the last year we were open, you know,
[1529s] people still love the idea of the college,
[1532s] the kind of community were.
[1534s] They still got a freshman class of 68,
[1537s] even though they knew they were only
[1539s] and to get two terms of college.
[1542s] And so while all this was going on,
[1543s] people were madly mailing checks to Rick Dale
[1546s] in Colorado.
[1548s] And since I was on the Alumni Board,
[1550s] it was good for me to be a mole.
[1553s] So there was a woman named Risa.
[1556s] Now, Risa was his fabulous woman, who
[1558s] is a southern woman with a great voice,
[1561s] who could do all this great fundraising.
[1564s] She would say, come on over on your break.
[1566s] I have an envelope for you.
[1568s] So she would give me an envelope every now and then.
[1571s] And one time I took $192,000 down
[1574s] and gave it to US Bank for the revival fund.
[1578s] And so we didn’t tell anybody for a long time,
[1581s] but we gradually amassed quite a bit of money.
[1584s] And of that money, $900,000 to first year,
[1588s] I went to pay lawyer, because there were all kinds of lawsuits.
[1592s] Because I mean, it’s a lot when you’re trying
[1595s] to separate a college in the university,
[1598s] especially when you had all kinds of funds
[1599s] that started like the faculty fund in 1929.
[1603s] But I was kind of a little mole did those things.
[1606s] Nobody knew what I did.
[1607s] I just left for 15 minutes,
[1609s] once the bank came back to work.
[1613s] And then during that year, a couple of generous donors
[1617s] decided they would give a million dollars
[1621s] to start something like a structure for the college revival fund.
[1626s] So Risa was in charge of hiring eight people to,
[1630s] I guess, keep the idea on ice.
[1632s] So what we did for a year was we went out and we organized.
[1636s] We had chapter meetings and fundraising events.
[1640s] And we were just selling hope
[1642s] because we didn’t have the college yet, you know.
[1644s] And this was sort of a real whack-a-do time
[1647s] because we couldn’t even use the word Ania.
[1650s] If I used the word Ania, I can a letter or an email.
[1653s] I’ve got an email from another alumni board member
[1656s] or something saying, you know, you can’t use the word Ania.
[1660s] In fact, I think at one point to get people interested,
[1664s] I’d go to Bob Peschellan town who does like T’s.
[1668s] He had made a shirt called Anti-Oxid and College.
[1672s] We would give people that teacher.
[1674s] I said, we would say free radicals, too, by the way,
[1676s] because that’s what Ania oxidants are, they’re free radicals.
[1678s] But we would give donors and people would help us out.
[1681s] We would give them the free, the anti-oxid insurance.
[1685s] So during the year or so that we were doing the college revival fund,
[1691s] we had 22 chapters going and probably 32 meetings.
[1697s] The first round of meetings, we said to the alums,
[1699s] what would you like to see in your new college?
[1702s] And of course, some of these meetings were totally chaotic.
[1705s] And the miracle of what we did was that Bob Baldwin and town
[1711s] rented us the first floor and the second floor of like a,
[1714s] what would have been like a two bed department.
[1717s] So we all worked in a tiny little space,
[1720s] Fred Krauss and Eric and I shared a card table in the front room.
[1724s] And Amy was in another room.
[1726s] But when we had things like phonethons,
[1728s] we would stick people in the kitchen and the bathroom.
[1732s] And there wasn’t much internet then.
[1736s] And what we did was we did the cheapest thing you could do.
[1739s] We went to Walmart and bought $9.99 and virgin mobile phones.
[1745s] And of course, we did something that were a little unusual.
[1749s] Like we did have some databases because we did have some friends
[1752s] at the university who would slip us some information.
[1756s] So we would tell people, no, we don’t have the information.
[1759s] We had some information.
[1761s] So we did things like phonethons.
[1763s] So I would stay until 10 o’clock at night.
[1765s] And we would stick people in different rooms,
[1767s] the bathroom, which had an echo.
[1769s] I would be in my car front and my car seat, rather.
[1773s] And we would call from the list that we did have.
[1776s] And I remember one night we had eight volunteers of people
[1780s] like Anna Hoherty and Jimmy Rose.
[1783s] Uh, Nevanmer said and some students who were at nonstop.
[1788s] We called 1,000 people in one night.
[1791s] Oh.
[1792s] Yeah. So I mean, even with $9.99 phones, you’d be surprised.
[1796s] I mean, that’s like specializing in the Holy and possible.
[1800s] And if
[1800s] The meantime, the alumni board, who is the College of the Vival
[1805s] Fund, sort of plus and minus Nancy Crow, who is the president,
[1808s] who was also in the board trustees, had 166 meetings with the
[1814s] Annie Act University board trustees.
[1816s] And every time the university trustees had a meeting,
[1820s] chords of Annie Yokeans would descend on them like
[1823s] locus, whether it was a new ham sure in New York.
[1826s] So I think they finally realized we were tenacious enough
[1829s] that they had to start giving in some words.
[1832s] So we got the keys to the College back in September of 2009.
[1837s] I’m really quick because before we run out of time,
[1840s] I’m going to go back a little bit.
[1841s] So back in 2004, you had a tragic event.
[1846s] And throughout all that, you still helped create a fund that
[1852s] helped me in several other students of color.
[1856s] And I wanted to have you talk a little bit about that.
[1859s] Well, it’s kind of like the Rolling Stones.
[1862s] You can’t always get what you want.
[1866s] When Yoke Springs started becoming expensive, one day
[1869s] this done for in town, the realtor said,
[1871s] oh, you’re risk-waring from 175 to 49,
[1874s] they may be all fine just something a place to live.
[1877s] It was a crappy apartment anyway.
[1880s] And then I was sort of seeing a friend of mine, who I’m now married
[1884s] to a guy named James, who’s the best person in the world.
[1887s] So he said, come and live with me.
[1890s] We’ll take it one day at a time.
[1893s] And so one day at a time was really turned into 35 years.
[1898s] And along the way, of course, you also become part of the family.
[1903s] And so we were, you know what a gunkle is?
[1906s] A gunkle is a gay uncle.
[1908s] So I were two gunkles.
[1912s] So we had half a dozen kids every weekend.
[1916s] I mean, not every weekend, but one weekend every month.
[1919s] So the moms could get a rest.
[1921s] And I would often bring them up to the college
[1923s] because I thought that’s a place to say for both of us.
[1926s] So either take them to the college to the Glen
[1929s] or downtown Yola Springs to the John Bryan Center
[1931s] to play basketball.
[1933s] And of course, the years passed.
[1935s] And when I was young and they were young,
[1938s] we could get a vibe with a little brave toaster.
[1941s] But as they got older, you know,
[1943s] the peer plan that starts to take over.
[1946s] And one of them sort of, I guess,
[1948s] between parental problems and family problems,
[1951s] he sort of, why not living in a commune with other friends
[1955s] like a block from his mom’s house.
[1958s] And then the three o’clock in the morning, the phone rang.
[1961s] And we were told the news that he was shot in the heart
[1964s] at a distance of three feet.
[1966s] So we went down there and saw him and knew that was it.
[1972s] I was still in the board at the time.
[1973s] In fact, I came to the college at six a.m.
[1976s] that morning because, you know, denial and all that stuff
[1979s] crept in, I had to go to someplace safe.
[1981s] So I went to work.
[1982s] I called Joe Caligahong.
[1983s] I said, Joe, I’m here at work, but I just had a murder.
[1987s] And so Joe didn’t say anything to me for a long time
[1991s] but then later he said, six months later he said,
[1993s] anybody gets shot in your neighborhood.
[1995s] So that way I knew that Joe had cared.
[1999s] And then right after that,
[2001s] I’m naive sometimes when the comfort
[2002s] of things like fundraising.
[2004s] So I would pester some trustees like Everett Freeman
[2007s] and the development director back then
[2009s] they called a vastment development.
[2011s] I wanted to start a scholarship for Benny.
[2013s] And then she was say to me, I just raised money
[2015s] for a fund for her when Abrams, you know, how much work
[2018s] that is.
[2019s] And so eventually I learned that these things,
[2023s] fundraising is a very hard thing to do.
[2026s] And then in 2006, dual gram got the award,
[2029s] the JD was Dawson Award.
[2032s] And a bunch of her former students came back.
[2035s] And you know, dual was really inspirational.
[2037s] You would love her, by the way, Mary.
[2040s] She knew you would just love her.
[2042s] At the end of the award, people,
[2045s] there was the 70s, 80s and 90s decade
[2047s] had Penel house as their center.
[2050s] So at the end of the reunion,
[2051s] we all sat at the picnic table under the mentorship
[2054s] of the Lane Commages who was a great dean.
[2057s] And people said, you know, we really love dual.
[2061s] And we love the experience, but the college
[2063s] didn’t always do totally right by us.
[2066s] And some people said, let’s try to make it
[2068s] so we can reconnect people.
[2070s] So out of that came the idea of the alumni of color fund,
[2075s] which was an idea to try to get a loan
[2077s] to reconnect to the college,
[2079s] give it a second chance or a third chance
[2081s] because you know, humans and humans,
[2083s] everybody’s imperfect.
[2085s] And so the idea was to also create a new face at reunion.
[2090s] And one of the people at the table
[2091s] a guy named Dwayne Greer from the class of 81
[2094s] brought up Walter Anderson.
[2096s] And so everybody decided, we’re going to go with this.
[2100s] we presented to Risa, who was working in development,
[2104s] and it took a year to go across the table
[2106s] because sometimes people just are skeptical about everything.
[2110s] And so we got the fund in place,
[2111s] and it started with just $120,
[2114s] whoever put money down on a picnic table,
[2116s] but the idea was to reconnect the looms
[2119s] and to try to do networks for people of color.
[2123s] And also established in the reward,
[2125s] called the Walter Anderson Award.
[2127s] And then a month, exactly a month after the award managed
[2131s] to get or the concept got across the table
[2134s] was one of the college’s clothes.
[2136s] And so for two years or so,
[2138s] that idea sat on the back burner.
[2140s] And then we sort of reopened and two or right before we reopened
[2144s] in 2010, you know, I never give up.
[2147s] And so I said, let’s do this again.
[2149s] And then Matthew Durr at the time said,
[2151s] well, you know, if there’s a reversion clause
[2154s] that if the college doesn’t make it,
[2155s] it doesn’t get accredited,
[2156s] they shouldn’t.
[2157s] All the funds will go away.
[2159s] So we have to start a second parallel fund.
[2162s] So we actually started the second parallel fund.
[2165s] The verbi is exactly the same.
[2167s] If you go to the Facebook page,
[2170s] the eight principles are there.
[2173s] And this time we had 10 people together.
[2175s] And we started the fund with $2,500 or so.
[2179s] And made an open fund as part of the annual fund.
[2182s] And then through the word of mouth
[2184s] and no big, you know, what to do,
[2186s] we raised about $40,000.
[2189s] And then we had conference calls until people were out.
[2193s] And we decided to give co-op stipends
[2196s] because they were something that’s sort of inexpensive,
[2200s] but would have a big impact on people’s lives.
[2203s] And so the rule was co-op stipends every other year.
[2206s] Of course there are exceptional people
[2208s] like you who deserve more than one stipend.
[2210s] So at this point, we’ve raised 90,000
[2215s] without any major appeal.
[2216s] And we’ve given all kinds of people co-op stipends,
[2219s] including you and Tru, who’s up for one of the victory awards.
[2224s] And the people have gone to six out of seven continents.
[2228s] And so I feel that’s sort of a good thing that we’ve done.
[2232s] People have even gone to conferences.
[2234s] So even though it’s an alumni of color fund,
[2237s] it’s been used for allies.
[2239s] So when Mila and Kevin took people,
[2241s] either to Mississippi or Selma, white folks went along too.
[2245s] And this was what we did in that case
[2248s] was it wasn’t a co-op thing.
[2249s] We paid for gasoline and hotel rooms.
[2251s] So this was the kind of fun that does little tiny things.
[2256s] Well, it was huge to me.
[2258s] And I appreciate you.
[2259s] And I appreciate Eric Miller and Athena.
[2262s] And I’ll say it to, I can’t say it anymore.
[2267s] Anyhow, save my wife and I’ll forever be in debt
[2272s] at TU-Defe.
[2276s] You’ve been blessing to me, too.
[2279s] I genuinely love you.
[2281s] So we have a couple of questions
[2282s] before they kick us off of here.
[2285s] Yeah, why did you stay at TU-Defe?
[2288s] All these years, Robert Goldsmith wants to know.
[2292s] Well, I think it’s obvious, but I think we want to hear.
[2296s] I was in Utopia.
[2297s] It every day, somebody comes in, especially during freshmen
[2301s] terms.
[2302s] There’s such growth and such possibility
[2304s] and people are exciting.
[2307s] And then the way our library was, especially when Joe was there,
[2310s] it was the noisiest library in the country.
[2312s] So the front desk was always like,
[2316s] people would talk politics, my co-op.
[2319s] It was endless excitement and endless noise.
[2322s] And so between that and knowing that everybody was learning
[2326s] every day, it was a great experience for me.
[2329s] I mean, it wasn’t about the money
[2330s] because I never made a lot of money.
[2333s] That’s about people.
[2335s] Other people.
[2337s] Let’s see.
[2338s] We have any more questions over here.
[2340s] Everybody’s just giving you shout outs.
[2341s] I guess I could read those two in the chat.
[2344s] I was trying to find questions.
[2346s] I’ve seen Scott had one, Mr. Sanders.
[2349s] That wasn’t saying.
[2350s] Nicholas Sanders.
[2351s] Duffy, where did you come from to Annie,
[2354s] I can to 60.
[2355s] So where did you originally come from?
[2357s] OK, I grew up in a neighborhood that was adjacent to the Bronx.
[2361s] It was called Mount Vernon.
[2362s] And if you know, the 90s rappers like heavy D.
[2366s] heavy D.
[2367s] Yeah.
[2368s] I think the block and a half from me,
[2371s] and it was called Money-Erenen Mount Vernon.
[2374s] And so Mount Vernon was a kind of place where everybody moved
[2377s] through.
[2378s] So it would you say a white flight neighborhood?
[2383s] But all kinds of people came from there.
[2384s] Aussie Davis used to come to my junior high
[2387s] and tell folk dals and Ruby D. Denzel Washington.
[2393s] When I was young, and if you know what I was doing,
[2395s] I dated Bella Abzugs daughter.
[2398s] My first woman was named Eve, by the way.
[2400s] And later she also became gay too.
[2403s] And then she sold her house to Betty Shabbat.
[2406s] So my neighborhood was full of all kinds of interesting people.
[2410s] Awesome.
[2412s] And then I came to Ania.
[2413s] And you know, being where I came from everybody,
[2416s] got along, at least the kids did, maybe not the adults.
[2419s] When I came to Ania, I thought it would be the same,
[2422s] but it really wasn’t because people were more divided and radicalized.
[2426s] So I had a hard time in first,
[2428s] because I would want to cross borders without being bothered.
[2432s] But people put up obstructions.
[2435s] That explains why they let you carry the envelope.
[2439s] Maybe.
[2441s] That explains it.
[2442s] I get it now.
[2443s] It’s like a little mobster.
[2445s] I kept that envelope for 10 years.
[2448s] You know, I’m trying to do the Marie condo thing.
[2451s] We’re cleaning your house.
[2452s] I still have my original appointment letter from 1977, by the way.
[2456s] Not that I’m a hoarder.
[2457s] That doesn’t mean that you’re a hoarder.
[2459s] I mean, you share special things.
[2461s] That’s what I say.
[2462s] That’s why I’m getting a lot of dipriders, by the way,
[2465s] because one day, I’ll dim, you know,
[2466s] I’ll dim and I were good buddies.
[2468s] And you know, I used to typewriter for years at the library.
[2471s] So one day came through, I will find and he said,
[2473s] Here’s my three typeriders have them.
[2475s] So I have three of our them and start for us.
[2478s] We’re just sitting up in the closet.
[2480s] I don’t know what to do with them.
[2481s] I thought they might make a fun auction item for a union,
[2484s] but you never know.
[2485s] I don’t know.
[2486s] Coco, like, well, our new community manager, Coco, she says,
[2490s] Duffy, can you share a great piece of advice you received as a student?
[2494s] And a piece of advice you like a pass on the current student?
[2499s] Hmm.
[2500s] I don’t know.
[2502s] I really don’t know.
[2503s] I mean, just keep going as the only advice I can give.
[2506s] I mean, I was always looking for advice myself and people would give it to me.
[2510s] And I wasn’t sure what it was working.
[2512s] So I guess you have to fly to the seat of your pants, you know?
[2515s] Right.
[2516s] That’s what things like co-op are for.
[2519s] Let’s see.
[2523s] Scott Sanders says, one of my favorite experiences with Buffalo was our alumni relationship
[2531s] to Seattle together 2005.
[2534s] An exceptional travel companion in the best in basuring for any of us all.
[2539s] Well, you know, um, the Seattle chapter was very active for a while.
[2544s] And one of the people there was the guy named Bradley Willburn,
[2548s] class of 85, and Bradley was also the visionary behind the alumni of color fund.
[2554s] So Bradley was the kind of person who could think years ahead.
[2558s] In fact, he was the city planner for the city of Seattle for land use.
[2563s] So when we went to Seattle, the Seattle chapter events ran like a train.
[2568s] We every time we turn around, someone was picking us up or taking us somewhere.
[2573s] Or we even saw Bruce leaves grave site or Bradley would take us and show us some of the projects he was working on.
[2579s] And he would say, look at this light pattern.
[2581s] And so Bradley was a great visionary.
[2584s] But, um, on a conference call, you know, how democracy is when people get into snits.
[2590s] Uh, we had a vote that went one way on one month and a vote the next way the next month.
[2596s] And he got mad and said, I’m done.
[2599s] But he was really quite the visionary and quite the organizing.
[2604s] Um, someone said, yeah, I’ll tell you about it.
[2608s] Okay, April’s asking, how did you get the name, both how did Buffalo become your nickname?
[2614s] Here’s my first Buffalo.
[2617s] Um, actually in 1975, I was shelving a truck in the basement and a friend of mine named Renee Brown had gone eight.
[2627s] Yeah, in fact, you know, how most annual kids do they don’t go through the normal way.
[2632s] Right. So she first went to Tanzania and I guess things happened, you know, things that she didn’t expect.
[2640s] And so she may have dropped out and then she went to Ethiopia and then she went Italy.
[2646s] And so she fell off the planet for maybe a year or two while I was shelving a truck.
[2651s] She came to the desk and her nickname for me was Duffalo.
[2655s] And so when she came to the desk, she asked for Duffalo and Joe Callie heard it.
[2662s] And he said, from now on, I’m going to call him Buffalo.
[2666s] And so that’s how I got the Monaco Buffalo was from being called Duffalo.
[2670s] Joe would say is etymology.
[2673s] That’s funny.
[2674s] Oh, I’m glad you brought up Joe Callie. Scott Sanders asked,
[2677s] Duffie, can you explain Joe Callie in five words or less?
[2681s] Don’t fall down.
[2684s] Well, she made me sad.
[2686s] And you’re the worst person I’ve ever seen.
[2690s] Nothing Joe ever said.
[2692s] He always said had double meetings.
[2694s] Like, people thought he was a little nuts, but he would always say to people, where have you been?
[2700s] And they thought he was joking, but if you really think about, he’s sort of talking about co-op.
[2705s] Right.
[2706s] Where have you been?
[2707s] That’s yeah.
[2708s] Someone said, let’s hear the history of the Tideite shirts.
[2711s] Well, one day in 1985, I was walking home, probably when I still lived in Yellow Springs.
[2719s] And a student was packing, because they were dropping out, they were getting ready to follow
[2723s] the grateful dead.
[2724s] Oh.
[2725s] And they threw a Tideite down from the fourth floor north, when it still had fire escapes.
[2730s] They said, thanks for keeping me out of trouble and keeping my record clean.
[2735s] Here’s a shirt.
[2736s] That’s some of my father was ill and had Alzheimer’s.
[2739s] So I went to New York.
[2741s] And when I wore the shirt, it would seem to stop traffic.
[2745s] So I kind of liked it.
[2747s] So next thing in a row, I got one Tideite and two and then people gave me some.
[2751s] So now I have that 130.
[2754s] That’s awesome.
[2756s] Kind of weird, but that’s us.
[2759s] Okay.
[2760s] Kathy has says, Duffy, thanks for recounting the history of any, I was there back then
[2767s] serving on the alumni board.
[2770s] Congratulations on receiving this JD Dawson award.
[2772s] You really deserve it for all your service to the college.
[2775s] Kathy.
[2776s] You know, the first time I talked to Kathy was when I was doing chapter organizing.
[2781s] And I had just gotten my first cell phone.
[2783s] You know, not always sophisticated like a lot of any.
[2786s] I talked to her and my battery ran out.
[2788s] I thought, oh, I guess the conversation is over.
[2792s] I was sitting in the bedroom talking about this and that.
[2795s] Right.
[2796s] So I mean, in Chicago, I had a great chapter too, by the way.
[2799s] Kevin, I’m a greater suspect.
[2800s] Congratulations, Duffy, well deserved award.
[2803s] I have to go to a virtual memorial service now.
[2805s] But I’m glad this was recorded.
[2806s] You’re sharing important part of history.
[2809s] And I love what we have to do that question about, I specialize in the Holy and
[2813s] possible.
[2814s] Yeah, I love like Karen Mulhouser wrote, she said that she asked you was
[2819s] why to color and you invited you.
[2822s] Welcome to right on in to join to help create, you know, help me part of the
[2827s] AOC.
[2828s] So I think that’s amazing.
[2829s] And I love how you explained it to me, like, how everybody thought was going to be
[2833s] exclusionary at first and all this stuff.
[2836s] And I’m glad that you guys were able to get that done because I know it helped
[2839s] me.
[2841s] And I can’t speak for true, or anyone else, but it was like right on time.
[2846s] And I’ll be forever grateful for that.
[2848s] Well, you know how we kept your acronym, which was AOC alumni of color to alumni of
[2853s] courage, you have conference calls and you have people from like 10 different decades.
[2859s] You have 10 different mindsets.
[2861s] So there was a woman on there from 1957 who’s old enough to call Jones Dremonus Joan
[2867s] Call.
[2868s] And she said, I fought all my life to as an integration as so what we did was we tried to make
[2875s] it so broad, we could include allies and people who had mixed families.
[2881s] And so then we just kept the acronym that made it an AOC alumni for diversity.
[2886s] But the fun itself is for people of color, mostly.
[2890s] And throughout the 10 years, well, people looked at me at the picnic table and they said,
[2894s] we’re picking you to be the monitor the fun because you’re like a fixture.
[2897s] So I took that job on as a fixture and tried to live by the eight points of the
[2907s] memorandum of understanding.
[2910s] Here’s a really good question.
[2914s] What would you like to see happen at any Ock in the next year?
[2917s] I would like to see enrollment double again.
[2920s] You know, it just had a moment increase.
[2924s] I tell them they better get into the prison business, the prison, the where the
[2927s] money’s at I hate to say that, but I’m just saying, that’s a way for us to get some money.
[2934s] You know what I want to do it.
[2936s] Somebody needs to.
[2940s] Right.
[2940s] And what people also have to know is the students were like you the last year.
[2945s] They’re great.
[2945s] They’re awesome.
[2946s] I’ve met some of the finest people in my life the last 10 years when the college
[2951s] reopened and the new students came in the door.
[2953s] It was like wonderful.
[2956s] Just wonderful.
[2958s] Thank you to so much.
[2959s] I it was so fantastic to hear your conversation.
[2963s] I hate to interrupt it, but we also have this.
[2967s] The Southern Peace with the winning victory grants, which is going to be an
[2970s] exceptional experience, too.
[2973s] So thank you.
[2975s] Thank you, Mary.
[2977s] Thank you.
[2978s] Thank you for thinking of me that you wanted to have this conversation with me.
[2981s] I got all the juice though.
[2982s] I took a lot of notes.
[2989s] You gave me a lot of good tea.
[2994s] No regrets.
[2995s] No regrets.
[2996s] What’s the matter?
[2997s] And thank you guys for allowing me to do that.
[2999s] I thought was really cool.
[3000s] Great job, Mary.
[3002s] It’s really exceptional.
[3003s] I appreciate your professionalism there.
[3006s] You just kept everything rolling right on time.
[3008s] It was amazing.
[3009s] Nice job.
[3010s] Thank you.
[3011s] I think I have another gig for you.
[3012s] I’ll call you soon.
[3013s] Yeah.
[3014s] Yay.
[3015s] Hi, Miss Kathy.
[3016s] Yeah, I remember.
[3017s] She’s like one of my favorites.
[3019s] May I did her um, I’m not interviewing you.
[3021s] And she’s she’s got some good stories too.
[3025s] Oh, does Karen, you whole house, Err.
[3027s] Yeah.
[3028s] She’s got the best pillow off ever.
[3031s] Now there’s got her secret book out.
[3033s] She’s going to start opening the door.
[3034s] I’m going to do it.
[3037s] All right, great.
[3038s] So now I’m going to bring that Karen for, right?
[3040s] Who’s going to talk about the, well, actually I’m going to bring back
[3042s] her and more hours first.
[3044s] And then it’ll be Karen for right again.
[3046s] So the Karen caucus is back kindness.
[3047s] So Karen, you want to talk a little bit about the victory awards?
[3051s] Yes, I, it’s such, this was such a great moment.
[3055s] And a wonderful way to, it’s the 2020 reunion.
[3061s] And we’re able to include people who maybe wouldn’t come for reunions,
[3065s] if we had to, if they had to travel.
[3067s] So this is, this is, this is very, very special.
[3071s] Yes, three years ago, with out of a generosity of Matt Morgan,
[3077s] and I, I love getting to know him, he offered to give an award
[3084s] called The Winning Victory’s Awards.
[3087s] And these are awards that, to Aniak,
[3091s] alums the first year, any alum could apply for a grant,
[3096s] not an actually not an award but a grant.
[3099s] And we are now in our third year with the continued generosity
[3105s] from Matt Morgan and Karen for right and I sort of let the effort
[3112s] to narrow down all of the grant applications to five finalists.
[3119s] And in the notice about this meeting, you, you got three files about them.
[3124s] But we’re now going to be honored to hear them talk about their,
[3129s] their victories that they’re working on.
[3132s] And Karen, for right now, is going to do this playing how all of us
[3138s] are going to be able to vote for the winners of these grants.
[3143s] Thank you, 20, 20. So, Karen.
[3145s] Thank you. Okay, so just to continue a little bit, this year,
[3151s] we received 20 completed applications.
[3155s] The, um, the, we had put up a call for proposals and 20 alumni from the 21st
[3163s] century, which starts in the year 2000, sent in completed proposals.
[3168s] Those proposals were blind reviewed.
[3172s] If any of you have done grants, you know what a blind review is.
[3175s] We, the reviewers did not know who had written what.
[3179s] Every proposal was written with independently reviewed by at least two reviewers.
[3185s] Some had more with a standard set of criteria for points.
[3192s] With those reviews, we have narrowed it down to the five finalists who we’re going to see very briefly
[3199s] in, in a moment, rather, excuse me, they have prepared recorded presentations.
[3207s] So they’re not going to be live, although I do see several of them on my first string here,
[3211s] so I’m glad you’re here.
[3214s] And afterwards, we’re going to open up the ballots from voting.
[3220s] So I wanted to take a moment to explain to you so that you can watch and vote and tell all the other
[3226s] adiohians in your life to watch and vote. The, uh, recorded videos will be posted for public
[3235s] consumption. And the ballots will also be posted in April, we’ll be placing links to that.
[3242s] But I’m going to try to share my screen with you so you can see what the ballot looks like.
[3247s] And let’s see share. There it is. You should be seeing something that says vote.
[3256s] Okay, and that’s what the link will look like. You’ll see our five finalists in cross-entrance
[3267s] Garrett, Mariah Lawson, Monica Perry, and Rukis Garpino.
[3272s] And there there are descriptions are placed also on the events page.
[3278s] But we’re asking is that please watch all five presentations, and you can refresh your memory
[3285s] to watch the recording again. You can vote. We’re using preferential voting, which means you will vote
[3294s] for your top three candidates. Number one, number two, and number three.
[3300s] You have to vote for different presentations.
[3305s] You don’t have to do three votes, but do not give us the same proposal three times
[3311s] because that will disqualify it.
[3314s] The ballot looks like this.
[3317s] Enter your full name.
[3319s] Enter your email address.
[3321s] If you are an alum, please enter the email address that’s associated with your
[3326s] directory profile.
[3329s] If you know what that is, because it’ll help us match you.
[3332s] If you are a faculty, a staff or a current student, all of you are also eligible to vote,
[3341s] please use your college email address at antiocolage.edu.
[3348s] If you’re an alum or a former student and you had a different name when you were at Anti-Occ
[3353s] Police, put that in.
[3354s] It’s optional, but if we can’t find you, it’ll help us locate you because we’re going
[3359s] to validate all the ballots against our database.
[3364s] And also optional, your class year.
[3367s] With that, we should be able to match all of our alums up to our database.
[3374s] Then you’ll see you have a first choice, which are the, you click on one and you can only
[3381s] click on one.
[3383s] Your second choice, your third choice.
[3387s] And please, as I said, don’t have the same proposal more than once.
[3392s] And then when you’re finished, hit this submit button.
[3396s] It’s as simple as that.
[3397s] As I said, April will be posting the links for the video and for the ballots after
[3405s] we finish this session.
[3407s] And I will be, I will stay on after the video screen, which April is queuing them
[3414s] up right now.
[3415s] After this screen, I’ll still be here if anyone has any questions about how to vote.
[3421s] So take it away, April.
[3423s] Roger, Huff asked when will the polls close.
[3426s] Oh, good question.
[3428s] The polls will close at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday V8 teeth.
[3435s] That gives us time to tabulate the invalidate and tabulate the ballots, since I said, we’re
[3440s] not going to have any fake news or stuff ballots here.
[3444s] We need to validate all of the ballots and then tabulate them.
[3448s] And on the 25th, we hope to see all of you back because there will be a session with the winners
[3456s] from the previous two years and we will be announcing the winners of this year.
[3461s] All right, great.
[3464s] Thank you for clarifying that.
[3466s] Thank you.
[3467s] All right, here’s the video.
[3469s] This will last about 40 minutes, right?
[3474s] Roughly.
[3500s] Class of 2020, any eye college.
[3503s] And I basically can’t any eye college study hip hop education.
[3508s] Before coming to any eye, I was trained and sounding to any of my Johnny Water.
[3514s] And hip hop has been a major part of my life from day one.
[3518s] The way I’ve learned in the past was through music.
[3522s] Certain things, the way I dressed, the way I talked, is all the part of the culture of
[3527s] hip hop.
[3528s] I grew up as a product and student of hip hop and the hip hop culture.
[3533s] I am an example of a mind that honkered and it up everything I could like a sponge.
[3540s] But then at times, I was very hard to reach.
[3543s] But hip hop had my ear.
[3545s] Hip hop spoke to me.
[3547s] Hip hop empowered me.
[3549s] Hip hop culture took shape in the 70s, early 70s in New York.
[3555s] And this culture shapes the way myself personally, how I dressed, how I speak.
[3563s] So I have personally been a witness to the power of education that has found already
[3569s] inside of hip hop.
[3571s] Hip hop is a complex culture and lifestyle comprised of five elements.
[3576s] These elements include an oral element of rapping or MC.
[3581s] D-Jane or a turntableism.
[3583s] D-Boy or break dancing.
[3586s] And graffiti slash art.
[3590s] And the fifth element is knowledge.
[3592s] My goal is to use the same five elements to have a hip hop to impact math, science, history.
[3600s] DR geographic facts and other skills needed for middle school students.
[3605s] With the help of the victory grant, I will use hip-true flow and with facts as a way to facilitate learning and to create a unifying cultural awareness among the students, teachers and the community.
[3622s] In these times of human rights, injustices and black lives matter, the true battlefield and hope for change must be found in the classroom.
[3631s] For the last two years I have been building a team of educators and hip-hop practitioners.
[3637s] This team consists of advisors, creators of content and also people that are come to the classroom with me.
[3645s] The relationship I built with your time to shine has become the cornerstone in the development of my system and has provided me with a mentoring partnership that continues to this day.
[3657s] This is a product of my any-occupation and my co-op education.
[3663s] Before coming to any-occupation, I had division but it is my any-occupation which allowed me to actually conceive the idea
[3673s] could come into fruition.
[3676s] I knew the power of education, I knew the power of hip-hop and being able to design my own degree gave me the opportunity to actually fuse those things together.
[3689s] But co-op, co-op in with your time to shine and actually my mill of fellowship actually also enabled me to work at at Mills Line Elementary School actually gave me a chance to get into the classroom.
[3707s] Into the classroom in front of the students.
[3711s] Little that I know I would follow-up with teaching and being in front of the students, but I also witnessed some of the same issues that I was having as the young child in the classroom.
[3722s] And as I bonded with the students, I usually bonded around hip-hop and it was with this hip-hop. I would challenge the students to learn, to memorize, to thank critically about the information that was given to them by us going through different different ways.
[3740s] Different what I would call calistening, you know, making them take some of their favorite reps that they would find on the radio and replace them with facts, mathematics facts or science facts.
[3753s] We just same-cated to the same real everyone doesn’t rap, but the elements in pop provides our life for every.
[3760s] The role is to reach students like myself. Students in underfunded communities, underfunded, underfunded when it comes to the resources of after school care, the ability to have things like tutoring and other issues.
[3776s] The word of this graph would take hip-hop education into the school system, along with the digital curriculum.
[3784s] I plan to do three eight week programs and three schools who themselves would be unable to pay for the services.
[3794s] Engaging students into critical thinking, making sure that no child is actually left behind, buying gay to students and things that they found find already familiar.
[3807s] Showing students at what they have and them can be used to learn. When we were younger, we learned our ABCs to a song.
[3816s] We learned our numbers to a song. Once again, we are taking those same kind of skills and using that to teach students some of the hardest facts that they will need to learn in order to move forward in their education.
[3832s] Once again, my name is Truth Gary and if awarded this grant, I will be winning victories for humanity in the classroom one child at a time.
[3841s] Hello, my name is Monica Perry. I attended an act as a horse man fellow, part of the third class to enroll to help build the new anniac act of the college reopened.
[3871s] When I went to anniac, I had one goal in mind and that was to learn everything I could to bring back to my hometown Toledo, Ohio to help them prove the community I grew up in and have a deep look for.
[3883s] I’ve been rooted here in this Rust Belt town since my anniac graduation three years ago. I live in an apartment in the historic district of town with my partner and her cat and surrounded by all kinds of friends in the neighborhood.
[3897s] In the past year, I have worked part time for a wonderful local.
[3900s] Business as well as that Toledo’s only natural foods co-op and I reserve most of my remaining
[3904s] times for community organizing and activism.
[3908s] I am deeply involved in a number of community projects, but most relevant for today’s conversation
[3913s] is my work with the Toledo Permaculture Network of which I have a co-founder.
[3917s] The calling with Garden and Food Forest to be considered the first project of the Permaculture
[3921s] Network. It is when I established, but in evolving since my senior year of high school,
[3925s] when I help a group of activists take over a very happy, relaxed.
[3930s] The remediated soil and today the Garden of Lourishes.
[3934s] This is where I learned about Permaculture, which teaches us to create harmony between human life
[3939s] and local ecology through designing agriculture as well as how we construct our shelter
[3945s] and other elements of human society. The calling with Food Forest is an ecosystem created by humans,
[3952s] which invites life into what was previously a very grasp-lot and grows food that is co-created
[3958s] and freely enjoyed by the entire community. The Garden is a part of a much larger vision shared by myself
[3966s] and co-founders of the Toledo Permaculture Network along with our community. This year we
[3972s] officially began a project that is taken at least five years of careful planning, traveling,
[3977s] studying and learning from others, working with professional architects and designers,
[3981s] or utilizing with our neighbors navigating city bureaucracy and lots of patients and daydreaming.
[3987s] What we have designed with the help of local architecture and design firm,
[3991s] Sabayan, is a spin-off of Michael Reynolds Earthships and House New Mexico,
[3997s] with additional inspiration from others in the wider natural building communities. Earthships
[4002s] use natural and recycled materials, and are designed to be integrated into their environment.
[4008s] Through design, they can almost fully eliminate carbon emissions as well as utility bills.
[4014s] Our design for inner city Toledo considers vast differences in climate as well as appropriateness
[4020s] and safety for the urban and landscape ability to pass the code and centers of affordability as a key element.
[4028s] The purpose for this work has transformed throughout the years and initially a personal goal
[4033s] is constructing your own home and showing the world that there could be a truly ecologically
[4037s] sustainable model for city housing, but this vision developed into something much greater.
[4042s] We wanted to use our design to tackle two major issues, housing insecurity and ecological
[4048s] destruction, as well as improving general well-being, mental health and community solidarity,
[4053s] and a city that not too many years ago was voted by Forbes, one of the most miserable in the country.
[4059s] The homes are very self-sufficient and do not rely on the city’s power and water grid,
[4068s] but this project is more about community sufficiency than self-sufficiency.
[4073s] It’s about knowing your neighbors and being able to count on each other.
[4076s] It’s about making neighborhoods in the city feel alive with a feeling of home that
[4080s] comes from working the land and thriving with the life around you.
[4085s] This work feels particularly important now as rent is rising as previously affordable.
[4089s] Neighborhood is real estate developers build pricey loft apartments in the parts of town
[4094s] that are mostly occupied by low income families.
[4097s] Many other residential buildings are owned by known fund lords and are filled with
[4101s] toxic black mulled, bed bugs and in general this rip hair with absentee landlords who uphold
[4106s] policies many consider unfair for refusing to uphold their end of the bargain and the maintenance of their properties.
[4114s] Home ownership is of course an accessible for many people as well with lack of opportunity
[4118s] for stable employment, making it difficult to obtain alone among many other factors.
[4124s] COVID-19 has uncovered the tenuous housing situation even further as more people
[4128s] employ unemployed unable to make rent and are at risk of losing their shelter when
[4133s] eviction moratoriums rise. Additionally we feel the urgency of the climate change emergency.
[4140s] We face an incredibly perilous situation and conventional modern construction has a major
[4146s] carbon footprint. Innovation and transformation in housing is imperative, particularly in
[4151s] cities where density of human life is highest. Transforming there would be landscape to be
[4156s] harmonious of nature and have a greatly decreased carbon footprint by eliminating residential
[4161s] reliance and gas and electricity will make a big impact.
[4166s] Since we wrote ground on April 4th we have spent this bringing summer days steadily constructing the
[4170s] first of these homes which is funded privately and will serve as a model and learning lab to be
[4175s] inhabited by Toledo permaculture network founders including myself. Our expenses are in the range of
[4181s] 15 to 20 thousand dollars in total for the construction of a two bedroom home and all laborers
[4186s] zunners solves and with the help of friends, neighbors and volunteers interested in learning more
[4191s] about this building style or who are simply in support of our mission. The funding we seek today
[4198s] is for the next stage.
[4200s] for a mission.
[4201s] The construction of a home for a low income neighbor who has struggled for years with
[4204s] housing and security and his son.
[4209s] Our organization will provide skill and designing instructions, assist in navigating building
[4213s] code, and a zero interest loan with no maturation date, meaning that there will be no penalties
[4218s] for late payments.
[4220s] The loan will be paid back on an affordable monthly payment schedule, and their return money
[4224s] will go towards the funding of the next loan for a home for the next applicant.
[4230s] For now, applicants will be selected based on need for housing security, and priority
[4234s] will be given to establish neighbor-head residents and marginalize people.
[4239s] We further this loan recycling as a pay-at-forward model.
[4244s] Our model follows the principle of mutual aid, which uses a horizontal or organizational
[4249s] model rather than a top-down structure of most nonprofit organizations.
[4254s] Beneficionaries of our efforts also play a key role in the organization as a whole.
[4258s] We are community members working together to improve our collective quality of life.
[4264s] The pay-at-forward model also applies to volunteers who offer labor toward the project
[4269s] to keep labor costs low to zero.
[4273s] Labor tends to be a costly element of the construction process, so in the interest of increasing
[4277s] community self-sufficiency, our model is similar to barn raising in rural areas where
[4282s] neighbors and volunteers from other communities who have interest in learning the
[4285s] building style will come together to construct a home with the knowledge that the
[4289s] favor could be called upon and paid back at a later time for their own home construction
[4293s] or will be paid back in numerous ways by the abundance created in the thriving community.
[4300s] Our volunteer basis already quite large thanks to our years of connecting with others
[4304s] of the community and beyond.
[4307s] I credit any at greatly in the realization of these goals, an understanding of the material
[4310s] conditions that have impacted me and my community throughout my entire life, and for
[4314s] giving me numerous influences and examples out of the box solutions to problems that
[4318s] once seemed intermodable.
[4321s] I think of a political economics course where we took a class bill trip to neighborhood
[4324s] in a local city, which had once been primarily low in town but had recently seen a great
[4331s] deal with development.
[4333s] What neighborhood was full of displaced people who had become homeless when rents sourd.
[4339s] I remember in another course on the subject of the anthropology of homelessness, a wonderful
[4344s] professor teaching us that homelessness is not an effective laziness or mental illness
[4349s] as many of us have been taught to believe.
[4352s] But rather it is a byproduct of the poverty that is necessary and inherent in our current
[4359s] economic system that allows a few to become extremely wealthy while others starve at the
[4364s] bottom.
[4366s] I think of classes with psychology professor D&Bell who taught us that it’s a tackle that
[4371s] the problem of mental health that we must view it as a community issue, not an individual
[4376s] one, and help us to see that everyone’s psyches are intertwined with the natural world.
[4380s] We are psychologically harmed by rampate ecological destruction as well as the oppression
[4387s] of some people over others.
[4389s] I also think of my time working on a co-op at Yale Springs Home Inc, which is a beautiful
[4393s] model for preserving a percentage of performance permanently affordable housing and the
[4397s] village of Yale of Springs as cost-evolving they become more inaccessible.
[4402s] And finally I feel the influence of all the amazing classmates who spent time with at
[4405s] the school, but endless drive, ambition and who taught me not to be afraid to look for
[4411s] out of the back solutions.
[4413s] Thank you so much for considering to vote for the affordable eco housing resolution.
[4418s] Hello everyone, thank you for being here today.
[4442s] I’m Amy Prosin, you might know me as Amy E. Tall, I graduated in the class of 2001.
[4448s] I studied education at Andy Ock and for 11 years I taught kindergarten in Columbus City
[4454s] schools.
[4456s] One of those years I taught a student who’s family I had gotten to know very well and during
[4462s] the school year his father was deported to Mexico.
[4467s] This was very difficult for all of us and I felt very helpless and wanted to do something
[4472s] about it and being a trainee Ockian I decided I could do something about it if I were
[4478s] a lawyer so I quit teaching and went back to school for law and I’ve been practicing
[4483s] a trainee since 2015.
[4487s] I have a small law practice in Columbus, Ohio, just me and a paralegal and the focus of my work
[4493s] is on immigration law and particularly deportation defense meaning I’m trying to stop people
[4498s] from being deported.
[4500s] Sometimes I have the privilege of bringing people who have been
[4503s] recorded back to the country.
[4506s] In that work, about 50% of my current case load is comprised
[4510s] of asylum seekers.
[4512s] So asylum seekers are people who have fled their home country
[4516s] for safety reasons coming here to escape from persecution
[4520s] based on a protected characteristic like race, religion,
[4523s] sexual orientation, political opinion, things like that.
[4529s] Unless you’ve been fortunate enough to hide from the news
[4531s] in January of 2017, you probably understand that the
[4537s] plight of these asylum seekers has become tenfold worse
[4542s] because of the policies of the current administration
[4545s] who are doing everything they can to not only stop these
[4549s] families from winning their claims, but from even entering the country
[4553s] to the center of the place.
[4557s] Those were fortunate enough to surpass all the hurdles that have been placed
[4561s] to them on the border.
[4564s] Believe they’re not a lot of them arrive in Columbus or around
[4568s] Central High, from all over the world.
[4570s] You see on TV, asylum seekers mostly they focus on central Americans,
[4575s] which are a lot of my clients, but I also have asylum seekers from all over the world
[4582s] more Tania and Burkina Faso,
[4585s] Burrondi, Ukraine, all over and for any reason you can possibly think of.
[4593s] Those who are able to obtain attorneys, we know from immigration law
[4597s] and any type of law.
[4599s] If you have an attorney, your chances are so much better
[4602s] of winning your case than without an attorney.
[4606s] And the Trump administration has actually done specific things that
[4610s] I won’t get into just to make it harder for them to even submit an application
[4615s] that won’t be rejected off the top.
[4618s] So my project that I want to talk about today is a fighting chance for asylum seekers.
[4625s] The idea of the project would be to help newly arrived asylum seekers
[4630s] who cannot afford representation to at least get a start on their case.
[4636s] And I’ll explain a bit about what that looks like.
[4639s] asylum seekers have a series of rights and responsibilities to both ice,
[4645s] the the immigration police, and the immigration court.
[4649s] But they’re not informed of these rights and responsibilities,
[4653s] basically unless they have an attorney.
[4655s] The primary responsibility they have that is difficult is to actually submit
[4660s] the asylum application on the correct form in the English, including all proof
[4667s] and evidence of their claims, including supporting case law, within the first year
[4673s] after their arrival.
[4675s] This is an impossible task and people absolutely need help
[4680s] and completing this step.
[4682s] If my project is chosen, I would be able to initiate Central High Hills
[4689s] first and only legal clinic for asylum seekers.
[4693s] So a legal clinic is generally a abbreviated legal services
[4699s] or a met-done-in-a-group where the participants come in a small group
[4705s] and kind of go through the steps of the legal process together with help
[4710s] from attorneys and other volunteers.
[4713s] This clinic would have three main components to begin with.
[4718s] The first would be a session where the clients would meet with an attorney
[4722s] in a small group and kind of go through all the rights and responsibilities,
[4726s] answer their questions about the immigration court process,
[4731s] make sure they know where to go to court for their first day,
[4734s] know how to check in with their ice official.
[4736s] Those kinds of basic things that they’re not getting from anywhere else
[4740s] to give them a good start.
[4742s] The second session would be actually preparing their asylum application
[4747s] that would take.
[4748s] It wouldn’t be just want to turn it.
[4751s] It would be a couple of attorneys, a couple of other helpers who would get that information from them.
[4758s] We would need interpreters and we would fill out their forms and help them
[4763s] write their affidavit that explains their circumstances and the reason
[4766s] that they’re asking for asylum in an effective manner.
[4770s] So the second step would be to actually prepare and file those asylum applications for the client.
[4776s] The third step would be to file up in a year when they are eligible for permits
[4781s] and actually fill out and file those work permit applications for them so that they
[4785s] can locally work in obtain driver’s license and those types of things.
[4789s] If my practice is on, the money would be used for two main things.
[4793s] The first would be the physical supplies that we need to file these applications,
[4796s] paper, printers, ink, those types of things.
[4800s] So things, each application ends up being hopefully 150 pages.
[4805s] So you can see that that’s a lot of ink and paper there.
[4809s] They were supposed to be involved.
[4811s] And then we would need to pay as contractors,
[4813s] the interpreter’s and translators,
[4816s] that we can’t get on a volunteer basis.
[4817s] And if we can’t get on a volunteer,
[4820s] attorney work, we would pay attorneys from low fees
[4823s] to do that work, as well as support staff,
[4826s] whatever we need basically to make this run,
[4828s] smooth as is what that money would be used for.
[4832s] I do have a physical space already,
[4834s] so there would be no cost associated with finding space
[4837s] to do this work, but we would need to pay for advertising
[4841s] to get the work out into all the various communities
[4843s] that need access to these services.
[4848s] I do want to briefly touch on why this need is so great,
[4852s] despite the current political climate.
[4855s] Generally, this is a need that goes on fulfilled first
[4858s] because understand that in immigration court,
[4861s] there are no public defenders.
[4862s] You do have a right to have an attorney immigration court
[4865s] but at your own expense, which most asylum seekers
[4868s] just can’t afford.
[4870s] So if they can’t pay for it,
[4872s] they don’t have help essentially.
[4874s] The second reason is that legal aid societies generally
[4880s] are except some federal funding and are there for a barred
[4883s] from giving assistance to people who are not citizens
[4887s] or lawful criminal residents of the United States,
[4889s] which means they cannot help asylum seekers
[4892s] or all host of other classes of immigrants that need help.
[4896s] And then finally, as far as the central higher location in general,
[4900s] there are actually immigration nonprofits
[4902s] operating in both Cleveland and Cincinnati,
[4905s] but not in Columbus.
[4907s] There are, I shouldn’t say there are none.
[4908s] We do have, there’s a really great refugee services organization,
[4914s] but there are no organizations in central higher
[4918s] that help asylum seekers at all from what I can tell.
[4922s] And so in there’s thousands of them here,
[4925s] I really want to help fill this need.
[4928s] Finally, ideally if this project were able to perpetuate
[4932s] itself, we would expand to other areas of immigration law.
[4937s] The dream would be to have just a full service non-profit
[4941s] immigration firm in Columbus, which would be amazing.
[4946s] And I, I do believe it can happen.
[4948s] It could happen and this could be the start of it.
[4952s] I appreciate your support.
[4953s] I appreciate listening and have a great day.
[4960s] Thank you for listening through all that.
[4962s] And thank you for attending the reunion virtually this year.
[4965s] I appreciate your support and have a great day.
[4990s] Hi, Annie Oak.
[4991s] My name’s Maria Lossingham, class of 2004.
[4995s] Welcome, Minnesota.
[4997s] This project is entitled Breaking the Barriers to Nerd Diversity.
[5001s] And if you’re not aware in our diversity includes those
[5003s] that are labeled with ADHD, dyslexia, autism,
[5006s] trets, just a small example.
[5009s] The concept of neurodiversity are that these labels
[5013s] are just variations of the human experience
[5015s] that should be recognized and respected.
[5017s] This proposal will address segregation, unemployment,
[5021s] underemployment and poverty among individuals
[5024s] who identify as neurodivergent by changing
[5026s] how we share the narrative of ability
[5029s] through resource development, education
[5032s] and the development of a platform
[5034s] that highlights experiences of those who identify
[5036s] as neurodivergent.
[5038s] This visibility and push towards greater inclusion
[5041s] within the community will help promote the reduction
[5044s] of systemic segregation and increase training
[5046s] and educational opportunities for best practices and inclusion.
[5050s] My passion in this field,
[5052s] it’s started with my final call up at Annie Oak in Austin, Texas.
[5062s] Because this is so important, we’re going to hear me.
[5071s] Spaces that work.
[5074s] The program it started with five students in one classroom
[5077s] and ended up expanding to five campuses,
[5079s] serving 125 students each semester.
[5083s] I co-directed the Access College Texas Consortium
[5087s] and advocated for equal access to inclusive education
[5090s] for adults of all abilities.
[5092s] And we work to pass legislation
[5094s] to support post-secondary programs for adults with disabilities.
[5099s] And doing that work.
[5100s] I realized that it’s our systems that need to be…
[5103s] Sorry everyone, I just got to know from a variety that I had missed a section.
[5117s] So I’m going to go back to the beginning of her presentation.
[5122s] I’m sorry to do that, but I want to make sure that we see it all continuously in the way that it was intended to be seen.
[5128s] So…
[5143s] Hey, Annie Oak.
[5144s] My name is Vorae, I’m a class of 2004.
[5147s] Welcome Minnesota.
[5149s] This project is entitled Breaking the Barriers to Nerd Diversity.
[5153s] And if you’re not aware of neurodiversity includes those that are labeled with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, Tourettes,
[5160s] just a small example.
[5162s] The concept of neurodiversity are that these labels are just variations of the human experience that should be recognized and respected.
[5170s] This proposal will address segregation, unemployment, underemployment and poverty,
[5176s] individuals who identify as neurodivergent by changing how we share the narrative of ability.
[5181s] Through resource development, education, and the development of a platform that highlights experiences of those who identify as neurodivergent.
[5190s] This visibility and push towards greater inclusion within the community will help promote the reduction of systemic segregation,
[5197s] and increase training and educational opportunities for best practices and inclusion.
[5203s] My passion in this field, it started with my final call up at Annie Oak in Austin, Texas.
[5209s] I worked for a small nonprofit called Technology and Inclusion, and that helped people get communication devices.
[5216s] I got firsthand experience learning about segregation and institutionalization,
[5222s] and the importance of equal access to education and employment.
[5226s] From there I went on to teach inclusive elementary education,
[5229s] but my passion has always been in developing programs.
[5233s] I was able to take my love of technology and my love of teaching and develop a post-secondary education program with Austin Community College,
[5241s] called the Skills Training and Education for Personal Success Program.
[5245s] I recognized the narrative teenagers who were neurodivergent coming out of high school was,
[5251s] you can’t, you won’t, you never will, and the power that one teacher can have on replacing that period at the end of the sentence with the word yet,
[5262s] changed immediately how students thought about themselves, and what they were capable of, you can’t, yet.
[5269s] So let’s figure it out together, how to get you where you want to go.
[5273s] The program it started with, five students in one classroom and ended up expanding to five campuses,
[5279s] serving 125 students each semester.
[5282s] I co-directed the Access College Texas Consortium and advocated for equal access to inclusive education for adults of all abilities,
[5292s] and we worked to pass legislation to support post-secondary programs for adults with disabilities.
[5299s] And in doing that work, I realized that it’s our systems that need to change, and how our community develops spaces for diverse needs and abilities,
[5309s] and I went on to get my masters in the psychology of leadership coaching.
[5313s] I wrote my thesis on the University in the workplace.
[5316s] So this proposal comes from that research, and it was Annie, I’ll give that plan a seed.
[5322s] My professional career was shaped in large part because of Professor Lizzie McKenney.
[5327s] She saw me. She, he, he saw me and saw my potential, and she taught me other ways of learning it completely changed my life.
[5337s] Professor Lizzie McKenney was implementing universal designs of learning before it was even a thing.
[5345s] She was developing spaces that were accessible to all learners, and it was her ability to shape how students felt they both long that impacted how I saw my own future.
[5355s] Her compassion for students shaped the trajectory of my entire professional career.
[5362s] Annie, I, it built my awareness that the impact that thoughtful action can have on system of change.
[5368s] I learned the power of how creating spaces where people feel they belong can impact their self-worth.
[5376s] Annie, I, it taught me about radical acts of compassion.
[5382s] My time there showed me how you can stand up as a community to create spaces for absent voices.
[5389s] To share stories to those new experiences and by doing so you can inform an in fact change.
[5394s] I’ve had the unique opportunity to do this over and over again and see.
[5400s] The power of humanizing the marginalized groups through personalized experience can affect a change.
[5407s] Dr. William Bronsten was a psychiatrist at Willowbrook said,
[5410s] when you congregate and segregate people that are devalued, they become more devalued.
[5416s] And we’re at that place in our history where more and more people are recognizing how systems that were created for them are hidden,
[5424s] congregated, segregated, and devalued.
[5427s] That identifying as neurodivergent makes you less than.
[5431s] Or that you somehow need to be cured rather than respected as a first representation of our humanity.
[5439s] We don’t always fit into a nice pucks.
[5442s] And as a society, we’ve removed those who are neurodivergent from the conversation of how the systems
[5449s] that were created for them are often ineffective or exploitative.
[5453s] The concept of belonging and representation in senior self-represented
[5457s] in your story told in a respectful way, without ableism and exoticizing your disability is sorely missing.
[5465s] Without those shared experiences, we’re lacking the information to propel the shift or society needs
[5471s] to change how we think of our existing systems and making them accessible for diverse needs and abilities.
[5477s] The power of visibility and shared perspectives impact significant systemic change.
[5483s] If you look at the theoretical work of Erving Guffman,
[5486s] he’s shifted how people perceive psychiatric patients and shifted research perspectives from that of the therapist
[5493s] to that of the patient and their experience.
[5496s] And that’s what this program aims to do.
[5499s] To create space for visibility, for representation, and first person perspectives of those that are in her divergent.
[5507s] The grant money will provide startup funds to support the innovation of breaking the barrier to neurodiversity
[5513s] and create online courses.
[5516s] One I’m on coaching, a podcast highlighting the experience of those with diversabilities
[5522s] and connection to resources in your area to help shape and support representation inclusion.
[5528s] If awarded, the funds are going to be broken into three categories.
[5532s] 11,400 will go to funding the salary of the project director and the technical producer
[5538s] to allow for the development of training content that podcast interviews, inclusion coaching,
[5544s] podcast production and the website development.
[5547s] The second category, a lot started 100 for equipment purchases, which will include microphones, software,
[5554s] the cost to produce the podcast for monthly website expenses, technical costs, and the website course development.
[5560s] The remaining 500 goes to printing distribution costs and marketing.
[5565s] Short-term success of this program is going to be measured by the completion of the four project components,
[5571s] the website, the podcast, online courses, and the inclusion coaching.
[5576s] The creation of breaking the barrier to neurodiversity website will be the initial phase.
[5580s] The development of the podcast and interviews next, airing the minimum of 30 within the first year,
[5587s] courses will be informed based on podcast and community need.
[5591s] Inclusion coaching will be provided through consistent feedback from the community.
[5595s] Online surveys will be sent out to determine the effectiveness of the project,
[5600s] and a traditional action or evaluation is needed.
[5603s] The final four months of the grant period will be spent refining and revising the overall trajectory of the program.
[5610s] The goal is to provide content that can be far reaching, provide multiple viewpoints and create a
[5615s] forum on best practices that challenges segregation of individuals who identify as neurodivergent globally.
[5622s] The long-term goal is to develop a platform that can be sustained well past the grant,
[5629s] and grow into a sustainable voice for inclusion.
[5633s] Without the winning victories grant, the development of resources, guiding best practices in neurodiversity,
[5638s] and inclusion would not be possible. Beyond the life of the grant,
[5642s] courses and coaching will be offered for a fee once the website and the podcast are established
[5647s] to support the continuation of the program. The winning victories grant will support the development of the website,
[5653s] the podcast, and content development to ensure successful launch. The grant will provide
[5660s] startup resources that are desperately needed to get this off the ground. But at the end of the day,
[5666s] it’s not about what I can do with a program. It’s about what we as a community can do in our
[5671s] own corners of the world. It’s exploring how we can honor our commitment as any accoladeum
[5677s] to affect our head of the change and I invite you to join me over this next year to share
[5682s] and listen to stories to keep an open heart in mind and take what you hear and learn and support
[5688s] somebody else’s experience with feeling included and belonging. You may be the first one to create
[5695s] that experience for someone, but because of your actions, you won’t be the last.
[5721s] Hi, my name is Riti Scorpino. I’m a graduate of the Antioch class of 2008
[5727s] and I am here today to present to you my proposal for Fulti Ferry Tales
[5732s] and LGBTQIA theater piece for young people and their families.
[5737s] First, I want to properly define what applied arts is
[5743s] because this is so important and you’re going to be able to use this term over and over again
[5747s] and I’m actually going to use my nipples.
[5750s] Apply arts uses an art form such as theater, circus, music or visual art
[5755s] as a mechanism for education, communication and social justice.
[5760s] What am I even doing?
[5766s] In 2009, I was accepted as a full-bright fellow
[5770s] and went to Malaysia where I was using theater to teach literacy
[5774s] in a tiny fishing village called Kee-Jah.
[5777s] After that, I was hired by the Harlem Children’s Zone
[5779s] to build their first applied arts program
[5782s] at the Learn Turn Center, which brought me to the Rhode Island School of Design
[5786s] where I got my first master’s degree and was later an artist in residence.
[5790s] That in turn took me to Brown and Brown in turn took me to
[5795s] the city university as a member of their creative arts team.
[5800s] In 2016, I co-founded panel at Theater Company with me
[5804s] followed by a game curtain which is a professional theater company
[5807s] that believes that theater and performance can be used
[5810s] to enrich things beyond entertainment itself.
[5813s] I’ve not brought me around the world with a show that
[5816s] torn and had an off-road way of residency for two years,
[5819s] which brings us to the present where I’ve been in Europe in France and Berlin
[5824s] continuing my education at Leicône,
[5828s] in Tinasino de Tiasse by the Jacques de Cocca, the International School of Jacques de Cocca,
[5832s] which is kind of considered the Harvard of Theater Schools.
[5838s] I have an opportunity following that to continue working with Master Thomas Prackke,
[5843s] really focusing on physical theater and the relationship between it and circus,
[5849s] which brings us to the immediate now, the summer of 2020,
[5853s] where I’m continuing to work with artists both in applied theater
[5857s] and in professional performance combining circus, mask, movement, and applied arts,
[5862s] and creating works specifically for this COVID times.
[5866s] And Falty Heritage.
[5869s] As a queer woman, as a queer artist, and as a graduate of a school
[5875s] whose motto is being shamed to die until you’ve won a victory for a humanity,
[5880s] I think I’ve always been on this road.
[5883s] I had amazing professors who looked at the experiences that we were having
[5889s] as young, political, queer artists, educators, scientists, community members,
[5897s] and they really tied it into our education.
[5900s] People like Bob Divine and Louise Smith and Scott Warren and Steven Duffy and Jimmy Williams,
[5906s] were taking the pieces of our political lives, our personal lives,
[5912s] our backgrounds, our experiences, and they were tying the main to our education
[5918s] in a way that forced us to really dig deep, that forced us to ask those questions
[5923s] of yes but why, to simplify, to go farther than the assumptions,
[5928s] to go farther than the catch phrases and the everyday language used to talk about human experience.
[5935s] Any up colleges, moderate, to be ashamed to die until you won some victory for a humanity.
[5942s] I feel like that has been the guide for the majority of the decisions that I’ve made
[5947s] as an artist and an activist and as a professional performer.
[5951s] All right, so what is Fulti Ferry Tales?
[5954s] Fulti Ferry Tales is an interactive theater piece that is very near and dear to my heart
[5958s] and it’s so big that I had been working on now for two years.
[5962s] Now I want you to imagine a fairy tale with magic and kings,
[5966s] enchanted animals, princesses, with rings, but without traditional gender roles.
[5972s] We seek to take those beautiful magical traditional fairy tales and reverse normative gender roles
[5981s] and expectations and make it interactive from beginning to end so that our LGBTQ young people and families
[5990s] are building the characters with us, solving the problems with us, and finding the endings when they get misplaced.
[5998s] So what does it mean for…
[6000s] or peace to be interactive.
[6002s] What it means is that our audience
[6004s] is not a passive viewer or a spectator
[6008s] of the theatrical experience.
[6010s] It means that they’re helping us solve problems
[6013s] from beginning to end always from the safety of their own seats,
[6018s] next to their family and loved ones.
[6020s] So that you go from a passive spectator
[6024s] to an active participant.
[6025s] And that that is part of the goal of our company,
[6027s] a panel with the inner company,
[6029s] so that our audience members are active in art
[6032s] and also talk to become active in their own lives.
[6036s] So let’s take a moment to discuss
[6038s] why this project as it stands is so important right now.
[6042s] In 2019, glad, which is the gay and lesbian alliance
[6047s] against defamation came out with their most recent data
[6052s] for LGBTQIA representation for young people
[6057s] and family entertainment.
[6059s] And what they found was that for the first year,
[6062s] there was absolutely no LGBTQIA characters
[6066s] made specifically for young people.
[6068s] And that for the second year in a row,
[6070s] there were actually no trans characters.
[6073s] No trans representation makes specifically
[6076s] for families and children.
[6079s] Now, this is super important because we know
[6082s] that young people are the largest consumers
[6085s] of media and entertainment,
[6087s] which means that this population of young LGBTQIA children
[6093s] who we know grow up knowing that their gay,
[6096s] that their queer, that their trans, that their non-binary,
[6100s] that their two spirited are growing up
[6102s] and they’re not seeing representation of themselves.
[6107s] So that is the problem we seek to solve.
[6112s] All right, so if faulty fairy tales
[6115s] is awarded a winning victories for humanity,
[6118s] grant there are three things that will absolutely happen.
[6122s] The first is that I will be able to hire between five in seven
[6126s] LGBTQIA artists and crew members, specifically for this project.
[6132s] If I’m creating theater specifically for this queer community,
[6137s] I also need to provide opportunity
[6139s] for adults artists who would otherwise need to nine.
[6142s] So this is a great platform for that chance.
[6145s] The second thing that will absolutely happen
[6148s] is that we will go into our first goals,
[6150s] either in person or virtually to create this piece.
[6155s] The third thing that will happen is that we will be able
[6159s] to bring this piece at little to no cost to families,
[6164s] especially now due to COVID.
[6166s] If a family of four comes to a theater
[6169s] and they’re paying a minimum of $10 a ticket,
[6172s] that’s $40.
[6173s] Right now, given our current socio and economic circumstance,
[6177s] that’s a lot of money.
[6179s] But with this income coming from the grant,
[6182s] I would be able to put away a fund specifically
[6185s] to pay my artists for performances.
[6188s] Without the need of audience investment.
[6193s] So now the theater is accessible to young people
[6195s] and their families at little to no cost,
[6198s] but where does the theater go?
[6200s] Well, right now because of COVID, stages are closed.
[6203s] However, non-traditional venues are available.
[6207s] Places like Reform Cinagogues,
[6209s] Quaper Meeting Houses, Parks, LGBT QIAs, Centers,
[6214s] basketball parks.
[6216s] Right, that there are areas in places right now
[6219s] across our cities internationally where art is happening.
[6223s] So what happens after funding?
[6225s] Faulty fairy tales will continue to be sold to paying stages
[6229s] which will fund us bringing it to parks,
[6232s] LGBT QIA centers, and schools for free.
[6236s] Faulty fairy tales will continue to employ queer
[6239s] and trans artists.
[6240s] And our ultimate hope is that we’re able to expand the show,
[6244s] bringing it to international stages
[6246s] and communities such as Edinburgh, French.
[6249s] Because art really belongs to the people.
[6252s] And it’s times like this remind us that art and theater
[6257s] and artists are really the crews
[6259s] of culture.
[6260s] And this is how we tell our stories
[6262s] and how we tell our narratives.
[6264s] And with a grant with this grant,
[6267s] I would be able to continue that process.
[6281s] What an amazing collection of presentations, really.
[6286s] Thank you, everybody.
[6288s] I’m the stop sharing this screen now.
[6293s] Care for it.
[6294s] Do you want to join me just in wrapping up?
[6296s] Yes.
[6297s] I want to thank our five finalists who did.
[6300s] fabulous presentations and fabulous proposals to get this far. Karen Malhouser, who really
[6310s] spearheaded the process starting two years ago, our other reviewers. And if there are any yes,
[6325s] and we can’t give money to everybody. Of course, if we’ve got another donor to come in and
[6330s] fund some of the unfunded ones that would be possible. If there are any questions, let’s see.
[6339s] Did you see any questions that came through? Right. I’m looking.
[6344s] Everybody saying this is going to be hard to vote for just three. Yes, it will.
[6348s] Well, but again, the videos, if you want to review them again, or tell your friends who aren’t
[6358s] here, we’ll be posted. The ballot will be posted. You have two weeks to ponder. Make those
[6366s] tough decisions and cast your vote. So do we have any questions? I don’t see any questions here.
[6379s] Okay, Roger. No. The applications themselves are long and they’re just not a good
[6392s] idea to put. They weren’t designed to be posted publicly. What the finalists did was to prepare
[6400s] Senna Res, you know, short condensed versions, which are available on one of the websites.
[6409s] And then on the ballot is the description as a short thumbnail description. So you can remember
[6415s] who is who? The ballots will be posted this afternoon. We need to finish the session.
[6424s] You have April a chance to have some, have a cup of something and the ballots and
[6432s] the videos will come up this afternoon. Yes. I’ll be enjoying some cupcakes if you can believe it.
[6439s] If you can make it over here to the horseshoe lawn, Mickey Baltimore is bringing some birthday
[6446s] cupcakes over. You’re all invited. Oh. Okay. I’d like to just encourage
[6453s] everyone to vote and to let all of your friends know about it to click on the videos so that they
[6459s] can vote as well. And some of you know that I, you mentioned cupcakes. I have a recipe for
[6469s] vote meal cookies and I think that we all may want to, whatever favorite food or beverage,
[6478s] but to go online when the link is available to vote, listening to these presentations,
[6486s] just reminds me yet again of how wonderful any of colleges. And so it’s, and I hope you attend
[6494s] the other 24 reunion sessions as well and encourage your friends to do it as well.
[6502s] Okay. The question about where, uh, both of the events page, there’ll be April a
[6508s] set where we’ll put a link to the, uh, and no, if you just go to the, I’m going to change the link
[6516s] to the grant page just to go to the voting page for the voting period. So, okay.
[6521s] We’ll go to alumni.anyoutcollege.edu, under the Engage menu, it will say winning victory grants.
[6530s] And then I’ll put a banner on the rotating on the front page too.
[6535s] And we will put the last south to tell people where to go in terms of finding the videos and finding
[6541s] the balance. Yes, um, the proposals had a section for saying what people would do with the money.
[6551s] Um, they, the presentations have a synopsis of that. But that was one of the,
[6559s] important criteria for selecting the five finalists. They had to be quite clear about what they
[6565s] were going to do with the money. Uh, what they, what the grant would do that they would not,
[6572s] otherwise be able to do so that we’re not funding, you know, duplicating funding that they are
[6577s] already have. And they had to put measures of short-term success, how they would evaluate the success
[6585s] of their projects, recognizing that not every time that somebody starts something,
[6593s] it comes out exactly the way they had hoped it would. So there was also a question,
[6598s] well, what will you do if it doesn’t turn?
[6600s] exactly what you were hoping for. I think in my time that was called a learning experience.
[6606s] We didn’t fail or flunk of test. We had a learning experience. So all that was included in the
[6614s] proposal. Are there any other questions from the link here to the page that we look
[6630s] at and this is the page to vote? Again, please fill out your information so that we can match you
[6643s] to our database. The voting is open to all members of the EDE up community, which are alumni for
[6652s] resubin squirrels, alumni, current students, current faculty, and current staff. So please give us all
[6660s] that information so that we can match you up and validate your ballot. Also, be sure you only vote
[6667s] for one proposal in each of your categories for second and third. Although you can you can
[6674s] don’t have to vote for three, but you can’t vote for the same proposal more than once. Super.
[6688s] That covers everything. And we’re finishing up exactly. This is so on Antiochen.
[6694s] We are finishing up three minutes ahead of schedule.
[6699s] Which lets everybody go off, grab something to eat, grab something to drink and come back at
[6706s] seven o’clock tonight for Ray Gunson, a special custom recorded performance for us. And Ray
[6716s] will be there to answer questions afterwards. Yes, April? Actually he’s going to be there to have
[6720s] a conversation with Tony DoSik. So that’s right. We’re just cool here in 1969, where Antioch’s
[6729s] a lot about Antioch’s stories. I asked him to give us some of the stories from his time. So he talks
[6734s] about his program on WYS. And how Antioch shaped his music career and inspired him to
[6743s] take that artistic life. So it’s really neat. And I just posted in there the link to register.
[6748s] If you haven’t already registered for the Ray Benson concert, you can do that for a couple more
[6752s] hours. Join us. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Plus we need to see three recordings from a concert
[6758s] that they just livestreamed like less than a month ago. So it’s brand new music.
[6763s] Ray. And also then of course it continues tomorrow. Where our spot light will be on the sciences.
[6770s] So if you haven’t registered for those, go on over to Mozi over to the events page. And then we
[6779s] will pick up again next weekend. So thank you to our five finalists. You’re all awesome.
[6789s] I wish we could fund five. We can’t. And thank you, April, for making this happen.
[6796s] Sure thing. Good luck to our finalists. And thanks to everybody. Be sure to vote.
[6800s] See you at some other events. Have a good day. Good afternoon.
