Good evening. This is what's going on. I'm Zoe Vickstrom and our guest this evening is Dr. Ralph Hexter who is interim chancellor at UC Davis. Good evening Mr. Hexter. Hi Zoe, good to be here. I wanted to thank you for being on our show and for taking your time to be here tonight. So let's start with your experience as a student. When you went to Harvard you brought a love of French and the opera. Can you talk about your life as an undergraduate? I actually loved being an undergraduate. I had a wonderful time. It's true I was completely devoted to literature, particularly medieval literature. I think I was one of those high school probably even junior high school readers of Tolkien's rings. You know the ring trilogy and of course the Hobbit and also I was into opera as you said and I sometimes think my preparation for being a medievalist or getting it to comparative literature was as I put it from the two rings, Tolkien's ring and Wagner's ring, both of which I was a fanatic devotee of in high school. So I took a lot of languages, a lot of literature, courses and I generally had a great time. I was a big fan of the Hobbit and Tolkien's books as a kid as well. So your work in graduate school was at Oxford in England and then a PhD at Yale and research in Munich Germany. So what challenges did you face as a graduate student? Gosh as a graduate student. Well I was very fortunate to be able to go study in Oxford and you know I had a really good time. It was an opportunity to really deepen my knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek literature which I actually had started while I was an undergraduate. So but you know Oxford has wonderful long vacations and I tended to like to visit the continent then and so I really had a wonderful opportunity to get to know a couple of countries fairly well, Germany most of all, Italy a little bit and challenges graduate student. You know again my graduate career was a little bit odd I suppose because I only spent two years really in residence at Yale as a graduate student and you know it's interesting when I think about the funding for graduate students I didn't actually have a scholarship and so I went back to Europe on a fellowship supported by the German government to do research and that's what took me to Munich a city I'd visited once before and said gosh if I ever had the chance I'd love to live here and I got to indulge a lot of my passions there opera and theater and art above all. Okay so what tell me about Germany what do you like about it? Well there's so many different parts I'll share a few different things. First of all I love speaking German. I know that German has a reputation of being difficult and I'm not sure I speak it perfectly but you know you can build very complicated grammatical structures in German and that's something I I enjoy also reading the literature but one of the more interesting opportunities I had and you have to understand this is gosh the mid-70s I had the opportunity to go and stay with a family in East Berlin. Got a visa and go behind the wall and live for first two weeks and then for three weeks a little bit later in East Berlin long before the wall came down so that was quite a fascinating experience very very interesting but I actually then when I did my research spent more time in Munich which is very much not in East Germany it's in Bavaria and good food good art in a beautiful situation but probably the most important thing is that I ended up meeting my partner now husband there and we've been together well it'll be close to it'll be 37 years quite soon. Wow congratulations is he German? He is German or was now he's an American but he emigrated from Germany to the United States a few years after we met and went through that whole process now he's totally American. That's awesome. You're recognized as a scholar in comparative literature what are your areas of interest? So I'm I've been the university I have an appointment both as a professor of classics and comparative literature and sort of it's traditional by classics we mean the Greco-Roman world the ancient world of around the Mediterranean so what I work on primarily is the tradition and reception of ancient literature perhaps more Latin than Greek but I've done Greek as well in the Middle Ages how it was interpreted how for example a society very very different from the society for which the Roman poets wrote read those texts which referred to things that they didn't really approve of in a number of different ways so how did they learn to reinterpret them how did they re-adapt them and then that just continues actually on up to our own age the translations and adaptations of of ancient material I'm quite fascinated by that. Okay do you have a favorite classic? You know I actually think it would be Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid which I've taught a few times it's I find not only monumental and moving but also I find so many interpretive challenges there and I suppose also my interest in the immense impact it's had over centuries and quite honestly probably with the exception of the Bible it was the most influential work at least into the 19th century since then the number of people studying the classics has dropped precipitously. You have taught at Yale and been a teacher and administrator at Colorado, Cal Berkeley and Hampshire College which is the most concentrated college town in America. What has your experience taught you about the responsibilities of leadership? Well I would say that you have to take your time you have to learn the context of the college or university you're involved with you have to learn what the values are you have to I've even put it in terms of learning a language because when you start dialoguing with the faculty and the students and you might have some ideas or suggestions you need to know how to translate that into precisely what moves the that culture. Okay how like what efforts do you make to get student input? I know you had breakfast you said with Alex. Well so you know it's interesting I remember at at Hampshire when I was the college president following a tradition that the previous president established I went to the Donning Hall every Monday morning for breakfast and just had an open table whoever wanted to come and sit down and talk with me we had breakfast together for about an hour and a half and it's interesting there were some people who came pretty regularly and then there were others who only came when there was a burning issue that they had but that's so important what I'm doing right now and you know I think in some ways you know the transition between Hampshire college which is 1400 students and you see Davis which is well if you count the graduate and professional students 35 students 35 000 students 28 000 undergraduates one of the things that actually astonishes me is how despite its size I think a lot of our students of course they have some large classes no doubt about that but through their activities they find places to make it an intimate experience you know the whether they're involved like Alex is in ASUCD or the sports teams it really is somehow a small town many small towns but to your question when I took on the acting chance or role now I'm interim chancellor but that's just as a title change I proposed to students that if anyone was interested they should shadow me for part of my day and I was delighted that immediately we had over 20 volunteers and since then other people have added their names to the list I think we've probably have 40 now and so since May I've been having usually a pair of students at a time join me for a portion of my day because I think it's a great opportunity for them to see or just get a taste of the many different things that the university involves for example one of the the students who shattered me early on had to suffer through an hour-long meeting on compliance but it's interesting to to realize that part of our university and you know UC Davis also has a medical center and school of medicine a school of nursing in in Sacramento is there so many issues of compliance and you know following this rule and that and we take it very seriously obviously it's I think an interesting perspective for students to realize that while they day in day out see a certain part of the university we have an administration and lots of staff who are focused on a tremendous range of of things you wouldn't even know like yesterday just as an example I was out at Bodega Marine Lab Bodega Bay which UC Davis runs and that you know again there were we had students along on that trip to see the work that's being done there wow so there's a lot of opportunities that make students feel like the college is more intimate when it's really big it is and you know and and I have to say I'm I hope it's not too much of a stress on my staff but I really love this program of students shadowing me so I know we'll continue it okay sounds like you have a lot of people who want well want to do that since I work every day there's no lack of meetings for people to join me at so what is your evaluation of Linda Catehi oh gosh um Linda Catehi of course was chancellor when I came she hired me I think she's actually um one of the people who saw very clearly the greatness of UC Davis and I think everyone at the university knows how great we are but we have a tradition of being perhaps overly modest sometimes hiding our light beneath a bushel being the best kept secret and chancellor Catehi you know took the measure of all that we were and helped make sure that we were confident in getting that message out and I think that that is it's not bragging it's not arrogance but I think we are now projecting and communicating much more of what it is that we do whether it's our focus on teaching whether it's the immense amount of research we do you know I uh leaders like that most leaders are called on to be change agents of one sort or another and it's a very challenging thing to do I was talking about that in my own sense of leadership yeah and I think that we're now in a very very better place thanks to her period as chancellor okay just because you guys now have a reputation or you had the same reputation before but now it's more known because of Chancellor Catehi well I think that she helped us feel confident about communicating that and it is you know it's something you have to work at because everyone is familiar with some of the older established universities and also part of the challenge of communicating what UC Davis is is both to honor our heritage as you know the original ag school of the University of California the Aggies yeah but and of course our tremendous expertise in veterinary medicine but also let people know that we've got lots of other parts we are an enormous and comprehensive university perhaps pointing out that in areas that really are key to meeting the challenges of the 21st century feeding what will become nine or ten billion people doing it in a way that respects the environment attending to a sort of complex interaction that we call one health between for example um diseases I mean Zika is a very good example diseases that move from animals whether they're wild animals or an insects or farmyard livestock to humans given what we have at UC Davis a school of medicine a college of agricultural and environmental sciences and a veterinary school there's no university better positioned to work collaboratively on those kinds of challenges and so I think it's also adding some richness to the messaging that helps people see what is relevant about all the work we do now all right so moving into the future you had a distinguished career at UC Berkeley as chair of the comparative literature department and dean of languages and then you were dean of the deans of letters and sciences you have proposed the creation of a dean of letters and sciences position and the chemistry department is trying to block your final decision use this problem to describe your administrative philosophy and how you viewed shared governance with the faculty and with the graduate and undergraduate student body sure um you know shared governance is one of the bedrock values of really any great research university certainly of the University of California and the regions of Cal the University of California long ago established the academic senate is having authority over such things as curriculum admission standards very very important content issues in addition we have a wonderful tradition and this is encouraged of consulting with the academic senate so to take the example that you use this idea of maintaining the College of Letters and Science as one college and even having one dean for the college instead of three divisional deans it's a it's a it's a an idea that we discussed over three years of committees and consultations the first year because in fact not just chemistry but the whole area of math and physical sciences proposed let's call it a hypothesis that they should go and form a separate college so we had a group look at the arguments that they proposed and this was a group that in the spirit of shared governance was filled was co-chaired by one of my administrators the vice provost for undergraduate education and the vice chair of the academic senate so this involved that kind of joint that shared viewpoint it's an administrative matter in the end but it's very important to get the input from faculty and of course letters and science is a college of over 600 senate faculty and some 30 departments so there's a lot going on there in any event they did their report and their their conclusion was it didn't make sense from their point of view to have math and physical sciences go off and become a separate college but rather there were lots of ways we could address the challenges that all the different parts faced so then we the chancellor and I proposed this idea of having one dean and we had yet another committee filled with faculty from all the different parts including a member of the chemistry department look at this at great length and in the end they made a recommendation that we should go forward with this and then we had yet another committee and I may be right maybe on this committee that we had a member of chemistry to define the job description and search for the individual so I understand that there are some individuals any number of them who really still hold in their heart the desire to go in different direction but after an extremely long and consultative process which is after all advisory on administrative matters I feel that we've had a chance for lots of people to share their views and so I think that's that is the essence of consultation you know shared governance having all of those opinions together in one room is important it is you know shared governance in its strict form is not the same thing as shared government the administration is still responsible and accountable for the the functioning of the administration and so it's very very important to understand that in shared governance we defer to the academic senate on those questions that they have specific authority for and we listen to advice but it's not in the end a joint decision consensus and certainly unanimity is not always required you you have to spend a lot of time listening to questions responding and getting a lot of opinions okay so the latest campus long-range development plan will cover at least the next 20 years and this is a two-part question so first ucd has the most land of any uc campuses and yet ucd has the worst record for providing campus student housing at outrageous prices ucd made a commitment to the city to meet one third of its student housing needs and ucd needs to be doing more how how do you think this will all work out well just as a point of fact and it's it's very funny because i was having this discussion with folks today currently we house 36 percent of our students okay so um more than the third but but um you know land is one thing money is another and the the the cost of developing the infrastructure and above all building the buildings you know we have that opportunity by using the revenue we get from the housing we rent but there are a lot of stages in this and i so you should know that the whole system the uc system as encouraging and helping the campuses reach the goal of housing 40 percent of our students on campus so four percent more than what's currently happening but i but i want to say i mean we know that um it's as you pointed out we have a lot of land and davis as a town is um you know for the students the vacancy rate is extremely low someone has recently cited it to me as less than one percent point two percent vacancy rate this is tremendous stress on our students um it means that of course anything that's available is very expensive and students have to share it um or if they can't find anything they go further a field which both reduces the opportunity to have that residential experience in a college town or on campus and it takes time and it adds to the you know energy costs by having commutation particularly if it's further than a bicycle will reach so again not that we have specific plans but i think that it might be better over some period of time to try to provide housing for 50 of our students to relieve the pressure that they feel and of course on the on the community because that the college town nature of davis is so important for all of us yeah it's um living here is a chance to be part of the community and to be in the middle of all of the action would you guys build houses on what's currently uc davis land is that how how would that work yeah that would be the idea is um and as you point out we have a good bit of land and so um you know we've begun to develop west of 113 west village we're certainly going to expand there um both um you know primarily single family homes for faculty and staff because it's very hard for them to find property to buy in davis and we want to keep the commute very very short if possible um but also more student housing but we're also looking during the the time of the long-range development plan to develop other sites on our campus where more um dense housing could could be placed for students so that we can get to the 40% and if possible go even beyond that get to 50 got it that would be great so what is your commitment to take the pressure off of the community housing market by providing affordable student housing on campus while protecting russell fields well so i certainly talked about that yeah you explained a little bit of that but the specific issue of russell field i've i've gotten to know a bit of that dialogue um in response to community concern about the amount of russell field that we were thinking could be zoned for residents and and mind you the long-range development plan these are not specific projects that are planned it's just a planning document that sort of does zoning and saying this is potential area for development we we we went back to the drawing boards we withdrew that and that we have planning for the potential of some housing there we've moved it much further back so there's much more setback from russell road as well as an opportunity for passersby and nearby residents to um enjoy the the expansive space that they have been used to okay so on a different note what are your thoughts about the potential for uc davis my goodness um uc davis this this is a big question it is feel free to talk as much as you'd like about this so i think uc davis will continue on its trajectory of recognizing building on the greatness that we've already established um but finding new areas for example i did say that we feel that some of the great great issues of our century um you know we as a society we have to step up to them you know whether it's climate change and on the one hand doing what we can to mitigate the increases in climate that are seem to be caused by by human activity i i i have no doubt of that but i know that there are a few people who still question that but none of us were in to climate change so we would like to slow that down as much as possible but there's also going to be an enormous amount of work in the areas of adaptation that's required and so in the area of water resourcing for example um helping farmers and other processes do what needs to be done with ever less water or finding ways to recycle it um any number of things is we really have to attend to that i think uc davis also has because of its interdisciplinary structure and just the range of fields an opportunity to dig into these questions whether it's the food chain or ecology or one health um you know everything is connected to everything else i mentioned that yesterday we were at bodega marine lab right and to hear how it is that the oceans are acidifying um because of the runoff from land and human activity on land um and what that's doing to the wildlife you know it's also um a case that the rising temperatures affect the pH level of the waters and that definitely impacts the ability of shellfish to form their shells or actually we were we were there with president apolitano and she asked a question of why did a certain kind of salmon suddenly disappear and basically one of the major causes of that were logging practices really and dams and logging practices so my my point is just that everything is connected to everything else and it often takes that kind of concerted collaborative university research to sort that out so back to your major question what about uc davis is we have the research we also have we're perfectly positioned very very close to our state capital we have lots of connections with policymakers lawmakers we'd like to use students who are very very interested in working in that area making a difference help take the scientific research that we have developed and uncovered and see if we could turn that into policy there's so many examples of that so um that's one of the things that i would like to see uc davis do even more of and we're doing so much already i think another thing that i think about is uc davis is davis right but we also are so important for our larger region for sacramento and i mean in some areas for example in health care to provide some of the top level care or trauma we really are the only thing going for 33 counties in northern california so region is large in that sense but particularly sacramento our capital city where we already have our health center our health sciences campus with the medical center i definitely have a vision that we find more ways to work with our regional partners so that sacramento also looks at uc davis and every little town in the area look at uc davis and say that's our uc um we of course we have a very very special relationship with davis itself we are in davis that we bear its name very proudly but i think that there are lots of people in the area whom we want to inspire to help them feel that uc davis is there uc okay so how um how can davis community members or sacramento community members get involved with ucd if they don't actually attend the college well you know it ranges from taking advantage of the offerings that we have at the mundavi center our new uh menini shrimp museum of art is opening in a few days and there will be opportunities like that but i think that there are other opportunities of accessing what we have whether it's online just our websites and our information um for example or taking a course at like beer brewing or something like that at our university extension i think we can discover other things for example um all of uc has the uc center in sacramento which uh we happen to run for the for the for the uc um and there are lectures there on policy so i think that there are dozens of probably many dozens of public lectures both on our davis campus and in the health systems campus in sacramento i i would like to find opportunities for people in the area who are just interested to tap into those resources okay and can you tell me a little bit more about the uc davis extension program that you just mentioned right and i want to differentiate it's funny at uc davis we have we use the word extension to describe two very different things okay so first of all there's the cooperative extension program which is part of our land grant heritage these are specialists most of them are in the college of agricultural environmental sciences who build on the work of our faculty to take the research to practical purposes to actually work with groups of farmers or you know gardeners just home gardeners to take this knowledge and get it out so that's one sense of the word extension okay what i refer to university extension is a continuing education college it's very common in many universities and we have a university extension unit that actually has centers in sacramento and offers courses there it does a lot of training programs for state governmental agencies as well so it is non-degree educational programs all right so and any any community member can take that take those courses well it depends you have to sign up for them okay and and they're they are fee those are fee based courses university the cooperative extension is actually a part of the public service mission of the land grant university okay and you start you said sacramento classes and are there any of those classes in davis yes there are and we have locations both i mean our graduate school of management also has a center in sacramento for its weekend and night time mba program and actually uc davis also has a another weekend and nighttime mba program in the bay area in san ramon so uc davis really we do stretch from the sierra with our um lake tahoe research center to the sea at bidet with our bedega marine lab and we we're very far flung yeah so you've you've talked a lot about the agriculture side of uc davis can you tell me about the literature side and tell me what about uc davis is special um in terms of the english department well let's take some literature all together i mean we have a great english department um but we have courses um for example that build on some of the interests that our students have here at this university i mean naturally we have courses on the greats of english literature on shakespeare and milton and certainly more recent authors but there's a long tradition of nature poetry and even let's call it let's update it and call it environmental literature and so many of our students have interests in that we offer courses on that right what sorry what is environmental literature just literature based off of things in the environment well um for example it could be literature that um describes how an individual may have had a transformational experience by going into the mountains and getting to appreciate the rhythm of the seasons um you're asking me something that i'm personally not a specialist on but um you know what i might talk about as well is the is some of the faculty that we've hired in the humanities and arts who work on the interface between the arts or literature and science and discovery um so given the fact that we're such a science heavy campus um any number of programs that i can think of clap my own department of classics think uh spanish and portuguese have hired people who look at um science as it was evolving in different periods and how that was an expression of the culture of the age and and and and courses are built around that um another i mean i actually am very proud of the department of classics one of my home departments because they are very very welcoming of students and for example they have a course that they teach for a lot of pre-med students bio biology majors right and all of those words as you know are built on latin or greek roots and so it can help from the science side learning all this material if you know more about the words but my colleagues use this as an opportunity to have that um introduction to the words themselves serve as a door onto ancient culture we also have um just to expand on this we have courses on ethics in science and biology in medicine for example um we also have great strength and one of the only minors in human rights studies wow yeah so you know can you tell me a little bit about that sure sure um we have a number of faculty in different places in the university who focus on human rights it's something that our school of law works on um but you know one of the things that i think is true of many students today certainly true of davis students is they want to make a difference in the world and you know i'm someone who works in as a scholar in studying other languages languages other than english and more distant times and places and who knows why i was motivated i speculated on token but um i think that many of our students get excited about doing that when they see that there are contemporary families and whole cities and countries where they would like to get involved perhaps travel there and help them and you know just knowing about you if you're going to interact with people you have to know their culture if possible their language so i think that working in human rights and all the very many complex political and international relations issues that you get involved with it's also an opportunity to learn first uh at first hand as much as you can about the culture the religion the um customs and of course there's in my view there's no better way to begin to get a deep knowledge of that other than learning the language which you said you did with in germany in german do you know any other languages besides well i mean i i read classical latin and ancient greek but in terms of my sort of everyday use will limit it to german french and italian oh wow so yes you do have you visited those places as well absolutely um you know at this point it's a little rusty and sometimes the first day or two of gibberish will emerge mix up german roots and french grammar forms but after a while it gets straightened out okay so back to uc davis values um do have you found that ucd shares some similar values to um the people in the city of davis like how has the davis community affected the uc davis community and vice versa my goodness um davis is clearly a small town it it it you know was an agricultural depot before it was a college town i think that the establishment of the university farm just fed with that but now we're talking about a time over a century ago um i think there's a certain um there's a deep honesty um in davis and at uc davis certainly a concern for other people um the opposite of arrogance um but i think that by virtue of being the host to what is now a mammoth university with a very very international population over the years of course uc davis draws students and faculty and staff from around the world and that has greatly impacted davis um it is home to a very international um population of families and you know i think it's particularly nice i don't know that there i mean a college town tends to have a more cosmopolitan selection of restaurants right another small town and personally i think that's a wonderful thing i think it's great i mean so even i like to think even citizens of davis who might not be directly connected to the university profit from that in the fact that we have all of that more diversity right there as well how do you adjust the needs of international students well you know it's something that we're still busy learning because um we've have a wonderful um set of staff who are helping them in the first instance but over the years we've realized that we probably need to have academic advisors who think quite intentionally about the needs of international students um this doesn't necessarily be an entire different set of advisors but we want to try to help our advisors um be ready to consider what particular challenges international students have what are some of those challenges well for example that they might not um feel empowered to ask a question okay or go to a faculty member's office hours or they might feel shy about saying to a faculty member i don't understand this you know i think there are things that you as a student here just take for granted you know and you've grown up with it it's the culture right um yes different people have different approaches that but you certainly know that well heck if i don't understand something i'll go to the professor's office hours and say can you help me on this but not every every student knows that or for example i'm now going to think about graduate students um of course everyone feels a great deal of loyalty to the faculty member you're working for and who's your advisor but sometimes some stress is developed and you know i've known some international students who felt gosh i would like to go to my professor and say actually i want to work on a different topic but who felt very constrained about doing that so there's some you know the interface between the learning and the culture as one of the things and so um you know it's all part of being open to cultural differences which we have of course within our american and california population but also internationally i was going to say that we also have as a wonderful partner international house which is right across russell boulevard from us and also we have in the community both folks who have international um heritage themselves of recent memory and many who don't who love to be host families for our international students and families and help them feel at home in the community okay and the advisors give them advice on how to excel in the community well they certainly point their way to international house but i but the advisors are certainly the academic advisors are more helping them advance in their work but we also we have for example um some of our american uc davis students volunteer to serve as like um ambassadors and and partner up you know just be buddies with international students which is great for you know english practice you know i know this having been a student in another in a country where another language is spoken is if you are with another group of americans say in a study abroad program you're really not going to get the practice that you need or the opportunity you know maybe it's more challenging you put yourself out there but you can learn so much more about the language and the cultures if you can find a way to be integrated have live with families okay and this is a program you sign up for yes exactly we also have a number of students who come here and this is something else that university extension runs which is um english language education with a cultural component and it's possible to take that program and sign up to actually live in the home of families in davis so as like a permanent no not permanently just to live for a certain a number of weeks as okay when you're taking the course you live in the community and i've heard stories of families of course taking them on picnics or of course if it's during the school year families will invite people over for say Thanksgiving dinner it's very important wow yeah we we did when i was growing up we had a series of international students that we hosted which helped open my mind to the world yeah so it benefited you as well as the international student absolutely and any family and davis can sign up for this program i think so wow that's really amazing that that opportunity exists um so scheduling classes has been hard for a lot of students and a lot of people have to take a fifth year of school or is there anything that's being done to help that problem so when i did arrive i discovered there was sort of a chronic problem of waitlist for gateway classes and i as i was i was provost i definitely urged the colleges and i provided some additional resources to not put up with not regard waitlist as something we were always going to have but you know my goodness if you know there are this many people who need to take the class let's provide the sections and from what i understand from my vice provost undergraduate education we had more or less this doesn't mean that every student always gets the class that he or she wants at the time they want but we had pretty much eliminated the waitlist when suddenly we were asked to take more california students so we have a new influx and so we're going to go through that process again but there's some other things that we're doing to try to help certainly that log jam one of the things that we're doing is that we working with the faculty discovered that we hadn't looked at our pattern of prerequisites for a very long time and there were some places where the prerequisites that were listed in the catalog were outdated faculty and students weren't really necessarily paying much attention to it which could sometimes lead to students who weren't really ready to take a certain class being in that class and not doing particularly well and wanting to take it a second time while they were occupying seats that some other students who might have been really ready to take that class when able to get into so we hope that again within partnership with the academic senate this careful look and new management of prerequisites will help you know and finally i want to say is that you know the the fifth year our actual average is something like four years and one quarter okay so there are many many people complete fifth year absolutely not there are people who take that time and you know i have to say there are reasons why people want to do it they might have decided to take a quarter abroad or a whole year abroad or do something like that um i mean i more often than not meet students who are choosing to take another quarter rather than they were forced into it you know got it and would would these solutions also help with overcrowded lecture halls well so one of the most important things is we're now building a new large lecture hall okay where's that going to be it's going to be at the corner of california and oh my goodness i'm not exactly remembering the cross street on campus but it's on campus of course in the center of campus i can see the spot i mean it's not all that far from the mu and it will be nearly 600 seats interestingly enough we've looked you know class even lectures are becoming more interactive so the way this classroom will be laid out is instead of but instead of seats that have the little arm that comes up with the desk in front of everyone is a long desk between the rolls and rows and it's only very slightly raked so in fact the seats will swivel and you can instantly make a group of four or six students who will work together over a workspace on a project or a question together and then we can swivel back and it's a you know a standard lecture hall facing one direction so collaboration will be more prioritized because there's more and more idea of flipping the classroom that is using lots of other means to have students access the information and then making the classroom experience even a lecture experience much more interactive so that's under construction and should open the winter quarter of 2018 so in the meantime we're actually using the mundavi center for classes oh really which is a beautiful space i don't know if you've been into jackson hall yes i love it and but they were very very welcoming of students it's several mornings a week and of course they then have their own rehearsals and other things to set up but we teach there as well and i don't know whether we'll continue doing that after the new lecture hall is open but we definitely have to continue expanding our classroom repertoire so that we have enough spaces for the students okay and final question our next guest on what's going on is kevin blue uc davis's new athletic director and kevin was your first major hire can you talk about the selection process and why you think people should watch our interview with kevin next week kevin is fabulous i'm very very privileged to have been able to select him and recruit him to uc davis yes you're right um the process had gone um very far down in the in the in the meetings with the candidates when i was asked to step into this role um i took the opportunity to meet all the finalists or interact with them in one way or another and um some of them were phone interviews but i did look again at the work that the selection advisory committee had done and i reviewed all the material and i was very very impressed with with kevin um kevin has a real vision as i know he'll tell you for in passion for the scholar athlete i mean one of the things that we're most proud of at uc davis is that our athletes in all of the sports take their majors across the university i've met varsity players who are engineers or philosophers and they also perform at an extremely high level in terms of their academics and kevin regards that as the ideal to have and he has some really interesting ideas about how we can make our program distinctive so that more talented scholar athletes want to come to uc davis okay so you're looking at not just the athletic abilities but the educational abilities as well absolutely i mean i think if you're going to come to a uc first of all you have to be at a certain level right about it and also i think it's a it's forgive me if this sounds overly dramatic but it's really a holy obligation we have to anyone who comes here whether they're you know outside activity is music or student government or sports and if you're going to do varsity sports it's an enormous investment of time right but we have to make sure that we enable you at the same time to have a full and complete and valuable experience as a student wow that's that's a really great opportunity and well you know i mean probably kevin will say this but you know sometimes people think that if you're going to have great athletic achievement you have to give up on the academic and he absolutely does not believe that's true and that's one of the reasons why i know he's the right athletic director for us and that his passion and commitment to that is going to serve the student athletes and the goals of our entire university sounds like a good reason to watch the show to hear what he has to say i'll do it myself all right well thank you very much for being here today um this is what's going on thank you for watching and have a good evening thank you


impact of such riots or such threats which are created by Communalism can be very much controlled on the other hand we could also promote instances of secularization promote the scientific temper in the society we could also promote religious pluralism we could promote secularism through all these instances we can try to handle situations of Communalism in a much better way that could be written in the conclusion thank you please go through the pointers which has been given as well I've written some pointers for each of the questions hope that will help you if there is anything else you can just reach out to us and you can post your questions we'll be very happy to help you as well thank you so much for your time


Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio really excited about the guest today Eric Sammons Jesse tree You don't know what that means you got to hang out because you're missing it You're missing something big if you don't know what Jesse tree is Before we though jump into the show We have filled our pilgrimage for Spain God be praised you can get on the waiting list every year or so a couple people drop off our pilgrimages are different because They're not spiritual vacations we actually teach and form and we go slow and we pray a lot and every in the end as a result You know in in coupled with the incredible places we go in the saints that we see in touch and walk with as a result Every single pilgrimage has many many conversions. Yeah, it's a beautiful encounter. It's a beautiful encounter So you can either get on the waiting list for Spain 2023 or That we're already filling the pilgrimage to the holy land in 2024 We only take 50 people because we like to get to know you we want to make sure people need spiritual direction They get it. We always have a holy priest with us as well to help with all that so all of our events Divine intimacy and marriage retreat in 2023 Avila summit 2024 all these things going on Or the 2024 pilgrimage spiritual direction comm forward slash events now just to clarify The holy land pilgrimage is not up yet. Well, it's listed on here. It might be oh But if it isn't just you know, just subscribe and check back or whatever keep checking because it's under my understanding It's not actually posted yet, but we have already we still already have 12 people signed up, right? Six couples out of the last marriage retreat, right? That's what happens. Like all these couples like we Very cool. All right, let's go ahead and jump to the show. Mr. Burke. You ready and your markets that go this Dan Stephanie Burke Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds the wisdom of the saints to The traditions of all time that help lead us to God and today We have an awesome guest who has who takes part in a ministry. That's very close to my heart and and has my support As well. He's written a very cool book and For to help us get holier this christ christmas especially this advent season, especially when we have little ones Running around or yeah, or no little or big ones. I don't know big ones that want to be holy little ones that want to be holy We're good with all of them. Okay. We want to welcome mr. Eric Sammons. He is the editor-in-chief of crisis magazine He is the author of eight books including the most recent the jesse tree and advent devotion Co-written with his wife susanne. Welcome Eric. Hey, thanks so much for having me guys Well, it's great to have you with us. I uh, so we have our own shopping cart that's that uh on spiritualdirection.com and I uh, we we we talked to a lot of great authors on this show. It's not all we do but we we try to Expose materials that we think are super helpful to folks and this one this one's going to go in a new section Called seasonal, you know, that's my recommendations because I think it's a fantastic book Um, the thing I love about it and before we jump into what it is like I won't my first question I'll let you get ready for it, but I know you you're already ready. What is the jesse tree? But before that Um, what I love about it is I'm Jewish and and I'm of course catholic, but I'm not not Jewish because I'm catholic I'm a Hebrew catholic And what I love about the jesse tree and and this devotion Is that it helps us understand the It it brings it brings to light the entire our entire salvation history Not just Pentecost and beyond does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. It really the whole point of it is to kind of give the whole Scheme of salvation history in a nutshell and let us kind of see where we fit in on that Where jesus fits in on that whole scheme of salvation history as well So what the heck is a jesse tree? So the jesse tree it's a devotion that It dates back to at least the middle ages We know there are stained glass windows and paintings from the middle ages of the jesse tree And it takes its name from the father of king david jesse And from a passage in isaia where he talks about a shoot will come out of the root of jesse And of course a lot of people at the time that isaia maya said that would have maybe been thinking of david But of course, we know it mostly refers to our lord jesus christ And and so the idea here is with the jesse tree is we look at the genealogy so to speak the family tree of jesus christ And we do this with a purpose we do this with the purpose of understanding Trying more like contemplating How god prepared the world for the coming of the christ child I mean that's really the story of the old testament after genesis 3 when everything Went awfully for for humankind Then it was all about the rest of the new test I'm sorry the old testament is about how did god get the world ready to save it And so what the jesse tree does it gives us a very easy to use devotion for all ages That lets us to contemplate that mystery of what god did to prepare and what better time to do that Than advent which is when we're supposed to be preparing for the coming of christ. Amen.  So he's looking at it through his jewish background and kind of seeing this with new eyes I I have just recently in the last few years and as in my work as a catholic school principal years ago had discovered the jesse tree And you know, I think it's such a beautiful treasure that sometimes can be hidden especially if We're sunday going catholics Maybe we do an occasional rosary and maybe we go to confession on occasion and that's it We have to dive so the the catholic faith has so many riches in it There are so many devotions so many things that if we dive in Our faith breaks wide open and it's exquisite and I just um I just want to say that for those that are out there and they're going wait I've been a catholic my whole life and I've never heard of the jesse tree Well, we we need to dive into our faith because there's just so much there And so I just applaud you for bringing this to the surface so that families can dive into this Because it's just such a a beautiful thing So, you know considering that who's the book written for? It really is written for primarily families. I mean really any any type of family Can do as well. I mean even a single person But I will say the the book was developed out of our personal experience So I grew up Protestant pretty non liturgical And I had never heard of the jesse tree and I know a lot of cradle catholics haven't heard of it either But my wife her mother Practiced it in her family her mom and dad did it and so when we got married 27 years ago our first advent my wife said, okay, we're going to do jesse tree I'm like, what's that? I had never heard of it And so her her sister had got her some ornaments because we'll talk about that in a minute But includes ornaments and we we found this book that was written in like I think the 1970s and It shows it was kind of flaky. It wasn't that great, but at least gave us the structure of what it was So we did the jesse tree that first year And then we've been doing it every year since and I have seven kids ages 25 down to seven And so we've had a lot of different Scenarios each year with how the how old the kids are the the range of age and stuff like that So we practice the jesse tree every year though And basically the book came out of that was that okay, you can do this We did this when we were a young couple didn't have kids yet We didn't we did this when we only had we had three kids under five We did this when we had an 18 year old and a newborn and and six in between or five in between So all these different configurations we did the jesse tree and that's how we tried to write the book was like, okay Whatever situation you're in There's a way you can use this book that you can really dive into advent more fruitfully Beautiful. I was gonna ask you, you know To share about your family. So you were you started this in 1995. Did I remember right? Yes, that's correct So you've you've been practicing all these years and and I imagine You've improved a lot from that first book. It's funny. You said the book was written in the 70s I'm thinking that's when they were trashing all the tradition. I don't know how it helps something published in the 70s You know appeared in your hands But what have you improved on have you looked at any more ancient sources of this devotion to to create this book It really did evolve over the years because the first year we did it I it was just my wife and I we kind of read through the book and and It was very 70-ish.  We can't say this So we just started developing each year and really every year I would just what I would do is I would do the bible reading From the book and then I would just I kind of jokingly say I just freestyle the reflection And then and then my wife would say something and we each year we'd feel like oh we got a little bit more out of this We we found we discovered something new because obviously when you read the sacred scriptures Every time you read it you can get something new out of it And so we started to write down some notes and and and develop what we did each year So we wouldn't forget from the year before and then probably about 10 or 15 years ago Some of our friends found out about what we were doing. They're like, hey, could we we'd love to do that too So we just wrote up a word document printed out gave it to some of our friends and told them. Hey, you know Here's what we're doing And then we realized oh we could do this better and better and eventually we're like this really This is something a lot of people could really use and so that's how the book eventually was written So unlike most of my books I've written I have an idea I pitched it to a publisher then I write it This was like literally 27 years into making that because every year we had something new and I just find I just get excited every year doing it because I know even though Like we're literally going to use our own book this year with our kids But like my kids know that something will stick out at me on a scripture reading one night And I'll just start talking about that instead And in fact my kids they kind of laugh when they see the book now because like I'm really your dad thought of that When mom mom said that or something like that. So it really is just a labor of love over the years I really love that it is a labor of love and to know that it's it's been birthed out of the use Year after year of your family that makes it incredibly personal and incredibly rich. I would think because Um, it's it's out of that beautiful tradition with your family It's literally getting birthed out of the scriptures and in the domestic church of your home And how beautiful that is so I'm I'm excited to dive into it So how let's get down to some practicals for those moms out there that are going Okay, I got to put up the tree. I got to do all this stuff I got to worry about who's coming over and planning meals How do we practically use this book? When do we start it? What do we need to do so? You know all that stuff Right. So we tried to make this as easy as possible because we know some families The real crafty they can do a whole bunch. They got time and other families They're just trying to get by each day and we get that and so a couple things first of all There's really three things you need for the jesse tree devotion. You need the book Obviously you need ornaments and I'll explain that in a second You also need a tree and it doesn't have to be your christmas tree A lot of people they just basically what they do is they might get one of these Artificial small trees put it on their table doesn't need to be a large tree And that's their jesse tree and you can use it each year. That's why I said artificial You could just use the same one every year or you know, we used a felt banner. Yes, I will admit it publicly We use the felt banner with hooks We're if he came joking our family, but you know, that's okay I'll own it. I guess that's a good good use of a felt banner. There's never been one except for that one Yeah, right When later in life we I would start when my kids got older and I kind of make fun of felt banners in front of them They'd say but dad, what about the jesse tree? I'm like, oh shut up So you just make do but the ornaments that's kind of the key And just so you know, uh, people know that we sell the sofia institute.com is written by the book You can also buy ornaments pre-made ornaments. They're very nice high quality will last basically your whole lifetime They have the exact same symbols as in the book. So and it come with a set With yeah, you can get both you can get it as a set You can buy the book separately you can buy the ornament separately or you can buy it as a set Both the book and the ornaments at sofia institute.com And so what what the ornament is each day you have a symbol So for example for know, it might be an arc For jacob might be a ladder some some symbol for that day and that's an ornament And so you have these now you can make the ornaments too If you want to we actually have the symbols in the back of the book as well That you could even cut out if you wanted to and make the make your own however you want to do that So basically though you start on the first day of advent first Sunday of advent And then you you put you actually don't put an ornament up the first day But then you put an ornament up every day and one of the things that's very confusing I'm actually proud of this because I thought of this idea Myself was that Advent's a different length every year this year. It happens to be the longest possible because christmas is on a sunday But some next year christmas will be on monday. It's the shortest possible time for advent So there's a variance in how many days so the number of ornaments matches a full advent So what do you do when there's less than a full advent? What you can do is you double up Exactly. Yeah, you're showing the chart there exactly So you double up certain days and we kind of and we suggest what days to double up the ornaments so that it all works out Because the last week is special We want to make sure you do that in a special way and talk about that later But so the the point of it though is you get the book You get the ornaments and you get a tree you have those three things You start the first Sunday of advent and it's a daily reflection and it takes five to 15 minutes This is something you have to worry about taking forever. Let's go to the break when we get back I want you to think of a family story that you was really mean meaningful to you as you were developing all this This is divine intimacy radio. We're with eric sammons the jesse tree. We'll be right back so we got a We got a we got a fit to the next segment at like 12 12 15 Is that right? No, normally it's 12 and a half right So you went 45 over So give me the number then so 11 45 Okay, so somewhere 11 45 to 12. Okay, okay 12 you think okay, that's fine There's one edit. I know already Okay, uh friends. Hey friends. I hope you're enjoying the show with eric Before we jump back in I want to tell you about a course that you can't miss Introduction to st. Elizabeth of the trinity. I think she should be a doctor of the church Her teachings on prayer in the interior life are very unique of course in the carmelite tradition And her mission in heaven is to help you to know contemplative prayer The course is taught by julie ensler a good friend wonderful woman who Helped us to translate a book for sofia On on st. Elizabeth as well that came out the year of her canonization So if you're kind of stuck spiritually and you're wanting some good Brain food to help you maybe rethink rehash how it is that you Draw near to god. This course will be a great opportunity for you avala dash institute.org Avila a v i l a dash institute dot org now The other thing I want to tell you is that If you are spiritually hungry And you want to enter into the largest spiritual candy store in the known universe Make sure you're you're you're subscribed to spiritualdirection.com because That's the funnel through which all of our events and uh, we have thousands of articles videos like All of our shows like today end up uh, eric will end up out on spiritualdirection.com as well So much rich content. Yeah, it's amazing rich. And in fact, mr. Producer If you could work with maggie to make sure this one gets up really fast In all of our channels including email and then we should put it ahead of the line From last shows for uh, ewtn radio. So we make sure we get it as easy early as we can up there. I'd appreciate that All right friends On our live stream do me a favor for our live streamers Please like and share this as well. Um, it's also It's recording at the same time for facebook. I mean for youtube, right jordan Yeah, so you can find it out on youtube share it like crazy because people need to know about This book and also because uh, we've lost so many beautiful traditions because of the cultural and and ecclesial kind of hurricane of of the Of the 60s and 70s And what eric, you know, eric's dedicated his life really I don't know if he'd describe it this way to helping us to recover those things But this book is a beautiful and I would say a very positive purely constructive addition to our time It's I think the best that I see and appreciate out of the traditionalist movement Is this kind of active this kind of Work where we serve the church To help them recover the glory and the beauty rather than complaining about You know folks who took it away. So really grateful for eric To put this together. So let's jump back into the show On your market set go this on your market set go this dan and stephanie burk. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio My wife's laughing at me Back to eric sammons the book the jesse tree If you don't get this book and use it this advent you are totally going to hell. That's a joke But I know it'll help you get to heaven My wife's thinking what did you drink for the show? Nothing actually, but um, I know it'll help you get to heaven So eric before the break I posed a question to you which was Can you give us a story? about You know, uh, one of those Advant seasons where one of your kids may be lit up and went, uh, I get it Or you just had a lot of fun with the family Tell us about your encounter with the the beautiful truth of god and in the history of our salvation Well, I could tell a story about the fights my kids have on who gets to put the ornament on No, no eric eric eric this we're we're trying to family you have a perfect family You have no issues. You know, you're a firm believer in the church Or you could ask my kids for the reality It is actually a fun thing that each year what we do is the the younger kids They they take turns who gets to put the ornament on the tree each day And the funny things they've even got to point where they've calculated. They know Based on how many kids will be doing that because we Four of our kids are not out of the house. So it changes, you know over the years They figure okay, whoever puts it up first now who will be the one who puts up the last one That's how they they figure out that by the by the uh in the first day or so Which is always funny because that's the one that's the that's the one everybody wants is who puts it up on christmas eve But the story though that I I think of the most is that one year my son who's now off in college And this is when he was about eight or nine years old We're doing jesse tree mate was afterwards something around that time and all of a sudden he just came to me He said dad The old testament's like one big advent I'm like, okay, there we go It's all worth it. It's all worth it because he gets it. He got I mean at an eight-year-old level In fact the way he said I'd never even thought of it like that myself And here he is at eight and he realizes, okay, that's right. The old testament is this big preparation It's god's way of getting the world ready for the coming of the christ Getting ready to save us. I like to make the joke You see on the internet that meme of the conspiracy theory guy the crazy guy looking like this and he's got all these Like connections behind them the the the board and and all that and I like to think that The old testament really is kind of showing god's conspiracy theory his conspiracy to save us That all these things tie together and that's what I love actually about the jesse tree and studying this stuff Is that you you get these new connections every year some new connection comes up where you realize oh, yeah, okay Like one year I remember we were studying the patriarch joseph And we were thinking we were talking about how that points to jesus But then all of a sudden we realized it also points to joseph the foster father of jesus That it went to egypt stuff like that. And so it's like one doesn't obliviate the other one doesn't trump the other It's like they're all right there and in god's Wonderful providence he connects all these things together And so when my son was able to see that that's what the old testament's about is preparing us for jesus I was like, okay at least some some of my work here has has been fruitful. That's awesome You know when you said your son said it's like the whole of the old testament is the advent You know as a as a jew I have a slightly different lens that I look through You know at the church and it's a good one, you know Um, but the most powerful like visceral for me Is this period because there was a time when You know This this is hard to talk about but there was a time when I was into spare There was a time when I needed the messiah, you know There was a time and I didn't even know who he was right and I didn't know You know how I was going to get free from the junk In in my own soul in my own heart, but I knew I was I needed a savior and I cried out to him but That that drama of salvation the church is so brilliant, right The drama of salvation god blesses us with to play it out every year to remind us, you know There was a time when you were in darkness There was a time when you didn't have the fullness fullness of revelation There was a time when you didn't see clearly and god be praised all you have to do is constantly draw near to him and avail yourself of the great gifts of the church and sacraments and and tradition And what he does is he creates this ache in your heart and john of the cross talks about this That can only be fulfilled by him But that that ache is I don't know rekindled for me Every advent and I start going I need jesus. I want jesus to come.  I want him more in my heart I want him more in my life more and more in the church purify us lord heal us Restore us, you know And so this kind of devotion like when I saw your book come out. I'm thinking there is no way we're not Getting him on I almost wish we had a time to do four shows on it on it But I know you got something on your mind below Well, it's just beautiful the way that you were describing that because the connection that I was making and talking and thinking about this idea of advent or the the old testament being like a long Advent, you know Is a beautiful idea and I was also making the connection that every every Difficulty every storyline everything that goes on into in our own lives Is bringing us also it's like a long advent Until we encounter the lord till we receive him in his fullness It's these trials and these missteps and these difficulties and the lord is always working everything for good To bring us to him. He's just calling us all so we have this this huge story Of salvation history We have the macro story and then we have the the micro stories in each one of our individual lives That if we sat down and actually wrote it out, we'd see how god's been at work From the very beginning to draw us to himself. So this is really beautiful So yeah, have you seen eric any of your kid? I mean, I think the one thing I longed for I think it's harder to it's easier to come from where we came from Than it is for our kids. Uh, it's easier for us to get it. I don't know about you I don't I don't I can't recall if we I've ever talked to you about your story, but You know, I came out of a lot of darkness Uh came to christ, you know in a baptist church But really, uh was blessed with struggle, you know, and then I came to the fullness of the church and and received so much healing and grace But I think for for families where their kids grow up in the context of it It's hard for them because they don't have the contrast. They're not blessed with You know that sort of light and darkness which helps you to see with greater clarity Does this have you seen this devotion help any of your kids? Light up beyond that one story where they're kind of catching a deeper glimpse of of Of what it means to be in relationship with god I think so, I mean, I really obviously there's there's the mystery of faith in each person that we can't really get into somebody else's But I I think I see it outwardly sometimes I think what the The biggest takeaway I have for how it's helped my family Is that we have been able Uh better some years and other years to really escape from the secular christmas season craziness That our family we identify advent with the jesse tree. We identify that time kind Between thanksgiving and christmas not as okay. Let's go crazy With shopping and with all the christmas decorations, and I'm not a fundamentalist about when you put the tree up You know, I know some people wait till christmas eve some people do it earlier We kind of do it after sometime at your saint next day. I everybody does their own thing But we definitely we really try to make advent advent and I've seen my kids do appreciate that Like they know what advent is because they know that means the jesse tree They know that means okay. We're we're trying to be quiet And that's a big part of advent is we need to be quiet And so we get this few at least a few minutes every evening where we're like, okay Let's contemplate on on these mysteries of the sacred scriptures. And so I feel like that's something That I hope and pray Really sticks with them Throughout their lives and it's exciting now like my one of my daughters is getting married next year And uh, we already plan on making sure she gets a copy of the jesse tree and the ornaments If she's watching this, I hope she doesn't it might have been a christmas present anyway, oh But the idea is like the idea that she will be doing this and My mother-in-law is the one who really gave the the devotion handed it on to my wife And then to our family now my kids and then hopefully one day my kids kids And I think there's something beautiful and catholic about that. That's how tradition is handed on after all Is this just that the the My mother-in-law had this great devotion to it She handed it on to her daughter who handed on to me and to her kids and now my kids will be handing on to theirs And so my hope and prayer is that this is a generational thing that not just my kids Really appreciate them, but now their kids Will and and it just goes on and that's what the whole point of catholic tradition is is that we that this is How things are handed on so I I really am appreciative that of my mother-in-law I mean, that's who we dedicated the book to because if not for her devotion to it I might not even have known about it. And so it makes me thankful For how these things are handed on Yeah, I really I really want to encourage everybody in this because you know If if we can't say that well, I've been doing this for generations or it's been passed down to us We can start now We can start now to exit Um the cultural lie that you know Christmas is about an excess of food alcohol spending and decorations, right? Where we all end up exhausted, you know on the other side and into the darkness of winter and then it just turns into depression Um, so I really love uh, I love this and I really would encourage folks to spread it in their families Make it a gift now because if you can if you can get it now and start spreading it and say hey You know, I just really love you and I discover this and I want to share this gift with you and Spread it in your family spread it in your communities Make sure your pastor knows about it at church and all of that Because I think we need to reignite this idea that this understanding of this beautiful Advent of the of how the god of the universe has been conspiring since the very beginning to bring us salvation and Draw us back to himself. It's just such a merciful God, you know, uh, if you want to get the book in the in the uh, the ornaments As always all good things can be found at EWTN's religious catalog Where two amazing things happen if you order the book and the and the uh ornaments They will give them to you. That's one good thing. The second thing is you help the ministry of EWTN Uh, so if you institute, uh press is doing great work. You can also get the book And a lot of things I personally recommend or we personally recommend at spiritualdirection.com forward slash shop Thank you, eric sammons for your good work and helping us recover The beautiful traditions of the church your work at uh folks can find you out at uh editor you're the editor-in-chief of crisis magazine And uh, we're grateful to have you have you with us today. It's been great to be here I I love promoting this and I hope everybody has a blessed advent Absolutely until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body Irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ amen


Hi, I'm Moyo Shippewale, I'm a junior in biomedical engineering and I'm from Dallas, Texas. I'm blessed with an amazing community, great clubs and organizations and I really just wish I could take that home with me. I'm really proud of my scholarship that I received as a freshman at Purdue and I get it every year and I think I'm also proud of surviving Purdue's hard STEM majors and engineering. My favorite place to study on campus is now currently the basement of the union which I am in right now. I really enjoy it here. My favorite Purdue tradition, that's such a hard question, there's so many. I haven't done it in a while but I think the craziest and the most fun one is the fountain run. There's so much energy in here with everyone in your class and it's amazing. What it means to take giant leaps is to be prepared to make an impact on the future after you graduate Purdue. I think Purdue is an amazing community and I think we forget we're so blessed to go to such a prestigious school and I think to take giant leaps is to not only be amazing at Purdue but even outside of Purdue.