Good afternoon. I'm Dan Moguloff from the campus office of communications and public affairs and Super thrilled and honored to have our Chancellor Carol Christ with us for this semester-ending Campus conversation. So glad you could join us Again just to reiterate there are index cards on your chairs if you have a question now that you know You want to ask the Chancellor great time to fill out the card hold it up be collected but also totally also totally fine to do that in the course of the conversation and So without further ado Carol perhaps a few words about where we are and where we're headed. I'd like it So I first of all I wanted to start with a big. Thank you. I think that Cal has the most talented imaginative Dedicated staff in the world and I am conscious every single day of all the work you do So I want to thank all of you for the work you do I was down at facilities this morning thanking them particularly for their work and the power outage But just generally for all of the often unseen work that keeps this campus going And so I want to thank all of you Begin with news The first is a little bit old news, but I don't think it can bear too much repeating which is that the budget is balanced We actually have a modest very modest surplus of about 60 60 million dollars I should say it doesn't sound modest to all of you, but in the context of our whole budget it really is modest and But I should say to all of you the budget is precariously balanced That it depends our future financial health depends so much on what The regions and what the state do So first of all we need a consensus Among the regions and then with the legislature about what would be a reasonable set a reasonable philosophy of tuition increases If our major Revenue source never increases that means from year to year We have to make major cuts and so that is perhaps my highest priority as a political issue is to make the case for Modest predictable Regular Tuition increases the regions are going to consider it their January meeting a plan for cohort tuition That means only new students coming in get a tuition increase And the tuition holds the same for that cohort all through their years at at Any of the UC campuses the other thing that matters of course is the states increasing its investment in the portion of our budget that comes from the state so We got to a balanced budget about halfway through through cuts and through Financial discipline in about halfway through growing revenue sources and our Increased diversification and multiplication of sources of revenue is Becoming very robust and that's really exciting and very good for the campus So other news I wish I could be as cheerful about the capital side of our budget as I am about the operating side Rosemary Ray The CFO has said often. I'm absolutely confident. I can solve Berkeley's operating budget problem I cannot solve its capital budget problem and just to lay out the different Aspects of it. We have a two billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog I'm sure you all know what that means And then we have recently reassessed the seismic condition of all the buildings on campus They're rated one through seven with seven being the worst and one being the best The only good news is we have no sevens, but we have seven sixes Which is very poor and we have over 65 So that's a huge challenge for the campus with no clear Revenue stream to do that seismic work We also have gotten to a point where many of our laboratory buildings for STEM science technology engineering mathematics are Not in the shape that they need to be for our research and frankly to compete for faculty With our private peers So we have a real problem in the modernization of our laboratory And then of course there's the huge issue of housing and how few of our students we house and how Much a burden this is for our students who have to live in places that are too expensive too crowded on the very impacted Berkeley Oakland El Cerrito Markets for rentals, so that's really a challenge. Let me tell you a little bit about what we're doing on the capital side First of all our housing projects are moving forward. We have a wonderful wonderful donor developed project its name is now anchor house and indeed will be an anchor for our campus that will be right at the entrance to the campus on the corner of University and Oxford it will be for transfer students. It's such an exciting gift We have another gift that is going to be made to the campus where someone is building us in a part Development building for graduate students in Emeryville, and so that's also an incredibly Incredibly exciting development in January at the regents meeting. We're taking people's park to the regents So that is moving ahead in the planning And I think you all know it's going to be about a quarter of the site will use for permanent Supportive housing for the homeless a quarter of it for a commemorative park our own Walter hood Who just recently won a MacArthur genius award is going to be that doing the park design and about half of it for housing And then there are other things in the hopper too So we're moving as fast as we can for housing the one project that stalled is the upper Hearst project the one That's on the parking lot That's at the top of Hearst there because the city is suing us About the supplemental Environmental impact report that we had to do for that project. We cannot start construction on them project So that's the housing piece of it The campus piece of it is much much more complicated I think of it is like a giant chest gang or kind of Rubik's Cube We have to figure out how we can Strengthen our building seismically and other words do the seismic retrofits build whatever new facilities modernize whatever buildings we need to build and Minimize the number of moves that individual units Need to make So the building that we've set our sights on as the number one Seismic remediation project is Evans Hall That's one of our sixes. I don't think many tears will be shed for Evans We about what we have to do it's the reason we chose Evans as a six and it is the in terms of occupancy The biggest of our buildings that are our sixes and so we have to figure out a place to Put all the people and functions that are in Evans. So the first building we will build Will be a building on what what we're calling the Tolman site, but obviously we'll have another meaning that'll be a data science building and then we will build at the same time a Building that will have classrooms Academic L&S advising Mathematics and We haven't figured out where we're contemplating what the what the best site for that would be and then when we do those two Things then we can take down Evans. We're not going to build a new Evans in its place We'll probably build two smaller buildings, but that's kind of where we're where we're going in the most immediate future We have some those seismic ratings for the six buildings are They mean all kinds of different things for example Moffat Library is a six All it means is it has one pillar that needs reinforcement. That's about a ten million dollar project Not very expensive in the way those things go You know Durant is another six means the Stonework on the front isn't well enough attached to the building so that the seismic ratings mean a whole range of things from buildings that really have to be demolished like Evans and replaced to ones where the retrofit is pretty straightforward and Relatively I say relatively inexpensive there is going to be a bond issue on the State ballot at for the primary election. That's extremely important for our capital planning It's a 15 million dollar bond issue It's nine million for K-12 and two million each for the community how billion billion sorry I'm sure you get used to doing away with the zeros Makes it all seem more manageable And a Billion 15 billion and two billion each for the community colleges CSU and UC and that money will be distributed among the UC's All of our projects or many of our projects will have complex funding Arrangements, we will have of a philanthropic element to many of our buildings A long-term debt element now that our budget is balanced We can take out modest amounts of debt once again and a state funding component as well as a deferred maintenance Component so that's the kind of capital piece in in short Really really exciting news is that we are about to launch a Campaign the public phase of the campaign in which we've been counting for now six years The kickoff is going to be on February 29th 2020. I love it that it's a year that a day that comes once every four years and Our goal is going to be very ambitious for this campaign probably six billion dollars and We will expect to be halfway there by time by the time of a public kickoff and you just keep your You know ears open. We're going to have a lot of exciting announcements about about gifts and Then finally before we turn to Dan's questions and your questions I'm going to talk a bit about diversity This to me is one of the most important priorities. I have it is enormously complex to make progress on First there's a demographic element obviously. I think all of our campus populations Undergraduate student body graduate student body faculty and staff Must become more diverse and we're developing a strategy for each of those groups So there's the demographic element but then there's the experience that students have when they get here and That is going to take the community to solve I'm sure Dan will ask me questions about the Really offensive video that was posted by a student and the way in which it is deeply pained and grieved elements of our community. I think in large part because it's rubbed salt in the wound of The prejudice that some of our communities live with as part of their daily experience So I'm going to be having a set of conversations over the spring semester About our responsibilities to our community and for our community I think that particularly and I said this in my campus message in this world of easy cheap online communication Something offensive that somebody could say in a room Which somebody in the room can say something back and they can argue It becomes With the kind of digital Universe we live in something that's broadcast to millions of people and becomes viral very quickly that's so much harder a problem to solve and The consequences are so much less immediate to the Individual who who does it because they don't have to confront Whoever is in the room with them who may not Agree or may fuck with them or find what they've said deeply hurtful or offensive But let me stop there. I'm sure we'll talk more about this just for those of you in the back There are a number of seats in the front. Yes, don't be afraid come forward. Don't be afraid to sit in the front row Alrighty So I do want to follow up a little bit about the video Almost since the very beginning of your tenure You've talked about the importance you place on the sense of community and a sense of belonging Those from my time when I was in college I don't remember that being a priority and I don't remember that being a value that anybody I think paid a lot of attention to Why is it so important for you? And how does it connect and support the academic connect to and support the academic that's such an interesting question Dan And I think in part At Berkeley is a lot bigger now than it used to be 30% bigger since 2008 and That means it's an even more jostly place than it used to be In addition, it's a much more diverse campus. I think all to the good Than the campus that I joined in 1970 And that means that people come here with very different Experiences different identities different beliefs about the world and these can clash both, you know in classrooms in the social kinds of contexts or online and then Berkeley has become Something of a target as well on Berkeley is one of the few campuses in the United States where you can make the claim That history is happening here and that makes it a really attractive stage For people to come to and make whatever claim they want to make where they think they can get the headline because it's It's at at Berkeley So one of the things that we Say we're teaching our students and I think this goes for any college and university You're you're teaching students how to be in a community and That you probably most of you know, I was at Smith College very different place rural environment, you know About 2,900 students It's a very different thing building community at a small place Than a big place. That's like a city where there are a lot of neighborhoods and so trying to figure out how to do that How to make each of our communities each person in our community? Feel valued feel as if they belong here Seems to me so important and it's also extraordinarily difficult. I Can talk I can put on programs, but finally I'm not capable of creating a community for the 50 or 60,000 people Who make Berkeley their workplace or the place that they study? So it's something that's on all of us To try to figure out how we can make our community a Place everyone really values being in and feels valued It also feels I'm wondering if it feels to you a little bit at the moment a little Sisyphean the whole sort of quest given what's going on in the world beyond campus a era of polarization and anger We're moving into a national election period. We just had a conservative speaker on campus many of those who wanted to attend were subject to Extraordinary verbal abuse and physical harassment What are your concerns and thoughts as we move into what might even be a period of even more sort of heightened tension and friction? I think we're in a in a state of this is hardly an original thought We're but we're in a moment right now Nationally politically is probably worldwide in which people are really testing norms So kinds of things you wouldn't think that you would be able to say people are now Saying trying to say and the fact that the online space is so unaccountable it's held so unaccountable makes it easier and We are this moment of both intense polarization the fact that we're a stage and The fact that this is a time of testing We're it's going to be a trying time. I think for our campus and people's feelings many of them are extremely raw and hurt Didn't want to talk very much about the video itself because I think that the the It's it really was just an occasion for something that's way deeper than some very Misconceived hurtful individual students act but the student talked specifically about blacks about about gay people and about women and I've had many conversations with members of the black community Saying how much this pain them how much it hurt them how much it made them feel they didn't belong here and I've also had conversations, which I really regret.  It is not recognizing me It also took out after women and I've been thinking a lot why I just thought this is some silly incredibly Misconceived Young man's drunken rant Why didn't it affect me and I because I'm older and I'm secure and I'm powerful and I'm white and free to say Doesn't matter to me and it doesn't but that's not true of people who Feel that they exist in a marginalized position and somebody is saying you don't matter You don't count you don't deserve to exist in this community I just have one more question on this one will move on to other subjects and the questions that have come in from the audience One of the things you and I talked about when we were preparing for our conversation today You talk about this perceived gap between our stated values and our actions Unpack that a little bit and maybe share some thoughts about how to close that gap Is it through conversation or are there other things you're thinking about? Yeah, that's a wonderful question because I think all the time about how we're so I talk all the time about how Diversity is one of our central values. We're proud of our diversity at Berkeley but that whole Aspiration is Immediately seems hollow When we have any of a number of incidents not just this one that happened on the campus and people live Particularly people who are members of underrepresented groups live with a sense of Contradiction that we're not Where our words are asserting we aspire to be and that's a huge challenge for the campus and part This is numbers The black students are only 3% of our undergraduate population When I came to Berkeley as a faculty member in 1970 women were 3% of the faculty I know what it feels like to be 3% you feel like they're not very many people like you and And so that the numbers are really a problem But it's also how we all create community that's that's an issue Understood we're gonna move into your questions now and again if things occur to you things you want to ask in the course of the Conversation the cars remain on your chair fill them up hold them up to the first question What are we gonna do with the 60 million dollars? I'm afraid it's probably already spent I mean there are so many priorities that we have I were Enormously understaffed in L. S. And I should say this isn't 60 million continuing dollars. It's 60 million one time dollars We have law the legal expenses all the time. We have emergencies that happen like the power outages So I it's it really is even though it sounds like a lot any human being it Maybe except for Bill Gates or somebody It's just a drop in the bucket in terms of our expenses, which reminds me we're sort of I don't know exactly how many months we're into the You know a new Regime in Sacramento. What's your sense about where we are in terms of the possibility of additional state funding? What's the university's relationship like with this governor right now? This governor like the previous governor doesn't badmouth the university and we're very grateful for that He also is really ambitious For many things and I'm not sure the university is as high as some other things are on His list of priorities, but we have been really working the legislature There was quite wonderful meeting that John Perez who is the new chair of the Board of Regents Put together was a day and a half in San Diego Which he invited some leaders from the legislature three chancellors And I was one of the three that was invited as well as a few regions and we really had a meeting of the minds And so I think that it's not just the governor It's really the legislature to and changing the conversation with the legislature Next question. Is there any long-range plan to build more classrooms, especially large classrooms? Absolutely, there goes the 60 million Yeah, I the the building that we will build as half of the replacement for Evans will have many classrooms in it So will the replacement to Tolman? I was just talking with the Dean of the College of Natural Resources this morning Wellman is one of the the number sixes on our Seismic list and he was talking about his plans for renovation of Wellman and putting Restoring what used to be a 200 seat Amphitheater lecture room to that building. So we're very very aware There's another really interesting plan to try to create another performance space for Cal performances that would be a classroom when it's not being used for performances So we're very very focused on in all our building projects indeed. We've Identified it as a principle. There's no building project that will move forward that we won't put classrooms in So it was a few weeks ago. You created a little stir when you opined on the SAT blew up Twitter there for the afternoon You know casting some doubt about whether that should be part of the process and now you Unpack that a little bit too but the question here from the audience is can you speak to how you came to your recommendation to do away with the SAT in the application process? Yeah, I certainly can I went I was the provost here in the 90s when first the Regents passed as P1 and sp2 which prohibited among other things any use of gender race or ethnicity in admissions and then that later became enshrined in Proposition 209 on the state level and I saw at that point how the SAT really exaggerated the kind of Real drop in diversity That's the that that the University of California experienced at that point You met some of you may remember that Richard Atkinson who is the president at that point did a lot of study of the SAT Pat Hayashi who used to work on this campus was one of his really important partners in that study and What the the those these studies show which have continued to this day There's someone who works in our Center for Studies in higher education called Saul geyser Who's continued to do these studies and the most? Most important correlative with SAT scores is wealth And even when you strip out all the other correlatives, there's kind of racial correlative that you can't strip away You all know I'm sure about all the SAT prep resources that are available to parents who can pay And so I believe that the SAT does not create a level playing field For our students in their applications to the to the university when I was president of Smith I did away with the SAT as a requirement for application and we subsequently experienced a much larger and more diverse applicant pool and a much more diverse student body and Our admissions office didn't feel themselves in any way hampered in making judgments about the academic qualifications of of the applicants to Smith, so I Experienced what it means to make to go SAT optional and I think it's a good thing to do And so what's going on with the UC? Is there some sort of study group? Yeah? There's a study. There's the act you probably know that admissions are in the hands of the faculty so there is a group that is Studying the issue right now in the system-wide academic Senate. It's going to make a recommendation Fairly early in the new year February or March and then the Regents will act on that recommendation So staying with the admissions subject this question also from the audience the University of Texas system recruits a diverse student body by Giving admission to all Texas public high school students in the top ten percent to the UT system Those in the top seven percent are granted admission to the flagship UT Austin campus Is this a model the UC system or Berkeley could follow? What concrete steps is Berkeley taking to make the student body look more like the diverse population of California? Yeah, that's a great question. It in fact, we've done a lot of studying of this and It doesn't have the diversifying effect on our population that it had on the University of Texas in part because we're not as What are you referring to the top ten percent the top seven percent in part because we're not as racially and ethnically segregated as as Texas is I just actually met with the director of admissions yesterday asking that very question. What are we doing? and we're looking really really carefully at very diverse high schools that are particularly in our immediate neighborhood like Oakland Richmond, Berkeley And looking at those applicants really carefully We are redoubling our outreach efforts and will redouble our yield efforts to those schools I'm really delighted to say that there's been a very substantial increase in the diversity of our transfer pool of applicants this year though the Freshman applicants are pretty much the same in terms of diversity as as last year But I think this is going to be a multiple year project and Which we have to work not only on our outreach and yield but also on the culture that students experience when they come here I know you're going to be also sending out a talk stay same with admissions for a second There's going to be a campus message soon about some changes in how applications are read If you could talk about that a little bit and what what do you say to counter those who? fear the university is looking to end run proposition 209 So talk a little bit about those two things. Okay. Well, first of all, we made a new I apologize for this being kind of down in the weeds We it used to be when the readers would read applications the first thing they would see is the SAT score We're now putting that at the bottom of the application and Doing the profile stuff at the top We used to ask readers to say yes. No, maybe now We're saying recommend do not recommend partially, you know recommend so we're trying to change things about the reading process that will Make the readers or encourage the readers to take a more holistic view Challenges a student made of faith. Yes, exactly You know characteristics of the high school rather than right up front the numbers, which is the way that The reading process used to work We've changed the training of the readers, but we do not Take into account race or ethnicity or gender. We can't it's against law understood Staying with another complicated subject. This one is can you comment on implications for Berkeley regarding the administration the Trump administration's declaration? That Regarding anti-semitism that federal funds will be withheld from schools that don't provide that don't confront anti-semitism This was done under what's called title six title six offers protections for people based on race ethnicity And I for and nationality and there was concern in the Jewish community on one hand Parts of the Jewish community were seem pleased the administration is taking a stand against anti-semitism others concern that it Facilitates othering by suggesting that Jews are a nation apart. So what's what's what was your reaction to it? Do you think it's gonna have an impact here on campus? I I don't think it's gonna have much of an impact here on campus I've there's been a lot of debate in the press about the Contradiction between this presidential order and the presidential order to colleges and universities a little while ago again threatening federal funding taking away federal funding on and supporting academic freedom these are in contradiction with each other that that if you say This again gets way down in the weeds But if you take the definition that the presidential order has a Anti-semitism it would mean that anti-Israel statements are part of what is seen as anti-semitic yet you're certainly allowed to be critical of Israeli politics or or Support a Palestinian state or Palestinian liberation and free speech indeed It's one of the things that I say often to students and upsets them is you can say a lot of really Abhorrent things and they're protected by by the the First Amendment. So it's not I mean as with many things that the president is doing it seems to be more Motivated by a political goal than one that is actually good for colleges and universities But I actually don't think it's going to be Have much of an impact here Okay, moving into a different area. I'm always blown away by the full range of issues But you need to weigh it on so now we're gonna come back down to the ground level The question is is the problem is the housing problem severe enough that the campus is willing to engage in public conversations Regarding student affairs and here they're referring to the division of student affairs Student affairs reliance on housing revenue to support its programs rather than maintain existing Infrastructure or build new buildings. Yeah, I think that's a really important question and indeed it's a conversation we've been having privately and and one of the things that is absolutely wonderful about the These donor gifts we're getting for housing is that they will subsidize the cost of housing and enable us to make housing more affordable We're also pursuing other philanthropic gifts in regard to housing Another one next thanks for being here I understand you recently shared the Berkeley staff report on staff baby bonding leave with the UC council of chancellors How did they respond and what are the next steps any sense of when we might see a policy change? The all the other chancellors, I'm glad to say we're completely supportive as was the president She said get this done to the person who was the head of HR who was in the room And so I know it went to the vice chancellors for administration at their last meeting which I think was either yesterday of the day before yesterday and We're moving through that. There are a number of different ways to do this. What would be most preferable There's currently as many people may know a state law that stipulates that all State agencies as well as private organizations have to give a family leave and baby bonding leave But because the University of California is Constitutionally independent it doesn't apply to the University of California So we're going to need some kind of amendment to that state law to include the University of California That's as I understand it now That's the route that The office of the president wants to take and I just don't know how long that's all going to take We're gonna stay in the HR world here in the question Is some of us are forced to use vacation days during curtailment and some are not why not give us all the days off? Actually, I think that's a great idea Speaking as someone who has to use her vacation days Powerful but not that powerful I Think the I was certainly willing to take that issue up I think the complexity of it is that some people really do have to work over That that our campus let's backtrack a little bit when I was at Smith Smith really closed over a vacation It's completely closed. You couldn't do anything. Berkeley never really closes and so I I guess that You know, there would be an equity issue. You'd have to sort out. Maybe you just add to vacation days I actually think it's a good idea, but but I haven't had this conversation with anybody. So I I'm told that when I think something is a good idea that it is Sticking with this sort of same General subject as the question is as our student population grows. How do you plan to prioritize staff growth? especially in the student services side where students of Concern conflicts among student populations Demand more time to resolve. I I think student staff growth In student-facing staff has to be prioritized. I were under Invested I believe in advising staff where clearly there's a there's an Increasing demand for more counselors at the Tang Center and just student-facing staff I mean, it's not reasonable to think one of the things that I'm very concerned with sorry Restarting is that we have grown our student body as I said before by 30% we have not grown our faculty So too many students can't get classes can't get required classes We really need to grow the faculty and we have to grow the student-facing staff What are the plans on growing the faculty is that part of the campaign where that's that's part of the campaign in fact I should have said my opening remarks what the goals with the campaign are not just the new money goal, but the The the project goals we want to add at least a hundred faculty. We are Graduate student support is a very important goal for the campaign Because we are now no longer competitive with our private peers for our graduate student support packages and undergraduate scholarships and the kinds of programs that will enable students both to Navigate this very complex place better But also make sure that students who are on financial aid don't miss out on the kinds of Life-transforming experiences like doing research with a faculty member or having internships that really lead to future opportunities So those are some of the campaign priorities Got it Staying with money here. Is any additional funding or support being provided to retention centers on campus? And I cannot read the last word. I they gave an example of a retention center I'm not even sure what a retention center is if you could perhaps Explain well there there are all of them. There are many programs They're not a single program but all of the programs like EOP for example that provide resources or the student learning center that Provide resources and counseling for students that help them thrive at Berkeley We just got a wonderful wonderful grant from the Haas junior a foundation of ten million dollars A lot of that is going to retention efforts. We got another grant from the correct foundation Some of that is going to be used for retention connected efforts. I'm just curious You were talking about fundraising at different points throughout the conversation What's the main narrative when you meet with somebody who's potentially a very significant donor and they're interested and they want to know What's going on with Berkeley? Where is the head? What's sort of what's the one of the high points of what you convey what you want them to understand? What I talk about is very much where I've talked about here. I talk about my aspirations for the campus I try to get them to understand the Lack of equity of experience of our students. I talk about our great needs for Facilities and science and engineering many people think that Fundraising is like going in with a shopping list or going to an ATM And that's really not the case that it's a conversation and people who have enormous capacity and inclination to give think of the gifts that they give as their legacy in The world and they have to be deeply meaningful to them So it's not as if I go in and ask I want funding for LNS advising It's really a conversation in which I try to understand what's important to you about Berkeley What do you want to see for this university that you value so much and then we try to find a meeting of the minds of of things that meet the donors aspirations And things that the university indeed You know fit with the university's aspirations got it Let's see so here's first a thank you for UNIX unlimited courses in 2020 and this is what staff yes Yeah, yeah, that's great And I want to say how that arose which is I've been having a set of lunches at the Chancellor's house for the Elected union representatives and we of course can't talk about collective bargaining issues But we've been talking about their experience of working on the campus and things they'd like to see and This suggestion came from a lunch when we were talking about UNIX courses, and I remember a woman Talking so eloquently saying now we're only allowed to take courses that relate to our Work and can increase our expertise of whatever her job is. She said I'm a janitor There aren't any courses about being a janitor and I would love to take courses that would increase my you know The capacities that I have that would enable me to do a different kind of job And we really took this seriously another suggestion that came out of that lunch was ESL classes for employees who are Where who where English is a second language, so we've got some really good suggestions so I want to give credit to The employees who thought of this idea and then the the same person had a follow-up which Asking if tuition reimbursement will be offered for staff if the classes or master programs are taken outside. You see birth I don't think that's gonna happen. I that was I when I was at Smith I think the most valued benefit we offered our employees. You got half tuition for your kids no matter where they went But I don't think that's gonna. I don't think that's gonna happen here what I hope I have a meeting actually Later this week about this. I really hope that we're going to create a system-wide program whereby Employees who have not finished their Bachelor's degrees kind of finish their bachelor's degrees while they work Back to money and infrastructure are the seismic costs We need to address part of the two billion dollars in deferred maintenance or is that no it's in addition They've number that rose keeps quoting as our capital need is 13 billion dollars Yeah, that's a big number. We can that is a big number that is a big number two billion is two You know and speaking about budget reminds me of something else, you know for many years and for people who've been on campus for a while There have been issues with the athletics budget and I know that was a priority for you in the athletic director Where where are we that is there an agreement? Do you feel where the program is now been set on a financially sustainable course? Can you update us? Yes, the athletics budget is balanced in addition to the campus's budget Though I want to explain what that means because for years for decades athletics has been running a deficit deficit in excess of ten million dollars extending to twenty million dollars and more recent years and Every year the campus would pay that deficit So it wasn't as if it was a deficit like if you run a deficit, you know What accumulates and you ultimately like on your credit card you ultimately have to pay it plus interest This deficit was one that the campus paid for every year so one of the things that I realized was that We were actually budgeting athletics at a much larger figure Than was the putative campus contribution, which was five million dollars And I realized that the campus had not been being honest with itself That if it wanted an athletic program of the size scope and ambition of our current athletic program It's simply cost more in terms of a campus contribution To run that program then we were admitting to ourselves at cost Even though we were in fact budgeting it at that level because we were you know buying We were paying for the deficit year by year so Jim and I have lots and lots of meetings and We have agreed on an athletics budget with an increasing set set of a set of increasing both revenue and philanthropic targets Ultimately in about four or five years We're coming down to a campus contribution of 13.3 million dollars a year Which to give you kind of a sense of scale in the athletics budget That's about the size of the financial aid for our athletes. That's it's an athletic budget So you can think of us the campus is paying the equivalent of the financial aid that we offer our athletes And just to ask the obvious it feels like these are costs that you believe to be commensurate with the benefits that accrue to the campus Yes community I do I've been thinking a lot. I was not a big athletics fan before I became chancellor and the the But I've been so moved by there weren't a lot of opportunities in our lives to feel part of a group with which you identify and Games are one of those places where you do and I think it really has a An important community building Virtue the most important thing about athletics is the opportunities it gives our students to compete at an Extraordinarily high level of excellence across a broad range of sports and I've become convinced that it really is a front porch For many of our donors who don't give Certainly exclusively or even sometimes principally to athletics But athletics is the way they come together with the campus. So it's very important to our Philanthropy not philanthropy to just athletics Philanthropy to the campus more generally so before we started to suggest that I might ask you about the big game But I didn't notice what color This is This is one of the few days You're allowed to wear red. I'm so sad. I love red My wardrobe I studiously avoid the most of the year But I tell you there are three times when you can wear red just to give you all permission You can wear it at around Christmastime. You can wear it at Chinese New Year's and on Valentine's Day The red exemptions Okay, I won't ask about the big game No, but the axis on campus We have time for just a few more we'll try to get to them So this one is the world seems quote with STEM crazy these days What is Berkeley doing to help the liberal arts and the humanities survive and thrive? I? Want to say that one of Berkeley's great Great distinctions is its strength across the board in its academic programs. There is not a a Problem that's important to the future of the state the country and the world In which the humanities and the social sciences are not important partners in solving Take crisper So obviously in a very intensive STEM Scientology set of discoveries But the policies that apply to what's used the ethics of its use those are questions for humanists for philosophers Climate change obviously STEM intensive area But how you get people to change their behavior how do you get governments to change their behavior? What a good public policies those are Really social science kinds of topics and humanist topics so I I think Berkeley has a competitive edge because of the strength of its social sciences and humanities the Data science initiative on which is so important for the campus is as important to the social sciences as it is to the STEM disciplines It's also important to the humanities But probably not as central as it is to social sciences because the humanities don't work as fully with data. I Have to tell a funny story So there was a wonderful faculty member in English when I first arrived here named Josephine Miles and She her research was all about word frequency and she had armies of students who would page through Counting words and now you know that kind of research is actually important kind of research in the humanities word frequency But if they don't have students turning pages of counting words anymore So I'm gonna bundle up the last couple of questions But you may not know what I think you have a family member in the audience because this card says why are you so amazing? And do you sleep was the second part I do I do I read a book that changed my life And I want to tell all of you to read it or out over the holidays It's why you why we sleep by Matthew Walker and it talks about how important sleep is I tell students this all the time sleep eight hours a night and you should all do too and I try to All right, so I'm gonna bundle these together But and I think you'll get the general thrift thrust here and just if you could sort of riff on the general idea Three separate questions, but they're really all touching the same thing. What has been the most difficult decision you've made in 2019 what outcome are you most proud of in 2019 and then a separate question said you've been in leadership roles for a long time What new lessons have you learned about successful leadership in your role as chancellor?  Tackled or maybe most wary about in the future Oh gosh, that's such a huge question. It is that I one of the things I've learned is that you have to gather a really good team around you and Make them responsible and accountable for the things you care about these jobs are huge and no one person can Do it all. I've also learned the importance of decisiveness That often the perfect is the enemy of the good and making a decision with reasonable promptness and efficiency Even if it's not the perfect decision enables you to move forward I think the things that I'm proudest of in That's such a complicated question I really so thrilled with some of the philanthropic gifts that we've gotten I don't think of those as decisions really, but they certainly have been relationships that have come to just extraordinary Extraordinary actions and those are really wonderful. Some of the toughest decisions I make or ones I can't discuss on this forum because they have to do with Personnel issues or so that those are those are And there was a third question and I'm forgetting it I forget too, but is it fun being chance. I mean do you wake up and say I can't wait to go to work or it's like Oh another day drinking from the fire hose Every day when I get in my car I say to myself of my father used to say when he left for work another day another dollar There are things that are enormously There there are things that are enormous fun and being chancellor. They're more important to me They're things that are enormously gratifying to me when you are Talking to someone who is going to give an extraordinary gift to the campus and is so thrilled about this gift And what it's going to accomplish That is an incredible thrill or when you see something moving forward that you care deeply about That's an enormous thrill. I mean there are certain daily days when I come home and I think why did I did do this job? Yeah, I know those days So before we wrap up I have one more card. I actually wanted to read our the next campus conversations January January 21 and we'll be joined here by our men and women's basketball coaches both of whom are new to campus and Really really interesting people. I'm gonna read the last card, which isn't a question But I'm gonna go out on the limb because I think it may capture what a lot of us think and feel It says thank you for this series of talks and question and answer I feel I'm more a part of the campus and enjoy getting to know some of the people helping to steer this big ship Thanks to everyone and I also want to say particularly thanks to what don do ball who helps put these together And I also just want to thank you chancellor Chris once again for your time in general


AutopiMS is a single-ion MS-based multiplexed workflow for top-down tandem MS directly from tissue microenvironments in a semi-automated manner that allows for the identification of 73. Protea forms up to 54 KDA at a rate of less than one minute per protea form, and can be interfaced with multi-faceted protea form imaging MS data modalities for the identification of protea form signatures in tumour and stromal regions in ovarian cancer biopsies. From a total of 1,000 protea forms detected by region of interest label-free quantitation, AutopiMS discovers 303 differential protea forms in stroma versus tumour from the same patient, with 14 of the top protea form signatures corroborated by MSI at 20 micron resolution including the differential localization of methylated forms of CIP1. This article was authored by John P. McGee, Pesu, Kenneth Adubin and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


This is ComNet. Major disasters in a community can overload the capabilities of responders. Stacy Phillips looks at the Citizen Corps, the different programs they offer, and how they'll be useful during an emergency. The Environmental Protection Agency offers training to personnel who are likely to be first on the scene of a terrorist incident. Jenny Dean looks at the EPA's comprehensive program for protecting the public and the environment from hazardous materials. Responders will rely on various types of mechanical equipment during an emergency. John Eastman meets with public works officials to talk about the role of heavy equipment during a terrorist incident. ComNet is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Coming to you from the facilities of the National Terrorism Preparedness Institute at the Southeastern Public Safety Institute of St. Petersburg College, here are Al Rochelle and Jennifer Holloway. Hello everyone and welcome to ComNet, the communications, news, equipment and training magazine. This program presents weapons of mass destruction related awareness information for the nation's civilian and military response communities. ComNet is being distributed over government and commercial information networks and is being streamed over the worldwide web at terrorism.sbcollege.edu. We invite you to visit the NTPI website for further details on the information provided during today's program. Continuing education units can be earned for viewing ComNet programs. To register for those CEUs, go to the NTPI website and click on the Continuing Education Units link under training. This link will take you through the registration and login process. Now after you log in, you'll be able to view program videos, take the program exam and fill out an evaluation form. With an exam grade of 75% or better, you will immediately receive an online CEU certificate. After viewing ComNet, please complete a viewer evaluation of the program because your input and comments are very important to us. Major disasters in a community can overload the capability of first responders, especially during the first 12 to 72 hours of the response. Stacy Phillips looks at the Citizen Corps, the different programs they offer and how they will be useful during an incident. Statistics tell us there is one firefighter for every 280 people. One sworn officer for every 385 people and one EMT or paramedic for every 325 people. Clearly, there are not enough first responders out there to take care of every person involved in a disaster or large-scale catastrophe. Citizen Corps, born out of the tremendous outpour of support that people gave to the 9-11 incident, is providing a way to relieve this burden on the first responder. Citizen Corps is a national program adopted by the states to provide volunteer opportunities to the citizens to make a difference in homeland security, emergency preparedness, and be a difference to first responders to assist them in their times of need. The three things that we're really trying to push with Citizen Corps is that everyone has some type of personal responsibility to be prepared that they should take some type of training in order to help them be prepared whether it's the cert training or first aid training that's offered by Red Cross or one of our many other partners just so they know what to do in types of an emergency and then also to give back through some type of volunteer effort. Having citizens who are better prepared to take care of themselves and others during times of crisis will allow first responders to focus their efforts on the most critical life-threatening situations. The more people that we can train in the basic life-saving techniques that are essential to them in those first critical hours of a disaster, it will be more beneficial to those individuals, to the community in general, and to the first responders specifically. If you don't take the steps early on with preparing yourself, having first aid supplies, water supplies and disaster times, it's going to be a long time before help can get there if a major disaster occurs. We are really changing the culture. We are saying with Citizen Corps, it is no longer a viable option to say that first responders are going to do it all and that preparedness is something they do to the constituents of their community. I really want to reiterate that Citizen Corps and getting people trained and prepared and getting the volunteers in a local community geared up is in no way ever meant to supplant the wonderful, tremendous work that is done by the professional emergency responders. Citizen Corps is a national network of state, local and tribal Citizen Corps councils, which bring together leaders from the relevant sectors of the community to coordinate the Citizen Corps effort. Councils are primarily the elected officials of the municipality, the community leaders from the various civic groups or other organizations that are active in the community. All of those logical people, the chief of police, the fire chief, the emergency management coordinator, the public works officials, the mayors, the church leaders and the civic organizations, the news media. All of those people would logically have a representation on the Citizen Corps council. So your first step is to create a council that reflects the needs, the threats and the risks of your community. And then you take the council and the council then helps you at the local level. They help the local leaders say, this is what we need to do. We at the state level want to promote the use of volunteers during disasters. It's a critical role that they play. It's a role that has been proven. And more and more we're seeing local emergency management and even state emergency management being able to do things today that we were never able to do because we have volunteers that are able and ready to assist us. We can go to as recent as our 2004 hurricane season, which was the largest voluntary agency activation in the history of natural disasters. When we had over 140,000 volunteers in our state, this is a feat that is unparalleled. There are people that have suffered and weathered a tremendous storm and have literally nothing. And then there are volunteers that are coming there to help to offer emergency needs in terms of food and water and ice, but then also to help them rebuild their homes, to help them get back to a state that they were as close as possible before storms impacted. The purpose of the Citizen Corps Councils is to develop methods for providing public education and training opportunities in addition to organizing volunteer programs. One way to accomplish this is through affiliates and program partners. We currently have 22 affiliate organizations and an affiliate organization is primarily a non-profit or another government organization that is national in scope and that could provide resources to the state and local level to advance the mission of hometown and homeland security. For example, we work very closely with the Red Cross. The Red Cross has been there a lot longer than we have. They have tremendous resources. Many of our local councils have actually turned to their Red Cross chapter and asked the Red Cross chapter to run their Citizen Corps Council. Red Cross, as part of their overall Citizen Corps effort, they were actually conducting disaster preparedness courses for the hearing impaired. We encourage that type of partnership. There are right now, there are five Citizen Corps programs. The Community Emergency Response Teams, or CERT, the Medical Reserve Corps, the Neighborhood Watch Program, the Volunteers in Police Services, and a newly indoctrinated program called the FIRE Corps, which was just announced in December of 2004. One of the Citizen Corps' program partners, the Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, educates people about disaster preparedness and trains them in basic disaster response skills. Using their training, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event and can take a more active role in preparing their community. Another program partner, the Medical Reserve Corps, is made up of medical and public health professionals and other volunteers who offer their expertise throughout the year, as well as during local emergencies and other times of community need. MRC volunteers work in coordination with existing local emergency response programs and also supplement existing community public health initiatives. An expanded Neighborhood Watch Program incorporates terrorism awareness education into its existing crime prevention mission. It also serves as a way to bring residents together to focus on emergency preparedness and emergency response training. Volunteers in Police Service, or VIPS, is a program partner that works to enhance the capacity of state and local law enforcement to utilize volunteers. VIPS also serves as a gateway to resources and information about law enforcement volunteer programs. The newest program partner, FIRE Corps, creates a connection between the fire department and the community. It provides a vehicle for citizens to find out which fire departments in their area are looking for help and provides resources to create and sustain FIRE Corps programs in their community. Citizens can assist local fire departments in different areas, such as fire safety outreach, youth programs, and administrative support. We started FIRE Corps in response to the fire community coming to us and saying there really is not a program that's under the Citizen Corps umbrella that really speaks directly to the fire community. We are very excited and in less than two months, they have over 150 fire departments that have signed up online to become part of FIRE Corps around over 2,000 volunteers that have been reported in just two months. All of these programs have wonderful websites and the way that anyone who is watching can get their community registered is to go to the websites and register their programs. You do not need to create a new organization to start Citizen Corps. There may be an existing group in your community that includes many of the appropriate participants. For example, a local emergency planning committee could take the lead in implementing Citizen Corps in your area. You can actually subscribe and register your Citizen Corps Council online. We encourage everyone to go to the website. The easy portal is www.citizencorps.gov. It will take you to all the other sites. We list all the other sites to numerous to mention here, but we've made it very easy to register and we are encouraging people to register their programs. The process again, it takes literally two minutes to sign up on the web. You must state who your sponsor is and it must be someone in local government, elected official. Then we send that over electronically to the state. The state point of contact is actually the one who vets the council and once they check off the box, it goes up automatically on the website and you could see where all the councils are because it's updated on the website. I think the thing to remember is that America is a very big country and it's a country with people who have a lot of skills and they want to know how to be better prepared and our goal is if we can get one neighborhood at a time to be better prepared, then communities are better prepared and then the state and then the country is better prepared so we think everyone has a role in hometown security. We live in a different world than we did before 9-11. Today, citizens are more aware of the threats we are faced with, more thankful for our freedoms and more understanding that they have a personal responsibility for the safety of their communities and the nation. With Citizen Corps, people are better prepared to protect themselves. They can help reduce the impact an emergency has on their lives and also help the first responder in those critical first hours. Coming up, we'll take a closer look at one of the Citizen Corps program partners, the Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Developed by the Secretary of Homeland Security at the request of the President, the National Incident Management System integrates effective practices in emergency preparedness and response into a comprehensive framework for incident management. On the next live response, we'll look at the National Incident Management System and see how it can enable responders to work together more efficiently. Live response airs Wednesday, March 23 at 2 p.m. Eastern. For more information on viewing, make sure to register online at terrorism.spcollege.edu. When emergencies happen, Community Emergency Response Team members will be able to provide critical support to responders. Stacey Phillips continues her look at the Citizen Corps and focuses on the CERT program. In the event of an emergency, a disaster, your local resources, fire, EMS, police can be overwhelmed. People at home, they see a disaster on TV and they often want to help. Most of them write a check. Some of them want to get physically involved, but may not have the time to, you know, to donate to the training it would take to become a fireman or an EMT or a police officer. CERT is a condensed program that allows the average person enough information and enough basic training to be able to pick up some of the loose ends and take up some of the slack when your town's services are overwhelmed. Following a major disaster, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be able to meet the demand for these services. One way the Citizen Corps can be used to address this need is through the Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT. The Community Emergency Response Team concept was developed by the Los Angeles City Fire Department in 1985 with the purpose of training citizens for disasters. The Emergency Management Institute and the National Fire Academy adopted the concept and expanded the CERT training. The Community Emergency Response Teams are intent on building a group of citizens into an organized response team that can assist in a disaster. If there is a disaster, people already have a good proclivity to come out and to volunteer and to want to help. The problem that government officials have is we don't know who these people are, we don't know what skills they have, and we don't know how they can assist. So if they're not an organized resource that we have dealt with and helped to train and identify, then their value is somewhat limited and inhibited to the emergency and disaster scene. Everyone that shows up at the scene wants to help. But when people do that as a spontaneous type responder, in reality they may become more of the problem than the solution. The CERT program educates citizens about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their neighborhoods and trains them in basic disaster response skills. As the CERT concept has taken hold across the country, it has become much more than originally envisioned. CERT members have proven themselves to be an active and vital part of their communities preparedness and response capability. The community itself benefits greatly. One, it ties all those neighbors together who may not have known each other other than seeing each other in the morning as they drive out of the neighborhood. People get to know each other's names and what their capabilities are and what the community actually has and what they can do if something were to happen within their neighborhood. CERT members undergo eight weeks or 20 hours of training that includes disaster preparedness, fire suppression, search and rescue, basic medical operations and terrorism awareness. We usually start off the students with a representative from emergency management. It tells them about tornadoes and hurricanes, etc.  Then we have two weeks of medical operations or medical ops.  How to quickly triage a person. What does triage mean? Pressure points. How can you put a 4x4 bandage on just to hold the pressure on so the bleeding stops? Then we have our fire marshal who teaches about fire suppression and hazards out in the real world and in the home. What are these placards on these trucks that we see on our highways all the time? How to properly use a fire extinguisher or not use a fire extinguisher. If you have a fully involved home, you want to call 911. What we teach in terrorism awareness is a couple things. First of all, we always stress to the CERT teams because they're not going to be equipped. They don't go into a terrorist event. It's like a stop sign to them. But what we stress to them is the types of terrorist weapons that are being used. We give them a little insight into each of these weapons and we teach them what to look for as far as when a terrorist event has occurred. The environmental factors, the physical factors you're going to see and what to do. We try to stress to them to time, distance and shielding. Get far away from the incident as you can and shield yourself from any type of terrorist event. It's important for them to know when to not do anything and that it's important and just as important to not do anything. By standing back and watching a situation and just absorbing information, they can then turn around to the incident commander whether it be fire, police, EMS, whoever gets there on scene first, they can relate to them what's going on. The training also includes a disaster exercise in which participants practice the skills they learn throughout the course. Periodic refresher sessions are also an important part of the training and help keep members up to date with their skills. The hard part as with working with any volunteer organization is the retention then and keeping their interests. So we try to bring people back up for a cert research as it were to bring them up and show them a new technique, something new that they can do, whether it be simple knots that they can work with to different tools they might be able to use if they had them available to them. Community emergency response teams require a public and private partnership and will be an investment of a community's time and resources. To capitalize on this investment, responders should view cert members as a trained volunteer resource that can assist their neighborhoods or even their workplaces with safety activities. We emphasize that cert team members should come from the community so that they are available in their community for a local disaster. Here in New Jersey, we have organized our state workers into state workplace-based community emergency response teams. And the training is standardized throughout the state so that if they are trained in cert in the workplace, they are equally trained and capable of joining or becoming the nucleus to start a cert team in their hometown community. So there's a double benefit there. They're a workplace-related cert and a home-based cert. What they're doing is they're allowing us time to really do things we need to do and focus on the patients that truly need us. They could do those tasks where they could secure a perimeter. They could do triage for us. So now when we get there, they've already triaged a group of people so we can now focus our attention on the immediate people that need immediate treatment. The primary reason for cert training is to give people the skills to offer immediate assistance to family members, neighbors, and associates while waiting for help. If there was an area that perhaps first responders would not get to, that if it was a large-scale disaster that impacted more than one community or perhaps the eastern coast, all of the emergency responders would be overwhelmed and who would be first and who would be last in line? Would you like to be the last person waiting for the emergency response team or the EMT to come to you? If there were people in the community that knew those basic life-saving skills, they would certainly be a valuable resource. Congress has provided funds for local communities to start cert programs through the Citizen Corps. Some communities build the cost of cert training into their local budget while others charge participants to cover the costs of instructors and course materials. CERT is about readiness, people helping people and doing the greatest good for the greatest number. It is a positive and realistic approach to emergency situations to be initially on their own and their actions can make a difference. I think the concept of CERT follows a national tradition. This country is based on volunteerism from early colonial times. Citizens came out and put their lives on the lines in times of emergencies in military situations. Taking that down to today, it's still following that tradition and you don't have to be immensely physically fit. We have a number of people in our group who actually have disabilities and there's many many things that you can do to contribute. If we can get people organized and identified and trained so that they are ready and able to respond in that organized fashion they will become a tremendous asset to the community. The enforcement, the fire and the medical people will be familiar with them will know what their skill sets are specifically what they can do to help what they can be called upon to do and how to best utilize those people in an emergency situation. Over the next two years the CERT program aims to double the number of participants with over 400,000 individuals completing the 20 plus hours of training. Now if you'd like to be a part of CERT and if you'd like more information on any of the Citizen Corps programs just visit the NTPI website. And now it's time for Responder News, Jen. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the completion of the National Response Plan or NRP. This plan was developed by experts from all around the nation with input from all levels of the response community. It uses the National Incident Management System which simplifies multi-jurisdictional interaction. This is achieved by establishing standardized training, organizational structure and communication procedures. After full implementation response agencies will be able to integrate the federal response to catastrophic events, facilitate emergency mutual aid and improve their coordination and integration with other agencies. The NRP also gives private and non-profit institutions a detailed template for planning their own preparedness activities. The transition to the National Response Plan will not happen instantaneously or without support. To help fine-tune the process, Michael D. Brown, who serves as the Under-Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Emergency Preparedness and Response announced the launch of IS-800. This independent study course available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Emergency Management Institute should aid those responsible in implementing the NRP. The new training course is designed to introduce emergency management practitioners to the National Response Plan. Upon completion, participants should be able to identify the organizational structure used for coordination, describe the NRP's purpose, locate information within the NRP and identify the incident management activities addressed by the NRP. California researchers have developed a new weapon for against terrorism. The Autonomous Pathogen Detection System or APDS is capable of detecting and identifying three different types of biological agents. This biological smoke detector tests the air for unsafe bacteria, viruses and toxins. It is the only field system that has two independent molecular biological tests which reduces the probability of false positives. The system provides sufficient evidence to trigger public health actions and is capable of detecting anthrax, plague and botulinum toxin. Tested at the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the APDS performs the same test as molecular biologists which will help protect high-traffic areas like airports, office buildings and sports arenas from potential bioterrorist attacks. With thousands of people passing through their doors daily these structures are prime targets for terrorists. Thanks to the APDS the authorities can detect contaminants earlier which will limit exposure and reduce the number of victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has launched a $6.7 million truck program to improve the response capabilities of its disaster medical assistance teams. These trucks will help them respond to disasters within 12 hours. A total of 93 trucks will be delivered to 31 different DMATs over the next year. They will be used to haul field supplies and medical equipment. The first truck was delivered to a DMAT team from San Bernardino, California after being built at an assembly plant in Three Rivers, Texas. The Center for Ocean Technology at University of South Florida's College of Marine Science has developed a sonar-based anti-terrorism device that produces three-dimensional color images. The mobile inspection package or MIP was most recently used as part of Jacksonville Sheriff's Office efforts to maintain Jacksonville's port security during Super Bowl 39. The MIP consists of a suite of sonar detectors combined with a survey quality navigation system that allows the data to be geodynamically referenced. That data recorded on board the RV Gilbert was sent in real time to the MIP Command and Control Center on board the Suncoaster Research Vessel. After a baseline view was established during the initial scanning of the vehicles and cruise ships in the St. John's River, changes could be immediately detected during the subsequent scans. Daily targets were scanned for suspicious features. These targets were further inspected by a fully automatic underwater robot called the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle or AUV. The AUV and the MIP are capable of scanning 3,000 linear feet in 10 minutes, whereas a team of divers would need hours to do the same job. The Nevada Hospital Association successfully completed the nation's first civilian test of the portable hospital structures initially used by the military. The freestanding hospital called a Disaster Medical Facility greatly increases Nevada's ability to manage the surges in demand for hospital care that often accompanies natural disasters and terrorist attacks. The 50 Bed Facility was designed and is modeled after the Rapid Response Field Hospitals currently being used by the U.S. military in the war in Iraq. The civilian models are fully operational within 24 hours of an event and can remain functional for the duration of an incident. The Disaster Medical Facility is completely self-sufficient and equipped to support advanced level medical care like surgeries and trauma services. Their capabilities also include intensive care units and isolation and treatment of patients exposed to biological agents. The Department of Homeland Security's congressionally mandated National Counterterrorism Exercise series known as Top Off began with January's Advanced Distance Learning Exercise. ADLE is comprised of videos from the training library of the Office for Domestic Preparedness, the Top Off 3 Command and Control Seminar, and distance learning programs at the National Terrorism Preparedness Institute. ADLE provided preparation for the Top Off 3 full-scale national exercise that will take place in April, 2005. Our partners in Top Off 3 are the State of New Jersey, the State of Connecticut, the United Kingdom, Canada and the private sector. I cannot speak highly enough or give enough praise to those cities and states and local communities that take this on. It takes a lot of guts for a politician to step forth and say, look, I'm going to take the way I do business, the way we do business, and we're going to open it up for all the world to see knowing, knowing that when this is over we're going to be so much better as a community, we're going to be so much better as a city, we're going to be so much better as a state, and we're going to be so much better as a nation because of the efforts that we're putting forth here. The archives of the training are available on the Lessons Learned Information Sharing website through the completion of the Top Off 3 exercise. The National Terrorism Preparantist Institute of St. Petersburg College held a symposium entitled Dealing with the Psychological Aftermath of Terrorism. It was held in January. That seminar, sponsored by the Office of Domestic Preparedness, was free to first responders. Including Oklahoma City Fire Department Major Chris Fields, who responded to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. The firefighters are used to arriving on the scene that's out of control, getting under control and going back to the station, and that didn't happen. So I think that was a little bit of a effect of the psyche of some of some firemen. There's quite a few that had suffered some bad effects from it, and I believe it's just because they probably didn't have an outlet, you know, whether they didn't want to open up at the station, you know, most firemen you have to keep that macho image, you know, can't let the walls down and which a lot of them did on this, which I think helped a bunch of them, but there was a few you know, personal friends of mine that struggled through it. The Environmental Protection Agency offers training to personnel who are likely to be first on the scene of a terrorist incident. Comnet visited the EPA's Environmental Response Training Program to find out more about their training for protecting the public and the environment from hazardous materials. In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, also known as Super Fund. This was in direct response to the events in Love Canal, New York. Suddenly, hazardous waste was at the forefront of the nation's conscience. 21 years later, the 9-11 tragedy brought the EPA back into the limelight with terrorism rapidly becoming a new reality. The brave men and women who deal with hazardous waste must put their own health and safety first in order to do their job. And there is a training program that enables them to learn how to protect not only the community, but themselves as well. The Environmental Response Training Program has the responsibility for training the Super Fund community on how to respond to hazardous waste and hazardous materials releases. The training program started back in the late 1970s when the Super Fund program was initiated. And EPA as they were developing expertise in remediating Super Fund sites wanted to get that expertise out to other federal responders and to state and local communities. Typically the courses are they could be for a college educated environmental scientist working for the EPA or the state organization who although has a technical background may not know the specifics of how to apply those technical skills onto a hazardous waste site. What we do is we provide training that most other federal and state local agencies can't because of the amount of equipment and supplies that are needed. We try to give them the tools necessary that if they had to respond to an emergency, an accident, a trained derailment, a spill that they would have the necessary tools and skill to adequately and properly mitigate that situation. The Emergency Response Training Program or ERTP has facilities in Cincinnati, Ohio, Edison, New Jersey and a new facility under construction in Las Vegas, Nevada. They have trained more than 7,000 students in 2003 including courses in Russia, Lithuania and Australia. The current schedule includes 136 offerings of 19 courses with a mobile training program that's able to travel throughout the country. The United States is divided up into 10 EPA regions and these courses that we do go around to at least each region once sometimes twice a year and so we try to have it set up that way that people that can sign up for it will make it cost effective that we don't just have two or three people in the class that we have 20 or 30, we've got a full class so by having the schedule and going in a certain schedule every year people know that we're going to be there and what classes we're going to teach when. We have the capability of taking the entire course, all the instrumentation all the health and safety equipment and actually deliver it on location to a state or a local community that needs our training. One of the courses offered by the ERTP is emergency response to hazardous material incidents. This course provides response personnel with the information needed to control the release or potential release of hazardous materials. It's intended for response personnel who are currently on or planning to join a hazardous materials response team. Some key points addressed in the course include recognizing and evaluating a hazardous materials incident organizing the response team protecting response personnel using response resources and protecting the public. The emergency response to hazardous materials incidents is a course designed to prepare people to be a hazardous materials technician. The course covers the health and safety aspects of entering into a release of hazardous chemicals. It informs the students about the proper selection of personal protective equipment and the use of air monitoring instruments and decontamination. It's a 40 hour course and it's designed to run the students through the necessary steps learning how to wear personal protective equipment, how to use air monitoring instruments properly, how to put on a self-contained breathing apparatus, how to use an air purifying respirator. Once that they've learned the basics then we start to give them labs and exercises to perform that training and we as the instructors give them a critique and say well this was done correctly you might want to do this a little better. Students at the ERTP not only learn in the classroom but also go out in the field to apply their acquired classroom knowledge in staged hazardous materials incidents. Health and safety are stressed in all courses and hands on experience includes the use of combustible gas detectors and oxygen meters and detectors. Our courses are designed to be hands on courses. We take the students we teach them the theory behind instruments but they actually get to use the instruments in the field. The students very much enjoy that aspect of the training course. That's a very important part of the training to actually to learn the skills necessary to work on site. We've found that the students if they have to sit for 8 hours they get kind of fidgety they lose concentration so by talking about what they're going to do and then actually having them do it that makes the day kind of more memorable. The first day they're in their street clothes they have the instruments they turn them on they have no gloves on. The second day when they learn about personal protective equipment and now they're actually going to have to use those instruments with different types of protective equipment so we make it a little bit more difficult. And then after we've talked about that maybe the third day we have them do some monitoring and not so much in a classroom but maybe a type of either outside where there's some drums or in an area where it's a little bit more difficult to take the readings so we try to use the same instruments but each time give them a little bit more difficult scenario to try to achieve. The environmental response training program is designed not only for the first responder community but for anyone with a technical background who may wish to apply their skills for the good of the community as well. We have a lot of state people like the state of Ohio they're EPA people in particular they're new high-ease they've been to college they've got a technical background in science in some way now they need to know the specifics of how to correctly do their job. In our emergency response course we do a lot of training for firefighters and they may be very well knowledgeable as far as fighting a fire but as far as handling chemicals and the right way to handle them the safety procedures that they need we try to give them the methods and the procedures to do it correctly. Because classes are generally full and the demand for training in the hazardous waste field is high the ERTP in cooperation with the EPA has developed the external provider program. The result is an increase in the number of training courses available to people who respond to hazardous materials emergencies. A good example of an external provider is a community college or perhaps a fire academy or a training consultant firm that has training does performs training in the environmental area. The external provider program was developed because our main focus is to train federal state and local government employees so that puts the private sector as forth on the list so if the classes fill up the private sector they do not get to take our courses. So in order to give them the same type of training what the EPA has done has looked for companies that do training that are competent. If the training institution has the right skills we will actually give them all the training materials the we'll give them the manuals the student manuals the overheads the entire training package that they can actually deliver to their own people on their own location. The training is provided free of cost for other federal organizations for state and local responders. The only cost associated with our training is for private companies. For those who are interested in training for the EPA or learning how to deal with hazardous waste materials but don't have the resources to attend the ERTP classes the organization has set up a virtual university more than 20 accredited courses are offered online free of charge. The virtual university is just another way the environmental resources training program helps responders help the community. If somebody says hey I've got an EPA certificate whether it's from us or external provider they know that they have gotten quality training that they should be competent enough to do their job correctly. The environmental response training program is an important resource for the response community. For more information on the ERTP and the courses it offers be sure and visit the NTPI website. Alright now let's take a look at various events happening around the country. On March 1st through 3rd the 2005 Homeland and Global Security Summit will be held in Washington DC at the Washington DC. Also on March 1st through 3rd the Emergency Medical Services is offering the operations and planning for weapons of mass destruction course at the California National Guard Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, California. Then on March 14th and 15th the 4th annual International Conference on Public Safety will be held in San Francisco, California at the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel and on March 21st through 24th the 44th annual Emergency Management Conference will be held at the Waco Convention Center in Waco, Texas. On March 21st through 25th the 4th annual Interoperability and Systems Integration Conference will be held in Norfolk, Virginia at the Waterside Marriott Hotel. Then on March 29th through 31st the Government Convention on Emerging Technologies will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. And on April 10th through 12th the 2005 American Water Works will be held at the Sheridan Oklahoma City Hotel. On April 13th and 14th the 19th annual Northeast Region Conference will be held in Massachusetts at the Boxborough Holiday Inn. Then on April 20th through 22nd Fire Rescue Med 2005 will be held at the Orleans Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. And on April 30th through May 4th the 2005 National Disaster Medical System Conference will be held in Orlando, Florida Incident managers rely on all types of equipment to perform essential tasks during a disaster. In this ComNet feature we'll discuss the use of heavy equipment as a resource during a WMD incident. ComNet correspondent John Eastman talks with public works officials in New York, Illinois and Washington D.C. about the role heavy equipment plays in disaster response and recovery preparedness. Public Works is capable of doing absolutely incredible things if we know about it in advance. If you come to us and kind of like the Army Corps give us a mission, we'll get it done for you. We're essential support services. We have among us thousands upon thousands really tens of thousands of trucks vehicles, staff and skill sets that can be essential in any type of emergency. Heavy equipment operators need to be familiar with the WMD Incident response plan and understand their role in that plan in providing skilled support persons. Participation by public works representatives in the emergency planning process can help in the overall operational recovery involving heavy equipment operators during a WMD event. So, what responsibility should public works personnel take on as a member of the Incident Response Team? We sat down with Christina Tanasichuk, senior manager of the American Public Works Association and discussed public works involvement in the Incident Response Planning process. Christina, when drafting a local emergency response plan why is it important to include public works? I think it's critical to include public works for many reasons. The first is that public works is often the department that has all the resources to assist in the response from the individuals that run your water treatment facility to the drinking water to the water that comes out of the hoses or the firemen to the actual equipment that is used in a disaster to the cleanup that takes place after the disaster and then to the mitigation so that we can make sure that a disaster like that is much much less likely to happen. Here in New York City public works involves tens of thousands of employees thousands of trucks and enormous resources, the responsibilities for our waste removal, our streets, our parks our water supply systems so you need to have public works involved in everything you're doing. Most responses to natural or man-made disasters do affect a component of public works. If not immediately in the response definitely they can be of assistance to the responding agencies without being able to be participant in the writing of the plan and their component of the plan it's much more difficult for them to come up to speed when an actual incident occurs. The types of heavy equipment needed during a WMD event most likely will be the same ones used in day-to-day public works operations. Public works should identify heavy equipment available to be utilized and the effectiveness of that equipment if a WMD incident should occur. We went to the streets of New York to talk to the city's Department of Sanitation Cleaning Operations Chief Buddy Sullivan. Chief you've got heavy equipment working here for snow removal but during a incident like 9-11 or other WMD events how would this equipment be used? Well in similar fashion it would be to remove any type of debris that might have occurred from the event. In 9-11 we worked the perimeter of the area removing the lighter debris away to our dump site and this equipment would be put to use in that nature in that fashion. It could be something as simple as bobcats or small backhose to as extensively as large cranes as we saw in situations such as Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center. You need to know what you have and also the types and specifications of what you have. That's very important for effective deployment. A dump truck is just not a dump truck. There are certain dump trucks that whether by age, by make or certain other types of trucks can be effective or cannot be effective. Certainly it's possible that you could need water trucks to imagine how water trucks could play some role in whether it's decontamination or other aspect of a WMD event. Heavy equipment public works personnel must be aware of standard operating procedures when entering a WMD or hazardous material site including the functions they will perform using their equipment, safety and special precautions, security and control procedures and evidence preservation. Heavy equipment operators should also report any pertinent information or suspicious activity at the scene to higher authorities. The heavy equipment is intrinsically involved in the actual search and rescue and then removing the debris as much of it as possible so that people have enough space to move. The fire department has enough space to get to the victims. One of the roles we find ourselves always playing when there are different types of events is just helping get people in supplies and materials around the city quickly. Potentially, the provision of water at the parks department we have a large fleet of water trucks and we certainly understand that depending on the type of WMD event we could be asked to utilize those trucks. How can the heavy equipment be used safely at a WMD incident? I think one of the first things that's important to recognize is that safety begins with someone who is very familiar with the equipment. They use it on a daily basis. They understand how the equipment works and the limitations of that equipment. If it is a radiological or biological contaminated site you would want some sort of device on the equipment to make sure that the employee was safe. We have 600 safety suits which would be used for kind of basic maintenance if we were asked to do maintenance that would be impacted by some type of WMD which are gas masks boots, gloves the parks department also has 25 of the more elaborate kind of chemical biological suits. Brian, what scene security and crowd control procedure should public works employees particularly heavy equipment operators be familiar with in a WMD event or hazardous material event? In some cases they may not even be aware that what they're actually going into officially is a WMD event that may take a little time to come out down the road so it's important that they keep that in the back of their mind as they move forward in an incident that there may be some other evidence gathering or other needs down the road that they need to be aware of as they move forward. Basically our instructions are pretty clear to our employees. Do not take anything. There are no souvenirs. You're not going there. There are no souvenirs. Generally public works needs to understand that like you said there would be a crime aspect and an evidentiary aspect to any of these events. The public works department definitely helps the police and fire maintain the integrity of the scene which is the first step. The second is working closely with fire and police to assure that whatever debris they've removed is okay to remove at that time in an area where they may help organize the sections of debris that is removed and then put so that it's managed well enough to know where that debris came from and what has been searched and what hasn't been searched, what can be removed and what should be left for the police to continue their investigation. Participation in training helps heavy equipment operators to identify and avoid WMD devices and follow appropriate procedures when a device is suspected. Operators must be able to recognize the characteristics and threats posed by potential WMD agents and follow organization procedures including decontamination protocols when responding to a potential WMD. When you involve radiological events like a dirty bomb or something where there would be contamination public works employees certainly need training on how to assess the situation how to make sure that they have the personal equipment they need to deal with the situation what type of perimeter needs to be set up what is a safe distance from the detonation or the event. We try and encourage every employee to report things that they see now that can be suspicious individuals that can be suspicious packages that can be just anything that's out of the ordinary that could cause a problem or that might be part of a larger plan that could be dangerous. Obviously employees going into that kind of an incident would require standard awareness training on hazardous materials as well as personal protective equipment requirements that might be required for that including standard safety and emergency requirements that they would face every day in their job as they go forward. Christina, what about the decontamination of public works equipment absolutely when the equipment goes into a scene when it comes out we have to be very vigilant about assuring that that equipment is decontaminated properly or decommissioned if it's out of commission after use for a WMD event. The kinds of heavy equipment called for and their mission during a disaster should be listed in the jurisdiction's comprehensive emergency management plan. It is important for public works to know the manner in which heavy equipment is covered in that plan. Also, heavy equipment operators and other public works personnel should have an awareness and understanding of their facility's continuity of services contingency plan. Ronnie, what way is heavy equipment covered in comprehensive emergency management plans? The flip answer would be it's under other duties as assigned specifically though it really would be part of the public works annex to an emergency response plan that would spell out what the roles and responsibilities of the department could be under given scenarios what the threat assessment would show and again it comes back to that cooperative effort between the people who are going to be probably leading that response and that investigation and the department itself to determine what role might they have and what can they expect to be called upon. Christina, what do public works personnel need to know about their roles in the public works facility's continuity of services contingency plan? They need to know that that plan exists and be trained on it and be sure that they know exactly what to do in the event that the plan needs to be called into action. I can't emphasize training and exercises enough. All of our departments and all of our people have to know what to do, when, who to report things to, and what role they would play in the contingency plan. It's very important that they understand what services are going to be continued. One of the things that really needs to be spelled out as part of the plan and as part of the policy with the cooperation of the elected officials is what services are critical to maintain and what services can be pulled back or eliminated during a response for continuity of operations during a response phase or a recovery phase. There's never enough preparation to know where the equipment is, where the certified operators are. If not everybody can drive a front-end loader or be certified to deliver fuel and we make sure that constantly during the year we are retraining new people, certifying additional people so that we can respond in a timely fashion. The missions that we've accomplished over the years if you look across all of the disasters that have happened in the United States are just incredible what the people in the public work sector have produced to support our uniformed brethren in our communities. On an everyday basis we do it at fire scenes and at accident scenes. We work together hand in hand. So I guess the more first responders and other responders include public works and learn about all of the capabilities they have, the response time can be cut down, the response can be more efficient and we can make sure we can save as many lives as possible. The use of heavy equipment is an important part of disaster response and recovery efforts. It is essential for public works personnel to recognize the characteristics and threats posed by a potential WMD agent and follow organizational procedures when responding to a potential WMD. For more information on any of the stories featured or agencies mentioned in this program visit our website or write to comnet. P.O. Box 13489 St. Petersburg, Florida 33733 and while you're on the NTPI website be sure and sign up and take the online test for CEUs. Also you can help ensure that we're meeting your learning needs in the evaluation form. And just a reminder that our next ComNet will air Wednesday, April the 27th at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. And be sure to join us for live response on March the 23rd at 2 p.m. Eastern Time where we will discuss the National Incident Management System. Thanks again for viewing and we'll see you next time on ComNet.