Welcome to the third and final video in this series. In the first video, I introduced somatic intelligence and different ways of knowing in relation to the body, as well as some versions of embodied scholarship. And perhaps you took the opportunity to move with lines and circles in the previous video to explore an abstract concept through movement. Now I will discuss how you can concretely implement this within your research activities. The somatic toolkit which I mentioned in the beginning of video one is freely available online. It includes explorations to support a healthy relationship to your research in mental, emotional as well as physical terms. It helps you to be aware of not sitting too long behind your desk and move with your ideas. This will support you as a researcher in the longer term. Whatever methodology we use, every research will move through a cycle of familiar stations. There will be a phase of preparation, data collection and dissemination. We all have to deal with literature review, observations or interviews, analysis, writing and presentation. The somatic toolkit offers ten concrete exercises regarding such research activities and how improvised movement can support your thinking, analysis and the interconnection between all of them. But we also face questions about our identity and confidence as a researcher, about being in the unknown, dealing with polarities in our data or emotional responses that our work might bring up. Guest contributions include working with gender, blood, practices to quiet the mind, deal with discomfort and challenging research situations and emotional states such as overwhelm, stress and exhaustion. Rather than repeating those resources here, I'd like to use our remaining time to highlight a specific aspect you might consider exploring to enhance your bodily relationship to your research. Place. Where is your research taking place? What type of landscape or urban environment are you in? And how does that environment affect your somatic experience?  What view or observations do your position afford you? How technology-intense is the space? And how does this affect your body? How natural or wild is the space? And how does this affect your body? You might find yourself in a familiar environment, but equally you might have never been there or somewhere similar before. So what types of body skills are necessary to navigate this space? In the podcast series of the Somatics Toolkit, for example, Dr. Jerome Lewis speaks about ways to embody different environments, especially the forest. The soil and the sounds are different, and the sense of the space around you is different. Also, where are you analyzing your data afterwards? Can you find a nice place to work that is not office-like? How can changing your environment help you gaining a different perspective over your data? Or help you be more comfortable in your body while you're at it? It often helps me to put my work around me in a circle and sit on a meditation cushion while I read, analyze, or edit my writing. People, who are you with? And what do you know about their somatic experience? How do they move, connect, talk, touch, express themselves? What topics are important to them? And what might they think about what you are studying? And from what angles or vantage points do they observe the world? Do they sit in chairs? Do they sit on the ground? Is most of the time spent being active or sedentary? And how does your body respond to this way of being? What experience or knowledge is expressed in their movements? Again, try to find an embodied expression of these questions. So, for example, if your research takes place in a hospital, you'll meet patients, staff and visitors. And each of these groups will have their own presence. And imagine how each role affects their movement and emotional state. What different speeds and postures, levels of anxiety or confidence do you discern? And how does this affect you? The role of the doctor allows freedom to move from one ward to another. People in this role will be pressed for time and often experience exhaustingly long days. Movement effects might be staccato-like, efficient, tired, stressed, spacious or full of compassion. Patients have much more restrictions in their movements. They might be stationary in bed. They might be linked up with medical instruments. And there is a lot of waiting. Waiting for food, for visiting hours, a test result, for bandages to be changed. Patients might feel nauseous, but they're still pressed to eat something. Perhaps they can't go to the toilet unassisted. Notice how in this role your movements and sensations are different to how you moved in the role of doctor. And finally, you can move as a visitor who comes to see a relative or a friend. You enter the room slightly anxious. There's a strong smell of chemicals and medication. You might be unsure of what to say, unsure of where to sit. Your breathing is shallow. And where should you leave the flowers? Is it appropriate to share something about life outside the hospital? Again, these movements and sensations are very different to those both of the doctor and the patient. And bringing an awareness of these roles into your moving body will help you with your research participants in a different way. And it will help you understand more of what they're telling you. So it adds a different layer to your observations and your data. Aspects. Also, what aspects or phenomena are relevant to your investigation? This can include animals, art forms, healing practices, educational systems, rituals, or approaches to food security, social media use, robots and artificial intelligence. Can you represent or enact these? And how do these influence your movement? What sensations do they allow you to experience? For example, you might be investigating music, instruments, sounds and performances. Imagine the instrument as a living thing just like your body. Try and mimic the shape of the instrument with your body. Curving or stretching. And allow it to breathe. How does it produce its sound? Is it an air instrument or a string instrument? Does it make sound when stamping on the ground like ankle bells? Can you mimic the sound with your voice? Can you express the quality of the sound in your movements? And then, what bodily techniques are used to play this instrument? Is the musician sitting or standing? And with what body part does the musician connect to the instrument? Are their movements symmetrical? Or do different parts of the body make different movements? Are they playing solo or in a group? Is there an audience? How are their bodies involved? Analytical concepts. Like the exploration of lines and circles in the previous video, you can work with any set of concepts. To start with, it is easiest to inquire into two distinct categories in your research, such as group individual, past and present, researcher-researched, man-woman, carer-patient or parent-child. And there will be several such categories present in your research. They can also be more abstract, such as objectivity, subjectivity. Tangible, intangible. Belonging or separation. Closeness or distance. And you can move with them almost like a dance partner. Pay attention how they move your body in turn and see what that exploration shows you. You could use the following structure. Mark each concept on a separate piece of paper through a word or a drawing. For example, you could write prison and freedom on the two sheets of paper. Place the two sheets in the room with you, some space apart. And then you move towards each of the pieces in turn, and you imagine stepping into that particular concept. And notice what changes in your body. Again, sense your breath, the feeling texture of your body and a possible emotional response. Your body will respond to the concept when you engage with it. If I move with prison, my body becomes stiff, tight, locked. My breathing gets shallow and I feel scared. I look for a way out. When I engage with freedom, my breath gets deeper. My body relaxes, my eyes look up and I'm curious. Such sensations can inform your understanding of the concept you chose. Notice if you feel neutral towards both or feel drawn to or distance from one of the polarities. Swap between them a few times. Do they feel different? What associations do you have with each? Is there one you feel more comfortable with? Is there one you might be avoiding? Is there one that feels like a friend and another like an adversary? Is there one that supports and one that challenges? Keep reflecting on the differences. What do they teach you? And remember that there is no right or wrong. This is simply your very own and personal inquiry into your topic and in the polarities you chose for today. To complete, always return to the center. Try to find a still point inside yourself. And despite what you have experienced, acknowledge the polarities without judgment as phenomena that simply exist, like day and night. And if you're not there yet, ask yourself what is necessary to find balance inside yourself. The idea is to create space from which you can deal with these polarities in the responses to your research efficiently and skillfully through artistry, poise and integrity. Emotions. You can adapt the previous exploration of concepts to work with polarity within the personal emotional sphere related to your research. For example, between being stressed or relaxed. Between acting now or later. Between hope and despair. Again, you can write them on pieces of paper and swap between the different qualities to explore what they can teach you. In the guest contributions of the somatic toolkit, you will find an extended practice to deal with challenging research situations developed by Lena Faust and Simone Pfeiffer. A simple version of this could be to select an object or image that expresses an emotional state or specific situation during your research. Externalizing the situation creates some distance between you and your experience and the strength of your emotional charge. See how your body responds to that object or even to the memory of that situation or emotion. Locate where the emotion is situated in your body and give it shape. How does it affect your posture? Your breath. You can also move closer or further away from the object and see if that changes your feelings regarding the situation.  Does that bring insight of how to deal with it? What is needed to flow with this more gracefully? Does it bring relief or a call to action? And to complete, try to find your center again. Remember that emotions do not need to be hidden or ignored. You do not need to be ashamed of them. They're simply part of your research process. And if necessary, ask yourself, what is necessary to find balance inside yourself? Perhaps simply paying attention to this will have been enough. Perhaps you can do some uncensored writing. Perhaps you call a friend or professional if you realize that you need a bit more contained space to dance with this. These are some general ideas to approach your research in an embodied way. You can imply this to any aspect and occurrence within your research. Allow yourself to move freely with your chosen exploration topic in mind. And switch between the various elements of your study, whether they are people, materials, natural or other phenomena, or any emotion that you might experience in relation to your research. Be creative and allow ample time. Remember that there is no right or wrong. You are simply investigating something through the unique instrument that is your body. Now after each exploration, make sure you consciously come back to yourself. Feel your feet on the ground. Take a few deep breaths and consciously step out of the exploration. You can mark this spatially by taking a step back and turn around. Take some time to reflect on what you experienced. And if you are working with strong emotional content, make sure you have ways to navigate what comes up. You can find more guidance on how to complete a session on the Somatics Toolkit website. Have a great journey and even allow for the possibility of enjoying yourself. Thank you for your time and remember your body.


Good afternoon and welcome to the Fulton campus at Roger Williams University and Convocation Exercises 2018. Please remain standing as we welcome our student a cappella group drastic measures to sing the National Anthem. Thank you, please be seated. The University has several religious organizations for students who work collaboratively with local clergy and our spiritual life office to coordinate spirituality programs on campus. Today the university's multi-faith chaplain and director of spiritual life the Reverend Nancy Sukup will offer invocation. Reverend Nancy? Please join me in a moment of silence. Spirit of wisdom and Inspirer of knowledge. We return to where we begin each year, a never-ending circle of life and learning. As a community of inquiry we invite these new Roger Williams students into the lively experiment begun 382 years ago by our namesake, the Reverend Roger Williams. We welcome their uniqueness, talents, ideas, questions and curiosity and we encourage them to explore their own new and dangerous ideas much like Roger Williams did so long ago. May we all have his spirit which asked why when others merely accepted what is. We pledge to walk with these students in the midst of anticipated and unanticipated events and in personal transitions and transformations especially as new knowledge shifts their understandings of the world and their life's pursuits. Most important we share with them our core values, those grounded in Roger Williams's legacy to forge educational paths that are transformative, engaged, experiential, innovative and inclusive and in that spirit particularly this year we bid well to all the members of our community who are Muslim here at the end of their second Eid observances and all those who are Jewish as they prepare soon for their new year, Rosh Hashanah. As we look forward we ask you to bless our leadership including our Board of Trustees, Vice Presidents, Deans, Administrators, faculty and staff and we do this with remembrance and thanksgiving for our late President Donald Farish. We ask you to bless the families and friends of our students as they companion with them on this adventure into higher education and finally we ask you to bless with us our community's newest members and the journey they undertake today. We eagerly await the imprint that they will make on this university and on us in the days ahead. So be it. Thank You Reverend Sukup. Greetings and welcome to members of the Board of Trustees, President Workman, faculty, University administrators, staff, Fulton family members, marshals, orientation advisors, student volunteers, parents, family members and all of the first-year and transfer students comprising the entering class. Thank you for participating in Convocation exercises today and celebrating this important milestone together. For both family members and students, today is a day of powerful and competing emotions. The energy created by pride, happiness and excitement, conflicting with anxiety about the transition to university life, making new friends, taking on new academic challenges and saying goodbye to loved ones. Together with you under this tent today are the dedicated faculty, staff and student leaders who are committed to mentoring you along the way. Do not hesitate to reach out, ask questions, see guidance and make suggestions. They are here for you. Students may be asking right about now what is so special about this ceremony and how long will it last? Some parents may want a longer ceremony, a longer goodbye, while others have begun planning reallocation of bedroom space already. History informs us that the term Convocation dates back to the 14th century, was originally used to describe important religious gatherings and then adopted by universities to celebrate academic ceremonies such as the beginning of the school year. At Roger Williams, Convocation begins with a procession of the entering class wearing hawk emblazoned shirts in unity and continues with messages from the university community members, formally welcoming the entering class to our learning community and giving some advice. Importantly Convocation includes the new class reciting the pledge of academic integrity together. Students, your first week is upon us. Your orientation will continue with several important transition programs this week, participation in service via our 14th annual community connections program and your first day of classes on Wednesday. By the end of the week you will have a deeper sense of why you are here, what faculty expect, who is here to help you and why every student matters. Learning is central to all we do as a university and while we learn together, both new and returning students, faculty and staff, we are in the process of building community and caring about each other. It's hard work that requires patience, humility and honesty. Being a community member requires intentional investment and action. True community members don't stand by while a peer struggles with any of life's many challenges, loss or injustice. They reach out offering empathy, intervention and support. The call to community requires all of us to listen and understand each other, to welcome and value all expressions of diversity and identity and to respect and value the dignity of each and every individual. But in order to help others, we have to take care of ourselves and our responsibilities. So student resiliency is a big deal. Eat and sleep well, exercise, dance, sing, keep up your coursework, go to class, every class, go for tutoring, get involved, write a poem, laugh, cry, talk, shop, know when you're sick, go to health services, recognize when you're struggling and share your feelings with friends, faculty, staff, family, your RA, your peer mentor. Make an appointment with our campus experts in the counseling center and the Center for Student Academic Success. At your age, it's quite common to believe you have a boundless reservoir of energy and stamina. However, the habits you practice during college can provide lifetime benefits for your physical, mental, intellectual and emotional well-being. You are an impressive group of students, and it is a pleasure to welcome Dr. Brian Williams, Vice President of Enrollment Management, to the podium for the presentation of the entering class. Dr. Williams. Good afternoon to the students in front of me, the families, faculty and staff around me and the very smart families that found shade around the edges. Welcome to all of you today. My role today is very simply and officially to introduce you all as a group to the campus community. As an admissions staff, we read over 9,000 applications and we read and looked at all of you as individuals, trying to imagine your ability to come and succeed, trying to imagine the impact you would leave on us. And today, we're excited to have over 1150 new freshmen and transfer students that are joining us today. We're excited and honored to have you realize and get, please, there's a great group. You have all taken very distinct pathways and very different pathways from each other to join us today. And it's exciting to have you all together as one group for the first time, one full class of students. Allow me to introduce yourselves to each other a little bit more and share a little bit of information about your new classmates. You come to us from 610 different high schools. You come from 27 different states now bringing our total to over 45 states represented in the student body and over 42 countries represented in the student body that will be your classmates, friends and roommates for the next four years. You come from 355 of you are the only student from your high school that is here and 208 of you come from high schools where five or more of your classmates are joining us. So some of you have a footing to know people, but many of you, you were here for the first time in experiencing this place new like many others around you. At 18% of our student population, this is the most diverse racially and ethnically freshman class in the university and many years. You are athletes, you're budding politicians, you are service volunteers, music dancers, actors, poets, gamers and so much more. I can only touch quickly on the talents and experiences we saw in your application, but please know individually you have so much to bring to us and collectively you are an amazing class. We can't wait to see how you're going to challenge us and make us grow as much as you grow over the next four years and we do that together.  So for the first time, because it has not been said today, I introduced the campus community to this class of 2022. My other introduction is to now introduce interim president Andrew workman. It's my distinct honor to welcome interim president workman to the podium. Dr workman has served at the university as our chief academic officer and in that position of provost since 2012 and serves an important leadership role in a national level through involvement with the council of independent colleges and universities and help shape our role as a university and our role as an institution and leading you all forward. Dr workman. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Williams. It's my pleasure to join Dr. Williams in welcoming you officially the class of 2022 to the intellectual community of Roger Williams University. Must begin this welcome with a farewell. As many of you know, President Donald Farish, whom many of you heard at our open houses and accepted student days passed away unexpectedly on July 5th. He was deeply engaged with the life of the campus and his passing has been difficult for faculty, staff and students. We will celebrate his life and contribution to the university on September 12th with the performance with performances and reception that will be open to the whole campus. Although President Farish is no longer with us, we will continue his legacy by focusing on experientially engaged learning, broad education with the liberal arts core and controlling cost to make quality higher education as affordable as possible. The most important part of this legacy, however, is not any particular program, but a willingness to take a hard look at what we do at the university and the boldness to take action to make it even better. The intellectual community at Roger Williams was enriched by Dr. Farish's leadership and one of the ways he helped to do so was the inauguration of an annual campus theme. This theme informs the choice of speakers, panel discussions, classroom readings and assignments across the university. This year the theme is Ocean State, State of the Oceans, the impact to sea level rise on Rhode Island in the next century. To get things started at orientation, we gave each of you a copy of the book, The Water Will Come, it's kind of an apocalyptic title, The Water Will Come, Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World. We will have a discussion of the implications of civil rise on October 2nd when Jeff Goodall, the author, comes to campus to speak. There is, however, another theme in the book that is not directly connected with that topic and I'd like to talk with you about it a bit today. It concerns the difficulties humans have in addressing big, complicated problems that do not present an immediate threat. Our minds, which evolved to address the challenges of a very different world, are more attuned to the demands of the present than those of the far future. As you begin your education at RWU, I encourage you to reflect on this problem in part because overcoming it is a heart of what the modern university as an institution is all about. The university is the central locus for the production and retention of knowledge for our society. In part, its function is to peer into the future to detect problems that we cannot otherwise foresee. With the knowledge we've gained through this, it is now possible for humans to have the understanding, to control the world, to address the problems of the world to a degree that was unimaginable even a few centuries ago. To the extent and timing of big problems like sea level rise, it's not always certain and solutions to such problems are constantly contested because that's how our university works. We find the truth by bringing evidence to problems, by arguing about it among ourselves. That's the intellectual process, which sometimes brings some uncertainty and political turmoil, but it's absolutely essential for doing what the university and the university enterprise has done for humanity. Particularly over the last 500 years or so, it has completely transformed the way we live, how we control an environment, how we relate to one another. The world is a vastly better place for this and will be, I think, in the future. Now, the knowledge coming out of universities, it's not always easy to hear. It's often troubling and challenges accepted ways of doing things and entrenched interest. It's easy to go along with the day-to-day march toward problems, towards disaster in some case, and it's sometimes comforting to listen to those who deny or paper over problems or falsely blame others for them. I charge you, however, to embrace the effort, to anticipate the future, no matter how difficult or troubling it is, and to make a better world wherever you are and whatever you choose to do with your life. At Roger Williams, we have a name for those who use their knowledge to improve the world. We call them civic scholars, and today, at this convocation, you, the class of 2020, have taken the first step to becoming one. Thank you. Each year, we invite the President of Faculty Senate to provide the faculty address at convocation. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Susan Bosco, Professor of Management in the School of Business. Dr. Bosco. Thank you, Dr. King. Good afternoon, faculty, platform party, parents, and family members, and most of all, new students. On behalf of the faculty, I would like to welcome you at the start of your adventure in higher education. We're really looking forward to getting to meet you and getting to know you over the next four years. We're here to help you navigate the way forward towards graduation, which we will all tell you repeatedly is very close at hand. All of us are facing a year of transition, working with our interim president and prior provost workmen, conducting the search for our next president, following the passing of President Farish, and experiencing a new academic building being constructed on campus. For you first year students, you'll be experiencing not only these campus transitions, but your own personal ones. You are transitioning from being in a familiar environment you have likely inhabited for many years to one that is new, from the place you will live to where you eat your meals and study, from socializing with friends you may have had since you were very young to meeting many new people in a very short time, from bringing primarily accountable to your parents or other guardians to being accountable to yourself. And although all of these are important transitions, I would argue that the most challenging of them is the last, being accountable to yourself. You might ask yourself, what exactly does this mean, and how is it different from what I have experienced before? Well, let me give you an example from your soon-to-be-real life. You will find, for example, that if you don't get up in time for a class, no one will be outside your room nagging you to get up and out.  If I want to sleep in, I can. You will likely feel free and glad to have no one looking over your shoulder. That is, until you realize that because you're your absence from class, you missed key notes or information on an assignment.   Do you go see a professor before class next time to ask what you missed, or do you hope the professor didn't notice? Trust me, they did. You're at a school with small classes. And that you can get notes from the nice person who sits next to you. Probably will work once. Do you make a plan to use this experience to transition into a new behavior, or do you shrug it off and continue along the same path, a sure way to stall or set back your adventure? Your willingness and persistence in making this transition will largely determine your success. What I mean by this is that if you look at this year as an opportunity to draw on your character and experiences to make progress in your college journey, you will be satisfied with what you become. If you see this as an opportunity to have a good time without supervision and to see what everyone means by Thursday Thursday, you will pack up in May with little to show, but poor grades and few connections to others in our community save some shallow social acquaintances. In closing, on these occasions, I often look for an inspirational quote to summarize my message, but this time there didn't seem to be one that was especially appropriate for this day. So I'll speak from the heart and say, you are all here because you have the ability to succeed here in achieving a high-quality college education. Resources and support are all around you, from faculty to staff to administrators and fellow students. A successful transition to your new life is in your grasp. We look forward to helping you achieve it. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bosco. Arlene Violet continues to lead a fascinating life of service. A Rhode Island native raised in Providence, she provided servant leadership for many years as a nun with the Sisters of Mercy and as a school teacher and administrator. A graduate of Boston College Law School, Arlene successfully ran for public office in Rhode Island in 1984 becoming the first female elected Attorney General in the United States. Her accomplishments as Attorney General were remarkable and worth a Google search. An active writer and commenter on Everything Rhode Island, Arlene has served Roger Williams since 2007 as a trustee with unwavering commitment and passion. It is a privilege to welcome trustee Violet to the podium. Class of 2022, today you have stepped foot on a campus ready to inspire and educate you so that you will live a fulfilled life by acquiring and developing the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind necessary to succeed. But as the TV ad says, there's still more.  You will also have the opportunity to collaborate with your classmates through our Community Partnership Center where you will work on and solve real-life community problems. And as you cross this campus, you'll see names on buildings of people who are luminaries. One such building, the Feinstein Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement, is named after Island Sean Feinstein, a Rhode Island philanthropist who has devoted his life to promoting public service. Every time you see or hear or enter that building, I hope that it will remind you of his mantra to do one kind deed each day. By the way, at Yale University, the most heavily subscribed course on its campus is a primer in happiness. A core element of that Yale University course advocates doing good every day because it will result in your personal happiness. Island Sean Feinstein knew that reality years ago when he started encouraging schools elementary through universities to promote service. Mr. Feinstein follows Muhammad Ali's famous saying service to others is the rent you pay to room here on earth. So what an opportunity awaits you. You have access to a first class educational experience that will enhance your knowledge and marketability while you start to pay the rent on your citizenship responsibility in this world. Mr. Feinstein is asked me to welcome you on his behalf and wishes to thank you in advance for your service this Monday and the Feinstein Community Connections program. And on behalf of my colleagues on the board of trustees, we couldn't be more thrilled than to have you here with us. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Violet. It's my pleasure to introduce our Student Senate President, Kayla Devon, to give the Student Senate welcome. Kayla is a senior from Ellicott City, Maryland studying psychology and marketing. Please join me in welcoming Kayla to the podium. Kayla. Thank you, Dr. King. Good afternoon and welcome to our faculty, staff, families, friends, but most importantly to you, the Roger Williams University class of 2022. As Vice President King shared, my name is Kayla Devon and I am a rising senior from Ellicott City, Maryland studying psychology and marketing. I am also honored to serve this year as your student body president. As such, it is my distinct pleasure to formally welcome you to our Roger community on behalf of all your new peers. Sitting here now, many of you are likely overwhelmed by the sheer number of unfamiliar people surrounding you. I know I was and quite frankly still am in awe that somehow each and every one of us have found our way here for this moment. Every decision we have ever made has culminated in being right here today. And every decision you make moving forward from this moment will carry weight as you continue to move throughout your life. That sounds like a lot of pressure, doesn't it? We make hundreds of decisions every day. So how does one know if they're making the right ones? I wish I was able to give you the blueprint for a successful college career up front. I know that would put many of your minds at ease to have a foolproof plan as you gear up for your journey at Roger. Spoiler alert for the rest of the speech. I don't have all of those answers for you. But this is a good thing because half of the fun is getting to figure out college on your own terms. When I graduate, I'm not simply walking out of here with an expensive piece of paper because to me an RW degree symbolizes not just an education but an experience, one built of countless hours both in and out of the classroom. If you read the story behind my diploma of my journey here at RWU, you might begin to understand why after just three years here, I refer to Rhode Island as my home more often than I do Maryland. I could easily write hundreds of pages of my experiences here, but rather than bore you with the details of my daily visits to commons, I'll instead offer you a brief synopsis. Chapter one, freshman year, we had to repack the car a few times just so I had somewhere to sit for the eight hour trek north. For my convocation, it was a sweaty day for everyone, perfect for making new connections by commiserating over the heat. I went to approximately every single week of welcome event because free food and t-shirts were number one on my college to-do list. When the involvement failure rolled around, I got on the email list for dozens of different student groups. But from all of these options, I narrowed it down to a few involvements. Student Senate, Ultimate Frisbee, Ballroom Dance Club and Spanish Club. And for my very first semester, I took public speaking. I really hope that class is paying off today. Fast forward to chapter two, sophomore year. At this point, I thought I had things figured out and had gained confidence in a lot of areas. For example, now I was considered a veteran tutor at my work study position in the Writing Center. But even still, I was growing as a person, so I picked up new involvements that would challenge me in different ways, including joining the health and wellness educators. I was also able to take a three and a half week faculty led trip abroad to Chile during winter intercession, where I was able to get six credits while honing my Spanish skills. By the end of my sophomore year, I declared marketing as my second major. Chapter three was this past year. The summer before my junior year, I was able to welcome the class of 2021 to campus as an orientation advisor, a position that I was lucky enough to return to this past summer to help welcome all of you as well. I was also able to complete a credit bearing internship in fall 2017 in the Human Resources Department for the town of Barrington, Rhode Island. As I begin to move into chapter four, I'm so excited for what this year will bring. I'm living off campus for the first time with friends that I met all the way back in my freshman year. I'm also gearing up to begin my undergraduate thesis in psychology this fall semester, working with a professor who has served as a mentor within my discipline. But perhaps the best part of senior year is that it's still unwritten and that I get to continue to make choices that will bring amazing new people and opportunities into my life. And after graduation, when I turn the page to chapter five, I can confidently say that my experiences here at Roger Williams University have prepared me for whatever life has in store for me. So when May 18th rolls around and I'm taking pictures smiling with my diploma, I hope you all now understand a little bit more of exactly what that diploma means to me. And the best part is that every person walking around that stage to collect their degree has a full length story, too. I urge you to ask your peers about their story, and maybe you'll be inspired to add elements of it to your own narrative. We have over 75 clubs and organizations on campus. 24 varsity sports and eight club sports. Every major has unique possibilities for internships and study abroad options. Every department could be a potential work study environment for you. There's truly no wrong way to be involved in our community. But you might not find the right fit for you unless you constantly lean into these new experiences. And that advice goes far beyond freshman year. New doors will open with every turn of the page. So always be open to these possibilities and know that it's never too late to enhance your collegiate experience. And if you do find yourself becoming overwhelmed by the process and the sheer number of possibilities, reach out to those around you for support. We are all one community and there are faculty, staff and students who all want to see you succeed. I cannot conclude the speech without recognizing one person for whom that sentiment held especially true. President Barish held the student opinion close to his heart and made it a personal priority to connect with the student body so that he would be able to truly understand the student experience and improve it in any way he could. While most of you will not be able to experience firsthand his commitment to the student body, it is my hope that you will be able to see his passion still living on in the Roger Williams community through those who knew and interacted with him. You will also have the good fortune of benefiting from many of his student-driven initiatives like affordable excellence, civic scholars and the Community Partnership Center. I can think of no better way for you to pay homage to our late president than for each of you to live out your collegiate experience to the fullest. So please enjoy your time here and have the courage to write your own story. Your chapter one at RWU is waiting to be written. Thank you. Taylor, thank you both for speaking today and for your leadership of Student Senate this year. The university values the involvement of alumni and family members in university life. This afternoon, we are delighted to invite Murray Carp, a father of two current students from Morganville, New Jersey, to provide a parent's perspective on the first year experience. Mr. Carp is a member of the Parent and Family Leadership Council and is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Energy Capital Partners. Please join me in welcoming Murray to the podium. Students, bear with me for a couple of minutes. I'm going to talk to your parents now. Good afternoon. My wife, Stephanie, and I are the proud parents of twin boys entering their sophomore year here at Roger Williams. Parents, let's be honest. This day really isn't about these great new students at Roger Williams. It's about us. I mean, we're the ones taking on this financial commitment and not to mention the emotional roller coaster.  And we just sit home, worry, and miss them. We personally became empty nesters overnight last August when our twins left and all that remained at home were our two cats. In case you were wondering why I'm here speaking to parents today, it is because some new friends that I have met through involvement in the Parent and Family Association thought I could convince you that it's going to be all right and you're going to survive. On a serious note, I can't tell you all enough how fortunate you are to have your student attend Roger Williams. It has been such a great experience, not just for our boys, but for our whole family. The professors, coaches, and the administration have proven to me that going above and beyond isn't lip service. They really watch over our kids. And what I love the best is their first answer has always been, let me look into it and see if I can help. When no is so much easier and so much simpler to say, it is really gratifying having your child attend a university that cares. I urge all of you to stay involved in your students' lives. Though they temporarily left your home, trust me, they want to share the successes and also their bumps in the road with you. There will be plenty of things for them to approve upon as they enter into this new learning adventure and it is OK. These kids are resilient. They will bounce back. But trust me, they need your support to get through it. We made a pact with our kids that if they want to see money in their checking account, we need at least three texts or phone calls a week. I have a spoiler alert also. It actually works. I also encourage you to get involved with the school in any way that you can. You can join the Parent and Family Association and provide additional financial support through the annual Parent Fund. You can help by sharing your network contacts in order to provide real life work experiences, such as internships to the students. Last semester, I brought a few young professionals from my firm and we spoke to a finance class in the Gabelli School of Business. As we enter the sophomore year together as a family, there is no doubt that seeing our kids smile as they came back to campus has definitely helped us get through the sadness of them moving back to campus. It's definitely gotten easier. So I'd like to leave you all with these immortal words from Barb Marley. This is my message to you. Don't worry about a thing because every little thing going to be all right. Parents, enjoy the ride. Students, text your parents every few days. Best of luck in the alcomony season. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Carr. I invite Dean Steven White, Dean of the School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation to lead the entering class in the Pledge of Academic Integrity. The pledge is contained on the backside of your program. Dean White. Thank you. I appreciate having the privilege to administer the pledge of academic integrity to all of our new students. This pledge embodies a set of ideals that link this institution to those who have come before it all the way back to the colloquia of Socrates, something you will be studying in the coming months.  Its goal is that we be collegial in the best sense of the word. That we work as a community of scholars together in an atmosphere of honesty and integrity. The faculty of Roger Williams University considers the honor pledge, the foundation of trust that makes this community of learning possible. When you take this pledge, you will be welcomed into the academic community, but you must be aware that violation of this pledge will bring serious consequences. When you accept this code, you pledge yourself to personal integrity. You pledge to take responsibility for your actions and decisions. You pledge that you are interested in acquiring knowledge on your own and for its own sake, rather than simply as a display of achievement to impress others for competitive advantage. Finally, you pledge that you want to forge a bond with your professors and with fellow students based in trust and common pursuit of knowledge rather than on threat and penalty. Will all of our new students please stand if they are able? Fine looking group of people out there. I ask that you now open your program to the pledge of academic integrity. Will the faculty and offers of the university also now stand to witness our students pledge? I ask each member of this incoming class to concentrate fully on each word as you promise to adopt and practice the following code of conduct. Please repeat after me. We, the undergraduate students of Roger Williams University, commit ourselves to academic integrity. We promise to pursue the highest ideals of academic life, to challenge ourselves with the most rigorous standards, to be honest in every academic endeavor, to conduct ourselves responsibly and honorably and to assist one another as we live and work together in mutual support. Thanks very much. Best best of luck in this coming semester. Thank you, Dean White. You may be seated. You are almost out of here. Students in May under this same on the same field, we graduated an impressive class of students who were engaged in purposeful learning, community engagement and leadership. We need everyone in your row and starting in your seat to take their place on campus and establish your own legacy, contribute in your own way. Students who will collaborate on research projects with faculty and present papers at conferences, participate in community partnership projects, provide service and leadership on and off campus, engage in social justice efforts, participate in student organizations, take peer leadership roles, obtain internships, proudly support and participate in athletics, the performing arts and study abroad because you and your classmates are our future. This is now your university. We encourage you to bring your ideas forward for improving campus life and volunteer to improve what exists or create what is missing. Immediately after commencement, all commuters are asked to attend a meeting in College of Arts and Sciences 157, preparing them for fall orientation and are encouraged to stay for dinner tonight and all evening activities. At 4.30 this afternoon, all residential students begin meetings and dinners as part of fall orientation. Now the hard part. In order to start fall semester orientation, all parents and family members will need to depart by 4.25 after heartfelt hugs with their student. Now we want to stop short of calling this apparent curfew, which it is, and hope folks understand. We enthusiastically invite parents back to campus October 19th through the 21st for family weekend and homecoming to enjoy a full array of programs. In the meantime, students, as Mr. Karp suggests, return your folks text message with more than one letter responses, packages and money may follow, reduce their anxiety by sharing what is happening in your life on campus. We thank parents and family members for your presence at convocation today and wish for each student a purposeful academic journey full of learning, friendships and personal development. Please remain standing and at your seats as we prepare the recessional. The platform party will leave the tent first, followed by the faculty. Marshals will then guide the class of 2022 out of the tent and parents can meet students in front of the fieldhouse or on the commons quad. Convocation exercises for the entering class are complete. Pipes and drums start to play.


Although electromagnetism has been responsible for virtually every human experience and phenomena that we see, that wasn't obvious for a very long time and there are simple reasons for that. The first is that all those different experiences that we have and different phenomena look very different and they also don't look anything obviously like electricity or magnetism. What is now obvious electrical phenomena like lightning, electric eels, St. Elmo's fire or magnetic phenomena like magnets and compasses and so forth, they're not obviously related either. All those things look quite different if you don't understand electricity and magnetism. Indeed the history of experiments and realizations about electrical and magnetic phenomena throughout the last few thousand years is a very long and dense list. People have been conducting experiments all the way from the ancient Greeks who realized that they could make static electricity by rubbing amber on things all the way through to probably the late 1700s and 1800s where people started to really quantify electrical and magnetic phenomena and even more importantly people started trying to use electric phenomena. In the late 18th century people were attempting to make devices to communicate long distances by using static electricity and wires and in the turn of the 19th century Alessandro Volta constructed the first device to make a nice large electric current by a chemical reaction. So he made an electric battery that people could use for their experiments and for their devices and the ability to make electrical circuits then let people make a raft of discoveries in both electricity and magnetism and indeed in the first half of the 1800s people discovered that electricity and magnetism were connected when they started passing current through wires and noticing that they could move compass needles and so once they discover that they could make forces of electricity suddenly this opened the door for the revolution in technology that is our almost ubiquitous use of electricity but all these lovely new electric circuits much like all the previously discovered electrical phenomena all share one thing in common and that is that they're actually all really complicated examples of electromagnetic theory and the reason for that is electromagnetism fundamentally is all about charges and how they affect each other and in something like an electric circuit or a battery or a cloud or a fish or a compass there are so many charges in such complicated arrangements in any of these objects there are enormous numbers of positive and negative charges all really near each other and virtually canceling each other out and it's just the tiny differences the little movements of those charges that lead to these interesting effects so it took nearly a hundred years and many people working on it to really understand the fundamentals of electromagnetism to understand what charges are and what they do to each other and one of the things we have to discuss when we're talking about the fundamentals of electromagnetism is we have to talk about electric and magnetic fields


welcome to the video please like comment and share click the subscribe button underneath the video if you haven't subscribed yet also click the bell icon so you will receive all of the notifications for my future videos if you would like to make a donation my PayPal link is in the video description and there is also the new feature click the dollar sign icon in the live chat this is another way to make a donation if you are interested in a one-on-one coaching session with me please send me an email my email is in the video description why is the narcissist no longer attracted to you it may appear as though the narcissist is no longer attracted to you it's actually not what you think it is it has nothing to do with you personally and everything to do with them did you notice how once the narcissist knew that you were interested in them and they had secured you as a source of supply this is when the relationship moved from the love bombing phase to the devaluation phase this is when they begin to lose interest in you this is when they begin to devalue you if they actually chose to continue the relationship as it was rather than devaluing you i believe that they could have fallen in love with you for real but of course that cannot that cannot happen once they begin to see you in this negative way once they realize that you are interested in them you suddenly go from being all good to all bad although you may not have changed in any way as i said this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them i am going to remind you of the negative qualities or traits which narcissists possess they are shame-based individuals they are self-hating they have low self-worth low self-esteem low self-assurance low self-belief and low self-respect they are very insecure and have an inferiority complex now connect these negative qualities or traits to how they feel once they realize that you are interested in them or that you love them once they become aware that you are interested in them or that you desire to have a future with them they suddenly become disinterested and choose to devalue you or at least this is how it appears to you you may think that the narcissist is no longer interested in you no longer attracted to you but this is actually an illusion it has nothing to do with you personally the narcissist is not attracted to people who are interested in them as soon as they realize that you have an interest in them or you are attracted to them that is when they will see the grass being greener on the other side not because they are not interested in you or not attracted to you as a person but because they are not interested or attracted to people who feel that way about them i am going to repeat the negative qualities or traits which narcissists possess just let this sink in as i am saying it they are shame-based individuals they are self-hating they have low self-worth low self-esteem low self-assurance low self-belief and low self-respect they are very insecure and have an inferiority complex can you see how these negative qualities or traits connect to my belief that they are not interested or attracted to people who feel that way about them in their minds it's like this person is attracted to me they are interested in me there is nothing good about me i am not attractive i am not lovable i am deeply ashamed of myself i am not attracted i am not attracted about me i am not attractive i am not lovable i am deeply ashamed of myself i hate myself so as soon as they realize that you are interested in them you are instantly devalued and seen as an idiot in their minds because narcissists are deeply ashamed of themselves they hate themselves they do not believe that they possess any value they do not believe in themselves or respect themselves they are deeply insecure so in their minds if you are interested in them there must be something seriously wrong with you not because they see something negative within you but because but because you are interested in them you are attracted to them the narcissist believes that they are not meant to be loved so when you try to show love to the narcissist it only triggers them to reflect on their own insecurities and negative traits they reflect on all of their undesirable qualities and think in their minds how could you love that they also believe that at some point in the relationship you are going to come to your senses you are going to realize how unlovable they truly are you are not going to accept all of their flaws and insecurities from the moment they first met you they already knew that there would be an exploration date on your relationship because in their minds there is just no way that anyone could love or accept them that's why they created the false character the illusions that's why they use manipulative tactics like denial projection blame shifting and gaslighting because they know all too well that with all of their insecurities flaws and negative traits there is no way that anyone could truly love or accept them when you display to a narcissist that you are interested in them or you love and accept them that is seen as a weakness your value instantly decreases in their eyes because your interest in them triggers them to reflect on all of their insecurities flaws and negative traits i hope this has helped you to understand the reality behind the illusion of the narcissist appearing to be no longer attracted to you or interested in you remember it's not that they are not attracted to you or interested in you as a person they are just not interested in anyone who is attracted to them or interested in them at the beginning of the relationship you didn't really know what they were about but as you got to know them and still accepted and loved them that then triggered them to reflect on all of their insecurities flaws and negative traits and how you cannot possibly be anything great if you are interested in them if someone likes me i instantly see them as high value people because i look at myself and i know that i am a beautiful person inside and out i am lovable and i possess many great qualities so in my mind if someone is attracted to me they must be pretty amazing people but for the narcissist it's the other way around for them to have any sort of interest in you you have to hate them you have to hate everything about them because in their minds once you have got to know them they believe that's all they deserve remember people treat you the way that they treat themselves and how people try to make you feel is how they feel about themselves this is for anyone not just narcissists i hope this video has resonated with you thank you for watching please like comment and share subscribe if you haven't subscribed yet and i'll talk to you soon


My name is Nabil Risk. I'm the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Hackensack. My role at JTCC is as a Chief of Thoracic Surgery, I work in coordination with the oncologist, the radiation oncologist, in helping manage patients with lung cancer primarily. What is unique about the management of cancer at JTCC is, unlike most places, it works in coordination among several different groups of physicians. Thoracic surgery care should be provided in a team approach. It just works much better that way, both for the patients and just for the quality of care that we can provide. Typically, when a patient comes to clinic, for instance, they will come with several family members and I discuss with the family what the implications are of the diagnosis and how going forward both the patient and the family will have to deal with the management of that cancer. What I enjoy most about my role as Chief of Thoracic is that I've been able to, over the last year and a half since I've been at Hackensack and JTCC, to help build a team and I firmly believe that we're very much committed to minimally invasive approaches. So we do robotic approach, minimally invasive, non-robotic approaches. Probably about 90% of the surgeries we do are minimally invasive. We approach everything as a team. So in the operating room, it's typically two surgical attendings as opposed to most places where it's one surgeon. It's safer, it's more efficient and outcomes are just better from that approach as well.


I'm Keith Ghostland. I'm Ann Charles. I'm Linda Quinlan. It's July 14th. And we are at the studio. And we'd like to acknowledge that we are taping in Malpillia in unceded indigenous land. So Keith. Just a few headlines. But first, our trivia question. Front page, out in the mountain, July 1991. Their lead story made a reference to an action that had been taken by then-governor Richard Snowing. What action were they talking about? First thing I want to acknowledge, the death of Dervé Martinez. And Dervé Martinez was a trans woman Vermont farm worker, migrant justice activist. She was deported in March after having been stopped for DUI. And there is unusual circumstance with how ICE had been notified that she was in custody. She was detained, deported. People tried to stop it. She was in the process of filing for asylum based upon horrific and systemic violence that they had experienced as a trans person in Mexico. She died after being deported and having been exposed to infected with COVID-19. And what migrant justice was saying was that part of her lack of health care and medications while she was being detained compromised her immune system so that she was even more susceptible. Migrant justice is starting a fund drive to raise money to help pay for funeral expenses. So Canada, one of their leading swimmers who has competed in both international and Olympic games, came out. Martha McCabe. What was truly remarkable about her coming out process is she was saying that while she was a swimmer, that she knew that there were probably other LGBTQ plus people who were also swimmers, but there were no out lesbians. So she had no role models. The people I was constantly surrounded by and giving my attention to were swimmers. There was no one in that circle I could have potentially looked up to. Had there been, it would be in a bit more normalizing. And she made this statement directed to parents. I want to be an example to young female swimmers and help ones who are struggling with this so they can see it's normal. Parents also need to recognize that this needs to be normalized. Kids don't see this everywhere. And when you don't see it, it becomes this hurdle you have to get over. And what she was citing was the lack of role models within swimming delayed her own coming out process. The travel ban between the US and Canada should be expiring next week, but 40 out of 50 US states COVID is out of control. Everyone thinks this is going to be extended. So we're going to have to say that it's commerce when we go to visit our friends in Montreal. 23rd International Conference on HIV and AIDS just concluded in Oakland, San Francisco. It was a virtual conference. One of the major things coming out of it is they are tracking the progress of the vaccine. They had an experimental vaccine. They have just completed using all of the vaccine. They started that in 2017. And they're doing it women in Southern Africa because they have a higher prevalence of becoming HIV positive, more so than the men in that community. So it would be a good indicator of if the vaccine is or is not effective. And then they are looking at some very promising treatment modalities. I was going to report about the Vermont Attorney General joining 16 other states in the District of Columbia in a suit against 45's regime for their proposal to withdraw all of the visa for international students whose studies were online. They, the 45 regime withdrew it this afternoon. Really? I didn't know that. They reached a compromise. Harvard and MIT had both led the way. And there was an estimate that this was going to impact over 370,000 students and could hurt the economy by over $1.8 billion. So that might have had something to do with it. Yeah. For whatever reason, this afternoon, late notice just as I was leaving, they had withdrawn it. Want to put a plug out for the Pride Theater? They are still doing a virtual Pride Festival. It starts this Friday.  There will be Zoom presentations. The unique quality about the Pride Theater is that they're still will be doing the talk backs following the airing of their production. Members of Rainbow Umbrella, there may be some people who have started the conversation with the new Montpelier Chief of Police. If this is something that is of interest, go on to the Rainbow Umbrella website and let people know that. Early voting. The primary, August 11th. Did you get your postcard? Did you send it in? The census, did you do it? And what we're going to be looking for in the primary to very particular races. Senator Deborah Ingram, who has been a frequent guest on this show, is one of the people running in the Democratic for Lieutenant Governor. Also, in Chittenden 6-7, which is the Winooski District, Deanna Gonzalez, who has been on this show, has chosen not to run for reelection. Taylor Small, who has also been a frequent guest, is running. And there are three candidates for two slots. So if you're in that district, please vote. Taylor. Taylor Small. Yes, four votes for Taylor. This is my personal plug. I'm not allowed to say that. Oh, well, I can. Yes, you can. The last plug is the census. Actually starting August 11th as well, the Census Bureau enumerators are actually going to start doing the physical door-to-door that people are used to with a census taker. They're going to use all of the COVID precautions. They're going to be doing it from August 11th until October 31st. So that trick-or-treater may actually be a census taker. And a plug that, in March, self-reporting in Vermont was below 32%. National average is 62% for self-response. Vermont is now at 55.5%. And again, this determines what we get in federal funding and where monies are put. And when we come back, I'm going to talk about the legislature. All right. Ann. Well, before I begin my headlines, I'd like to make another important announcement, which involves our special interview show. If you, as Keith mentioned, the Chandler Pride, they were our guests with two other illustrious figures last week. And next week, on our show airing July 25th, we're going to have three more exciting interviews with Keith's going to finish up his interview with activist Mara Iverson. I'm going to talk with filmmaker Stephen Dansky. And Linda is going to speak with the editor of Sinister Wisdom, Julie Enzer. So tune in a week from Saturday on the 25th. And you'll see that show. But now let me turn to the kind of bleak international headlines. Let's start with the bad ones. Poland. Poland, yes. Things will improve as we go along in the headlines. But the Polish president has won a second term after a bitter campaign. The LGBT constituency takes heart because it was a close race. Due to receive 51.03% of Sunday's vote, while his opponent, Raphael Traszowski, got 48.97%, according to the final results. But due to one, and it's not good news for LGBT people in Poland. More bad news from Russia. The Russian elections occurred. I put elections in quotation marks in my notes because I think they were very rigged. Russian voters supported a national referendum, defining marriage equality exclusively as a union between one man and one woman. The referendum, which included more than 200 constitutional amendments, also paves the way for Russian president Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036. If he so chooses. And somehow I think he may choose that option. More from Russia. A rainbow ice cream. Rainbow ice cream is in the spotlight as Putin calls for monitoring of gay propaganda. So I now have a picture before you of this rainbow ice cream company's product. One Russian politician said it accustomed children to the LGBTQ pride flag, so it was therefore undesirable. Putin had a conference. And at this conference, the head of Women's Union of Russia drew his attention to this ice cream brand named Rainbow. And the proprietors of this ice cream store said it's a delightfully delicious and high quality ice cream with various colors based on natural dyes. For us, the rainbow represents the sunshine after rain, the most beautiful natural phenomenon. We don't see any comparison with the LGBT movement or its symbols. So that's what Putin is up to. But on a more pernicious level, law enforcement in the far eastern city of Komsomol on Amor have launched yet another administrative case against LGBTQ activist and artist Hulia Tsvetkova for promoting nontraditional sexual relations among minors. I have a picture before you now. I remember reporting that Putin had put out an anti-LGBT tape on Facebook that Facebook finally took down about two gay parents in an orphanage and the orphanage director spitting. This artist, Hulia Tsvetkova, published drawings of LGBT people raising children on social media in the beginning of June in response to this Facebook thing that Putin put out. She's been arrested three times, and I don't know what the outcome of her. She was under house arrest until the end of November 19th, and she's been charged with violating the Russian gay propaganda law. So more bad news. The Iraqi news media is promoting hate speech against LGBTQ people. A study has occurred, and I'll tell you more about that in my individual segment. There are hopeful signs that I'll also talk to you about in Iraq. News from Africa. In Tunisia, two young men received a two-year sentence for homosexuality. What happened was they had a dispute with each other, and one of them complained to the police, and the argument was about a loan. So the police came and accused them of homosexuality. They were both arrested on June, both 26 on suspicion of same-sex conduct. They declined. Apparently, anal exams are popular in Tunisia. And in a gesture of seeming openness, the government says you can choose to have one or not, they declined the pleasure, and therefore were charged with homosexuality and have been sentenced to two years in prison. So that's like the witch trials, if you don't try. Right, right. Better news from Africa, though. In Gabon, a breakthrough has occurred. The overturning of the law that criminalized same-sex consensual relations has occurred. It was in the works, and now that's been certified. So that's very good news. Similarly in South Africa, law has been changed so that officials who were banned, officials now are banned from refusing to marry same-sex couples. I think of this as the Kim Davis case. There used to be a conscientious objection clause so that officiants couldn't perform, say you say it's marriage, if it were against their conscience. But they can't do that anymore. So if religious or personal beliefs will not prevent them from performing same-sex marriage. So good news from South Africa. Similarly in Uganda, you may recall I reported on the awful arrest of those 20 people in the homeless shelter. And the High Court of Uganda has awarded damages to them. About $1340 to the 20 homeless gay, bisexual, and transgender people who were arbitrarily detained and deprived of access to their lawyers. Now let's have some good news, some really good news.  She was employed since 2015 by an e-commerce company. She went to, she took time off to transition. When she got back, they said she'd taken too much time off even though they had granted it. And that she had mental health problems. So she won a lawsuit. She'll get her job back. Good news. Norway will prioritize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender refugees in their immigration policy. This is really good news because a lot of countries in Europe are holding back on accepting LGBTQ asylum seekers. The Netherlands sees no role for gender marker on ID documents. So they've raised the question, what do we need gender markers for? On government, you know, and just to digress, I went to a diabetic health provider. And in the course of my signing up for this particular protocol, she asked me my gender. You know, I protested. And she said, well, you know, what can you do? It's not really relevant. But they're still asking this stuff in the United States as well. I have more headlines. Scotland is going to become the first country with LGBTQ inclusive school curriculum from 2021. This is very good. Odisha in southeastern India is going to the government is going to give monthly pensions to transgender people. And my last news items are as follows. Our pride is political. Thousands march in Paris for LGBT rights. The march was postponed till November 7th because of COVID. But 2,000 to 3,000 activists showed up anyway and marched. I have a picture before you now of them. The man who plotted London Gay Pride Attack gets life prison sentence.  He was also going to target tourist destinations. But he was apprehended and now has been sentenced. And finally, and this is a picture I'd like you to see of Bolivia's first transgender news anchor who is going to put LGBTQ issues front and center. Her name is Leonie Dorado. She's 26. So those are my headlines. Hi, I have a few headlines. And Instagram will now block LGBTQ conversion therapy sources. Our tax dollars are supporting anti-LGBTQ organization. Amanda tax a woman in a parking lot over the way she parked. Julius, New York City, oldest gay bar, launches a GoFundMe to try to keep hanging on and not closing. I've always wanted to go to Julius. Well, you may not get a chance. Well, I hope for the best. Halle Berry apologizes for considering transgender role and vows to be an ally. Arkansas suspect has been arrested in the death of trans teen Braggla Stone. Trevon Martin Miller, 18, is charged with capital murder, which carries a death penalty or life in prison. Non-binary Black Life Matters activists killed and one injured by crazed highway driver. Anti-gay Virginia photographer sues for the right to discriminate before anyone has even asked him. Chris Herring filed a suit in federal court in Virginia. Anti-LGBTQ mayor in Atlanta resigns after denouncing Black Lives Matter. Mark Chamber got into trouble last year with a Facebook page that advocated killing LGBTQ people. That's not the Atlanta mayor, though. No, an LGBT mayor in Georgia, sorry. No, I'd love the mayor of Atlanta. No, I'm thinking, I'm sorry, it's Georgia in Georgia. I got in trouble last year for advocating killing LGBTQ people. Sorry. She's wonderful and she's cool too now. Three more transgender Americans killed and another hospitalized. Polyamorous relationships granted rights in Massachusetts. Summerville. Summerville. And used to live in Somerville. That's right. Detroit man sentenced to life in the murders of two gay men. Laverne Cox says she has finished debating with people about whether transgender is real or not. Seattle is considering renaming one of their schools after Marsha P. Johnson.  Mondaire Jones and Richie Torres finished first in their primaries. Pat Robinson prophesies that God will destroy America if LGBTQ people get one more right. How do you feel about that?  So if you get to, if you have HBO and you would like to watch it, it's probably Amazon, sorry, it's probably a really good show. So Keith. So the city of Anuski, they're starting to talk about changing their charter to allow non-citizen voting, which made me wonder, didn't Montpelier want to amend its charter? That's House Bill 207, which was introduced by representatives, Hooper and Kitts Miller, passed the House. It is still stalled in the Senate Government Ops Committee because Jeanette White, Senator from Wyndham County, doesn't quite understand it. However, the vice chair of that committee is Anthony Polina. If you have a vested interest in seeing this bill pass and they would need to take it up when they come back August 25th, please get in touch with Anthony. The other thing we're going to be watching is all of this sort of usual political pundits are saying that when the legislature comes back in January, there's going to be history made because they're predicting that Becca Ballant will not only be the first woman pro tem of the Senate, she will be the first member of the LGBTQ plus community, an out lesbian, in a position of leadership in the chamber. That'd be great. Here, here. So there may be an interview forthcoming. So with that, Ms. Anne. Okay, let's explore in detail what's going on in Iraq. Iraqi print, online and TV have seen a large spike in largely negative coverage of LGBTQ rights and individuals, a new report said. The report was issued by Ira Queer, an Iraqi LGBT. Is that a real name? Yeah, it's an organization. The report analyzed a range of TV, print and online media outlets. The prevalence of writers and speakers, repeating tropes and misconceptions about LGBTQ people on the outlets. In the past five years, discussion of homosexuality in Iraqi media has become considerably more prominent with a particular increase, including occurring since 2019. The coverage, they found an overwhelming percentage of the coverage was biased against LGBT people. It noted that discussion of LGBT rights on TV frequently framed the content with ominous or dangerous sounding music and settings. Terminology was often abusive or suggestive of mental illness. In the 22 programs analyzed by Ira Queer, at least one negative term was effectively used every 30 seconds. Meanwhile, voices from the community were virtually absent. Additionally, out of the 777 minutes, which is the total duration of the 22 TV segments analyzed, only 103 minutes of the time was dedicated to LGBT speakers. More than half the programs did not dedicate a single minute to LGBT speakers. Ira Queer itself has been specifically targeted a number of times with one outlet referring to it as the sexual deviant organization in Iraq. 89% of LGBT respondents said that the media coverage in Iraq had negatively impacted the way they perceive their sexuality. Although homosexuality is not illegal in Iraq, LGBT people have regularly faced persecution and violence, as you can imagine. Armed groups have harassed and attacked LGBT people, or those perceived to be LGBTQ. There are hopeful signs, however, according to an LGBT activist, executive director of the organization, Ira Queer. Despite steel-grim prospects for most LGBT people, there's been a growing openness among young Iraqis, especially those who participated in the October Revolution. We use the word revolution on purpose as the majority of people who are on the streets were supporters of a secular state where all citizens are protected. This occurred in October 2019. We've actually raised the rainbow flag in Baghdad and did not find much resistance. Despite a largely negative outlook, the report noted that the very fact that there was an increasing discussion around the subject of LGBTQ rights was a sign that the topic was being taken more seriously. In addition, Ira Queer noted that the widely-watched Al-Sharia channel, while far from reaching professional standards of journalism with regards to the subject, offered LGBTQ-plus speakers the largest amount of speaking time and had a relatively more neutral coverage. The report also said a number of online outlets had begun to take a more progressive or at least neutral stance on LGBTQ rights. Some of the more progressive online platforms include Yalla, which is mainly on Facebook. They still have some work to do, but they are better than the mainstream media. So that's bleak, but kind of mixed in Iraq. They're trying to be hopeful about it. So that's my segment. I can go on, but... Do you have one more story? Oh, I'd love to talk. Let's talk about what's going on in Scotland. The classes, what are they gonna do with their LGBT-inclusive curriculum? They're gonna have classes on issues that will tackle homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. As a survey from the British campaign group Stonewall, around 40% of LGBT students in Scotland said they hadn't been taught about sexuality issues. And just 22% had learned of safe sex in same-sex relationships. A study found that nine in 10 LGBT Scots faced homophobia in school, and 27% said they had attempted suicide after facing bullying. It was found that the school kids didn't have much of an understanding about intersex bodies and sex characteristics. In Scotland, same-sex civil partnerships has been legal, have been legal since 2005, and same-sex marriage from 2014. Same-sex couples can adopt and foster kids legally from 2009. Discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality has been banned as per law by 2010, but this hasn't, all these progressive measures haven't filtered into the school. So they're gonna have classes on LGBT history and movement, political movements, and sexual practices. It's a really forward-looking gesture. And Scotland is the first nation which will do this nationally and will mandate it. All government school students would be mandatorily receiving classes on the problems faced by the LGBT community. So thank you for giving me the extra time to report this, this good news from Scotland. And I think California's requiring that, isn't it? State of California, LGBT. They're moving towards, they're still in the curriculum development stage. Well, would you like to know where some of our tax dollars are going? I don't know. To support LGBTQ, anti-LGBTQ organizations. The Paycheck Protection Program was intended to help small business during the epidemic. Is instead, the government is supporting religious and in some cases, funding hatred of LGBTQ people. The Catholic Church, for instance, the American Family Association and Concerned Women of America. The Catholic Church received 1.4 million dollars. And much of that money went to the dioceses that paid or sought bankruptcy because of clergy sexual abuse. 28 million went to the Archdiocese of New York led by Bishop Dolan, an outspoken anti-LGBTQ person. So that's where a lot of your tax money went.  Yeah, yeah. And if I just may inject Poland, the Catholic Church was a big supporter of this autocrat who just got elected due to. Of course they were.  Prosecutors said the man, Devon Robinson, 19, had received oral sex from multiple people at this party and feared his family and neighbors would find out. He left the party on May 25th, 2019 on Detroit's east side and returned about an hour later wearing a ski mask and holding a handgun.  The authority said two other people were wounded. And on another horrible note, three more transgender Americans have been murdered.  In Louisiana, a black trans woman, shaky Peters 32 was found dead. Andrea McCarty, another transgender black woman was found dead in Baton Rouge. There have been 20 transgender murders this year and we're only in July. Entertainment news, any entertainment news? Now streaming its second season on Netflix and recently renewed for a third and final one, Dead To Me, is a dark comedy created by out comedian and producer Liz Feldman. The 30 minute comedy stars Christina Applegate versus Jen Harding, Inlander Cardinelli and Judy Hale. These two women meet in a grief support group that husbands have both died. Jen is dealing with the loss of her husband to a car accident and Judy says she's there because she lost her fiance to a heart attack. Anyway, it gets sexual between the two of them and romantic in season two. So and it's produced by queer producer Natalie Morales. So you might want to look at that. I looked at the, I watched a couple of them but now I may go back now that I know where this is headed. It's on Netflix? It's on Netflix. I thought you were in talk about, I think it's CW's Batwoman, which is meant to be. Oh, I already talked about that. Okay. Yeah. No, because it just rotated through again. Yeah. Okay. Now we have an interview. Yes, we have an interview and is doing an interview with artist Monica Di Giovanni. So let's see that. I'm here with Monica Di Giovanni who has studied painting and drawing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art before transferring to the Massachusetts College of Art. There she graduated in 1999 with a BFA in the studio for interrelated media with a focus on creative movement and the human body as medium, as well as a variety of other multimedia disciplines. Between 2012 and 2013, she spent four months in artist residency at Welcome Hill Studios in Westchester, New Hampshire, taking the time to reconnect with and unleash her creative spirit after many years of dormancy. In June, 2019, Monica became a formal student in the Soto Zen Order. She currently lives and works out of her apartment studio in Montpelier, Vermont. In addition to being an artist, she loves her role as yoga and meditation teacher. Welcome, Monica. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. It's great to be here. Well, it's good to have you here. It's a very impressive resume. Oh, thank you. How long have you been painting? I have been painting on and off for about 20 years. I've been kind of painting in spurts, kind of painting around other life events. And in the last few years or so, have started to really integrate it into my life wholly as opposed to it being a secondary practice or something that else that happens besides other things that I do. So... How'd you happen to start painting? Well, when I started art school in the 90s, I focused on painting and drawing. Prior to that, as a young person in my 20s, I had spent a year living in Europe and explored a lot of the major museums throughout Europe. It was really easy to travel back then by train and was exposed to art that I had never seen before, including installation and performance art. And after two years of painting and drawing, I kept hearing the call internally to do something besides that. And I researched and at the time, there were only three performance art-based majors in the country. There was one in San Francisco. There was another one in the Midwest somewhere. I don't remember where. And then the one at MassArt. And since I was from Massachusetts and hadn't been there in many years, I decided to go there. And it was a great choice. Let me ask you, how does your Zen practice inform your painting? Well, it was an easy leap and I often say that all the years of painting helps prepare me for Zen practice because it's similar in flavor, in terms of concentration and attention and every artist paints differently. My style requires me to be fully present. It's a very highly focused, highly concentrated style. I'm very particular with my mark-making for the most part in my finished paintings. I do other art that is way more spontaneous and erratic. That's its own thing. But at this point, I've come to a place where I'm experimenting again. And I've been experimenting with Chinese calligraphy and I've always loved these intentional but yet graceful and beautiful marks. And they're blending, but I'm not quite sure how it's gonna end up yet. It's a new phase and a new mode. And yeah, they're meeting like star-crossed lovers, I think. They belong together. Who knows if they'll stay together? I don't know. I always like a Romeo and Juliet reference. Let's turn to the artwork then. Let me read your description. Your work is inspired by many years of yoga and meditation practice. Different forms of dance and movement and a love of nature. You've developed a meticulous style working with a deliberate multi-layering technique that mirrors the effects of watercolors and takes full advantage of the complex transparencies of high quality oil paints. Painting surfaces evolve and shift depending on the light from sun up to sun down. That's very interesting. Do you wanna talk a little more about your artistic credo or should we go right to the paintings? I'll just say this, that when I was studying performance art and installation at MassArt, I studied light and I was actually a lighting technician for theater. And it gave me an opportunity to work with light as a medium as well as the body. And so I've always been very curious about light itself in terms of colors of light and temperatures of light and quality of light. And without trying really, the oil paintings have evolved in that way. And it wasn't until I started, the layers started getting thinner and thinner and I was noticing that next to a window and noticing from one time of the day to the other that the different qualities of light in the day was kind of capturing what I was experimenting with in technology for all intense purposes. Let's go to the first painting. This is an example of your current work. It's Tragonoptera roquiuma. Roquiuma oil paint on canvas 2020. We'll see it on the screen now and tell us about it. Well, when I started this last round, this last body of work, I wanted to shift again. I'm always shifting in my artwork to keep it fresh and to feel like I'm evolving in my process. And I wanted to start bringing my activist mindset into my work in a more complete way. And I love nature and I love the environment. When I started painting butterflies, I thought I would just paint their wings in an abstract form because it was painting mostly in pure abstraction. And when I started to learn more about them, it was, I had to start actually reproducing their complexity and their beauty in whole form. And it also challenged me technically to work in that way. So it was a natural evolution. And they're amazing creatures. They're like, they themselves are impossible. And the little scales on their wings and scientists are now realizing that the veining is actually pumping butterfly blood through their wings that they have heat sensors in their wings. It's their amazing creatures. No kidding, you know, and the painting is very detailed. You can see it here. It's really a beautiful thing to look at and informed by scientific data. Yeah, yeah. I was visiting, there's an insect collection at the University of Vermont. And you can make it, well, I don't know if you can do it now during the pandemic but I was going there and I have a microscopic lens for my phone camera and I was taking these very detailed close up images of the butterfly to get details of their eyes and their wings and everything. And then there are insect collections all over the botanical gardens up in Montreal. There's a collection of glass butterflies at Harvard University. You don't have to look very hard to find them. Let's go on to the next painting, if we can. This is an older piece from 2003 called Uprising, Oil Paint on Masonite. Tell us about that. Well, that was kind of the first big burst of painting that came out of me when I moved to Vermont in 2002 from Massachusetts where I was really enjoying my life within the performance art community that was really rich and flourishing in the city. And eventually, as things, as happens, people started moving away, I moved to Vermont and when I came here, I didn't have a performance art community. And since that form of expression was very connected to a sense of community and I was kind of solo, then I started painting. And so that painting was out of a body of work that really, it felt very important to me because it was like I had tapped into a well of truth in myself. And that painting I had, when I was living in Boston, I came to politics kind of later in life. You know, I wasn't until my mid to late 20s that I had any awareness of politics. It was just the world that I grew up in. And during that time, there was a lot of uprising and movements focused on genetically modified organisms in food. And for me, that was my first introduction into the world of activism. And so I had been attending demonstrations and that was an experience I had never had before. And so in that painting, I tried to capture what it felt like being within an environment where people were seeking justice for injustice. Speaking of activism, let's go to your third piece, Impossible Things, 2020 Small Sculpture part of a statewide group show at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro. Tell us about that. That really, I think, directly speaks through an activist impulse. Yeah, yeah. So during now, today, during the pandemic, I haven't really done a lot of oil painting. I've been doing other work and I was invited by a friend to participate to be one of 60 plus artists who made these small structures that was a good challenge. It was a good framework, just like Zen. Creates a framework to work with. And they had to be under eight ounces. They had to be a certain small dimension. And that was the first sculptural thing that I've done in a really, really long time. So as an artist, it was like a great transition, a great break to express myself. And I started excited about the idea of working sculpturally. So I wanted to make paper clay, thinking that the clay would come out like porcelain because if you do it in a certain way, the clay will come out with porcelain. And my clay came out all chunky and kind of grotesque. But I was like, well, this is what I've made. I'm gonna go with that. And the piece itself was really came out of the process, which is really incredibly satisfying as an artist. I made a mold for it. There are pictures of the process on my Instagram account and people can go to that laughing underscore violet. It's my Instagram account if you wanna see more about the process. But I've been trying to, as an individual tapping into all the unrest that's going on in the world, trying to set myself in a useful way among the whole. And as that piece rose up organically, a lot of meditation practices allow the mind to get very clear and get to the heart of the matter. And with all of the unrest happening right now with people seeking justice for harm against black people, with our food systems falling apart, our healthcare system falling about, all of these things at the front line of it is the system it's working within, which is capitalism. And so my piece kind of went to the heart of the problem. And in case you get closer to it, you can see more of it. Yeah, yeah. If you look in, it's the money. Tell us about that angle. Yeah, yeah. So the piece is the room. So the show itself has like 60 pieces. It's interactive. There are haiku poems being read over speakers. There's special lighting. I really, I'm going to see it on Wednesday actually. I haven't been there yet but people have been sending me photos. My piece, you can't really see much from the outside besides this concrete looking structure, but there are little peep holes around the structure. And since you may or may not want to get close to it because of the pandemic, you can hold your phone up to one of the peep holes and take a picture and see what's on the inside. But what's on the inside are these four scrolls that I wrote in Chinese calligraphy that have the Buddhist practice of the four vows.  They hang over a bed of nails, which is actually sewing pins with a dollar bill sinking in the bed of, the pins represent a bed of nails, which is an ancient Hindu practice to overcome dogma. And the money is sinking down into the pins. So we have this idea of capitalism, the our currency system that really drives most of the decisions that cause large injustices for our humanity. And our country particularly is really in a tremendous state of unrest, but with everything coming to the surface, we can see it and we can do something about it. And I'm heartened to see with all the suffering and the pain and all the injustice, there are so many people from different walks of life coming together to be active and present and to be part of a solution. So that is what I meditate on in my, when I meditate with the four vows. That's wonderful. We're almost out of time. Tell me what your current projects are. Well, we have the show up in Greensboro, which is that will be up until the August 9th. And you can go to the Highland Center of the Arts website and make a reservation. They're limiting the number of people and they're spacing out the visits so that it's as safe as possible during the pandemic. And then I'm a little hesitant to mention this because it's not totally firmed up yet, but I'm working on offering an LGBTQ community yoga class in Burlington. I'm currently offering two outdoor classes so people can be socially distant, but outdoors in Montpelier North Middlesex and practicing on these private properties with amazing views. I have a Zoom yoga class on Wednesday mornings, but I'm excited to do a particular class to cultivate a safe space for the LGBT community working on that. Wonderful, that's great, Monica. And thank you so much for coming. We'll have to have you back to talk more about what you're up to. Yeah, times are changing. Things are gonna keep changing. It's inevitable. Thank you so much, Anne. You are so right. Well, that was good, Anne. That was fun. Monica's very talented. She is. She's also a yoga teacher. And a friend. So you're gonna take us home now? What about trivia? Oh, that's right. Yes, come on now. July 1991, Governor Richard Snelling cited for an action. What did he do? The Republican Governor, Richard Snelling, citing he was the governor for all Vermonters, refused to acknowledge the liaisons representing Vermont's LGBTQ plus communities. Bad, bad, Governor. Okay, well, on that note, I will say, please resist.