Good afternoon everybody. It's great to have you all here today. I hope that the weather wherever you are is not too too severe. I know there's here in Athens County and other areas. There's some wild weather moving through, so I hope you and yours are safe. I am Neil Romanoski, Dean of University Libraries, and it's my pleasure to welcome you all to this afternoon's panel discussion. Publishing for impact informing through open access. I'm joined today by Dr. Tom Gibbs, Dr. Evan Harris, and Dr. Danielle Feeney, who will be sharing their views on open access publishing, scholarship, and access to research in the journal literature for practitioners of various types. I'm going to ask our panelists to introduce themselves in just a moment, but before I do that, there's some housekeeping and practical notes about our session today on Microsoft Teams that I just wanted to share. I think Jen Harvey, our events coordinator, is going to share a slide with some information on it. Thank you, Jen. So as you see on this slide, please keep your microphones muted until you're asked to unmute. You can share through the chats throughout the session. Pop your questions in there. You can use your hand raise reaction to notify speakers if you want to share or engage without interrupting. Like it says here, we're keen to hear your questions, so don't hesitate to ask. And you could also use the various reaction buttons listed there. And live captioning for enhanced accessibility is available through that three dot icon at the top. And there's a turn on live captions box that's highlighted here on the slide as well. So thank you, Jen. We are recording the session this afternoon as well. Just so you're all aware of that. And again, thank you all very much for being here. So I'm now, and I just want to say, well, I'll be asking some questions of our panelists, but we're going to have ample time at the end also to take any questions that come to mind. But I'd now like to ask our panelists to introduce themselves by saying a bit about their roles, their work and what it is about open access and its impact on practitioners, just like, you know, a word or two thought that brings you to the panel today. So I will just go around my screen here and start with Danielle. Awesome, thank you. My name is Danielle Feeney, and I am a assistant professor of instruction in special education. I work in the Patent College of Education at Ohio University, and I most frequently work with pre service teachers who want to teach students with disabilities and so preparing them to go into the field to do that. And I have kind of a mixed experience with open access, especially because I am instructional faculty and I am not in a tenure track line. So my primary goal is not research based, it is teaching. However, that brings a really important piece of open access because when I do want to publish my own will, I do have that option, but also really thinking about as someone who's partnering with schools and districts and educators, what their access to research looks like. And so I kind of have that multiple perspective that I work with because I am in a teaching position. Thanks so much, Danielle. Next, I will go to Evan. Thanks. My name is Evan Harris. I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work, which is in the College of Health Sciences and Professions. I think I come to open access because I really do see it as a social justice issue. So I think not only are we sort of accessing clients and for us, it's often a vulnerable people that we're doing for research participants. So we're accessing these people, we're sort of taking something from them. And then if we're publishing it behind a paywall, then we're sort of just keeping it within the ivory tower and not giving access to it. So I really feel like not only do I need to make sure that that research is available for them to use, but also because we are in a practice field, then I want to make sure that all of our social workers then have access to that evidence-based sort of practice and research that's out there. Great. Thank you, Evan. And Tom. Hi, Tom Gibbs, currently the superintendent of the Athens City School District. I've been with Athens City for about nine years. This is my 17th year as a school superintendent, my 31st year in public education in the state of Ohio. I come to open access. I think Neil, you and I had a conversation a little over a year ago where I was kind of lamenting to you this lack of ability for folks in positions like mine to easily, we're always encouraged to make research-based decisions, but we oftentimes don't have easy access to current research. And so to me, that's kind of an interesting situation that I've been in for many years. And until recently, I taught adjunct with Ohio University up until a few years ago. And so I did have that access as a part-time employee. But when I stopped doing that, my access also stopped. And so now I have a more limited access to be able to do that background research that's so important to the decisions that we make. Great. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, everyone, for those intros. I'm really appreciative of your time and perspectives today, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I thought I'd start off by offering a definition of open access to anybody joining today for whom the concept may be new. And I'm going to use a definition that's put forward by Spark, which is a scholarly publishing and academic resources coalition, which the OU Libraries is a member of. So Spark definition of open access, which I'll just call OA probably from here on out is OA is the free immediate online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use those articles fully in the digital environment. OA ensures that anyone can use these results or research to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives. So when I look at that definition to me, you know the words free online and used by anyone jump out at me because at its core, I think publishing open access means that information is moved from behind a paywall and into the realm of free public access, and that broadens the availability of research beyond those who have affiliations with universities or libraries, et cetera. And it makes it more broadly available for the public good. However, publishing open access isn't free. Publishers still have costs associated with the review and the acceptance and the editing and the dissemination of any publication and authors and libraries and other entities often pay thousands of dollars to cover those fees in the case of authors through article processing charges or APCs as they're often referred to or in the case of libraries changes to the subscription models that we have to content from those publishers, which is a complex undertaking to say the least. So all that being said, it's unquestionable that practitioners of various types from teachers to health care workers, social workers, many others often require access to the latest research and evidence in their fields in order to stay current to retain or to achieve accreditation in some cases and to best serve the populations and advance their work. And so the good news is that more content than ever before is being made available open, but there is still much the majority of which actually of the research literature still lies behind paywalls and remains unavailable to or unfeasible for many practitioners to access for the purposes of furthering their work and their impact. So it's some of those tensions that today we're going to be exploring in conversation with our panelists. So without further ado, I'm going to jump into our questions here. And again, I invite our panelists to also ask questions of one another as we move through. Please do feel free to pop your questions into the chat as we as we move along and looking forward to the conversation. So start us off. The word impact has multiple definitions within the context of scholarly publishing and in relation to open access. On one hand, there are terms we often talk about things like impact factor related to scholarly metrics and that's used to judge the value of scholarly publications in a particular field. But on the other hand, impact also describes how continuing education and professional development, which promote professional impact for practitioners are informed by open access to research in journal and other kinds of literature. So I'm just going to ask, could each of you talk a bit about how you juggle those two perspectives? Publishing for impact and the impact of publishing models and information in access in your own professional lives. So I will start on the same order here. I'll start with Danielle. Absolutely. For me, the first one talking about impact factor is a little bit different because like I said, I am in a teaching role and so where this often indicates quality of a journal or potentially how prestigious it is, right? I definitely have those considerations when I look to do the publishing when I have time or do that research. For me specifically, as someone who is in an instructional line but wants to or enjoys writing and publishing and kind of having that impact in the other sense out there, it is important for me to also consider the effect that where I publish has on my access to tenure track positions or different roles that I want. And so often thinking about if I wanted to move the type of position I'm in, I want to show that I can write and publish for quality journals that I can have that greater impact and show prestige on my CV because they are associated with that in academia. And so that's one consideration that I have. So it's not just what does it look like for me, but how does it help me move throughout different positions or whether it's promotion or for those who obtain tenure. So that's something I have to consider if I want to apply and ever be in one of those positions. I think currently a really big part of the other hand of it is the other type of impacts that you were describing and really thinking about who can engage with the literature, the publications, who can access it. And it's really critical for me as someone who's supporting educators in school districts that they have access. Kind of like Dr. Gibbs was talking about earlier, there's a big disconnect, right? If you don't have access to what's going on in the research, you can't implement that, but there's that expectation to you and how are you supposed to if you don't have access. So it's really important for me as someone who wants to support schools in districts to make sure that I do my due diligence in making it accessible or trying to consider those options. So that's where a big focus is for me. So I have to juggle it that way between my professional life and my own teaching values and what I believe teaching and research should entail, which is kind of like more widely getting that to others so they can apply it, those who are actually doing that work out in the field. Thank you. Evan, what about you? Yeah, I mean, I think to sort of Daniel's point, I think when I was on the job market looking, I think that it was really important for me to kind of think about that when I'm applying for jobs and have a better understanding of what the P&T process looks like within various programs and to understand what that expectation is. So then if they need me to be in certain journals that have certain impact factors and those type of things for me, I was more so having conversations with during interviews to say this is who I am, I believe strongly in open access. I prefer wholeheartedly to always publish in gold OA journals. If not, I'm still always going to have some green OA to have some of my pre-print self-archived or something. And that's sort of what was important for me. So when I know that when I talked here at OU and I said I'm interested in this, is that going to be a problem for me to get promoted and to get tenure if I'm planning on publishing in gold OA journals? And they said no. And so for me, I knew that like I understand that different Carnegie kind of classifications in that different programs really feel like based on having higher rankings, then they need to have faculty that are publishing in certain journals. So I understand it. But again, to like Daniel's point that I feel like with what we're doing overall, if I'm a licensed social worker, if this is what I'm supposed to do with my whole career and what I'm supposed to then be imparting with these students that are coming through, then these are our social work values is that information should be accessible for everyone. And so then it's not something that I feel like I feel like maybe it's an ethical issue for me to not be paying attention to that and not doing everything that I can to free up that information and to make it available to people to just address some of the larger issues that we have. So it is super important when it comes to the job market. But for me, I just felt like if that was the priority, it just wasn't the job for me. And so I'm thankful to be in a place here to where publishing in in gold OA journals is really sort of embraced and not just accepted, but I feel like championed in ways that makes it feel like it's a good fit for me. Thanks, Evan, and I'm just going to pop into the chat here. I'll link to a subject guide we have at the library is about open access and there's a table in there that breaks down green and gold and those kinds of things. So our audience members can can check that out. But I'm appreciative of you both for raising this issue about academic job postings and because we always you always see in those for those faculty spots information about high impact journals, right? And so it's really great to get that insight, Evan, into conversations around promotion and tenure during the interview process for for faculty members who who have this drive to make research more open. Tom, what about you? Firstly, I feel really under qualified this afternoon for this conversation because Danielle and Evan just spoke very eloquently on this. For school superintendents, there really is no expectation of publishing. Again, there's a lot of talk about making, you know, informed research based decisions, but often people in administrative positions don't have easy access to that information. And and my concern and my interest in this topic is, is that that in the absence of having easy access, what folks do is they go to Google, right? They just search the Internet and I'll just use an example or two, if you don't mind, of things that have happened in the last year that impact my work that has to do with this topic. Covid. You know, everyone has their perceptions of how schools should have responded, when we should have reopened, what our protocols should have been, when we should have stopped masking, whether we should have stopped masking. And these are all really topics that have had a lot of emotion behind them as well.  And the the public media, so the the television stations, newspapers, publishers of that nature, they've made all of these articles free. So when it's up happening is I end up getting emails and and requests from parents, from community members, oftentimes people who have an incredible education themselves, more prestigious than my own, right? Who who will say, look, I want you to make this decision and this is why and they'll attach these these articles or this evidence. And those articles or evidence really are opinion pieces. They're unbedded there or they refer to a research article. And as, you know, those of us in the room know, I can refer to a research article but draw my own conclusion that maybe was not the conclusion of the person who did the original research. And so if I don't have the access then to go to that original research and check it for myself, that really places me at a disadvantage. So as a practitioner, this is something that is is very real when you talk about impact because it's not just it's not just having the ability to access the information myself to make good decisions. But in a in a position of community trust where I'm serving such a broad range of people, it's also the information that I get from those very families that I serve. And to what level I can kind of review, fact check and then use that information appropriately to make decisions on behalf of the children, families of the district that I serve. I think I just want to extend from that quickly. I think you bring up a really good point about COVID. And I think not just about protocols and what school should be doing, but it goes the same for teaching practices, right? As soon as COVID hit and we had to what was the term real using pivot online and everything, I think it's important to think about no one originally knew what to do. We haven't been in those situations, right? So researchers jumped into the field, started some research and throughout the time of COVID have been conducting research about best practices for online teaching, online behavior management, whatever it is and how to do these things and have been putting those articles out. And some of them have taken priority because we need it right now. It's difficult, though, when you know, especially as someone who has access, that all of this work is being done, but it's behind a paywall and the people who need it can't access it.  And that's really problematic for so many reasons, but they don't have access oftentimes to the new research that we're doing to help schools, right? And so there's this really big backwardness. I don't know about that word, but like about it and thinking like we have good intentions, but that is not being followed through with the impact that's happening on the other side, right? There's this huge disconnect. So I think that's a great point that you bring up. Well, since we're on the topic of access, specifically, it kind of leads nicely into the next question, which is, how do you think practitioners in your field typically do find and access the latest and most up to date journal articles and other materials for impact in their practice?  And so I just wondering if you could each talk a little bit about that. I know Tom, you already spoke a bit about this already, but if you had some additional thoughts about where do people go? Where does a practitioner go when faced with not having this kind of access to the current literature? Tom, it's all right, I'll just start with you again. Yeah, I mean, firstly, I think because there hasn't been access, we I don't know if this makes sense, but you know, you get into the habits of your work, right? So and those habits of work are based on what your what your access to various tools and technologies and information are. Well, if you've been in the business for me, you know, over 30 years, never in my career have I had open access to that information. So most people in who are in the field have been in the field of education for a long time. Oftentimes just don't even look, right? That's not a habit of practice for them, whereas for a college professor who's having to publish in order to get 10 year and that is a habit of practice for them for their daily work. So I do have some concern with with open access more broadly just in regards to then how do you help people to to build that that that practice of going out looking that being said there are a lot of teachers who they read books often recommended by a professor they know or, you know, a course that they took in graduate school, things like that. Sometimes it's a New York Times bestseller list, something that's, you know, more broadly read in the general public. Oftentimes folks will Google, Daniel brings up a very good point, which I was I was actually going to bring up later, which is teachers pay teachers, which is so disappointing because if you've been on there, you've seen anything about it. Some of this stuff is firstly, maybe copyrighted by other by someone else and it's being illegally provided. Other times it's just people make stuff up so it's not necessarily research based. There's no guarantee that it is. So I'm sure we'll talk about this later, Neil, but one of my concerns about open access is the peer review process and how do you make sure that, you know, the information that is that is being accessed is quality research and quality information. Sorry, I rambled a bit there. Now that was fine. And you really you bring up that this great point about habits of practice. I mean, and so if this if there hasn't been this kind of access, you know, in a field for a long time, you know, maybe certain negative patterns become ossified because of that, you know, and built into ways of practice for some. Evan, how about you? What about what is what does access look like for practitioners in your fields who are not affiliated with an institution like OU, for example? Yeah, I think that I think that the reality is is that practitioners face a lot of barriers when they're trying to access information. And I think maybe a disservice that we do is that we maybe spend a little bit of time, probably not as much as we should, but we spend a little bit of time of teaching them how to do research when you're in a program. So how to use the library or resources. The libraries have resources that are set up. We even here at OU we have specific guides for even our classes so students can access that website and know exactly how to find information for this assignment. And so they've got a lot of great resources there and they understand how to use these resources in this setting. But we don't teach them what happens after you leave this space. But we have those expectations on them that they are supposed to have be using evidence based practices, but we don't tell them how to find those out or we don't tell them about how to keeping stay up on it. So I think to for sure students after they graduate are using Google for just general searches. And I don't think now that things like research gate is out there and there's some other research repositories that have more links into them. I think that if you're doing a Google search, you can maybe get access to better articles that are published away because we're putting them out there in different places. So I think searching through Google is better now that it maybe has been in the past. But still, just like Tom was saying, you have to have be discerning a little bit and try to figure out is this good research or bad research in a way that if you're getting something through the library, you have a little bit more comfort and believing that it's going to be good research because people who know what they're doing have made those decisions about what we have access to. So I think it puts somebody in a position to where if they're not the strongest researchers as it is, maybe I don't understand these methods. But it seems like it got published somewhere. So I think it is a little bit scary in those ways, kind of like what Tom is saying, that we kind of we don't prepare them to understand how to get access later and to understand maybe how to be discerning of that information. But I think that sometimes I've had students who've contacted me afterwards to say, I need this article. Can you get it for me from the library? But I think people will maybe do that for a year or two after graduation. And then they think it probably shouldn't message my professor anymore. But I think that they maybe also don't recognize that even if they find research that they can contact that author to see if that author can share with them, either an author's copy or maybe a preprint and stuff. So I think maybe we recognize what some of these issues are for them. We probably needed or I at least need to do better. I think in the classes of preparing them that you need to stay updated afterwards. Let us tell you how you do that once you're away from the university and all the resources that we have. Danielle. Yeah, I think I mean that got me thinking right now in that. How do we kind of like you're saying prepare teachers or prepare whoever the students to move and use this in the future? And it gets me thinking because we we know that learning something for one semester or one year whatever is not making you necessarily masterful in that. So you need to continue working on those skills, apply them, practice them. But once they leave and whether it's in our field, it's becoming first year teachers. What resources do they have to become masterful on their own, right? And if they can't access these things, then they can't refine their skills or see, you know, read up more about it or whatever it is. And so I think that's a really good point to bring up is how are we preparing them? And how does that potentially stop their growth if they don't have access later on? And if they can't refine their skills, if they can't think about, oh, well, I learned this thing, but I don't have anything to reference. And I only got to practice it under one mentor teacher. You know, how do I keep this going on my own when I don't have the resources to do so? And similarly, it's really important because I was I was glad you asked Dr. You have to go first on this one. And my initial response was I'm worried that practitioners in the field of education don't have access or don't even find access. And I didn't want that to be such a negative assumption. But I think that's the reality. And I don't think it's due to lack of wanting it. I do think it's from all the barriers.  And so thinking about how often people might be trying, and we still aren't getting answers, or they still aren't getting answers. And we have a lot of students in our classes who are learning things in class, going out to the field for field experiences and coming back and saying, well, what you taught us, we don't see happening.  Like, why did you teach me this thing if I'm not seeing it in practice, right? And they're like, but this is what they do. This is what I've taught or I'm being taught in the field. And so often we have to be like pause, right? Let's think about this, because we aren't teaching you for there to be a disconnect, but there's a lack of access to those who are in the field to stay abreast of the topics that they need to and of their research to implement it. And also trying to encourage students, this is your time, you know, if you have an article you want to share with them, do that and be that point of access for someone for a little bit. And but obviously then there's concerns, well, can I do that? I'm supposed to be learning from them. Am I allowed to share new ideas and strategies? And then there's different types of anxieties involved. So I think I agree. I worry that there isn't access and even if there's attempts to, there's so many barriers to getting it. Neil, if you don't mind my jumping in there, because Danielle brings up quite a few really interesting points. Let's go back, you know, several years, but new federal legislation, no child left behind act gets passed, right? And if any of you were in the business at that time, you know that the federal government basically said, if you're going to use any of our money to implement programs, it has to be a program that's based on the gold standard of research. And they put together this website you could go to that had research in all the different areas where they reviewed textbooks and curriculum programs and things of that nature. And for years and I would bet that even today if you go out to those sites, half of the half of the publishers weren't even on there, right? And and some of the programs now that have turned into so recently, and Danielle probably knows this, there's this huge debate, the science of reading, right? Multicentry approaches to early literacy, which include the Orton-Gillingham approach if you go out to the federal website and look for programs that have been vetted by that gold standard of research, you don't find some of the programs that are the most broadly used programs in the country in public school districts. So this is an example of where schools and teachers do have access, but that access is so limited that it really doesn't give you what what the true the true picture is. And so again, it kind of forces you back into, well, okay, I'm going to Google it. And this is again, I ramble my apologies. I've been I've been sent so many times in the last three years, information on the science of reading that turns out to be where NPR did an in-depth kind of study into the science of reading and multi-century approaches to early literacy. That's not research, right? That's a journalist's perspective based on talking to a handful of people. But yet, I believe that there are schools and districts making decisions about programs based on what amounts to journalism. And which is really difficult for me to stomach sometimes, because again, we should be making decisions based on what the actual research says, but we don't get direct access to the research. We get access to a journalist's interpretation. This is really this is really interesting to hear the examples you're all putting forward sort of about the long tail of what happens after the you know, kind of formal training or time spent in academia. And I know in libraries, we also we just had a really kind of nice conversation around this in our library student advisory board here at OU recently about access after graduation and sort of what essentially amounts to lifelong scalable information literacy skills, as well as some go-to tactics for you know, things like interlibrary loan through public library or statewide networks, which we have, you know, pretty vital crop up here in Ohio, ways that you can get your hands on some information. It isn't perfect by any means. It's nothing is as abundant and rich as what you get when you are given access behind that paywall. But I think lots of opportunities on the library side as well to help work with you all to to develop those lifelong skills with students and and others. So the next question we're going to shift gears a little bit to talk a little bit about practice and impact on practice. So health care workers and teachers and other practitioners continue to require access to the latest research, as we've been talking about long after they've left academia in order to remain current in their field. And as I mentioned earlier, I think there's even expectations around accreditation and continuing ed that tie into that. So what are some of the expectations on practitioners in your fields related to maintaining some standard of evidence based practice? And you know, any examples you want to provide about how lack of access to the kinds of things we've been talking about here plays into that. So maybe here Evan, I'll start with you on this question. Okay. Well, I think for lack of access. So I teach a lot of the social welfare policy courses and we talk about policy as a tool to help advocate. And so if we understand the law, we understand the policies, then we can better help serve individuals by making sure they're getting the things that they deserve and that we're meeting ethical standards and things like that. So I think that the first thing I think about is when practitioners have access to research, then we can better hold them accountable for things. And so for them for staying up on the literature base and the newest evidence and making sure that the practices that they're doing are in line with current research that they can better advocate for better treatments, better just be informed in order to be a whistleblower if need be. So I think I talk a lot in my classes about the importance of really understanding what research is saying and understanding how to read it and interpret the methods. Just as a quick example, I was a school social worker right before I took this job and we had this organization that came in and wanted to do this program with our students. They've gotten all this funding and they're ready to launch it. And for some reason, because I was on the student services team, I got to be a part of just the conversation about the rollout. And I was asking about this program and I was like, can I see the research on it? And they gave me all the research or like, yes, it's an evidence-based practice and blah, blah, blah. I read all the research that the organization itself that created the program provided and none of the research said it was effective. And it was if you read it, nothing said it was effective. And so I don't know where this notion was how they got some information out there to say it's evidence-based just because you've done studies doesn't mean that it's evidence-based. You have evidence that it's not effective. But I spent a long time reading it and then having to explain it to my colleagues and my bosses about how this is not effective based on what all the research says and that if we do this program, we have vulnerable students already, that it's going to look like they're not trying when we're rolling out this program because it's going to be unsuccessful. And so if we have people that are already vulnerable, we're going to make them feel worse or look worse or somebody within our organization or with that other organization is probably going to say, well, this program is supposed to work and since it's not working, it's got to be you. And so I talk to students a lot about the importance of being able to really understand what's going on. And so understanding and being critical of even the programs that you're doing at work, look them up. Like I really press upon them to make sure that what you're doing in your organization is actually ethical and it's evidence based and it's appropriate because if you are knowingly harming people, like that's goes against what we're doing as social workers. And so if you're not sure you need to find out and you can't trust that somebody ahead of you or somebody higher in the organization has looked at it, you need to be responsible for yourself and understand that all the clients that are coming in your organization are your responsibility in that way. And so you just don't have an option and when we talk about licensure and that you can lose your license and if you've invested all this years, if I have an MSW, I got my BSW, I got my MSW, I've taken all these tests, I've got this license. If I lose that license, that could be a whole career that's lost and I may not be able to be a social worker anymore. So where do I my whole education than is different? So we can't, we can't take these things lightly. And so I feel like having access to it just really allows if that information's out there, it really allows them to do the jobs that we're trying to teach them to do and that they can be held accountable and responsible for protecting all of those clients. Thank you. Danielle. Yeah, so I'll let when Dr. Gibbs goes, I'll let him speak more broadly to education and I'll kind of narrow in specifically in special education, which is where I do most of my work. And but before I lose the train of thought, I might misquote you, Evan, but you said something along the lines of, you know, this is supposed to work and if it doesn't, that's on you kind of thing. And I think there's a similar misconception in education, but it's kind of like this is supposed to work and if it doesn't, that's on the student. Right. And I think there's a lot of blame put in our field that, oh, well, I did this evidence-based practice or I did this intervention and it didn't work. So this is a challenging student or this is whatever and they're whatever horrible deficit framing we can put there. Right. And I think that's really important. I appreciate that you brought that up because just knowing about and maybe trying a practice in a way that you think might be good doesn't make it evidence-based. Right. And even just trying something once, right. We know that things that are proven to be evidence-based are consistent over time with different populations or really targeted populations. And so thinking about, well, how are you using it the way it's been researched and either generalized or not and then performing it to that same standard. Right. In special education, specifically, there is there are such high standards of using evidence-based practices. Going back to some of the things that Tom was saying earlier is like, you know, it's in legislation. Teachers are expected to at this point use evidence-based practices. And in special education, this is included in parts of writing and developing IEPs, evaluating students and using different types of observation protocols, all types of different things, collecting and monitoring data, let alone putting in place interventions and teaching strategies that are evidence-based. We hold special educators to specific, actually, categories of evidence-based practices and use high leverage high leverage practices that we need to ensure they're using and using correctly in the classroom to support students. So there's a huge expectation, but like we keep saying, there is that disconnect between accessing it and then knowing how to use it and knowing how to do it. So not even access to getting the article or whatever it is, but then also, well, just reading one article isn't going to make me masterful in implementing it. So then how do I get more resources or have access to more and more? How do I have access to someone observing me doing it and seeing if I'm doing it with fidelity, right, and implementing this? And so there's that also piece that where's the training and where's the access to the skill set for this instead of just knowing about it and for lack of a better word, winging it, right? And then we know, kind of like Evan was saying, we could be doing a really huge disservice to students and to schools when we follow through with things like that. When we think we have good intentions, but again, the impact of it can be really harmful. And Tom, what are your thoughts here on what what it looks like evidence based practice within your field? I have so many. Dr. Feeney and Dr. Harris, or I'd like to take a class from each of you because just just listening to you talk about your work. Evan, the example you used being a school social worker, we had an experience recently where another local government official went to a workshop or a training. They talked about a program that was a drug intervention program without ever consulting a single school district. They went out and bought the entire program spent tens of thousands of dollars and then put on the political pressure to say, we're in rural Southeast Ohio, the opioid epidemic. You have to implement this. So we tried to play along and did the training. During the training, these questions just kept coming up. And so I asked for the research base behind it. Fortunately, they shared some of the actual articles. Well, it turned out that it had been studied. The program had been created and implemented in another country where apparently they don't have the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act firstly. And secondly, they must not have any requirement for professional educators for mandated reporters. Because the whole the whole concept was based on. Creating spaces for students to talk openly about their life experiences and risks that they take, etc. And having to assure the student that whatever they said was between you and them. What anyone listening to this probably knows in the United States, no public school employee is allowed to do that, right?  If you have to report that. And so but again, that's it. That's an example where in the field. I can tell you there were other districts that didn't ask the questions and they're implementing the program. I have no idea what the effect will be. I have no I hopefully nothing negative will happen. But we refuse to implement the program based on having access to that research, reviewing that research and getting a better understanding of what the barriers were to implementing it in our context. Danielle and listening to what you had to say, I thought about that. So think about the number of public educators that are in, you know, I'll say my age range. So we'll say 35 to 55. Who potentially went to school and were taught reading from a whole language approach. They went to college and learned how to teach reading from a whole language approach. I have an elementary ed certification. I never took a single phonics class at all ever. Ten years ago, the state of Ohio, maybe further fact that implements the third grade reading guarantee teachers who are teaching reading intervention have to get a special reading endorsement. I we have there are hundreds of educators. Southeast Ohio got those reading endorsements. Many of them from Ohio University or other public universities. Nothing in those requirements, just that that close in our history required a phonics course. Today, that's all you hear. Science of reading phonics. The research says act. How do you not know this? This is this is what said to us as public educators. How do you not know this? So you run into this. You run into this in your professional life where it's the research you were taught. That research base has changed or the competing the competing thought on that. The research has become more rigorous and the depths of that research is such that now kind of the opinion has changed right in the research field. And again, what we get is legislation that requires us to change what we're doing sometimes with little or no explanation. And it's. It is it is problematic. And so I know we're talking about open access and I'm kind of all over the place with this, but. It. It is amazing to me that we constantly expect public educators. We constantly expect social workers, people who are working with children families on a daily basis to use research based practice. All of us have master's degrees have, you know, go to the multiple professional development opportunities out here have to take PD to get our licenses renewed. And oftentimes those trainings, what's offered us what we see conflict maybe with what. With what we're told otherwise should be the direction where we're headed. So there is a lot of conflict out there around around this from a practitioner perspective. And I I know Neil, I got a little off test didn't exactly answer your question, but no, that's that's quite all right. I I love where you all. Went in your responses to this question because it really it took us beyond the prominent access issue that we've been talking about a lot of the first part to really how this plays out in practice and even at the field level and how earlier to borrow Tom's term, you know how sort of habits of practice can really get baked in, you know, at that field level as well and that, you know, research and examining research and examining the evidence are not cursory things. It's it's it takes a deep dive. It takes iterations over time and you kind of and you have to keep doing it. So really wonderful to hear the examples of how those tensions are playing out in your fields. About two more questions I think we'll do here and then we'll open it up to see what kinds of questions everyone else has. So the next one is about publishing and we talked a little bit about this at the beginning, but practitioners, of course, are often creators of critical and original research. What barriers or challenges to professionals in your field space in deciding whether to publish their own work, open access or in more traditional journal formats. Danielle, would you like to take the first thoughts on this? Sure. I would say there's a. For me, there's quite a few considerations and one of the first on the positive side is visibility, right? If you want to provide that access, especially to practitioners, you want to look at open access. You want to look at who your work is visible to who's getting access to that and able to use it and implement it through traditional formats and traditional journals. That's much harder, right? Because not only does a subscription to the journal cost a lot, but even just one article to pay for often is pricey and many times pricier than getting a whole book about the same thing, right? And so that's one thing is who really does have access to this and what is my purpose in doing this to go way back to the first question and thinking about values? Am I really here just to limit it to researchers who likely already know similar things? Or am I here to really get it out into the field and to have, in my case, teachers in district start using this information and implementing it and taking it from there because they're really the ones doing the legwork on all of it, right? We look into it as researchers, but we can't do that without the teachers. We need their classrooms, the students, and so really where do my values lay and who do I want to make this visible to you based off of that? I talked earlier about the prestige and the quality behind different types, so that obviously plays a role depending on what my own personal goals are. And then another one that I think I think it was you, Neil, who brought it up is cost publishing and some open access journals can cost thousands of dollars. And so immediately that's a deterrent saying, OK, wait, I only get so much funding to do so many different things, if any, right? And then so what are my own barriers to having, I guess, the access to open access? And how do I consider that in moving forward with publication? Thank you, Evan. Yeah, I mean, I think for faculty, I think a lot of it again is back to promotion and tenure. And so if the promotion and tenure document says that you need to have this many publications within nationally recognized journals, then you're in that position that even if a nationally recognized journal allows you to publish open access, then like Daniel was saying, then that's the couple thousand dollars that you need to pay. If our university will give you maybe six hundred dollars and in some situations, if you are, you can sort of share that cost if you have multiple authors on a journal. But again, for P&T, sometimes you need to be the first author or the solo offer to promotion and tenure. So you're in that situation that do I keep my job or do I excel in my job or do I do this thing that maybe I care a lot about and it does aligns with my personal and professional values. So I think that there are for sure disconnects there about what's in the P&T document. And I know for myself, like I said, I prefer to just publish in gold away journals, so journals that are always open access regardless and not that I'm paying that additional fee. But I think that paying that additional fee gives me that option to try to do both. But then I'm in that position of where do I actually get this money to make that happen. And if you're an assistant faculty member somewhere, you're probably not making that much money to spend a couple grand on publishing an article. So I think it sort of puts people in that position about really about keeping their job and being able to do well or be promoted within their job. Thanks, Tom. Thoughts on this one? I think the overwhelming majority of people who work in pre-K to 12 public education are so tired from their day to day work that they just don't even think about publishing. Even if they're doing action research or even if they're doing, you know, I think the exception to that would be if there's a relationship with a local university and maybe they're a co-author on something that's occurring. I know that we've done, we've had some co-authoring opportunities with Ohio University, with our partnership programs and early learning. But generally speaking, unless somebody has a longer term goal of going into higher ed, needing those publishing opportunities to get a position and to work towards tenure, there's just so much time both during the work day and outside of work of the actual just job of working with children and families that it's just not a common practice. Gotcha. Thanks. Yeah. I really loved hearing about keeping the values foregrounded in making these decisions. I think that's a piece of the conversation that I don't hear enough about, you know, when people are talking about OAs, but it's from the library side of things in terms of making those publication decisions and the real trade-offs that that means if one decides that the cost or the need to really all the practical considerations that go along with advancing your own career and life, you know, there are real trade-offs to really think through there when weighing these decisions. So thank you all. I think sort of at the top of the hour here, I'm going to bring us to our final question for the panel here today, which is so if we're if we acknowledge that and I think we all have throughout the conversation that open access is a valuable component of a practitioner's continuing ed, how can OA be OA publishing be encouraged both within academia and by those working outside in the field?  I'll start with Tom on this one.  I just listening to Evan and Danielle speak. They've mentioned a couple of places online that I did research gate. I mean, again, I've been in the field a long time. I have not heard of research gate. My guess is most public educators haven't. So I think there's going to have to be in order to make whatever's kind of built over time. More accessible access begins with with knowledge that that the information is out there and available, right? And so that people can start to build that use of those those tools under their practice. So I think it's it it'll take a little bit of kind of reengineering how we do our work as practitioners, just having that information available to us. Thank you. Sorry, I lost my cursor there for a second to unmute myself. Thank you, Tom. Evan, how about you? Yeah, I mean, I think that part of it is I mean, I know when I was getting my PhD and having conversations where people we I went to a university where our School of Social Work actually had their own social work journal or a journal. So I had known always that that was a thing that was kind of going around. I don't think I really understood the significance until somebody broke down like Elsevier and all of the different things that they own and how they're ruining the world. But I think that if people had a better understanding of that and I feel like even with my colleagues, I talk about like, do you understand that we do their free search for free and we are capitalizing off of somebody else's free labor to participate in this stuff? We then give it away to free for free to publishers that then sell it back to our libraries so we can have access to it.  And the fact that we're hurting our libraries in that process of then driving their sort of budgets up higher and higher or they're making decisions about which journals we can have and not because the publishers are making their prices higher and higher. So I think some just general under education about how the system works and how the system then continues to harm everybody that we want to serve. So even it doesn't really benefit researchers it for sure doesn't benefit any of the clients that we hope it doesn't benefit any of our practitioners. And so I think if there's that general understanding that people get what the system is about, because I think people think that researchers get paid to do it and the majority of us don't. And so I think that there's just a lack of information. So I think if we did more to sort of explain that and if we did more to sort of support the O.A. journals that are out there and to publish in them. I want to publish in Gold 8 O.A. journals not because I think that my stuff is not good enough to go somewhere else, but because that's how we get it started. That's how we're supporting that system. And that's how we're changing it is that we have to intentionally go there first and put good work in journals that people think are bad, but they're not. They're just free. And I think sometimes if it's if we think if we equate cost with value, I think we can kind of get a little bit confused and twisted about what what's important. And so I think it's more so about explaining how the system works and educating people about that. And just because it's free doesn't mean it's it's bad. It just means that maybe somebody was really intentional when they decided to put their work there. I think you're absolutely right. Although that also raises for me the issue of predatory journals, which are, of course, bad and have some, you know, and there's real opportunities there to add that into the mix and the kinds of educational efforts you're talking about. Daniel, you get the you get the last word on this one. OK, pressure. My answer, unfortunately, is not as tangible as those that were already mentioned. But I think my answer to this is really just that we have to reassess our values and just keep going back to that value conversation. Why are we in this work? What is our goal here? And are we really here for practicing teachers and to support students and pre K through 12 and call it whatever it is. Why are we here? Why did we choose this path? What is our mission? And I think. Evan mentioned it at the very beginning, even I think it was in your intro, maybe. And but also if we really do have this focus on equity and we really do want to be thinking about how what we are doing is equitable to everyone across the board and how we are not perpetuating harm or barriers or whatever it is. And we really need to reassess. And I think that's a huge thing to take on as a whole field or just academia at large. But. To make it more tangible, I'm wondering if those are conversations that we start in our departments in higher ed or whatever. What are the guidelines and expectations for promotion? Why are why are they these things? How do we change them? To align with what our values are or should be right? And so I wonder if it's taking those conversations to really make sure that we are aligning not just that we are in this work to be prestigious into to. Actually limit access to people, but why are we here? Why are we doing this? And then how does our trajectory align with all of those things? I can't think of a better way to round out the conversation than with values, Danielle. So thank you so much. So we have time now for some questions and I see we already have a hand up. Kelly, go ahead. Yeah, I started this question thinking about this question while Evan was talking and then Danny read you went right into it. So I really want to know what strategies can we use in academia specifically if you have suggestions what strategies could libraries or librarians use to encourage and promote faculty discussion around pros and cons of open access in their departments. Values and priorities regarding P&T. Not an easy question. No, I think so I think even within this within the department's social work, I think that we're talking more about this. But in our P&T, fortunately, doesn't have a lot of restrictions in it already because I think it has some social work values kind of built in. So we don't have a lot of concrete examples, which can also be a con because it's hard to understand when you've achieved it. But I think in general, if we're talking about pre tenure folks, I feel like generally you're really kind of scared or like already sort of trying to walk the tightrope to keep your job. You're not really sure what the expectations are. So I think it's hard for those folks to say something. And so I think it has to come down from those already tenured folks or just the senior sort of folks within those departments to sort of say that this is OK and then that we really support this. And I think if you have a conversation based on values, it seems hard. To reconcile that with. Publishing for numbers, but even in a social work program that I've been in understanding that if the dean of that program says that we really want to move up in the rankings and this is what it's going to cost for us to move up in the rankings. The system that then we're playing into sort of kind of pushes us to publish in higher tier journals. So I think that the system is so interconnected that I think it would be hard to really say that people can just flip it because getting money to have a program to be able to even keep your faculty there if your students sort of drop off because you dropped you drop down in the rankings, then that's a real implication to people's livelihoods. So I wish it could be a real straightforward answer, but I think because of the way the connection is we have to talk about values and stuff. But if the rankings are going to be what they are and if people are going to pick schools based on rankings, it's it does often come down to a business decision, which I think is disgusting. But I understand that it's the reality of us also having jobs and me be able to take care of my family and stuff. So I think it's a really tough. That doesn't help Kelly. But I think it's tough. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think I have anything that's any more helpful than that because it is. It's a systems issue and we know that individuals can't change systems, right? It takes a lot more work than that. And one thing I immediately was thinking of was, well, we definitely have committees. I mean, I can only speak to Pat in College of Education, but we have committees that are focused on promotion and tenure and things like that. And so I was wondering, first of all, can you be in contact with these committees and share some of this information and talk to them? Why do they have these requirements or what requirements do they have and why? But like Evan saying, that wouldn't do enough systemically. So then, how do we be in contact with other libraries across universities, especially at similar rankings and there's so much to it that I think it's really insurmountable. But I do I do wonder if those types of little actions will cause the ripple effect, hopefully, right? And we can only do so much so often until we can get more people on board to cause a greater ripple. I also wonder if there would be benefits in doing things like making brochures or pamphlets about those many misconceptions that Evan had brought up about, you know, this is often viewed as bad because it's free or people think this about it or whatever. And I wonder if that information is not widely available, even to faculty who are doing the work and that that might be one way to also start is, hey, let's dive into the truth in the fact and let's address or debunk some misconceptions and send that out to see if that even sparks a conversation amongst faculty or committees or programs to discuss it. I wonder if that would also be one little ripple that could be made. I will just say that I would I would love to foster an institutional conversation around open open access, open research, open data, et cetera, because as you all know, I mean, certain institutions do have institutional statements and a stance on it, which this one does not. But I think it's a combination of sort of high level dialogue as well as things happening in departments and elsewhere that that starts to cause those ripples, as you say Daniel. I'm also Tom, you know, curious, as you know, for our conversation, you know, I'm trying to ensure that the libraries can help foster community conversations as well, wherever it can. And so I wonder if you had any thoughts kind of building off of Kelly's question about what opportunities there might be. Do you think to have sort of community conversations around information access or maybe how this plays out with within the school district? Any any thoughts there of how we can be of help in furthering that? You know, very good question. I do I I do want to circle back out of Evan and Daniel's really quick. And that is I think the other complexity that gets added to that this whole mix is that oftentimes your your youngest faculty members also they may not be intending to stay at your university for their entire career. So they also have to be thinking, looking through the lens of what are going to be expectations if I want to go to X University and work in the in the future, right? So it does have to be a really a system wide system like conversation. I think. You know, reflecting back on Neil and I had had coffee a year ago or so and had a really long conversation about this this exact topic and just talking about how university libraries in particular and communities like this can can create programming and be more welcoming of people in the broader community just coming in using the library resources and and and having access in that manner. And I do think it's really it's really important and and I don't. I don't know what the answer is because I do know that having lived on the neary side of Athens for the time that my daughter is in elementary school, she and I would walk to the library and and would, you know, there's nice children's books section that are on the main floor of the fourth floor. I think it is and we would access that and we would we would go and look at the the the Asian collection that you have a second or third floor. Introduced her to the concept of microfiche and how that all you know that whole section of the library. So those are things that just getting her interested in this kind of. Uh, uh, a different way of looking at things and what you get in a just a typical school experience. I don't know if I'm really answering your question, but I I don't think that most even public universities. Kind of broadcast that people from the general community are allowed to just walk in the library and take a look around and see what there is to offer and to just randomly, you know, pick up some some a book or a research journal and and peruse. And so I I do think it could be really valuable to make university libraries because university libraries are different than a typical public library, right? I think it would. I think it'd be an interesting cultural change to make access to university libraries just more open to the general public. Thanks for that. Yeah, and certainly it was a was an aspect of coming to this institution and this position that was really appealing to me is the openness of this library and its connections to the community, which had not been something I'd experienced in other places where I've worked quite as quite as deeply. Other so other thoughts or questions for our panelists today or any emergent questions that any of you had for each other as we've been talking through the conversation. I mean, I guess I feel like I want to add a little bit more because I do feel like our response was pretty negative to Kelly's question. But I do think I do think that there is like authentically a lack of information and I don't think so even when I think about when we go through PhD programs, what we're taught to do within those PhD programs. So I think that even once you get a job and you understand like I was taught that I'm supposed to continue to strive and climb that ladder to Tom's point that if I'm not at an R2 school, then I should want to end up in an R1 school and I'm going to continue to do that and try to apply. And I think that that's something that we're sort of taught in school to keep kind of striving. And so I think that the idea of finding a fit and to be able to publish based on your values and things like that, I don't know that we actually know that that's an option that we have because I think we're taught away. So I think if there is just general education to say that these are the options that are out there, this is what that means and understand how the system, I think if there is education, then people will sort of come. But I also know that our school, our college, then created a new grant that says that you can get funding that if you are going to publish in a journal that's not an open access journal, but to pay those open access fees or one that is just an open access journal that has an open access fee. So then we have different grant options so you can go different pathways and try to get your needs met, but still have an open access publishing. Thanks for that, Evan. And I didn't hear the initial discussion is very negative, to be honest. It is the definition of, as Danielle said, a systems issue, and it's a really sticky issue, not only with kind of the grinding wheels of academia, but publishing and libraries and there are really important diversity and inclusion aspects to the whole open access conversation, especially as it relates to nations in the global south who are often seen as more as consumers of research unless actual active participants in it and they often are not able to avail themselves of some of the OA deals that are struck. Lots and lots of dimensions of this that I think all come back to values. So and I see in the chat Nicole saying that OA information and discussion should be intentionally incorporated into doctoral programs, you know. Pause here to see if there's any more questions. Well, now I would agree with Nick Nicole in that. You know, I just finished my doctoral program as did my wife in 2015, which is not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, right? Open access wasn't really much of a conversation. The conversation was more open in regards to publishing in online journals, which is most open, I think pretty much all open access is online, right? What I think the other part of it too is is that it does speed up the process of getting information to people, right? And and so if you're also talking about wanting to get practitioners to publish more back in the day when you had to, you know, draft something and then you send it to a publication. It could be months before you ever even got a letter back, right? And so the one advantage to OA from a practitioner perspective is is that it does. It kind of it abbreviates that time and it allows for a quicker turnaround. And that is more encouraging for a practitioner than that those long wait times that that exist with the traditional publication. Indeed, yeah, the. You know, in the spirit of a lot of funding agencies also making open access and open data part of their requirements for funded research is also in that spirit of getting the outputs of research into the hands of people and practitioners and other researchers more quickly is just really, you know, good all around. Some more Chris put another helpful link for some OA information from the libraries in the chat. I'm also going to just post a link to the Ohio Open Library, which is an institutional repository for open materials that we host here in the library. So if faculty or other researchers have open versions of articles, you can certainly reach out to us about hosting it there. Create a space here to see if there's any final questions for our panel. Niel, is that open? Open library is can I share that with my faculty? I think you could certainly share it. Yes. In terms of who can deposit into it, I believe you do have to affiliate it with OU to actually put something in there, but one of my colleagues can you correct me if I'm wrong on that, but absolutely it is open, completely open to the public. Whatever is in there for people to utilize and access. Any chance Dr. Gives will be open publishing his Snowday Poetry. I've heard about that poetry. I actually. Joseph, I actually joke that I was going to write a book of poetry for superintendents about how to give people bad news using poetry. So I would start with Snowdays because that's difficult for some, you know, some people to get childcare, that kind of thing, so it adds a little bit of levity to it. You know, like how to give someone a poor evaluation with poetry, how to how to write a student up or suspend them from school of poetry.  I would encourage that. Thank you. Yeah, Jen and Jen is suggesting perhaps an authors at Alden event for you at some points home when you when you publish that. Think about the OU press too. We have the director of the OU press with us today. Maybe that could be a venue for it. Thank you anyway. Thank you. So we have no other questions. I am going to once again extend my sincere thanks to Tom, Evan and Danielle for for sharing their time and their perspectives with us this afternoon. I also want to thank Dr. Chris Guter and John Kander from the libraries for conceptualizing and organizing this event today to Jen Harvey, our events coordinator for organizing us and helping with the promotion to Morgan Spear, Brooke Stanley and Kate Mason for the publicity for today's event. It's really been a pleasure to spend time with you all this afternoon and talk through this. I'm hoping that we can continue the conversation conversations in various ways moving forward. Thank you all very much to everybody who came out today in the audience and look forward to talking to you all soon.


Good evening and welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for tonight's candidate forum for state representative in Chittenden County District 4-2 in Hinesburg. Tonight's show is being aired live on Channel 17 and streamed live on the Channel 17 website. We welcome your comments and questions. Please join the conversation at 862-3966. Candidates joining me tonight are the incumbent Bill Lippert, a Democrat, and challenger Sara Toscano, a Republican. Thank you both for coming out tonight. The ground rules for tonight's forum are that the candidates will make opening statements of up to two minutes, and they will answer prepared questions also for two minutes with a possible one-minute rebuttal. We're going to start with opening statements about why the candidates are running and what their priorities are for the two-year term, and we're going to start with Bill. Great. Thank you. Well, I'm pleased to be here and running again for election in Hinesburg, which is really the district that we're looking to represent. We're fortunate that it's one town, except for one tiny little corner of Hinesburg. I'm looking forward to representing the folks of Hinesburg and working for the people of Vermont one more time. My background, which I bring to this race, is my work as a director of a mental health clinic. I worked in Hinesburg as a justice of the peace. I've lived there for 40 years, and so I'm looking forward to bringing my leadership skills to the next two years in the state house. I feel fortunate to have been appointed by four different speakers to leadership positions and currently chair the health care committee. I'm looking forward to continuing my work in building safe and healthy communities, as well as working for civil rights for all Vermonters, as well as continuing to do the work which happens on a regular basis, nonpartisan response to Hinesburg voters and citizens. I've worked for Highway Traffic Safety. I've worked to support suicide prevention. I've worked to strengthen the mental health system. I've worked to end drunken driving on our roads to save lives, to prevent and end domestic and sexual violence. And I believe that these issues are important to the well-being of the safe and healthy communities that we deserve in Vermont. And in the last session, I did support and proudly support the gun safety legislation, which has become an issue and an issue of difference between me and my opponent, and I hope we'll get a chance to talk more about that. I look forward to serving Vermont again and serving the people of Hinesburg. Thank you. Sarah, tell us why you're running. I'm Sarah Toscano. I'm opposing the incumbent, Mr. Lippert. Earlier in the year, during the debate on this proposed gun safety law, I was unable to get a return call from Mr. Lippert. I know he was busy, but made four phone calls during the debate period, and I received no response. In addition, we left further messages with the sergeant of arms, both myself and my husband. We weren't able to get any kind of response, including to an email at the time. So we found that at the time that the representative was not really representing a segment of the population. So I figured I would do my best to fill the gap. So I was able to meet Mr. Lippert on primary day. We talked for a long time. In fact, we talked for five hours. And we got to know each other pretty well. But I think that in some areas, we are definitely going to differ to the point where it's going, you know, we want what is best for Heinsberg, but we may or may not agree on which path to take. That's the only thing. That's all I have to say. Okay. Great. Thank you. We're going to have, we have a series of prepared questions. And I'd like to start off talking about health care. How do we limit health care spending in Vermont, while also remaining one of the healthiest states in the nation? And Sarah, you can start us off. Well, I think the quickest way to limit health care spending is to bring, is to balance out the currently aging population with a, you know, younger families with children, bringing them into Vermont, because of the fact that, pardon me, the elder folks are generating more health costs. So the younger are contributing to the health care pool, you know, and not, and the expenses will balance out. But in addition, there is also that we need to pay full cost of expenses to providers for patients on Medicaid, catamount programs, which will also end the cost shift, which is a major factor in driving up the cost of private insurance. And we need to loosen some regulations that have driven out private insurers. This will make the pool a lot easier to manage and not have the cost of health care go up every single year. Okay. Bill, tell us how do we contain health care costs? Well, Vermont is one of the healthiest states in the nation. We're fortunate in that. We're also rated, we're the second, we have the second lowest rate of uninsured, Vermont is lowest rate of uninsured people in the state. And that's because Vermont has made a commitment to health care reform and health care, to reducing health care costs. One of the, one of the areas that's completely outrageous is the increases in prescription, the cost of prescription drugs. In the last session, our health care committee took several actions to try to address this by increasing the transparency, requiring the prescription drug companies to actually justify the costs of the increases, some of them which are outrageous, some of them increased by 500%. In addition, we passed a bill which was the first in the country which will allow us with the state of Utah to approach the federal government to look at importing prescription drugs from Canada, safe prescription drugs. And we, because Utah is a traditionally red state, we're a blue state, we're approaching the federal government jointly to try to take President Trump up on his campaign promise of reducing the cost of prescription drugs. We are also working very hard at shifting Vermont to a health care system where there is not an incentive to bill for every procedure that takes place. We're moving from fee for service to a quality of care mechanism. And that we believe will actually reduce the cost, will bend the curve. Let's be realistic. I think we're not going to reduce the cost specifically, but we should bend the curve on health care costs. This, in addition, this last, this past session, I'm very pleased to say that we added free ultrasound for breast cancer diagnosis. Every Vermonter is eligible for free breast cancer mammography and screening, but in the past, if you had any kind of unclear diagnosis and you was recommended that you have ultrasound, you were going to have to pay for that yourself. As of this year, every Vermonter should be able to get a diagnosis of mammography screening for free. And this is going to reduce the cost because the costs of actually the kind of interventions, the costly chemotherapy and other interventions, will allow us to offset the costs of paying for the ultrasound as well as the mammograms. Okay. I'm going to stop you there. Sure. And, Sarah, if you'd like another minute, you can have it. I don't think I need it on the topic. Okay. All right. We'll move on. Let's talk about the economy. According to Forbes magazine, Vermont's economic outlook is projected to be the second worst in the U.S. over the next five years, at the same time what income growth is expected to lag behind. Do you agree with this assessment? It is somewhat controversial. What is your plan of action to strengthen Vermont's economic outlook, promote income growth, and generate a sustainable economy? And Bill, you're up first. Okay. Well, first of all, I'm not sure I do. I haven't seen the report, so it's hard to say the specifics. But I would just suggest that many Vermonters are struggling and there's no question about that. But there's also an issue of, is the glass half full or is the glass half empty? And, frankly, I think there's been too much emphasis on the difficulties that Vermont creates barriers that we present in developing our economy. I think that we should be willing to claim the successes that we have and to invest more in both job training as well as, I believe, one of the critical investments we can make to help Vermonters and the economy is to invest in higher education. I have the honor of having been elected by my peers to the Board of Trustees of the Vermont State Colleges System, which actually educates more Vermonters than all the other colleges in Vermont together and, in fact, provides first time for family members going to college. It's estimated that if we have more students graduating from high school than almost any other state in the country, but we have one of the lower rates of students going on to further higher education, this is how we build our economy by giving Vermonters the chance to gain skills, both technical skills as well as professional skills, by being part of the opportunity to go to college, to go to a further technical school, and that is going to actually build our economy, but which requires an investment on the part of us as the legislature and the governor to make that happen. Okay, Sarah, we're talking about the economy. I actually do agree with the report. I read through it pretty extensively. Ethan Allen report I've read in addition show that good paying jobs leaving or reducing their presence in the state from 2013-2014 and continuously since then. It said that the new, in addition, the job openings that were created are not of the same caliber. They're service industry, they're cashiers, they're wait staff, they're housekeepers and hotels, things that are not going to feed families and pay mortgages and things like that. In addition, we are currently the most costly state in the country to manufacture anything, so that's driving manufacturing jobs out. I'm sorry, it's my fire pager. It won't stop.  We are at $0.95.9 to manufacture $1 worth of goods. The nationwide average is $83.3, and that has to do with expenses, regulations, therefore expenses incurred in order to comply with regulations, taxes, everything else of that nature just adds up too much to create these good paying jobs, so we need to start holding some of this back in order to strengthen Vermont's economic outlook because every, you know, families are relocating. Currently this last session, the legislature saw fit to pay people $10,000 to move to this state to work from home. That is not the kind of solution that's going to get very far. We need to have the jobs here that draw the families here because currently by 2030, even if Vermonters are willing to devote 18 percent of their adjusted gross income, two-thirds of tax dollars collected will be needed to pay for public education, and all of their major will be required to fund human service programs, and that doesn't require, doesn't count all the other expenses that the state needs to run, and the solution is going to have to be some serious discipline, and that's what I'm here for. Okay, thank you. Let's switch gears yet again. We have a broad topic arrangement here today, lots to talk about. Let's talk about water quality. How do we increase funding to clean up Vermont's lakes and rivers? We certainly heard a lot here about Lake Champlain and algae blooms this summer and it's such. So Sarah, you'll start us off. Okay. Increasing funding to clean up the lakes and rivers was going to be the, what we need to not do is to put all of the burden on farmers. That's where things are going, because the agricultural industry is suffering at the moment and we just can't continue to pile on more regulations that they can't get passed, and so, you know, there's a few solutions like what we need to make some one-time expenditures to improve infrastructure so that the sewage is no longer being backed out into the lake. And there's a few other solutions that I've come up with, including tying some existing farm grants to completion of land stewardship training, especially with new farmers, and actually I've asked a few and they said that wasn't a terrible idea. So in addition, we should, instead of going straight back to taxpayers in our state, is there a whole host of places we can go from the federal government in addition to some competitive funding that, you know, from USDA, Federal Highway Administration, Fish and Wildlife and a list of what they call competitive federal funding to pay for water quality improvements, just depending on mostly has to do with what is being approved. Okay, thank you. Bill, we're talking about water quality, how to improve water quality in lakes and rivers in Vermont. Well, there's no question that Lake Champlain and our rivers are part of what's important in our economy. It's part of what brings tourism to Vermont, and I think we have to be willing to step up and recognize that over time we must be willing to raise some funds to address the issues of water quality. I think that the issue is the numbers I don't have right in front of me at the moment, but it's going to require some many millions of dollars to restore Lake Champlain. And I actually share with Sarah some of the concern that farmers should not be targeted. In fact, I think it's my understanding that much of what we need to do, because there's a lot of work that farmers have done already in terms of meeting the agricultural standards that have been set by the state, setting buffer zones along the waterways on their farms, et cetera. But we also need to recognize that it's the federal government. We are under a directive from the federal government to come up with a solution. And if we do not find a solution of our own, the federal government will step in and direct us to do things. And they are going to direct us to put more money into our municipal sewage plants, which has been determined to, as I understand it, only account for about 4% of the pollution into Lake Champlain and other waterways. So we need to bite the bullet. The legislature has made several different proposals, whether it should be a per parcel cost that is built into the land exchange process when land is purchased or some other mechanism. It's going to cost money. And I think there's agreement that the Treasurer's Office that we needed to put some money aside for this year, we've done that, but there needs to be a longer term commitment. And I'm sorry, but it's not going to just come out of the air. It's going to cost Vermonters some funds to preserve what is a treasure for Vermont, which in fact, if we allow Lake Champlain or other rivers and streams to be degraded as they are with algae blooms, et cetera, it's going to cost us in the long run in terms of our tourist economy. And so this is an investment. This is an investment that we need to make. Okay. Thank you. Sir, do you want to have someone take the pager? Would that be helpful for you? Do you mind? Thank you. So you both mentioned agriculture in this last question about water quality. And what about the dairy farms? We have very few dairy farms left. Is this an important issue for the state? What should be done?  Well, dairy farming has been an essential part of Vermont's both our agriculture, clearly our agricultural success, but dairy farmers are struggling. We need to support, and one of the key issues is that we need to support movement from dairying to other types of farming that allows for a broad range of uses of that land. Keeping the land productive is absolutely essential. Sarah and I were both just recently. We both attended a, I don't know, we call it a workshop, or it was a meeting of local farmers from the area, but it was farmers who are looking at other ways to use the land in a more diversified manner. The future of dairy is controlled in large part. The cost or the reimbursement for dairy is controlled largely at the federal level. So we're not going to be able to intervene in that as directly as we might like in Vermont. But what we can do is to continue to support dairy farmers as they make transition to diversified farming. Right down the road from where I live, the farm used to be a dairy farm. Now it's a pick your own berry farm, and it's just changed hands. It was able to change hands because of the work that the state has done with the Vermont Land Trust and others to allow younger farmers to come into farming without having the opportunity of inheriting it. And so supporting our land trust, supporting diversified farming while advocating for dairy farming as well and not imposing new, unburdened some requirements is part of what we can do to support dairying and to support agriculture generally moving into the future. It's a key part of Vermont. It maintains our landscape again which is part of what is keeping open land in Vermont is a key issue for the state of Vermont. Okay, so talking about agriculture, dairy farming and other kinds of farming. Sarah? Well the dairy industry in Vermont supports 4,000 direct jobs and 12,000 indirect jobs both inside and outside the state. It creates $162 million in wages and $127 million in state tax revenue. This is not something we can really afford to lose and most other crops do not have that type of margin even when the dairy industry is suffering at the moment. And Anson Tebbets has said that it's the longest downturn for quite a while and I regret to see that but I think we need to support anybody who chooses to be a dairy farm and in addition to help them diversify just so they can get through these downturn periods. And in addition I learned a lot of things during that workshop which was quite useful that quite interesting in fact that I think that you know whereas I am for fiscal responsibility and you know cutting where one can I do think that we need to continue to make farms available through VCLT and that we need to help them every chance we can to succeed not just to barely hold on you know dairy farms are part of you know part of the infrastructure here they're also just part of our identity. I can't imagine telling somebody oh yes let's change you over to something completely different and you know the farms that are failing the ones that have less than 200 cows those are the these are the people who care so much about their cattle they cry when they when they lose them so we can't be doing that to people these people are you know treat their of their livestock as family they treat they their family raises their animals you know this is this is a a part of Vermont we cannot lose can I just add that I I mean I think we share a commitment to farming and agriculture in Vermont and in Heinsberg we have the family cow farm which is making raw milk available and so one of the things I helped fight for was to have rational regulations around the sale of raw milk and we needed to encourage the state to allow the sale of raw milk which has a market and that allows them to stay at keep that land in farming we also need to support agritourism which allows Vermonters to share their experience of living and working on a farm with people from out of state who come here there's actually the people people will pay to come and visit farms in Vermont which is a good thing and so I think there's creative ways that that we we've engaged in we need to do more and and I think we will try to do that absolutely in addition I think we do need to loosen some of the the regulations that are simply burdensome and may possibly read possibly just check you know have have people's phosphorus monitored and have you know if it's at a certain level let them be the stewards of their land not necessarily be so super picky that they can't afford to keep up with their new regulations okay thank you both obviously an issue that is close to both of your hearts so I'm glad we had a chance to chat about it let's talk a little bit about opportunity a recent vpr pbs poll found a solid majority of Vermonters support paid family leave and raising the minimum wage both house both passed by both the house and senate and vetoed by the governor this past session they are likely to come back up again how did you or would you vote in the future and sour you're stunning us off this is where we will differ so the the plan that I've read says 0.136 percent of income would fund it on my husband's base pay of 90 000 which would mean he would be paying 122 a year 70 percent of his wages for 12 weeks um becomes 10 500 dollars so I don't really understand exactly how this program could possibly stay solvent for very long at all they're talking about only needing to have contributed for one year the year before which would make him have having contributed less than a tenth of what he'd be taking out um so I don't think I could I could vote for it as it sits because the implication is that the taxpayers are going to be made made to make up the difference you know without having consented to doing so no and you were talking about paid family leave right okay did you also want to address minimum wage absolutely I thought we were doing one separately my fault um well it's nice thought but it also does not work out so well um 15 dollars an hour does not give everyone a raise instead it devalues skilled labor to the point where everyone is then working for minimum wage raising minimum wage also brings out brings people out from under the poverty line which is where they are granted assistance so um it does not mean they're going to be able to afford to pay their rent or feed their children or for daycare but then they're they're made ineligible for subsidy so essentially if they want to work they cannot work if they are um under the line if they were already under the line okay bill we're talking about paid family leave and raising the minimum wage well I voted for both I voted for paid leave family leave and I voted for the minimum wage both of which were vetoed by Governor Scott I do want to also because we're coming short on time I think here to acknowledge that uh Governor Scott also did vote for did pay did sign the gun safety legislation which I think we also have different points of view on and haven't had a chance really to talk about here yet today and so uh in addition to voting for minimum wage and paid family leave I voted for the what I believe are the common sense gun safety laws that Governor Scott signed and that the board of the Champlain Valley Union School District supported as well and I I think our constituents our voters uh should be allowed to understand where we differ on that issue in addition to some of the issues we talked about today so okay sir do you want another minute um on that um sure I'm a second amendment organizer I organized 36 candidates state to run against people who voted for the gun safety laws um the there's absolutely no reason that any of these laws make anybody more safe because the only people who obey laws also do not break them so we are um at a stalemate in that department um so yeah I uh I completely am a pro second amendment and pro article 16 which is actually considering considerably um more lax than the second amendment they um spell spell it out that you know we that a law-abiding citizen is able to own guns period well we are out of time but thank you both I know right when quick I apologize thank you both so much for coming out tonight we appreciate it um and don't forget everyone out there you can vote now at your town or city hall or on election day which is Tuesday November 6th um and of course stay tuned to channel 17 for more election day coverage thanks so much and good night