Okay.  Is it honest? So, um, I got asked to do Mahiri. Um, and so that's what I'm going to be doing today. Let me just set some things up on YouTube really quickly. Um, and then we'll go from there. But right now, um, I, I don't know how many schools I've done actually. I think I've, I've done quite a few. Maybe 10, I would say out of the 300 schools that they have. So there's a lot more schools to come. Um, so if you are interested in me doing a school, then I suggest that what you do is you leave a comment in the comment section below so that you can tell me what school it is that you would like me to do. And then I'll see that and hopefully just be able to get to it and actually, um, do that, that program for you, whatever program it is. Okay. Uh, so I was kind of skimming Mahiri beforehand, uh, just kind of looking at some of the things that they, they had just to see because I hadn't really heard that much about the program. Um, and there are some interesting things that I found out. So we're going to get into it very, very shortly. Let me just do this. Um, and we are done. Okay. So let me share my screen with you all. Um, I will do it this way so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. And we can get into this together. I hope you guys are like well prepared for Christmas. It's almost Christmas. I can't believe it. Like the year is already, my husband is really like the most right now you guys. I can't with him anyways. Um, so yeah, it's almost Christmas and I hope you guys are well prepared. Um, here I just went to like, I just Googled. Okay. I Googled Mahiri Medical, um, college and let me actually make this a little bit bigger and put me down in the corner. So I just Googled Mahiri Medical College PA program and it took me to this site. Okay. So, uh, it has like this nice little welcome here for us and then it goes straight into like accreditation mission program outcomes, faculty and staff. So let's get into the accreditation aspect of things because this is what I thought was very interesting. Um, and when I go into that missions portion, I think we'll delve a little bit deeper into this. Um, but it says the Harry Medical College position assistant sciences program has applied for accreditation provisional. So, uh, provisional status is not yet like accredited. Like you're provisional because you're a new like, well, you're not continued accredited, right?  You're now trying to get like that continuing status. Um, so that's really all that provisional means. Okay. It says, and they've done this through our Mahiri Medical College physician. Okay. Let's say Mahiri's PA program anticipates matriculating its first class in January of 2023. Uh, so with that being said, like their first, oh, so that's like two years away. All right. So this is like a brand. So for, for a minute there, I was saying matriculating as in like graduating, but matriculating meaning like starting. So I feel like their first class is going to start in January 2023. It says provisionals, um, pending achieving accreditation provisional status at June 2022 arc PA meeting. So next year in the middle of the summer, June 2022, Mahiri is actually expecting to get provisional status. So they are not yet accredited, um, from what I'm reading thus far. It says provisional is an accreditation status granted when plans and resource allocation, if fully implemented as planned of a proposed program that has not yet enrolled students appear to demonstrate the program's ability to meet the arc PA standards or when a program holding accreditation provisional status appears to demonstrate continued progress in complying with the standards as it appears as it prepares for the graduation of the first class. It says the program is not yet accredited. Okay. So I mean, that's what I'm saying applicants for the inaugural, um, MM CPA science cohort will be notified only after the program receives notification of the June 2022 meeting decision. So this is very interesting because we have not seen a school like this before, right? Um, we've school seen schools that have probationary status. Um, and we've seen schools that have, um, continuing education, um, continuing accreditation status, but never have we seen a school that is applying for provisional status like their brand new program, um, not even on CASPA yet because they did check to see if it was a CASPA participating program, which I expect they will probably become. Um, but they're just not even on CASPA yet because they don't have a status. And so, um, this is quite interesting. Um, and I guess for all of you pre PA students out there who are trying to apply to PA school within the next year or so, um, this is a school to keep, uh, on your radar. Okay. All right. So missions and goals. I always like to look at these. Uh, so their mission is to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups in medicine into the PA profession. Students will be equipped with ability to demonstrate cultural humility, provide evidence base and compassionate care to all patients they encounter and foster a commitment to community service and underserved populations through equity, justice and lifelong learning. Cool. I like it. Um, to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups in medicine into the PA profession metric admissions data benchmarks greater than 85% of matriculated students will be from the URIM group, which is cool. All right. I wish I had gone to a program like that.  I would say maybe let's say 4%. And if I wanted to like be very generous, maybe 7%. Okay. Maybe we're 7%. Um, but to be among, uh, individuals that look like me and it be the majority that would have been really, really nice. And so I like, uh, that that is one of their goals. Um, so if that is a desire for you, then again, a school to keep on your radar. Let me just kind of close these down. I don't like when it's like that. Uh, and program outcomes, like, okay, cool, whatever. Like you can look at the program outcomes. They're pretty standard for the majority of PA programs in terms of the knowledge base and kind of interpersonal skills. So we're not going to get into that. Let's take a look at their faculty and staff. All right. So Ms. Drumgold, uh, is the program director. Uh, oh, Ms. Carruthers. I actually met her at an event and she was very, very nice. So, um, I think if you had the privilege of going to this school, um, she'd be a really good advocate for you. Uh, so she will be the associate program director, Mr. Moore, Dr. Jackson. Oh, so Dr. Moore and Dr. Jackson. There's a medical director and an associate medical director. We have Dr. Lata. He is the academic education director. Um, Mr. Wyatt, Dr. Brown, and Ms. Morgan is the program manager and Ms. Carruthers is the assistant. All right. Let's go to learn more about their admission. Okay. To be eligible to be considered for admission to Meharry, let's go through CASPA. Okay. So CASPA opens late Thursday and April annually. However, admissions windows for, um, MMC will be from the time CASPA opens until August 15th. So their deadline will be August 15th of, I would say, next year, uh, because they won't get accreditation status until, um, they won't get an, uh, they won't get an accreditation status, which would be provisional status until June of next year. You know, fingers crossed for them. And then they wouldn't start matriculating their first cohort until January of 2023. So they're a January start. Um, so just keeping that in mind. Okay. Let's look at the criteria. All right. So the following criteria are required for applicants interested in applying to Meharry. Applicants must have earned a bachelor's degree. Okay. Granted. Um, and it should have been completed by August of next year. Okay. That's, that's what I'm, I'm rolling with August of next year. Personal statement. You're going to have three letters of recommendation. Uh, you can't have anything lower than a C for your prerequisite courses. Um, for courses repeated, the higher of the two grades will be used in the evaluation of the application. That's cool. Um, Meharry Medical College requires submission of supplemental applications. So you would need to do that as well. All applications, all applicants born outside the United States are required to provide a TOEFL. Um, which is cool. So they accept international graduates or international students. So that's something that, um, again, all of my international students that watch me and that are always like, Adana, I'm from, you know, this country, that country, from India. Um, you know, I want to be a PA in the United States. What do I do? Um, really and truly you just need to find schools that will accept international students, which this will be one of them. Um, and then go through that application process.  I guess you could say, like, they will review all of your courses and see how it lines up with the requirements for the program. All right, let's look at the prerequisite courses. Okay. The following prerequisite courses are required with an earned grade of C or higher and must be completed by the date of application being submitted. Okay. So this is something, um, that you guys need to keep in mind. And, uh, I want to take some time to just kind of touch on this because I've done, um, you know, I do personal statement reviews and I do personal consulting and all of this is kind of ran through GTCU. And so there are other consultants as well. And we've all come across like this similar, I would say, um, like issue when talking to our students. Um, and that is that when you're reading these requirements, not everybody plays close attention to some of like these, these, the wording and some of these things, right? So if it says it has to be completed by the date of the application being submitted, that does not mean that, hey, you submitted your application before the deadline of August 15th.  However, you're not finishing your class until, um, July or August 1st. And you know, that class is one of the classes that is required to get into that program. And you're saying, all right, well, I'm going to submit it anyways because I want to be early. No, that's not going to, that's not going to cut it. Okay. Because all of your prerequisite requirements are to be submitted and be completed, must be completed. Let me just highlight that. They italicized it and bolded it, must be completed by the date of the application being submitted. Okay. So keep these, like these little words and nuances in mind when you're applying to programs. You have to really read that because these little mistakes will not, like it will prevent you from getting into PA school. Okay. At least that particular program. It says the program does not require a minimum GPA. What? Okay. Y'all, look at this. There's no minimum GPA. Now I, yes. Okay. Like, man, there's no minimum GPA.  My GPA is a 2.78. Like, you know, whatever it may be, y'all can apply to this program. And it says it right here. There's no minimum GPA. These are the programs that I tell you guys to search for because this, this is a program that will give you an opportunity to be like, you know what, I am more than just my grades, right? I am more than just the first two years of undergrad where I didn't know like what the freak I was doing. And, you know, I was just kind of awestruck and maybe homesick or going through some stuff that it allows you to kind of explain those things away because there's no minimum GPA. So that is really cool. Okay. It says medical terminology is one of their courses. It cannot be taken for a certificate. It has to be taken for a credit and one credit hour or greater is sufficient. Okay. My midterm class was three credit hours, but there are some that are one credit hours. It doesn't matter. You can just as long as it's for a credit. So you need to have human anatomy and or anatomy and physiology one and human anatomy human physiology and or human anatomy and physiology two. Okay. So when I went to undergrad, I had gross like mammalian anatomy, which was considered kind of like my human anatomy. It just had a cadaver lab. And then separately we had a physiology class. And so that would have suffice. But then I there were courses that there were schools that it was applying to that did not accept it as the anatomy and physiology requirement that they wanted. And so I had to go and retake or just take in general because I never took it before anatomy and physiology as it is written here. Anatomy and physiology one and two with a lab in summer school. So that is also again something else that you might want to keep in mind. If you have those classes split where it's just anatomy and just physiology, depending on the school, it may not be sufficient enough for their anatomy and physiology requirements. Okay. You'll need gen bio one and two gen chem one and two and a physiology general physiology. You can also do abnormal or developmental, I'm sorry psychology, you can also do abnormal or developmental site. I guess in place of that, that general psychology, which is cool. But typically like general psychology is like the gateway to the other psychologies. It says AP high school course credit credit will be given for prerequisite courses AP high school course credit will be given for prerequisite courses if accepted by the undergraduate college or university. However, all students will be required to complete the entire PAS program. I don't really know what this is talking about will be given for prerequisite courses. I don't know what that means. I mean, maybe if one of you guys are watching and you can you understand like how that's worded and and what it's supposed to mean, you can let me know. It says all science prerequisite course word must be completed within 10 years. This is also something that you need to take into consideration and keep in mind. So their gap is 10 years. There are some schools that have a five year limitation scum schools have a 13 month limitation on all the prerequisites. Some schools have a seven year limitation. This program has a 10 year limitation. Okay. So when you are applying, that's something that you're going to have to keep in mind.  Then, you know, these courses will be older and they will be approaching the five the 10 year mark, depending on how much time you spent outside of school like working and doing other things. So Bria, I'll answer her question. She said, would you advise applying to a beginning program as this one?  The programs like this, these new programs, these developing programs that may not even be accredited yet, the ones that you should look into because there is a probability that, hey, you know, they're going to keep on their like P's and Q's because they're going to be getting reviewed several times throughout their provisional status. And then, you know, at the end of the day, it would have been maybe let's say at max $100 that you may be out of if they don't get that status by June. And again, and also it's very early in the game in terms of when they are looking to get their provisional status. So if you apply to this program and others in July or in April, let's say May after Casper has opened up, you still have so many other programs that have deadlines in August, September, October, November, December and January and also even March of the following year that you can actually still apply to and, you know, not put all your eggs in one basket, but I feel like it's a really good option. All right. So I would say Geron said I just called them two weeks ago. Okay. And what happened?  Did you get like some good warm and fuzzy feelings? Like, tell us about it. Caleb said, are there any requirements for physics or calculus? It doesn't show any math requirements for the prerequisites. So no physics calculus or statistics, you literally just need med term anatomy and physiology, general biology and general chemistry. You don't even need organic chemistry or biochemistry, which again is great for a lot of people. And then your psychology. So a good school to look into. Is there an expiration date for core classes such as anatomy and physiology? Yes. So Jamila, your expiration date would be 10 years. Okay. And it's specifically again for your prerequisite courses. It says it right here. All science prerequisite coursework must be completed within 10 years. And so obviously your psychology is a social science. So you can ask them, Hey, you know, does psychology count as the science prerequisite coursework? If it does, then you just know that it has to be completed within 10 years. But for sure, you know that your anatomy and physiology, your gen bio and gen chem will need to have been completed within a 10 year mark of applying to this program. So if you graduated in 2002, then obviously there's going to be a lot of your courses that would have been, I would say old by the time you are trying to matriculate by 2023. If you graduated like 2010 or or up, you'll be approaching that like mark. Okay. So and it's really, really important to gauge that because there's a lot of people that are going to have to be playing like catch up when it's like, okay, well, my class isn't yet old enough, but it's approaching that 10 year mark or it's right there on the cusp. But then when you apply by the time you matriculate or you plan to matriculate, it would have been 10 years. And then you don't think that, Oh, I need to actually repeat this class because I'm going to be trying to apply next year. God forbid, I don't get in. So again, these are all things that you need to just keep in mind. Where is the program located? It is located in Tennessee. All right, let's get back to it. It says applicant preference. Okay. So the program grids preferences to applicants whose life experience and academic career align with the mission. And part of the mission is to emit members of that underrepresented minority group. Okay. So that's another thing. If you graduated from an HBCU, military veterans, anyone with a master's degree or higher in a healthcare related field prior healthcare experience. And that's one thing we didn't see. There wasn't any type of requirement or ask for healthcare experience hours or shadowing hours. So again, these are all things and who knows, maybe as time passes, because we still have about like what, six or so months, seven months before their deadline for the ARC to accreditate them kind of comes into play. Maybe some of this stuff will be updated and things will be added. But as of right now, that's not there. And even as of right now, they're not on CASPA. So I feel like, let me see if I can go share this screen with you all. My CASPA screen just to show you what exactly I'm talking about. And you can see specifically that they are not currently on CASPA. Where is my participating programs? Okay. So here we have like a list of all of the CASPA participating programs. Okay. It gives you the breakdown of the types of deadlines. And you can just do like CASPA in Google and this, you know, a web page will pop up. And so this is my hearing right now. CASPA has it lined up in alphabetical order. And so we can just go all the way down to the Ms. Okay, we can start from MA. And it's not here. It's not listed. So not even on CASPA. And we can go down to the developing programs. So developing programs for 2021-2022. And again, not here because if you remember, they don't plan on admitting students until 2023. So they're going to be on the newest list of developing programs for 2022-2023 cycle. So again, that is, that's just something to keep in mind. It's a good option for some of my pre-PA students that are like, hey, you know, what are my chances of getting into this program or that program? Your chances of getting into this program is probably pretty high, you know, depending on what your stats are, because their requirements aren't as stringent. Jamila asked no GRE. Nope, it didn't say anything about a GRE. Nothing about a GRE here. It tells you the criteria, which again, is just really your prerequisites, your letters of recommendation, and your personal statement. And nothing about the GRE or the PA CAT. Clementine says, VASCTEC. Is that a school that you want me to review or look at? Let me know. Karma, what do PAs do? So PAs do quite a bit and it just kind of depends on what specialty you're in, but we are just kind of extensions of physicians. So we see patients, we diagnose them, we treat them. We come up with treatment plans. We have patients of our own, as well as if you're in the hospital, you may be working with a team. We prescribe medicine, you know, we do medicine. So it just kind of really depends on your particular specialty.  And you would kind of take a history of the present illness. And so you would do like signs and symptoms of what the child has been going through for the past few days or few weeks, whatever it is these symptoms are. And then from that, you know, we're taught to go through our differential diagnosis of what the possibilities that this may be. And then we'll ask for some labs and likely then go ahead and give them some treatment and then send them home. And, you know, they may come back and see you again, depending on if you're at an urgent care as a pediatric PA or if you are kind of more primary care base, but there's, we do it all. Not on CASPA because applications had to be submitted in August, I believe. So that's the thing, right? This says August 15th. And so if it's what I find interesting is it says August 15th, but it doesn't matter if it's August 15th, because I can show you here on some of these other schools. Let me share this again. Share my screen again for you all, because it doesn't really matter when your deadline is for CASPA. It will have all of it, all of the schools there. Like they don't drop schools off just because your deadline has passed, right? So like Advent Health. Their deadline is November 1st. We are in December. Their program is still there because it is a participating program for the 2021, and that's where we have to be really specific, 2021, 2022 application cycle. Even here at Baylor, their deadline was all the way in August. Ash Augsburg, same thing, August deadline. Concordia, September deadline. Cooney was December deadline. And if we go down to these developing programs down here, some of these have late program deadlines of April, and they're still here, while others had early deadlines of October and again December. And here's some others that are a little bit later, which is March and even April of next year. So the deadline date doesn't really that will not dictate whether or not you're on CASPA or not. I think the important thing to note is that this particular program, they, let me see if I can share that part of my screen again with you guys so you can see specifically what I'm talking about. Admissions.  All right, let's see. Oh, wait, no, I think I have to like back, back. Let me see. So I'm just trying to get back to that main page where it talked about their accreditation. I don't think this is, let me see. All right, to this main page. So here on the main page, when you type it into Google and it takes you to the main page, it talks about the program's accreditation and things to like just keep in mind is that it's first matriculating class is not scheduled to happen until it's not projected to happen until January 2023. And when we looked at CASPA, their participating programs was for the 2021 2022 cycle. So they would not have Mahary on here because it's not in the cycle that they're trying that they're talking about. Mahary will likely be added to CASPA for April of next year, when they are opening up that 2022 2023 cycle. And it says that here that this program is not yet accredited. And again, that's something else that they would need. They would need like a provisional accreditation status to also I believe to be on CASPA. And that's not happening until June of 2022. So next year, June 2022 is when they will be hopefully getting their provisional accreditation status. And then they plan on admitting their first cohort of students in January of 2023. So that's something to keep. Oh, is that okay? Never mind. But I'm glad that you said that because I just wanted to clarify that for anybody who had any, I guess, confusion on what this program was all about in terms of when it was going to start and what their requirements are. Because again, there are not that many requirements or that many like really hardcore requirements like no GRE, no PA cat. Like if you never want to take another standardized test in your life, right now, this is the school to apply to. If you have a lot of healthcare experience hours, your GPA is solid, you know, maybe like a 3.2 ish. And you know, maybe you have a master's degree, like this is a school to think about applying to Caleb said when working for a physician assistant program that is unaccredited, isn't there always the off chance of the program being completely shut down if they never get accredited? Yes. Yes. And so that is that is the that is the risk that, you know, like students who apply to the program and get accepted will take if you're now putting down like a seat deposit. It's the risk that Hey, in June, we don't get that provisional accreditation status. However, if you would like one thing that you can do is you can wait until that June 2022 meeting has already occurred and apply in July once you know for sure that they've been accredited. But just keep in mind that their deadline is August 15 of that year and CASPA can take like that's summertime is a really, really busy time for CASPA and it can take anywhere from four to six weeks to get your CASPA application verified, meaning like they go through all of your application and look at all of your transcripts from various different schools that you've gone to and then have given you like a GPA and all of that. So just something that you want to keep in mind because you want to make sure that your application is verified in time so that you can meet that deadline of applying to the program. But another thing to also keep in mind is that this program does not have a minimum GPA.  And although it doesn't have a minimum GPA, that doesn't mean that you can come up in there with like a 1.9 or 2.0. You still need to like have like some assemblance of like, yeah, you know what, here's the trend. I may have done bad in my first two years or my first year, but I've gotten better consistently. I've worked my behind off in, you know, this healthcare job. I've done my research and then you also make that shine in your personal statement. Okay. Transparent Canada, hello. I'm a physician assistant in Ghana. What are the master's options? Can we do? I don't know specifically what you're asking me if you're asking a master's option that you can do in Ghana or an option that you can do here in the States. Yeah. So, okay. So you're asking if an international PA can apply. So yes, of course you can apply. It shows that they accept international students. So that's not a thing. You can absolutely apply.  Let me just go back and make sure that I'm able to stream that for you. Admissions. So there is these sites here that if you're an international student, you have to take your transcripts, your schoolwork, your coursework, and send it through one of these sites so that it can get essentially vetted and they can see what you've done, what you've accomplished, how does that line up with the prerequisites that they're asking for. And then based on that, you'll get offered an interview or not. And I'm pretty sure you'll also need to have a visa or something, maybe a green card to make sure that you're eligible to stay in the United States and study. Okay. More questions. Could I use my master's to do MU? I don't know what MU is. I'm sorry. If you're asking if you could use your master's to apply to Muhary, then yeah, you would be given preference if you had a master's degree. So yeah. But I don't know if that's really what you wanted to know. Jamila says, I have everything done and have seven years of direct patient care, but my GPA is bad. It's a 2.45. So I've been wanting to do a post back starting this summer to help with my science GPA to help that get stronger. Okay. It says, would I potentially be ready to apply for the 2023 cycle? Well, I guess the thing is when is your post back, right? When would it end? Because for me, I always like encourage you guys to apply early. So if you're doing it this summer, like we're in the fall actually, so we're in the fall. So this summer meaning the 2022 summer, then and if it were to finish by when, you know, if it would finish by July, potentially you might be able to be ready. But I think that would be cutting it really close because their deadline is August 15th for their applications. So with that deadline, you really would have needed to complete everything well before that. And so I would say like it would have needed to be completed by May of this like this upcoming year so that you have given yourself enough time, three months worth of time to apply, apply early and get that in. And you're making your own post back. So just kind of taking your own courses. Got it. All right. DE. Hi, AD. I'm from New York and the schools that offer the programs are very competitive, competitive. This school makes me a little skeptical. I would consider it only because you're talking about it. Well, that's cool. I'm glad that you would consider it. But I think that as pre-PA students, we have to be like very open-minded, right? And so yes, there are lots of PA programs out there that are super competitive. And again, there are over 300 PA programs. So this is just one and it's not even on the like true, true list of the, of all the PA programs. So this is a brand new program that is like grassroots program now starting off and really and truly all PA programs started like this where they have to go and try to get accreditation status. Even the program that I went to, I was the third class, third graduating class of that program. So the students that graduated first, their first graduating class, they went through this whole process of like applying to a program that doesn't yet have an accreditation and, you know, like kind of sticking with them and seeing how that would go. But Meharry is a like tried and true medical college and they graduate really, really intelligent medical doctors. I know a few of them myself. I went to school with some of them in my undergraduate degree. And so I'm very, if it was like some school that I'd never really heard of in my life, then I would be like, okay, whatever, like, I don't know, like a little bit more skeptical. But because I am familiar with like their track record, I'm a little bit more on board with telling you guys about this program and encouraging you to look into it yourselves and see if it's something that you would actually benefit from as a pre-PA student. And Jamila, you're saying that you're taking two science courses at a time. And I think that that's reasonable. But if you would like to apply to this particular program, I would encourage you to try to get everything completed by May so that again, you would be applying to CASPA like in June, July. And they would be on your radar so that you don't miss that August 15 deadline because you can't apply to a school after the deadline has already passed. They're not going to accept your application. Okay. All right. Thank you guys so much for this school. I don't know who asked for it, but I'm really glad that you did because it was an interesting one, one that I wasn't really like expecting in terms of their accreditation status, but cool nonetheless. If you guys have other programs that you want me to review, please go ahead and leave that in the comment section below. If you haven't already also subscribed, subscribe to my channel right now. Hit the subscribe button and the notification bell so you can know exactly when I come out with a new video. Make sure that you join me again on Sunday and then the following Tuesday because I have videos for you guys every Sunday and Tuesday. And I hope you guys have a wonderful, amazing Christmas. I know I plan on having one as well. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.


I'm not a computer actor. How many people are there? Eight. But only four were doing the work on that. She's wide. I'm starting to get that. I'm not a computer actor. I've never heard of a department that was using the channel. It was on YouTube. Oh, okay. It seems like it was on a search. We're all on a search. So I'm just a different channel. I feel something about what you do on YouTube is hard. There's something that I've heard that you watch on YouTube. Is there a whiteish trend that's just for that? And then these are receivers? So that's like a separate thing that's on the record. I'm not going to go there. I'm going to go there. I'm going to go there. I'm going to go there. Okay, maybe I overdid it. I would like to invite you into a few moments of centering silence. And now please remain seated and join us in singing our in-gathering hymn found in your order of service. Good morning. Welcome to First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience in each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Tim Corden. And on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors.  Visitors are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and look for people carrying teal stoneware mugs. These are FUS members who are knowledgeable about our programs and activities and community life. And they look forward to the chance to speak with you this morning. You can also stop by our information table outside the library where you can find more information about upcoming events and programs. In this lively, acoustical environment, it may become difficult for those in attendance to hear what is happening in our service. So we remind you that our child haven back there or the commons are excellent places to go when anyone needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. We do have hearing assistance devices available. Please see one of our ushers if that would be helpful for you. This would be a good time to turn off electronic devices that may disrupt the service. Experience guides are generally available to give building tours after each service. So if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house, please meet near the large glass windows at the left side of the auditorium after the service. I'd like to acknowledge those individuals who help our service run so smoothly and beautifully. Our sound operator is Mark Schultz. Our lay minister is Ann Smiley. Greeters are Hannah Pinkerton and Karen Hill. Usher's are Elizabeth Barrett, Doug Hill, and Ann Smiley. Hospitality is brought to you by Lois Evenson and Pete and Marion, I'm sorry, Pete and Marge Marion are out at our book table this morning. Please stop by and visit and look at the wonderful selection of books for sale. Please also note the announcements in the red floors insert in your order of service which describes upcoming events at the society and provides you with more information about today's activities. And then we have a special announcement. The Music Director Search Committee is beginning the process of finding our new music director and they would like to know your thoughts regarding the music program here at FUS and its role. There is a table set up for you after the service where you can stop by and discuss your thoughts or fill out a note sharing your ideas and wishes. Our pulpit guest this morning is Becky Siegel and she's no stranger to FUS having served here as our social justice coordinator for several years. Now the executive director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice, Becky says that she is passionate about connecting people to each other and the power we share when led by our own beliefs. She has found that people of all faiths and backgrounds share a commitment to fairness and dignity of all workers. Becky started working in restaurants at the age of 14 in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She managed a retail store before entering a career in social work and teaching. Ultimately her desire to work on the core causes of poverty rather than the symptoms led Becky to be trained in community organizing by the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice's National Affiliate Interfaith Worker Justice. Over the years Becky has held several roles with ICWJ including field organizer, acting director and board member. She has led a Black Friday Walmart rally and a successful fight to protect local living wage ordinances. After several years as the social justice coordinator here at FUS, Becky returned to ICWJ last January. She is the director of the Madison Workers' Rights Center as well and serves on the board of the Madison Area Urban Ministry and the Stewardship of Public Policy Committee of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Becky has a spouse and two teenage children and the favorite thing about living in Madison is paddling in the Wisconsin rivers and lakes. I have one more special announcement which I forgot. If anyone would like to help Dan Broner with page turning for the postlude, please make your way over there. Otherwise he's going to have to do his amazing act and turn pages which I'm sure he can do. Alright and last again, welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Opening words this morning come from the late British novelist and social commentator George Orwell. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of some mysterious authority and he has a firm conviction that they will never allow him to do this and that and the other. Once when I was hop picking, I asked the sweaty pickers who earn something less than six pence an hour. I asked, why do you not form a union? I was immediately told that they would never allow it. Well who were they? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently they were omnipotent. I invite you to rise in body and spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Please join me in repeating the words of affirmation printed in program. We kindle this single flame as a symbol of unity in diversity to underscore the love and longing that make us one despite our many differences. We also kindle this light as a beacon of hope for those whose lives are darkened this day who suffer from uncertainty, poverty or sorrow. May this small flickering fire be for us an emblem of the divine spark which animates us in the pursuit of our noblest aspirations. And now on this fine Labor Day Sunday I invite you to turn to your neighbor in exchange with them a warm greeting. Please be seated. And I see that there are at least a few of the youngest generation among us and if you would like to join me for the message for all ages I would appreciate your support. Well welcome. I'm guessing that pretty much all of you are old enough to be going to school, right? Maybe just about everybody. You're there. You are here. So how many of you have already started school? Okay, but schools, kindergarten. In 4K, very good. Fourth grade. Oh good. And all of you like going to school, right? Yeah? Yeah. Well I know that the Madison schools start this week after Labor Day after Monday. So here I want to tell you something. Do you know that you are really very lucky to be going to school? Because 150 years ago a lot of kids couldn't go to school. They had to go to work instead. They had to go to work. And these children, maybe some of your own great-great-great grandparents, they probably had to do really hard work in factories or out in the fields. And they were paid very little, just pennies for the work that they did. And often their parents weren't paid much better than they were. And if any of them got sick or they got injured, they might lose their job and they would just go hungry until they could go back to work again. Well this was really pretty wrong. I mean this was not right. And the small number of people that owned the big farms and the factories, they were making lots and lots of money. They were getting rich. Yeah, they were getting rich because they were paying all these kids and their parents so little money. So as you might imagine, at some point the workers got really fed up with all this. They got mad about it. And so they started talking to each other, probably secretly at first. And they decided that they didn't get paid more money that they were going to stop working. They were all together going to stop working. It's what we call going out on strike until they got what they were deserved. And so if no work was being done and the crops weren't being picked, and things were not being made in the factories, what happens to the rich people? Well, they get poorer and poorer. They're not making any money either, right? So these workers formed what they called unions, groups of workers that could support each other in their efforts, right? And these early unions, these collections of workers were led by some very smart and very courageous people. And one of the most famous of all those labor leaders 150 years ago was a woman by the name of Mary Harris Jones. She was born in Ireland 180 years ago, but she came to Canada, the country of Canada when she was a teenager, and she went to college in Canada, and then she moved to the United States to Michigan, which is right across Lake Michigan from Wisconsin, so that she could teach. And she taught for a couple of years, but then she kind of thought, teaching's not really my bag. So she got married, and she and her husband moved to Memphis, Tennessee, another city, and she had four children. But then something really terrible happened to her family. There's this very bad disease that's called yellow fever. And in 1867, all the members of her family caught the yellow fever, and they didn't have medicines the way we do today, and all of her children and her husband died from the yellow fever. Now, her husband had been a labor... Wait a minute, and we'll get to you. Her husband had actually been a labor leader, and Mary was so impressed with what her husband did that she decided that rather than go back into teaching, she was going to become a labor leader. And so she joined a group called the Knights of Labor, and Mary Harris became this woman who was organizing strikes. And that was really hard to do back then, because the people who owned the factories and the fields, they had the police on their side. It was illegal for workers to walk out. And so oftentimes these strikers were arrested, or they were shot at, and some of them were even killed. But this didn't stop them, and it didn't stop Mary, because she believed that all working people deserved to have enough money to live on. And so she continued to organize these strikes, and she was particularly effective because she started organizing not just the workers, but their wives and their children to go out and demonstrate on the streets on behalf of these workers. It became a big public thing, and it was so successful that she became kind of threatening to a lot of people, and in West Virginia they put her on trial in 1902 for organizing this strike, and the prosecutor in the courtroom pointed to her and said to the jury, there sits the most dangerous woman in America.  So that's what she was accused of. And actually Mary Harris did spend some years in jail for the kind of work that she was doing. But here's the interesting thing for you all. In the year 1900, one out of every six children in the United States worked and did not go to school. They had to work rather than going to school. And this was very, very troubling to Mary Harris-Jones, and so she began organizing these young people all under the age of 16 who worked in the cloth mills in the state of Pennsylvania. And in 1903 she organized what was called a Children's Crusade, the United States Children's Crusade, and she was accompanied by hundreds and hundreds of children who walked all the way from Philadelphia to the president of the United States' home in upstate New York. And the children were all carrying these banners that said, We want to go to school, not to the mills. And they wanted the president to come out and to talk to them about what was right, what these children needed. And President Theodore Roosevelt, he refused. He wouldn't talk to any of them. But all the publicity about this Children's Crusade kind of turned the whole country to thinking about what it meant for children to work rather than go to school. And so it kind of changed everything.  I'll let you ask me a question in just a minute, okay? I'm almost done. You're going to Canada? Okay. Well, you know, Canada probably had better laws than we did in 1900. So I'm just about at the end here. So by this time, 1903, 1904, Mary Jones was presenting herself to the public as Mother Jones because she said that all of these men and these women and children that I'm serving, they are all my children. And I'm going to protect all of them. So she became known all over the country as Mother Jones. And although she looked like anybody's sweet old grandma, she was a fighter. And she kept on fighting until she was in her mid-80s. And she finally died at the age of 93. And if you go to a little town called Mount Olive, Illinois, in southern Illinois, there's this big monument to Mother Jones because she actually helped some of the miners in southern Illinois to organize. And every year in Mount Olive, Illinois, they have a festival, Mother Jones Day, that is held in her honor. So the fact that you all can go to school and that some of you don't have to work out in the fields and the factories, you can thank Mother Jones for that. Anybody else have a little question here before we? Okay, good. All right, well, thank you all for listening as patiently as you are capable of. We're going to sing you out with our next song. Hey, we've got ice cream out there, folks. You don't want to miss that. Yellow fever? What about it? You know, I don't really know, except that your skin gets really yellow because it affects your liver. Our next reading is from James Baldwin's book, The Fire Next Time, specifically the first essay, My Dungeon Shook, which was an open letter addressed to Baldwin's nephew primarily about racism. I hear the chorus of innocent screaming, no, this is not true. How bitter you are. But I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them. For most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her she isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists either, though she has been working for them all their lives. And he continues later, these innocent people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years and for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them indeed know better, but as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger. That letter first appeared here in the Progressive in 1962. And so our next reading is more contemporary by local poet Araceli Lopez Esparza. And it comes from this book. I didn't know there were Latinos in Wisconsin. And this is edited and there's more volumes of it, but by our local poet laureate Oscar Mireles, and I recommend it. So we're going to dedicate this reading to this woman behind me. And this is Ms. Esparza's grandmother, Zephyrina Lopez. And Senora Lopez turned 94 years old last week. She migrated here in 1924 as a child with her family of migrant farmers. Her own children and grandchildren now include six college graduates. Senora Lopez is a lifelong devoted Christian, as well as a retiree of the UW Humanities Building janitorial crew. And here is Stained Glass Windows by Araceli Lopez Esparza. First, they destroyed our church to put up a new building. All they kept were the stained glass windows. I remember a time when I used to walk up Park Street to get to church each Sunday. And I asked our bolita, why do we have to walk? And she would tell the story of how she and Tia walked all the way from our hometown in Mexico to San Juan de los Lagos, and how she had to carry my fat baby cousin almost the whole way. If I was lucky, we would have donuts after church and go to the Eagle Store on the way back. La Iglesia, the church, was special for me. Sister and Padre always had a smile for me. The kitchen walls had Aztec drawings, paintings, and frames that held old pictures of those who came before me. In gym, I watched with envy and pride the Avila brothers do their dances. I had me Primera Comunon and Quince there. I would run and hold my breath when I passed the communion place, just in case un Espirito Malo wanted to come in. I remember hiding under the pews. So unless you are a person of color growing up Catholic in Madison, you might not understand, or maybe you do. But they aren't closing the doors on a building. They're closing the doors on our culture, our espacio, our space, our meeting place, my stained glass windows. So good morning. I think I know a lot of you here, but my name is Becky Shiegel, and I'm the Executive Director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin. First Unitarian Society is a long-time partner and leader in worker justice, and we thank you for that. And I also thank you to Michael and Kelly for inviting me into your pulpit. It's wonderful to be back here today. There are so many familiar faces in this room right now, and I have to tell you what a lovely gift it is to return to this sense of community with you here today. For the four years that I was blessed to serve this congregation as social justice coordinator, we journeyed and we learned together, and these words came up often, the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This is, of course, the Unitarian Universalist First Principle and a value we share at the Interfaith Coalition. So the worth of every person, this has been easy for me to say, but when I find myself deeply reflecting on it, I am profoundly struck by what a difficult concept it really is. Because implied here is a concept of equal worth or perhaps some baseline of what we're all worth. What does that mean in action, I wonder? Some regard, some respect, some modicum of decency or certain intrinsic rights? What am I worth? What are you worth? I am concerned these days when I increasingly hear and read public arguments solely in terms of the economic impact of any given decision. This week we waited for the end of DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. We waited to hear about the possible deportation of 800,000 young people who arrived in our country as children and with DACA have been able to work and go to school without hiding. So a group of elective officials pleaded their case with two numbers, $460 billion and $3.4 billion.  So I'm thankful for those officials. I really am. I'm thankful that they stood up and I pray that they continue to do so, but still I wonder how did they add up how much those young people have contributed to all their communities, to our communities. And are we to measure our worth by what it would cost our employers to replace us? And this is the moment I've been struck today by saying that sentence when I am actually with my former employers. What's the dollar figure of what you have contributed to your community over the last five years? Earlier I read the poem Stained Glass and in it the poet grieves the loss of her church to her family and her community. To me that poem spoke of the worth of self-determination. We are reminded of how often certain communities do not get to choose what we as a whole tear down in their lives or rather what they might build up. And as it turns out in reaching out to that poem I was gifted with the story of Senora Lopez.  Perhaps she was not this lovely wise woman of 94 when she was cleaning the humanities building. How much was she worth then? So here I want to add some language to that question and I'm going to do this two ways for equal opportunity mysticism. First in my own tradition we are told that we cannot see the face of God directly. Moses had to have a chat with the burning bush because he couldn't just look at God. We cannot take in the hugeness of the Creator but we can look at creation to get a glimpse and we know the rest is there. Okay, now the pop science version. There's been a lot of excitement about the sun lately, right? And you know we can't look at it directly we have to have those little glasses, right? Okay, but even if we can peek at it we aren't really seeing what the actual sun looks like, right? But we can Google it so we can see NASA's version. It's so much more beautiful. Well I believe that our poet's beloved grandmother was there to see in that younger version of herself and that when you or I interact with anyone today we can't possibly see their whole worth though imagining that we are seeing a piece of all creation or perhaps all the life connected to them might help. Okay, so let's look at doing worker justice on this Labor Day weekend. Michael gave us an excellent history about the movement which is great. So I'm wondering if I can get you right now to try out a little vowel with me for Labor Day? Let's try it. Repeat after me. It goes like this. The next time I am in a conversation about great injustice I will not put the blame nor the solution on the presidency. That's right. This year for Labor Day, unlike last Thanksgiving I do not wish for you to get out that placement that teaches you how to talk to your relatives about he who wants us to talk about him. If you want to do something about honoring the worth of every worker then I want you to move on to talking about three things in all conversations about economic justice. Wages, safety and unions. These are the basic protections that we have at work that we've been losing for some time. Wages, safety and the right to collective activity. We need to talk about wage theft more. Wages are stolen when a worker isn't paid at all or less than the legal minimum, isn't paid overtime, is misclassified in their work or has to work part of an unbrake or just isn't given a check. Regardless of why a worker walks into our Madison Workers Rights Center right now, they are overwhelmingly likely to be found to be experiencing wage theft. And people I talk to are overwhelmingly likely to underestimate how much this happens and to overestimate how much we're doing about it. Now, assuming someone is being legally paid how do we determine how much to pay them? At the minimum. Should we set the low bar on wages on the lowest that a business can afford? That's what we're often told, but many of us say no. We've developed some language around what makes the difference between slavery and employment. And so we consider the ability to pay for things like food, housing, clothing. We call this a living wage. And overall in Wisconsin this is calculated to be around $10.50. Over $23 if that adult is supporting one child. But our minimum wage in Wisconsin and nationally is $7.25. So you might say we are $3 or $15 short of the difference between pay and actual basic human worth. I want to repeat that. This idea because we see it all the time that the minimum wage is to be set at the lowest a business can afford. Please challenge that narrative. Put it this way. As a whole as a congregation you employ if I'm remembering correctly about 20 people. Okay, let's say Michael announces that the new policy is all of them have to have one leg chained to their cubicle at all times. It's absurd, right? But would you accept that? No. What if Michael said, but wait, wait, you know, we're really struggling for funds this year and we found that this makes them more productive. And this is the only way we can afford them. Do we accept it? Right, it's silly. So I want you to bring that silly outrage to the idea that we accept that people can be paid that which doesn't allow them housing and food. Minimum wage also has a color. Nationally black and Latino people are much more likely to earn less than $15 an hour. And then there's incarceration. And right here is where I just say if you have not watched the documentary 13th, go do that. Just ask Tim. He'll set you up. In a recent online conversation, I gotta tell you this, this was an online conversation of non-profit professionals asked about using prison labor for her organization to save money. And then when there was pushback about how the actual workers in that scenario would be making about $1.15 an hour, another non-profit professional actually said that the pay for the prisoner would be equivalent to minimum wage if you took into account room and board and the cost of security. So we have to ask what is the worth of an incarcerated worker? And that's where it starts to get hard, right? Sometimes? Okay. So that's wages. What about safety? Worker health and safety is something I fear that many of us just take for granted. The Department of Labor has long relied on the education of employers and even more so on the education of employees to spot, fix, and or report health and safety hazards. The grants that support that education are being cut drastically. And then this year, Congress reversed two things. One was the requirement for businesses that were applying for the largest federal contracts to have to disclose and correct their serious safety violations. That's gone. The other one is that Congress rolled back the health and safety record-keeping requirements for all businesses. So meanwhile, the national minimum is still $7.25. And so jobs that are nine, ten, maybe $12 an hour are considered the good-paying jobs for workers of any color. And these jobs are often in warehouses and are what used to be the union jobs. And they're important because now more often than not are temporary or what they call supply jobs where a temporary agency is actually the employer. So temporary workers allow for our fast-paced economy coupled with varied and on-call scheduling that we have now even for low-wage workers. They allow restaurants, retail, manufacturing, construction to bring in more people when they need more and not have them when they don't. And what's wrong with that? We don't want to pay people for sitting around idle. Well, what's wrong is that they invest nothing in these folks. And by nothing, I do mean the kind of kindnesses that make you loyal to your employer, but also benefits, and maybe most importantly, proper training. The kind of training that saves lives. Temporary workers are literally dying more on the job. Either because they weren't trained on equipment or because they have no leverage in complaining about the lack of safety equipment. They're expendable. And sadly, they know it. So recently, last week, I got to meet with a room full of such workers in a church basement in rural Wisconsin, or 25 of them, representing a few hundred workers. I don't mean technically representing, I meant that's who they work with. They talk to us about how they're inadequately trained and they have high production standards that are absolutely uniform, regardless of physical ability. They work long shifts and they are told when they can go to the bathroom, even though there aren't enough bathrooms to go around. Give it a shot and you need to be back on the clock in ten minutes. They are told they'll get raises that don't come. If someone quits, they're told to do the job of two. And if you don't like it, you can leave. This last part is said to them so regularly that they laugh about it. They have to laugh, because then they tell us that they know they are not humans to their employers. We're going to be meeting with those workers again in that church basement, and I have to say that's an awesome use of a church. So sometimes these problems are greed on the part of the owners or the shareholders, right? But sometimes I think this is our fault. For example, Amazon, welcome to the neighborhood, Amazon, right? Is notorious for using temp workers also in its warehouses and running them ragged. Its own recruitment brochures say that you will be walking 12 miles in every shift at brisk paces around large warehouses, and people die there also. Not because of safety violations, but because many are not in the kind of shape you'd need to work like this, and temp workers don't have healthcare or sick time. Meanwhile, we all need to do some of what you guys do best right here. I think one of the antidotes to this is that we need to keep promoting mindful intentional living as a sustainable, desirable way to do life, so that we aren't promoting that speedy capitalism at all cost life that fuels this way of being. And we can change the narrative one act at a time. The next time that we hear or read a news story in which individual worth is not considered, we call or we write in. I recently read an article that horrified me. It lumped freelancers in with temporary workers in something called the contingent workforce. By lumping thusly, the article was able to quote millennials as enjoying the flexibility and work-life balance of their flexible schedules. Compare this with the workers I met this week who don't even have control of going to the bathroom. Are both types of workers worth the same dignity? Change the narrative. Immigration is tied in with both wages and safety. Undocumented immigrants overwhelmingly work in low-wage activities, and in particular farming and other food production, construction, and the maintenance of our buildings and lawns. At least half of all U.S. farm workers are undocumented, by the way. Now many of them have been here for many years. All of these low-wage workplaces are where wage theft, the unsafe workplace conditions, and other labor law violations are commonplace. Undocumented workers are less likely to report hazards, file complaints, or even to report injuries. This then emboldens oppressive bosses who simply threaten to call immigration, and we hear this story every day in the Workers' Rights Center. A fearful workplace is a danger to us all. We must help everyone we know to connect these dots. So wages, safety, and that brings me to unions. Because Labor Day is, after all, a celebration of the labor movement. I want to tell you that I'm happy to say that for the first time, ICWJ now lives in the Madison Labor Temple. We are getting closer in our relationship to labor unions than ever before. We know that we must not let go of unions, though we will certainly continue to shape and redefine them. Today, the growing face of unions is more ethnically engendered, diverse than ever. And whether we call it unions, co-ops, or something else, collective worker action is responsible for the rights we have today, and collective worker action still matters. Consider another member of our national network, the Coalition for Immocally Workers. Some of you have been with them out on picketing, maybe, downtown. This organization of farm workers in Florida has developed a fair food program that's transformed what they had, which were slave-like conditions. And now, because of their actions, major national grocery stores and fast food chains are signing on, paying the resulting cents on a pound of tomatoes, for example, to make sure these workers are paid decently, have access to bathroom and shade, and are able to leave their jobs, if they wish. By the way, for those that are following this cause, Wendy's has still not signed on, and you can find out all about that on the Unitarian Universalist Association's website. And so that brings us back once again to self-determination. Self-identified groups are people facing oppression. Self-identified groups of people facing oppression, including groups of workers, are telling us what they need and want. We can hear, follow, and learn what is needed of us. So let us recall my other reading from earlier. James Baldwin's words to be committed is to be in danger. What are we being called to risk when we profess that we are committed to seeing, truly seeing the worth in everyone? Are we being called to risk being arrested, perhaps having less money ourselves, living less comfortably? Or are we being called to risk being wrong, to risk being ineffective? Who is worth that risk to us? I know it's easy to feel hopeless, but there is hope, in fact, in taking that risk and committing deeply to each other. Have you noticed this week that it's those young folks at risk of deportation, the very dreamers themselves, that continue to speak out? Their courage, their stories inspired many of you to make calls, yeah, this week about DACA? And I want to tell you that we've seen some turnaround in one important way, one notable example that struck me. When the Tennessee Attorney General announced that his office was dropping its support of ending DACA and that they actually prefer legislation to protect these young people, he said the human element of the program should not be ignored. Change the narrative. So before I leave you, let's do just this one thing today for Labor Day. Breathe deep.  And think this, how much am I worth? And hear this, whatever I have done today, or last year, or whatever I'll produce next week, that is not my worth. And then look around you and think of all these beautiful people around you and this community and think, what are these people worth? And then I ask that you think the same of your employees, that be here or outside in the rest of your lives. And then I want you to think of all the people whose work you have encountered this week, all the people who you will encounter today and tomorrow. Let us carry this one question into all our encounters this week. As we eat the food, drive the highway, open the package, let us think, how much is every worker worth? Thank you so much for being with me today. In consideration of a care that we have all shared these past 8 or 10 days, I would offer the following meditation composed by Melissa Carville-Zimmer, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. With the deluges in Texas and Louisiana, and in India and Nepal and Bangladesh, we ourselves are deluged. Deluged by stories of death and loss, fear and trembling, devastation and suffering falling upon so many, and especially the most vulnerable. In the name of all that is sacred and holy, may we hold in our thoughts the rescued and the rescuers, the dead and the bereaved, the people and the pets and the wild creatures struggling to survive in those troubled waters. May aid and comfort be sent and received by those in such desperate need. And may we come to understand that we are part of this story as well. That in this moment our part is to enact love in whatever way we can, as volunteers, as benefactors, as people who refuse to turn away or retreat into our own safe and untroubled spaces. We are one people sharing one earth with choices to make about the chapters yet to come. May we choose the way of love, compassion and justice. May it be so. Many of you have already contributed to the relief efforts in the Gulf States, and if you have not yet done so, our Unitarian Universal Service Committee is doing great work in providing relief dollars to various organizations, particularly those that serve the dispossessed in the marginalized communities. You can visit our website for a direct link to UUSC where T.K. Browning, our intern minister, is in the commons after the service and you can donate directly with the laptop that he has at his disposal. Please be generous. I invite you to join me now in our closing hymn, number 112. Please be seated for the benediction and the postlude. We close with these words from the late Irish poet and spiritual writer John O'Donohue. May the light of your soul bless your work with love and with warmth of the heart. May you see in what you do the beauty of your soul. May the sacredness of your work bring light and renewal to those who work with you and to those who receive your work. May your work never exhaust you. May it release wellsprings of refreshment and inspiration and excitement. May you never become lost in bland absence. May the day never burden. May dawn find hope in your heart approaching your new day with dreams, possibilities, and promises. May evening find you gracious and fulfilled. May you go into the night blessed, sheltered, and protected. May you find your soul calm, consoled, and renewed by your work. Blessed be the end of that.


Last season on their way to the state tournament, Fauston cruised through sectionals going undefeated. This year, a 7-5 loss to Sacred Heart landed them the losers' bracket, needing a win against Badger Greenbush Middle River to advance to the championship. Well, first off, props to the Gators fans by far the best chicken dance performance of the 8-8 tournament, but not much else to cheer for. Cole Olson gets the party started, RBI single. They build their lead up to 4-0 where it got out of hand in the 6th. Traydon Boucher hits one to deep center, that gets a run home. 6-0 now, base is loaded for Kyle Jacobson. He'd get two out of the sun and into some shade, and Hunter Croning is able to beat the throw. This one never really in doubt. Fauston gets an 8-1 win. Two wins over Sacred Heart Thursday gets them back to state.


In this video, we will show you how to register for all of your courses in the Personal Study Guide. Click on My Groups in order to register for groups for your courses. Now there is an overview of all available groups of your respective courses. Usually there are several types of groups. For every course you need to choose a group for the HCs. If the respective course also offers WCs and or LAs, you will also need to choose a group for those. If you need more information, please watch video 2, finding your timetable in the ESG. Please note that when a special group is available for exchange students, you will find the word exchange in the group name. In that case it is mandatory to pick that group. Make sure to choose all the groups in a way that avoids overlapping lectures. When you finish ticking all the boxes of the respective groups, you have to click OK on the bottom of your screen. Your group preferences have now been saved.


on a tirade for these conditions? Yeah. And we're gonna watch it. I'm excited for the tirade. What happened to Fernandez? She's still around. She got injured. That's the, that was the main thing. She got injured, so. Carlos will win it. Don't see Metty do anything special today, especially on this surface. Metty in two? I mean, that's the thing. We don't know what this is gonna look like. Just like we didn't know much about today's final, what it was gonna look like. We've seen it before, but we didn't know exactly because of the conditions and the court. I mean, I thought it would be Sabalenka. I thought Sabalenka would do better in this final just because she has the head-to-head record. And I think she was playing better up until this match. Like she was playing amazing against Zachary and Goff, but then we're back at a big Shriontech. So what's more impressive, beating Goff and Zachary back-to-back or beating Shriontech? One, you know, once. I guess beating Shriontech, right? Rain was expected to go down 10 to 20%. Okay, we'll keep an eye on it. Thank you, Debbie, appreciate it. We'll keep an eye on the rain because it is looking a little hectic. Yeah, she did come out swinging Sabalenka. She did, she came out absolutely swinging. And Rabakina adjusted, you know, great for her. It would have been interesting had the tie break gone the other way, would it have been maybe Sabalenka running away with the second? The Sabalenka was very distressed at the start of the second set because of the first set loss. So you wonder if maybe Sabalenka snuck the first, had it, it might have gone the other way, you know? In straight sets. So that first set was, especially being 13-11 in the tie break, probably one of the most crazy tie breaks we've watched in recent times. Madness. Is Fritz going to Miami? Yeah, yeah, he's gone. As far as I know, Kathy, yeah. Men's finals are gonna be 10 times more quality.  It means it's gonna be one of the best matches of the year. It has potential. Match of the year potential, the next one. All right, match of the year possibly coming up. I don't know if you can call this one match of the year just because it wasn't three sets. I feel like the Australian Open Final might have been slightly better. At least more dramatic towards the end, right? More drama in the score. When does Miami start? Robin, it starts on, I think it starts on Wednesday. Thursday? Yeah, Fernandez plays a qualifier. First round of Miami. Carlos is much better or gifted player than Mehdi, but he can win. Yeah, I mean, it's, like I said, sledgehammer takes on the brick wall. You know, sometimes the brick wall gets smashed and broken, and sometimes the sledgehammer gets worn down and collapsed and falls apart. So that's what we're dealing with. That is the next match in an analogy. Miami starts on Thursday for the women and fright of the men. Sweet. Wait, hang on, doesn't really? Al Taylor, is that in Australia or is that in Miami time? Oh, that's in Miami time. That means I'm Thursday free. So it starts on Friday for me. Hell yeah. I thought I had only two days off. I get three days off. Chat, that's basically a holiday. Wells in Miami are known as a sunshine slam. Yeah, exactly. If you win them both, the sunshine double. Not many players have done it though. We're back in a set of goalless consistency and stay healthy and then she can be number one. Yeah, she'll get there. Or at least she'll, like these two ladies in Triantec, those three going for world number one every other week next year, I think would be a thing. I think she'll be on sex too far ahead right now. But maybe at the end of the year, maybe the start of next year, they'll all be playing for those top three spots and maybe rotating the number one a little bit. Sabalenka showed that she is still mentally vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. She's not quite out of this phase of her career yet. But she's, look, out of all the matches she's played, this is the worst one she's played.  And the 1% showed out today. Triantec doesn't have many points in the second half of the season, exactly. So she can play well on the clay to defend those points. She'll probably stay, if she stays 2,000 points ahead of Sabalenka by Wimbledon, then she'll probably, maybe 2,500 because Wimbledon's worth 2,000. But maybe if she stays over 2,000 points ahead of Sabalenka before, after the French, then I think she'll be fine for the rest of the year. But yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be really fun. This season got very interesting. And I mean, the men's season's getting interesting too.   I mean, that's how good this is right now. Tennis is so good right now without the goats. You put Djokovic and Nadal in the mix? I mean, we barely watched Rafa. Like Rafa's played like five matches, not even. Two matches in the United Cup and like two in Australia. Like two in Melbourne. Can you imagine? We haven't even seen Rafa yet. We've barely seen him. And Djokovic obviously strung open, but we've only seen him there. You know, he played Dubai, Lost to Medi and Adelaide obviously too. But I mean, yeah, Kirios, we haven't even watched one Kirios match yet. I mean, we've got so much to go, chap. But Tennis is so good without them so far. So it's like, we'll add them to the mix. It's only gonna get better. Only gonna get better. I don't know about you, chap, but I feel like, I feel like Tennis is having a bit of a resurgence. I don't know why. I don't think it's the Netflix documentary. I don't think they can take credit, but it just feels like Tennis is a little bit, like it's coming back a bit. Getting a little bit more juice and you know, it's getting a little bit more of a comeback, making a bit of a comeback. And who do you think, what do you think of Nori's top potential is? I think he's kind of get like he's almost hanging in there. Hey, what's going on, Mary? How you doing? I mean, Nori's probably at the Grand Slam semi-finalist, Master 1,000 champion. I mean, if he does nothing else, he's had a great career. Fulfilled his potential easily. As Cam says, Tennis always wins, yeah. No, Greg, I don't think we can take any credit for it. I think it's, we just watched so much Tennis that eventually when people come back to the game, we're here, you know, people can just join us. I don't think we can take any credit for that. Don't call it a comeback. Tennis has been here for years, that's it. Tennis needs to be on TV, full resurgence. I blame Osaka. I feel like big, big tournaments, like finals of big tournaments, like this should be on free to air. That would help Tennis a lot. Like the Indian Wells final being free to watch on television for like worldwide would be really helpful.  But hey, look, it's getting there, it's getting there. Are we getting rain tonight? Ashley, there is potential of rain. All right, chat, I'm gonna send you over to the next one and we're gonna get this party started because Pink's in the house and that is a song that she sang. Accidentally punned that one. Go over there, talk amongst yourselves. Mehdi versus Khalidos, man. World number one ranking at stake for Carlos. Four titles in four weeks for Mehdi, which has never been done. History on the line. Someone's winning their first Indian Wells as well. And also I think Elkers is trying to become the youngest player to win the Sunshine Double in his career. The Sunshine Double in his career. So Mehdi's trying to win a tournament that he hates. Or at least a court that he hates on, you know? So go over there, talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back in about maybe about five, 10 minutes. We'll get our show on the road, but thank you for joining us. Man, Rabakina, 7664 beats Sabalinga, gets revenge from the Australian Open, gets her first win over Sabalinga too. And she is, if she's not one of the best players in the world, top three by the end of the year, that she must have got injured. But she wins this one, 7664, men's next.


Online TEFL courses vs. on-site TEFL courses Teaching English as a foreign language, also known as TEFL certification, is widely used and accepted around the world and the training to become certified is highly diversified. TEFL can occur either typically within state school systems, privately at a language school, or with a tutor. Teachers usually are native English speakers, however this isn't a requirement and there are many certified instructors whose native language isn't English. Teachers who want to become certified must go through a teacher training course, also known as a TEFL or TEESOL course. On-site or in-class TEFL courses A few years ago, in-class TEFL certification courses were the only way to become a certified TEFL instructor. In modern times however, technology has drastically changed the landscape of learning. Offline certification courses have adapted new technology to enhance the learning experience for the new instructors. Offline courses give the students the ability to learn in a classroom environment and gain knowledge from skilled TEFL trainers. These types of courses normally give students the ability to practice the course material and teach actual lessons with real English students. Research studies show that in-class teaching demonstrations give individuals a deep learning experience by simulating the teaching environment. However, there are also some drawbacks when it comes to in-class TEFL courses. First of all, the cost. The cost of an offline course can vary but can go well in two thousands of dollars. Another common disadvantage is the location of the course and the class time. An in-class course requires individuals to participate in classes at a set time and they need to be physically present. This can be inconvenient if the location is far away. This would also require more financial resources and time on the individual's part. Online TEFL courses. The internet brought about online courses not just in education but in other industries as well and has changed the landscape of learning courses. The cost to develop, manage, and deploy courses to individuals for TEFL certification has been greatly reduced and enables pretty much anyone to obtain a TEFL certification. Course material is studied without a physical instructor and the student reviews course material online. A common disadvantage of online TEFL courses is that no practical teaching experience is provided to the new teacher. Each of these types of TEFL certifications have their own advantages and disadvantages and individuals seeking to be certified have to weigh the options and choose the method of certification that fits their needs and career path. As long as the teachers make informed choices and understand the outcomes of each path they will be successful. Now it's your turn to get TEFL certified. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.


Hi everyone, I'm author Rivera Sun, I'm a member of Code Pink, and I serve on the advisory board of World Beyond War. I was recently on a call with the local peace economy, working with their great workbook on how we can really rethink the war economy and find a radically different story and way of being together in the world, different from our current state, but not necessarily different from most of human history. One thing I learned from World Beyond War is that war is not as old as we think. We're often taught that humans are inherently violent, that war has always been around, but that's not true at all. Let's take a quick look at just how young war is, and what else we've been doing as humans. So if you had to take a guess about how old war is, what would you say? Wouldn't it first show up for humans? The answer is it's only 12,000 years old. The first evidence of organized violence between groups of people is only from 10,000 BC. Now that sounds like a long time, but when you think that humans have been around as homo sapiens for 300,000 years, and as other variations of our species for much, much longer, it's just a blip on the scale of human history. So let's look at what is actually older than war, because we're often think, oh that far back, that must have been like cavemen days and it was so miserable. No, actually weaving is about 10,000 years old at least. Pottery is older than war. Paintings and ceremony is older than war. String and all of the things that you can do with string is older than war. Dogs have been around for about 25,000 years, which is twice as long as we've been going to war. So just think about that. We've had our best friend around for twice as long as we've been doing this crazy thing called war. Goddesses have been around for quite a long time and the goddess statues. So all the rituals and stories that we might be telling about those, same things with figurines and gods and goddesses. We know that fish hooks came about about 40,000 years ago. We know that we had flutes in 40,000 BC. So music, jewelry has been around for about 100,000 years. Imagine that 90,000 years of jewelry and sharing and exchanging and bartering and gifting and whatever goes along with ornamentation before we came up with the idea that we should organize into groups and fight each other over things like that. I think when you start to look at things like the fact that we've had boats and water vessels since 130,000 BC, you start to notice that we as humans have had a rich and amazing culture for a really long time. And then we used to tell stories that are really different than the constant war narratives that we're told now. So story came first. Maybe it's as old as the use of fire and sitting around on the dark night entertaining one another. And for all this time, hundreds of thousands of years, we've been telling stories that are about overcoming challenges, working together to see things differently to help our communities long before we ever came up with the idea of war and that this would be an interesting story. So all the epics you've ever heard, all the Hollywood movies about action heroes and war and star wars, those are all just very recent inventions. And there is a wealth of story and narrative that comes before that. And if we abolish war and we make a world beyond war, and we build out our local peace economy, we may have an equally long future ahead of us in which we tell narratives of peace. So let's work together to do that. Check out the local peace economy work with Code Pink, and let's work together to have a better future than the past that we've inherited.


Good morning, everybody. I'll give a little bit of a presentation about Dell EMC philosophy, about our open stack solution, what we are doing, and all of the flexibility we built into that. So let's start with our philosophy. So we have a lot of the open, we have a lot of the different components within the portfolio from the servers, from the storage, from the networking, from the open source pieces of the open stack of SAF, of the Kubernetes and so on. So all of that have to be put together into cohesive solution so it operates properly for you and you don't have to deal with all of the integration issues. And our idea is that we'll provide help with that, but we will have everything open so we prevent any of the lock-in. So we'll start with open architectures. We integrate continuously all of the latest version of our portfolio of all of the goodness which happens on a regular basis. Provide your ability to transition from your solution in the field from the current one to the next one whenever it become available on your term, on your timeline, not when things happening, and tailor it to whatever the workload and application you would like to run. As you have seen quite a bit over actually the last several open stack summits, there is a transition from having a generic solution, target for public and private cloud to more tailored solution tailored for either NFE workload, for various telcos, optimized specific thing for HPC, for big data. And all of them in order to really take full advantage of the performance to provide the same performance which you would expect out of your optimized solution requires specialized hardware, BTFPG, GPU, smart nukes and so on. And they have to be integrated in a solution and maintain as a part of the solution. So we took some of the effort for that to ensure that it will be life will be a little bit simpler. So we created an idea of the profile which is optimized for a specific type of the workload. And then we created a management of those profiles so it automatically sets, manages your entire vertical stack from the application which is yours, but how that application is deployed and managed through the open stack, through the open stack configuration to the operating system configuration optimized for that to obviously hardware and hardware configuration optimized for that. And it's not just with the time of the deployment but of the lifetime cycle of the solution. So kind of on the high level bit, I mean, on the bottom, we have a variety of different options within the Dell AMC hardware portfolio. Next level up, we partner with, in our view, the best open source distribution vendor, Red Hat. So we used the OBS KVM self-storage and various other plugins which are optimized for that. Then we can have a next layer up which becomes more optional as you go to real-time Linux, DPDK, SRV and various other extensions to open shift on top of the open stack and then various other components on top of that with the common management on the side. We can kind of start with a small one and you can scale it up or down to your heart's desire. So what are the things that provide you, what advantages? Well, first of all, it's integrated. It's a desegregated solution but integrated into one cohesive entities so it allows you risks your operation from the day one to the day end. It provides you the long-time lifecycle support and obviously it provides you the way to do the customization. Either you can do customization since everything is open or you can partner with either Dell AMC professional services, the Red Hat professional services for consulting and optimization and customization for your needs. And as I mentioned before, we made life substantially easier by creating the workload-optimized configuration including the total management for that. So this is kind of a high-level bit of what does the solution consist of. We have a variety of different server. It's an option variety of different Dell AMC networking with a variety of different operating system as a part of that because even our networking is segregated so you can have cumulus, you can have big switch, you can have a variety of different options. In this specific version of our release, which is the 13 release of our open stack solution with Red Hat, we integrated the latest 25 gig networking and we transitioned the entire solution 25 gig networking. We can still have a 10 gig networking and even one gig networking if there is a need for that. But the base solution moved to the 10 gig. The latest version of obviously all of the components, we optionally support integrated from the start the SC series from Dell and all of the latest things including the new BOSS hardware support where we separate build in the RAID-1, U2 disks for the operating system so it's completely separated from all of the other storage on the nodes which can be integrated for whatever specific to the workload. Again, a variety of different networking, a couple of the predefined profiles, the CSP for telecommunication networking specifically target for NFV workloads, optimized for that and then another predefined workload which I'll go into more detail which is more tailored to the web-based application but obviously can be used for generic things and then a variety of different optimization built into the NFV profile specifically for optimizing the NFV workloads. All of the latest things, even the latest Linux, Red Hat 7.6 with the latest SEF which actually came out less than a month ago for both of them. So we are trying to be very tight in terms of the ability as soon as the new software is coming out as well as all of the firmware from the LMC component, we have them integrated solution to make your life easier so you can transition to that if you want to. And of course we do all of the certification from all the certification of the OpenStack itself so we run the third-party CI for everything which we have for all of the different options for our storage, for all of the different hard servers and we have a variety of different drivers which we support for the Ironic from the default APMI one to the IDRAC one and the Redfish one and we are trying to transition all of the management of our servers to the Redfish as the Redfish itself matures. So let me spend a minute or two about, talk about our automation and the Jetpack specifically and why we went that route. So we looked at what was available and we were part of the triple-o right from the start of trying to optimize and simplify deployment and management of the solution from day one to the end and we realized that while it works quite well initially obviously longer term things need a lot more maturity and we were part of the community working to improve that starting from the updates from one release to the next but more developing the fast-forward update solution so you can update on your own terms whenever you want to rather than trying to stay on top of the open stack releases but what we realized very quickly that as soon as you start optimizing for individual workload the entire stack then the situation becomes much more difficult and you don't have a simple way of handling that and that's kind of where we start working on kind of very tiny shim on top of that which allows us to maintain the management of the entire solution in a consistent way. So it improves the performance by factor so we were deploying our solution in the lab as a continuous part of our continuous test integration for the full rack it's about to our deployment from the stretch and then actually took a little bit longer to do the upgrades than to do the initial deployment surprisingly enough but they're talking about hours to go through this process and we do all of that for specific workloads so we know that when you deploy specific predefined solution that operation is work. We can do the same for other workload which is specific to your needs and we have a professional services team which is trying to support you on this. As I mentioned, it's a layer on top of the triple low and it relies on the ironic to do the bare metal provisioning and bare metal life cycle management and the profile is layered on top of that as a specification how the configuration is supposed to be done through the entire stack of the solution. So why do you care about that optimization? Well, you do care because as soon as you start looking to a specific workload, now you're in a dilemma you would like to take advantage of the latest hardware available or late optimization available everywhere in a stack. Dilemma, how do you ensure that your hardware configurations are all set in place and not modifying? Well, you need to pick up the ones which you really want and now it's up to you to go integrate it into the solution and make sure we maintain and depending on which kind of workload you would like to do you need to have a specific things. And then of course once you choose a hardware now you have to go through the process okay what are all of the hardware configuration parameters I need for that, what are the specific things I need to have for operating system to make sure you take full advantage of that and then you have to go to your workloads and make sure they're handled properly from the open stack configuration to Kubernetes configuration and in some cases your workload configuration. And then the biggest problem is that okay somebody have to orchestrate all of that part of your continuous support and this is where kind of the idea of the profile came through and we kind of played with that and developed for a couple of specific workloads and moved that forward. So the project is called Jetpack to accelerate your moving forward. It's under Apache 2 license. Here is a GitHub pointer to that. Again we have a couple of we have a built-in notion of the profile which is optimized for workload. A couple of the profiles are predefined there so you don't have to deal with them. You can still modify them as you move to the different hardware options and so on but the base one is there and of course you can create your own profile for your own needs. You are tightly working with the triple O community and seeing at what point of the time it will be appropriate to start moving some of that kind of separate reports to the triple O but at this juncture it's not kind of not in the game yet and one of the things in the Jetpack does it's actually utilizes some of the features which are ironic to go do configuration of the hardware through the ironic because triple O does not allow you that yet. So there is several touch points which need to be handled before it can be merged with the rest of the open stack. Again this is a joint work between mostly Red Hat and Dell at this time and again I mean the reason for that is that we take the best of the hardware vendor and the best of the open source distribution and get them together and that will provide you the best solution you can get. So I'll kind of skip that since it's the same information I've provided before. So what is a profile? A profile basically provides you the information about what are the features you would like in a specific configuration and how you want to define that. Here is a sample of for example for NFV all of the different things we went through and making sure they are configured correctly and managed correctly through the life cycle of the solution. So in this release which is we call it JetStream 13.0 we went to the next level of the optimization in the Jetpack and that is we created a simple, well not a simple but a spreadsheet which predefined all of the networking. You do it ahead of time because that's kind of how you define how your network look like from every network which you exposed from the public API network for provisioning networks for storage and storage clustering for self and you kind of define that as a part of the kind of your discussion with your data center or whichever location you're going to be running the open stack. You predefined that and out of that it extract all of the information and populates all of the configuration files throughout the solution. Again this is just a simplification so you can ensure that you don't have any errors when you deploy it when you manage that and you have a consistency across all of the nodes and across all of the parts of the solution. So kind of key takeaway when you choose your solution our recommendation is to choose the right partner for the solution and that partner is both a hardware and software partner and for various reasons we chose best of the open source distribution and the best of the hardware vendor to create the solution. Minimize the risks of your life cycle of the solution from deployment to continuous operation of the field again choose the right partners to do that.  So I'll stop if you have any questions I'll be very happy to answer I'll be in the booth right over there if you have more questions and if you kind of look back there this is our Red Hat OpenStack solution in the box in Mobile Rack running 10 node 1 everything I told you here is running there. Thank you.