Hi everyone. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Dave Wright and I'm with the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development in the Office of the Auditor General here in Ottawa. It's a pleasure to be with you and I really appreciate you joining me for this presentation. The title is Canadian Climate Change Mitigation Commitments, The Federal Context and the Role of the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development. At the outset I'd like to start with a congratulations and thank you to the Marine Environmental Law Program. 40 years is an impressive feat, no question. Unfortunately I know because I'm getting close to that mark myself. But really my sincere congratulations to the incredibly talented and impressive folks at the Institute today and years past. My understanding has always been that MELP was founded due to the great foresight of several key faculty members in the 1970s. And what I find most impressive is that this foresight and progressiveness in advancing environmental law and policy is alive and well today and probably was stronger than ever. I can say without hesitation that my involvement with MELP during my time at Dalhousie Law School in 2003 and 2007 was the highlight of my time in the law school. I had the great pleasure of studying under Professors Dewelle, Wenderswagon Kindred and interacting with almost all faculty members in the Institute. And the work was incredibly interesting and the faculty was always inspiring, open and impressive. For this I'm extremely grateful and I know I'm not alone. I'm sure lots of people would agree. Alumni from the program would agree that it set them up for a lifelong career of fulfillment. I'd also like to extend my thanks to Laura McDougal who I know has been instrumental in pulling together this virtual conference. It's a great idea and Laura I know how hard you work and I know that you touch virtually everything that comes through the Institute's door and that you make sure it all turns to gold. So thanks very much. Turning now to the presentation and before I begin I should say that I've committed to our IT folks here at the OAG that I'll do this in one take. So please bear with me. There may be a few blunders here and there but we're going to just truck along. So the title is Canadian Climate Change Mitigation Commitments that are federal context in the role of Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development. And a brief outline is we're going to look at the CESD mandate to refer to the Commissioner as the CESD. International commitments made by Canada in the climate change realm, Canadian law and policy in this realm. And then we'll look at some highlights and little lights from Commissioner reports over the years and close with some commentary and conclusions. And I should also say that the slides are as much or more for me than for you. I know that this isn't a perfect size or viewing situation but hopefully you can see well enough and I should be able to cover everything through words. Moving right along, on the mandate of the CESD we are an independent office reporting to Parliament. Commissioner's role was established in 1995 largely in post-RIO fervor when the Auditor General Act was opened up and amended to include a requirement to appoint a Commissioner. The Commissioner conducts audits of federal programs related mostly to environment, conservation and sustainability. But we also conduct studies and table reports on federal sustainable development strategies. The Commissioner also manages the federal environmental petitions process which is the closest we have to front lines contact with members of the Canadian public. And for students viewing who may be involved with environmental law student societies it's a great opportunity to get some high quality information and understand the process. It's easily accessible on the CESD website which is part of the Auditor General's website generally. This schematic depiction captures our situation in a nutshell. Essentially our job is to hold the government of the day to account by providing information to Parliament based on principles of accountability, good governance and also environmental sustainable development. Our legislative authority like I said from the Auditor General Act which was amended in 1995. Section 16 requires the Auditor General to appoint a Commissioner. And section 21.1 outlines the purpose of the Commissioner but also interestingly includes a very long and relatively progressive definition of sustainable development. One of the most interesting ones in all of Canadian legislation in my opinion. I encourage you to check it out. Section 22 sets up the petitions process and section 23 is where we get our broad powers to do what we do. And the language is extremely broad. It says that the CESD can look into and shall report to Parliament on anything that should be brought to the attention of Parliament in relation to environmental sustainable development. There's more to that provision but that really sets up a broad scope of work for us. My own perspective is that being here in the CESD office allows us to be on the front lines of implementation of Canada's environmental law and policy. We all know that there's been a lot of challenge in implementing and operationalizing sustainable development over the years. And this office has a situation where we can get deep into the information and into the challenges being experienced in implementation. At the same time as being on the front lines we also are able to get a bird's eye view of Canadian environmental law and policy. Because we can look across different pieces of legislation across different departments to see what's going on to see what's happened in the past. And also to benchmark against what other jurisdictions are doing internationally. Both at the national and sub-national and international level. So I would say that the CESD is an agent of change in Canada's environmental law landscape. But for better or worse we can't and do not comment on the merits of legislation and policy. So most of our work is confined to looking at implementation and taking the law as is and seeing how the government is doing and implementing it. Other models exist. For example New Zealand has a parliamentary commissioner of environmental sustainable development and they're able to do a little bit more prospective work. In the likeness of Ontario's commissioner of the environment who was actually modeled after New Zealand. Similarly Hungary has a human right to clean environment in their constitution and associated ombudsmen for future generation who has closer to prosecutorial powers. Although those I understand are changing because they may be too powerful. So moving on to climate change. Essentially what the CESD does is it looks at what government said it would do and examines whether it was achieved. Obviously this is a good fit for climate change. In the climate change field the world over has been experiencing a fairly significant implementation gap. That is a gap between what's committed to and what's actually done. So just quickly summarizing federal and international commitments. The story goes back further than what I have here. For example Brian Mulroney stated some quantified emission reduction targets in the late 80s. But we're going to pick it up using the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Forum. That convention was from 1992 and entered into force in 1994. This may be a repeat for many of you but in a nutshell it sets the basic architecture for subsequent agreements that includes principles and an overarching goal but no set targets. Notably the overarching goal is that we prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. Many people will know that that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which entered into force in 2005. Canada was a priority and the commitment we made under that was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% below 1990 levels within the 2008-2012 timeframe. Canada of course officially withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 before the end of that first commitment period. We move then to the Copenhagen Accord which is an interesting beast because it wasn't created under the formal United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was more of a political agreement that was noted by the Framework Convention and all the parties there but it didn't observe the consensus based requirement of the Framework Convention. Canada's goal under that was 17% below 2005 levels by 2012 and it was supported by some of the Framework Convention machinery if you will during the Cancun agreements. So as many would know as well we're now on the path to a new agreement looking at the post-2020 regime to be agreed upon hopefully in Paris next year. And things just wrapped up in Lima a couple weeks ago. Sorry I'm filming on December 18th here in Ottawa so just a little over a week ago the latest conference of the parties wrapped up in Lima and they've set out the Lima Call for Climate Action which essentially sets out the issues to be agreed upon between now and Paris. And the critics are noting that there is a very long way to go and that momentum is towards a bottom up approach without a centralized target setting system which is a different take. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later. Moving right along, Canadian Climate Change Law and Policy. Quick summary, I mean essentially following Kyoto governments put in a series of different plans in place with limited implementation success. The Government of Canada Action Plan 2000, Climate Change Plan for Canada 2002, Project Green moving forward on Climate Change a plan for honoring our Kyoto commitment that was from 2005. After the 2006 election the next government came in and put in place turning the corner many will remember that as well. It was a fairly comprehensive action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. And that included a target of reducing emissions by 20% below 2006 by 2020. We'll talk about our work on that later and then around the same time was the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act which was put in place through opposition priority collaboration to hold the minority government to account to implement Kyoto. That led to a series of federal climate change plans to fulfill the requirements of KAPIA, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act from 2007 to 2011. There are six plans in total actually. But in 2009 when the Copenhagen Accord came along the government shifted its approach and declared formally that it was going to take a sector by sector regulatory approach. Under the commitment of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. And part of that was so that sector by sector regulatory approach reiterated the Copenhagen target and also indicated alignment with the United States. So under that regulations are now in place. Some regulations are in place. For example, renewable fuels regulation, transportation, both passenger heavy duty and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from coal fire electricity generation regulations are in place too. Very notably two sectors that have not been regulated and have been in the news. One in particular are the oil and gas regulations and also emissions intensive trade exposed industries are not regulated. There was some headlines made by the prime minister on that just a couple weeks ago. I think it was December 8th. So just going to quickly show you a few handy graphics. This is a blatant plug of our report, but a few handy graphics from our report. This just sets out relative size of emissions by sector. You can see the transportation is the largest oil and gas is the second largest and electricity is the third largest. So the second largest sector is not yet regulated. And many people point out that that is the fastest growing emissions sector in Canada. I also encourage you to draw on the next two. So both of our reports on the 2020 targets include what I think are pretty handy. And one of the one of the handiest summaries I've seen of federal government greenhouse gas regulatory activity. So these are basically an annotated chronology of federal government regulatory activity on greenhouse gas emissions. So if you're looking for a tidy reliable citation or if you just want to know a little bit more, I encourage you to check these out. Exhibit 1.3 in our fall 2014 report is your best source for that. So moving on to CESD highlights and lowlights in terms of the findings over the year. We've audited climate change activities in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2014. It's an area of interest I suppose. And I shouldn't say of interest, it's an area of interest for parliamentarians and it's a very important matter to the Canadian public, a matter of significance, and that's why we report on it so often, along with the requirements under CAPEA. CAPEA in fact included a requirement for the commissioner to report and evaluate on the federal government climate change plans put in place under that act. Our latest report in fall 2014 just tabled in October, this past October, included an overall statement of what we've seen over the years, which is quite handy as well. And it said the federal government has not created effective government structures for managing greenhouse gas emission reduction activities. So that's sort of everything that we've observed in a nutshell. And one thing I would point out that I noticed in preparation for this presentation is that if you look at one of our key findings from 1998, it's very similar to what we found in 2014 for better or worse. In 1998 we found that poor planning and ineffective management, that there was poor planning and ineffective management, and that the federal government should take a lead in a national effort. And in 2014 we found that planning was ineffective and action was not well coordinated. So it's an unfortunate case of deja vu all over again, unfortunate because it means we're not on track to meet our targets again and we didn't meet our targets of the past. So turning to the CAPEA reports that we produced under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, notable findings were that the plans did actually improve over the years, but none met the requirements of the Act because the measures described would not have ensured that Canada met its Kyoto target. We also found in 2009 that expected emission reductions were overstated. Also in 2009 we found that climate change plans did not disclose uncertainties about expected emission reductions. In 2011 we found that there was a 90% decrease in expected greenhouse gas emission reductions from the 2007 to 2010 plan. Because of the shift from the Kyoto Accord target to the Copenhagen Accord target. And finally we found in 2011 that not all measures achieved the expected emission reductions. So again a key implementation challenge. Moving to the 2020 reports, or what I would call the 2020 reports, twice we've reported on Canada's progress towards the 2020 target. We found in 2012 we found that the regulatory approach was not supported by an implementation plan. We found that the government did not know how much the regulatory approach would cost the Canadian economy. We also found in 2012 that there was no clear criteria for alignment with the United States. And just recently in 2014 we found that the regulations have been delayed and that good practices have not been consistently followed in development of those regulations. We found that the planning process for federal, there was no planning process for federal contribution to the 2020 target. And that was in our 2014 report. Also in the 2014 report we found that there was no plan for greater reductions beyond 2020. And that the complexity and lead time required to put measures in place make it unlikely that the target will be met. So moving on, and in the spirit of commentary and conclusions on all of this. The question is what does all this mean? One thing it means is that, or one result has been the provinces have been moving. So there's a lot of action at the sub-national level and they're moving if not leading. I've heard one commentator describe it as a climate policy lab. Essentially the provinces have a laboratory of different policy tools and approaches underway. Notable examples is the BC Carbons tax which is showing some early successes. It's been in place six years now. The Alberta is learning some lessons from the specified gas emitters regulation. And we understand, or it's been in the news, that that's under review right now and that they're planning on putting a revised policy in place soon. Which may or may not change the current carbon price of $15 a ton. We also know that Quebec's got a cap and trade system in place and that they've linked it with California. And Nova Scotia has put in place regulations for their coal-fired electricity generation. They used it in equivalency provision in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to put that in place, which is also interesting. So we don't audit the provinces obviously, but we've noted that the government lacks an approach for planning process, for reaching the target and lacks an approach for coordinating actions across provinces and territories. So what that means is that the provinces are all going in their own directions with some alignment where it makes sense. And that's about an overarching coordination approach. That's at the Canadian and sub-national level. A few thoughts on making sense of all this in the broader Canadian and international context. And that's that I'm seeing, for better or worse, parallels between the Canadian context and the recent direction at the international level. That being, the Canada's basically gone into a de facto bottom-up approach where sub-national jurisdictions are doing what they can, establishing their own targets and coordinating to the extent that makes sense. And what's just been agreed upon in Lima and what it's looking like for the Paris Agreement at the international level under the Framework Convention is also a bottom-up approach. So in this regard Canada might be a step ahead in that a top-down approach was more or less abandoned several years ago and a bottom-up approach has emerged. The key difference in this line of thinking is that the international community does have the asset, but also the liability of a centralized process and institutional coordinator. That's been the Framework Convention and its secretariat in Bonn, Germany. For Canada's part, and that centralized system has arguably held and delayed the international system back to some degree. For Canada's part, what we've found is that Canada would benefit from such coordination and planning at the federal level. And a lesson that the international community might take from Canada, and this is looking back and seeing that this bottom-up approach has been developing in Canada for a few years now anyway, the lesson that the international community might take from Canada is that the bottom-up approach can make things very complex and uncertain, which is not necessarily what we want at the international level. Putting this another way, the international community may be trading the delay of the UN consensus-based gridlock that's plagued it for now decades for an equal delay from too many moving parts and chronic uncertainty. And this could be especially problematic for carbon markets, which have suffered in recent years as well. From my own personal perspective, what's most unnerving is to look back and see that Canada's been in the game of making quantified emission reduction targets since the late 80s when Melp was, if you will, just a teenager. Right around when Melp would have got its driver's license, I suppose, hopefully a hybrid car. Anyway, Canada is now a middle-aged person, essentially, at 40, but has made minimal progress. Developing countries are really just getting into this game of making quantified emission reduction targets and committing to them, tracking them, putting measures in place. Some that it's not a homogeneous population, some are further ahead than others, especially China. But in my opinion, the human species and the ecosystems on which we depend cannot afford developing countries to take as long as Canada has taken. And what's quite alarming is that this confounds the international legal principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Even though that principle is evolving, it still remains at the core of the framework convention. And it is included in Lima, although it's got some massaged nuance text around it, but it's still there. So it's really hard to see this tension dissipating quickly. The recent agreement between the U.S. and China on climate change mitigation and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, which is basically a new version of a relatively old theory called contract and convergence, where the developed countries contract their emissions while developed countries reach a peak and you converge in the middle at a reasonable level of atmospheric carbon pollution. So that provides some hope, the agreement between the U.S. and Canada, but it's frankly a small bit of hope and we have a long, long way to go. What I would say, what does this mean for the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development of Canada and for audit shops and commissioners in general? I would say that the bottom-up approach elevates the importance of monitoring, reporting, and verification because if everybody's doing something relatively different in their own way, at the end of the day some authoritative body needs to be able to say that these emission reductions have actually happened and that this situation is being brought under control and that these measures are or are not working. So I would say that this results in an ongoing heightened role for national and subnational audit offices and commissioners and the work of those offices could include things such as providing a systematic review of countries' progress on achieving climate goals somewhat similar to what we did in our latest report and this is as opposed to an external review although I suspect the Framework Convention Secretary will continue to play a role there as well which they do for developed countries in particular right now. And they will also, this also provides an opportunity for collaboration on a common set across these types of offices on a common set of monitoring and review criteria so that results between countries are comparable and that's key. So in other words, if activity is dispersed across different jurisdictions in different ways then to some degree it's up to institutions in those different jurisdictions to do this type of work and then bring it up to the international level and ensure that everybody's comparing apples to apples because otherwise the climate change mitigation is simply not actually happening. Beware of loopholes in other words. So for me personally and for the office I suppose this means plenty of interesting work ahead but it's not a positive sign for the planet or for future generations. Those are my remarks and I really thank you for tuning in. I don't know how many views this will have. Anything above one would be lovely but again I'd like to say happy birthday to Mel and congratulations to all the great people there and to all the great alumni and all the best in the future. The future for work in this field is unquestionably bright. The trade off for that of course is that the future for the planet and for humanity may not be quite so bright but we can continue working towards a bright future. Thanks very much.


Pain is a major global health concern, affecting approximately 20% of adults worldwide and 10% of people annually. Public health experts have largely ignored this issue, but it should be viewed as a public health problem because of its multifactorial nature and its impact on social determinants of health. By taking a public health approach, we can better understand the causes of pain and prioritize resources accordingly. This will help us develop effective policies and programs to reduce the burden of pain around the world. This article was offered by Migi Summer J and Goldberg Daniel S.


Hello. And we'll wait a couple of minutes after the top of the hour because some sessions are running a little long, so let people come over. We expect this to be a relatively small session so we'll do some discussion question answering. If it's not for them that I carry on with my emails is that right. That's fine yep we like I said got another four or five minutes before we start. How are you. How's it going nice to see you. Sorry trying to camera configurations here so. And since I'm not actually speaking in this I think maybe I'll just fade into the background a little bit, but glad to be with you. Good to hear. We'll have time for discussion as we move along. Excellent. I'm here as a candidate for membership with UMass so I'm here to learn all about how UMass Amherst might join in. Have you moved to Amherst now. You know, I've always been in Western Mass so not really a move I'm I'm still out here in the middle of nowhere, and, but I'll start teaching there in January. Good. It's a great community. Yeah, for good things. So those of you coming in, we're just letting them in as you go by so that people can join the room. A couple of minutes after four. See if when I share my screen if I can still have people in the room. Okay, so are people seeing the joining you and PowerPoint. Yes. I'm sort of multitasking here because I'm watching the waiting room and letting people in, but I'm going to go ahead and get started. So if I have any pauses it's because I'm watching the prescription list as well. So thank you for coming. I my name is Eric Meyer and the Dean of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm also the membership and outreach committee chair for you and I'm the only career faculty development group co chair that you had. So, one of the things to answer for you right away is do they get you involved if you get involved and fit you and the answer is yes, you do work. So, this is today's session I'm just going to give maybe 1010 1250 minutes of a little bit of a presentation it's just walking you through some of the things that we are looking for at the membership side. I'm going to open it up to questions and things that it might be on your mind as, as potential applicants that you and, and maybe we can also, you know, see what institutions people are here from, and we get to that phase. So, let me dive right into a little bit about you and hopefully you've been attending the sessions today so you, I don't have to define what public interest technology is or what you and this, I'm sure you've heard some of that over Okay. Instead, I want to talk just a tiny bit about our very short history. So, you and only in its sort of third year this is the second convening and the list I'm showing you on the screen now are the initial charter members of you and that came in the very first year. So you can see I don't know the exact number there it's somewhere in the 20 something range I should know that but 20 something. So the charter members that last year's convening that started put you in with the America and Ford Foundation and everything and everybody else that's involved. Last year, the membership committee that I chair added a number of new members about a little over a dozen new members so there's the full list of the network now so the names that are not bolder than newest members. One of the things that we were looking for was really broadening the network bringing different kinds of institutions into the network, and I spent a lot of time at last year's convening talking with potential members. That's why we wanted to have this session now so people could have their questions answered is what does it mean to join what are we looking for when we're looking at the applications. We've got twice as many applicant institutions last year as we've admitted into the network. So I'll talk a little bit about one, some of the mistakes people made in their applications and I talked to some of those members individually to help bolster their applications for the second go around. We don't have any particular quota. In terms of the number of organizations we're looking for we've got instead of list of priorities that we're trying to meet as a committee and as an organization. What does pit you and membership mean for your institutions. Some of this information is available on the website about you and applications and so I'm not going to go over any great detail I'm not going to read you every word but I want to highlight just a couple of things about pit you and member benefits. Obviously, the idea of participating in people care who care about public technology is the key thing.  And these grants, you know, I'm not going to lie and say that they're gigantic grants, they're relatively modest sized grants summer in the 45,000 range some 90 some 180. But they are nice ways to get things started that don't have other sources of funding and some of them, in our experience will lead to other kinds of funding that might be on a more significant scale. And of course new America and the Ford Foundation are always trying to raise additional money to have a different different kinds of grants and more more grants available to network members. I think it's a really nice benefit of having people who are involved in the network. Obviously, you get to join the network meetings such as the annual convening that you're at right now. And then there's a number of things that we're making available within the network to people who are members that are helping grow this area of public interest technology. So these two examples from University of Texas, my own institution of grants that we got first in the first year and then later year if you were in the session just before this he was will have heard about both of these actually the in 2019 we were funded for the pit UN conference and undergraduate informatics education, and this was held just before the university and most places went into lockdown so it was sort of our last public physical event that we had here at the University of Texas at Austin. And it was a really great conference it was about half of the attendees were from pit you and member institutions and half of the attendees weren't there for other institutions. So it was an opportunity to get people together to start talking in this case about the pedagogy of how you embed public interest technology in education at the undergraduate level. And a lot of people hadn't spent a lot of time talking about these topics in a conference format before. So it was a really exciting way to get people who are interested in this these new questions of public interest technology and how do you make that real for students how do you make that. What are the kinds of classes that you need to teach. It was an exciting conference we had, we had great attendance we had great speakers, and it really led to some new things including collaboration. It became a grant in year two so the one of the organization speaking at this is not a pit you and member institution but it is local here in Austin. It's the University which is a historically black college university. It's the oldest university in Austin, and it's a much smaller institution in UT Austin we have about 50,000 students at UT Austin they have more like 1000 at Houston Tillerson, but they have excellent undergraduate education they also had great connections into the community, some of which we don't have. And they gave a panel at our informatics education conference on the things that they've done with student projects I attended the panel is really exciting with student projects working with community organizations to build technologies to build solutions for these community organizations problems. So after the conference, we approached the people who presented and we proposed a new grant to fit you and which is the social justice informatics faculty fellow program, which is a collaboration between Houston Tillerson and University of Texas in Austin. And that collaboration, we wouldn't necessarily have met each other we wouldn't have known each other without the first small grant that then led to the second larger grant. And these could all lead to much bigger grants down the road if this all works out. So this is an exciting partnership that is going to have 24 faculty fellows to get $5,000 in summer salary funding to participate in this. We're going to have a series of seminars and then a series of workshops to get grants together to lead to bigger projects down the road. So, I'm quite confident saying neither of these particular things would have happened without you and because you and is really a catalyst for getting us thinking in a collaborative way around this question of public interest technology. And I'm sure you've heard many other examples throughout the course of this conference. So, in the application for membership you're asked to use to focus on some various activities about how do you build public interest technology on your campus and again I'm not going to read through all five of these these are available on the application materials and you can find these afterwards. Getting you to think about what does it mean to support faculty and curriculum is a key issue that we've been dealing with and how do you build pathways for students and then into jobs in the public sector, or pathways for faculty building careers in public interest. This whole pathway question is something that's really been key. And for me I think this is partly coming from Ford Foundation's long interest in public interest law that was a precursor to this by many decades, and they were thinking there about how do you build pathways into people who want to work in the public sector in the legal arena. We're thinking about the same things here, how do we build pathways into engaging with the public sector and making sure that we have technology that's serving the public good. There are some activities that the liaison is asked to do so each university has a designee I'm the designee for University of Texas in Austin, and we meet regularly, both at the convening but also be a conference calls. The goal here is to both be a conduit between put you in and your home institution, but also hopefully be a generative force at both places to be able to bring lessons that are happening on your campus but also share back the lessons that are happening at other network campuses with what's going on at your own university. Everybody who's a liaison or designee is assigned to various working groups and these have been focusing on various issues including this pipeline issue that I mentioned earlier. So how is membership determined. So there's an application available that is the link. That's what you'll see me go to that website. It's got the application details and this is due at the end of November, and is looking for a number of things one of the highlights is that we really hoping that we find additional members who will continue to help us think about diversifying the network and diversity means a lot of different things. So it could be universities that serve good. We have significant populations of racial and ethnic minority students, it could be people who bring regional diversity to the network. It could be different kinds of institutions we've got a couple of community colleges like 90 day but we'd always love to see more of those different scales of institutions we've had some smaller the arts members that were admitted last year we've got bigger ones like University of Texas. We really want to have different people bringing different points of view we were really clear from the start we didn't want this just to be a club of the same old, same old usual suspects. And also, how you might help help us under expand our concept of what is public interest technology and who might be involved in that. And a lot of the members now are from a number of core fields my nose is schooled information there's several schools of information who are designees at the in the network. There's a number of public policy units there's some computer science representatives there's some engineering representatives law schools, and you might have something at your institution will help us even broaden that notion of who might be a good representative to the UN. We've got a couple of eligibility criteria, and one of the ones that is most difficult for some people to really achieve is present provost or presidential level support. This is something that New America and the Ford Foundation are particularly keen on making sure happens that it is an effort that doesn't just come from a single faculty member and institution but it's something that spans some force across the institution whether it's multiple units or multiple levels of the institution we want to see that you've got buy in from a top level, and the expectation is that your provost or president will attend convening next year if you join. We'd like to see that there is some support for the designee and the team of people being put together at your campus so again so it's not just a solo effort. And we'd like to see that you've got some history of interdisciplinary education and research at your institution so you've shown the ability to work well across your institution. There are several criteria that are evaluated and these are all laid out and quite, quite clearly in the application form. So it's got a certain number of points for each one the committee that looks at these has a rubric that we look at each of these six areas. And I'll talk about each of them in a tiny bit of detail but then I can answer questions about them a little bit more so what is about your current or planned initiatives or strategies. I've found that a lot of institutions are doing lots of exciting stuff in here, so trumpet the great stuff you're doing. This is a good place to show some of the things that are already happening are things that you have planned for the near future. I've already mentioned the evidence of senior leadership support. The third point is showing that you've got ability to promote and communicate that you and work within your within your community and across communities. And that is highlighting some of the existing challenges and successes in your efforts to pursue public interest technology. One of the things I would highlight here is if you've struggled in some areas that really becoming a member of the network could help you with highlighted here, because we want to see people who have a reason to join the network. So highlight some of the things that maybe you've tried to get off the ground but you think would be able to be accelerated with your membership. So highlight we look at how it might impact your efforts and again this ties into if you've had challenges how could being a member really help move these efforts forward. And then the sixth point is how will your institution hence the makeup of the network and this is what I was talking about with the diversity of students the area of the country the type of institution etc. And you can include 10 pages of supporting documents that include things like strategic plans and materials that you have in place. These are a list of some of the things we're prioritizing obviously it's not just a numerical if you get X number of points you're in it if you don't you are we look to a holistic review. And I can tell you that in last year's round. One of the areas that some of the applicants fell down most was basically just not answering some of these. You know they basically only put a sentence for something and one area that some struggled with was being able to talk about how that institution would benefit the network. They didn't have an answer for that and so we asked them to go back and think about how they might benefit the network. And again diversity can mean a lot of different things it's not just one thing so how can you help the network become more rich and then some struggled getting senior leadership support and so they didn't do well in that category. And I think the, the areas where people probably did the best was showing excitement around some of the potential of engaging with you and the public technology question. So really play those kind of things up, but don't leave any questions blank certainly and if you are struggling with how to really address something I'm always happy to talk to people individually if you want to talk to help tons of meetings this year with institutions who either didn't make it around in around one or thinking of applying this year. I'm happy to think about how you might be able to sell yourself most effectively to the committee. So the deadline for submissions is the end of the month. I do encourage you to reach out with any questions you might have. Again, it's available on the website you can link to the materials there, and I'm going to stop sharing my screen and go back to being a camera. And I'm happy to then answer any questions and this room is a normal zoom room so people can unmute themselves and unclog themselves. It's not one of the webinars that we've been in. So, I see a couple questions already in the chat let me go right to those can you define the roles of designating liaison there's really no difference that the same thing. And I think that is designated to be the main contact with the institution will be, you know, attending the meetings and being part of the working committees. I mean, why is that would tribal colleges potentially qualify. Absolutely. And I'm sure she points out there's over 40 in the US working certificates two years degrees and some bachelor's degrees. Absolutely they would qualify for membership. As I said, we have community colleges that are offering two years degrees that are members, we would love to see that kind of richness, adding to the network. We don't have any size limit, you know, a small institution small institutions are great some of our newest member institutions are very small. We're, we're very big. So we, we, unlike some organizations don't have some sort of oh you must have this much research expenditure this makes none of that. We want to understand how being a member could really benefit your institution and how your institution could benefit the network more broadly. And so I would see tribal colleges originally being an excellent potential member. I have a couple of questions in the chat. And I'm happy to hear questions out lots of eating up see your hand up. Sure to and I'm sorry these are both specific to where I'm coming from I'm writing the application right now for you mess Amherst where I'm joining the faculty in January. We don't help you very much in terms of geographic diversity you've got a good Massachusetts representation. There's two ways that I'm kind of hoping that we may be able to help one is that as you know the sort of flagship state university. We anchor a group of smaller liberal arts colleges that are not a member of the network. And we also serve as a resource for most of the community colleges in the state. Are other sort of anchors state universities dealing with that is that something that they're, they're bringing out and sort of talking about in it or is that, is that something that we should bring out. Definitely highlight that definitely definitely highlight that I mean that I think is an excellent way because being a sort of node in another network that you build a connection to is an excellent way to show how you diversify the network just and you might have her membership, but bridging out like I said with our new grant that we're involved in Houston Tillerson they're not a pit by membership member right now, maybe they will be down the road. I think that was one of the reasons this grant proposal was then attracted to the people were reviewing it is because it expands that out so I would definitely see highlighting those connections you've already got as a way of building it out, not just through your membership but through your network. And just another really quick question on that. One of the major partners that we're likely to bring into our application is our PhD program and nursing, which amazingly enough is doing brilliant work on nurses as essentially advocates for for both patients and practitioners in dialogues about technology. What are some of the other nursing schools that are involved in the network at this point. I don't, I don't think we do have as a members and we've got some connections like here at Texas. One of the faculty members of our school has a cross appointment nursing and so we've got some engagement with their although nursing isn't sort of does unit they are participating in that way, but absolutely I think that's a good way to highlight there are people with interest in health. I think highlighting bringing in a nursing unit to show some of that really on the ground engagement with patients and health information is really a good addition. That's great the the head of the PhD nursing program will be my co author on the application so yeah I think that will be that I'm going to shut up for now those are my questions this has been hugely helpful and I'm just going to stay and listen. Good, good, good. So I see a couple hands up so I think I saw a silver first and then Diana after that. Sure, so, so my question is actually connected to Ethan's question builds off of that. So we, I represent Cleveland State University and we have a very robust partnership with case Western Reserve University which is a private university so it's an interesting partnership. It's been very active for the last three plus years and we are doing good work in this space I'd like to think it's good work. So should, what is your advice for us should we apply separately should we apply together should one lead and have, and you know bring in the other university under us, what do we do. Yeah, I could. So I could see a real advantage to sort of, if you're doing things jointly and you want to have one does need between you I could, I could certainly see an argument for making a really strong case of how you want to use your existing partnership to then add into this network. You know, I think probably what I would say is I haven't talked about this with America but the punch is that you could put in the joint applications and put a note saying if you'd like us to join as two separate institutions are happy to do so but we think that it'd be strong together. I certainly would see that as a positive, and I know Cleveland State case question I'm from Ohio and my wife grew up in Cleveland so you could argue about the diversity your two organizations bring to each other as being something that you also bring to the network and already understanding how to partner between neighboring institutions and different serving different communities will help you bring something unique to the network as a sort of joint member of the network. Yeah, just quick follow up question the application form says designees within us. So my takeaway from that is that it is possible for us to have more than one designee, even if we went with one institutions application. Yeah, I think we could be flexible with that. God, thank you. Diana. I've been really helpful I'm coming from American University on the provost for research and so we're trying to we're putting our application together we're very excited about it but I wanted to ask you a question about the types of partnerships we have lots of partners that are global international institutions would that be something that would be good to highlight in absolutely absolutely so one of my goals as the chair of the membership committee is to figure out a way to make us more international. One of the problems I know with the network is it's still based in North America. And so we're one of our goals for our committee this year is to think about how do we open up membership beyond North America one of the things that I've been trying to get clarification from new American Ford Foundation is things like grant eligibility and whether funding can flow outside the country that's a sort of technical detail, but conceptually, I, most of my career was spent in Europe by British and American and I was in the UK for most of my career. And I really want to broaden out fit you into becoming an international network, not just in North American or just the US at the moment network. And showing that you've already got international partners that you're going to help bring into the network. Absolutely, I'm going to see that as a positive because that's one of our stated goals for the committee over the coming years is to really think about how we can become more international right, thank you. I see, I see a couple of questions over in chat let me pop over there for a second so our team is housed in the VP for Research Department we have full support of the provost to join we're trying to determine which person with best service designate any advice. Really, anybody that's going to be able to dedicate some time and energy to the network. I think most of our designees are faculty members of various sorts. I think I'm the only Dean, Dean, so I'm the Dean of the School of Information I think I'm the only Dean is in as many. We've got several who are directors of institutes or department chairs, other kinds of faculty positions. Essentially, we just want to see evidence of somebody who cares about public interest technology and is going to participate in this if it was somebody that was, you know, first year assistant professor we might worry about whether they've really got the time to designate to it so it's probably going to be someone a bit more senior than that. But beyond that, I think we're pretty flexible. Can a faculty member be the designee so that sort of answers that as long as evidence of high level administration for this prompt team so absolutely the president provost aren't the designee ever. I mean they could be I suppose if they wanted to be but they're having been the president provost do have a role to play and like we had a meeting earlier this afternoon for the presidents and provost and that happened last year as well. And I think that the but the day to day work is going to be by someone who's on the faculty level or, or some, some other kind of level of university that really wants to engage with these questions. Okay, so those are the chat questions other other questions from the room up and see somebody in the way. Okay. I hope you weren't waiting, waiting or too long. So I just noticed you waiting there. Thank you so much and I'm so sorry to be late I had a work meeting so I'm coming up on one zoom into another. Okay, so I can always stay afterwards and answer specific questions you might have. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yes, area. Thank you. Question about some of the mistakes that you've seen the non successful institutions. I have seen a first draft area from William and Mary should have said, I've seen a first draft for an application, I think as an institution when incredibly interested in taking part. So there is quite some restrictions in terms of characters for for the questions to answer the various questions, but you at the same time allow about 10 pages of supporting documentation. In sort of the universities that were not successful. Did you recognize you see any patterns that they you mentioned something about some being too synthetic in answering some questions, what kind of a supporting documentation it would have wanted to see was not provided. So don't don't send us tons of boilerplate because we can tell whether played a mile away doesn't doesn't help us that much. Yeah, so it's not like a grant that's 100 pages long and you're trying to fill up with all the background. You know, we're a committee that we try to get our work done pretty quickly and if we have to read tons of material it's not helpful. It doesn't help us at all. So get to the point of, you know, why do you and why now why your institution and we trust you to be a good institution to sort of prove all that stuff. I think some of the mistakes that we saw last year where there were a couple of applications that quite clearly clearly we're just coming from individual. You know, they had a little research group that cared about this stuff, but they hadn't really made much effort to show that it was going to go beyond their existing efforts or their existing research group. It's like, okay, well that's fine but it's not really what we're trying to prioritize. So anything that shows connections across the institution shows either existing or desired modes of interaction are good. I'd say the, you know, we've tried to be a little a lot more clear this year in defining what we mean by the network diversity. So that we've got this broad understanding of it because some people struggled with that and because they struggled with it they just didn't answer it they didn't give us anything that basically said, we're a big research institution. Okay, well, that's nice but that doesn't help us understand how you might have to network. So we've been much more, I've been having a lot more individual conversations and put more information on the website on the broad definition we have of diversity that it can mean lots of different things as you've seen in some of the questions today. I'm just highlighting that and that that some of the weakest applications just weren't able to really make that case on why they were applying, other than it seemed like a good thing to do. And I think the, the, the other, you know, the other mistake, and this is not entirely everybody's fault because I'll admit until last year's convening I was a little bit fuzzy on this idea of publication technology, even though as it doesn't mean right. I think sort of not getting it. Now that we've had the convenings and people like yourselves have attended and we've got more information available on the website. I think we've got, we've done a better job as a network and defining what public interest technology means and so hopefully people won't run go down that path before I've just talking about something that really wasn't public interest technology you know it was either just sort of just computer science or just public policy without any sort of engagement between the different areas. So we did see a couple applications like that that weren't really thinking very broadly about this interdisciplinary nature of how we engage technology in the public interest and I hopefully we've done a better job about communicating what that means so we wouldn't see applications making that same mistake the second time around. Thank you very much. Anybody in the room. Can I ask my dumb question today. Absolutely, go ahead. So on the application form under institutional contact information there's the, you know there's just like asking for a name. What is the role of that person, I understand the role of designase what's the role of the, what's the role of the. We just need somebody to communicate with. So I think here it was someone in our BPR office that handles the application materials. Yeah, if you can get anybody. Yeah, just got to be somebody that communications going to flow through but there's no particular significance of that individual later on once you become a member. Thank you. And do will web links work. If we have web links to interesting projects or work or curriculum that's fine we'll take a look at things like that. Okay. Don't give us a thousand web links but you know. I know your audience. I was already creating us. I mean we need we do need to read all these applications so. So I see another question coming through some of your members that two projects listed in their descriptions to WSP at family and internship program. And don't don't think about this as project based you know that there will be projects that come out of membership and fit you and so, but the two I talked about we're over a course of couple years but we've got a lot of other things happening project wise. So you can present lots of different things that are happening at your campus as part of the network and how you'll do that so definitely don't think about it as a single project. So you're applying for membership, but then a grant project might flow out of that that would be a specific project that says here's what we're trying to achieve in the next year. But think more broadly about, you know, if we become part of this network, what are the kinds of projects that might flow out of that so you can absolutely talk about multiple things that might be coming once you become a network member. Remember over things that you've got plan, definitely think about the multiplicity of things that could flow from being part of it. Other other questions all you've got me here. There's a Friday afternoon, like the afternoon. Great. If you don't mind me asking a question because I'm standing in for somebody else who actually was teaching at this time and who will be the certainly the designate. Would you mind at all if I put you then in contact with him. You don't mind. Thank you for that. Part of my part of my job is, please. Like I said, I've had a lot of those meetings this year with people by spend half an hour and zoom with folks and talk, talking through some other questions if they want to. And again that applies to any of you as well if there's questions that come up. I'm more than happy to spend a little bit more time with you. Okay, so when I'd be willing to show recording the session so it is recording so I'm guessing it'll be put someplace. So yes. I'll ask New America what they're doing with it where it's going. You know these things just happen without my knowledge. Yes it is being coordinated soon we're going to make it available someplace. Is there any kind of a network map that says here are the universities. Here's how they break down private public here's the specialization, or here's what schools and these universities are an active part of the membership. So there is a list of the members of the network members. There are private documents with what you're asking for but they're not on the website so we do have spreadsheets with all the designees and the things like that. But they're not public at the moment it's one of the communications committee which I'm not on is working on beefing up all that material. So I think it'll be available the next couple of weeks to be honest. If you had any specific questions you can always contract contact Andreine Soleil who's the new American contact, and she'd be able to tell you a little bit more about some of the things that are happening specific questions. So that. So yes that information exists but it's not available on the webinar. Yeah, I mean it's helpful only in terms of deciding who we might want to partner with within the network. So that's how we bring diversity to the net to the existing network. So, yeah, with a dream for that. Yep, that'd be good. Great. Okay, so if there's no other questions I think Serena you're a couple minutes later I can stay around the chat with you if you want if other people want to go. I think we'll probably wrap up the main session for now but I'll stick around here if anybody wants to sort of ask a private question after most of the rooms cleared out I'll stick around for a few more minutes and happy to do that. There's nothing private if this is still being recorded. That's true. So anyway, thank you all for coming. That was all I had to share and if I said, like I said if you want to get to me again later just feel free to do so. Thank you so much. This was so helpful. Thank you very much. I would like to stick around. If you don't mind. If you can just tell me briefly how you began because obviously I must have missed some important information.  I think this recording will be available afterwards you can go back and watch the little 10 or 15 minute presentation I gave at the beginning. That talked through some of the key things that we're looking for an applicants and so I won't repeat that now but if you have trouble finding it later just let me know and I'll, I'll be recording more for me individually. Is your email available. So, yeah, my email is here. It's Dean at high school. u texas.edu. I am the Dean at I the letter I, a C H O L C O L. I see I see. My screen. I'll show you where it is. Okay. Thank you. She's green earth on the bottom left is my email. Oh, there it is. I see it. Okay, I'd be happy to either answer your question or direct you to somebody can. And then dream in New America is also extremely helpful in terms of getting answers for things. Who's the other person and dream so Lee. And I don't know her email top my head but she's listed on the New America website.  S O L E Y. Okay. So, um, I realized this is pick new N. But you're part of a larger organization. Which is new America right. Right so, so new America is the funding body and has been organizing it. So they've got the public interest technology part of New America I took me quite a while to get my head around this. Public interest technology university network sort of springs out of the public interest technology efforts in New America, which has funding from Ford and Hewlett and MasterCard. And so, and then is a, you know, it's all universities and colleges. It's a network that we get a lot of support from New America so we're not within New America but we're connected to New America through the funding and through the organization that they provide. Okay. But it's, you know, we don't join New America in any real way we joined the network which is facilitated by New America. But do you know, things about New America. I'll tell you where I'm going with that. I'm trying to figure out what if anything is the difference between New America and New America Chicago. You have to ask somebody in New York and more about that I don't, I don't, I'm not affiliated with them in that kind of way. I visited their offices once and I know. I'm wondering if you have just a sound bite definition of public interest technology, because I've been all over all the websites everywhere. I'm reading everything I can find on this, and I can't. But I need a more specific grasp because what I'm trying to do is figure out if my work, my own personal research can fit under this umbrella. So, it's a pretty big umbrella. For me, it is of the whole network is about building the pathways for people who want to use technology for the public good. It could be in pathways for technologists to get jobs in the public sector, whether it's in government or non governmental organizations, it could be in partnerships between universities and community organizations. But essentially, it's all about that intersection between the public interest and people who are working with it and engaging with technology. So, the way that I best understood it was so when I came last year to the convening I was sort of scratching my head and why why public interest technology. And it made the most sense to me when Darren Walker who's the head of the Ford Foundation talked about the Ford Foundation's role in establishing public interest law as a field, and that public interest law in the 1960s and 1970s and 80s was really an approach of saying for people who care about the law and want to do good in the world, and don't necessarily want to just serve the interests of the wealthy or big corporations. How do we build pathways so that they can do that so they can achieve that through at the time law schools. And so, this model is very similar to that right how do we build better pathways for people who want to do good for the public. To have those pathways more open to them than they are right now, so rather than saying I can only go work at a big company make a lot of money, how do I serve the public good with these skills. So then let me just ask a more specific question, because I've been all over that material to. And it's fascinating. And so my specific question is this nationally, an English professor. I'm very interested in tackling systemic racism through algorithmic bias. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, and what I'm interested in doing like I'm not a computer science person at all. We have an idea about how having a historical perspective about our legal and cultural development can not necessarily attack but speak to and perhaps provide possibilities for different perspectives on unconscious or implicit bias, which could find its way into algorithms. I mean, that's absolutely the kind of topic we care about I think one of the things that would be good to think about is that how might you partner with others, whether they're technologists or people in the public sector, or other kinds of organizations to really move that work forward in a way that would expand upon what you're bringing from your own discipline into an interdisciplinary collaboration. That would then be a very strong story about how your work can be moved along through collaboration. Do you have any sort of example or idea about the kind of partner that might look like. I mean, it could be anything that could be, you know, it could be a community organization that cares about algorithm bias, it could be some technologists who are writing algorithms. And you want to partner with them to figure out how to have accountability built into those algorithms. It could be, you know, other kinds of social justice organizations that are working with how to help educate people about these technological choices that are being made on their behalf and are influencing their lives. Yeah, there's a couple of a lot of different models there and maybe if you could have a couple of different partners it would bring different perspectives on that. That to me would be really interesting. Okay. Perfect. That is so helpful. I have been weeks trying to get precisely that engagement so thank you, thank you. You're welcome.  There are a few questions but you can ask it. Oh, you know that's wrong. Um, why is the limit to a thousand characters with no spaces. So, so that is sort of out of my job description. I have no idea. I can, I can check with the America. Yeah, I mean it's it's hard to introduce really didn't dictate that. Yeah, it's hard to introduce an idea, right without being able to define anything. So I didn't realize that they had that built into their form. Yeah, I'll check with Andrew about, let me just note that down. I mean, normally I like a good challenge like that, but at least create space where you can let your hair down in one of the answers and define which one in particular was it that was limited to a thousand. Most of them. All of them. Yeah. I'll check with Andrew and I. I don't know who made that decision. But I mean, I get that you want something concise, but it's just not enough to really, this could be, this could be an example of technologists making choices without really consulting with people have to live with them. I guess, yeah. It wasn't a choice maybe our committee about put it that way. Somebody somewhere implemented that when they don't perform. Yeah. Okay. And I asked a question about from a project perspective because when looking at the sample grants that look like they were submitting project ideas by the way that they're described. With it with the grants, yeah, so the grants are project based, but the membership is organization, but like the new members that look like they were being described like projects. Well, that might just be a mistake in presentation. So, a lot of the new members got grants that are projects. Yeah. But the members themselves are the applications that came in it's based on the organization that's multiple things that will flow out of that it's definitely not project based at this stage. Okay, okay, great, great. And can I ask one more question. Three other universities in our region are members. We try how much space should we dedicate to trying to distinguish ourselves and to make the argument as to why we also what's your institution. American University. Okay. One of the things that we just had some meetings about yesterday was how to build on regional cooperation if you had. Yeah, so it might actually make sense to reach out to some of the existing members and talk to the designees there about how you might be able to build on that synergy. Okay, because we we do have partnerships with all of them already in multiple disciplines. So I think that would be one way of talking about ways of strengthening, strengthening the region by building on those partnerships. I see. Okay. Okay, that to me would be a good story to tell. Okay, great. Great. That's that's a good story that I can do in 1000 characters with those days. So listening to you. I'm getting the impression that that I have a lot of groundwork to do with my institution before we can try to bring an application. So basically I would need to talk to my institution say hey look, look at this now what can we do to build toward this application. Would you say that's probably true. From what I'm hearing probably, and we'll have application around each year so you know if it doesn't happen. You know, things need to be developed still in coming next year, and then during the year is there any like liaison or something with all of you who can help with that with the development of. Oh yeah yeah yeah I mean also I'm still chair of the committee for another year. And I'm happy to work with people. We will be continuing to have public events, and you're more than welcome to attend those and talk to people and get some ideas that way. And as I said the people in New America are happy to work with potential applicants. So yeah we're happy to continue to help develop ideas over the coming year. And just one more question should I said, should I just maintain the link with you or should I approach new America to say I want to find out more about what you're doing here in the region because I'm in Chicago. So definitely get in touch with New America so that you get on their mailing lists and that they're aware of your interest. I know that when so I met with New America earlier this summer I think it was, and they shared with me all the people who've got been in touch with them about potential membership so I was aware of some of the places that were developing applications. So yeah so I think it's good to get in touch with them and make sure that that that they're aware of your interest and can help you think through those things. So being at New America or not. It's Andreen. So Lee. That person. Okay. She's the main network coordinator and contact with the system that she's tremendously helpful. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. I'm just listening here and apologies that I didn't have my camera off just that I was in another meeting I couldn't get here sooner but anyway, I'm listening to the conversation thus far it appears that it is a university not a school level. So it's at the university level so it's cross departmental and it does need to have that sort of provost or president support. So we do like to see things that, even if it's coming primarily from a unit that you show at least the desire to embed other units in that maybe have some initial support from from these other units. I think I mentioned earlier that one of the weaknesses where some applications that came in that just seem like a person with a topic that wasn't really connected anything else and if it was a simply about a grant funding that would be appropriate but because it's about the network you want to see sustainability Okay, okay. Great. Thank you. Very good. So there's no other questions. We're coming up on the hour and I what the last couple of you go. Have a nice weekend. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye.


Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, a partnership for generations. Member, FDIC. Welcome to Common Ground, I'm producer-director Scott Knudson. In this two segment episode, a couple from Winger, Minnesota share their love for the culture of motorsports and grant us a tour of their historic automobiles. Also, come along as we visit a couple of the rendezvous in our brainered viewing area. This is what I hauled my race truck with. Yeah, we really like it out here. I have 20 acres. Yeah, it's just a full-time job keeping the yard. Len and Sarah have been my friends since early teen years. Both of them are the most interesting people I've ever been acquainted with. Working with Len and Sarah out here in the shop that they've built, it's a fun experience because it's like working on a TV shop but you're, you know, next to the shop next door, you know. They were made for each other. There are a couple that really can put on a show. Well, he's a lot of wisdom. You know, he's been racing cars and selling car parts and doing bodywork for years and he picked up when you were young and we just started when we were 14 and he helped us with stuff, you know, when he didn't have to give us time. He gave us time, you know, and helped us all the way through learning and just seeing what he did and when things like that we learned from him, you know. And he did pickup pulling in, car racing in parts and just a good friend, you know, good person. Len is a very savvy businessman. I've only felt he's been honest, very, very well thought of no matter where you go. They've introduced a lot of people into the car club and the one thing about Len that's fun is that if he knows you're looking for a car he knows where all the cars are in the barns and the tree lines and he's always looking for a car for somebody and when he runs across one the bell goes off and it's like, oh, I know who wants that car and he's good about finding stuff for each one of us. Hi, I'm Sarah Luckin. We're in Winger, Minnesota at Luckin Motorsports. I'm married to Lynn Luckin and we've been into racing and cars and custom cars, hot-rod truck pulling. For as long as we've been married and that's a few years. Motor competition and anything to do with cars has been very exciting to us. We've met so many wonderful people interested in cars also. We've traveled all over the United States and Canada with our sport and our whole family has always been involved in motorsports and still is. Lynn and I were very young when we got married and our determination was to make it. We were determined to make it. We had the same type of goals in mind. He was the one that was interested in cars and, of course, that grew on me and as he was successful and our kids were growing up I decided I would join this group. We did have a lot of fun. We pulled for 10 years on the circuit and we had a successful, fun, adventurous and safe 10 years of truck pulling. I had a good friend who got me started. He asked us to come to a pull at the Farron Detroit Lakes and when we heard his truck start I immediately turned to my husband and said, that's what I want to do. And we were off and running. Lynn has always had a love for cars, especially custom cars. He was customizing cars before he was out of high school. He's won awards for his paint jobs on other people's cars. He's won awards for his own vehicles. He loves big engines. He loves racing.  So he just loves that speed, that power, the camaraderie at the tracks and from the other fellows that he knows that are into cars and our car club. It's his life. He lives and breathes old cars, new cars. He knows them all because he was in salvage business for 45 years. In Wingham, Minnesota, we have put up a shop for all our memorabilia and Lynn is going to take you on a tour as we speak. 1977 Ford F100, 400 automatic that we're restoring for my daughter. It's completely restored. We're just trying to finish it. I've got the box left to do, but it's turning out great. It's an original 1977 Ford, one owner that I bought in Holly, Minnesota. It's a green metallic with a silver insert. It's going to be all original other than restoring it. So it was in the barn when I got it. And the motor was stuck, they said, so I bought it that way, brought it home. We pulled the spark plugs out of it and put Marvel mystery oil in it. The next day we got it loose. It runs absolutely brand new. There's the inside of the truck. There's still parts sitting in there to put on it, but it's very, very clean. That's just the way I got it. Haven't done nothing with it. I used to go to Arizona every year. Hall is Harley, come back. He passed away. I bought it from his daughter. She said she couldn't afford to fix it, so that's how I ended up with the truck.  But everything else is original. The bumpers, the grille, everything. All the sheet metal. And I'm trying to get the box done. The boxes are ready to get painted. There is a lot of factors you have to take into consideration when you paint stuff. You have to go by the humidity in the air because the humidity is not good for it. You want good drying time, and mostly when you're spraying clear, it has to be just right. That should be quite a truck when we're done with it. My daughter's pretty excited about it anyway. All three of my children are into hot rods. And they're really involved in it. So back when I was really young, I worked at a gas station when I was 12. And all these hot rods had come from Grand Forks. I lived in Mentor. And I just got into them. After 14, when I started racing and had a car, I had a job, so I was making money. And there was a gentleman in Mentor that was in the scrap business. And he cut a deal with me. He asked if I knew what aluminum and copper was. And I said, yes, I did. He said, well, how about if you come and go through my scrap pile and we'll split? Wow, what a deal for me. Then the guy said, oh, this is... you're making too much money then. I said, no, the thing is, I know what that stuff is. Nobody else did. Look at what I made you. He wanted to cut a better deal, see? And I said, no, deal's the deal. That's the way it ended up. So that's why I was able to do some of this stuff. And I had a job all through high school. I only race five to eight times a year, but I truly enjoy it, or I wouldn't do it. Between racing and restoring, that's a tough decision. I guess I'd have to say restoring. In the building here, I keep some of my memorabilia. In the work area here, it's just all got history behind most of it. We're going to go into the showroom back here where I have a few hot rods and show you what we have back here and explain a little bit of it. We'll start with the 56th Thunderbird that I give my wife at our 40th wedding anniversary. And it's just an awesome car. We take it to car shows. It's got a 292 with an automatic. And it's just a nice car roll. I've just put new tires on it last year. So, yeah, it's been awesome. We just got done servicing it, so it's ready to go to the car shows. Well, this is a 1963 Falcon. It's the first year they come with a power roof and a V8. And it's got a worked over 260 cubic inch motor that runs excellent. It was a one owner when I bought it. I bought it out of Minneapolis in the garage. I seen the back end sticking out when I was driving by in my truck and I drove in and said, is that car for sale? And he said, well, yeah, maybe. Well, I said, I'm a player. He told me a price and I bought it right there and I had my buddy with me and he thought I'd lost my mind. What are you going to do with that old car? I said, I've been looking for one then forever. There it is. That serves, too. This one here is my daughter's car. This one is a 66 Mustang 2 plus 2. And we put a 2008 Mustang GT46 in it and we pulled it back out and now we're fitting everything and it's going back in. That, I hope to get done. This, me and my friend Danny Holden, three years ago, I bought a kit for it and it's a 50 Mercury front with a 47 Pontiac grow with Mustang park lights and a 50 Ford rear. And me and Danny put it together and I spent like three weeks making door jams to everything fitting but it turned out really good and I drive that quite a bit. I got the late model ride with the old style look. It really turns heads. It's got a 3.8 supercharger on it with a five speed and it goes down the road real nice. You know, a lot of these parts that I come into down at the yard will work on these cars and that's why we've done that. We're going to a 1957 Ford custom 2 door that's kind of special. I'll open the hood here so Scott can see what's in there. It has a 390 board 40 with a good set of heads on it and it runs real well. It's lowered four inches. It's got a roll pan on the back and it's got color keyed front bumper with the bar grill. It's a nice ride. It's got a 05 Taurus interior all leather with pockets and floor shift. It's got power doors on it, power trunk lid. It's all functional and all works. It's really a fun ride. This is my baby. It's a house of colors color. It kind of changes colors. It's a lot of metallic in it. Deep burgundy color. That's all trophies from car shows, racing, truck pulling. We have a lot more but we only have room for so many. Some of them are pretty hard earned and then I got a Hall of Fame ring. This ring is for dirt track racing with a F-150 Ford pickup and I have two of them. I have one for 2003 and this one is for 2012. Yeah, it's been a good run. I still go at it so to me, racing is an adrenaline rush. Big time. I haven't lost it after all those years. I still have that 30 year old head with that old body. My father worked for Burlington Northern section foreman and my kid brother worked for the railroad and my older brother Earl owned the truck yard down at this yard down here and none of them were into hot rods. I don't know how to explain it. I've been in it since day one and I love every minute of it. I don't know how to describe Lynn and I. Lynn and I basically grew up together. How do you describe your life in a sentence? I mean, we just did everything together. We supported each other along the way. We raised our kids to be like us. Honest, work ethic. I don't know how to describe something like that. You know what? She's just awesome. I can't say enough about her. After 55 years, we're still together and if you want to meet a successful man, he's got a good woman. That's just the way it is.  She was from Fertl. I was from Mentor. I was one of the rebel rousers and she was the religious girl. We just hooked up, clicked. That's history. She doesn't complain when I come out here to work and I work every night. They're on the weekends or we go to a car show and she likes all of it and of course she's got so many hobbies. She's busy with her hobbies and we're still happily married. We belong to the Highway 2 cruisers. We meet at the end of every month and we have a very good car club. The Highway 2 cruiser is out of Boston. It covers about 6 towns. I think over 100 members. So a lot of nice hot rods. And I would like to encourage people whether you have a car or not.  Even if you don't belong to a club or don't have a car, you can go and join a car club. They need your assistance. They would love to have you if you want to learn about cars. Go and visit one. I've been in a recycling business for 50 years. Originally I called it a junkyard. Now they call it an auto recycling. And we do lots of it. And I sold out to my nephew in 2012 and I stayed on and I worked for him. I do all the buying and selling and the salvage out at the yard and recycle and sell parts. And it was good to me and it's good to him. For the people that have older cars that can't afford to buy a new car they usually buy the starters, alternators that keeps them going or transmissions or motors. And that's where we come in. To save and collect classic cars first you need a love for what's there. What was. What you'll never have again. And then you need to reminisce as you fix this and polish that and choose a paint and then take pride in that finished object there is nothing like it. Nothing. I got real lucky. I've been lucky my whole life. So. And that's how I got into all the racing and I mean one thing just led to another. Yeah, we thought we'd come check this out and we're heading greener. The colored yarn in it so that you can when it twists you can see the yarn. Okay, let's see. Okay, we'll get this all back. This is called the spreader. Okay, and you need to burn it all the way down to the end. Wait a minute, hold on. Oh, wow, wow, he's turning. Yeah, and that weight will come up and you'll see. Nice. And pretty soon all three of these will twist. So then. Watch this now, watch this go. You can see how it's starting to twist up. Oh, yeah, yeah, Tim, look at it. Now it's starting to twist. Into a roll. Wow, that is so good. You know, everything can be made with a roll. And you just put in that one. Imagine the powder out. You don't need a lot of powder for this. So it's just for the noise. There's no projectile that comes out of it. So you need the compression. Ready for this. You do it. You do it. Oh, does he? Yeah, Mike does. And he just got it there. Join us again on Common Ground. If you have an idea for Common Ground in North Central Minnesota, email us at call218-333-3014. To watch Common Ground online, visit lptv.org and click Local Shows. The soeds are segments of Common Ground. Call<PHONE_NUMBER>. Production funding of Common Ground was made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, a partnership for generations, and a member, FDIC. Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.


Previously on the Tour de Mont Blanc series. We had our first full day in Switzerland and hiked one of the easier stretches of the Tour de Mont Blanc. We found a beautiful coffee bar where we met some amazing people. After walking through typical Swiss villages we made our way towards Champelac, a beautiful lake in the middle of the mountains. This is the Tour de Mont Blanc.


You know whenever I drop off a bus guest, and I'm by myself. It's almost like I have PTSD For the next day or so. I just been hanging out the bus in this here spot next to that tree for a little under two days The first day I was you know, I woke up in Las Cruces. I said to myself, you know, it's just I'm tired Let's rest and then I that same day I got here and then I rested again and then I said well At least I'll edit some videos that never happen. Well, the next day I'll edit videos. That was yesterday. That didn't happen So I just went to hang it out kind of recouping and figuring out my next plan. Today is the 30th of December it's a day before New Year's Eve and I Figured that we're gonna hit something kind of quirky on the side of the road. We're gonna have to backtrack though towards Deming They do have a good taco place in Deming, too Yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm still trying to it's everything's kind of up in the air But I think I got a good place to go So this is a little strange the GPS is taking me down this road and It almost looks as if It is private property, but it is not I just noticed the County road sign right there. It looks like we're in good shape. By the way, that's a huge dairy over there You guys didn't know this I hosted a He's lees it is noisy in here on this dirt road I hosted a web series for the dairy industry and it's called acres and avenues if you guys want to search for it If you're curious, you can go see me being like a TV host kind of guy. I'm not a vlogger And that's actually how I kind of funded this whole trip along with bartending. Hey here. It's all right back There's I'm out in the middle. I've got stuck in Joshua tree It's just made me a little nervous down these questionable roads here because I have another two miles and Happen in two miles. So I think we'll just turn around and head towards a I just want to do that, but You know, that's just the Opportunity cost here Right, this is the choice of the day. Like I really want to get out there, but the same time Getting stuck out here because I'm so heavy. It's not really my idea of a good day today Even though it might be an inner entertaining for you guys, but yeah, not really definitely don't want to do that So All right. Well shoot I guess we'll turn around. Oh, and if I didn't mention already the place I was gonna head to is called cabinet landia and if you have a like, I don't know SUV or Car that's not too heavy. You could probably make it out there. Just not when it's raining I've only seen a couple of rattlesnakes in my life and The reason for today's visit is to see much more Many more rattlesnakes because apparently they have a ton of them inside here. And by the way, this is a free museum So I was mistaken. There is an entrance fee seven bucks or five if you are a senior but this is a massive massive selection display of Rattlesnakes here. I think this entire wall is rattlesnakes. There's two little cute ones right there There's a little one right there Here's another one Right there under the little branch little log Here's another one coiled up Let's see if we can focus. There we go with another one right there There's one sitting on the rock. Okay. That's a king snake There's an Arizona black rattlesnake that thing looks pretty gnarly wouldn't want to come across him on a Dark evening. There's one in the corner there There's another one under the rock There is one more up right in front of me right here interesting There's another one right here I'm losing count of all these snakes. There's another one down there in the corner And then Actually, that's a rat snake here's the last Rattlesnake on this corner. Where is he hiding? Oh, he's right there in between the rocks and then on this side there is a Blacktail rattlesnake and That's very impressive.  There's just not part of my budget, but Since I just learned that these things can be deadly The other day Actually, I think from Clare Bear I'm gonna pop in and see but also I Misunderstood that this is a free museum because normally they don't pay To go to museums, but yeah It is pretty interesting and if you are in the area and you are into snakes or Reptiles or I don't know I'm just curious what they want to look like or what they look like I should say and then swing on by All right, just a few miles down the road. There is a kind of monument for the Surrender of Geronimo the last Apache chieftain I'm not sure I agree with the language of this Indian warfare We did actually Commit genocide against them and we stole all their land, so Depends what side of history you choose to read that is completely up to you, but yeah, it is pretty quiet out here. I am now on the Arizona side heading towards the US Mexico border and What do we have here was this a gift from God You know having a baby food in a while and it's organic Well, I don't mind if I do We're gonna take this inside Danny Metro bus maybe have a little healthy meal tonight Look at that top sirloin steak Mmm, as you guys can see that is not a bag of vegetables It's not any lentils not a can lentils that right there is a top sirloin steak cooked it on the Little thing or this is only like the I don't know fourth Meat meal I've cooked in here besides like sandwiches. I just feel a little weak little I don't know my fingernails have like those little white spots, so I need more calcium and I feel like I've been doing a pretty good job with the Veggies and lentils all that healthy stuff Right now I'm parked outside of a town called Bisbee Not sure if I'm gonna hit it tomorrow. I hit it once before about a year ago So yeah, I'm just trying to sort out my next move Where I'm gonna go. I know I'll be passing through Tucson Phoenix and then over to the Events over by the Colorado River, so I know your guys time is valuable. I appreciate you spending with me I will catch you guys in tomorrow's video


This music is a good reminder for you to move a bit while I'm already standing, but moving my hands could help as well. Keep showing your hand on my face to fix that.