January 25, 2018
SUUSA Senators
"State of the Union" Roundtable
Whiting Room

Intro: [00:00:02] Hey everyone this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1 In this show, you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some new sounds and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. and on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. For now, welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1

Lynn Vartan: [00:00:51] Alright. Well welcome everyone. We are here in the studio today. It's 3:00 p.m. and this is Dr. Lynn Vartan. And joining me in the studio is Dr. Ravi Roy welcome.

Ravi Roy: [00:01:03] Thank you Lynn it's great to be here.

Lynn Vartan: [00:01:05] So cool. You are our first live guest in the studio. How do you feel?

Ravi Roy: [00:01:11] That's quite an honor. And it's a really cool studio. This is great.

Lynn Vartan: [00:01:15] It is indeed. We're here in the student center it's for those of you who aren't familiar with the building it's completely open and students are walking by and it's our main thoroughfare. Well we had a great morning so far today. And Dr. Roy gave his 2018 faculty distinguished lecture and he's probably breathing a sigh of relief for a more casual discussion here. But we'd love to just kind of get into it and just kind of ask some questions and we'll see where the conversation takes us. Would you mind giving those at home listening just kind of a little introduction to your life and career?

Ravi Roy: [00:01:53] Sure. Well as I approach 50 years old now I'm reminded that I've been teaching for about 20 years at the university level which is kind of humbling when you think about it if you look back. But yeah so I grew up in Los Angeles California. And it's something we have in common obviously.

Lynn Vartan: [00:02:14] That's exactly right.

Ravi Roy: [00:02:16] At Cal State Northridge where I was an undergraduate for two years and then transferred to UCLA and from there I went to Claremont Graduate University and took my Master of Arts and Public Policy and then my Ph.D. and long story short I'd been back to see on a couple of times to first teach in their mph program after a public administration program and to run it before I did that I was here for a couple of years. About 14 years ago.

Lynn Vartan: [00:02:47] Wow.

Ravi Roy: [00:02:49] And then in the interim I spent about three years in Melbourne Australia teaching there and back here in southern Utah.

Lynn Vartan: [00:02:56] Wow. Well I have so many questions for you but let's start with Melbourne. Tell me a little bit about your experience there and what you did and maybe you know some of your take on life there. Well.

Ravi Roy: [00:03:11] I think the surveys show that you know a lot of Americans have a very positive view of Australia and about Melbourne in particular I know I did growing up being a huge George Miller fan of the Mad Max films and yeah we ended up moving to a suburb that's pretty close where they filmed the original Mad Max with no way. So did you visit the set. You know the the the the police station for example is the Spottswood iron works and then the University of Melbourne parking garages where they kept the interceptor and that movie so yeah I mean I got to be quite familiar with all that stuff which I thought was really cool.

Lynn Vartan: [00:03:48] That's cool. Do you have pictures of yourself there?

Ravi Roy: [00:03:51] I don't I'm not a big picture for those who know me they've seen my my dumb phone that looks like something that popped out of 1992. I don't know if my phone can take pictures. I certainly don't use it so.

Lynn Vartan: [00:04:06] Well you have those mental pictures right. Those are just as valuable. That's right. And so what kind of work did you do while you were there

Ravi Roy: [00:04:14] I went there to teach international development which is a related field to public administration the kind of global arena. And while I was there I was promoted pretty quickly to run the the master's program in international development. And I also was at the research center there. It's a place called RMIT University which is you know kind of a small universe and about 90000 students on any given day of the week. And in all seriousness it is the largest universe in Australia it competes in size of population with probably University of Michigan and Ohio State.

Lynn Vartan: [00:04:55] That's amazing. And, you know comparing, do you like that huge campus I mean does it just breathe with excitement or is it a little overwhelming or?

Ravi Roy: [00:05:06] So it's RMIT is in the central business district of Melbourne. And so they.. It's very much organized like NYU. You really don't know you're on the campus. I see. So the buildings are numbered and they're peppered throughout the central business district of Melbourne. So really Melbourne Central station is kind of like well as our said we should just call that RMIT central because really that's right that's so you know that for our cluster that's our property and we were responsible for a lot of the foot traffic and so forth.

Lynn Vartan: [00:05:40] How did you find the students in terms of these topics and maybe how do they compare to students in the US in these topics?

Ravi Roy: [00:05:49] So I mean students in Australia I think by nature, are a little bit more aware of international issues. I think that's changing more and more as more and more millennials do travel-study abroad. Their careers are taking them abroad. Australia really is to characterize it correctly as more Australasia. So they are kind of already integrated I mean their nearest neighbors Indonesia it's like as close as are Mexico right. So you know they travel abroad you know for vacations to study abroad and so there is already there was earlier on I think a focus on the global östra but we're catching up on Graser.

Lynn Vartan: [00:06:43] That's great. And any plans to go back would you like to spend more time there

Ravi Roy: [00:06:48] Well my youngest was actually born there. So we have an incentive. I did get an endeavor fellowship which is kind of like a Fulbright from their government last year so I did spend-I got the opportunity spent a month there last December and nor to make sure I stayed in the good graces of my wife and kids, I arrived back on Christmas Eve to make sure that I was back home.

Lynn Vartan: [00:07:16] Good for you, well done! Well that's great. And I also I'm interested in your travels to Indonesia I know you've you've worked with some officials there and then you have a great award from the president there. Can you talk about that project that Indonesia toward 2025 I think it's called?

Ravi Roy: [00:07:35] So in 2010 His Excellency Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had established, I think it was in 2009 actually, the Indonesian defense university and the whole idea was to bring in a kind of international scholars and working with an outfit in part with the Germans and they had a really great conference there and I was invited to represent Australia in that mix. And so the idea was to bring in a kind of. International perspective of where Indonesia could go strategically and so forth. There was also a large part of this was a PR. I mean a meaningful PR not just lip service PR, but a meaningful PR to restore Indonesia's credibility particularly with countries like Australia who were very much involved in the conflict with East Timor, which had occurred, you know, a few years prior to that and so that was that was a very painful situation there. And this was a wise investment I believe to integrate Indonesia at that time, more within a global conversation a more collaborative conversation. And based on that, there was a summer school series, short intensive courses daylong type of thing and they invited me back again. Now it was a few months later I think the first 2025 conference was in March of 2010. I was invited back then and sometime in June, I think it was.

Lynn Vartan: [00:09:14] How do you feel it's progressing is it is it working? Their achievement toward its goals to be more collaborative in your opinion.

Ravi Roy: [00:09:22] That's a good question I haven't, unfortunately, stayed as connected now having left Australia back in 2011 obviously regime changes have happened there so it'll be interesting to revisit that I just haven't had an opportunity given. But at that time there was a genuine conversation about the desire to do this and concerns that it might ultimately not work what was very interesting to have that kind of open dialogue with members of the military. Oh wow defense minister was a graduate of UC Berkeley. Oh you know so we know I'm from UCLA we had that you see Kujan common. I think he was saying that one of his children was also a graduate of UC as well. So it is true what they say about the Berkeley mafia and the Indonesian government.

Ravi Roy: [00:10:13] Turns out that that's not just a fairy tale that's fantastic.

Lynn Vartan: [00:10:18] (laughs) That's fantastic. Well looking a little bit more homeward I know that you are very interested in global studies and opportunities for students in that way and I know that we're working really hard at you to increase and students experience internationally. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of that as it resonates with you and some of your opinions about our students and their connection to the to the global society?

Ravi Roy: [00:10:46] Yeah absolutely and I'll take this opportunity to make good my colleague Dr. Angel Pool-Funai who's director of the MPA program to express- as part of our accreditation with the network of public affairs public policy at ministration schools accreditation that we enjoy with our masters of public ministration program. One of the things that we were lauded for in that accreditation process, which was a lengthy process, was our experiential learning. And a big part of that was our deep involvement in study abroad and Angela- Dr. Pool-Funai and Deena Marchal who is the coordinator of the program they are leading up our study abroad along with some other professors this summer to do all the countries that are part of the UK as long as there is the UK.

Lynn Vartan: [00:11:39] Oh great. And do you know that study abroad still open?

Ravi Roy: [00:11:43] As far as I know it's still open.

Lynn Vartan: [00:11:45] Okay so anybody out there interested, I mean that's all that these mentioned all the countries in the U.K.

Ravi Roy: [00:11:51] Yes that's correct.

Lynn Vartan: [00:11:52] And so students probably could still register for that if they wanted to.

Lynn Vartan: [00:11:56] With those courses absolutely or you know Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales.

Lynn Vartan: [00:12:03] Cool.

Ravi Roy: [00:12:04] So yeah they're really doing the full treatment and it's a mixture. Because our MBA program has a focus particularly in student affairs. And so they're making sure to visit government institutions but also educational institutions and building those kinds of connections and networks and so forth. And so I think it's going to be a fantastic experience.

Lynn Vartan: [00:12:26] That's great. Well you heard it here if you're interested in getting into some of the summit stuff study abroad. I know there are so many more being offered so we can check that out. All right we're going to take a little break and listen to some music that's the other kind of thing with this show that I like to kind of show you some new music and some new styles and new genres. Today we're going to be listening to three different tracks from an album and that Hilary Hahn a wonderful violinist did a couple of years back that were all encores. They're all encore length pieces and she received submissions from I think some large number 150 different composers and then she chose just 29 to be on an album and a few of them I think are really interesting. So the first one you're going to hear is light moving and this is composed by David Lang and performed by Hilary Hahn and Corey Smythe and you are right here on Thunder 91.1 KSUU.

Lynn Vartan: [00:16:18] All right. Well, that was a piece called light moving and the composer is David Lang and the performers were Hilary Hahn and Corey Smythe and that's off the album 29 encores by Hilary Han. This is Dr. Lynn Vartan and this is the APEX Hour right here on Thunder ninety one point one KSUU and I'm in the studio today with Dr. Ravi Roy, our 2018 faculty distinguished scholar. Welcome back. Thank you. So I'd like to get into a little bit of conversation about your awesome talk today and one of the questions I asked on stage. We were talking about. You said your talk has this healthy dose of cynicism and maybe talk a little bit more about that how you view that sort of cynicism and where it comes from I know you alluded to that this morning and then also ways to sort of get out of that and ways we can look for it and maybe just go off on that for a little bit.

Ravi Roy: [00:17:17] So thanks so healthy dose of cynicism I think it's healthy for any democratic republic. I mean this whole basis of you know focus on liberty is that we always need to be concerned about that. On the other hand, where we are now my cynicism in part speaks to the fact of how public trust has been waning and specifically of public trust as a speaks to trust in political institutions and the public sector which seems to not just be towards politicians but also to those in rank and files public service positions. Right. It's always. I mean there's several paradox. I mean one is it's interesting. The kind of from a public point of view the kind of negative attitudes generally towards public education higher education.And yet the private sector demands a college degree for any kind of advancement.

Lynn Vartan: [00:18:19] Exactly.

Ravi Roy: [00:18:20] So that's an interesting thing to me that you would value a degree that the product that we produce and have. In some cases right out the stand for those who are producing the products.

Lynn Vartan: [00:18:36] I really wonder about that because sometimes we think that you know now everybody goes to college and that perhaps that that's not necessarily for everyone. But I don't know. I mean I wonder sometimes about this this commander because of course every organization every business is demanding a cut. Many are demanding a college education but yet there is this distain that is the same in politics. But we're finding in higher ed as well what do we do about that

Ravi Roy: [00:19:10] So that's that's a really good question I think first of all we need to recognize. I think what I'm calling the kind of polyphonic or schizophrenic attitude that we have towards things and trying to understand where that come from because in some cases it's valid and legitimate. In other cases you know it come from an emotional base without thinking through logically what are these views come from. I mean how do I reconcile these apparent contradictions in my own thinking. And you know world PRONTA myself included. Another example of the paradoxes that I tried to bring up there and I'll try to add a little more to it is that since the 1960s we've seen government expanding right but isn't expanding in a vacuum and doing it by Firepower alone. Some of it is but you know we see that with the administrators state and expansion of regulatory power. And there are legitimate concerns about overreach and all the rest of this. I'm not trying to dismiss that out of hand. On the other hand. We expect government. To do more and more for us provide more and more for us and the response of democracy naturally government is going to respond. And it's been growing. Now the paradox is the more government grows in an attempt to meet our expectations during the same period since the 1960s the less happy or satisfied we are with the job the government is doing and we respond by demanding more of government. And the interesting thing to me is is that let's take 9/11 for example when it happened. The criticisms of government were. Some were valid some unfair. Government was asleep at the wheel. Why didn't they know better or why didn't they protect us and all the rest of us. And again I mean you know some of that is valid. So government responds by doing something historic creates an Office of Homeland Security that then becomes the Department of Homeland Security. We're not unique in this. I mean most democracies have some kind of Ministry of Internal Affairs home of errors or whatever we came late to the table with that one I think that goes back to our founding and our healthy suspicion of the idea that we need to some kind of domestic protection. But it does, we empower the NSA to to get involved and try to preemptively protect us. It does. We see the expansion of a new program of TSA and how do we respond to that. We complain about TSA and the kind we have to stand in. And about the job they're doing right. We respond by oftentimes getting upset with the abridgement of our privacy. We get upset with the amount of money that the Homeland Security and its related agencies are taking up of resources. So it's almost as though government can't win. Right. You know we demand these things government respond and then we are. Upset with the job that he's doing. So I'm not saying that government shouldn't work better. I'm not saying that we shouldn't expect government work or it's our tax dollars. At work. To be sure. But then the question becomes and I raised this and that talk as well. If people if people are not willing to give their faith and trust and support government to do these things where does it find the mandate to do them? Yeah. Where are the potency of government come from where the public sector come from. If we're eviscerating higher education and budgets of higher education. What Utah thankfully has done to my mind relatively speaking a wonderful job of protecting higher education because if you look at other states in the union you know it's Michigan or Connecticut right. I mean those are places where. You know it's it's just it's quite sad. We do all right here relatively speaking. But then we're surprised when public higher education higher institutions of education. You know they're not meeting their expectations in terms of the knowledge base for the students that we're creating for them for the for the labor market. Well that seems kind of interesting. You're saying you need this product again. You don't think it should be funded necessarily or are you criticisms about how we fund it and the things that we're doing. But I think part of it is we expect government to fail. If you think about how many businesses private businesses in this country fail. And how much of that slack the public sector takes up in terms of unemployment benefits in terms of our court system with bankruptcy and so on and so forth. I'm not saying government versus business but I'm just saying that there is almost no expectation that government can't work. And then we we criticize government which is fine but then we do very little to try to make it work effectively.

Lynn Vartan: [00:24:25] Yeah I mean that's just such a clear explanation of the problem. Do you have opinions about what could be done better that you'd like to share

Ravi Roy: [00:24:38] Well I think self-awareness is a big part of it to realize that at the end of the day our Constitution is very clear and it is embedded in a philosophy of consent of the governed. So this doesn't mean the day to day every single citizen is going to go to work you know fixing these problems actively but what it does mean is that generally an action is is tantamount to approval. If we really want things to work better we really have to be part of the solution. And part of this is I tried to emphasize there is first of all we need to be aware of our own limitations on our own contradictions and then think about how we can have constructive conversations. Across sectoral lines private sector public sector and look at it as a system that's the first thing that there are not two separate things that are necessarily have to be binary. They can work together and that's an ideological barrier that many of us have to get over.

Lynn Vartan: [00:25:41] But these conversations are challenging they're so hard to have. I mean we were just speaking even about this in faculty senate how to have healthy conversations and how to exchange ideas. And it does seem harder now than it did 10 years ago 12 years ago. What recommendations do you have? I know we touched a little bit on this earlier but I would love some tools to help have these conversations and begin these dialogues to start talking more and interesting conversations curious conversations exchanges of ideas even disparate ideas. How how do we do that.

Ravi Roy: [00:26:25] Yeah unfortunately we've moved increasingly to a place where we have allowed those issues that separate us to dominate our thinking and construct our dialogues force. And as a result the language in which the discourse in which we've communicate with one another for example between political parties. Has become vitriolic. It's become unproductive. It's led to gridlock. And you know once once people start painting the other. As bad people you've automatically shut down the dialogue. Right. If I say well I know you want the best and I do too. We just see things fundamentally differently. Let's have a conversation about that work can we come together on a consensus about first of all what are the problems. What priority. Are those problems because we can say Yeah all these things are important. It's important. Tax reform is important but we need to we need to have a conversation about which things we need to address first which is the most pressing and then be able to have a policy dialogue. It's interesting because one of my colleagues showed that of those people that were interested in issues they voted for Donald Trump. That's one you can argue with that data but that's what he was able to show. But it was interesting and in that study was talking about the issues but no policy content or very little policy content behind those issues. So talking about issues is one factor but getting into a constructive dialogue to the nuts and bolts and the more difficult conversation that beyond ideology of issues and start talking about public policy. Now that's that's something I think that we have a long way to go. Yeah and. You know I am concerned deeply concerned as I shared in my letter I made no bones bones about it that we need to get back to that space that's come.

Lynn Vartan: [00:28:31] I completely agree that's a great way. That's a great way of putting it. It's true. It seems maybe easier to have these ideological conversations but but exactly right without constructive discussion of policy to actually try to fix something where where are we. OK well it's time for another little musical break and we're going to revisit that Hilary Hahn and Corey Smith album and the piece that we're going to listen to again this is the violin and piano encore type piece so short and sweet if you will. And this one is called Ford's farm and the composer is Mason Bates and you are listening to KSUU you thunder ninety one point one.

Lynn Vartan: [00:31:32] K and that was Ford's farm and the composer of that piece is Mason Bates and the performance where Hilary Hahn and Corey Smythe and Hilary Hahn' 29 encores. Which is just a fantastic album. All of encores that she commissioned and chose from a pool of over 100. And then put together with the great pianist Corey Smythe. I'm Dr. Lynn Vartan and we are back here in the studio with Dr. Ravi Roy who is our apex speaker today. And this is KSUU thunder ninety one point one. Welcome back. And we're just continuing this great conversation about trust in the political arena and now topics of democracy and global awareness and global politics. I was curious, you know it's kind of you were saying if we don't fix something then the potential for democracy to go away is a real threat. Could you talk a little bit about that danger a little more and then maybe. Are there any models in history that we should be looking at as hey watch out. This is getting close. Or hey this is one we should really check out and try to mimic.

Ravi Roy: [00:32:53] So I think it's first important to look at this conceptually that the. That the end goal is liberty. Democracy as a means to an end not an end. We've seen throughout history the most tyrannical regimes come about through democratic elections. Right.

Lynn Vartan: [00:33:12] You can see this and that's just that's an amazing statement. I mean the gravity and that is something.

Ravi Roy: [00:33:18] Yeah populism fascism. These all things can result through a populist campaigns where there is not a consensus a middle of the road consensus and I'm not saying that we're there yet. Thankfully yes. But this trend we're on this direction we're headed where we are refusing to have a consensus and a discussion across party lines where you know I remember it was a huge thing back in the 90s when there was a government shutdown and Obama came in and there was more government shutdowns of well could be again. Some people would say that these kinds of impasse are the natural tension that exists between separation of powers. But I think the emphasis should be on the word system. This is not it's a system of separation of powers. It's not. It is to a certain extent. Separation but it's also more about separate institutions that ought to be sharing powers and sharing consensus. Right. And I am concerned. That. That mindset. Isn't there. I mean it seems like the political parties which now control the agendas in Congress rather than the congressional leadership as it used to be are more concerned with derailing the opposing sides agenda than they are trying to find a consensus to work together even if they don't get everything they want. All right. They're more concerned with inhibiting the other and destroying that agenda than they are about saying OK now what kinds of things I mean things are dead on. You legislation bills are literally pronounced dead on arrival simply because they're coming from the other side.

Lynn Vartan: [00:35:14] It's scary.

Ravi Roy: [00:35:15] And that is not who we are. That's certainly not what's. Know we got to remember this Republic Democratic Republic is a wondrous. And amazing experiment. And that's exactly what it is. It's also extremely fragile. If we are not careful I was mentioning in my lecture we owe so much to the French and French ideas for our notions of liberty and about the things that underpin it and those things are well recognizable in our Constitution. But I would also remind people that the French are on their fifth republic. Were on our first republic. And so there's no there's no guarantee right. It's not axiomatic that this is who this has been maintained through a conscious and deliberate effort to. And some kids love sacrificed to keep us right and we shouldn't squander that legacy in my opinion.

Lynn Vartan: [00:36:17] How close to the precipice do you think we are. Do you think we're we're we should be concerned very concerned. Moderately concerned. What do you think or do. I mean it's OK if you don't want to comment on that as well of course.

Ravi Roy: [00:36:34] As An academic And most academic Scott the last election prediction wrong. So I'm saying this in all humility. I don't like to give timelines or definitive things on them at this time but I will say this on. A major crisis which could come up at any point. Could certainly. Hasten the pace towards the wrong wrong wrong direction. And if we're not careful we need to be you know Madison warned us about this during trying times that you know factional interests will seek to maximize their own side at the expense of the republic. He was he was deeply and yet at the same time recognized that factions were a reality and part of the process too. So he got that balance but I think we need to recognize that and not take it for granted. I think we need to be vigilant and concerned that it's the Republic first or our identity is we're Americans and we can be Democrats Republicans and apparels libertarians whatever you want to call it. And that's you know that's absolutely fine that's part of you know. Freedom of speech and that's you know the idea that we should feel free to disagree but that needs to be tempered. It's not something that can be quashed by government either by law. You can't just make a policy. You know that's an abridgement of freedom. So this really has to come organically. It has to be a self check and that comes with self-awareness introspection and. But I will just say yes I am concerned. And that's why I gave today's talk is to try to awaken a spirit of self-awareness among our undergraduates to say look you've been handed something extremely valuable. That did not come without sacrifice. Where people put their own discrete immediate interest secondary to the good of a republic over time and where we have been careless not to do that. We have seen the fall out of that and just be aware of that.

Lynn Vartan: [00:38:46] All right. Great great advice and I think that many people got got that message and especially the messages of generosity and charity. We got into a little bit of that as well. You mentioned the French and the several constitutions. How do you what do you think about that in relation because some people have said well it's hey it's time for a rewrite. You know every good script needs a rewrite. Once in a while would you be academically or even personally in favor of a constitutional rewrite at this point.

Ravi Roy: [00:39:21] The genius of the Founders is that they understood that. And they included within the Constitution itself Article 5 which provides a way to be able to update the constitution. Now. In their genius they also made sure that it would require a broad consensus of the kind that I'm talking about. Do that right. It can't be just one narrow faction that thing. I'm not happy. Let's throw up the whole thing because I'm not happy temporarily on so. But if but the only way if people are generally unhappy with say for example the Electoral College on which is a concern that's being echoed on both the left on the right. At times there is a way to amend Article 2 of the Constitution and it's through the amendment process of Article 5. But again that's going to require a broader coming together of a middle of the road consensus on how to do that and then and building that. And we're. I don't think because of the nature of the dialogue that we're having. Where they are so. Frightfully spiteful and dumb and derogatory and accusatory that we can have those kinds of serious discussions and that's problematic.

Lynn Vartan: [00:40:43] Yeah absolutely. Also are there any models that you feel historically or currently that really have it correct. I mean that we should be looking at and saying hey these guys are doing a really good job. Any any good models that we should be taking a look at a closer look at.

Ravi Roy: [00:41:05] So every democracy is going to have its share of problems on the nature of our single member districts which are gerrymandered creates an untenable situation where you have lifelong politicians who appears in some cases or you know manipulating that system to be able to remain in power for as long as possible which in and of itself you know the idea of long tenure is not solve the problem but the motivation behind it is if your purpose is to bring expertise and help to build stability. And you know that system lends itself to that. That's one thing but motivation is simply to remain in power for the sake of power particularly so that you know you can get in line with a particular faction that is hell bent on preventing constructive dialogue. And that actually serves. Your interest of staying in power for the sake of power. I think that that's not particularly a good thing.

Lynn Vartan: [00:42:09] Great. OK well more great discussion here and we are about ready for our last musical break of the hour. And again we're you're here on I can see you thunder ninety one point one and this will be my last sample from the Hilary Hahn album. And Hilary Hahn is a great violinist who's paired with Corey Smythe on this encore album. And this last piece I'm in a play for you is called memories and the composer is Michiru Oshima. And again this is KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

Lynn Vartan: [00:46:28] All right. Welcome back. This is the apex hour. My name is Dr. Len. And you're listening to KSEE youth Pandor ninety one point one. That last song that you heard was titled memories. The composer is me Oshima and that is from the album Hilary Hind encores where her great violinist Hilary Hahn plays with Corey Smyth. I'm definitely just one of my all time favorite violinists and a great album to listen to. We're in the studio finishing out the APEX hour with Dr. Ravi Roy who is our 2018 faculty distinguished lecturer and like to save the last ten minutes for some fun stuff to kind of talk a little bit about things that make you happy. So what kind of music do you like to listen to.

Ravi Roy: [00:47:20] I think the word is eclectic. Ok so I'm a big fan of the Foo Fighters. Oh cool. Yeah love the Smashing Pumpkins and worms. Heartbroken in the early 2000s one late 1990s when they said they were going to disband because they couldn't compete with the Backstreet Boys and one of my favorite bands is New Order and Joy Division. You know that come from the punk rock of the Dolls and The Ramones and yes to this. But I've always been a big sting and police van Goodwell particularly as Sting has taken that band. No post kind of Andy Summers right. More jazz kind of stuff and a more sophisticated sound. So yeah. Always enjoyed them out of practicality. I've had to amend my tastes to fit that of my daughters who are huge Katy Perry fans and Chern fans so I have to start now enjoying a wider array of music so less Depeche Mode more Katy Perry.

Lynn Vartan: [00:48:31] That's fantastic. That's great. Do you have music on in the home. Very much I know. In your talk you talked about left for all of us less TV. Are you a TV watcher or your music listener or what's kind of the soundtrack in your house. So.

Ravi Roy: [00:48:49] Yeah. So again you know it's it's pretty much what my kids like. Oftentimes although they would probably disagree with that. They think if I get one song and somehow some kind of earthshattering for them to. No but everybody seems to like pitbulls so it's one of the common thread. We can all agree goes.

Lynn Vartan: [00:49:16] How about books. Are you a reader or do you read. I mean I know some academic minded people read purely academic some like half of there are mysteries you know by the bed that they read. What what's on your bookshelf these days.

Ravi Roy: [00:49:32] Well I think I'm to be completely honest with you if you were to ask me this question a month ago to be purely academic stuff related to my field of study but I made a conscious decision the euro to widen my mind reading my reading table reading a really excellent book right now. That is the autobiography of a Russian priest Russian Orthodox priest. Who documents the trials and tribulations of growing up under Soviet communism and the atrocities that were committed out there and the endurance and the lack of political freedom lack of religious freedom that they experienced. And it's really kind of put things in perspective about how much again I mean on so many levels of on a personal level how thankful. To be living in this country where we. Don't have to worry about such things but also a thankfulness for the blessings that we have and also a kind of reminder of that. Again this is a marvelous and wonderful republic in which we live and we need to be vigilant and making sure that it stays that way. Yeah just a reminder on so many. It's also an inspiration of the human spirit right and the dedication of one man's faith in this faith of his family and enduring all of the title deeds on earth we're just now learning to live for something to this earth.

Lynn Vartan: [00:50:57] We're just now learning to live. Wow what a great title. That's cool. And do you have anything upcoming book wise that you're really excited to read next.

Ravi Roy: [00:51:09] To be honest with you just so I can understand you know because like I said you know I was a political scientist were always asked to make predictions. From a strategic point of view I never had any really inclination to read The Art of the deal but I think I'm going to. just to see what the what the strategic thinking is behind those who I'm paid to study about grains.

Lynn Vartan: [00:51:34] That's a good one everybody should dig into at some point you call them. What about some memorable advice that you've been given. The best advice that somebody ever gave you. Do you have anything that comes to mind. Well one time I got to see Charlton Heston at a talk show. Were.

Ravi Roy: [00:51:57] We were guests of Rick Dees back in the day and 20 years. I'll never forget it. You know you just hear that voice of God you know from rationalises right. Exactly. But he had some good advice on that show that I'll never be in this 25 years ago I said. His father told him do your best keep your promises. Your best keep your promise. That's great. You know and I don't always live up to that sadly but. I don't I try to remind myself. Do your best keep your promise.

Lynn Vartan: [00:52:25] That's fantastic. And would that be the advice that you would give to undergraduates now or is there something maybe two things or one thing that that you wish you had known as an undergraduate that you might impart to our undergraduates or young people today.

Ravi Roy: [00:52:47] So be nice to your professors. Yes. Amen. Good job and I tell my I tell my students you know I may not be the professor you want but on the professor I wish I had.

Lynn Vartan: [00:53:00] Love that.

Ravi Roy: [00:53:02] Yeah I mean it's it's it's and value this time. Don't just take your classes to tick a box and get a grade on. It really is a remarkable thing. The luxury for example when you take a political science class we take a music class that you cause you'll never have this time in your life again. I know they don't believe that but it's absolutely true. Right. Even if you're working you're working for yourself right now unless you have a family and we do have a lot of nontraditional stints. I'm saying this mainly to the kind of traditional undergraduate students who you know and I get this we were all there you know we got a paper to write and we don't really know we take the test. But. I'm saying that from personal experience I wish. Particularly in my g studies. Had spent more time in the humanities for and I took a class at UCLA on the humanities rather Iliad. And. Other Texts. Henry David Thoreau and I got through them fine but I really now see where the value. Of those things come in. Right. And you know and this is someone where day to day I worked put food on the table in practical ways but there is something about the aesthetics that you know make us better people make us more inquisitive make us search for deeper meaning that in return helps drives us forward in more meaningful ways. That's the advice that I give embrace that experience because you'll never have a chance until you retire. Or to go back and do those things and who wants to wait. You know from the time you're in your 20s all the way all the time you retire to enjoy these things.

Lynn Vartan: [00:54:41] So true. Great advice. I say the same thing. Same thing to students. It's hard to believe but you you won't ever have as much time as you have right now. As hard as that is to believe and my last parting question to you is what do you think is the most exciting thing in your field right now what are you most excited about.

Ravi Roy: [00:55:05] Well I'm in the area mainly of Politics and Public Management. And for me the idea to to encourage people to service this is this is really a remarkable thing and to think about as leaders and managers whether it's public sector or private it really doesn't matter to create value for that organization and for those working in their. Profits will come if an organization is managed well. So much of the time we focus on managing people. We forget that the real. The real value. And the ability to create value is really. About. The system of the organization. And so I encourage my students to think on a kind of deeper level how to motivate people how to create value in the lives of the people that they're working with colleagues. That's why. That's you. You are such a. Marvelous place to work. And I'm not just saying that because I'm here I chose to come back here I was away for 12 years I chose to come back. Her education in general. And this is true in this country other countries can oftentimes be unpleasant places to work because the the departments the separation between administration faculty and students are so subtle. But here we have a common mission which is to create value for the students and that allows us to work together for that purpose and we put aside a lot of the petty kind of arguments that you see in some traditional places. You know I think it was on Nixon's national security adviser became secretary of state. But anyway he when he left the administration worked back in universities said. No the reason why academic politics is so nasty is because the stakes are so low. Well in our case here the stakes are high because our sticks are the students and creating value for them. And what that common purpose and common mission that really helps define for us what we're all about. We don't have time for petty squabbles and this kind of thing not that we agree on everything and not that everything is perfect all the time but it's a very civilized place that's a very welcoming place it's very collegial place. And I I mean I can think of a better place to work because of that.

Lynn Vartan: [00:57:35] Well what a great note to end on. I'd like to thank you so much for your time today. And again you've been listening to Dr. Ravi right here on the apex hour. I am Lynn Vartan. And I am your host. And with that we're going to say good bye for this week and we'll see you next week right here 3:00 p.m. KSUU Thunder 91.1

[00:00:01] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on SUU's Thunder 91.1 In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over, learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to new music. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex. Or e-mail us at suuapex@icloud.com But for now, welcome to this week's show here no Thunder 91.1.

Lynn Vartan: [00:00:52] Right. Well good afternoon everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour here on Thunder nin91.1. We had a great event this morning. It was our SUUSA roundtable discussion where we had four of our Southern Utah University senators come in and talk about the state of the Union and we had a great discussion about things like parking and things like midterm grades and the possibility of that and just kind of how the government runs from a student perspective. You usually will have those guests in the studio for the radio show right now at 3:00 p.m. but the senators were all preoccupied with other meetings. So it gave me a chance to have a host choice for the day and that means we're going to talk about music. So I have a couple of guests here in the studio and one faculty member who's going to join us pretty soon. And I think I'll let them just kind of introduce themselves George and let's start with you.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:02:00] Hi I'm Jordan Neilsen. I'm a senior here and my major is percussion performance. So all things Strawn's and all that fun stuff. And I'm from Richfield Utah. So pretty close to home.

Lynn Vartan: [00:02:15] Yeah. And we could sing Jordan's praises for a long time. Jordan also is our graphic designer and marketing manager for Apex events so all the flyers and posters that you see around campus are his come from his brain and his awesome creativity. So welcome to Jordan. Thank you. And we also have Alex in the studio. Ali I want to introduce yourself.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:02:40] Yeah my name is Alexandra DiPasquale. I'm from France. So I'm new here. As for you I'm a music major and I've studied from seven years now drums and I'm here also to learn a lot of precautions instruments.

Lynn Vartan: [00:02:59] Yeah I could talk about Alex for a whole hour about his positive energy that he's brought to the music program. We thought it'd be really interesting to have Jordan and Alex talk a little bit about music and we're also going to have Dr.Bohnenstengel who is originally from Germany joining us and we thought we'd talk about kind of all the different types of music education and all the different types of stories that brought you all to you. So Alex tell me a little bit more about how how you came to music and you know a little bit about the system of music education in France so came to music.

[00:03:39] It's funny because I was 14 years old. There was a party in France was my it always starts with a party right. Funny because I remember was we my friends and we just went to my friends room and there were guitar and just a snare drum and I promise I just fell in love with this. I just sold this drum. And since this moment I never stopped to play. That's was true love at first sight.

Lynn Vartan: [00:04:19] So tell me about your education.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:04:22] So you took some private lessons you took some courses from 15 years old to 20 years old. I was a self educated and yeah 20 years old. I studied in private school just cooling friends two years where I obtained my kind of performer diploma as a drummer percussionist as a drummer. So this cool was really focused on play learn learn jazz play jazz and also about fury. Your tuning rules you hear some rhythm. I would like to see more focus on the play not just the play of the music and so then how did it come that you ended up here.

Lynn Vartan: [00:05:23] Why Southern Utah. I mean it wasn't for music originally if I remember right.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:05:28] I remember it was just during summer I was talking with my friends and we talked about music and they said well you know the United States the big place for music and that's it. And that's just. Oh yeah. I just thought maybe it could be good a good thing to me. So three years ago I started to search for an organization to come here. And I found one which is go campus. So during one year I can I say build my my folder Yeah. And at the end the organization proposed to me nine choices nine universities.

[00:06:22] Oh I see based on your. Exactly.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:06:24] Exactly. And also about my major in the program that I wanted to follow in the United States and SUU was the best one of those nine choices one great music program. Oh wow.

Lynn Vartan: [00:06:40] Yeah that's good to hear. Yeah well we'll get into a little bit more but we're so happy you're here since you've been here. Can you tell us the groups that you've performed in and what you're doing now and before.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:06:57] When I started the drums I played a lot of punk rock the beginning. I played is around five six bands around this kind of music and around my when I was 19 years old I started to play and practice and Neur and funk music and jazz and that's why I went in in this private school in France and I really love jazz. I was really interested by the music and also about all the different kinds of music connected with the jazz like love and music fusion rock and that's why I wanted to. Keep going in this way and return. No just a music by the drums but other precautions instruments right.

Lynn Vartan: [00:07:57] And I think you told me because one of the first things you did here was join the marching band. Yes yes yes yes. I'm remembering this story right. You had a picture of a drum line or.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:08:09] Yeah two pictures in my bedroom. The drum line and I remember a so lot of marching performance also contest competence competitions. And I remember I just wanted to buy a snare drum with the horns. Yeah but I could not because I could not find any friends. Yeah. Weren't you calling friends and yeah went to when I came here. I just wanted to at least see the marching band and we had to join it.

Lynn Vartan: [00:08:45] Then you ended up being one of our snare drummers for the fall season. Well great. And now you're participating in jazz band Wind Symphony percussion ensemble and of course taking private lessons. Yes oh that's great. That's awesome really. Well turning to Jordan now. Tell us a little bit about your story. How did you get from there to here.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:09:07] My my musical journey if you want to call it started when I was eight and we got a piano in our house and my mom my mom sign me up for piano lessons and I took them for about three years and I absolutely hated every single one of them.

[00:09:24] I know.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:09:26] And I still like playing piano. I had family members played piano that kept it that kept it going and then I started self teaching basically so I would look up how to play things or things like fingering charts and stuff about music on piano or find any piece that I wanted to play. And so that kept me going and I like a lot of music students. I joined this band in middle school in sixth grade and I started out by playing the trumpet and was not very good even when I said when I was entering high school I had the same teacher from middle school band and high school band and he walked up to me and he said hey you should try percussion. And I was like OK. So I started by doing bass drum and marching band. The summer before I started high school and I kept going with a. And about halfway through my freshman year of high school he walked up to me and said I'm really glad you're doing percussion because you were really bad trumpet player. So you know make lemonade out of lemons.

Lynn Vartan: [00:10:32] Yeah exactly. Exactly.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:10:34] So and it turned out for the best because now it's given means the best opportunities in my life. So I kept doing percussion throughout high school percussion ensemble concert band stuff and drumline and marching band stuff like that until I ended up here and through lessons and stuff like that I've just played and everything I wanted to. That's right.

Lynn Vartan: [00:10:56] Do you have a favorite. I mean I get asked this all the time. Do you have a favorite instrument that you like to play or favorite style of music.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:11:05] Not necessarily. I always gravitate to the marimba like you know and for people that don't know it's basically a large xylophone. I always gravitate towards it. But. After several years here I just kind of like playing percussion. You know I just want to play music and find all the cool pieces I can and just you know whatever piqued my interest I want to pursue that.

Lynn Vartan: [00:11:30] Perfect. Well speaking of music and one of the things we like to do with the show is play some different things. So last week we played some violin and piano music. But this week I thought we'd go for some larger ensemble stuff and I think I heard a rumor that maybe the jazz band is playing a song called there's the rub. That looks like a lot. Oh yeah. So let's take a listen to that. This is there's the rub performed by the Gordon Goodwin big band here on Thunder ninety one point one. The. Right. Well that was there's the rub. By the Gordon Goodwin big band and you were listening here to the apex hour on KSD youth ninety one point one of my musical friends in the House today. You got Alex and Jordan and we are now joined by Dr. Christian Bohnenstengel.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:18:02] Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Lynn Vartan: [00:18:04] Tell us a little bit just to kind of catch up in the last before the last break we talked about where where these guys are from and how they came to be here. What's your story.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:18:14] Well it's a long story. I grew up in Germany and southern Germany. Mr. Deckard is my main city. It's close to Munich. I basically came to the U.S. as an exchange student. More or less and I stuck around and finished my graduate degrees and here I am and you know that's great. That was a very short version.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:18:38] And I mean of course I know what you do here at SUU. But tell the audience that's listening. What do you do here. I teach piano and all piano related courses including the piano sambal piano literature piano pedagogy and so on and of course in the music department we are very active performing. So Lintott I have performed together in a couple different occasions. I was in the faculty jazz combo. We have a couple of guest artists coming in in two weeks. I have ensured I Mueller who's going to be a flutist and I will be joined by two colleagues from Dixie and a string trio performance. Oh great. Coming up in February.

Lynn Vartan: [00:19:18] And we can find out those we can find out on either Suu calendaring site. Just looking at music events or of course on the music department Web site. So if you guys want to check it out that's SC dot edu slash music and the upcoming events will be on there. So it's great. Well I wanted to talk a little bit since we've got Germany represented France represented and the U.S. representing just about the different kinds of academic styles or how schooling is different. So can you talk about Christian your experience and how you know high school and college music is different from Germany to hear.

[00:19:58] Well the biggest difference is that we don't have music performance in the public schools. V have music as a subject as an academic subject in schools. But what you learn as music theory music history the performance side is based in the village itself it's like a sports club. You have basically music clubs. So each village has a band. Each village has a choir and so on. So we actually don't have school as well which is very limited. But each city has music schools a music school system and oftentimes orchestras and bands come out of that. So that is something that is quite a bit quite a big difference. And so when we start college it's kind of expected that you have a good background of music theory and music history in the U.S. it's more expected that you have a performance background but you kind of start from scratch with music theory music history.

Lynn Vartan: [00:20:50] Oh wow that's really different. And then if you study music at university is it in a private music school conservatory or in college.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:21:02] You have the music conservatories are actually state schools. But it depends whether you go into music education a level of music education or if you go into performance. So if you would be doing piano performance you would go to a conservatory that's usually part of a state university system. So it's a conservatory of music off the University of streetcar for example. And they are south self-governing but they are part of that bigger umbrella. If you teach or if you study piano pedagogy for example or I guess music education would be the broader term you would go to different types of schools it wouldn't be a conservatory but it's called pedagogues horseshoe. They had to go out to Schickele university because often in smaller cities and really geared towards elementary middle school teachers I say makes sense.

Lynn Vartan: [00:21:53] And Alex how does that compare to France.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:21:56] A little bit a little bit the same. First of all I never studied in public school, music. I started on my own and yes. The main establishment for music in France is Conservatories. And there is some but not too much private school in France to learn and play with people. Popular music, jazz etc.. But yeah if you will if you try to obtain your degree for music education or become a teacher or everything it's principle to be in universities and conservatories in universities you can just learn. Kind of theory, history of music. It's called if I remember. I guess music history or something of that theory are interesting. I'm not really sure the right program right.

Lynn Vartan: [00:23:10] So Jordan what's your reaction to that. Because it's totally different your experience I mean you went through it in the public school starting from a young age.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:23:19] Yeah I mean just not think or not having any sort of choir or band or orchestra or anything like that in any public school is very weird to me. That was a very common thing. I I remember being in like kindergarten in first grade and my entire class would put on musical programs that was a common thing like how we'd program a Christmas something right. But it's not common for people to know theory or history right. You know that. Which is you know that's very college intensive in the US. Yeah and I mean I wouldn't have learned any theory or history unless our school lucked out and got an AP music theory class my senior year. But without that I wouldn't have had any knowledge prior to that. All right. Yeah that's.

Lynn Vartan: [00:24:14] Yeah. Interesting. Well let's shift gears and talk a little bit about our dreams and you know or things we really want to do in music. So starting with you guys who are still in school. What what are your dreams like Jordan where do you want to be 10 years from now like you're getting a music degree in music performance and what what's your dream job.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:24:37] The ultimate goal is actually university teaching.

Lynn Vartan: [00:24:41] You want my job I know!

Jordan Nielsen: [00:24:44] So in ten years you should step to the side. No, that that really is my ultimate goal because I enjoy I enjoy the environment I enjoy the higher level thinking I enjoy the individualized projects that people can do. And I love the idea of being able to perform on the side also. So it's you know it's very similar to what you're doing where it's performance and education. But I I. I am very encouraged by the idea of music education also. You know it brings a lot to the world that no one really thinks about there's a lot of joy and happiness brought out to people's lives because of music education especially in lower education. But I love being able to help push that forward with other people.

Lynn Vartan: [00:25:35] Well that's a beautiful sentiment. I mean that's a great reason to go into education. ALEX How about you. What's your 10 year plan. What do you want to do.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:25:45] Perform everywhere. Everyone Yeah I really try try to meet and learn different culture play with different people with no other culture. That's why I'm here. It's the first step. But this is a big step to me and yeah for the next ten years I just want to play move everywhere and try to just play music. That's great. Probably because I taught a little bit in my private school friends maybe after. Me become kind of educator probably.

Lynn Vartan: [00:26:29] So you Might want to get into education later. Yeah yeah. But you want to be a rock star in the meantime. I know. And Christian I mean you've got this great position here but what do you have musical dreams that you still have yet to fulfill. I'm living the dream.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:26:52] But I know that's one of the great things about the university setting that you have is just a lot of possibilities and you have a lot of networking possibilities. So like I mentioned earlier I'm going to be playing with a trio and then with a flutist I was pretty active in jazz later on this semester I'm playing it conservative with our new symphony orchestra. Oh yeah. I mean somewhere in the middle I'm going to go to North Carolina for a CD release concert. I did a CD with a carnot friend of mine so you just have all of those different things that you can do. There is of course a lot of pieces on my bucket list. I think we talked about the talk.

Lynn Vartan: [00:27:30] Yes the Bartok sonata. Stay tuned. We've been dying to play that for two pianos and two percussion.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:27:35] Actually we're basically living the dream. So there's a lot of things to check off the list but I'm on the road to doing that.

Lynn Vartan: [00:27:43] That's great. Well I think it's time for a little bit more music so the next song I'm going to play for you is a band that has been in the last five years super popular and that's a band called Snarky Puppy and they do a lot of jazz and crossover. The song that I'm going to play to the first one from there is that we're going to listen to is called Mulino Molaro and this is a live recording. And again this is Snarky Puppy and you were listening to the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one. I. I.

Lynn Vartan: [00:33:25] All right well that was Snarky Puppy with a live version Morlino Lero and you can definitely find them on Spotify. This is the apex hour you're listening to Thunder ninety one point one. And my name is Lynn Vartan and I'm your host in the studio. Today we have Dr. Christian Bohnenstengel and then two of our most awesome music students Jordan and Alex. So welcome back everyone. We've talked about education systems. We've talked about our personal histories we've talked about dreams. Let's talk about some favorite musical experiences. So Alex I'm going to start with you. Do you have a favorite musical experience that you'd like to share.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:34:11] Yes. It was the last year I played for a great festival in France called Marseille Jazz des Cinq Continents, switching in French. Sometimes it's complicated. So yeah that was an amazing performance. An artist called Guillaume Perret in French. It is he's a saxophone player and he wanted to create a project which is my previous school friends and playful the Massud just distinctions you know. So it was in Marseille in a castle near the sea and that was fabulous with a thousand people and just wonderful. You could feel the atmosphere the connection the gin. My favorite one.

Lynn Vartan: [00:35:20] Oh that's beautiful. That sounds like a good one. JORDAN How about you. Do you have a favorite one. I mean that's hard to beat. You know.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:35:28] Mine is not in the castle on the beach. That's OK you know. Yeah. Probably the biggest one for me is at the beginning of the Fall 2017 semester I was able to put on a concert that I had worked on over the summer. Right. And the reason it is one of my favorite moments is just because. When you put a lot of work into something it and it pays off it's just the best feeling ever. You know music isn't something that you can just magically make happen. Can't get a song down in five minutes. I mean some of those pieces I practiced over 100 hours at least you know. And across the summer and but I was able to put together the poster and do all that fun stuff and I got to play with some some good friends and people that I had previously really looked up to. And so it was really fun to kind of feel like Oh I'm you know I'm getting somewhere I'm playing up to their level and stuff like that. And so I got to do several duos and a trio and stuff like that.

Lynn Vartan: [00:36:34] And you had a name for that concert.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:36:36] Yeah I called it mixed courses because I wanted to be in the evening. And so I was just thinking dinner and I had these really cool copper cups. I just purchased and I really wanted to take a picture of them. So so that was on the poster. So I wanted the dinner settings so it just kind of worked.

Lynn Vartan: [00:36:53] Well I was so happy that you did that concert because it's you know taking the initiative and self producing and a concert from beginning the end and that's fantastic.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:37:02] Yeah and it really sings praises to You and the music that's faculty because without so many different sources of help and encouragement I went and been able to put that on.

Lynn Vartan: [00:37:12] You know we love that thing. Yeah. How about you. Christian do you have any favorite musical experience to share.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:37:20] Definitely. I've had many incredible experiences here at SUU but I want to echo a little bit what Jordan said sometimes if you put a lot of work into something that becomes you know it's getting very intense very intimidating and very scary but you somehow make it through it and it becomes one of those moments. So earlier I mentioned I recorded a CD with a good friend of mine who teaching at the University of North Carolina and Charlotte and. The city will be coming out in February finally. Yeah. Before we started recording we did a concert and invited two of the composers all of the pieces on the CD were written by them and composers and all but one of them are still alive. Oh beautiful. So one of the pieces was by Marga Richter who was born in Wisconsin and as a child went to New York went to Juilliard. I mean an incredible pianist she's about now probably 92 years old. She was just 19 when we met her and she was somebody who was very tiny very skinny very little. And again she's 90 and she would yell at us. You know I would offer to take her luggage up the stairs. Oh don't you dare. I can still do that on my own. I'm not that old yet and of course we got to the first. She was very incredibly nice but just very feisty. And we got to the first rehearsal and I have a great pianist. And of course I'm scared to death of playing the stuff for her. You get scared scared to death like a little. But she very scary and you know she had some some good comments. It was just very intense. But she had a lot of great things to say. I think her flight left at 6 a.m. the next morning she stayed with us in the bar until 130 A.M. and had no intentions of going home.

Lynn Vartan: [00:39:09] And I want her like anti aging serum. Yes.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:39:14] And she just heard the recording of the CD. I was like I think her comment was like she jumped out of her skin in a positive sense when she heard and this is just something very intimidating very intense you put a lot of work in it and you don't quite know what else to compose or like it and then she's a pianist yeah we're all players so Jessica I was more scared. Yeah that's very intense. But they are from one of the favorite experiences.

Lynn Vartan: [00:39:35] Oh that's great. I love hearing those stories from people that's wonderful. OK. Let's talk next about where do you think music is going or where do you where do you think it should go. I know we talk about this a lot as a percussionist. I talk about it a lot and I'm wondering about the divide between classical music and pop music and you know I'd like to see more of new classical music have some commercial aspects to it and maybe some rock and pop and alternative and things like that. Christian do you have any opinions about where things are going really in any genre. I'm just looking to have a conversation about what your thoughts are about things and what you'd like to see.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:40:22] Opinions I certainly have many as you know... I think it's a little. A little tricky to balance being in a university system. They're the educated classical musicians. So even though you have a lot of flexibility you're also bound by a lot of things and that is a little bit tricky. Definitely moving forward and we've recently added the Master of Music Technology program. So technology is coming more into it but it's kind of a tricky thing being in that university position that I was in high school I was playing guitar in rock bands and I was actually kind of the you know I was going to be the rock star. That side definitely have that background and I see that too and I play a lot of jazz these days. So I would like to have more interaction and more music going together. Technology is certainly a huge aspect of that but it is tricky officially with my students. It is a classical music degree. So that is first and foremost what you have to cover. So it's a fine balance to keep.

Lynn Vartan: [00:41:31] Yeah I hear yeah that is definitely something that we are always thinking about and talking about. What about you Jordan. Is there anything you'd like to see in music or anything that is really exciting to you in music right now.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:41:45] The thing that I think is actually going to change a lot of the music scene is electronic and acoustic music and you know in the percussion world it's a little bit easier to do that percussion is kind of young you know with strings and piano. Been around much longer than standard percussion is now and there are a lot of pieces coming along where you can play any and show me you want but you have an audio backtrack and that started pretty heavily in the 60s and 70s. It's come a long way. I mean we have students here that have composed electronic pieces and written solos to go along with them and perform them in recitals and stuff like that and it can be really great composition so I think that's kind of where a lot maybe you like to see more of that. I think so but I think it's but I think it's important to have the background of classical education because without it you kind of lose a lot of integrity and you lose all of that rich culture that has been figured out for hundreds of years.

Lynn Vartan: [00:42:46] So interesting how about you Alex is there anything that you love that you want to see in music like the return of punk in the mainstream.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:43:00] I just want to listen jazz jazz. I love jazz. Also when I was a teenaged teenager. Yeah I loved punk rock rock music. Sometimes I listen this kind of music and I really like it. I can't talk about classical music and everything around this music because I never be never been into this music but I really enjoy to play and learn this music because in my mind it's like I jumped some steps, ,missed, skipped some steps. And I just want to come back and Nuran some classical stuff the same for example the rudiments on the snare. I learned that by myself. Nobody told me yeah those tools Yeah. And I want to learn all these things and. To have a big background and solid background of music.

Lynn Vartan: [00:44:12] We we're going to take one more musical break and then we're going to come back for everybody's favorite. This is becoming everybody's favorite segment which is what's making you happy. We'll talk about your favorite books and movies and what you're watching on TV right now. But in the meantime we're going to hear one more song from Snarky Puppy and this song is called Too Macaco and you are listening to the APX hour here on Thunderer ninety one point one. Yeah that's a cool cool song. That song is called Tio Macaco. And that's I'm from Snarky Puppy. And you can definitely check them on Spotify. So we're back in the studio for our last little break here and it's tends to be a really fun one. And again my name is Lynn and this is the apex hour. And you're listening to thunder ninety one point one in the studio I have two awesome music students and one awesome music faculty member in with me and this part of the show is the what's making you happy this week so let's start just by saying. Is there anything TV movies or books that's really making you happy and turning you on right now. Christian

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:50:45] We Actually like to watch a lot of quirky things some British series and they are quite diverse like inbetweeners freaks and geeks as areas that we like. There's a show midwives that you like to watch. Oh that's a good show. I know it's a good show but then also things like Trailer Park Boys. One of those quirky things. It should not be good but it is good and it just draws you in. So it's actually quite diverse but we kind of like to watch it a little quirky or independent things at home.

Lynn Vartan: [00:51:17] It's awesome you heard it here. We faculty members watch Trailer Park Boys. JORDAN How about you. Do you have something that's really turning you on right now.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:51:27] Yeah I the thing I'm most excited for actually is the show called Shameless the Showtime series and The Season 8 finale is this Sunday. And so I'm you know it's going to be a whole event for me myself and I take my time and I'm going to get ready I'm going to have good food and just sit there and enjoy every minute of it. Season 8 it's been on for a season.

Dr. Bohnenstengel: [00:51:48] I second that we're only at season 5 but. So good.

Lynn Vartan: [00:51:57] What's the premise.

Jordan Nielsen: [00:51:58] It's OK. So there is for the 10 of us who have watched you know it's super popular. Yes. So it's all about this family and about like nine people kind of. Anyway it's in southern Chicago. This is the U.S. version. There is a UK version. Oh I didn't know that either. It aired much earlier anyway so it's based in southern Chicago and there's this alcoholic dad who's never around. And he's an absolute mess absolute mess and it's just a family with the oldest sister Fiona trying to raise her siblings. And she she left high school when she was 16 and the family's absolutely crazy. Nothing should work. But they all pull through with their neighbors and they all just you know they have to do a lot of crazy things to get money to make rent all the time and every every one of the siblings chips in to make rent. You know so it's a family story. Yeah. And just how they beat the odds. But it's and then it's absolutely crazy in between.

Lynn Vartan: [00:52:59] So that's great. I might have to check it out. I've been hearing so much about it all. All right Alex it's your turn. What's making you happy this week.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:53:10] I Read the book The Creative Habit.

Lynn Vartan: [00:53:13] The creative habit that I lent you.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:53:16] I loved this book. To be honest I don't watch movies and series since I'm here I Prefer practice.

Lynn Vartan: [00:53:25] Yeah. Good man.

Alex Dipasquale: [00:53:28] And yeah I completely discovered music general kind of music everything instruments and I'm just into those things this year.

Lynn Vartan: [00:53:42] Yeah well. I'd like to put an extra plug out for that book The Creative Habit is written by Twyla Tharp the great dance choreographer. And I tell you it is really a special books if you want to check it out. Feel free. It has all kinds of tactics for getting unstuck creatively or just getting the creative juices flowing. I just think it's really great. So. OK well I want to just make sure to say thank you so much to Christian and to Jordan and to Alex for being in the studio this week. Thanks for sharing your time guys. Thank you. And so that's about all the time we have today. I want to make sure that I give enough time for the next show to get in. And I want to tell you a little bit about next week our live event for APEX next Thursday February 1st at eleven thirty a.m. is what we're calling meet the business building. We have a brand new amazing state of the art business building that's going up right now on campus and for our apx event we're going to have a panel of business faculty the dean of the business school and also facilities management of SUU and the architects and designers who are responsible for the design of this building and we're just take a sneak peek inside and talk about the process of what it takes to make a building like this happen that afternoon for the Apex Hour we're going to do something a little different. We have an awesome international film festival that's taking place on campus in the next couple of weeks.

[00:55:16] And so for the Apex our next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. here thunder ninety one point one. We're going to be talking about the films in that festival and playing you some of the trailers and some of the music from it. So thanks so much for listening everyone. And we'll look forward to seeing you at the live event next Thursday at 11:30 or right here at 3:00 p.m. on Thursdays for Thunder ninety one point one my name is Lynn Vartan. And we'll see you next week.

[00:00:00] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX Hour on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on the news sounds and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now, welcome to this week's show here on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:48] Alright. Well here we are back Thursday 3:00 p.m. KSUU thunder ninety one point one. You're listening to the apex hour. My name is Lynn Vartan. And today our event was called Meet the business building and at the live event we learned about the brand new building that's going up on campus and the design of the building and the construction of the building. What it's going to do for the future of our campus and our university. But we have a special opportunity on the radio show today to go a different direction. I'm so happy here to have in the studio Elise and Iliana and let them introduce themselves and we're going to talk about SUU's International Film Festival which is going on right now and we're going to tell you more about it as the hour goes on. But for right now Iliana tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:40] Well thank you for having us. We're really happy to be here. My name is Iliana Portaro and I'm an assistant professor of Spanish here at SUU and I specialize in Latin American literature and culture.

[00:01:52] Awesome welcome and Elise.

[00:01:56] My name is Elise Leahy. I am an associate professor of French and I am part of the international cinema at Southern Utah University team. And I'm happy to be here Lynn.

[00:02:10] Thank you so much for coming and spending time with me. As you know this is this radio show is brand new. And so it's so fun to have like nice friends in the house.

[00:02:19] We're super thrilled to be here.

[00:02:21] OK well let's get into it. I am thrilled that we have an international cinema experience here at Southern Utah University. And I know my students love it as well. So we can just start the conversation by telling us a little bit about the history of this festival how long it's been going on and how it came to be just that kind of thing.

[00:02:43] Yeah. Well I can start maybe you can talk a little bit about the French Film Festival but are department has a really long history of hosting an annual film festival. We started with separate film festivals for Spanish and French and we had I don't remember how long we did those but for especially for French we did them for quite a while Like four or five years or so.

[00:03:07] Ever since Rosa Perez my colleague and friend arrived we started the first year she was here so it's maybe been ten years.

[00:03:13] It's been a really long time and then last year was our inaugural International Film Festival and the team or a colleague in German Corey Twichell Rosa Perez in French, Elise and myself we kind of just joined forces and resources and decided to instead of having all these little separate film festivals to just have one big festival in the spring where we would bring speakers and guests and just have it be a little bit of a larger event.

[00:03:44] I love it. I think that's great. So this is the second year and it's been in sort of this larger for Yeah. And for those people listening who might want to keep following it it's always in the spring is that correct. And right around this February very beginning of February time yeah.

[00:04:01] So it's sort of like we kick off the year we usually plan most of summer and the fall and encourage anybody who wants to know how to organize a film festival is to contact us. And so in the spring in the spring we kickoff with the festival early in the year. That's

[00:04:18] great. And has it. Tell me about the amount. How did you decided on its six films and we can kind of maybe talk about the breakdown and we'll get into the specific films as we go along.

[00:04:28] Yeah well usually in the summer we kind of touch base and sort of just ask each other why we've been watching what you know. You know what's kind of making us happy and. And then we narrow it down to a few themes right and then we just kind of get back together in the fall with list of films and we kind of pitched them to one another watched them and and see what what's good not only for students and our community but what makes sense for the year's theme. Each year has a theme or focus. So we try to find films that fit that theme with oh sorry we end up with two Germans language two Spanish language and two French language films the two week period although last year we had one oh so like a French Chinese film. So like sometimes you know we'll break those boundaries and tell us about the location they're always held in the same place.

[00:05:28] Yeah. So their health in the Sharon Smith theater and in during these past few years we've also been involved with the help of the Perlas Brett Cook in sort of updating the equipment in the theater so we just we we've been using that space for a really long time and we just wanted to sort of a place that people associate with with film on campus.

[00:05:51] And it's really made a huge difference. I mean new projector and new system in there it's a really nice film watching experience it's an intimate room and so the format for them. Tell me a little bit I know there's intercuts. I mean I know because I'm doing one introduction and then the film. Tell us a little bit about how the how the evening develops to you.

[00:06:13] So we went we have a list of films we think about our friends and colleagues across campus and we think of a professor in some discipline that's related to the theme of each film and invite them to kind of be the host of the evening. And so for example.

[00:06:37] I guess we'll get to the films in a minute but so the professor will come in and make a few comments five or ten minutes giving some context maybe talking about the genre talking about the filmmaker. And then we all watch the film and then we invite whoever wants to stay for Kootenay and we've had some really good discussions.

[00:06:55] Yeah I think what's really interesting too when we pick the films and we brainstorm about presenters is bringing people from different disciplines. Yeah because you know when we pick the film sometimes we're thinking them from our disciplines from Spanish French German. And so it's always nice to invite someone like an expert in another field and see how they interpret the film and just kind of have more in disciplinary discussions. About the film that we're watching that evening. So that's always I think the most fascinating part.

[00:07:29] Yeah I love that aspect of it. I mean just just all the cross connections I mean the connections of getting other people involved and also introducing people to a film. I mean in my case which we'll talk about I didn't know the artist or the film that I'm going to be presenting and I'm so glad that I learned about her and I know other people who are presenting have the same feel. And I also know that Q and A at the end if people. It's of course not mandatory but if people want to stay even my students who went to one of the films last night just said how valuable that conversation was and how cool to talk to people about film people. He doesn't know. So you get all these different ideas sort of flowing and brewing together.

[00:08:15] Yeah. And I think last night's discussion was particularly interesting it was for one of the German films and that audience was just great. That Q&A it was probably one of the best I've been part of a long time. And also that's also interesting because we we just never know who's going to attend the films. It's not just for students it's for faculty community members. So we have several community members that come every year and every fall and every film. And they stay for the Q and A. And so students sometimes interact with people from the community or just from different walks of life and everybody it's sort of a safe space we we serve as moderators especially when we're dealing maybe with some you know heavier films or political or you know films that require a lot of just a moderator. And we've always been very successful and just very proud of like the discussions that students are able to have with others.

[00:09:11] That's amazing. That's so cool. Well tell us about the theme for this year.

[00:09:18] Should I go OK. The theme for this year is women just in general. And you can interrupt me and chime in but what it was it's so timely.

[00:09:32] I mean how this happened when you were deciding this last summer. I mean did you have any inkling how important this- I mean the topic I mean we are three professional women here. So it's an important topic. But did you have any inkling for how important and timely this would be right now.

[00:09:49] I think the fun thing about this new group that we formed last year and working with four of us across three disciplines is is the synergy that comes from just everybody's ideas. And so we just started brainstorming films and it turns out all the films are either made by a woman director or women are you know the main characters. And so it's it's sort of one or the other. They don't all have to be exactly the same work. We have various genre.

[00:10:25] Yeah. There in fact that's the interesting part because when we get together and say OK this is our theme we don't see each other until months later and then everybody brings in their films and pitches their ideas. And so that's how the films get selected. So no they're drastically and I just realize preparing for the interview today. Different time period. Different genres different countries different filmmakers different styles. The documentary yesterday was in black and white and the the first documentary The protest was drastically different from the one we watched last night. So it's that diversity that's really interesting as well that. We have a theme. But within that theme there's a lot of richness. I love it.

[00:11:09] Well let's get into the film specifically to have already shown and so we'll just touch on those briefly and maybe we'll begin with talking with about Dolores. So Dolores really kind of started the Yes I can right.

[00:11:29] Yeah "Si se puede"!

[00:11:29] Maybe I have the trailer to play but maybe tell us just a little synopsis about it.

[00:11:34] So growing up in California Dolores Huerta worth I was just like a childhood hero. She's in a lot of murals and in just a will there's a lot of depictions of her but in the history books she doesn't really show up. A few years ago we screen a document not a documentary but actually like a biopic about Cesar Chavez. And during the Q and A actually with the audience one of the things that. The the people in the audience mentioned the most was how Dolores Huerta appears maybe in two scenes. And and yet she was like such a striking character that people wanted to know more about her. So when we when I saw that they had made a documentary about her life and her contributions as an activist I mean she's like 87 years old and she's still out there fighting. And. We just it just seemed like a great choice for this year.

[00:12:28] And really along with Cesar Chavez the two of them founded the United Farm Workers. Yeah right. So it's huge and interesting that. We don't hear as much of them.

[00:12:42] Yeah. And the documentary itself is really interesting because it not only touched upon her contributions in American history but also touched a little bit about her personal life and just really I started thinking about what all the films have in common and I think that's something that. That. That I picked up during that screening was just how just how women just what it means to be a woman regardless of where you are decade or background like how do women.

[00:13:15] Try to have a work life balance how do they try to maneuver all these social situations and anyway it's a really fascinating film.

[00:13:23] Great. And as we said that one has already shown but I'm sure you could find it online. And we have a little bit of a trailer from it. So let's listen to the official theatrical trailer from Dolores the film.

[00:13:37] She's a civil rights hero. She's the first general. She's not afraid to speak truth to power. It was an old friend of mine. If you knew how dangerous Dolores was, she came up with the slogan Si se puede yes we can. You are a young girl growing up in America in the 40s. You must have had a dream. After Seeing the miserable conditions of farm workers Cesar Chavez said we have to organize and you had this ambiance all around you that you could really change the world. The largest gathering of farm workers in California history. I wish they all go back to where they came from. We have no labor troubles. She wasn't Asking for permission. She Did what needed to be done. She has such a firm belief in what she's doing now that she infects you in a way. People were poisoned in the fields of the United States of America. Farm workers found in the idea of environmental justice. Men were threatened by her. Power. She Is a very volatile individual, she's an insult. People wanted to see her in a more traditional role. I left a couple of my children behind. That's part of the sacrifice that we made. And that we had to make. And it still pains me when I think about it. People in power have No idea of the true heroes of this country. I would not have been able to see what's hidden in the fields of our country about how. We're in the deep end sexism when it comes to why she isn't studying why people don't know her. The girls need to see. Statues that you. having set the record straight. I mean women cannot be written out of history.

[00:15:50] All right. Welcome back. This is the apex hour here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. What you just heard was the official film trailer to the film Dolores which is part of the International Film Festival here at Southern Utah University. This is the APEX hour. My name is Lynn Vartan and I'm joined with Elise and Iliana here in the station today and we are talking about this amazing festival that's going on right now at SUU. And I suppose we should mention that anybody can find out information about this on the Web site. And the Web. It's as you dot edu slash International. Or you could just Google the International Film Festival.

[00:16:34] Actually if you go to the Department of languages and philosophy website you'll find a link to all the films and the descriptions and the percenters etc..

[00:16:44] Perfect. Awesome. Well that one played on Monday night this past Monday January 29th and it's just great. And we were just talking over the break about Santana being involved as a producer and the actor Benjamin Bratt and his brother Peter I think is his name yet petabyte directed it. So it's just a great a great film that's out there. We had another one just of our past ones on Wednesday and maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. Sure.

[00:17:14] Last night we showed a German film called after winter come spring by the Berlin based. And it was really fascinating film made in 1988 so about two years before that Berlin Wall came down and it was a documentary a woman traveling around East Germany and just talking to people about their experiences.

[00:17:44] More women were interviewed I think in terms of the time spent on camera but just talking to different women it seemed as if she was meeting people on trains and talking about their work and talking about their lives. And it was extremely fascinating the way people would open up and the stories that we heard. And it was all in black and white and just very interesting.

[00:18:11] Yeah it was very personal and just very very different tone. And it is just very powerful.

[00:18:20] Great. I want to move onto the ones to come you know we don't spend too much time on what has happened but we wanted to make sure to give the audience an opportunity to kind of hear a little bit if they want to seek out these films. So there are four more films so let's start the next one is coming up on Monday. This upcoming Monday. Oh no. Saturday. That's right. All right. Tell me all about it.

[00:18:43] So Saturday at 2:00 we're going to be showing the Unknown Girl which is. A French film.

[00:18:51] Well this is an experiment we've never done a matinee before. Usually we always showed the films in the evenings during the week but we thought we'd see how a matinee goes over in terms of public and this is a film by the Dardenne brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are two Belgian filmmakers and it's somewhere between a drama and a mystery about a woman doctor who's in her doctor's office with the resident and someone knocks on the door. And it's an hour after closing time. They're exhausted. They've had a long day. They don't answer the door. And it turns out that a crime occurs and the woman who was knocking on the door is murdered and the police come and interview the doctor and the doctor feels terrible. At not opening the door. And it sort of it she becomes obsessed really with figuring out what is the mystery behind the murder of the person all kinds of the themes of mystery and guilt and obsession and all of that.

[00:20:02] And have you seen you've seen and I've seen it.

[00:20:05] And we also we showed another film by the Dardenne brothers a few years ago called Boy on the bike. Oh yeah. And so it's it's it is gripping and also very much real realism. It's really a very real picture of a doctor's life. And then her becoming obsessed with discovering that the answer to the mystery so that's kind of the style of this one.

[00:20:33] I mean it's easy to I mean we would be easy. I can see myself getting obsessed with something like that and then falling into that and to sort of watch that unfold in front of your eyes sounds really interesting. And again that will be on Saturday February 3rd this upcoming Saturday two days from now 2:00 p.m. the location once again is the Sharwan Smith theater and that's right here on campus in this Sharwan Smith student center. And that film is called the unknown girl is the English.

[00:21:07] Yeah. And just in case all films are not only free but subtitled So you know if you don't speak German French or Spanish not to worry we got you.

[00:21:17] That's perfect. I'm so glad you mentioned that. That's exactly right. And really come one come all. Because some of the films you can see online but maybe not this year maybe next year or something. So some of them are available.

[00:21:32] That's the case with Dolores. This is not out yet. I think you'll be out on PBS next month but it will be a shortened version than the one we showed you. But then after the library usually does a great job of purchasing the films. So they have a great collection here on campus so if you're a student you can always after the festivals over check out the library and go watch some films.

[00:21:57] That's a great tip as well so you can check out a ton of those. My students are always asking that and I forget to tell them that somehow I'm going to remember OK well that's Saturday and then let's go one more into next week before our next break. This is Monday February 5th at 5:00 p.m. Again Sharwan theater.

[00:22:18] This one will be the Drifter which is a German film. And from what I remember the heroine is sort of the main like the the main character of the story and she loses her job and you see her struggle just with what it means to lose her job and everything that she's dealing with in her life at that moment. This one is kind of I don't want to give too much away because it's a big event of the of the festival we have a guest speaker coming from the University of Maryland. I think so yeah. So Dr. Hastur buyer and she will not only be introducing the film but she'll also have. A Q and A with students as part of the dinner and dialogue series hosted by the Tanner center here on campus so yeah that film is directed by Berlin based filmmaker Tatiana Touretzky who. Dr. Byre has interviewed. In Berlin for her current book projects. We're really excited about Dr. Byre being here to introduce the film.

[00:23:29] And she will also be visiting our classes so she'll be on campus on Tuesday as well visiting German classes and also language 3250 which is World Cinema which is of course that we teach teach in English.

[00:23:43] Oh great. And that course for any students listening what's the do you know the number offhand the case anybody's interested in the future.

[00:23:50] It's German French or speak Spanish or language 3250 We teach in English. But we allow our students to write in. They can write in English French Spanish or German and get credit in the language of that day in which they study.

[00:24:06] And it's going to the film festival films that's the requirement for the course or is it.

[00:24:12] At times that's part of the course and other times it's part of film reviews so the students do a lot of them attend just because they're really interested in film in general. But the course itself of the offerings rotate every every time I see Hadia. So the films this year that are on the syllabus are not from the roster at the festival. OK.

[00:24:32] Well that's great because actually I have students ask all the time so any students out there anybody listening that is interested in getting deeper into films and exploring more films this is the class for you remind me of the number one more time.

[00:24:46] It's language 3250. Great really. Dr. Twichell Corey Twichell who arrived last year in German is has been a huge. Boost because he's really a film scholar and we're getting a chance to learn about German films ourselves. He used to teach the class just the two of us but now we have that we have a German now we're complete.

[00:25:12] And so again the drifter will be next Monday and this is really identity's says. I'm reading the press release for deals with the question of identity donating meaning of work. So you know it's just really interesting about how this person kind of goes through this evolution with her career and the losing of her career and then all of the things after that.

[00:25:39] Yeah it's very complex sort of identity crisis perfectly.

[00:25:43] We love though. All right. I think it's time for another little musical break. So in looking at these films the last film we're going to talk about is the one that I'm going to introduce which has a lot to do with music and I am completely transfixed by the music from this film. The artist is the centerpiece for the film and we'll get into a little bit more of that later. But the actress who plays her has redone a lot of her music. And so we're going to listen to a song Maldigo del Alto Cielo. That's from the sound track done by the artist who will be performing Violetta in the film.

[00:29:27] OK. You are here listening to the apex hour on Thunder ninety one point one. My name is Lynn Vartan and you we're here talking about the International Film Festival this week. Well you just heard was a song called Maldigo del Alto Cielo. And that is from one of the films that we're going to be talking about. Actually the last one which is about the Chilean folk artist singer fabric maker all things just amazing. And the the the the character or the artist that the film is about as Violetta Parra and the music that you just heard is one of her songs done by the actress Francisca Gavilan who is playing Violetta in the movie really really powerful stuff. Welcoming back Elise and Iliana to the studio and we're going to continue our discussion and the films we have a couple more to cover. But before we get to those I know that Iliana has run off and teach a little bit early so we're going to take a little pause and do my favorite segment which is what's making you kind of happy or passionate or what's turning you on right now personally. It can be anything it could be a record it could be a book it could be a movie it could be TV we kind of cover all the range here. But I think it's really nice to just get a little bit of a personal connection with people and maybe I get turned on to new things and as well as our audience. So what's making you happy this week.

[00:31:05] Well this week I am obsessed with podcasts. I think we're all obsessed with podcasts at the moment. My favorite that I just been listening to every morning is Latinos who lunch. Oh wow. Latinos who lunch are is a podcast based out of Las Vegas. The host of that podcast we're actually here to see you a couple years ago for Hispanic Heritage Month. One is an artist and the other one Justin and Paulito. Once an artist and the other host is and our history professor and they just talk about art and music and politics and everything that is good in the world and not so good in the world. Like from a Latino perspective a Latino queer perspective so it is a good good podcast.

[00:31:57] Listen to the title again it's Latinos who love Latinos. Lunch. I assume you can find it anywhere.

[00:32:04] Yeah i tunes and all of the other services. Yeah and it's based out of Las Vegas so they often do events in Las Vegas and even record live. And yeah it's so it's a great one to listen to.

[00:32:18] That's great. I know you love podcasts and so when do you listen. Do you listen Mike while you're walking around or do you listen to and from school. When's your choice podcast.

[00:32:29] Usually when I'm getting ready in the morning. Outlay. We don't have a TV home at least like in the lake main floor and so so I just turn on the radio or just have a list of podcasts that I listen to. I'm getting ready. Are Sundays like in the morning or are you doing things in the kitchen or I don't know just doing chores around the house.

[00:32:53] I love it. It's so cool. Ok I'm totally going to subscribe to that one Latino lunch. I love it.. Elise How about you. What's making you happy. What are you turned on about these days.

[00:33:03] Oh my gosh I don't know if I can choose one thing. OK but one thing I'll say is I joined cedar yoga space in November and I have a I love all the teachers and I love and I love how they have a real wide variety of classes there of different kinds of yoga. So I'm loving my yoga classes.

[00:33:25] Oh my gosh you've told inspired me. I love you I do it at home. But I have been meaning to get over there.

[00:33:30] Oh it's great. They have all they have classes in the morning in the evening. It's just and they have all kinds of like Shambhala yoga I never even did that before. But it's great. OK. So I'm also super excited about planning my study abroad. I'll be taking students to France in May. So I'm in the midst of planning that and I'm also just excited about all the German and other films I'm seeing this semester even French films because I'm teaching another class so I'm enjoying homework is sitting at home watching movies.

[00:34:03] That's pretty good. That's pretty good. And how long is your study abroad.

[00:34:12] I go for I'll take students for three weeks. We have two weeks in Paris and a week in Nice. Oh my gosh. And then I have a conference in La Rochelle so I have a whole month in France.

[00:34:25] And it is it still open in case anybody listening is interested. Are you.

[00:34:29] Actually we've closed the application but we can open it up if somebody is interested because we're going. We've got a group. It's it's we haven't started you know buying plane tickets or anything yet. And all they'd have to do is contact me or the study abroad office and we can we can sure take more students people are interested.

[00:34:48] So if anybody is itching to go to France in May this is the way to go. Oh that's wonderful. OK well let's get back to the films. We have a couple more films to talk about the fifth film in the series is going to be shown next Wednesday February 7th at 5:00 p.m. and again that's in the sharwan theatre here in the Sharwan's Smith Center on SUU's campus as part of the SUU International Film Festival and that film is called i don't belong anywhere. What a transformative title. Would you like to tell us about it.

[00:35:27] Sure. This is I don't belong anywhere. The cinema of Sean cowmen who was a Belgian filmmaker and a very experimental one at that in fact really that means that we're having sort of a Belgian sub theme. But she made over 40 films in her career and everyone was something new and very different. And this is a documentary by a director named Marianna Sombath about her. Her cinema and since we're teaching world cinema right now and we really do like the film festival to be an experience for students and community members to see things that are not available in other theaters in town or that they don't get a chance to see. We thought this would be a cool component of our roster.

[00:36:18] This one I was super curious about. So she was sort of a nomad the the central figure that is being discussed in this film was it was a nomad and film maker. Is that right.

[00:36:32] Yeah I think what I think that the word nomad in this context means that she made films in Paris in New York in Brussels in Tel Aviv. So she didn't really just work in one place. I traveled around and different types of subject matter.

[00:36:50] I see I see. And stylistically do you. Can you tell us any more about sort of how the film is shot or the aesthetic of it.

[00:36:58] Well so this is I think that given that it's a documentary about her filmmaking it will give. I think that there are snippets of many different films that she made. And like I said you know very a very experimental filmmaker one of the films I'm going to use in my conversation through cinema class that I'm teaching in French this semester is called No Home Movie and it was the last film that she made before she passed away and she was living with her mother as her mother was getting old and dying and she just did a hand-held camera and filmed her mother and. And kind of talked about there how her mother was the inspiration for her work. Wow and wondered now what with the passing of her mother that's going to be very powerful. And then we've talked a little bit about the professors that will be introducing this one is going to be introduced by Todd Peterson who's one of our.

[00:37:55] Awesome characters around campus and I love working with him Professor of English. So I'm. And those of you who know him know that he will have so many amazing things to say about a thing. So that's cool that's going to be Wednesday February 7th 5:00 p.m. and that's called I don't belong anywhere. And again that will be in the shire one theater on the campus. So before we get to talking about Violetta the one that I probably know the most about we're going to play one more song from her and again this is music originally by Violeta Parra but that is being performed by the actress Francisca Gaby Lyon who plays Violeta Parra in the movie. And this is Volver a los 17. And you are listening to thunder ninety one point one.

[00:43:08] OK well welcome back. That was Volver a los 17 and we were just talking about the title is sort of like to go back to being 17 and sort of.

[00:43:19] Volver a los 17 this like to go back to what life was like when you were 17.

[00:43:23] Oh I'm not sure I want to do things. Like this. Welcome back to the APEX hour. This is Thunder ninety one point one. My name is Lynn Vartan and we are talking about the SU International Film Festival. And here in this station with me is Elise and Ileana and we are just talking about the six films we've got two in Spanish two in French two in German. Happening right now over the course of these two weeks on campus. So if you're interested in hearing about more of those or interested in learning about more of those you can always shoot us an email at suuapex@icloud.com Or you can go to the languages and philosophy web page. The Department of languages and philosophy web page and all the films are listed there they're completely free and open to the public. And it's a really special opportunity that we have here at SUU. We have one more film to talk about and it is called Violeta Went to Heaven and this is the last Spanish film the second of the two Spanish films. This is going to be shown next Saturday February 10th at 2:00 p.m. and it's another matinee in the Sharwan theater in the Sharman's Smith Center the student center here on campus. And I'm going to be doing the introductions this one so I'm really excited to talk about it. But Ileana I know before you have to go to a run off the class do you want to tell us a little bit about some of the background of this film.

[00:44:57] Yeah so this is a bio pic by the director Andrus wood. He's a really well-known Chilean director and build up Ira is considered like the mother of folk music in Latin America. So I if you're thinking of an equivalent of maybe like Bob Dylan or Joan Baez and she was really prominent in the 60s with a genre called Nueva Cancion which focused a lot on just folk music politics but also bringing back were actually sort of not bringing back but utilizing instruments from South America in the music.

[00:45:41] So it's a fascinating style I mean come on it is like an old song style you know and then this. This genre this new ever canción which is it's a 20th century genre you know is one that takes that old sound the old instruments the old folk song but yet gives it a more slightly more aggressive slightly more political slightly more charged kind of any sort.

[00:46:08] Yeah a lot of those songs are very very poetic. They're all you know singer songwriters so in the film you'll like you'll learn about her life and her upbringing and her you know how she got into music. And also there we focus on the work that she did to collect songs from the Chilean countryside that were being lost or were not being appreciated. So she goes around the countryside not only recording people singing old songs but you know learning about instruments and just traditions in general.

[00:46:43] Yeah I was amazed by her. I mean I didn't know about her prior to watching this film or learning about this film. But the thing that I was absolutely transfixed by was she's really an unconventional figure. I mean that's one thing about her that's really interesting but also the variety of the stuff that she did. And and you know it really does. It's it's a theatrical. Like you said it's a biopic it's a it's a theatrical depiction of her life. And so you really get a chance to kind of see how she found her voice. I mean she starts out as doing these tours of sort of almost there were some religious plays and it sort of got a little bit frustrated with how the how the art was being portrayed and then she just picks up a drum and just goes for it. And I have a little sample of one of those songs and that's one of the things about it about her music that really kind of captured my heart is that some of these she just it's just her and a drum. And so here's a little bit of a sample of that just so you can get a taste of that. Oh.

[00:48:40] Right.

[00:48:41] So that's just a little sample of some of what Violeta Parra in this movie depicted by Francisca Gavilan does in just the music is only half of her story. I think the other thing that's so interesting that I was transfixed by I mean poet painter ethnomusicologists but one of the things is that she ends up spending some time in Europe and really is doing a lot of fabric art and just decides to go to the Louvre and say you know my work should be in the loop. These these these blankets are these tapestries that you know they should they should be in Lulu fabric arts museum and they end up there as she becomes the first Latin American to have like a solo exhibition at the LWB and pay.

[00:49:33] I know it's just phenomenal. And so one of the things that I'm anxious to talk about in the in the intro and then also in the Q and A is this this concept of identity and force of will and I'm sure you've seen it in the other films as well. But in her story it's just this force of will that is just will not be stopped under any any any way.

[00:49:59] I think on and off camera I like the festival just has some really powerful women all around.

[00:50:05] Yeah absolutely. And so this this this one I'm really really excited. I'm excited for all of them. But I was so happy to learn about her and learn about this. One other thing that she did that they depict in the film is that she sort of starts a center almost a center for folk music kind of in the film it's in a very picturesque location and the idea is that it's kind of this place for artists to just come and gather and come and be fed and share music.

[00:50:39] And it's she comes from a very artistic family. I think her brother just recently passed away. But in general you know in her family you have poets and musicians and just very artistic family overall which you know you learn a little bit about in the film and. And just very involved in the arts in Latin America and Chile. Yeah that's beautiful.

[00:51:04] Well let's just recap just for a moment. The films that are upcoming and again you know here right now on the apex our thunder ninety one point one we're talking about the international film festival that's on campus that it began at the beginning of this week. But maybe if we could just talk briefly and remind us of the remaining four films so today is Thursday February 1st and the next one I believe is Saturday Saturday 2:00 p.m. in the Sharwan Smith theater.

[00:51:35] We have the unknown girl a sort of thriller drama mystery by the Dardenne brothers some Belgian film makers.

[00:51:46] And on Monday February 5th at 5:00 we have the drifter with our special guest Dr. Bayer. She will be. Introducing the film and also leading the dinner and dialogue after the screening. And on Wednesday February 7th we at 5 we have I don't belong anywhere.

[00:52:06] The cinema Chantal Akerman It's a documentary about this very interesting experimental Belgian filmmaker who made about 40 films over the course of her life.

[00:52:18] She's just been she. She died only a couple of years ago. And this film came out in 2015 by director Marianne Lambert.

[00:52:26] And then we finished the Festival on Saturday February 10th at 2:00 p.m. with Violetta went to heaven. And that will be introduced by our lovely host and hopefully she'll bring her drums.

[00:52:38] Thank you so much for both of you for spending your time today. Again all of the films are free and open to the public and in the short run short one theater and the Sharwan Smith's student center. And again if you want to check out more. They'll all be on the Department of languages Web website with Su or you can e-mail us at suuapex@icloud.com. You've been listening to the APEX hour here on Funda ninety one point one my name is Lynn Vartan and I'm your host and we'll see you back next week Thursday 3:00 p.m. right here.

[00:53:19] Thanks so much for listening to the apex hour here on KSUU hundred ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/APEX or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the APEX Hour Here on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:33] Hi everyone this is Lynn Vartan director of APEX Events at SUU and host of the APEX hour Thursdays at 3pm on Thunder 91.1. This week's live APEX Event features scientist and YouTube sensation Emily Graslie and it will be Thursday at 11:30am in the Great Hall. This event is free and open to the public and if you're hungry for more, check out the APEX hour every Thursday at 3pm here on Thunder 91.1

[00:00:33] Well welcome everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX hour. And this is KSUU Thunder 91.1 and today in the theater we are so excited that we have Emily Graslie who totally made an awesome impression at our live event this morning. But we are thrilled to have her in the house talking with us for this hour. Welcome Emily.

[00:00:57] Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:58] It was great. We've been working you pretty hard today. You got here and you did your show and then we had a lunch hour and now you went and learned about our natural history museum and now here you are with me and you're going to spend some time with our K-12 teachers so thank you so much first for the generosity of your time and everything.

[00:01:17] Oh it's my pleasure. I absolutely love it.

[00:01:20] Well I want to start by kind of spending this first bit talking about how you came to be who you are today which is such a great story and I know you talked a little bit about it earlier but if you could kind of give us another version of that painter turned scientist story. I would love to hear it.

[00:01:37] Yeah so I won't go into all of the details but essentially I was studying landscape painting at the University of Montana in Missoula. I enrolled in 2007 and for the first three years that I was there was really heavily focused on landscape painting as my as my source of inspiration and what I was going to do my senior thesis project on for my BFA. And it wasn't until I learned about the campus Zoological Museum which is known as the fillable right Zoological Museum that I really started to turn my attention toward why these museums exist why these research collections are a part of a campus like that who they serve. What their role is and then how I could become involved and so essentially I turned my last semester of college into an internship where I could draw the specimens within the collection and then just gradually became more and more involved in the day to day operations of the museum learning about how the specimens were cataloged and organized but also how he obtained them. You know what research projects they were associated with. And then I was volunteering the preparation lab to actually help process and prepare some of these specimens for the research collection which was a pretty interesting experience going from you know just let landscape painting to you know dissecting roadkill for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.

[00:03:07] Did it ever. Gross You Out. Because I mean I know some people I mean you came from a painting background so maybe it's because I know you also grew up on a farm or near farm that did ever grossed you out.

[00:03:20] I think it's just been more of a morbid fascination more than anything especially when you know a lot of the gross out factor associated with things like specimen preparation. It's more of like a cultural stigma than it is like a natural thing. So so what we've learned through the program that I do now my youtube show the brain scoop is actually the younger the viewers are the less biased they have toward these sort of things. It's more of like a cultural and societal pressure that we put on  kids girls especially once they're past the age of 8 or 9 to really enforce that gross factor. You don't touch that and that's nasty. Like a lot of the natural inquisitiveness is kind of stifled. And so you know once I started learning about the value of these research collections and how I could contribute to growing them and making having a small role in a significant scientific discovery it just. I mean sometimes it smells kind of bad and you're dealing with like gross hydrogen peroxide and dealing with roadkill but you can get to all those things really truly interesting.

[00:04:27] Yeah I mean did you did you learn the process. I mean I didn't mean to initially start talking about dissection so much but I'm kind of fascinated by it as the day goes on. Did you have to learn like the Zach procedures because it's very. I mean that's very step by step right. Or how did all that knowledge come. Did somebody show you. Did you read it.

[00:04:49] Yeah. So so I started volunteering in this museum after I did my internship. I graduated from college and I kept volunteering in the museum and it was a friend of mine who introduced me to the collection who was actually one of the first people to help train me in specimen preparation. And it happened because the day she showed me to this research collection which I should also clarify. This museum does not have public exhibits it's purely behind the scenes 24000 specimens mostly northern Rocky Mount Rocky Mountain mammals and birds and and so there was a number of like Montana natural heritage projects and Fish and Wildlife projects that they would collect about your specimens. And then deposit them in this museum for preparation and volunteers who were part of the wildlife bio programs or the ecology programs at the University Montana would help prepare them. And so she was one of these volunteers in the prep lab and she brought me in. We walked into the prep lab and she handed me this Ziploc bag that had like a soggy mouse and it is a dead mouse. The mouse story the mouse story with the label this informational label about where it was collected when what time of year what the habitat was like the sex of the animal. And this was all part of a larger study looking at the distribution of rodents across western Montana to see at what point of elevation they were occurring. And if that that point of elevation was changing were they going higher you know due to climate change impacting the average median average temperatures of the northern Rocky Mountains. Anyway she hands me this this western jumping mouse Zappa's princeps is the scientific name and she she asked Do you want to prepare this. And I said Oh no I'm Emily you know me I deal with paint brushes like this is not my thing. And she's like No I'll teach you how to do it. She's like you know did you ever take home ec in middle school and I was like yeah she's like you know you do a sewing project where you stitch things together. And I was like yeah she's said yeah the same thing. It was like that remains to be seen but OK. But she walked me through the process of making the first incision and separating the skin from the muscle tissue and removing the bones in a specific order. And you know after about 30 minutes I had I had skin this mammal and had the body separated from the rest of it from the outside. And then you create a little armature out of cotton and wire and a little small dowel and essentially put that back inside of the body and then you pin it onto a board. And it's called a study skin. So it's not meant to look like a live taxidermy animal like it was in life but it now it's a research specimen and that to me the most important part of that whole process was that I got to sign my name on the label for this specimen as a source of accountability mostly of a scientist and the future was going to look at this mouse and be like this thing is prepared really weird. Who's responsible for this. Emily Graslie no! But to me it was almost like I felt a stronger sense of gratification signing my name on that mouse than I ever had signing my name on a piece of artwork. No way. It. It was overwhelming. And I think it's because I mean the seemingly inconsequential mouse was going to be part of a larger history is going to be bigger than myself. It's part of a research project that's been going on for decades. You know I contributed to science and it wasn't just this whole like kind of existential moment for me where I was like art just seems so selfish and self you know interested and yet here was the way I felt like I could make some kind of tiny positive contribution to my community I could be a part of the history of western Montana. And this all you know from a dead man. It was really an interesting from a Ziploc bag and I came from a Ziploc bag you know and it was really a moment of revelation for me because I went home that night and I didn't tell anybody what I had done. I don't think I talked to any of my friends for a week because I thought for sure I was so like a sociopath like sociopath or something like a psychopath. Like what kind of person is so fascinated in like taking an animal inside out. And so I really didn't want to talk about it for a long time and started just you know continuing to volunteer in the museum and becoming more and more interested in it. And that's partially why I started documenting the process is almost like seeking validation from anybody my friends or family and they're like Emily that's weird like you don't want to see your dead animal pictures on our Facebook and so instead I started posting them on Tumblr and which was a blog site. I don't know if people still use Tumblr today but I had started a blog after that documenting not just the preparation process but a lot of the artwork I was creating in the museum and some of the other projects we were doing and I found an online community like I found a digital community of other museum volunteers or other art majors who wanted to find their own museum collection to volunteer or even people who were you know amateur taxidermists who wanted to help bring some of these animals back to life. And so I built up a following of about 10000 people who started regularly reading my blog about the museum and eventually that that blog helped to develop the web series that I have now with the Field Museum in Chicago.

[00:10:07] Yeah that is amazing that that moment that you discuss with the changeover and feeling about putting your name on it. Do you find it to be an artistic project process or do you feel that it's different than the artistic process?

[00:10:22] Well I would say creating study skins. It helps if you have a background in art. I think you know if you ask any or any of the volunteers or interns that we have at the Field Museum specifically a number of them have backgrounds in art and I think it's a lot of that has to do with hand eye coordination and right attention to detail. I ended up teaching or being the T.A. for the vertebrate Ostealgia class for graduate students at the University of Montana for a semester because as an art major you're taught to hone your observation skills. And so when you're teaching graduate archaeology students how to differentiate certain kinds of animal bones whether they're trying to identify them from a final assemblage of you know a native tribe that lived in that area 10000 years ago or if it's sometimes we would work with the Montana crime lab and the police department and they would find a Bare bone or someone would bring them a limb bone and they find in the middle of the woods and sometimes these hikers would think like I think this is a human arm or did this belong to a child or something and so they'd take it to our comparative collection and I got to work with the Montana crime lab to as like a forensic geologist to help them identify where this animal was coming from and we never had a human. It was always like a hambone or yeah a Bare bone or something like that but I was able to do that because of my background in art and being able to understand the morphological differences or the shape or the size differences between different vertebrate species.

[00:11:50] That's amazing. That's fascinating. I love it. Ok cool. So you got to kind of be like a forensic scientist in a way also like a sleuth.

[00:11:58] Yeah kind of. You know I was mostly just a facilitator. I was working with the curator of the museum at the time Dave Dyer who is you know really had the background in mythology and asked geology but he taught me a lot. And you know it was really fun to look at some of these cases and he would put out quizzes and you know kind of test your knowledge and it was a really fun game but it was also you know had important educational implications to it as well.

[00:12:23] That's so interesting. I know that also the dissection of animals used to be a requirement in a lot of school programs and then sort of went away and maybe is how do you feel about that being in schools now do you think that's a really important part of the science pedagogy.

[00:12:41] Well I think it depends on the learner. Ultimately it depends on who it is you're working with as a student I know from myself personally had I had more opportunities to do more hands on learning experience experiments when I was in middle and high school. I might have felt a little bit more empowered to think that oh science is something that I can do or I can use my observational skills in this way. Whereas in my educational background growing up in Rapid City South Dakota you know we just a lot of us immediately went to like standardized tests. Right. And now you know naming diagrams and really took a lot of creativity out of it from my perspective. So I think there's a true value in getting kids to be hands on especially when it comes to things like that. GROSS Out stigma sort of thing like if you can perpetuate a culture of curiosity and inquisitiveness rather than one that is just wanting to you know make things from the natural world seem as though there are other or foreign or alien or bad or gross or weird you know anything that just fosters the the genuine question asking and answering seeking motivations behind it I think is worth supporting.

[00:13:54] All right well that's a little bit about your back story and we're going to take a little musical break when we come back we'll talk a little more about brain scoop with the awesome Web show that you have and also your work at the field museum. So you know me on the show I'd like to introduce you to different music. The first song we're going to listen to is called Eye to Eye. And it's by Jordan Rakei on the album Wildflower and you are listening to KSUU thunder ninety-one point one OK well welcome back. In the background there is just the tail end of the song Ida II by John McKay on the album wall flower.

[00:18:21] This is Lynn Vartan and you're back on Thunder ninety one point one listening to the apex hour where today we have Emily Graslie joining us in the studio. So welcome back. Thanks. And I'd like to turn our discussion to the brain scoop. Can you tell us a little bit about how it got started. I know you talked this morning but just for anybody who's listening to just a quick bit of how it kind of got started and then the transfer over to Chicago.

[00:18:48] Yes so after I started this blog where I was posting kind of our day to day work on and on about the Zoological Museum at the University of Montana I ended up meeting this man named Hank Green and he's probably best known for being half of the YouTube series vlogbrothers he and his brother John Green are they've been making videos on YouTube for well over ten years now and Super fame. Yeah yeah. I mean it's kind of ridiculous to try and summarize like everything they do because they're such important roles and like the Internet education and just like positive support network community online. But anyway, Hanc happen to live in Missoula Montana where I was living at the same time. And we ended up getting connected because he was launching a new educational series called Crash Course and they were doing a video about the vertebrate skeleton. So it made a lot of sense for him to come. Actually, he reached out to see if he could come film it in the collection. I was volunteering it and I was over the moon are so excited. And so that's how I met Hank and he and I kind of talked on and off over a couple of months and eventually he came back to the museum in sort a long story short I gave him a tour of the collection which he uploaded on there Vlogbrothers channel. You can still watch it today. It's called. Oh she was that video called thoughts from dead animals. That's what it's called. It's the thoughts from places they do the series called dots from places and this was thoughts from the museum so he called it thoughts from dead animals. But anyway you know the response to it was so overwhelming it's nothing like I've ever seen. I mean in a couple of days it had been watched a quarter of a million times and the overwhelming majority of comments on the video were just like you know we want to see more of Emily and we want to see more the museum and you should give only her own channel and so just a couple days later he he emailed me and I'll never forget getting that email because he just basically said well people like this. Would you want to be would you want to have your own YouTube channel I'd help you get it started. And I was completely blown away because at that time you know I was recently unemployed like you didn't really wasn't the right thing wasn't going super well for me and I would just kind of trying to get into like a Masters Museum Studies Program and figure out what I wanted to do and this was a I thought a great opportunity. I had no expectation for what would happen with it.

[00:21:08] Had you ever been on the radio or TV or performed. I mean I know you play the violin but had you ever done any of that kind of thing like been on my before.

[00:21:19] Well not to that degree. No. I mean I took children's theatre you know and I did some drama performances in high school but I was also like a nerdy kid with a mouthful of braces so like I mostly like ran the lights because I couldn't enunciate on stage at all. And I had done some promo video stuff from the museum but like never really was coached in it you know and and so Hank came to me and he's like wow you know all you can work with one of our producers Michael Aranda and we'll get you started with some basic equipment but then he left the country for a month to go on tour with his brother John to promote the fault in our stars so that John's Young Adult author and so Hank just kind of left me and Michael and left us to our own devices and when he got back like our channel had just blown up.

[00:22:10] That's amazing. To what do you attribute. I mean you're so comfortable and so charismatic on screen on Mike. I mean is it just the passion for your subject is it just the curiosity to what do you attribute it.

[00:22:24] Well I would say the passion and the curiosity certainly but like that has to be fostered. And just the vote of confidence from somebody like Hank Green like someone who has done this has been doing this who his like founded in established educational programs that had millions of subscribers and he and his brother were then and are still now some of the best-known names in like online education for that person to just email you after knowing you for a week and say like I think you'd be good at this and just knowing that they probably don't tell other people that every day. Yeah it was like you know. AFT I'm a big Hamilton fan now but it's sort of one of those things where you're like I'm not throwing away my shot and I just decided like I don't know what this is going to go but I know I'm not going to make just half ass. So I just gave it my all and and just kind of went for it.

[00:23:17] It sounds like you are that way as a person though. I mean you when you do something you go all in. Like you're not just going to volunteer in a museum and bide your time. You're going to try to organize the collection. And I mean that kind of. Go get it.

[00:23:31] This must also be intrinsically and you I do have a lot of grit and that was definitely the case with me in my art program like you know you're supposed to start working on your senior thesis painting before your spring semester. Right. And and I was already conceptualizing what I wanted to do like the summer before my senior year. So you know I just always I've just always had a lot of pride in being a hard worker like when I was in high school I got my first job when I was 14 and so I've always worked hard and I've always I've always put in the hours. But to me like that's what's so gratifying about it is knowing that you really have done your best and put your best foot forward. And so working on a YouTube channel that had an audience that had potential that was going to help me bring this museum that I'd already spent two years trying to bring to the public just like I'm going to go for it.

[00:24:24] I love it. That's awesome. So now it well before and before I get to Chicago. For anybody who may be listening and not familiar with the brain scoop how would you describe.

[00:24:36] How would you describe the brain scoop in like two sentences if you had to the brain scoop is an educational YouTube channel that aims to share the behind the scenes work in collections and research with anybody with the world so perfect.

[00:24:52] Yeah that's great. Well and of course for those of you who may be interested and not familiar with it just google it and you can find tons and tons of videos in a wide variety of different types of subjects and different angles different locations and we can get into that too. So now the brains group is how's the brain scoop is housed in Chicago. In the field museum and tell me about what life is like there.

[00:25:21] Yes. We'd been doing the brain scoop for a couple of months before we started to receive quite a bit of media attention. So we'd been written about by NPR scientific American. There was like a no in on a blog from now geographic like this incredible for me. And eventually we gained the attention of the field museum in Chicago and I got invited out to kind of do some videos with them and after a couple of days they just sat me down in this conference room and basically I said like we'd like to bring you on board here and bring your channel with you. And that was amazing to me as someone you just inspired to work in a museum someday in any capacity to have this new position created for me. I mean I have the job title now as chief curiosity correspondent. So that was an amazing experience and so we brought the brain scoop to the Field Museum in July of 2013 and I've been there ever since so that four and a half years now that's so cool.

[00:26:17] Yeah. What's a typical day in the life like for you.

[00:26:21] Well to be honest the typical day is not that exciting because you don't believe it. Well it's a lot of like there's so much planning involved and there's so much like production timelines and scheduling and like there is quite a bit of paperwork and budgeting and you know that kind of back and stuff. But but the really special days are when we get to go out in the field or when we get to interview scientists and so just a couple of weeks ago we ended up filming in Berlin Germany at the Museum of Natural History there and so it was three months of planning and organizing and everything but once we're there I mean I got to you know got to see one of the best most iconic fossils of all time the Archaeopteryx specimen which is most of the famous most of it's the transitional species between birds and dinosaurs like it is wow a famous famous fossil. I got to be in the historic bird collection at the museum there and the museum for Netter kinda was established in 1814 so this museum is over 200 years old and has endured two world wars so it's one of the oldest it must be it's one of the oldest collections. Yeah and certainly you know the building itself was built in the 1980s. But a day like that is just like you're looking at specimens in a collection that are simultaneously Lake scientifically important but also the witnesses to history like the whole eastern wing of this building was completely destroyed by allied bombing in 1945.

[00:27:53] And so you're standing in like a reconstructed wing of this institution and just thinking about those decades and centuries of history and I mean those are the kind of moments that are really live for. It doesn't matter that I had to spend three months of like paperwork and figuring out import permits for cambric Witman or whatever else like you know once you're there you really try to appreciate those moments. Sounds pretty magical. It's it's pretty cool.

[00:28:17] Well it's time for another musical break. When we come back I'd like to talk about I know that you're really passionate about women in STEM women in science and want to talk about some of those issues some maybe the activist side of things and education and curiosity and so stay tuned for those in the meantime and the next piece that I'd like to show you is a piece called Nómada and that's by Kaleema and it's on the album Nómada. And you were listening to the apex hour on Thunder ninety one point one KSUU.

[00:32:38] OK welcome back. This is the apex hour KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. My name is Lynn Vartan. And in the studio with me today is Emily Graslie. Welcome back to you. Thanks.

[00:32:51] And so for this chunk I'd love to talk about some of the platforms that you find yourself passionate about in terms of science feminism education curiosity topics such as that. I know that you feel very strongly about women in science and science role models new emerging role models for women in science. Can you talk about your feelings about that and things that interests you with that topic.

[00:33:19] Yeah this is an interesting one to go off of and I kind of like to tell this story that you know when I was growing up I was absolutely a public broadcast fanatic. I mean pretty limited the kind of stations we got in South Dakota. Not going to live like I was a PBS kid for sure. And so I loved you know Mr. Rogers. And Bill Nye and the Nova specials with Neil deGrasse Tyson and there was kind of like a common theme among all of those that most of the science role models that I had growing up were were men. In fact all of the nature documentary host David Attenborough The. Steve Irwin all of them just you know great presenters and science communicators. But my one true role model was Miss as of the Magic School Bus. I was in total magic school bus. And so when I was in seventh grade my mom had the opportunity to take us to San Francisco on a business trip and so she had asked us if we'd want to go see Lily Tomlin who's the voice actor of Miss Frizell and Lily Tomlin. Many people know he's very famous stand up comedian and so I was over the moon thinking like oh here Miss Frizzle. So I don't know what my mom was really thinking but she's takes us to this comedy club like I'm in seventh grade. I'm too young for this. Like very sleepy at this point would you take us to this comedy club at like 10:00 at night on a Tuesday and we're halfway through the program and I'm just very confused by all this adult humor and you know we ended up leaving at intermission or something and it took me years to figure out like why I felt so so disappointed about that. And it was one of those things where I'm like oh I'm an idiot like I'm upset because I thought she was going to talk about the magic school bus. But clearly she's not. And that makes sense she's a comedian. But you know and so it was one of these moments where I kind of grew up and was a little bit disappointed because I really like my one female science role model like was a fictitious character and that's kind of disappointing. So I thought about that a lot when Pank first approached me to create an educational YouTube channel because at that point this was back in end of 2012 and I went online to see like well how many women are there who have educational science channels and there was one there's one who I could find that had a math channel and she's still creating content today. Her name is of my heart and she's incredibly talented. But it was also that was one of the reasons I decided to do this in the first place was well if I can make a positive contribution as somebody who's not a scientist but who can show that learning is for everybody and you don't have to be a scientist or you don't have to have agreed a degree in this to care about it or to have an interest in it. Maybe I can help influence other people who might not feel as though. Like math or science is quote for them. And so. So that was kind of one of the reasons I decided to do it in the first place and since then I have learned a lot about the challenges of not just being a woman but being a minority or non gender conforming or LGBT person like in the sciences and in academia. And one thing I've realized is that these problems don't go away if you don't talk about them. And so I've been really fortunate with support from the Field Museum to to talk about some of these. I've been on the Field Museum Women in Science steering committee for the last four and a half years. You know I'm actively trying to bring attention to these topics and so yeah it's been an important part of our platform.

[00:36:52] I really like you know how you handled some of the bad comments and we talked about that a little bit earlier today and how inspiring that is to get the conversation out there you know to make sure that everybody is aware how hurtful things can be and also how you can move past this kind of thing. I mean it's a great message to get across.

[00:37:16] Yeah. So really one of the things that moved us in this kind of direction not I wouldn't necessarily call it activism but just you know starting the conversation is that we created a video back in 2013 called Where my ladies at where I talked about you know the kind of harassment that I receive as a female creator on line the inappropriate comments the threats oftentimes a crazy. Yeah it is. You know the reason I wanted to make a video about it is because I internalized a lot of it. Right. Like I didn't want to bring it up. I was becoming increasingly more uncomfortable and so I asked my boss at the time like can I do a video about this. Because simultaneously I was getting dozens and dozens of messages from young people who said I want to have my own science channel but I see all the harassment of people online and I don't really want to deal with that. So how do you deal with it. And honestly it just wasn't being very honest with them to say like well I'm not dealing with it right because I'm not actually talking about it I'm not doing anything about it. So we did that video where my ladies at. And it became incredibly popular it was kind of our first viral hit. You know it was viewed about 750000 times in a day. So just Britain about an all different media outlets all over the world. And that was eye opening for me too because on the one hand it was cathartic but on the other hand I was like why is this news. Right. But I realized like a lot of these journalists were saying like wow you know we haven't really taken the harassment of people online very seriously and now I mean it's it's part of people's political campaigns saying that like I'm going to stand up against internet bullying. And so to know that this conversation is continuing to happen and that people are taking it seriously and more importantly that resources are being made available to people who are experiencing harassment online who are being Dachs you know whose information public information or personal information is being made public. This isn't something that just happens to people outside of education happens to anybody online.

[00:39:20] Yeah that's I'm just so glad that you did that. And I think it's really brave and super cool and just takes a lot. It must have been very difficult but I'm so glad that you did things. What about your passion for curiosity and inquisitiveness and trying to bring that out in students and education. What advice do you have or thoughts do you have about that. I know it's an important topic for you and I'm super passionate about it too. How do we help increase the level or encourage inquisitiveness and curiosity.

[00:39:56] Yeah you know that's an interesting one. Sometimes I get that question almost as like a like a backhanded question. People will say like kids these days you know like everybody on their iPhone and we can't get them interested in being outside because I only want to look at their devices and you know you kind of walk back and think like whose responsibility is it. Right. It's really the responsibility of the parents of the of the family members of the Friends of the teachers I mean it's really on the adults who can help of control and direct the conversations to help facilitate some of that inquisitiveness. So I think about the opportunities that you have to take kids outside and don't demonize the smartphone. Right. There are terrific apps out there like the naturalist app where this is a citizen science sort of crowdfunding app where where wherever you are in the world if you see an interesting bird or insect or or a mammal you take a picture of it and you can upload it onto this app in a scientist a verified expert will identify it and if you put the geographic location of it like the there are major cities like in Chicago and in California that are doing this as a concerted effort to get the public involved with documenting biodiversity in your own backyard or in a state or national park. And so I really think like taking advantage of the technologies that exist right now but also like helping to inspire you know go outside and take the technology with you and here's how you can become involved. And I think I think there's so many opportunities like that online. Oh my gosh what is the name of that app. iNaturalist it's called iNaturalist. Yeah and it's run out of the California Academy of Sciences and I've been using this app for years. It's absolutely wonderful and there I mean scientists can publish papers based off of observations from citizens right.

[00:41:42] Well you were just talking about one of the birds that you saw outside of the lecture hall this morning. Yeah I was you know I didn't know what it was but we could probably take a picture and put it in there and find out yeah we could.

[00:41:54] Yeah oh that's so cool yeah. So. So it's a really interesting way where you know you look around the world around you and you might see an animal and you'd be like oh I don't know what that is but take a picture of it you can find out what it is and then I guarantee anytime you see that animal from now on you're like I know I know what that is and then I know what it eats. I know why it's here. I mean that just makes like you kind of make friends you know.

[00:42:15] Yeah. Oh my gosh I'm totally downloading it. I have one more musical piece that I've been itching to play for you. And then when we come back our last little time together we're going to do what is fastly turning into everybody's favorite segment which is what is turning you on right now. So we'll talk about books movies TV whatever you want. That's like really making you excited. But in the meantime we're here our last piece of music. This is a group that has only one album out and it's just newly out and the album is called Grand Tapestry. And the group is called Grand Tapestry and it's this really interesting blend of world music and rap. The song you're going to hear is called ATMA and you are listening to KSUU Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:46:18] OK. This is Lynn Vartan and this is the APEX hour here on Thunder ninety one point KSUU. That song was called ATMA and that group I'm just so interested in and so passionate about the group is called Grand tapestry and that album is called Grand tapestry. Totally check them out. It's a rapper and a tabla player which are the South Indian drums that are indicative of their folk music. And then a sitar player it's super cool. Anyway in the studio with us is Emily Graslie for our last few minutes together which is again turning into everyone's favorite segment and I would like to know what's turning you on right now. Books movies TV whatever you want. What. Turn What's exciting to you right now.

[00:47:05] Nonfiction always so Planet Earth 2 was released the documentary was released a couple months ago in the UK and just recently came out here in the US. And I've always been a David Attenborough documentary Nerd. But like I cannot emphasize enough how amazing the cinematography of this thing is. I mean it's it's utterly mind blowing in the fact that these documentary crews are going down to extreme depths of the ocean with high definition cameras like making new scientific observations and that take years to do like these programs are years and years of filming. It's just like it's the pinnacle of documentary filmmaking.

[00:47:48] We watched we watch part of it and this one I think has a really interesting segment if I'm remembering right with the flamingos. It's fasc- it's just gorgeous and they're just all huddled in this very tiny shallow water in a vast desert land. It's really I love it so gorgeous. Yeah.

[00:48:08] So I've been turning out over the planet Earth too and also the blue planet. Well that's great.

[00:48:14] great recommendations. And can you tell us a little bit about some of the books or at least how you're getting some of the books. We were just talking that you get quite a few books in the mail I hear.

[00:48:25] Yeah. One of the big perks of my job is that when you have a role I guess as a science communicator. It's somewhat of an audience you tend to get a lot of like advance copies of books that haven't yet been released to the public and so that's always really interesting to kind of get your hands on new things so I just got a copy of Carl Zimmer's book. She has her mother's laugh which is supposed to come out in June this year. And beautiful title. Oh god. It's all about genetics and inherited traits and I'm about 100 pages into it. This book is over 500 pages long and it is absolutely effortless to read. I mean it's Carl Zimmer is one of my favorite science writers he usually writes for the new york times and he's published a number of fantastic books. But this is really it's been really enjoyable for me to read as someone who never thought that I really care that much about genetics heritage tree. And this comes out in June. Did you say yeah in June. Okay but it can be a lookout for it. Yeah the title again was She Has Her Mother's Laugh I love that title. It's so good. And I know that you recommend books on brain scoop. Do you have a sort of one favorite book that you could maybe share with us that people could look at.

[00:49:39] That's a great question. If you're if you're a New Scientist I would say if you're trying to think if science is something for you to study or even if you want to know how you can like better participate in the natural world. Edward Wilson E.O. Wilson has a fantastic book called Letters to a young scientist and you'll read it in an afternoon. It's just a couple of hundred pages. Really quick to get through. But it's a really great book that kind of imparts some like sage advice almost but also practical knowledge. And that's that's something that I revisit on occasion because it's a nice refresher to help put a little bit of perspective on the work that you're doing now and like what you can accomplish in the future.

[00:50:20] So that sounds like a good one.

[00:50:22] I mean the title and author again it's a EO Wilson Edward Wilson in the book is Letters to a young scientist.

[00:50:28] Okay cool. I will definitely read it. I've been learning so much. And one other thing I'd like to ask you is do you have any memory of really great advice that was given to you like what's the best advice you've ever been given and it doesn't have to be work related it could be anything. You know I'll take your makeup off before bed. I don't know. You know.

[00:50:51] Yeah. Oh she's. That's a really good one. You know it might sound cheesy but really like trust your gut. I really feel like people now this might just be you know some fake non-scientific responses something. But I've always I think listening to your inner voice you know if you ignore it oftentimes I've realized I should have paid attention to it better. But the some of the best decisions I've ever made. I just kind of follow the gut instinct.

[00:51:19] So I think that's a great one. And with that I think that we'll close our shows so everyone trust your gut. You know that's that's our parting shot for today. Well as again my my name is Lynn Vartan. This is the apex hour. And I'd like to say thank you so much to you Emily Graslie for being here and being on the show with us today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Next week we're going to have a bunch of outdoor we're spending the day next week talking about the outdoors so we're going to have a couple of our specialist outdoor people talking about all the different opportunities in and around southern Utah. So you can find us here again next Thursday KSUU thunder ninety one point one. But until then this is the apex hour saying good bye for today.

[00:52:07] Thanks so much for listening to the apex hour here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week this is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:02] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX Hour on SUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations onstage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some sounds and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now. Welcome to this week's show here KSUU Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:51] Right. Well welcome back. Here we are and it's February 15. Happy belated Valentine's Day I guess if you can say that this is Lynn Vartan and I'm here in the studio with you today and I'm joined by a couple of guests. But first my little recap of how our event went today. We had a super awesome exciting guest today we had Zion Park Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh in talking about all things Zion and just we had some interesting conversations about preservation and conservation and some of the challenges facing Zion Park today and his experiences as the superintendent. So we're continuing our discussion today with talking more about the outdoors and about all things parks and outdoor rec and outdoor education and partnerships at SUU and to that end I have two awesome guests. I have Kevin and Bridget in the studio and I'll let them introduce themselves which I would like to go first. Briget how about you.

[00:01:51] Hi I'm Briget Eastep I have the best title on campus it's director of outdoor engagement. Yeah my whole purpose on campus is to connect the campus community to learn and the outdoors. And I have an awesome title because everybody tells me everything what they're doing in the outdoors. Every time I walk across campus.

[00:02:09] That is so cool. And Kevin how about you.

[00:02:13] My name is Kevin Koontz I'm the outdoor educational liaison here on campus and.

[00:02:17] Also a cool job.

[00:02:19] That's a pretty good job title which means I get to be involved with all the different outdoor related initiatives that SUU puts together whether it be the semester in the parks program a little bit with the IIC which is the intergovernmental internship cooperative that we have, the adventure orientation program which was switched over to the TBird outdoor connection. So a little bit of everything everything outdoors related which is fun.

[00:02:49] That's awesome I can't wait to hear about all of those things. And we're going to get into each one of them. How long have both of you guys been at SUU. I've been here for this is my 11th year.

[00:03:00] Oh cool. About the same time as me this is my 10th so. Yeah. Cool.

[00:03:04] I've been here for six now. I did my undergraduate work here and then my master's and then I continued on to work.

[00:03:12] Awesome keeping it in the family. So let's get into it a little bit and talk about let's let's see there's so many different ways. Let's I guess let's start with academically first maybe and maybe you can tell us a little bit about what SUU offers in terms of academic programs that students can get involved in.

[00:03:34] You know the way that I like to explain it is that we have everything from. Hey I just want to learn about the outdoors and doing an adventure which is actually outdoors. We have on the other end the career development part which is an outdoor recreation and parks and tourism is one of the degrees but there's also a number of other degrees that you can go do it and then in the middle we have the outdoor Engagement Center which is creating experiential education programs to I guess help both of those folks in it. So there's the people that just want to learn and have fun in the outdoors are the people that want to learn and add to their skill base and the outdoors. And then there's the people that want to dedicate their lives to it. And in that actually use got a great outdoor recreation program. There's a lot of different things that you can do in biology from conservation to becoming a wildlife biologist. But then there's also Agriculture Sciences, hotel and hospitality management, the equine sciences, geology. So there's a lot of different ways that you can take that career path.

[00:04:40] Well let's kind of make little scenarios so let's say I'm a student who just wants to like go camping with other students at SUU is there. What do I do if I'm that student.

[00:04:52] There's a couple of things a couple of ways to approach that. There's the trips and adventures program which is offered through the outdoors which those trips are put together by students who have been trained and prepared to put those trips together and they they pick where they want to go and how many you know how long they want to spend there. And then there's not really a whole lot of.

[00:05:21] The student who wants to go on that trip doesn't really have to give anything other than their time. There's no cost to that. So anything that they need the gear the equipment it's all going to be provided the transportation is going to be provided that's come to be east of you know if it's a climbing activity or a mountain biking activity you know that expertise in that training is also going to be provided. So there's no there's no experience necessary and you just need to be an SU student just have to be an SU student. And yeah like you know dedicate maybe a Saturday afternoon to it.

[00:05:51] That's amazing. I didn't realize excuse my ignorance. I didn't realize it was all inclusive in that way. OK so the students who are listening or who listened to the podcast which by the way I don't know if I mentioned that we are totally subscribable on iTunes now. So do the surge Su apex and subscribe. But so for anybody listening how did they go ahead and do that.

[00:06:13] They go to sign up for those trips they go to they can visit with you outdoors here in the student center right across from the welcome center is is the spot where they can walk in. There's a calendar full of trips. There's usually about two trips per weekend. So whether it's a climbing. Like I said like a climbing trip or a mountain biking trip or a canyoning trip. Some of them sometimes it's an overnight backpacking or just camping. They can go in there to sign up for the trips the trips open two weeks in advance.

[00:06:42] OK. So look at your calendar. Come next time you're coming and get your lunch in the shower. Just go right up to the desk and take a look and see what's offered. That's amazing. Tell me more about what you outdoors offers.

[00:06:57] So another another great opportunity through outdoors is the rental shop so if you don't want to know if you and your roommates are you in a couple of your pals want to go camping but you don't want to go through one of the university sponsored trips you can pick up stuff at the rental shop and just you know you don't have again you don't have to own it. Everything is priced with a student budget in mind and you can get a tent some sleeping bags a cook set a stove all the things that you would need to have a comfortable successful camping trip. But again you don't have to worry about like oh I don't own that gear. That stuff's expensive I can't afford that with a student budget. That's that's why it's here.

[00:07:42] That's great. Just go to the desk and see what. So there's camping gear. How about rafting or river gear. stand up paddleboards kayaks backpacks inflatable sleds for this time of year which are really cool.

[00:07:59] Oh wow. They really go fast. overshoes which if if if you don't have the proper footwear to go out and be comfortable in the snow they carry over shoes that you can just slip over a pair of vans or a pair of Converse. turns any shoe into like in winter so waterproof winter shoe.

[00:08:19] Yeah that's so cool. What about other thing are there bikes. I mean I just don't even know. Tell us your inventory.

[00:08:26] And we don't we don't carry bikes but we do partner with cedar sport here in town supercycle for bikes. They both carry bikes and rent them. So we usually refer folks over to those local businesses to support them. Great. But yeah it's just about any kind of outdoor. Piece of equipment that you would want or even want to try. It's a pretty elaborate inventory.

[00:08:52] That's amazing. OK. Well thanks for letting you know about that. And then let's put it another scenario together. Let's say I'm a student who has some some experience and sort of wants to get a little more involved maybe wants to take some classes. What what does that student do.

[00:09:09] There's some really great classes within outdoor rec. There are ORPT 2000 and there's still development courses and then there's also some 1000 level and 2000 level courses that are more have their own standalone Colly. But you can take courses in backpacking scuba diving climbing scuba diving you know where to where do we do that Sand Hollow.

[00:09:35] So not far gentle close to St. George and they've got they've got a sunken bus and a sunken airplane that the students can swim through and check out as they certify.

[00:09:44] No way. I have no idea. That's amazing. OK. Well maybe I'm going to take scuba dive.

[00:09:49] But they also have mountain biking. We're going out to three peaks and learning everything from like how to be really effective pedaling to how to fix your bike when it breaks.

[00:10:00] Canyoneering backpacking is a classic winter backpacking as it is a separate class horsemanship. It's offered through the agricultural program but that's another great one. Oh great. Most of these classes are also only half a semester which is really easy to kind of work into the schedule. If you just any student who just needs that one or two extra credits to fill out their schedule to maintain that full time status. Right. These are good options that are fun.

[00:10:27] The other piece of it that I really like about those classes is that actually you get to go into those classes you get to know your fellow professor and students who actually leave those classes with friends that. And that's the I think the thing that I really like about the outdoor activities so that you're not just gaining skills like the technical skills but you're also gaining like those social bonds you're being able to bond to the places that you go visit and you're really learning some great life skills like communication skills teamwork skills. And people gain a lot of confidence through that. That's wonderful.

[00:11:03] So in case anybody doesn't have the acronyms right. Where do they find this. Where do they find these classes on the Web if they're looking in the catalog or the specific department page just to be super clear. Everybody can find them if you do.

[00:11:16] If you go to the course catalog and you put an o r t o r p t that outdoor recreation and parks and tourism it stands for okay.

[00:11:26] And that will give you the list of classes. That's perfect. Okay great. All right. Well I think this is a good time to do our first little musical break. So you know I'd love to turn you guys on to new music and some odd and out there stuff but I tried to think of what could I do this week. Well it's Valentine's Day so regardless of how you feel about that I have a couple of interesting song titles for you this first one is by a folk music artist called Jarlath Henderson and the song title is called Courting is a Pleasure. And this album is the BBC Folk Awards album from 2017. So again that is courting is a pleasure. By Jarlath Henderson.

[00:15:58] K well welcome back. You're listening to Thunder ninety one point one and this is the APEX hour. My name is Lynn Vartan. And today we are talking all things outdoor rec. And we're going to probably start this conversation I guess I should remind you what that song was. This was that was Courting is a pleasure by Jarlath Henderson the BBC Folk Awards album 2017. But we're back here in the studio with Kevin and Bridget and I want to start this part of the conversation by talking about outdoor nation challenge the outdoor nation challenge the most awesome outdoor nation challenge. Tell us about it. Tell us what happened.

[00:16:38] Well the interesting thing about our participation this year in the outdoor nation campus challenge was we were asked to come back to the competition after after winning in 2015. We then took a break in 2016 and the the outdoor Foundation actually contacted us and they said You guys really elevated the competition that you participated. We want you back we want you participating again. Oh my God. That's all right. So that was a nice ego boost for for us you to come back to the competition and participate. So we were able to put together a committee of all different departments across campus to make sure that everybody was participating everybody was on board. And then just create a nice plan for how we were going to attack the challenge this year and win it like we did.

[00:17:29] And tell me a little bit I mean I saw a lot of how it was working on the app and just maybe people who are listening who aren't aware of how it all works can. Can you describe the challenge.

[00:17:40] So it's kind of described as a March Madness meets Mother Nature type competition rate. Participants didn't have to be necessarily a student. They could be faculty they could be staff they could be alumni they could just be community members who wanted to support who you are or people who had family members here at SUU. They didn't even need necessarily to be.

[00:18:00] I didn't know that I thought it was just students faculty.

[00:18:03] So anybody who wanted to sign up through the app or and then you know it gave the option to what what university did you want to support. You were able to select a few you and participants could then do up to five activities per day for different point total so something easy like hiking was worth two points something more intense like hiking or running was worth 10 points. If you had a if if you were with a group of people three or more that was worth additional points. And like I said participants could do up to five activities a day for so many points.

[00:18:40] I got lots of points doing stuff with my kids. There you go. That's awesome.

[00:18:44] Well I'm President Wyatt. It was a great advocate for us as well. He really supported the whole challenge. Every morning he was out at the sea trail having you know people meet him there to hike for half an hour. And then after hiking up the sea trail and back for about half an hour he would then go for a run. He he usually was had three or four activities before seven o'clock in the morning and that's amazing.

[00:19:12] And I also saw pictures of him in a hammock too.

[00:19:14] That's where he put it. That's where he would hold his meetings. Activities would have to be a minimum of half an hour long so to justify the time.

[00:19:21] Perfect perfect. And so how long does the challenge. How long of a time period it went for four weeks. It's about a month. And then is it always in the same month every year. It's usually around the same time kind of the September to October.

[00:19:38] so people don't have the app right. If they don't have the app right now they should definitely download it right now because I'm sure it'll pop up like announcement if they don't check it out.

[00:19:47] It obviously won't be updated until the next and you'll know when it's coming right.

[00:19:53] OK.

[00:19:53] I think the cool thing about it was not just the Ashley you won by having a lot of people participate but just the variety of people participating and really it was a rallying point for the Ashu community. Yeah that we came together and said we're going to win this challenge. And so that rally point and the fact that it was in the outdoors was just magic.

[00:20:16] And I think for me I think it was like like Bridget said it was a rallying point because I think SUU recognizes that we we are the most outdoorsy school and we should have this title. So going out and claiming it again was validating.

[00:20:32] Well and perfect segue because we do have all kinds of distinctions of note about our status in the outdoor world and outdoor nation. Do you guys want to tell us about some of those designations that we have.

[00:20:47] Recently.

[00:20:48] We were able to trademark Southern Utah University as the University of the parks which is pretty big deal and it's a and it's part of that title and that claim that we are the most outdoorsy school and we are located closer to more parks monuments public lands than than really any other university.

[00:21:11] But at the same time we're not just taking advantage of like spending time in those lands we're actually actively partnering to be active stewards and partners within those lands.

[00:21:22] And I know we have tons of partnerships to talk about and the the designation University of the parks is a trademark. It's more than just us deciding this is our title. I mean I think that's an important distinction that it's actually a trademark title associated with the university.

[00:21:38] But you know it's interesting in getting people's different perspectives on that too. Yeah a lot of students feel like hey that's cool I'm going to go to the university the parks. Makes me feel like I'm cool. But then if you ask like a lot of parents are like I'm not sending my kids to just how fun I want them to have careers and such. And that's where I think again the partnerships and the looking into what it means to be active stewards and really taking care of those lands comes in because it's through the academic programs and the curricular programs that we have where students are gaining hands on experience and skills by becoming stewards and being partners for that.

[00:22:15] And there are certainly plenty of jobs to be had in the outdoor industry right. It's a multibillion dollar industry right.

[00:22:23] Actually next in line with pharmaceuticals when it comes to gross national product. Really.

[00:22:28] Wow that's a great statistic. Well let's talk about some of these partnerships that we have. I know we have semester in the parks that I see I see. So let's pick lemons start and then we'll get to the others.

[00:22:42] We'll start with the IIC we're going into our 11th year and it was started by regional public lands folks that were like you know what we really have a great place for people to come and learn through hands on experience. And so what I see is offers internships. Last year we placed about 250 interns within our region and the region is pretty big it goes from Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument all the way over to Great Basin from the Fish Lake Forest to the north all the way down to the parish on the south. Wow. And students from across the university are getting an incredible summer and sometimes a year long experience in the fields that they want to go into. So we have wildlife biologist students actually going out and doing like Goshawk research all summer with the Forest Service. We have students in I.T. going and working for Zions I.T. department. We have again folks doing visiter Youth Services interpretation for the park so they get to give like the ranger talks at Cedar Breaks and that great basin. But then they also are doing conservation work through crew leaders and being crew leaders for some of our conservation crews working with high school students and we do that in the grand staircase in the parks and in all of the districts for the National Forest and just to clarify.

[00:24:05] I see. I see. See I know Kevin mentioned it at the top of the hour. What exactly does that stand for.

[00:24:11] So it stands for the Intergovernmental internship co-operative and we have discussed changing the name multiple times but then we always come back to well that's what we do. We're an intergovernmental co-operative right with the goal of giving people hands on experience to learn about public lands and to gain real life career building.

[00:24:36] I guess experience just to reemphasize appointment. I think Brennan was making those as well. I think a lot of students here of public land internship that's for the outdoor rec majors that's for the biology majors and it's not rare is there something available for every major if you have a passion for public lands. There is a way to tie your studies in your major into one of these internships.

[00:25:00] But on top of that there's a lot of folks that are going into nursing or into chemistry and they go out and seek different experiences just to add to their life base experience. Right. But also to really gain communication skills and teamwork skills and all those really great soft skills that employers are looking for. And it does help them stand out in interviews and such because they can say like oh yeah I've had this really great experience working with this wildlife team. So some of my favorite interns are actually the ones that are like I'm going into nursing but I'm going to be on a wildlife crew this summer that's so that I can really learn about about the lambs that are in my back. My back yard but also really kind of understanding and being a steward for those camps.

[00:25:52] And are the internships of varying lengths and varying amounts of. I mean how are they all the same.

[00:25:58] You know the majority of them start in May and go through August. So summer summer intern summer internships. The other great thing and again this goes back to the committee of public leaders that started it as like we want to give our interns a living wage. And so it's actually internships that are fully paid and people are able to actually make enough money to make their lives easier during the semesters. That's amazing. And then there's a handful of interns and internships that are 20 hours during the fall semester in the spring semester so that it does become like a yearlong experience.

[00:26:36] So students listening are interested in getting more information or becoming eligible. Or are there eligibility requirements what how would what's the how do you get into this.

[00:26:48] So the application is online and if you just google you you I see it will take you right there and you can look at all of that application. Well all of the postings that are available. And again it really is everything from wildlife to accounting to visitor services youth education. And you can pick out the ones that are interesting to you. You fill out a resume. You put. Well you know fill up the resume you fill out the application right. Send in your resume. A lot of times a cover letter and then the mentor. And that's the other thing about this program is that you're assigned a mentor within the public lands doesn't necessarily become your boss to guide you through the day to day such. But they make sure again that it's a good educational experience and that you're just learning you're not just doing the grunt work but you are doing the learning part of it. The mentors all as you people know they the public lands probational OK that are are kind of I guess helping the students have really great learning experiences but they also are the ones that need to get work done on the ground. Right. And so they're interested in finding the applicants that are going to be good interns show up on time and actually ask good questions and be enthusiastic about the work that they're going to do.

[00:28:08] Right. So if you're listening out there and you're like wow that sounds really cool I definitely looking for a summer job and I'm passionate about the outdoors or just want to get some of that kind of land base experience.

[00:28:20] Just google IIC or SUU IIC if you Google SUU IIC it'll take you right there and then you just look at the listings what are there opportunities to design internships. What if somebody comes in they say I don't see anything here that fits my thing but I really want to be involved is there should they come if they just keep looking back or if.

[00:28:43] It's more the internships are created because that's what they need on the ground. And so they're trying to again like fill in the need for folks to do wildlife monitoring and keep coming back to that but room and visitor services and trail crews and things like that. So there is the need base for as well.

[00:29:04] And is there a particular time of year when people I mean you know is now the time to relax. OK.

[00:29:11] So they're looking through applications as we speak. OK. And a lot of the postings are going to be closing in the next month. So right now is the time to start looking.

[00:29:22] Okay great. Well I think we'll take another musical break and then we'll come back and talk about semester in the parks which is a super unique program and really really awesome. So the song I'm going to play for you now here on Thunder ninety one point one is called in our Valentine theme. It's called Deadly Valentine and it's by Charlotte Gainsbourg. And it's on her album rest. And again this is the APEX hour and you're listening to Thunder ninety one point one. OK. Well that was Charlotte Gainsbourg

[00:34:49] This is Lynn Vartan and we're back here with the APEX hour. On KSUU Thunder ninety one point one and I'm joined in the studio by Briget Kevin and we are just having a cool conversation about all things outdoors here at Southern Utah University. And I want to rejoin our conversation talking about our cool partnership program that's called Semester in the park. So Kevin I think you're going to tell us about that this mission the parks program.

[00:35:17] It's again pretty unique to Southern Utah University. I like to think of it as kind of a study abroad but rather than going abroad the students get to live at Bryce Canyon. They get to work at one of the resorts close to there and during the course of the semester they're are able to visit all of our surrounding parks and monuments and different public lands and they have a course load that kind of incorporates. The theme the themes of public lands and preservation conservation stewardship. And just kind of kind of honing those outdoor skills altogether. It's 15 credit.

[00:36:03] So it's an entire. I mean as we said it's semester in the park so how does that work in terms of their normal course start. So you said it's like a study abroad. So does it do they just kind of take that semester. And this is that semester. So it sort of replaces a semester in a way.

[00:36:21] Yeah. All of the classes are taken. Like I said as a cohort. So all the students have all the same classes together and they spend about a whole whole semester with that group of students and kind of visiting these different amazing places.

[00:36:40] But it's really fun because the professors actually come to you and you have a classroom in Bryce Canyon right off the room. That's amazing. And from there a lot of the professors are like OK let's go out into the parking and look at.

[00:36:55] The different aspects that the park offers to learn about the content in the courses and they stay where exactly they stay at Rubys in which is just right outside the entrance to Bryce Canyon there and they also work right. And it's part of the it's part of the course load really as as the. There's the hospitality kind of portion of that and the students earn a certificate in. Interdisciplinary Park studies.

[00:37:27] Oh that's great. So what's an example of the kind of work that they're doing. I mean they're there waiting tables or they're doing it.

[00:37:35] It does depend on really the student and the experience that they bring in. But again most of the students end up working in hospitality. That's a fancy way of saying you get a lot of beds. Ah I'm doing those pieces of it but Beason is really also dedicated to the learning experience. So one they do need that work to be done. And part of the reason this experience works is because we're able to help them with the shoulder season. So we provide those workers to do the hospitality work that they need to do. But on top of that they're like OK let's give you some experience with guiding tours or you know we've had students that have had hospitality backgrounds so they end up. She also spoke French so that helped. But she also. So she ended up working at the front desk. So there are different things that you can do within it but most of them end up changing a lot of it.

[00:38:30] Yeah. And then how often how many hours a day are they in class. How long is a typical day in this semester and the parks students. Are.

[00:38:39] Typical days you wake up. Normal time. And then you go to work and you work in the morning. OK. You get a break and then you go to class in the afternoon and the classes you have a different class focus each day. So you'll have English one day and then you'll have suddenly a top floor the next day you'll have criminal justice the next day you'll have Americans in the outdoors the next day and then every other weekend you have to feel blab time with those courses and you go and visit Lake Mead or gold Butte or Zion or great basin basin. So you really get to know the different parks within it but you don't just visit them because you're looking at it through those different lenses and trying to understand the parks like. All right. How does criminal justice help conserve this park. Right. And then how do how in American and the outdoors are really looking out like what's the value of the parks to our society and how can the parks offer that experience to the visitors in the best way.

[00:39:47] What's the visitor experience and how are those visitors managed. A lot of the same kind of challenges that Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh spoke about today during his presentation.

[00:39:57] And how the faculty for semester in the parks comes from. Specifically the faculty in the outdoor education area or is it across the board across the board.

[00:40:09] So in 2018 in the fall of Laura Walker from English we have Samwell as from Biology we have Kelly Goonan from outdoor recreation. We have Brian Burton from criminal justice. And then we have Anne Smith also from Outdoor recreation. And then I get help with the field trips. Cool.

[00:40:27] And then so they cut two weekends there. There were there exploring and learning and then and do they. Is there free time said I mean do they come back into town. Do you know how they handle the rest of their time I'm just it.

[00:40:40] It does become again downtime. Well I guess the best way to say is downtime for them to have lives. Right. Which when you're doing an immersion semester right is really appreciated and it's just time to do your homework to catch up with friends to take the time that you need to make sure that you're rejuvenated and healthy.

[00:41:00] It's one of the parks do the fun things that are out there too yeah.

[00:41:04] Such a cool concept. And this this concept we've been doing this for how long.

[00:41:09] Two years two years. We're going to be offering our third year and it's each both semesters or just the fall fall or fall semester only. Yep. And again if you my favorite way to do things on the web is just to google it. So if you Google actually SUU Semester in the parks it'll take you to that home page and applications are due mid March.

[00:41:31] They're already getting accepted Yeah yeah. So now's the time right. This is the time to be looking. If you're interested in this I mean totally go check it out.

[00:41:38] It's only our cap 15 students so be able to give the experience that we want to you. So we do need people to actually apply but on time so that we can make sure that we get the best cohort possible.

[00:41:51] Right. So if you're out there and you're feeling super passionate about it get on it right away. Google semester in the parks. See you and take a look at the application. But time is running out it seems like you're probably getting pretty close to having that locked down. So that's such a cool program and I think probably the maybe the only one there maybe something similar but not to this extent. I mean this is just such a special opportunity to have a study abroad but yet also nearby but yet in a completely different environment in Bryce Canyon.

[00:42:24] So and earn a certificate in a single semester which is also kind of unique.

[00:42:30] That's great. And how do you guys feel about it. Some of the topics that we were talking about today do you have any comments on. We were talking about conservation preservation. Do you have any suggestions or thoughts about anything that students or our listeners anything we should be aware of that we should be doing or advice that you have that you'd like to impart.

[00:42:55] Or you don't talk about the sustainability.

[00:42:58] Oh yep. Actually you does have a sustainability miner and we've just worked with a group of faculty to rework it but it is a unique lens. And I guess the way that I look at majors and minors is it gives you a perspective to interact with the world. Some of them you just dedicate to your profession but otherwise you can take the sustainability minor add it to the major that you're doing and just see the world through a different lens and so you'll be looking at and asking the questions is like how can we help our society be sustainable. And in that it's not just I guess the scarcity part of it but it's being sustainable in how and really being like a healthy society and that is going to be looking at the ways that we use energy the ways that we interact with the outdoors the ways that we build things and utilize resources so that it's not just for our generation but for future generations as well.

[00:43:55] That's amazing that we have that as well. All right. I'm going to play one last song and then we're going to come back with what is fast turning into everybody's favorite part of the radio show which is asking you guys about what's turning you on right now. Books TV movies all that kind of stuff getting into the nitty gritty and getting some inspiration for our listeners. But before we do that I have one last song and this one is not Valentine related but it's maybe Olympics related. I've been watching a lot of the winter of Olympics and this is a group that I mentioned last week called Grand Tapestry that I think is really interesting from their album titled Grand tapestry. And this song is called Champion. And once again you were listening to the APEX hour on Thunder ninety one point one KSUU.

[00:49:16] OK. Well welcome back. This is Lynn Vartan you're listening to the apex hour here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. That song that you just heard is Olympic inspired. It's called Champion by Grand tapestry on the album Grand Tapestry. We have just a few minutes left here for the Apex hour this week and we're going to do the thing that everybody seems to be loving which is what's turning you on this week. Some to start with you Briget. What's turning you on. And it couldn't be books movies TV podcasts. What's something you'd like to share that you're really excited about. Well I'm going to say that the book that.

[00:49:58] Has gotten me to think the most in the last six months is FLORENCE WILLIAMS The Nature Fix and in that I get to talk about my soapbox because it's all about how the outdoors is good for people. Our brains are wired for it. It makes you a better thinker. It makes your body work better it helps you create social bonds it helps you create meaning for your life and so it actually takes the time to go through the research and tell the stories that we all need to be connected to the natural world.

[00:50:33] And can you tell us the title and author of that book again. Yep it's Florence Williams and that's the nature fix. You are not the first time I've heard of this book this week. And stay tuned. We may be researching trying to get her out to see you as an apex future speaker. So let's fingers crossed for that.

[00:50:52] But I also have to say that I really my passion in this world is to connect people to the outdoors and especially for learning. And I really have seen it time and time again. If you're a stressed out student in the library take the time walk around our beautiful campus because we have a park for our campus so I can guarantee you that your brain is going to work better and you're going to be able to focus and and actually enjoy what you're doing and just being stressed out.

[00:51:20] Midterms are coming up so everybody get outside and take a look around. That's great. Great advice. Thank you Kevin. How about you. What's inspiring you right now.

[00:51:30] I've been reading glory land by Shelton Johnson. The story of a buffalo soldier who serves in Yosemite National Park before the park service existed in the parks were kind of being overseen by the cavalry and kind of regulated that way.

[00:51:47] So it's a very interesting perspective on early early park maintenance so to speak. That's amazing. Tell us the name and the title and author again.

[00:52:00] The title is Gloryland and author of Shelton Johnson.

[00:52:04] And again another sort of Apex plug right. This has been one that's come down the pike as a suggestion for future events so we may see what we can do to find these people on campus. Well that is so cool. Do either you have any final words or any final things you'd like to promote or announce.

[00:52:23] There's so many great opportunities here at SUU I know students often get bugged down with classwork. They feel like Oh I I wanna go on a trip I just don't have time or I want to go to the park. I just can't get away from this project or this paper or it is presentation that I'm working on. You got it you got to make the time really you gotta make the time to do the things that you want to do. Otherwise you'll never find it.

[00:52:51] It's one of the reasons that actually has the program specially the outdoor put in is for people to actually say I want to learn and then you fill in the blank and you create a project to do it and the outer edge of projects are the ones that I love so much because it's people that really want to learn or do something and then they figure out how to do this. We have people that are one of my favorites as he builds a new and in that he wanted to learn woodworking skills so that he could go out and be a better theater teacher. Perfect in it so there's projects like that. And so I think that you find what you want to do and you can turn it into your project. Get that requirement out of the way by doing something that you love while I love it.

[00:53:39] Thank you guys so much for your time today. I really appreciate getting to know everything we have to offer here for us. Yeah. And so you heard it all if you want to even think from going camping come down and check out the Outdoor Center here in the Sharwan Smith Center right across in the welcome center or if you want to look at class offerings online or get involved with the internship program or semester in the parks. Get busy with your Google and find out ways to get outside and experience our awesome landscape. So that's all the time we have here on the APEX Hour KSUU thunder ninety one point one. My name is Lynn Vartan. Join us next week we're going to have Claudia Bradshaw in the house. She is the Saint George PFLAG founder and she's an incredible ally for LGBTQ plus community and she's going to tell her story of her journey with her son into the new world that she is loving today. Thanks again and we'll see you next week on The Apex hour.

[00:00:01] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the APEX Hour on SUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and who to turn you on the news news and noon genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now. Welcome to this week's show here KSUU Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:48] OK well here we are. It is Thursday 3:00 p.m. so that means it must be time for the Apex hour and I'm so excited today we had a great live event today and we're going to continue the discussion here in the studio this afternoon and this morning we had Claudia Bradshaw and her son Braden talking about her talk was titled My journey into a new world and it was her experience with her son coming out to her and how she sort of dealt with that and then came for it in her life ultimately to start the St George P. flag chapter which is parents in support of their LGBTQ family members and just all of her great activities in southern Utah for the LGBTQ+ community. So to continue that conversation today we have two awesome guests in the house. And I'm going to let them introduce themselves. So either one John or Chris whoever'd like to start.

[00:01:50] My name is Chris Mendoza and I'm the coordinator of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion here on campus.

[00:01:55] And I'm John Meisner a teacher in the College of Education and I'm also on the committee for allies on campus.

[00:02:00] Awesome. How long have you guys been here. I know Chris you're pretty new.

[00:02:05] A couple of years. It's been six months or so now only. Yeah yeah. Just passed my first six months so I still adjusting still getting used to it. It's pretty new. And where were you before. I just did my undergraduate degree. McAllister and St. Paul Minnesota originally from Miami. So a lot of western movement. Yeah. Well you've still got snow. Not from Miami but the most recent. This is nothing compared to this. And John how long have you been here.

[00:02:37] Well officially this is my third year. I was an adjunct. Before that I got my undergrad and master's degrees here. So in some ways I've been here going on two decades now.

[00:02:49] I totally didn't know. Yeah I've been around for a while. Are you originally from Utah originally from Las Vegas. No I've been here about 17 years. Well that's great. It's been a while. Well we wanted to start.

[00:03:02] I wanted to start the conversation talking about our allies on campus today kind of what I'd like to do with the hour is really talk about all the things that we're doing on campus for our LGBTQ plus community. Talk about the allies group and programs and then get into some community things and just kind of continue that conversation about resources and support and just everything that we're doing. And also what we could be doing in the future too. So let's maybe start by talking about our allies on campus. If you could tell us either one of you what it's about what is it.

[00:03:37] Yeah we're you know thankfully in a huge growth mode right now. I mean we have more resources and more people involved than ever before. I mean with the new diversity officer Schvalla Rivera I mean that's been huge just in broadening the scope of what diversity is on campus.

[00:03:57] I was talking a little bit about her this morning and how amazing it is that we have a chief diversity officer on campus maybe she reports directly to the president the president's camp cabinet. I mean she's really high up in the academic hierarchy and in the campus life hierarchy and I think that that's a really nice really important step that our campus has taken.

[00:04:21] Allies has been growing for many years. It's as an organization about 10 years old. OK. But you know it's been somewhat small and you know small group and you know depending on the year depending on the ERA depending on whatever you know it was kind of sometimes it had a larger influence. Other times not so much in over the past few years the influence and the scope has been broadening and this year in particular has just been pretty explosive documentary really is amazing. How was it because were you here when it first started. Well technically yes it involved.

[00:04:54] So yeah. Right. Right. I wonder how those first you know how it came to be at the beginning. I wish I knew. I know.

[00:05:01] I don't know. I mean I tried to do a little bit of research this morning actually to kind of get dates and all that kind of thing but we don't have a lot of the documentation I'm sure we can find it at some point but and so does the group have a Web presence then what is the group made up of. And tell us a little bit more about who is made up primarily of faculty and staff. We do have a good Web site. We try to keep it fresh so that it's a go to resource it's just suu.edu/allies. OK. We maintain the calendar. We try to keep that as updated as possible so that any event we try to keep on the calendars. Primarily I get the e-mails and stuff so

[00:05:45] I hear you're the communication guru.

[00:05:48] Well I get a lot of e-mails. So that's if that's the title.

[00:05:53] Is there a specific e-mail address for the allies group?

[00:05:57] allies@suu.edu.

[00:05:57] ok so anybody listening. The e-mail address again is allies@suu.edu and the Web site for all the activities and the calendar is www.suu.edu/allies

[00:06:14] That's right. You're exactly right. So we try to keep that updated as much as possible. And one of the really exciting things that we've started in the last couple of years is an ask us anything anonymous link. And we have gotten a lot of contact. It's been very insightful. And it goes beyond even just students people in the community. Anyway so it's a little bit like a dear abby kind of thing you know people don't exactly know if they can talk to anyone they have just an obscure question they're not sure who to ask or they have very personal questions that they want to get some careful to say advice because you know we're not trained mental health workers by any means but there have been many times where we've been able to direct people to specific resources so that's been really nice as well but anyway that's been more popular than I think we anticipated.

[00:07:09] And so again that link is just on our Web site that's right. And it's just a button.

[00:07:14] Ask us anything that's exactly right ask us anything and when it comes to us and we feel the questions among our committee members depending on what the question is. So we try to get the best response possible. That's been really that's been really amazing.

[00:07:28] So any students faculty community members out there and interested in asking some questions or getting some feedback again it's not a specific clinical Yale medical site or anything like that it's more just feedback and communication and pointing you in different directions for maybe answers or if you're looking for more resources you definitely can go to that and ask them medically. Yeah that's exactly right. Great. Well we'll get back to some of that. I want to talk about some of the projects and some of the programs films and things like that that are happening on campus. But just to turn to Chris for a minute. So you work with the Center for Diversity Inclusion and will tell us about that and tell us about any resources or operative two things available in that or anything else that you want to share. Sure yeah.

[00:08:18] And I think it's been interesting to also hear John's perspective in terms of progression because I've only been here for six months here and my position is actually new. So previously the Center for Diversity and Inclusion only had the singular director right. So I think even you know having the two people bouncing ideas off each other has helped us expand a lot of inclusion based programming. We a bit doing so.

[00:08:38] I mean it's such a great energy that you guys have over there and that you're really moving it so far it's so awesome.

[00:08:45] Thank you. Yeah and I actually serve as the advisor now for pride and equality club. So that's the student organization OK for LGBTQ plus identified students on campus. So that's been a really amazing experience because my academic background is actually looking at the intersection of communities of color and LGBTQ plus identities. So that's been an interesting progression of that work to start working with students and start advising them on projects that they would like to be involved with and more broadly I've seen a lot of collaboration across organizations this year. So one of those I think was with angelical Ross coming. That was sort of a collaboration that P.B. was looking to be more representative and the speakers that they were choosing and they asked for input on how can we do LGBTQ plus programming and then also honor that it's Black History Month during February. Right. And I think Angelica was an amazing way to look at her identity of you know intersecting impressions of being a black woman of being a black trans woman and yet what that means in terms of her philosophy how she's gone through those identities and what that can present to this community in terms of learning about her experience how they can be an ally. How can they learn about transgender communities transgender identity. So I think that's one of the ways that. These new inclusive programming initiatives have expanded in terms of new staff new ideas that students have in terms of how they want to you know expands the kinds of conversations that haven't been had on campus which has been wonderful to be a part of.

[00:10:17] I've been really I've been impressed with the growth. I mean I know that we have still distances to go but I've been here 10 years I can't even believe it's been 10 years. Coming from Los Angeles and when I first arrived this conversation wasn't happening as much at all I mean. And so now to see it just is really is really great to see all these collaborations and see the Allies group develop and see the club develop. Tell us more about where students can find out about the club. Should anybody be listening who's not a part of it wants to be a part of it and wants to really get involved.

[00:10:54] What I love about all of the clubs and the Center for Diversity Inclusion and this obviously applies to pride and equality as well as you don't have to belong to that group to join.

[00:11:03] So it's all about culture exchange experiential exchange to allow students to understand you know what these students are going through and to learn a little bit more about how can I be an ally to all of these different marginalized communities. And if they want to join their e-mail paeccouncil@gmail.com. And they also can just come by. The Center for Diversity inclusion that's ST 101. And just chill in their lounge space. Each of the different marginalized groups has had their own little so far. They have computers they have little pamphlets on the community also different intersection of the community. I know that the human rights campaign has a couple of pamphlets from their on being gay and African-American being gay and Latino. Those different identities and how those also manifest in different ways for different people. Yeah but it's a great space to just come in and chill or get to meet people from the community and have honest and open conversation. And

[00:11:58] so I think it's a great space and again that's the center for diversity inclusion and it's right here in the student center and the room number again is 101 101. So it's right there. Oh yeah. Right where you get your ID. So check it out. Turn around behind you and see what's going on. Every time I walk by there's always like a cool conversation happening or a cool hangout zone happening or something like that. Well great that's a good place to start. And now it's time to play some music. As usual I have some weird and wacky stuff to play for you. The first thing I'm going to play is a song called 30 by a group called the weather station. And it's from their album that's also called the weather station. And as you know you're listening to the APEX hour here on KSUU you Thunder ninety one point one.   

[00:16:20] All right. Well welcome back everyone. I'm going to have to hear the end of the little story we were talking about there at the next break. This is Lynn Vartan and you're listening to the APEX hour. We're just having a blast here in the studio. It's Thursday it's 3:00 p.m. It's KSUU thunder ninety one point one. I'm joined in the studio with Chris and John and we're talking about all the different resources available on campus and in our community for our LGBTQ plus partnerships and students. And we're going to continue that by talking about some of the programs that we offer here and some of the things that are possible and some of the things that are coming up. So I'd like to start by asking about the Q Talks broadcast that I think that we are participating in on campus.

[00:17:07] Could you tell us about the yeah this has been exciting. Some of us have been working with equality Utah in the last year. Maybe a little bit longer and Equality Utah if you're not familiar the listeners are familiar work with the state legislature school districts in advocacy and equality issues political action group and they do amazing work. Absolutely amazing work but primarily it's you know in northern Utah. So they've tried to expand their reach and resources into southern Utah. So we've been working with them as kind of a hub of information for them down here anyway. And so they do. Q Talks every few months at the Salt Lake library in the last two. We've been able to livestream here on campus. And so we've kind of started a partnership with them on the Q Talks and they've been really interesting and tentatively scheduled to speak at one in May. Oh great. Now tentatively it's not finalized yet so that would be exciting won't be during the semester but I was just going to say they have such amazing speakers.

[00:18:13] And there you go. I mean I've been really impressed with the content and several people have brought them to me as potential speakers for apex in the future too. And I've been really interested in learning the true story that so cool to hear that you might be doing line in the stream I'm on Facebook LIVE.

[00:18:32] OK. That's what it is. And also we do have a specific feed just for us.

[00:18:37] And so these would be included in the Allies calendar probably. Or how could people find out.

[00:18:43] Definitely. I mean we try to spread the word as far and wide as we can. We have a Facebook page Instagram Twitter our calendar as well. The student groups have their avenues as well. So we try to make it as public as.

[00:18:56] And so if they start with the allies page they can they can find all that stuff like the pages to write speeches for us.

[00:19:04] Right.

[00:19:04] Yeah we have a calendar that goes and populates into the general campus events calendar as well. So any of those events we usually try to reach share on our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well. So any of us an effort to retain inclusion social media are usually pretty easy to find.

[00:19:20] Finding allies on the web page or finding the center for diversity inclusion and then you can just branch out from there cool. I think that's really great that we're doing the livestream. And I think that that the talks are just an amazing program in general.

[00:19:34] Yeah they're really personal and interesting stories. I mean that's kind of the premise is that people just tell their stories and there's not really an agenda or anything. You know it's not a political type event it's just people telling their stories.

[00:19:48] And that's kind of what happened today with Claudia too and I think that that's so powerful and there's just so much kind of warmth and inclusion in that. And people telling their stories and then other people getting connected to the stories from that. So that's just great. And now I understand that we have sort of a trio of things coming up and I'm thinking Pride Week Film Festival and then the believer showing of The Believer movie so maybe let's start with Pride Week and Chris can you tell us about what's going on for Pride Week.

[00:20:20] Yeah it's actually kind of an exclusive announcement for this show I haven't announced it in terms of publicity. We're just finalizing the program right now. That will be March 19th through March 22nd with our ending with our signature event which will be the first Drag Brunch to be held on campus saying oh my god yes.

[00:20:41] So drag queens were up that early. Oh yeah. I know this one's making her get up early. I'll text to make sure she's shows up. So it starts all with a resource fair. So bringing in community groups like allies on campus to show that we do have support groups on campus. We do have these community members who are dedicated to that advocacy having a Center for Diversity Inclusion and having the pride and equality club there so that people not only within the LGBTQ plus community but also outside can learn about how can I direct people to resource and have them on that Tuesday. We'll have a panel. So we're still solidifying who's going to be participating but a little bit of those students and faculty staff voices from the community. So hearing them and uplifting those stories kind of like we've been talking one on how powerful that can be. And Wednesday is actually probably my favorite piece of programming. It's going to be a screening of Paris is burning. So it's a 1990 film talking about the often unknown and talked about black and brown origins of drag culture. So talking about how a lot of the words that the gay community and beyond use now like snatched and. Very voguing in reading and shade all of those come from black and brown gay men in New York City. So talking and uncovering a little bit more of that history and talking about how that intersection has been really important in LGBTQ plus history. Starting with two trans women of color starting the Stonewall riots and then talking about where a lot of these origins of drag also come from black and brown queer identified people. Yeah. So that movie is really powerful. I think it be fascinating.

[00:22:22] And that's going to be part of Pride week it's going to be and I think you said Wednesday evening Wednesday evening and all of these things you can find again the Center for Diversity and Inclusion web page. And that film is called Paris Is Burning.

[00:22:35] That's right. Yeah. And then followed by that Drag Brunch on Thursday. So that'll be a nice addition. That's fantastic.

[00:22:40] And again the dates are March 19th through the 22nd. Great. That's exciting. This is the first this kind of the first full Pride Week that we've posted here.

[00:22:51] They've had pride weeks before but it's never incorporated a Drag Brunch. So that's there has been drag in the past in terms of historical research but there has never been a brunch per se. So that'll be a nice addition to it's also branches kind of part of gay culture now at least they get culture that I was used to living in Minneapolis so it was a thing to go to drag brunches and have mimosas and have drag queens kind of dancing around a tables not on them but

[00:23:17] That awesome is everything on campus   

[00:23:19] Yeah but Drag Brunch will be in the Starlight Room from 11 thirty to one thirty. So tickets are being sold in the CDI for five dollars.

[00:23:25] Oh my gosh. Totally get a ticket for that. So go to the Center for Diversity inclusion here in the Sharwan Smith center. Room 101. I never remember it. One is right. Never Remember room numbers 101 and get your ticket for that. That's amazing. So stay tuned in March and check out all those events on the page after that. I think we're going into a film fest.

[00:23:45] We have a film. First of all starting March 26 you open up my notes here until you know more about it.

[00:23:52] And that's right after it's like we've got this great progression of events going in March. It's going to be really exciting.

[00:23:58] One two three four five films starting March 26 and 27 28 29 and 30th. That's a lot. Yeah we were very fortunate too. We wrote a grant. Andrea Donovan is amazing. And everybody shout out to Andrea because it wouldn't happen without her and Steven Wagner. But you have the Bashan Foundation honored a grant for us and we were able to put together this film festival. So how many films is that five films. Do you have titles. I and share. We're going to starting off with Monday the 20th March 26 with Brokeback Mountain and we're doing talkbacks after the films. Andrea Steven Wagner and I and Jayci Bash are doing a talk back after the film for that one. Then Tuesday we have adventures of Priscilla Queen of the desert on Tuesday March 27th. And then Wednesday the twenty eighth we have Kumo Hima. I'm not sure if I'm even pronouncing right. I don't know that one.

[00:25:05] It's Hawaiian transgender activist and teacher she taught in Hawaiian public school system for a long time and Anu. She just got married recently.

[00:25:18] Congrats to Anu. She will be leading the discussion with Towa and she actually went to coming out coming back not to pronounce it wrong but the school where camelina taught and still teaches I believe is where Anu went to school. So I think it's a nice picture and she identifies as native Hawaiian as well as I think it will be a nice experiential learning process.

[00:25:41] And then you're facilitating?

[00:25:45] Yeah it's a little bit of like chicana lesbian experience and it's sort of this unspoken love story and L.A. So I think it's going to be a beautiful and I don't know that when either I'm going out to check all the cool then last one is pride that's the name of the movie and Dr. Rivera will be facilitating them with Matthew Workers.

[00:26:08] I don't know I'm not sure who he is either. But we're going to learn. That's great. I believe he's the director actually that's what I'm reading.

[00:26:14] Oh how cool. Yeah. So and then let's just briefly tell us the dates it starts March 26 26 through Friday the 30th. And those will all be where I believe it's in the Sharwan Theatre. Yeah same is where the International Film Festival was earlier and those of you who are listeners of the show will remember we talked about that but that's also right here in the student center and it's the Sharwan theater. Are there free and open to the public or.

[00:26:45] Should double check on that. I believe yes they are.

[00:26:48] But I think that's probably right also but we can all you can always go back and check. I'm sure these will be publicized both on the Center for Diversity Inclusion page and on the Allies page and I love the social media associated with it. That's really great that we have that feel first of all coming and then to kind of finish out we have sort of a Big Bang.

[00:27:08] Yeah this is more news hot off the press. April 4th we're we will be screening believer we'll have two shows a matinee and evening show and believer is directed. I have a little synopsis here directed by Don Argus. A believer takes its title from the Imagine Dragons song and features Megan Imagine Dragons from man Dan Reynolds as its superhero. And it kind of tackles the relationship and difficulties between the LDS church and. Same sex marriage in Utah and the bigger concepts of that. It's a it's a tough concept it's a tough topic.

[00:27:47] Yeah and his story has been in the news quite a bit and I know he you know done a lot of sort of talking and outreach and now to have this film and my understanding is that we will be the only Southern Utah showing of this film is that's what I understand too. I think that so stay tuned for that and that's going to be on April 4th. And I think that's going to be in the Great Hall is that right. I don't know. We'll stay tuned to new information. So I don't have all the details. We're like breaking all kinds of. I love it. But I think that that that's going to be in the Great Hall in the hundred conference center. But again one of the big points that I want to really drive home is that you can find out about all of these events on the web page for the center SUU's Center for Diversity and Inclusion or also the SUU allies web page and you can google either of those. To find out more and all the details will be on their calendars you can subscribe to. And all of that kind of thing will be on there as well. All right. I think it's time for another song. This is an album that I'm super passionate about right now. I've played I played a few weeks ago the title track from this album and the artist is called Kaleema. The album is called Nomada and if you were listening a few weeks back I played Nomada but this week I'm going to play you a song. From that same album and it's called Mineral. And once again this is the apex hour and you're listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

[00:33:06] You were listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one and we're back in the studio here at the apex hour. And I'm here with John and Chris and we were getting into a really great conversation and I've kind of like to continue that as we go on into this next segment and that conversation is today we've been really celebrating all of the resources and the projects and the programs that are available.

[00:33:32] But that's not the whole story. I mean there's still a long way to go and there's still a lot of difficulties facing the LGBT community here in Cedar City at SUU and in Southern Utah in general. What concerns you guys or what are the things that you feel were is the growth needed. What are the concerns. What are the things you have on your mind with regards to where we need more growth.

[00:34:04] I think the largest is looking at increasing racial diversity with the pride and equality club here on campus and then looking at you know LGBTQ plus communities of color in Utah looking at that double isolation of living in a state where the predominant population is white and it is also culturally not accepting of LGBTQ plus identities. Right. So I think those who do live at those intersections I think uplifting those voices are also really important in providing them with services that will validate those two identities not just that the transgender identity or the gay identity. They're not monoliths that when you also add this cultural background that adds a different layer to that experience. And I know that there's been a lot of work with immigrant advocate groups up in Salt Lake. Like comunidades unidas Utah they do a lot of work to also ensure that when they're doing undocumented outreach they're also looking at if you have LGBTQIA plus identified partner. The process might look different a little different for sponsorship or things like that. So ensuring that those people who live in those different intersections are also being uplifted and we're not you know overgeneralizing populations right.

[00:35:20] Great isolation. John I know you feel pretty strongly about that part of the top part that piece of the puzzle as well.

[00:35:27] And a you know a tragic consequence a lot of isolation is the extremely high suicide rate among the LGBT population especially trans people and gay men in particular. And one of the things we're trying to do in a larger sense beyond issue you just with a Southern Utah developing a larger southern Utah community is trying to break down that isolation where we aren't quite as isolated as it might seem. I mean we are culturally isolated we're geographically isolated but there are more people here than you might realize and we're trying to get the word out that there are more people here. There is a larger community that maybe people don't realize. And so we're trying to establish a larger community in that sense. We have a Facebook page. Discover pride. Southern Utah. We're working on another Web site. There's always a Pride event every year. But establishing more community events throughout the year not just a once a year pride festival. I mean it's obviously great but we're trying to do more throughout the year. And these are all things being developed right now kind of with that Claudia Bradshaw just walked in..

[00:36:34] I know we have more to add to the conversation. Our guests from earlier today has joined us in the studio. Welcome Claudia. Thank you and we're so glad that you were here. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:36:48] I've loved doing everything. It's been wonderful.

[00:36:51] Yay. And maybe this is we've been talking about lots of resources. Maybe you could give our listeners I know you talked a little bit about it this morning but also give our listeners the opportunity to understand a little bit about what flag offers and the St. George chapter.

[00:37:08] OK. Pflag was started years and years ago. But the main three main purpose is to educate and to support and to advocate for equal treatment.

[00:37:25] That's great. And how is how is that chapter doing today. How are things going.

[00:37:31] Who. It's been a little bit hard for me lately because my husband passed away. And so I haven't been having meetings like I should so I still want to I'm glad to see we have someone up here. They're going to do the tip. I have some meetings and I'll be glad to come up for those.

[00:37:50] Absolutely. We've been breaking all kinds of news today right. We broke the news about the programming for Pride Week and about the showing of The Believer film and earlier today we also sort of broke the news. It's brand new that the P Flag chapter and again this is parent more of a parent support group but really can be anyone. Come on come all. And that that flag chapter is in the works to be started here in Cedar City. And my understanding is that their first official meeting is going to be two weeks or a week from next Monday. So that would be like March 4th somewhere around there if anybody has and I believe it's March 7th the first Wednesday first Wednesday. Wednesday will be in the library from 8 to 9 that evening. Okay perfect. And that's going to be at the Cedar City Library the SU library. OK. Oh wait. No I'm not sure. Oh. I'm not sure. Let me double check yeah. And so again I get everything we've talked about today is going to be on on the Allies website on this center for diversity inclusion. But that's another opportunity that's coming up. And that group is going to be meeting at either the library or the Cedar City library I think at Cedar City Wednesday March 7th at 7pm 8pm. OK great. So that's a brand new thing that started. So we've got that momentum going in Cedar City for the flag chapter which is awesome.

[00:39:20] That is awesome. I would like to have some time one of these times when there's a meeting to discuss coming out and maybe a procedure that would help some. I noticed there's some who are still not out to their families. Yes. And hopefully that what I could do it in a way that could help them so that the family can stay together. That's one of my main goals anyway.

[00:39:48] Personally I hate to see families be torn apart and that's really been one of your main platforms in your work. And that's one of the things that's been so amazing is is really keeping that love that the love in the family strong. Do you have any advice for anybody listening who may not be able to get to these events or any resources that you'd like to share or even just thoughts and ideas about how to start that conversation.

[00:40:19] They're welcome to call me I'm going to give. I'm going to give them my telephone number is 4 3 5 3 1 3 3 3 6 6 and I would be glad to have a conversation with them and maybe recommend books. There's a book that's called coming out an act of love. That means if your child comes out to you he loves you enough he wants to make sure that he's part of the family. That's pretty big.

[00:40:49] Yeah that's an amazing part of it. Well your story has been so powerful and it was so powerful again today. Do you want to share any particular bits that you've been thinking about or that you want our listeners to know. And because this is part of the podcast series which will be available on the Web site after the event and I'd love to give you the opportunity to just say more.

[00:41:18] I would also like to say to the families to. If they if their child comes out to them give it gives them a chance to learn and to get educated. I have books available and some that I could recommend for the parents so that they can read them and not and they don't want to destroy their relationship with their child. Vice versa. So good education on how to do it. My son was so well-prepared when he came out to me it helped me. I'm not sad I didn't make some stupid comments that I did. But he was patient.

[00:42:04] And I think he's here to talk to us and he has something to say.

[00:42:10] So I'm from Chicago and. We arrived here on campus. There is a lot of competing events. Mitt Romney being one of them. And I was staggered at it completely for conference room. Yeah diverse with both allies. Faculty students racial gender. It was all there. Yeah. So impressive. And all of these people care and are engaged and wanted to talk about this. Even if they weren't part of the LGBTQ. Well they are part of the community. Yeah but it's just very impressive that you know there is a strong community here. And I think it's. Pretty galvanized it seems or at least has a lot more potential but very impressive. People shouldn't feel alone.

[00:43:11] And I think that's kind of been one of the themes today that we were just sort of getting into before you arrived and that is that that fighting the hardest part which is that isolation and and you came on campus today as you said from Chicago and you came away with hey you're not alone. We have. There is a vibrant community so anybody listening we just want to you know make sure that that you know that that you're not alone and there is a community here and there's events and there's all kinds of things going on. And if you if you want to get involved or you want to check it out you know we everybody wants you there and you're not alone and there's plenty of love and plenty of compassion awesomeness going on and everything and as I said just to reiterate the places you can find information. The Center for device diversity and inclusion. The Allies web page and they all have social media associated with it. So just googling Suu allies or SUU's Center for Diversity and inclusion. And we're going to take one last musical break. I've got one more song to play for you. And this song is called Tiger and the artist is John Moon. And the album is called Moonshine corner. Check it out and you are listening to the APEX hour right here on Thunder ninety nine point one.

[00:49:07] Right. Well welcome back everyone. We are super excited to have you back here for our last break. We were just chatting over the break about how much things have changed and how awesome that is that things have changed so much. Claudia you were just sharing that story about that was graduation. Here you were just talking about and how different it's been and how now you know you're really enjoying what you're seeing I hope on campus. Awesome yeah. And to see the change. Well I wish we had hours and hours and hours spent. But in our last little bit of time here we're going to do our what's turning you on this week. Everybody's favorite segment. Everybody is kind of giggling here. And this is the time where we talk about what's making you excited and just to kind of share things and it couldn't be anything it could be a movie or a TV show a podcast a book or something else.

[00:49:59] So who would like to start. Chris do you have your thing.

[00:50:03] I'm going to give a very literal answer to the question that you've posed so I'm going to say Gus Kenworthy are gay Olympian Pyongchang's competitor. That's my answer.

[00:50:18] That's perfect. And what's this event again. Does it matter.

[00:50:22] He's extreme skiing. So extreme winter sports. Awesome I love it. Ok cool.

[00:50:26] Great. And how are you. John what's making you what's turning you on this week. Well now the Chris stole mine.

[00:50:34] I'm going to go with a more academic response and thanks to Johnny McClain for the recommendation. But there's a book called Whistling Vivaldi that is just amazing it's a great but it's really incredible. It's about it's stereotype threat and just the background of how it works when you are a marginalized or minority group. How the stereotypes that follow your group affect your performance in the real world.

[00:51:00] And it's really fascinating book that's been actually getting quite a bit of press and the title again is whistling Vivaldi and I can't remember the author's name. Do you remember? Steele I think that sounds about right but Whistling Vivaldi is really a great book and it's been on a lot of the lists and I know it's been talked about on NPR and all these kinds of things so definitely check that out. Great Braden How much do you like

[00:51:29] My mom.

[00:51:30] Ah

[00:51:31] Sounds filthy.

[00:51:34] But it's true she's a rock star so it makes me really happy to see her get that credit because I know what she's all the work she's done how much it matters and then also just being here. When I see you today I mean staggering. What's going on and there are so many resources and stuff happening.

[00:51:55] Wonderful to see you. I love it. Yeah I see you said diversity is sexy. I love that. Bumper stickers that's the new center motto. Oh I love it. Hashtag diversity is sexy. Fascinating. Claudia how about you. What's making you excited this week.

[00:52:15] Just today was so wonderful because we had so many people who did come to to listen and to speak and share. And it was all about love. And so that always is a turn on for me.

[00:52:29] Love is a turn on. That's wonderful. Well I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you Claudia and Braden and John and Chris for spending the hour with me today on the APEX hour. As you all know we are subscribable on iTunes the podcast you can just google SUU APEX or do the search on the podcast and subscribe. Leave us a review. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to see the podcast go into the ratings and get some traction. Also we just want to recap a few of the resources. The Center for Diversity and Inclusion is right here on campus in the Sharwan center room 101 and also on their website. You can find everything calendars social media pages and everything like that. Also on the Allies page which is suu.edu/allies. We want to remember that there's that. Ask us anything button. So get on there it's completely anonymous if you have questions or you're looking for resources or anything like that. And then early in the show Claudia gave you her phone number which you know if you really are looking for some support she is a loving mother to us all. So thank you guys so much for taking the time and spending the hour with me today. It was really great. Thank you. And next week we're going to have Elizabeth Dr. Elizabeth Churchill in the house. The human computer human computer interaction specialists from Google. So stay tuned for next Thursday here on the apex hour. But we're signing off for the week thunder 91.1

[00:54:06] thanks so much for listening to the APEX. hour here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week this is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the APEX Hour here on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:00] You are listening to the A.P.E.X. Hour on SUU Thunder ninety-one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also bring you some new music to listen to and who to turn you on to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex or e-mail us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now, welcome to this week's show here Thunder ninety-one point one.

[00:00:47] All right well welcome back. It's Thursday so that means it's time for the Apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan and you're listening to thunder ninety one point one. Today we had such an awesome experience and such an awesome event. And we have our wonderful guest joining us in the house in the studio today Dr. Elizabeth Churchill is here and already today she has given a public talk to our students staff and faculty. She's visited information design class and also an advanced website and web design class. And now she's here in the studio. So a warm welcome to you Dr. Churchill.

[00:01:26] Hello. Thanks so much for having me here.

[00:01:28] I'd like to start by talking about your background you've been so open with talking about your path and your extremely varied career. And I'd like maybe you to recount that for our new listeners today. I know that you are probably started with psychology but some people don't know maybe that you had a French background.

[00:01:50] Also my French background. Yes well when I left home to go to university originally I had planned to learn French and I went to do French literature. And everybody thought that you know that would be my Korean translation work. You know maybe if I was really lucky I could work in an embassy or something and didn't do translation but I always had a passion for psychology. And so when I arrived at university I walked across campus and asked the psychology department if they would you know admit me. And then I could just read French books on my own. I think my parents were a bit shocked. I haven't looked back.

[00:02:28] Any idea where that passion for psychology came from. I mean were you just really interested in behavior from a young age or watched your friends. I mean any idea where that came from.

[00:02:39] I don't know. I've always been very social. My mom used to say that she didn't know where it came from because she wasn't super social but I've always been very outgoing very sociable and I was actually born and brought up in India. I moved to England and so I think the change of context of seeing how people behave in different places and how people in warm sunny climates are different from people in cold rainy climates. I was you know seven going on eight when I moved. So you know I think I just became fascinated with people as well as just really really enjoying the company of people and so understanding people and helping people and you know just unstrung humanity has always meant a lot to me

[00:03:19] As a 7 or 8-year-old, What did what did you notice about the warm climate and climate. That's fascinating to me that you would even be cognizant of that at that age.

[00:03:28] Oh I don't know. Being in Britain everybody seemed to be just a bit stiffer and a bit more of in a hurry and you know I think there was many different social protocols and you know whenever you go abroad you have to learn what are the polite ways to behave you know how do I how do I make eye contact you know how does body language change. Do people tend to like jam up against you in the metro or do they keep distance. So I think you know when I arrived in England seemed very different yeah. And although you know my parents are British and we'd visited before living there and going to school and being part of the British world yeah just seemed very different from being in India running around in the garden and doing other kinds of things so I think it's very it was a very big difference.

[00:04:19] Fascinating Oh that's so interesting and amazing. And then you've also of course live your live currently in the United States and you've spent time also in Japan. Is that right. Tell me a little bit about. Did you live in Japan.

[00:04:34] No I worked for Japanese company. And so for gosh about eight years I guess I was going back and forth to Japan and spending time over there for the last couple of years very intensively so I would go back and forth very regularly and there was little apartment that I would stay in that the company had. And that was just an amazing experience. Slightly amazing. Yeah.

[00:04:58] And do you feel that you have strong influences from I'm sure from all of those different places. And now also from the U.S. as well.

[00:05:07] Yeah absolutely definitely. But I think the biggest influence is to stay open minded and never to think that there is only one way of doing something and always to be try and be polite and respectful within the terms of the place you are now in. Yeah I was recently in Saudi Arabia and I've never been there before. And you know wearing an abaya and a headscarf was something that is the polite thing to do. Coming from you know very Western sort of background and current environment you know a lot of my friends will did that feel very odd and it sort of did but not really because I wanted very much to be polite and to fit in and to be respectful. And you know it's a different way of dressing up. I like to think that we dress up for the environment where we don't wear the same things to you know a very posh wedding that we do to a football game right. But I think cultural difference is one that we also need to explore and think about and be polite with and engage with. I think it's very very important

[00:06:15] So the human condition and human interaction. It's just been it's kind of a part of your DNA it seems you're just always observing it and aware of it and very interested in have in cohabiting with it. Can you talk a little bit more about how psychology maybe influences your current work and that might be a great sort of introduction to what human or computer interaction is for you today.

[00:06:38] She also psychology's the vast area. So back in the day we used to talk about it as sort of the biological and perceptual which is what does the body do. How do you see. How do you hear that psychology but then there's developmental. How do you develop from a child but how do you develop in learning. And there's more social. So you know how do you interact with others and how do others affect you and how you part of groups. So in the work that I currently do with material design for Google you know everything from what does an interface look like. So think about your phone. You know what can you see. What are the colors do what stands out for you. That's perception. You know if you swipe and move something how do you perceive that how does the voice sound to you. That's psycho acoustics the sound of a voice and how it makes you feel and then we go to things like problem solving and reasoning you know is the information presented in a way that you can read it and you can understand it you know what you're trying to do is the task clear. Have you ever picked up your phone and you've got an app and you open it and then you're like I do not know what to do next right. Psychology will tell you a little bit about what information you need to know in order to do the next thing. So this perception and invitation and problem solving. And then of course we go to the social. So you know if this app doesn't work and you don't get to talk to the person you want to think about social media how is that changing the way you interact with people. Do you do you speak to them more frequently less frequently. How do you feel about yourself and your identity. Do you think that your social media presence puts pressure on you or gives you joy. So we go all the way up to really thinking about the deep psychological emotional states which is what most people think of when they say psychology but actually psychology is all about. From seeing to hearing to listening to meaning to problem solving and how all of that affects your emotional space as well.

[00:08:49] It's just amazing. I mean I've you know I use my phone all the time I think about my phone all the time I think about social media all the time but really I mean you are just looking at all of it from so many different angles and all of them are psychological. It's it's fascinating to think of it from that. It must be so exciting on a day to day. For you I'm sure.

[00:09:11] Oh absolutely absolutely is and you know people who kind of go to bed with their phones and it's like their pet and their best friend. And if you've ever lost a phone there's losing the phone because the information on it. But so many people feel like they've lost a friend and it's that deep crisis.

[00:09:27] The main thing I'd like to turn to some of the positions that you've held and so our listeners can kind of get a little more of a trajectory of some of the companies that you work for of course we know you currently work for Google as one of the directors of user experience. And can you maybe talk a little bit more about the specifics of that position. I know we just kind of went over the concepts but what does a Director of User Experience do and how has that position evolved. I know it's evolved quite a bit.

[00:09:57] Yes so what we do what I do most of the time is I have a fantastic group that works for me with many different skill sets from software engineering to design to experimental to anthropology and ethnography because we want to deeply understand this experience of using apps and phones. And other devices. But my job is really to come in make sure everybody is clear about what they need to do to partner with product manages to with my V.P to see where we're going to with the director of the material design system to see where the strategy is so we build that together. And to think about the long term future and then to help the people in my team understand what they need to do next get the resources for them to help my boss understand why I need additional resources. Maybe more people to do certain things and to basically prioritize it was a huge amount of my work is just listening watching understanding where we are with regard to goals looking at goals and seeing whether they're realistic or not at all or in certain timeframes. I mean readjusting is needed if the resources are available or not available but also just real people development. So for me a big part of my job is making sure every single person on my team understands what they're doing why they're doing it that it's important that it's part of their career trajectory as well as part of the product success and Google's success so that part of a bigger thing in the corporation even if what they feel they're doing is small and it's really critical but also part of we are part of their career and their life going forward. So it has to be mutually beneficial and growth on both sides. And my best people my best people are going to grow and they're going to go on and that is sad but it's also exactly what needs to happen right.

[00:11:59] It's a little bit of that I know you've had some path in academia. It's a little bit of that academia and that mentorship creeping back and it sounds like I really believe in I believe it's.

[00:12:10] It's a manager's role to amplify the people that work for them and to learn from the people that work for them. It just that's what you should do and have to do and at a place like Google you are resourced to do. Google is very very very supportive of managers and managers developing management developing people.

[00:12:31] The Director of User Experience position is relatively new and has expanded if I have heard correctly. Can you tell us a little bit about that.

[00:12:40] Yes so we had a lot of really great user experience professionals. But the director level there's only been a couple there were a couple of people appointed to director level which is the highest level you can get and user experience. A couple of years ago when I came in as the first person from the outside to get that position and now I think we're up to 5 now maybe even more because we're just you know we had a round of promotions. But Google is investing enormously in this user angle in the human centered angle and recognizing that what we need is to bring leadership in from other companies and grow our own leadership. So it might be more than five now. Last time I looked it was 5 but it's really exciting for me to see that Google is promoting people and hiring people into this role at very senior levels.

[00:13:32] That's fantastic. Well it's time for a musical break but when we come back I'd like to continue the conversation about team building teams managing teams. I've been I've been eating this information up because I'm really interested in management and leadership and teamwork. So stay tuned to continue for that. Again you're listening to thunder ninety one point one. This is Lynn Vartan and I've got a few songs to play for you today. The first one is called Me voy. And it's this amazing group called Ibeyi that I'm really turned on and passionate about. And so this is Me Voy by Ibeyi. And this is the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point

[00:17:16] All right well welcome back. This is the apex hour. I'm Lynn Vartan. This is Thunder ninety one point one and we are joined in the studio by the amazing Dr. Elizabeth Churchill.

[00:17:27] Welcome back. And one of the things I'd like to talk about was one of the topics we touched on before which was teamwork a lot of what you do is building teams managing teams supporting teams and then working of course with teams to make amazing things happen. Can you talk a little bit about your style of leadership and I know you've been saying it may be a little different than the average Joe but it sounds amazing to me. And so the kinds of things you think about in terms of your leadership and your team and how that all works.

[00:18:02] Yeah sure. I tend to bring people into my team who are very curious and who are sort of self starters in some way that they're desperate to learn and they want to learn. I also really emphasize collaboration. So I want you to be really good at what you do and I'm going to support you to develop. We have a job to do for Google but I also want you to give you an assist to your teammates. So I strongly foster collaboration and my sort of way of thinking about things is that you know you have a portfolio of work that you do and say 60 percent of the work is very immediate product focused. And we don't really have impact we're going to get something done 20 percent should be things that are a little bit further out for you and 20 percent should really be about you know you developing skills and the sensibility and the perspective that will be the future for you and for us potentially. So always about growing and I try to have the team be as diverse as possible and bring their ideas in. I love to talk and I can be a bit loud so I always tell my folks you know you get to tell me to simmer down. I like to encourage independence but collaboration and encourage the idea that you work on my team and you develop and you develop. But if you get to the point where you feel you've grown beyond all your interests have changed. Then we're all going to work together to get you into the next space. The next thing you want to do. So I really believe in the team but I try to keep a focus on the individual and the team so that they feel they belong and they can grow and they are strongly contributing.

[00:19:45] I love the duality that you foster with confidence and curiosity. I just think that as a teacher I really connect with that I really love that as a message for leadership. I know the communication component is also a big aspect of things for you. Can you talk about how that manifests itself in your team and how you helped to lead that.

[00:20:10] So a lot of people come in and they're very good at what they do and they think that their job is to do what they do and they then get surprised that actually they need to spend you know a big chunk of that job actually communicating. So you know you might come in and you're a great designer and you know your preference might be to design all day. And you know you want to not talk to other people because that's who you are. And I respect that but I'm going to try and push you to start talking to others about your craft and sharing your rationale for what you do. Sharing your rationale will allow you to be reflective but sharing it will also give you confidence when you see others appreciate it. It will develop your rhetorical skills when you see what lens and what doesn't. And it will help the whole team to get more reach if you like. Now you could be the kind of person who comes in and you're like hey I only want to do the design work 40 percent time and that is great. I will help you figure out where you want to communicate and how and where you can bring your skills to the communication design as well. So people are different. But the biggest challenge with you know young folk coming in is often they think they've got the job to do the thing they're trained in and they have. But they've also got the job to communicate what they're trained in and help level others up and to share the products of their labor and to get those out. And that's the way your team will have big reach. You know I can't be the only spokesperson for my work and for the team's work the team you know the junior people are going to be having lunch with others. They're going to be you know having opportunities to spread the work in other cohorts in other social situations they can go to you know happy hour Mix's and spreading the word and knowing that they're an ambassador for their work but also for the team's work amplifies our presence and effectiveness. So helping them build confidence that that is their role. Them have the skills to do the communication and the rhetorical skills to make sure that their great ideas land is beneficial to all.

[00:22:24] That's fantastic. I love it. I'd like to revisit the end of our we had a luncheon today and we were doing a little bit of talk back and you had this great I asked you a question about qualities or traits that you look for in team members or things that you think that undergraduates were mostly an undergraduate institution here but things that you think that undergraduates or even graduate school grad students could be developing. And I loved and I know some of it's an overlap from the previous question but I loved these four words that if you hope for you remember I can remind you but these four qualities I thought were really special if you could share them with our audience.

[00:23:08] Sure. So it's curiosity and confidence yet vanity and voyeurism. Love it. And so the curiosity is you know always keep curious. Often you know when you've had great teachers and you really respect them you know you can think that what they say is the answer and that can dull your natural curiosity because you think the answers are laid out for you. You have to bring your curiosity your you know alternative perspective feed that curiosity always ask questions. Don't think you have to know you know. Be curious. Confidence is related to that because I find a lot of young people come in and they're very very good but they don't have the confidence to own that curiosity and the skill and to be able to say to me a much more senior person that is interesting. Why do you think that. Can you help me understand that or here's a thought that I had. What do you think of that. So you know every encounter needs to be another opportunity for you to learn so you're curious you get to learn your respectful thoughtful and you're not treating the other person no matter how senior as if they have all the answers that you have to run away and execute on. You know I want you to be able to bring challenge in the best sense of the word to things and the vanity and voyeurism is you know people we have to care about ourselves. We have to have some self nurturing. We have to celebrate our achievements. Yes. And you know it's called sort of vanity me back in the day in Britain it was like if you talked about yourself you vain by vanity I mean take pride in yourself and care. Don't be prideful but be be proud of your achievements and let others be proud with you. Yes. And you take away a little bit of a hey high five me. You know I'm really kind of lovely humble and bracing way and voyeurism is all human beings are curious about others so watch others see who you want to emulate and who you admire. You know watch how they do what they do try and emulate try and learn from them. You know nobody in the world is the first person to do pretty much anything. You don't have to be the lone rugged individual. You can learn from others celebrate their achievements and take on some kind of doppelganger ness of them and build yourself and learn and then carve your own path from what you've learned from them. And so I think vanity is sort of. Nurturing self voyeurism is observing and nurturing others and learning from others.

[00:25:53] Yeah I love those four. I just love those traits. I'm definitely going to steal them and use those words in my teaching because of course it's crossed discipline. I mean that can just as easily apply to music instruction which is what I do. And as it can to what you do in your discipline as well. So thank you so much for those concepts. Absolutely. I like to now talk a little bit. I know I understand that you have had a fantastic experience with eBay and you think very fondly of your time at eBay. Tell me a little bit about that time and about what made it so special for you.

[00:26:32] Well it was about people really so closely you know the team I worked with was there were amazing but also you know eBay was the first social platform. It was the first place it was the first marketplace. It was the first social platform right. And eBay was putting people in touch with each other around goods you know the circulation of goods things that you don't want anymore. But I do. So it's about value and it's about honoring things it's about valuing materiality and a really good way. So all of this sort of sustainability stuff all of the value stuff you pass something on that had value to you. Now it has value to someone else. EBay is also you know it's allowed a lot of people who otherwise would not have been able to have businesses create businesses. There are a lot of wonderful stories of you know single moms who sold stuff on eBay and made a little bit of money and kept themselves going as a mom and pop stores who basically you know they were maybe in some way very rural but they got to have outreach and a customer base way beyond. So you know eBay has seen its ups and downs but as a value system as a company that really is trying to circulate goods that exist and have meaning for people and put people in touch with people. I just found it really exciting to be part of that.

[00:27:59] Yeah. Do you have a favorite memory from your time there or a favorite story. I'm sure there are many.

[00:28:06] So I have a favorite story which was about somebody had created- game of thrones is a big thing. I personally don't watch it as a big thing and so somebody had created a chain Almah guinea pig where hamsters guinea pigs hamsters suit. Before the actual animal the animal. And they put it on eBay and somebody picked this up and it became a meme that just went around because it was so well made and so silly and so fun that somebody picked it up and it went in for charity. And so it started to snowball and snowball and I think they made like 20000 dollars for this guinea pig chain mail outfit which went to charity fantastic there were things like that happening on eBay every day all day quirky things fun things and stories about you know I found a plate that you know my mom would have had. And now I have the plate and it reminds me of my mum. And you know I never thought I'd see a plate like that again. So it's really deeply emotional as well as super practical.

[00:29:14] And it's those stories that really warms my heart that's just beautiful and you have just such wonderful memories from there it sounds like your I think it was your first major position was at Fuji Xerox. Can you tell us a little bit about how how that was and the transition from being a student into that position or into your first sort of full time thing.

[00:29:39] Well I start with my studentship went be a postdoc so did my Ph.D. and I did my postdoc and then I really wanted to go into academia. But Fuji Xerox as a company had a research lab called effects pal effects pal instead of Cavalli and I knew people who sort of were affiliated to it. And so I was all set to go into academia. But I'd been working on virtual environments and remote communication and eFax Powell had a role they wanted to try and build communication between researchers in California and researchers in Japan just outside Tokyo. And so I was one of the few people at that time who had been thinking about these virtual environments and chat spaces and so forth for communication and collaboration. And so they asked me to come over and I came over and built a research team and worked with the most senior researchers to build communication tools to allow collaboration between researchers in California and in Japan. That was how that all started. My intention had always been to get back into academia but I've expelled was very supportive and they allowed me to keep publishing and doing work with students. And I continued to do classes here and there and supervised students. So I kind of got the best both worlds.

[00:30:59] That's perfect. Well on that note time for another musical break. The next song that I have for you is the incredible Esperanza Spalding. And this is the song "I know you know" which is that's the title of the song but most of you probably have heard this song. It's one of her sort of breakout hits and she's just the amazing bass player jazzer singer also songwriter but just incredible artist who has taken the world by storm in the past few years so this is Esperanza Spalding the song is "I know you know" and you are listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

[00:35:21] OK well welcome back. This is the apex hour. My name is Lynn Vartan and I am joined in the studio with the lovely Dr. Elizabeth Churchill. Welcome back. So now I'd like to get into some more sort of conceptual things that we've been talking about over the last couple of days but I think are really interesting and really timely and as a woman in computing in science in psychology. Can you talk a little bit about this especially in the context of today. Me too and everything. Can you talk a little bit about your experiences. How difficult if they've been difficult maybe how things have changed or not. Just talk a little bit about your experience as a woman in your in your field.

[00:36:07] Yeah sure. You know there's certainly been challenges. I think things are changing. And you know when I started out so there's a really interesting blog post I read recently when I started out right at the beginning I was doing artificial intelligence and you know that was my mustards and there were very few women and it was challenging and it was challenging because of my confidence and I just felt like I wasn't as loud and as brash and I couldn't push. I felt like an impostor. I felt like I didn't really belong now for various reasons. As the Masters as I went on through my masters the balance changed. More women came in and I really noticed a difference. And so that experience has always colored my mind which is that whoever you are women tend to be in a minority in tech. But if you're any kind of minority in any situation where the dominant group in this instance white men tend to be associated with tech. But if you're anyone who doesn't feel like you fully belong you're doing more work you're doing emotional labor just to feel like you belong. And so you know that experience very early on has always colored my mind. And I've certainly had challenges and I've certainly seen other people have challenges. There are extreme challenges which led to the beginning of the me too right. There's you know physical violence and then there's emotional violence and then there's. Not being given the same resources as others and then being blocked. Right.

[00:37:56] And I read a thing recently about women CEOs are often set up to fail by that brought in to companies that are already failing. There's also data that shows that women CEOs have less latitude to take risks and are asked to show success metrics faster than men CEOs. So. These biases are endemic that that everywhere and they are more or less insidious. And so as a woman in any kind of industry I think there's a range of challenges we face. And I think me too is a way of starting a dialogue and it's a way of getting awareness raised where we are going to see real change is in infrastructure insisting on parity when it comes to pay insisting on fairness when it comes to promotion and insisting on emotional intelligence being leveled up for everybody including ourselves. So as a woman I need to often engage in questioning myself as to whether. Am I bringing fear to the table. Am I bringing judgment to the table or is this actually about gender and so self reflection and personal emotional intelligence has to be in tandem with leveling up the emotional intelligence of the organizations and the culture. So I think we have a responsibility to bring sound to bring awareness and to bring our own learning and to help teach others.

[00:39:39] I love that and I love your concept of the importance of emotional intelligence and how how that responsibility does fall to the individual in order to battle some of these larger issues. So that's really amazing. I am completely enamored with your writing on your website. And I I know that you were joking a little bit that it's maybe not quite as up to date as you might like but I just have been so I've been enjoying it as well. And your titles are amazing. And just to kind of they have just sort of a twinkle in them and just to kind of share some with with our listeners and definitely hopefully entice you to want to read more. But one title you have is giggling gossiping and gifting essentials for social connection. Another one is tipping a cow. And other Internet folklore. And then another one. Mind the Gap identifying gaps in online dating services. Your writing is just so witty and so funny and just so sharp at the same time. There was one article that really caught my attention and we've been talking a little bit about and it has to do with cheer and about cheer and positivity as a concept. And I think it's maybe interesting to tie it back to your confidence discussion because you are talking about a lot. We've talked about confidence about that. That vanity of building yourself up. But maybe if you could reflect on on cheer or being cheerful and if you have any thoughts about that either about the blog or how you feel about it now as you like.

[00:41:25] Yeah absolutely. Well I think it's sort of came about because I was thinking about everyone worrying that they have to feel cheerful on social media. Yeah. And I think that's an enormous pressure. And you know I do think you know washing all of one's laundry in public might be not the best move forward but I do think being allowed to be honest and have a landscape of being again emotional and emotional intelligence about how one presents that and asks for help or whatever is really important. And so this idea that we have to be cheerful is just really oppressive I think. But you know equally I think reading a lot of stuff online that's not cheerful that say from the news not even on social media. I've given myself permission to only read the news at certain times and only when I'm feeling robust enough to do it than say I know I just think sometimes it's just so depressing. And I want to know what's going on. But I try not to feed on the stuff that's going to actually make me really unhappy. Because one of the things we know is that the most effective advocates for change in positive sense are the people who manage their own energy. Oh wow. That's. You know if you're just reading negative negative negative negative it will bring you down because you are an empathic kind sweet person. You can't help but not cry when you hear about some of the terrible things that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Right now. Just as having to prove yourself as cheerful all the time on line is just really draining. Taking on negative stuff all of the time is really draining. And so I think staying cheerful but realistic back to the confidence and self nurturing is critical in these times because the best advocates the best pioneers the best you know anything are the people who can bring a positive attitude while having a realistic grass and being cheerful is a huge thing. Every psychological study will tell you that the best therapy for you know your abs as well as your heart and head is laughter Yeah. So be with your friends laugh and even if something terrible is going on in the world I acknowledge it noted and then bake in some laughter into your day and some cheer don't go down the rabbit hole of negative review after review after review of the news don't go down the rabbit hole of presenting yourself in authentically as cheerful but go out with your friends and genuinely generate real cheer.

[00:44:11] That's a that's great advice. Do you have any other suggestions for. I mean how do you mean is that the answer just getting out with friends. Do you have any other suggestions for if you feel if you're feeling yourself sort of being pulled down that rabbit hole. What other things. What are the tools to use youth.

[00:44:30] I really do just turn off media like I turn the computer off or turn the phone off and we were talking at lunch. But you know I believe in trying to meditate. And by meditating I just mean sit away in a quiet space and put your bones on the ground as they say and ground your body go for a walk do some exercise because you know with the human body and brain the brain is really powerful and it will not stop. That frontal lobe will keep going but you are a body and your center body needs to go out and be taken for a walk. You need to come back into the body and that's what laughter will do it will bring you can't laugh without your belly moving you know and just you know if it's walk cool or swim or yoga you know when you're feeling really really stressed and you think you have to do everything that's the time that's the time when you need that 10 minute 15 minute 20 minute 15 minutes minimum break away go for a walk breathe stand up and reach your arms out and around and then go and find someone to giggle with.

[00:45:47] Oh my gosh I love that. Well speaking of giggling in my voracious reading of your website and blog I found a song that related to this that you nicknamed your ear worm that kind of gets in there. And so we're going to play that song for you today. It's called "Reasons to be cheerful". Part 3 and the artist is Ian Dury and the blockheads and this is the APEX hour I'm here. This is Lynn Vartan. I'm here with Dr. Elizabeth Churchill and you're listening to Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:51:03] OK. Well welcome back to the apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan and you were listening to thunder ninety one point one. That song was reasons to be cheerful. Part 3 by Ian Dury and the blockheads inspired by my guest Dr. Elizabeth Churchill who likes that song not only for the catchy tune but also the sentiment reasons to be cheerful we were having a great conversation about reasons to be cheerful. So welcome back Dr. Churchill. Thanks. We just have maybe five minutes left and this is what most people are saying is their favorite part of the show which is what's turning you on this week. So is there something that could be a book or TV show or a movie or a podcast or an album or anything. What's what's turning you on. What's exciting you this week.

[00:51:54] Gosh there's lots exciting may I have to say. So one of the most exciting things was flying in yesterday to Salt Lake. Oh my gosh the mountains and the views. I'm a wannabe photographer. And so when I see a beautiful scene like that it was so amazing and that will stick with me you know in my mind. So that sort of inspired me to think about doing some more photography. I also I'm late to the game but I started watching the crown.

[00:52:23] Oh I've heard amazing things I haven't watched it yet.

[00:52:25] Oh it's very well done. I highly recommend it. So you know. Yes I really love the characters and the character development so I have to kind of try to not focus on that. Go back to work of an evening these days. I'm also reading a book called Design meets disability. Oh and it's a very nice book from MIT Press. And you know I've been thinking a lot right now about the idea of how design gets pushed by people who are able to do a little bit of my talk today. That is a really nicely written book and it's pretty accessible but it also sort of draws in all kinds of art. So the intersection of art technology and design and the way in which artists are really pushing the boundaries to inspire us to think differently. That's been very much on my mind this week in terms of my reading great

[00:53:19] And what with the name of that book. And one more time.

[00:53:20] Design meets disability

[00:53:22] Design meets disability. And then I have one last question that I'd like to ask people and that is can you think of something that is what you would call the best advice that you were ever given that you could share with us

[00:53:35] It's some advice that many people have given me all through my life and they've used various words and terms but it's chill out. Elizabeth just chill out. I tend to be a little bit enthusiastic about everything and running in five directions. People often just say hey hey Elizabeth just chill out. Just take a breath.

[00:53:57] I love it. I think we all could use that advice. I know. I know I can. I know I'm sure my team is saying yes you can. So I'm going to think that same thing to chill out Lynn. So with that we will say goodbye for for the week. I first want to just say thank you so much for the generosity of your time and for just the outreach to our students to our community to our faculty and just being so generous with them sharing your thoughts and ideas. So thank you so much for being here.

[00:54:29] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

[00:54:32] Thanks. And that's the end of our show today. If you are on campus I want to make a shout out to another event that starting in about five minutes and it's a panel discussion about the humanities and the official title is Why do the humanities matter. And I will be running over there to be a part of that panel discussion along with several other faculty members on campus. It's in the Hunter Conference Center and the Yankee Meadows room. And it starts at 4:00 p.m. and so if you're around and want to find out what's the deal with the humanities why are they important. Why should we care. Or if you're an advocate for the Humanities and want to say yes this is the reasons why we care. Come and join us in the Great in the hundred conference center in the Aiki Meadows room. So that's it for today for the APX hour we're going to sign off and say thank you for listening. And this is thunder. Ninety one point one KSUU.

[00:55:28] Thank you so much for listening to the hours here. Ninety one. Point. Ninety again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week this is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the Apex Hour here Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:01] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on SUU's Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. on the web at suu.edu/apex or e-mail us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now welcome to this week's show here on thunder ninety one point one

[00:00:49] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on KSUU thunder ninety one point one. This is kind of an exciting day for me because this is actually my very first best of show. I am not on campus today I'm in Los Angeles performing some concerts and playing some really cool contemporary modern music for piano and percussion and doing some masterclasses. And so for the APEX hour today we're going to visit some of our favorite moments from the past. The first one that I have for you is one of our first speakers from fall of 2017. And that's Lemon Anderson. Lemon came on campus in partial celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and read some of his poetry and talked about his life. And it was just a really really cool exchange of ideas and hearing his story. So I have a little bit of that for you. Stay tuned right here on the apex hour KSUU Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:01:49] There is an old man by the river blue denim in his Flo if Martha's Vineyard had a stepchild I would be there with the rusty picket fence glow Desert Santa will Black Beach spring a ghetto Shakespearean clown Little up a horror fanatic daydreaming of beautiful girls from skid row with black eyes singing downtown New York in exile frozen Japan kicks Jordan stacked next to a collection of homies locked up posing for Polaroid flicks. Suffering from visions of ganja sucking the success out of pain starting at dirty Notkin seeing the art in a coffee-stained cradle to the grave. Distant coolness. Red white M0 730 rudeness. Southside outlaw flying cut sleeves 80 blocks from Tiffany's on heavy rotated Yutu bleeds blood flooded with anti-social justice Smith and gunpowder out of the barrel of a propaganda musket. Immediate descendant of the cool Vietnam draft. Boricua Mixed with Lower East Side how resulted in the aftermath. From the house step, it fetches it, Bert, down Lyricist Lounge poet laureate of the old hip-hop underground song of drama child of the Bard in English soldier at Agincourt either die or go hard kill or be modded. Iambic pentameter on a regular. So the gift goes Parver and Aristotle thug dealing with the will. Plato was the enemy of the soul like a death chant deal. Watch me and my 1983 bop gee New York City's son of LQ's, Union Square and the Roxy's, watch how these American idol Simmons try to stop me. Hate me when I walk through the door. love me when I blow up the spot please. When they first see me they never take me serious. Till they find out my talent don't come from the color of my skin but for my wholehearted experience. Watch me. Me and my story. How I live it if you was my mother every morning. I would be walking you to the methadone clinic. My older brother's in Iraq killing corner store Arabs America  I  don't forgive it. So watch me deal with the ridicule and shame the worst headache and pain and how i maintained is by turning myself into the king of the poetry spit fame. now watch me turn my pennies into dimes my darkness into shine. Many of my mistakes into nailing it forever one time. Watch me make love to hard work ethics cause game without ambition is game never respected these and not words these are my blood sweat and tears from the real side of Franklin County to them Sunset Park piers and my homies in the prison yard still finishing the years because I'm an ex-con but an ex-con has always been a friend to me. Don't discriminate cause it was written that even Jesus had a felony. So Watch me be the artist who was born ready-made, Watch me take my lemons and make the best goddamn lemonade.Thank you

[00:05:13] Thank you so much. Oh my God. Please have a seat. I know we'll have more more of that coming. Hello everyone. That's cool right. So I'd like to start out with a question. I know you get asked all the time and people have been telling me oh my gosh he has such a cool name. And so can you tell us the story by your name. Yeah.

[00:05:40] So my brothers are 100 percent Puerto Rican and they're also brown Puerto Rican and my father is Norwegian so I came out really blond and white and I had a really fairly large head. I had this head but on a little body so they called me Lemonhead and I was young and then I met them halfway I said look can we just take the head out and call me Lemon and this will work out. And eventually everyone just called me Lemon. My real name is Andre. And as a performer do you feel that those are two different personas Lemon and Andrew.

[00:06:17] Andrew doesn't exist anymore really only like on paper when a cop pulls me over and I have to give my license I can't tell them my name is Lemon or you know usually paperwork. I don't really identify with what Andrew means I don't like it was only used in school even in school when teachers called me Lemon. I was Lemon for a long time and I wasn't Anderson but I wanted to honor my father. As I started to mature as an artist I felt like you know Anderson was good but great. It also is an opportunity to come a change. You know it was I guess it was a psyche thing I kinda psyched myself out and said maybe I'm not lemon anymore. I'm LEMON Anderson. Great.

[00:07:00] And I know we're going to talk about that the way we we've been talking a lot the last couple of days about sort of how to structure this and and lemon in your in his generosity was just. You know I don't want to just get up and talk about myself. I don't want. I really want to be what you guys need or what you would like to hear. And so we started talking about some topics that might be you know important or interesting. And so he sort of has let this evolve into this sort of extended interview type session and then we're going to mix and match mix in some performance along with it and hit some themes that are really compelling to me in your work and in our conversation. So the first thing I kind of like to go out is is success and hard work. That's something that I've seen in your in your work a lot and that you've talked about even just now you mentioned work ethic and hard work. What-what-what is a success to you right now? I have children. So for a long time I thought you had to be successful in order to be happy. And my child once told me that I put too much pressure on her about being successful. And I learned from her right as I had no idea because you know I worked really hard so she didn't have to repeat what I had to go through as a young man or as a kid. And success you know it's like this you have to just love the process because the results belong to you. Ah you know you just got to work and you got to love to work or you got to fall in love with working psycho relationship and you got to make that relationship work.

[00:08:38] It's your partner. Yeah the process the results don't belong to you because you can have a really great show that no one wants to come see. I know the feeling you can have a really successful idea that no one wants to buy what you just created it and that's you know that's the real success. The process you have to fall in love with the process. It took a while to learn that and that's what I was talking to you guys. I was going to ask you that was it. Was that something that hit you all in one fell swoop or did that evolve that concept of falling in love with it how did you come to that realization. I was tired of being talented. I was just like super talented and everyone called me talented but I didn't have a body of work. And I felt like the artists that I respect and look up to had a body of work and they weren't talented you know they weren't the cool guys they were just the guys had like projects. And this started happening after Def Poetry when you know we were given this opportunity to be on a major stage and have a great platform like HBO for so long. But it really didn't define true work. When I look behind the camera there was the camera guy the DP that can HD the lighting guy the sound guy and those guys had long careers and I wanted that I wanted this thing to last forever. I love it. So I started to pull back a little bit and I was taught I took Shakespeare. Yeah.

[00:10:06] We'll talk about that but I just learned that. What is it that I want to I want to be talented or do I want to be just working. And I fell in love with like you know the process like I want to be working in order to work. You have to put out work. You have to have specs and people have to see your work instead of who you are because who you are is going to pretty much fade away. You know what or what. You know artists I think we define great musicians by a body of work and not just one job. All right so that's that. I think that's amazing. I like that a lot. Looking through the lens of this audience we have you know students here faculty here community members here. What advice do you have if any for them on how to fall in love with the process or how to fall in love or find that. Is there anything we can do to help each other. Sure yeah. This has to be a lifestyle for you right. You know your work your dreams. First of all your dreams. Be careful who you share them with. That's right. You know why I say that you have because you might be really ambitious and no one will understand like you know my uncles and my family didn't understand that I wanted to always be on stage. They didn't get it. Like it's not someone any it's not something anyone did in my family. So I had to be real careful when sharing that.

[00:11:28] And then I had to make a lifestyle out of it. That's the point I had to be around other artists who were doing it every day. And that's all I know. All I wanted to be around. And then the lifestyle really started to shake the artist of Lemon and not Lemmon from the hood or not like that it was like oh Lemmon really knows his work. Right. So some of the artists that I started to hang around with and make a lifestyle with great readers great you know he's studied great poets. And instead of just writing poetry I actually studied poetry. And when you study it like a great musician a great musician is an accumulation of other musicians. And then he defined their own style. And that was really successful because of that and all of the projects that I have worked on. I've always had a great history of like the work I do. Right. So and still now to this day I was just in Montana building and it was solo show and I was able to see all the new poems that I'm writing with poets behind them you know it was like say Coosa and it was here. You know A.K. was there. Willie prodromal was here I started to see other poets in the poems and it was helpful for me and not having writer's block. Yeah just to steal from them yeah. To go along that I mean I think that's a beautiful concept to think about to surround yourself with people who are doing it to develop that lifestyle. That's something you did a lot in the beginning.

[00:12:58] I got into the stuff which you sort of really like doggedly followed some mentors or leaders. Can you talk about that experience and that that opening again through the lens of hoping to inspire some people here to maybe think about doing that for themselves too. Yeah so I really didn't have a lot of problems. I just knew a lot of poems that were written by other poets and that came because I met a man named Reggie Gaines who had won a Tony Award as a spoken word artist and I thought wow how did you do that. Most of the spoken word artist I do. Let me just move to the side. I'm an actor. Most of the spoken word artist I knew we're just slamming poetry on Friday nights and they would compete against each other. I wasn't I was too sensitive for competition at least at that point. You know I just and I knew that with tricking their poems to win. Right. It was like Oh it's I can see it strategic. And it's not as honest as I would do as an artist as a poet. But I had no poetry. So when HBO came up I was I walked into the room of the first season and the pilot was being shot and I noticed that these guys were going for each other's heads as poets. Everyone was fighting for that slot right. Wow. Because you were guaranteed it wasn't guaranteed that your poem would get on the show. So everyone was slamming against each other in front of Russell Simmons and Stan Leighton. And I literally wanted to walk out because this is not what I do right.

[00:14:34] I don't even have enough poems and it's like I can't compete with these guys. So I literally jumped on stage and read a poem that wasn't mine. It was by Etheridge Knight and it was called Shine the stoker. You know at the mercy of I remember it you know as white America sings about the unsinkable Molly Brown tell me who was the Titanic going night. It was like it was just this bravado old style of poetry. But I had no idea that the director and producer his father read him that poem as a kid. Oh wow. And so he he sees this guy know I was really young you know I was like I look extreme and I was about 21 and I looked like I'm 16. So I'm reading this poem. It's been around for 100 years and he's poor me to decide. It was just like most knowing that Richard Pryor liked it. You know just like it started getting some buzz and he put me in the pilot and then I became connected to the process of making the show better instead of just being a poet. Oh that's amazing. See what happens. I was like he would always pull me to the side and say Matt always puts me five minutes on stage. Love it. Just give me a minute. We just do a minute column. That was enough the cover of Time and it was enough for them to use it as a trailer. So I wasn't the best poet on Def Poetry.

[00:15:57] I was the most successful poet poetry and that worked in the long run because I ended up with the most episodes and the most poems on that show for seven years. I love that about you because what you said you were trying to make the project better rather than just being the best poet there. Yeah that seems like that has never failed you. Is that still kind of your motto. That's awesome. Love it.

[00:16:18] I have a solo show but I have a director and I have a developer and I have a dramaturge and I have a lighting and sound guy a stage manager and all of these people have gone to schools. I've never attended so you know my director went to Yale. Emily went to Emerson. Rob went to Princeton so I could sit with these guys when I'm writing my show and soak up all of the plays they worked on and talk about well what was what was good about this play and these character choices and that also benefited me when I started to write commercials. So I worked for Nike and bull and I write commercials with them but it's always the playwright that goes wrong. I never get rid of the poet or the playwright. It's always with me. So my job is that I'm a poet. I just happen to do all these other things all right. Well that was an example of one of the apex events from September of 2007 team. I can't believe it we're in 2018 and that was lemon Anderson. He spent a couple of days here on campus and just did incredible poetry readings and met with different classes and different group of students.

[00:17:31] And as you can hear from the interview is just a great artist and was willing to tell his story. Another part of this show is going to be to try to turn you on to some new and different music. Maybe get you interested in some different genres or different styles things that maybe you haven't heard before. So we're going to start with a piece called beauty is and this is being performed by the Opera cabal ensemble.

[00:21:01] Well we are back here KSUU thunder ninety one point one. My name is Lynn Vartan and I am the director of apex events and this is the apex hour. That song you just heard was called Beauty is performed by the Opera cabal ensemble. And if you're interested in that music the album is called passionate pilgrim and it's available on Apple Apple Music or Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. We have another past moment for you another special moment from last semester and that is our awesome guests Maria Hinojosa. She is the absolute fierce NPR host and journalist and just all around amazing person and we really enjoyed having her on campus so let's listen to a little bit from her presentation on campus and this was in October and this is Maureen Hosa and her visit to Southern Utah University and this is KSU youth under ninety one point one what we have in our country though is this vibrant culture of critique and of criticism.

[00:22:11] And in fact of our historic and patriotic duty to always question which is in fact why one of my favorite thoughts about patriotism comes from a character who is imminently and could only exist in the United States of America because it could only be in our country that you could be a man born into slavery be an enslaved child. Frederick Douglass then become freed then travel the world then publish your own American newspaper the North Star and you choose as Frederick Douglass did to live in the country that once enslaved you. But that also fought for your freedom and then empowered you as an equal and that man Frederick Douglass who looks nothing like me taught me the essence of patriotism which is loosely paraphrased loosely paraphrasing that those of us who love our country the most cannot be afraid of criticizing you know that sometimes painful criticism comes from love and comes from knowing that we have to do better. Because we must because the formerly silenced the formerly silenced indigenous the formerly enslaved the formerly arrested and jailed Americans of Japanese descent and the currently targeted undocumented immigrants who in some cases are the most American of all of us these two are American stories. Some are beautiful some are painful so my work as an American journalist right now is to add what I call me get to that in my little grain of salt to the history of our country by helping to tell these stories. Look I used to have shame and silence right. I used to wish all the time when I was little that why was my name. Maria Luthe as you know also hebat. Why couldn't I just be nice or the why did my parents have to speak with that accent. Why didn't I have blonde straight hair. Why didn't I have relatives who were pilgrims.

[00:24:28] Why couldn't I be white. Now there's a saying in Spanish no multiple be Nobunaga. There is no bad from which good cannot come and I really love really really love that scene. And there is a lot of bad that's going on out there in the world all over. So I feel it. I also want to acknowledge the fear and acknowledge that fear of change can be really challenging for all of us. For many of us. So your invitation once again is to me part of this continuum of the conversation of our democracy to be willing to take on the bad and find the good in it. For example truthfully with a broken heart I have to tell you I'm still not over Charlottesville. I'm just not I'm not over the chanting about white men being replaced by Jews or by immigrants or by women. They feel so much hate what they don't understand is like we just want to be friends we just want to fall in love. We just want to see ourselves in new not replace you. Become a part of you. Because we already are. You just don't see it. Right. We just want to be with you together. See you as equals not replace you. But our entire country was shocked when we saw what happened there. Seen all of that in full display. This can't be who we are. Right. This isn't who we are. Or is it you know why. Why is it that it causes us pain to have to look at this part of who we are.

[00:26:19] Because I'm one of those people I'm one of those journalists I think because I'm also a mother and I'm an American citizen and I have American citizen kids that I'm just like that's not who we are. We're not that anymore. And then you know younger. That's why we love the millennials because they're like No no no. They start criticizing and tear you down. We all know that those of you who are not Millennials know exactly what I'm talking about. So I started doing a look inside my own experience and I realized I went back to this story of what happened when I was 6 years old 6 or 7. And a guy by the name of George Wallace was running for president. I knew just from hearing and there was no Twitter Facebook there was black and white television and the news was on in the evenings period. But I knew that this man George Wallace did not like me. And my best friend was Jewish Linda Intercon and I remember walking home one day. And with Linda and we were talking about very seriously whose basement we were at the height in if George Wallace became president because we knew he did not like Jewish people anything you did not like Mexicans and so Charlottesville made me think back on that like well wait a second this has been around. I've even felt that it's almost as if it's a part of who we are. Right. And yet we have a hard time discussing it and I'm sure that right now as you're hearing this you might feel a little sad about the fact that ME is a little Mexican American girl with a green card.

[00:28:02] Hold on let me take off my take off my hoops. It doesn't bother the microphone. OK. I know that you know you're connecting with me through this story. That narrative there's an emotional connection that you have about that little girl. And that's why I love to tell stories. So when I was growing up in Chicago my family consumed the news media voraciously. Time magazine 60 Minutes Meet the Press the evening news. But I never saw myself there so I never thought that my stories had value or that I had value. I remember standing up right next to the television set. By now it was a color television set. So it was like early 1970s and we splurged to get one. I remember standing right next to the television set and watching someone by the name of Dan Rather. Reporting on the Vietnam War and even though I loved seeing the news I was always wondering why I wasn't there or anyone who looked like me guess who I was sitting with just a couple of days with eye to eye face to face having an equal conversation as American journalists. That guy Dan Rather who now has a show on Sirius XM radio. I don't know how old Dan Rather is. He's a little old. But you know what he's added every day. He was one of our chief news anchors and now he's inviting me to have a conversation with him about who we are. This man who I used to you know just see through the television screen and now we are equals.

[00:29:49] That's what we're talking about not replacing but becoming your equal and being able to look into each other's eyes and have this conversation as equals. And Mr. Rather was asking me actually on his Sirius XM radio show to communicate to his mostly Anglo audience who might be a little bit afraid of the changes that are going on right now. So he asked me he said What would you say. What would you say to them and I said Well you know with love and respect I would ask a central question What exactly are you afraid of. I mean this country was multikulti way before the Pilgrims even stepped foot on this country on this land. Right. We had multiple tribes who were living finding ways to live together. So that was already happening here. But you know much of the narrative right now told by the mainstream media is that we the other are somehow seen as the you know this agent of change but that it's an agent of change that is here to take over to take away to take something from you and that this demographic change must be looked at with a sense of dread or loss or of concern. And this is why owning my narrative only my voice and only my power is so essential because you see the mainstream media has historically struggled with being inclusive and representative. In fact since September 11 16 years ago our newsrooms have actually gotten less diverse right at a time. Bless you at a time when demographic change is booming. We have actually fewer voices of diverse backgrounds reporting and telling this epic story of change.

[00:31:40] So it's no surprise that the tenor of the reporting on this demographic change if it's coming from non diverse newsrooms then somehow this change is looked at as something worrisome. Kind of like oh my god what is happening. What does all this change about as opposed to whoa. Isn't this fascinating. Right. So I'm not surprised that a candidate and a president who is plain on that kind of fear of change wins the election which is why I end up creating my own non-profit media company. The Futuro media group because while I love and respect our great American newsmen like Edward R. Murrow Dan Rather Walter Cronkite John Chancellor Studs Terkel all those guys that I've won awards named after which is like a total honor. But they know that I could never see the world through their eyes right. But I'm just as an American journalist as they are. And I didn't know this when I created my own non-profit company that it turns out I am the only Latina woman running a nonprofit media company in the United States of America. That is telling stories from what we call a POC perspective of people of color perspective by you our audience for Latino USA our radio show distributed by NPR just grew by 45 percent over the last year and the majority of our audience is not Latino. So there is an interest there is a hunger on the part of our country to understand who we are. A curiosity. Let me tell you why for example an example of why how somebody who approaches this diversity of approaches stories differently.

[00:33:25] All right so that's just another little taste of some of the events that you hear here at Southern Utah University. You're listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one that excerpt that you just heard was Maria Hinojosa the well-known and well revered and super fierce NPR host and journalist. And we were so fortunate to have her on campus but now it's time for a little bit more music and I want to turn you on to something else and this is a fantastic pianist. His name is Tigran Hamasyan. He's one of my favorites. And this tune is called a fable. And again we're here on KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

[00:39:18] Well you're back hear on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one and that was a fable The title track from the album of fable by the amazing pianist Tigran Hamasyan. On our last excerpt from the day from last semester is the incredible artist Glenn Vélez and the Loire Cotler who were here in November of last year. And Loire is what she calls herself a rhythmic vocalist and they take jazz standards and ethnic music and rearrange them for their duo. Loire does the jazz vocal articulation. She speaks with a very kind of percussion language. And then Glen Velez plays all different kinds of frame drums and so I'm gonna let you hear a little bit from their visit on stage which was in November of this past year here at Southern Utah University and again you're listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one. Here are Glen Voulez and Loire Cotler.

[00:47:31] We are just we are just so delighted to be here and and to give you an inside view about what we do and what we are passionate about what our life's work is about and that's that song. I'm sure some of you recognize it's a jazz. It's a piece from the America the Great American Songbook called the called Bye Bye Blackbird by Ray Henderson and more more Dixon and something that Glen and I love to do is take some of these jazz standards and reimagine them from the perspective of rhythm and pulse and that is just one example of of of just add and we're going to I think we're going to have a solo now. Yes I'm going to play a solo for you on this tambourine it's 30 dollar tambourine I got it at a music store not too long ago and I was looking for the title of this tune that I'm doing and thought awhile and I just call it blue tambourine. So here's the timbering solo.

[00:52:40] Well that pretty much wraps us up for this week. You've been listening to the best of the apex hour. My name is Lynn Varton and I'm not in the studio today. I'm saying hello to you from Los Angeles but I've put together these best of moments for you and I hope they were enjoyable. Stay tuned next week for more of the apex hour right here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. Thanks so much for listening to the APEX hour here on KSUU ninety one point one.

[00:53:10] Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:03] Hey this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on KSUU thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3pm on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now, welcome to this week's show here on thunder ninety one point one

[00:00:50] OK. I'm back. Did you guys miss me. It's been about two weeks I think or maybe even three since I was last on the air and you're probably wondering wait a minute. This is Tuesday. Normally it's Thursdays when we hear the APEX hour. Well that's because we had a special event and a special time today. So this is Lynn Vartan and you're listening to thunder ninety one point one and this is the apex hour today in the studio with me is the amazing author Susan Casey. And I have to tell you this has been such a joy for me to have her on campus. I was saying this morning during the event as a native of California I've been just a longtime lover of the ocean and when I found Susan's writings I also not only fell in love with the ocean but also fell in love with her writing style. So let's welcome Susan Casey to the radio station. Thanks for being here.

[00:01:47] Thanks Lynn.

[00:01:48] I'm so happy to have you and thanks again for offering to spend your time with us and thanks for providing these amazing books that I've just been devouring and enjoying over and over again. Thank you. Can we start by talking a little bit about just kind of your path of how you came to be the best selling author that you are today. And we've talked a little bit about it, just give us a little bit of a for our listeners kind of a how you got from there to here story.

[00:02:17] Well there in the beginning I'm from Toronto from Canada and went to university at University of Arizona in Tucson where I majored in swimming. As a swimmer on the swim team and really started taking classes that anything that really caught my attention or seemed intriguing which was pretty much everything. But I settled into studying French literature which I think is a career path. It's probably working the cappuccino machine at Starbucks after that but I ended up back in Toronto and began to volunteer at a small city magazine called T O magazine and once I got there I realized its magazine work sort of combined all the things I was interested in which were stories sort of journalistic endeavors and photography and sort of combining them all. So hopefully the whole is more than the sum of the parts. And from there I just embarked on a career in magazines and it took me from there to Vancouver from Vancouver to and into Santa Fe and then I spent 15 years in Manhattan which as I put it off for a while it was a little bit intimidated by the idea of living in New York City. But that's where the magazine world is mostly located and the last magazine job that I had was as editor in chief of O The Oprah Magazine which is one of the larger women's magazines in the world actually. And throughout that time I had been starting to write books and the all the books that I wrote are set in the ocean and I'm absolutely fascinated by it particularly as a swimmer but also because it's the vast majority of our planet and it's largely unknown to us and what I look for in a story is something that's so compelling to me that I hopefully my passion will be conveyed on the page to readers and they will feel as excited about it as I am so there's no shortage of mysteries and wonders and magical things to write about in the ocean. I don't think I'll ever get tired about writing about it. Yeah. Well you definitely take your readers on that ride. I mean I feel when particularly when I was reading the way I was just feeling like I was right there with you know experiencing all of this as you experience it. Do you have any favorite locations from. I mean I know that's a tricky one but I mean we talked about all the different breaks and you sort of fell in love with Jaws right. Well jaws. So the wave is about giant waves not just giant waves that exist in places where people a very small rarefied band of people show up and step on tiny little surfboards and write down these mountains of water. But there are also you know giant waves out in the ocean. Rogue waves that break on ships and cause huge damage tsunamis that you know wreak havoc on places when they break onshore. The whole world of giant waves and every one of those waves has its own personality and I know the way that you mentioned Jaws is off the north shore of Maui and it is really one of the characters in the book called it the grand empress and it really is. It's a spectacular wave but the ferocity of it is humbling to say the least. And so I would say that is one of my favorite waves. I now live. I fell in love with the place I now live about two miles away from it and go to watch it. Well and you know there are other waves that I would be a little more wary of even watching their same or very frightening. Do you have a scariest one. Well I think mavericks in off the coast of northern California's San Francisco is just it's a wave that's killed a number of people. It's the water's freezing it's filled with sharks it's a foreboding place and in half the time it's foggy when they go out there. Yeah there's rocks. Wow that's so cool. And when I was reading your bio there's all kinds of other things you were trained as a sharpshooter. Is that how did that come about. Well I was at the time I was the editor at large for Time Warner's magazine group which was called Time Inc. Had a number of magazines and one of the magazines that they had there was Field and Stream venerable old magazine about fishing and hunting. And I had never I had never even held a rifle. I had never touched a gun but I had gone spearfishing and I as a meat eater had this feeling that it is something that I should do is go through the process of actually gathering my own food. And so I was speaking at the book party for my first book The Devil's Teeth when I was talking to the editor he was there and I said you know when I was spearfishing I had this feeling like you're very close to nature I mean you walk into the grocery store and everything sort of wrapped up and I think this is valuable to do this and I said you know I be kind of interested in hunting and he said Well have you had any rifle experience. And I said none whatsoever. So then we decided that it might be an interesting idea and sort of a Pygmalion with bullets to go take a person who's never held a rifle and take then train them to go on the hardest big game hunt North America which is bull elk. But from the very beginning my greatest fear as an environmentalist is an animal activist rights activist. All this I really felt like what was that the onus was on me to become such a good shot that I wouldn't wound an animal that it would be a very clean thing. And of course I had no idea what it would mean to actually fire a gun at an elk but you know to me it was a more honest way of approaching my life as a media. Now I'm not I don't eat very much meat but I trained really hard with the magazines rifle expert who was a man who'd been there for decades who was quite a character and literally trained to shoot a bull's eye at 300 yards with this very beautiful rifle. And then they sent me off to the West Elk Mountain range in Colorado just above the Black Canyon of the Gunnison just a really wild spectacularly beautiful place and we went up to 12000 feet. I had two guides we went on horseback. You know we set up our tents in the snow and then we began the process and so this was my first time ever going on hunt. Oh my gosh. And I learned a lot I learned a lot about myself. I went through a wild range of emotions. And also developed a deep respect for ethical hunting people who feed their families this way people who do it right who have a great deal of conservation interests for reasons for all kinds of reasons. But you know the health of the animal population. But it taught me so much but in the end I was unable to take the shot. I got a shot. I got a very clear shot and something in me froze. I couldn't shoot. So I then you know they weren't too surprised by that because it was it was a long journey and especially for a novice to go out there and you know maybe I should have tried of the pheasant hunt or something. But I then went to the small town slaughterhouse where the hunters would come and have their meat. I mean part of the journey for me was supposed to be field dressing the animal myself. And since I never took the shot I never did that. So I went watch other people do it. And as I said I came away with a with a deep appreciation for the process. And you know I do think that it is really important that if we are going to ask you know one animal to give its life so that we can eat that we know about this process and that it isn't something ten steps removed from us you know. Yeah. Wow that's such an interesting story.

[00:10:32] That's fascinating. And to complete shift of gears there's something about performing as a mermaid.

[00:10:41] Esquire I wrote for Esquire magazine for some time I had a column in there and they had an issue that they did every year called What It Feels Like an and all the contributors for Esquire would send in their suggestions of what they were going to do. People would say what does what it feels like to you know to all kinds of things. I mean I don't have that that's a very I don't know. I don't think so but they're sure it was a short piece. But at the time I sort of proposed a tongue in cheek but there was I lived in New York and there was a bar in New York that had this giant tank and in the front of it there would be all these you know this bar this full bar and then there were mermaids in the tank. So I went in there one night and did a shift as a mermaid and immediately realized that it was very hard work to be a mermaid. You can't wear goggles because that's not very mermaid like good so you can't see a thing or fish in there and it was very salty so I would dive down. I had this you know KAUST mermaid costume on and then I would immediately get just sort of shot up to the surface because it was so salt salty and then across the top they had these two by fours that you grab onto to pull yourself out. And I kept hitting my head. So it came out about two hours later with you know red eyes and you know a sore head and a deep appreciation of how mermaids must feel after a hard day of work.

[00:12:01] That's a great story. I'm so glad. Thank you for sharing.

[00:12:06] Oh that's why I think that bar was eventually shut down by the Board of Health of the

[00:12:11] And now you split your time between Hawaii and New York. They kind of get the best of both worlds. It sounds like. Yeah right. I'm in Hawaii when the snow starts to fall.

[00:12:20] Perfect. That's great. Well we'll talk about the books a little bit more in our next little break. But there are two articles I'd like to ask you about. And the first one we haven't had a chance to talk about much today and this was also for Esquire I believe this article 75 was about the investigating aging and examining that through the life of one. One man can you tell us a little bit about that article and that process.

[00:12:47] So it was for Esquire's seventy fifth anniversary issue. I read through the course of reporting my book The Wave met a man who is 75 years old who was training with these professional athletes in Malibu in California and he was leaving people like Reggie Miller you know the basketball star in the dust. He was the most extraordinary physical anomaly. I mean I thought it was an anomaly but he trained so hard. His name is Don Wildmon and he is legendary around Southern California. And it turns out the more I got to know him I realize he has this incredible life story. He was in the Korean War he started he really started the idea of the modern gym in America he started Ballis fitness. His whole M.O. in life is you trained for your life. And so he at 75 years old broke every stereotype that you might think a 75 year old you the typical 75 year old you know actually 70 and 75 is becoming increasingly younger these days but not always right. So there's this sort of relativity to aging and I wanted to take a look at what sort of peak seventy five could be. Yeah. And so I hung out with Dawn I attempted to do is workouts he he he's extreme Yeah. And and just an incredible character which is another thing I look for in every story. He I mean I can't even begin to tell you that Don has done the Iron Man nine times. Oh my he's done these extreme sailing races. He's he has competed in the senior Olympics a number of times. His idea of fun is going helicopter snowboarding in Alaska on these runs that have never been skied by anybody before and he's just living large. And now he's about 83 and he's he's broken every bone in his body and recovered. He's just still going strong. I just saw it yesterday I think it was on Instagram that he's over in Japan skiing in Hokkaido and you know he's extraordinary. But as you look at the aging process through him are there any sort of takeaways for everyone in that other than just live large or trained for your life. I mean what else could we all learn from that. Do you think. Well Don has a real Joie de Vivre. And he hasn't diminished over the years if anything he's more aware that you know he's not going to live forever and he might as well get in as many big adventures as he can. And he is. He loves to eat so he eats very well. He doesn't go overboard taking huge handfuls of vitamins or anything like that. But he lives he lives the life of a happy person and his spirit is I think I really do believe that that's the relative part of aging as the spirit. You know your body is obviously going to changes although Dawn lifts weights for a couple of hours a day. He trained so hard that I almost wonder if at a certain point he trains too hard he pushes himself to the point of where most people would not go.

[00:16:02] I see. Yeah well that's interesting I love what you said about you know living as a happy person and really that that lifting of the spirit that that sort of liveliness of the spirit in that way I think there's definitely a lesson for everyone there. So before we get into the next article which I'm very excited to talk about because I think it's such an important topic for right now. We'll take a little musical break those of you listen to the APEX hour know that I love turning you guys on to new music. And we're going to start with something that was a recommendation from this year's South by Southwest festival South by Southwest 2018. And this is the song is titled throw me in the water. Keeping with our water theme. And it's by wild. And this is the apex hour you're listening to kiss you thunder ninety one point one should we close.

[00:20:30] All right well this is Lynn Vartan and you're back listening to the apex hour on KSUU thunder ninety one point one. That song was called Throw me in the water from the group Wild. And again it was one that was kind of recently shown off at the South by Southwest festival this year in 2018. I'm in the studio with Susan Casey and we've been talking about her path to her success and writing and some of her research projects. And I'd like to continue the discussion with an article that you won a National Magazine Award was a nomination National Magazine Award nomination for an article titled Our oceans are turning to plastic. Are you. So. And that was some years ago I think you mention it was 2007. Can you talk a little bit about that article and then also how you feel about that today and how this subject is still affecting us.

[00:21:26] It's a it's a huge subject. I was approached by a magazine to write about the North Pacific Garbage Patch which is a an enormous area of the Pacific Ocean that is because of the currents collecting plastic and at the time I wrote it. I think if I can recall correctly it was like the size of Texas. But recently they've discovered it's much bigger than like more like three times the size of that so it's huge. And this isn't just floating large floating pieces of debris. This is microscopic pieces of plastic that are throughout the entire water column. And there's a gyre in each of the oceans is a sort of a depression in the currents that it's almost like to make an analogy it's like it's like a toilet bowl. It's swirling in these plastic fragments are and big bigger pieces who are caught in this swirling current. It's more like depression. So these things gather there. And so I started investigating for this article I was a little bit up writing about the ocean that I had been aware the plastic in the ocean is a big problem and most plastic does end up there even if it ends up in a it's in a garbage or it blows into a storm drain it makes its way to the ocean and it's rare these days if you walk along a beach not to find a tremendous amount of plastic Exactly. So I was concerned right off the bat because this plastic is really harming animals and the ocean. But the editor sort of pushed me and said well what is it doing to us. And I was a little bit put off because I was like Well isn't this bad enough that it's killing all these animals and you see turtles with six pack rings around their shells and they've grown. It's just horrible and dolphins choking on plastic bags. How can it get much worse. But as it happened a bunch of new science had come out right around the time I wrote the article showing that in fact these plastic pieces are getting into the food chain and they are filled with chemicals because plastic is made from petroleum and petroleum and oil based substance. And all these very noxious chemicals adhere to oils. That's really what they bought into. So you've got some of the worst chemicals we've ever made. Like things like dioxins PCBs flame retardants pesticides most of which have already proven to be carcinogenic many of which are also Endre can disrupt or is in fact they tend to affect estrogen production to make more estrogen. So you start to think about that and if you have your blood taken today and they analyzed your body burden you know how many chemicals are in your body that shouldn't be there. Every one of us is carrying a huge body burden and these chemicals are doing things to us. And so then when you look at the instances of you know the optics and things like breast cancer or other illnesses you know these chemicals have an effect on our genetics. So as we continue to use plastic we should be I think much much smarter in what we're making out of plastic. We should be making things that are supposed to last five hundred years because plastic doesn't biodegrade. It's been around for less than 300 years. It's still every last scrap of plastic that we have ever made exists on this planet right now as plastic. So the idea that we are using this incredibly durable substance to create our most disposable objects is just insanity. And this is becoming increasingly clear in the science people I think are becoming more aware of it. But the thing that is not happening enough yet is that manufacturers need to start using plastic in a completely different way. We should be using it for things like roofing tiles and heart stents and things that need to last for a long time. I love that perspective on it because I think that we tend to hear especially those of us who want to be environmentally conscious. We tend to hear Oh well don't use plastic bags don't use these. And yes of course that's true. But I like the take that you're going. I mean there are some really good uses for plastic and it should be like you're saying things that are meant to last for hundreds of years you know. But it's the disposable plastic that we see in our everyday lives that we should do something about.

[00:25:57] And did I hear you mentioned something that we can maybe research about a Japanese city that's gone trash free or something like that. Do you have any more. Tell us about that.

[00:26:07] Unfortunately I can't recall the name but I was watching I was in a place that was playing a news clip about this town in Japan that is going entirely waste free. And there's also one in the Netherlands and I think this is an interesting experiment in changing habits. Some of these things are just habits right. And I think that consumers once we realize the damage that this is doing to us but to both planetary and human health that's in it you feel sort of overwhelmed by that like what can one person do. But you can always vote with your wallet and you can make manufacturers aware that you are not going to buy items that use plastic wastefully or needlessly. I mean recently I saw Apple's encased in polycarbonate plastic a very heavy kind of plastic is also not easily recyclable. Despite what you may have heard from the plastics industry we can never use plastic again for food based packaging because you can't heat it if you heat if you burn plastic it off gas is really toxic chemicals. Someday there may be a way to do it and sequester those chemicals. But it's not. You don't burn. You can't heat it up high enough to sterilize a food container to use it again as a food container. What the very small amount of plastic that gets recycled ends up in things like fleece jackets or as I said roofing tiles things that don't go anywhere near your mouth. So every every food container that is produced with plastic is using virgin plastic and if you just you know once this article affected me more than any article I've ever written a kid can't walk into a grocery store now and not just reel at the amount of plastic there is. And I've been to some parts of the world in developing countries where they're just I mean you can't even get into the water its knee deep in plastic. There's an island in the Pacific that just so happens to be near the South Pacific gyre that has thirty seven trillion pieces of plastic on it and the southern tip of Hawaii the Hawaiian island the Big Island Hawaii also snags de-brief from the from the currents and if you go online and look up pictures of some of those places you just won't even believe it. Wow. It's haunting. OK. It's terrifying. That's and there's no there's no easy way to get it out of the ocean. I mean people are coming up with ideas but it's throat the entire water column and they find animals with their entire stomachs filled with fish birds filled with plastic and it can't be I mean can't be destroyed. Not really. We still have the plastic from the beginning of when plastic was invented and a way I mean what are we going to do. We've got hundreds of years of it. So and we still don't know when it's going to biodegrade it might be another couple of hundreds of years. Yeah that's scary. It might be more. Yeah well I think that we all should be more aware of it and I know that there are a little like you said habit changing things that we can do. Do you have any other suggestions for people as individuals don't use straws refused to use straws. Bring your own cups to you know to get coffee. You know those are small things but as I said Vote with your wallet. Don't buy the apples in polycarbonate plastic. You know I was in New York recently and I saw plastic forks and knives wrapped in plastic. It's not very hard to get a set of bamboo forks or knives and chopsticks and put them in your bag you know. And right. Yeah. These are these are easy habits to change. And the cost is just way too high.

[00:29:48] Yeah. Well thank you for that. That's a topic that I feel pretty strongly about and I'm excited to get more people exposed to. So switching gears I'd love to talk a little bit about your books and we talked a little bit about the wave in the first chunk. So I'd love to talk a little bit more about voices in the ocean and which was a New York Times bestseller and was named one of Amazon's best books of 2016. It seems like it's a very personal part of your story. This book and how you came to start studying dolphins.

[00:30:23] Yes voices in the ocean is about the mysterious and crazy relationship between the mysterious world of dolphins and the very crazy relationship that we have with them. It's when my first book The Devil's Teeth really took me into the world of great white sharks. And for this book it's like a book and we have these mythic ideas about both animals about dolphins and about sharks and they're sort of polar opposites. You know we think sharks are just bad and dolphins are all good and in both cases the truth is much more nuanced and interesting than not right. And in the case of dolphins we have what I think is a very unique relationship with them in some ways. We seem to understand that they are a lot like us. They have societies they have culture they have language they they're incredibly intelligent animals but they happened to live underwater. Are air breeding mammals. They have families they have names. There's this wonderful parallel. And all of our interactions with them. You know I like to say emotions run hot around dolphins so people love them like crazy. We capture them we put them in marine parks because you know we think we want to see them so much. When you start to learn about the natural history and who they really are and I use the the word who very specifically because these are individuals they're self-aware they name each other right and they are given names by their usually by their mother or a Maitri the lot of the dolphin species are matriarchal how the you know they live in a realm where there's no writing so the elder females pass down all this knowledge and this is an oral culture. And again I'm using the word culture the way that in a very scientific way they pass along information through social learning they learn just like we do

[00:32:22] That's amazing. And I read somewhere that you have experienced that echolocation in your interaction with them. Can you talk a little bit about that.

[00:32:33] Yeah I mean I read that in the wild when they're in the ocean where they live. They have a sense. Their biggest senses hearing. I mean ours is vision but hearing is much better for them because most of the time they're half the time it's night and below 60 feet there's very little light in the ocean. So it's their primary sense of navigating the world through sound. And so they over the course of their 95 million year evolution have developed this echolocation sense that enables them to use sonar to create pictures of their surroundings and their sonar is so intricate that it's just mind blowing we can't even come close in our most advanced nuclear submarines to eat. I mean it's like not even kindergarten what we can do compared to what they can do. So when you're in the ocean with a dolphin you you can feel them sometimes emitting their sonar clicks and the clicks are emitted through the sort of sacks in their head and through there through there it would be like the Quilon of their nose the blowhole. That sound though comes through their foreheads and then the clicks bounce back to them and it comes through their jaws the jaws are lined with a sort of a fatty substance and they have a lens in their forehead where they can focus the sonar so they can get a real idea and it's ultrasound it's very high frequency so they can see air pockets in your body. If you're if you're a woman and you're pregnant and you have a baby that they can see that they can tell yeah it's just the same ultrasound that you would get in a doctor's office and you can when you can feel that as a human are you because you can't really hear it. You can hear it under water you make all kinds of noises they make whistles and clicks the clicks or the sonar and it's a buzz it's kind of a buzzing sensation. They sonar you.

[00:34:29] That's amazing yeah. And then you met some amazing people and you spend some time in a particular community that has in Hawaii that has a special connection to dolphins and it's like a spiritual pathway with them. Can you talk a little bit about that part of the story.

[00:34:49] Yeah I set out to find people who are interacting with dolphins in all kinds of extreme ways and one of the groups that I spent time with is new age devotees on the big island they call themselves dolphin ville and they sort of have coalesced around this woman named Joan ocean who is basically devoted her life to swimming everyday in the ocean with wild dolphins and on the big island. There are populations of this species called spinner dolphins that at night they go out and hunt in the deep water and then in the day they come into the base closer to shore and it's relatively easy to find them. So they're resting and they sort of swim around and they're pretty mellow. And so Joan and the people have dolphin will go out and swim with the dolphins and have come to know the population of dolphins on the big island and yeah I mean they have some intriguing ideas about dolphins as a journalist I'm always looking for characters who you know have great stories and I mean these are people that believe that dolphins come from another planets that you know they're imparting wisdom and I think there's something to everything they're saying but you know some of their views are pretty extreme about where the Dolphins came from and what they're up to Yeah. Do they feel like they can really understand what they're saying is that part of it. Yeah but it's not in the way that we would think of as that it's more like a feeling the way it was described to me as you know animal communication is a whole separate topic it's a big one but you know they send images pictures intuitions you get a hit of some sort of revelation. And I've had those experiences when I've been swimming with dolphins to Yeah. Do you continue to have experiences with dolphins I know you had that very powerful initial experience. Have you had more over the years. Oh yeah. I mean and I've swam with now with a lot of different species of dolphins. There are you know there's orcas or dolphins and pilot whales and false killer whales. There are 37 species of oceanic dolphins and I've met up with a lot of them. Wow yeah they're all different really just different cultures different tribes and you can probably feel that yep and some of them like pilot whales are among the more the ones that I would hesitate to get in the water with. I swim with them several times but they're there serious business Pilot Whales and they've a couple of times grab people by the ankle and pulled them down and their little cantankerous and they're a big help.

[00:37:27] That's amazing. I love hearing about that one other part of the dolphin story is the captivity portion of it. And can you share some of your feelings about that and impressions or thoughts about that aspect of the puzzle.

[00:37:45] Yeah it's a really dark industry. You know once you learn about start to learn about the natural history of dolphins and how extraordinary their brains are and how extraordinary their abilities are and how evolved they are I mean they started off on land and then they went into the ocean they've gone through this wild evolutionary ride of changing shape many times. Unlike us we have more or less stayed the same were our species at the most about two million years old. So there you know they're ninety five million years old and they know once you see them in action you can never think hey this is let's put this in a swimming pool you know they can't use their sonar. They're dolphins world is other dolphins their social bonds are incredibly tight. Dolphins can recognize their friends their family even after being separated for decades and they are. You try to imagine yourself being locked even in a beautiful hotel room. It's not fun. And so they express a lot of stress behaviors. They die at a much younger age in captivity than they do in the wild. And you know there for every marine park that has veterinarians and does its best which is again I stress not good enough. There are these horrible marine parks in places in the world where people are you know for a hundred dollars you swim with the dolphin. Most of the times you can feel it dolphins anguish. Kids often come up to me and tell me that their parents took them and they were very upset by it. Wow. And you know there's a there's a very lucrative and bloody trade in live dolphins and I went to some of the more difficult places in the world to learn more about that and see it if anybody wants to get more educated on that part of the topic or feels particularly move to participate and advocate. Is there anywhere where they could go or should go to get involved. Yes. The man who the main character in the book Rick Perry in that part of the book he's just flippers trainer he's a famous act dolphin activist and his project is the Dolphin Project. I believe it's the Dolphin Project dot org. And he he got to be so close with the dolphins he was working with he knew them as individuals and as with many scientists have spent a lot of time with them. There's a moment of revelation where it's like these are these are beings these are not animals that we should be doing this to any more than we would want to have it done to us. So I really I went to Taiji Japan with him where there's a documentary that won the Oscar in 2010 called The Cove. OK. And it's a large dolphin hunt in Japan that really continues to exist because they can sell the dolphins you know a young female dolphin that they can train for marine park seals for 150000 dollars so they continue to do this. The Cove is about that. And he's in the cove. So I went back two years later with him in a group of activists to the cove. The activists were all there after seeing the movie and the hunt continues and it's just heinous. OK. So if you want to get more involved or you want to find out more about this piece in the dolphin story and in the puzzle the movie The Cove and also thedolphinproject.org would be a place to start your research

[00:41:23] On that note like to take a moment to listen to one more song and this song is called come meh way. And the group is the Sudan archives and this is another recommendation from the South by Southwest festival in 2018. This is Lynn Vartan. You're listening to KSUU the APEX hour on Thunder ninety one point one.

[00:44:09] OK. Well welcome back to the apex hour. This is Lynn Vartan. You're listening to KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. That song was called come my way. It's spelled m e h come May way. But she really kind of says it come my way. And it's by a group called the Sudan archives. And again that was a recommendation from a playlist from the South by Southwest festival in 2018. We're back in the studio for our last segment with Susan Kacie author of The Devil's Teeth and the wave which is subtitled in pursuit of Rogues Freaks and Giants of the ocean and then also voices in the ocean a journey Into the Wild and haunting world of dolphins. It's been such a joy to have you here today. Thank you. Great. Our last little bit is always kind of a fun little thing that we do and it's kind of like what's turning you on. So is there a book or a movie or a podcast or what's turning you on right now.

[00:45:15] I'm a huge consumer of media. I read constantly. I've started to really get into listening to podcasts. And I think there's a lot of great TV out there too so it's an interesting time to choose one. You know I guess I'll stick to books because that's really that's my great love. And right now I'm reading a lot about the deep ocean because that is going to be the subject of my next book. There's a lot going on in the deep ocean exploration of a race to mine the sea floor which has very extreme environmental repercussions. And we're now beginning to look into the deep ocean for the first time. It's really the last frontier on Earth. So there's a lot of that and that includes a lot of scientific papers and things that may not be the world's most fabulous reading for anybody but me but for fun I love to read mysteries. I recently an author named Sue Grafton passed away and authored that I really like. She's a mass market writer and I hadn't really followed her work. She has 26 books I read them all. Yeah and yeah I am constantly reading.

[00:46:31] That's great. So you like to kind of relax with a good mystery. Yeah I love him. I just love mysteries. That's cool. Well what about podcasts because I'm super into podcasts too. I was curious. Do you have a favorite right now listening to pod save America. I absolutely love it.

[00:46:47] Oh what's that one my Pod Save America is a political news show that is very popular thing might be number one in the Apple right now and it's just basically about everything that's swirling around us right now which is you know another set of its own extremes. Yes. It's a very that's a it's a very important time yeah for everybody to be aware of what's going on.

[00:47:11] Oh I'm going to check that one out. I have I haven't. I have so many. Oh my gosh. Yes. Doesn't it just get. Look it's a little over. I just want to go outside walk so I can listen to my podcast. Another question I'd love to ask is there and I'm thinking more towards you know we have a large undergraduate community of students here. Is there anything that you wish you had known early on in your career. And I'm thinking like kind of what advice would you give to young people. Just kind of getting started in their careers now.

[00:47:43] Well I think there's a few things. One of the things that I think really benefited me was starting in is kind of a small pond. I mean not the Toronto was a super small pond but Canada is a much smaller pond than say if I had in my magazine career just launch myself right into Manhattan off the bat I think I would have been getting coffee for years before I ever got any to write anything or at anything by starting in a smaller place. I was able to you know everybody. It's all hands on deck. So you get a much wider range of experience and I'm a big fan of that. You learn your craft and it takes a long time and you know it is a very hard process it is roll up your sleeves time. Yeah and don't nobody should kid themselves that mastery or even expertise or professional success comes like down from the cloud on a silver platter. This is like many round the clock nights and things like that. And you know the most important thing. The single most important thing is everybody has something that they're passionate about. Everybody has something that makes them lose track of time when they're working on it. Just engrosses them it doesn't feel like work. And for me it was the pursuit of a story and different media through which I could tell it. But I think to find that passionate thing and not go from sort of a place of fear of Oh how I make a living how I do this how will I do that. It is true that you may not make a living right off the bat if you want to be a musician or a poet or a writer or any of these other things outside of say investment banking or you know law or something but that doesn't also mean that you have to go to accounting school if you don't just love accounting because you're scared you won't be able to make a living. Right. Just forget the fear go with go with a passion and you know many times I was working at my job during the day and writing at night. That's fine. That's part of the journey. And now I'm fortunate in that I have a large group of readers and I can write full time. But it didn't happen till I was 50. So you know hang in there and just do what you love.

[00:49:55] I love everything that you just said. I mean from when you were saying it's all hands on deck and the advantage of the small pond that's particularly for our university here is Southern Utah University. That's one thing that we really believe in is that you know we are a smaller institution but the experiences that you can get and the opportunities that you can get a new you can really start honing your craft and that's fantastic and then follow that through to the passion part and and choose passion over fear. So thank you so much for those comment. Yes. And I always ask What can you think of the best advice that you've ever been given.

[00:50:35] I've had I mean I worked for Oprah for four years and she's always every time she opens her mouth she's saying something that you know if she has Sage's as we all you know. Yeah she really is the thing I love about her is there's not two of her. There's the person that you see on TV is really the way she is and you know she I to pick just one thing I mean I think be your best self. Means coming from the heart. I mean we're such rational creatures we're always calculating and thinking and analyzing. But you know I think in the future we have to think more with our hurts. And if I was to give any advice it would be be who you are but be your best self. Yeah. And you know somebody I saw a T-shirt somebody was wearing it said whenever possible be kind and it is always possible.

[00:51:29] Yeah I love that. Well I think that's an absolutely beautiful note to end on. You know be kind be your best self. So just thank you so much Susan Casey's in the studio and thank you for spending the time and again if you're interested in the books or don't already know about the books The Devil's Teeth, The Wave and voices in the ocean which are available on all in our bookstores and then also an Amazon and Apple and everywhere you can find your books I definitely encourage you to check them out. I love them so thank you so much Susan for spending time with me today.

[00:52:07] Thanks Lynn. It's a pleasure.

[00:52:08] All right. And so we will be back later on this week talking with our art students. Stay tuned for that. But in the meantime let's get you back to the music here on KSUU thunder ninety one point one

[00:52:24] Thanks so much for listening to the apex hour here on K.S. use hundred ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. To find out more, check out suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week this is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the apex hour on Thunder Ninety one point one.

[00:00:01] Hey everyone. This is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the apex hour on SUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m., on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now welcome to this week's show here on thunder ninety one point one.

[00:00:50] OK how exciting. We're here again so those of you who've been listening live, it's twice in one week. My name is Lynn Vartan. This is the apex hour and it's time to talk about art. I'm so excited for this week's event because it's definitely in an area and the subject matter that I love especially being in music and teaching hearing music at Southern Utah University it's a great opportunity to kind of show off all the cool things we have going on in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. So that's what we're going to do today. We have three of our senior artists here in the house and they are all participating in their Bachelor of Fine Arts Capstone exhibition at the Southern Utah Museum of Art which is right here in Cedar City. And that exhibition opened on March 20th and will be on all the way until May 5th. And we're going to talk about their art. We're going to talk about their background and talk about the creative process in general. So what I'd like to do is just let them introduce themselves so Jordan how about you go first.

[00:01:59] My name's Jordan Haskell, I'm from Orem, Utah. My show was the motion graphics. And it's based on an actual film that will hopefully one day be pitched to L.A. and Hollywood called Banking on crazy.

[00:02:16] That's so cool. And I know you told the story a little bit earlier today. Can you tell the story about the topic of what it's about.

[00:02:23] Yes it's about a group of friends who are trying to make their way in L.A. that they want to start their own film production company and they try to crowdfund or crowd source it and it doesn't end up going anywhere. So they have a brilliant idea to track bank owner into thinking that he has been chosen his location has been chosen for a movie and they end up robbing him while filming at the same time.

[00:02:50] I just think that's so fun and that's a great story. Did how did they come up with that. I mean do you.

[00:02:57] Well there's a there's a process and there's writing and then it goes through a bunch of revisions and my friend who let me do the project for him. He's the one that actually wrote it. It's his own original script. So it's really cool to be working with someone with that much talent.

[00:03:14] I can totally see that. Like Absolutely going off and really taking off. So we'll keep our keep our eyes out for it. Ok cool. Who'd like to go next.

[00:03:25] Yeah I'll go. So my name is Melissa and I'm a senior graphic designer. In the show I did a branding and packaging project. And it's based off of a company called Eve's which I made up and it's a kind of like a bath product company so there's hand soaps bath bombs shampoo and conditioner. And then I was inspired by a piece that I did in my lithography class. It was just like a floral print that I did on lithography which is a process of drawing on stone and I took that floral piece and incorporated that into the brand and did like a pattern. And with the eves brand I wanted to keep it very natural and organic. So I made all the soaps myself so I know what ingredients went into it and to the branding. Style is very minimal. There's not a lot of color in it. I just wanted it very clean and simple.

[00:04:31] That's so cool. Have you always kind of wanted to do sort of a bath and body line or did that come about with this project.

[00:04:39] It just came from the project. I actually did a in our branding class that we took last year. We were supposed to do a bottle of beverage as a beverage and mine was as hard cider but ended up not really liking the project and it didn't turn out how I wanted it. So I knew I still wanted to use that Eve's name and brand. And so I just turned that into my capstone and I was like What can I do that kind of fits the style that I'm looking for. And then it just evolved into the bath products.

[00:05:16] That's cool where does the name Eve's come from. Does that have a particular meaning.

[00:05:21] No not really. So with the beverage since it was a hard cider I just thought it was kind of a cheeky name to name Eve's. And I wanted it more feminine. And so it just kind of rolled over and to my capstone project.

[00:05:37] That's great. Do you do you think you'd like actually make and sell the soaps now or are you.

[00:05:42] I had a few offers actually a couple of people have said like if I sell it and told me they want to buy it. But right now I'm just I'm focusing on graduating and not really have time to worry about putting it up on a Web site or anything like that. And it's a lot of work for me. So I know because I mean you have to kind of mix it hardens and put it in molds and all and then it's like money to make the packaging and get it printed in some light. So but right now not I'm not selling it but your line is on display at the museum.

[00:06:18] So we could go check it out and maybe you'll get some more offers. OK. And then Michelle

[00:06:27] My name's Michelle and I am a senior photography major here at SUU. I am graduating slash have graduated. It's a little complicated but I'm here. I'm going to be walking at graduation and my show focuses on my real love for adventure. I call it my adventure photography really focuses on like a person wandering in the wilderness like solo and a huge vast landscape and I really like that aesthetic right now. Yeah.

[00:07:00] Tell me a little more about it like you were talking about you have people always in your work are often in your work.

[00:07:07] Yes. So generally I started with landscape because it's kind of there's this grand tradition behind landscape photography but I felt is a little like it made it very hard to connect. It was a beautiful picture and that was it for me. And so but the second I put a person in it made it feel like like that could be me. Even though it was me like I was there to take the picture. But it inspires this adventurous spirit within me to you know go out and hike and adventure and discover the things that are unknown. And I kind of pursuing this creative idea right now that's great and you've done some adventuring yourself right. Yeah so I've not only hiked all over Utah but I've been to Africa last summer most recently to study wildlife photography and makes it like basically travel photography and photojournalism. But I was really focused on the animal aspect so I actually have a huge section of my portfolio that is wildlife and hopefully that will be a stepping stone for my future in pursuing wildlife photography.

[00:08:10] How did that come about. I mean did you just kind of design it and get over there or did you know somebody how did how did someone from Utah and going to Africa take pictures.

[00:08:20] It was actually a study abroad heard through the school. So I got credit for it and it was something that I never thought I would do Africa hasn't really ever been a huge like calling place for me. I've always been like oh tropical islands fun places to go and visit. But for whatever reason this struck a chord with me and I was like You know I could go to Africa and I ended up actually crowdfunding the whole trip from family and friends. And I went and I've got some amazing shots from it. So oh my. Amazing. Well congrats on that and congrats to all of you for getting through school like you're almost done and ready for the next step.

[00:08:58] That's exciting. Tell me a little bit about how you guys got started in art and maybe some of the other mediums that you've worked in. For example I know Melissa you've also worked in photography.

[00:09:11] Yeah I have. And ironically I did the same. So your project she told you did. Yeah yeah. So I went to Africa and that was my life dream was to take pictures of lions in Africa. And so an opportunity came up I was like yes I don't know how but I'm going. And so I went over there and started crying when I took pictures of the lions. It really fulfilled my dream and yeah it was amazing. But my background with photography kind of started with my dad. We were like this cute little picture of me. I'm like 3 years old and I have a camera. Like taking pictures. It was just something I always grew up around and my older sister is a very artistic and always made like clay figurines and painting and I always wanted to be my older sister. And so I kind of just followed in her footsteps and that's kind of where my art background came from. And then I went into school doing a minor in photography and like I said earlier today I have a degree in math and that's where I started. And then when I graduated. Well during school about photography minor turned into graphic design minor. And then when I graduated I just decided to pursue my real passion of doing art and decided to get the full degree in graphic design and here I am.

[00:10:33] That's great. Do you use any when you do your photography. Do you use any cameras like from your dad or do you pass down any equipment or anything like that.

[00:10:43] I haven't actually. Well he's like giving me a few. He gave me one for my birthday my sophomore year. By all of his collection and his antiques and stuff like artist at home it's sitting there and I'm like Can you just give them to me. Yeah. Not yet.

[00:11:03] JORDAN How about you. How did you get started in art and design.

[00:11:09] That's a great question. It's kind of scattered. I mean I started out really young painting and drawing and I took art lessons from a private artist and actually a pastel was my forte. That's actually why I really started realizing I might have a talent for it. But I don't know I never really stuck with me to find art inside of it. I really enjoyed the graphic design. When I was first like discovering and exploring I actually thought I wanted to do 3D animation like the whole Pixar dream everything. So I did. I do also do some 3D work as well but I found out that I really love design so it kind of came full circle with motion graphics because I can use those elements to pursue and continue graphic design while still like injecting those hobbies and passions that I have into it. Tell me about painting lessons. I'm not sure I really knew that was it. Yeah she was just a freelance artist who was offering to to have anybody really come in and learn how to paint. She did acrylic and watercolor mostly but she started as a soft pastel because it's a lot easier workable Forman says so she just kind of went through like all of her design or painting principles I guess you would say

[00:12:36] Oh cool. And for those listening who may not know what motion graphics is or what that involves can you tell us a little bit about that.

[00:12:45] Yeah motion graphics pretty much anytime on moving film web videos anything really anytime that there's implied emotion. It all has to be designed we designed how the text moves how the shape and imagery moves. Sometimes it is using a camera but it can also be graphic elements as well. Like with the text or illustrations sometimes need to move a certain way and sometimes we're trying to imitate actual life and other times we're trying to make it a little more abstracted. So that's great.

[00:13:23] And how did you get into photography and adventure just like hiking. Probably. And like I loved this.

[00:13:30] Well kind of I actually started it as are you with a theater degree and I realized that I like controlling a lot of the things about acting that I can't really control you know like a director supposed to control that kind of stuff. And so I was like I want to control my environment more and I want to expand on my love for the outdoors. And so in my brain was like What does that mean. What does that look like. And the first logical conclusion I came to was photography and I was like OK you've never really shot anything before why photography. And for whatever reason there was like this poll. And so I just started shooting and it developed I really liked I have a bunch of friends that are into hiking and they came back with amazing photographs and I was like ah I want to get stuff like that. And it kind of developed from landscape photography to my own adventurous style which has been awesome watching. I never knew that I could do that or that would happen.

[00:14:22] Oh cool well that's great to get to know you guys a little bit. I think it's time for first musical break and we're going to hear a song that's called Tartaro and it's by a group called Buscabulla and it's the title track from the album Tartaro, album and the song name. And just a reminder that you're listening to KSUU. This is the apex hour on Thunder ninety one point one

[00:15:14] Hey everyone welcome back to the apex hour. My name is Lynn Vartan and we're talking about all things art today. I'm joined in the studio with a couple of our few of our senior art artists in the Bachelor of Fine Arts. Melissa Kruger, Michelle Gray and Jordan Haskell. Welcome back guys. And so to continue our discussion I wanted to talk about inspiration. Do you have anything in particular that is really inspiring to you or really helps kind of propel your work forward right now. Is there anything that's like really moving to you. Like we were talking with the outdoors is there is there's something about just being outside that really moves you. Or is there something else that's really inspiring you.

[00:19:14] Yes to both. I kind of went into depth about this earlier but there's like this need for me to create and sometimes that means going out and pursuing photos trying to figure out trying to see the shot. But more than anything it's about feeling the shot like you go out there and like you see it and you know you have to get it otherwise you might die. Who knows. And that kind of pursuit of that feeling like that high you get a little bit when you know it's going to be a good shot. That's what keeps propelling me forward and that inspires me a little bit with that as well as I actually have an Instagram where I solely follow photographers that take photos that I like. And so if I'm in like a rut I'll just scroll through my Instagram and say OK like I can make something like this. How could I modify how can I change how can I make it my own. And that to me is what keeps me propelled forward and making new art and making the kind of art that I make. I love that as a way to sort of finding inspiration and using social media to find inspiration. It's a really clever way. What about the rest of you. Are there any do you have like vision boards. Do you keep journals like how do you keep your inspiration fired up. I don't know. I don't really have one specific thing but like Michelle I go on Instagram I follow some of my friends who have graduated a few years ago hadn't been in either grad school or been working. And sometimes their work inspires me or other graphic designers that I fall on Instagram. But then also just going on be Hanse which is the Adobe. I don't know how to explain Buckhantz but I don't know what this is for graphic designers kind of. Is it an open source thing that anybody can do. I think so yeah. And yeah you just post your stuff. It's like a portfolio almost but you can see everyone else's work and kind of like Pinterest. So Yapi hands Pinterest it's like how we can I get my ideas flowing and I'm really drawn to like the minimal designs and typography. I don't know. I think that's probably yeah. So very handsome like B E H A and C like Google that you can find something new.

[00:21:41] Yeah that's also OK. JORDAN How about you. Where does your inspiration come from.

[00:21:46] I mean a lot of that comes from film. I like collect movies. But I also it's kind of embarrassing but I collect cartoons.

[00:21:56] Oh that's not embarrassing that's awesome!

[00:21:58] I'm talking about like from Nickelodeon cartoon network like oh all sorts of different cartoons because I like to see the way that they solve different problems different storytelling problems different animation styles which all lead back to in motion design as well. So do you have like a play. I mean how do you do you have like a cat catalog somewhere and you just go like all let me dip in here. Yeah I like to explore and look at different types of shows and different types of movies. I'll follow a bunch of different like podcasts or blogs that do the same thing I'm a kind of dive into different animation styles and different motion graphic content and then I'll just discuss it and they analyze it. So it's really cool and so I go and find my own. And I look at how they either made this character move or how they made their text move and I kind of like build off of that and analyze okay that makes me so mad.

[00:23:07] So how. So if somebody wanted to see in your opinion is an amazing piece of animation what would be your suggestion.

[00:23:17] If something is kind of easy to find. Yeah I would say like one of my favorite is Glenn Keane. He is a animator. Well not anymore. He wasn't animated for Disney but he really focuses on his key frames and basically in a nutshell animation is just an illusion of something moving. Your basic even 24 frames as a standard and you draw out each frame by hand and then sometimes you either go quickly or slowly depending on what kind of field you want in between each of those frames. And he recently did a project where in today's world when you film 60 frames per second is the standard for a 24 and to get that kind of movement. He actually drew out every one second is 60 frames. So he drew them all out by hand and it's pretty inspiring. Those are the types of things I think where I'm trying to push the envelope that way. That's what makes a good thing. And what was his name again his name is Glen Keane. How do you spell KEANE. Okay great. So I'm going to look that scene. Do you have an opinion on Anna Mae. Is that something you like or you know I'm never against it. There are some sometimes it like goes beyond maybe what I understand about the culture but there are definitely some very talented animated anime artists out there. How about a blog if somebody is kind of curious and maybe wants that deepen and read a little bit about this world. Is there a blog that you could recommend. Oceanographer I would say it would be the place to start. That's like the oh that's like the top play you can get your work under there. That's like you're in for forever. Okay. Oceanographer.

[00:25:09] Okay great. And then how about for you guys. Do you have a favorite you know film or movie or blog or something that would really like a favorite photographer or a favorite designer. You were mentioning some graphic design people that you follow. If somebody wanted to really see work they thought was awesome. Who would you direct them to. Or if you need a minute about a move on I can tell you.

[00:25:43] That's the hard thing about photography. You can Google just about everything about it. I hate to say that. Don't tell any my professor said that but really if you are interested in learning I would probably like try to learn. The three areas of exposure and you can Google that anywhere and try to balance them. But as far as like cryptographers go Chris Burkard is like killing it right now and if you were interested in taking a class from him it's really expensive and it's in Pismo Beach. But you can follow him on Instagram. He also shoots for National Geographic and he is so he's super cool and his work is so beautiful.

[00:26:18] What was his name again. Chris Burkard. Okay great. Will definitely check that one out too. Okay do we have a graphic designer.

[00:26:26] Yeah. So there is a brand agency. I think it's in L.A. it's a blind call. While this one's called The Future. The one. Yeah. No he has another studio blind. So his name is Chris Do. I don't want to be wrong like. So he is like the owner of these studios but this one is called The Futur F U T U R. OK no you and I'm. But I went I'm like kind of just want to learn more instruction on graphic design and stuff. He actually does like live Facebook videos and YouTube videos and he will have people like Send portfolios or stuff that they're working on logos or anything like that and he'll actually critique it in a live video and say like this is what I would do differently. It's really cool that you get super answer questions coming in but I just think that he has a really good designer and he knows a lot of stuff so I'll just do like tutorial videos or like how to even make a portfolio and like what to do brand wise and things like that. So I like following them on Instagram and watching those YouTube videos.

[00:27:40] That sounds like a great resource. And again his name and the company. Chris Do. And this one's called The Futur, the Instagram as the futur is here.

[00:27:52] He has another company is that where you were.

[00:27:54] Well yeah. His agency is called blind. Oh and the YouTube channel Instagram has like social media campaigning is called the futur.

[00:28:02] So nice that all sounds like very well. Well cool. That's great to know about your inspiration. I think it's time for another song. This song is called Heaven and it's the title track from the album Heaven and The Artist is Jamila Woods. And again you're listening to the apex our KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

[00:32:37] OK welcome back to the apex hour. My name is Lynn Vartan and I I'm joined in the studio today with some of our senior artists Melissa Kruger Michelle Gray and Jordan Haskell. And we're talking about all things art and this is the apex hour on KSUU thunder ninety one point one. Welcome back guys. Well in this chunk I'd like to talk a little bit about a topic we haven't gotten too much into and that is kind of like where you think art is going nowadays and how you're feeling about it as you embark on careers. I mean you already have started in art and design. Are you feeling nervous for the future or are you excited for the future. You know how are you feeling about the industry right now is it. Is it hot. Is it what's going on in your individual disciplines.

[00:33:32] I could talk a long time about the modern world. It's also a forever optimist so I am very excited about all the changes I'm seeing. The camera are gone so much more popular in the last 10 years than it ever has been because everybody has them on their phone. You know. Yes so everybody can take pictures. And so we've developed new ways to cram more megapixels into smaller spaces which is incredible like the size I'm holding up two fingers right now and they have a very small gap between them that's how big your sensor is in your iPhone and you can get these great shots and I can't help but think that some day like my big setup my DSL our camera that I have it's going to be out one day and I have no idea what that's going to be next. Technology is advancing so fast but it's exciting more than anything. The promise of getting really really incredible photos with like either smaller or more advanced equipment. It's a very tempting idea like ooh like switch out my DSL are for a new mirrorless system or there's a new camera that has like 18 lenses that does different depths of fields you can get tack sharp focus in one shot so just interesting things are carrying it again forever an optimist. I'm like a little bit only because cameras are X Bensimon and so if I get like if I invested like 10 grand into a setup and it changes that's kind of frustrating. But at that point I'm hoping that I'm making enough money to change with the times.

[00:35:02] Right. Sounds good. OK. I like the optimism plan yeah. How about graphic design or in motion graphics. What's the vibe right now.

[00:35:12] I mean of graphics the design they fall in the same category I would feel like. I feel like there is there's so much technology and so much information out there that it can be very competitive. But I also feel like there's a movement of moving away from that technology and going back to like traditional methods which is like one of the reasons I started watching more and more traditional animation because that's what inspired the tools that we have today that we use motion graphics for that kind of music probably chime in but I feel like it's the same way in graphic design like we were saying off air. Like pretty much anybody can pick up photoshop and say oh I'm a designer now. So there's I think there's like these principles that they're focusing more on and it'll always be needed. I feel like especially with film and video it reaches such a broad audience that it's always going to be in demand. So I feel pretty bright for the McGrath future. I like it. Anything to add. Yeah I like saying I think there's always going to be a need for it especially when I feel like now is the time that people are starting new companies and new brands and like business owning is a huge thing right now. And with that goes branding and they need marketing and they need a logo and packaging and all that stuff to go with it. And so whether it's in an agency or in house or even freelancing I think like it's very positive and I'm excited for it.

[00:36:50] Yeah. How do you feel about the skills like what in your mind in your area is what do you think are some of the important skills or personality traits that you are cultivating in yourself that you think will be really key to your success. Is there anything that your that you feel like you particularly have naturally or maybe that you're working on cultivating that are going to make you more marketable or you think are going to really contribute to your success.

[00:37:24] Well I think I don't think design is something just anyone can do. I mean that's a bold statement to say but I definitely think you have to have like an eye for and know what good design is. A lot of people just say well I could have made that logo in 3 seconds and it's like well how like comparing how well would it be you know and how who can tell the difference. You know. If you can tell the difference. I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that but it's ok. I you think that you really like we all have a talent in life. I think it is something that you're kind of born with. And you have an eye for design. Obviously there are skills that you can learn like topography and like lighting and tracking and even letterpress and making and stuff like that. But to come up with the design and know that it is a good design is I think a skill to already have. I see any any other. There's a lot of problem solving and critical thinking. I think most people don't realize when they're first getting into design. They feel like it's just going to be all right or no drawing painting album cover of social media. And there's just so much more to it. Yeah it can be bracing when you get down like like I said problem solving and critical thinking and they're all very much part of design as much as the aesthetic part. I think an example of that just for people who don't really see the relation with that is. I always go to publications and say a client gives you an article and you have to put it in a magazine but you only have one page to do it. That's a problem solving thing you have to come up with a good design to fit that article in it without cutting any content because the client doesn't want to cut any content. So that's kind of like the problem solving that I see from that and to give an example how about the customer interaction piece of the puzzle.

[00:39:34] Does that come easy for you or is that something you feel like you have to develop. Is that something you think about. Is that part of is that part of the landscape.

[00:39:42] I'd say yes. I think it's definitely something that you have to learn and some people are better at it than others but you learn like key phrases you learn how to interact with people and especially with the option for all of us as freelancers like you're you've got to sell yourself like no one's going to hire a moody photographer or like a quiet boring like graphic designer like they're going to hire someone who's works that they like and they seemed like a good person and a good fit for whatever job that there is right. So you got to be able to kind of like gauge your audience a little bit see kind of what they're wanting what they're feeling and decide if that's for you and then let them know that you're that person for them. Cool.

[00:40:25] Yeah. Please no. Go for it. Are you kidding.

[00:40:28] Her clients are I think very tricky to work with photography. Also I've worked with clients and graphic design because a lot of I don't know how to explain it but it's you just have to find the right balance and not like overpowering them but let them know that you know what you're talking about. And like you're the expert on it and they aren't. And just finding that right balance is sometimes difficult. Do you have any suggestions for any would be clients out there that can help your side of things as a designer.

[00:41:02] What would you if you wanted. You know what's a dream client. What can we come in knowing or having thought about to help your side of things.

[00:41:12] One thing that I put in my photography contract actually is basically saying like you've seen my work. You know what you're buying kind of thing like you are aware of my work and my style and I'm not going to change. Not like my style is my style. And that's what you're hiring the person for. Because I have had photography is just an easy example to go to but I've had clients that are like well can you edit this kind of the way that I want it. And it's like well no I can't because that's not my style. And so I think if the client just knew that like what they're getting into I guess what who they're hiring and what kind of design work or photography style cool. Anything else to add to that. I say that sure we make it look like it's easy but it doesn't mean that you could do it too. That sounds really mean. It's like someone's like oh all you're doing is you know pressing a button and taking a photo. It's like actually like I'm monitoring the light I'm making the background blurry or sharp. I am composing the image in such a way that like it's looking pleasing to you and you don't even know that that's going on right. And a lot of people are like oh well why would I pay you that much if I could do it myself. And oftentimes I'm like go do it yourself differently.

[00:42:37] I wish that clients just now like as a freelancer. I charge 20 dollars an hour which is actually very cheap and I should be charging way more but I'm still a student and I have so many people saying like oh how much you charge and I told them per hour and then they were like oh how much do you think a whole branding project going to take. And I'm like oh my goodness. Like it could take weeks months. Like who knows. And sometimes I kind of just give them a range like this many hours and then they're like OK thanks. And like never hear from them again because they're like that's so expensive around yeah they don't understand the process right. I mean it's just weird because it's like they think they're just they're literally just paying for you to like you know wiggle the mouse and arrange things you know like in a Microsoft Word document but it's like oh like I've paid for this skill I pay for my laptop I pay for my power if I'm paying rent I'm paying for food. And it is a design process. Yeah exactly. We do research about the company that we're going to brand or whatever and then we do research of what kind of design style we want to go for and matches the company and we put together mood boards for the client and then meetings with the client and then we go through steps. It's not just going to sit down one time and do this. So that's something that I wish the clients knew.

[00:43:57] Yeah. Okay cool. How about advice may be that you have gotten in this part of your career earlier in your career that you have felt that it's been really important or really valuable. Is there anything any advice that anyone has given you or that you have found that you found to be particularly key in your artistic endeavors or in your business endeavors. Anything you can think of there.

[00:44:26] I think just knowing your worth and not with photography with my photography business I always want to lowball because I want clients. But advice I've been given like Time and time again is those just aren't the clients that you want if you have to lowball yourself. Just set your price range. What you think you're worth and then the clients that you want are going to come to you. And I think that's like the best advice I always have to remind myself is like no I'm worth this much. And so I'm not going to settle or to give discounts or anything like that because I know that this is why I should be charging call. Any other advice thoughts or key words or input. I would just echo that as well. I mean there are times we all feel like we're not good enough. But if you don't respect yourself you're saying that your clients aren't going to respect you either. And that comes with like asking for the appropriate amount to be paid and just being confident and trusting yourself that you do know what you're doing and that you do have that those skills that are on demand right.

[00:45:43] Cool. OK. Well we have one more musical break here. And this song is called Queen and the artist is Janelle Monae. But also it features Erykah Badu. So I think that you might enjoy that. Again this is the apex hour and you were listening to KSUU thunder ninety one point one.

[00:51:08] All right. So we are back here at the apex hour for our last favorite bit. Everybody's favorite bit of the show which is what's turning you on this week. And this is the APEX are on KSUU thunder ninety one point one. So who would like to go first. We've got most of them Michelle and Jordan telling us what's turning you on this week.

[00:51:31] All right I guess I've been voted out. I'm really into a new TV show on AMC called the Terror Imaginary Forces that their title design and really dig in it. I love the title so much because in any given film TV show it's like the portal like the first impression of what the show or movie is about. So I think they did a really good job on that. And what's that show about 1840 is it's about two ships that were sailing in the Antarctic. They were trying to explore and their ships got stuck in them they never come back. So it's like a horror slash survival story. It's really that's the terror of terror and it's on AMC I believe it's on AMC. Great. We'll check it out.

[00:52:22] All right. Next.

[00:52:25] So something that I'm always into is this podcast which is my favorite podcast ever but it's called My Favorite murder. Have you heard of. Yes I have and I haven't listened to her. I told him says I but it sounds creepy but like I'm obsessed with like learning about serial killers and murder and all that stuff so they are a chameleon. And when she was on food network for a while and they just met and made this podcast. And basically I mean they're like an hour and a half episode so a lot of them just talking about their normal days or random things like shows or stuff but then they get to just each of them prepares a murder and they talk about. It's really funny. It's not like serious or anything. They make jokes and it's really funny.

[00:53:16] I love it. Ok cool. We'll look forward to that podcast. And last but not least what's turning you on this week

[00:53:21] It might be slightly lame but I just found a really good deal on a swimsuit that has sharks. I'm super into sharks and so I lost all of my financial willpower and bought it today and it was shipped today. So it's going to be a good day next week when I get it. And that's fantastic. Well that's awesome.

[00:53:43] So once again we have Melissa Krueger here Michelle Gray and Jordan Haskell and these are seniors in our bachelor of fine arts program and their work is part of the big exhibition at the SUMA museum Southern Utah Museum of Art that's running right now all the time it's there. Go check it out. It's FREE Admission into that museum all the way through until I believe it's May 5th. And that's all the time we have today so I'm going to sign off here. You're listening to the apex hour. My name is Lynn Vartan Thunder ninety one point one. And we'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the next hour here on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. Until next week this is Lynn Vartan, saying goodbye from the apex hour here on thunder ninety one point one.