Perfect. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Friday, February 12, and this is a meeting of Senate education. Before we start hearing from some of our guests around their experience as at the Community College of Vermont. I wanted to just raise one topic, and that is this. If you will sort of shift in our state colleges, I know we have had some testimony, some conversations around. What's going to happen. When it's going to happen, our role and what I thought, and I'm really looking for input here from all of you, given that it is such a big topic and one that will be on the floor. Certainly when the budgets brought out, and certainly one that is in the community, our communities a lot. I recommended to the pro tem that perhaps the best way for us to get Senate colleagues up to date is for us to have a caucus of the whole, or at least the opportunity for senators to hear directly from Mr. I think one of the authors of the report, if not the primary author, a little bit from even maybe last year's Senate committee. But it's going to be one of those things that we are all going to have to vote on when it comes to the budget, when it comes to what kinds of dollars we are going to invest in our state colleges moving forward. And so, rather than I think every one of our colleagues reaching out to each of us saying hey what do you think, we will continue to learn about it but I think, given the enormity of the shift and the financial investment it seems to me that we do this as a caucus of a whole, or at least give people the opportunity, if they don't want to come to a meeting to that that there's a time to, you know, to have these questions so I just want to throw that out to, to all of you to see if that's something you're all comfortable with. And maybe even a little bit about what you're hearing in your communities. Senator Campion, we're certainly hearing a lot in our area of the state. And I think it would be an excellent idea for us to get from the horse's mouth as it were, what the report is about and the interpretation that the committee has seen because we're getting a lot of differing testimony, you might might say as to you know what is in the report and what it means and how it would be how it will affect especially the various parts of the state that have the state colleges in them. I'm going to start here and see. Yeah, I, I completely concur with Senator Hooker we're really here especially with Castleton around the corner we're getting inundated with questions and concerns and so on so I think it's really important we need to get up to speed and understand where we stand because there's a like, Senator Hooker said there's a lot of different rumors and half truce out there and who knows what the real deal is so. Senator Lyons. So I was going to agree with that but also. Do you think there's any. I have no clue how much time that caucus as a whole would take. You know could take a half an hour could take it an hour. The other issue that might be important to consider within that caucus if it could be split in two I don't know is the waiting study. There's so there's so many questions out there concerns being expressed by that so I don't want to derail the, the higher ed discussion. I think that's critically important no question. But if, if there is time to throw in a brief update on what is or is not in the waiting study that might be also useful. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm happy to bring that to the pro tem. I mean, I know that we are scheduled to have a joint hearing with finance on the waiting study I believe Senator Cummings wants to do it a week from Tuesday. And that should give at least the two committees that are primarily responsible for that kind of work some, some additional information. And we agreed to do it as a joint committee, you know, given that and given that it like without a doubt it'll end up in finance, no matter whether you know when we pass it out if that's what we decide to do. The big piece as I think I've mentioned is what with the house is interested in and whether or not they would indeed pick up this work if we were to spend time working on it. And that's something that I know the pro tem is in conversation with the speaker that center personal. What's that last comment on the waiting study or something else about whether the house should take it up. That was on the waiting study. Yeah, I was in the waiting so sorry I wasn't clear that is indeed. I, you know, I know that this the house in the past has had some concerns. And again, I don't have an update but I know that center ballot and representative crew crew and ski are in conversations. Yes. I don't want to interrupt the train of thought center campaign but another thing that maybe we are going to talk about or you could help me is the last week for some reason my email box has been inundated with people wanting to talk about s 13 the people waiting study. Is that something that we're going to be. Yeah, so that's what we were just talking about. How did I miss that I'm right here. You know, we see you. That's for sure. No, I know it might just what might have caused confusion actually is people have been just sending messages saying s 13 s 13 s 13. Yeah, just so you know that that is the people waiting study and we will have a meeting with Senate finance a joint hearing on, I believe it's a week from Tuesday with Senator Cummings committee. All right, that's good. No, no, no. And that'll be give everybody an opportunity to sort of see what we think and what direction we want to go in but I do know that this committee passed out a version of that waiting study. Last year so it's, I also did see, I did see Senator chin and laughing me pretty hard so I'm not going to forget that. No, and, you know, I'll be honest with you Senator trans you shouldn't forget it because he'll be on the floor before you know it. And you and the family can be up late getting questions ready for whatever well actually it is one of the things about the Senate and I'm looking to the senior senator from Chittenden to confirm this but committee members don't really go after community committee members. That is now that's true. That's kind of the unwritten rule. Right. Although if the committee member is reporting a bill from another committee that he might be on then that's a different story. Totally different story. My internet connection might go out that day. Senator personally please on the waiting so you just want to be clear with with folks that the study is the study and it's already out and the study had some recommendations so s 13 basically implements what the study is recommending that we do and I think that there is a camera there's a difference with the House bill I think the House bill does it over multiple years in the Senate bill takes a little different tack on how how to roll it out. No thanks for that clarification I appreciate that. And I just want to point out to Senator Tarenzini that we may be here but it's only virtual so you know it might have a difference. Good old Rutland it's not the state senators it's the issue with the library moving it's something with Rutland County. All right, with that. Thank you. We are now moving on to post secondary education opportunities and I see three of our witnesses are here. And please correct me if I'm mispronouncing your name but Mr. Carrera, Mr. Abbott and Mizzou black. Would you reveal yourselves to us. There we go. Terrific. Everyone. Hi. Thank you so much for being with us. I think, okay. They're a little late but I see our other two I see Joyce is here. Okay, Joyce you've got here just in the neck. We, we, we started at 115. I thought you were starting at 130. I'm sorry. No, it's, it's no problem at all. You really did get here in the nick of time so we can absolutely turn it right over to you to introduce the students that we were about to hear from. Well that is perfect and thank you I'm sorry about the confusion in the time. From it all likely it's my fault so. Well, that's quite all right. So, I just want to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to, to share with you a little bit about the McClure gift and what's most exciting is to hear directly from some of our students. I think you heard from the McClure Foundation, a couple days ago or, well, yesterday or the day before. And Carolyn where and the McClure Foundation I just want to acknowledge are just amazing partners with us and have been for a number of years and have really helped to provide us with with funding to do some pretty innovative and creative things so we just are incredibly grateful to the McClure Foundation for their thinking and their partnership. But you know this particular gift came about. I think that the foundation was really looking at this in two primary reasons one to really acknowledge and say to the class of 2020. We care about you. We know that you've gone through a lot and here we want to give you a leg up. And here's a way to either get started or to add to what you were already planning to take for the fall. And what was, I think what has been amazing about the McClure Foundation gift is the clarity and the simplicity. It was, if you have graduated from a Vermont high school in 2020. No matter what your goals or your, your financial background or whatever, you're entitled to this, and you can take any course that you want there was no parameters around it's a three credit course or four credit course, any course that you are, you are academically eligible for, you can take so it was very simple. It was very simple to administer. And I think the message to the public was, it was easy to explain. And so, you know, working with the McClure Foundation, it was just really nice to be able to do that. And as you know, you heard from Caroline that more than 600 Vermont students took advantage of that. And, and, and, well, 80% of them, which is pretty phenomenal have said they are planning to continue their education, we have more than 50% that are continuing their education this spring, which is pretty phenomenal given the COVID environment and, and everything that is going on. And we expect that number actually decline, but it's interesting. We have more than 50% are enrolled at CCV, or about 50% are enrolled at CCV. If students went to another school, that information is uploaded into the National Clearing House, until after the drop ad period so we expect that that number will be higher because we know some people took a course at CCV, and are going to have gone to some other place this spring so we're pretty impressed with, with what students have done as a result of that. One additional, in addition to the students that you're going to hear today, I've been working with Jeannie to post we had the McClure Foundation shared with us a letter from us from a parent, and we got permission from the parent and student to post this letter so you will see that in addition to this, it's pretty heartwarming and it came unsolicited to the McClure Foundation and they knew we were going to, we were having some testimony today. And Carolyn said, you know, this would be a great thing to share with the committee so I would encourage you to take a look at that as well. So, you know, Senator Campion said, you know, you want to hear directly from students and we are, you know, it's always so wonderful to hear from students and their stories and what, what has made a difference in their lives and, and what they're doing with that so we're excited to have three students today. I have invited Katie Mopley, who's our Dean of Enrollment and Community Relations, to sort of manage this because you know in a Zoom environment, you know somebody starts to talk and then another person starts to talk and then no one talks and so I've asked her to sort of moderate this in a way so that there's no awkward moments and so she's actually going to call on students. And then, in the end we want to make sure we leave time for you all to ask students questions. So we expect to spend, you know, a little bit of time hearing from students but then also allowing some time to hear from to hear to ask to have you have the chance to ask students directly. So, with no other comments, I want to turn this over to Katie and take it away. Great. Before we even do that is what I just wanted to thank you and we are in conversations, particularly on Monday with our colleagues in appropriations and then we will hear, I believe, either Senator Kitchell or a designate from joint fiscal designate from joint fiscal come down and join us probably sometime next week to talk about options with, you know, going forward how can we again expand access continue this kind of program, other possibilities that we might be able to do to give particularly middle and low income Vermonters access to higher education. And Brian, you know I realized that I said that the McClure Foundation had to read to sort of reasons to do this and one was to say to Vermont seniors we care we want to help you. But secondly, you know they are there a foundation that's very concerned about access and so this was a chance to remove financial issues completely. And maybe what the uptake is in terms of Vermonters continuing education because as you all know, you know Vermont doesn't do well. We have a very high school graduation right but we, we struggle to and to have students continuing their education. And you know we've tried for years I mean dual enrollment's helping, but we've never been able to sort of make a huge leap in terms of those stubborn figures and this gave us a window into thinking about okay if we did remove finances, could Vermont really turn those figures around and I think it's a one off for sure. But I think that if we can keep trying that I think we might be able to crack that not finally. Thank you for it. Thank you for taking this on. Yeah, and thank you for being with us is Moby welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I apologize for my tardiness that is no no no no one apologizes if I am the one who should be apologizing I if there's any mistake ever I can assure you it can be traced back to me. Not with the committee but anything here at my house as well. So, know that. Well I'm impressed that the students were here on time at he told me she was going to log in early and really that's the most important part of this conversation. So again my name is Katie Mobley I'm from Burlington, Vermont and I am the Dean of enrollment and community relations at CCD. I'm joined today by Anna and Addie and Nick, you will notice that Nick have the choice of either having sound or video, and so he has chosen to have sound today. And that was part of our thinking around me sort of drawing him into the conversation because we want to make sure that we're hearing from all the students. I think I'm going to start with you but would you mind just introducing yourself and sort of opening up by telling us a little bit about your high school experience maybe pre COVID and then any impacts that COVID had on your experience. Yeah, I would love to. My name is Anna Graciel block. I'm from the town of South Burlington, and I went to South Burlington high school and I had a pretty standard high school experience. I wanted to take advantage of the amazing program at CCV of early college. I was really set on continuing down a medical path. And so I was so excited to go to CCV and get a free year of college during my senior year. And I continued on and I kind of, it was a bit of a wake up call in the fall semester was no longer at high school. But I really discovered a new passion in my spring semester of early college, right when COVID hit that I loved everything about business and management and international business. I was just so thankful that early college had really opened those doors to me that I was able to figure out early on what exactly I wanted to do with my life for free, which was amazing. And so when COVID hit my family, especially my mom took it pretty hard. She has a residential cleaning business, and her clientele went down to pretty much nothing. And she's the executive director of a local cancer support nonprofit, Healing Wins Vermont, and her and a few of the others volunteered to no longer get paid until they were in a more, a more stable condition. So the McClure gift really came at the best time where it took kind of the edge off of that CCV bill. And it was also at a time where I had realized I was not going to be able to kind of carry on with the college plans that I wanted to do. So I decided to continue at CCV through the summer in the fall. And with the help of the McClure grad gift, I was actually able to earn my associate's degree six months after my high school diploma. So very thankful to CCV. Amazing Anna that's that's a lot of hard work. That's. Thank you for sharing. Addie, do you mind going next. It's an honor to be here to speak with everyone. So thank you for having me. My name is Addie. I am from Brattleboro, Vermont. And I started at CCV this last fall. I actually, my high school experience was not very pleasant. I grew up in foster care and because of that, I was never really able to focus on school the way that I wanted to. And at 18, I wasn't able to graduate. I had to go and get a job and provide for myself. And I had never really thought about pursuing college because I had always had to be working and kind of taking care of myself. And then once the pandemic hit, I got laid off, which was really stressful, but I thought that it might be the right time to maybe start back into school. So I found out about this program and it really had changed my life. I made the phone call, got in two days later and started classes. And believe it or not, I made it that made the Dean's list this semester, which is hugely exciting. But I mean, the main financial reason or the main reason for me not pursuing a college career was also because of finances. So really, I mean, it was like a gift from God for me to have this opportunity. And now I'm looking at pursuing a career in neuroscience gotten really into it. And I am going to continue and get my associates here at CCB and then the world is my oyster and I'm so excited to see what's going to happen. Addie, that's such a great thank you for sharing that and that enthusiasm. That's outstanding and current graduations on the Dean's list that represents a lot of work. Nick, I'm going to invite you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your high school experience. Yes. Hello, I apologize for not being on camera for whatever reason, I have a bug with zoom where if I have video I don't have sound if I have sound I don't have video it's gotten very annoying I've tried. We know what that is like. We're just glad you're here. Thank you thank you for having me it was. Let me think how I want to start. I'm not the best at public speaking even though this is through zoom. So, my experience with this has been extremely positive. I come from a low income family and as of right now I'm the only person who's gone to college except for my mom and everything for us was finances like how would we, you know, pay for college how would we have enough to pay for me and to you know pay bills pay electricity get food on the table and thankfully in high school in my senior year I was able to get my grades up to a point where I was able to do do enrollment for the first six months so I did originally VTC did that it was a lot of fun that's when I realized how much better college was then in high school it was such a better experience there wasn't like, there was no competitions on who was better it was just people of all ages, coming to learn and that really took off the stress of learning because it wasn't a competition anymore it was people wanting to further their education and that transferred over to when I started at CCV I got in last fall, did my first semester and currently I'm a part time student because I'm trying to balance working at the same time of school during a pandemic it's not really that easy. My mom and my little sister both have compromised immune systems so coming in and out of the house especially like for work or even like if they leave to go get groceries and stuff like that that's a pretty big risk. So I decided to stick with part time just so I have enough time on my hands to balance everything and the free class made it so I was able to use the scholarship money I got to pay for all my classes without having to tap in out of pocket which was really helpful because it made it get to a point where I was like man I can do college. I don't have to worry about if I'll be able to pay for this because I'm eligible and it's all worked out really well. Nick thank you so much today. Did you mention what town you were from. I know but I just want to make sure it's on the. Yeah, I'm from Essex. And Nick am I correct in thinking do you work in the health care field. Will you talk a little bit about that balance between school and the work that you're doing. Yeah. Mostly it's just carving out enough time to where I can do my school work and have it be up to my own standards. I'm majoring in design and media studies so thankfully it's very much hands on I'm doing as much free hand sketching painting as I am like actual writing and reading. As far as like the work school relationship it's I'd say it's a little bit easier, despite the fact that it's online for me because even though we don't we don't have any internet at my house so I have to use a hotspot. But it makes it easier because I don't have to get out of bed. I mean I do I do my schoolwork in the living room, but I don't have to go on any unnecessary trips I can just do work, and then I can come home and I can have enough time to do school from the time that I get home to the time that I go to bed and feel like I'm putting in enough time to both work so I can support myself and make money for myself and keep transitioning into being an adult and then not be a student and absorb the knowledge that I'm learning from further my skill as an artist and then also just keep furthering my education so that was the most important thing for me I really liked high school. I like learning and college has been in that surprisingly it's been infinitely easier than high school for some reason. It's all been vastly positive I had so far I don't have anything to complain about or speak negatively of even though we're all stuck at home in a pandemic. Thank you so much that's really helpful. I will say and I think Joyce alluded to this in her introductions that on the colleges and this was a really easy program to administer, which I will just say is not always the case in programs. You know we got to say to every member of the class of 2020. This gift is for you and so I'm, I'm curious I heard Addy I heard you say you know you heard about it and then you enrolled two days later. I'd love to hear from you Addy about sort of how did you hear about it and if you were to tell someone about sort of engaging in college what what advice would you give them now that you've had this positive experience. So I actually heard about it from my boss who is she has a spot here in Brattleboro and she was also doing classes on the side. And she knew that you know she had to lay me off and I was going to have a lot of time at home. She kind of pushed me to, you know, go go towards higher education and so she came to me and said hey, they're having this program. I know you're worried about finances, but this free class could you could you should really take advantage of this. So like I said I mean I was really lucky it was two days before the semester started, and I managed to get in and be in classes two days later. And so I'm really grateful for that. I've loved my experience at CCB, and you know coming from the community that I did I know a lot of other foster kids, you know, and there's a huge stigma a lot of us are pushed to go for more I mean a lot of the time we're just expected to do the bare minimum. So I've been communicating a lot with my, you know, the people in that community to take advantage of this opportunity because a lot of us really are also having to fund for ourselves and financial financial financial situations for a lot of us are not ideal. So I've really been spreading the word to everyone in my group Facebooks you know anyone I can just hey this is amazing. You know you'll have so much support. And it's a huge blessing so that's that's kind of how I'm marketing it, you know is is let's show, let's show the world that we can accomplish something even after everything we've gone through. So Addie what had you done I'm just looking here you were.  So I was still it was my last semester of my senior year when, when you're an 18 when you turn 18. You can't stay in your foster home anymore and my family didn't, we didn't have a great relationship so I had to make the decision either. I'm going to couch surf and try, you know, and finish out high school but I also I wasn't doing very well to be completely honest after everything I had been going through school was never at the forefront of my mind. So I made the decision to drop out and get a job, get an apartment. And then, you know, I wanted to get my GD so I did that. And it wasn't until this year like I said with with this program where I had ever even considered that I would try to do something like this. It's great. It's really great. Okay, were you going to ask something. I always do that the screen goes to something. I'm interested in the fact that you did you got your GED, daddy, and it was a while before this gift came on line and you were able to take advantage of that were there others in the program that had that were not 2020 grads, so to speak, that took advantage of the gift.  So, Addy, I'm assuming that you earned your GED within the year of 2020. Yes, I did. I had completed three of them but kind of put off the math one. I'm not a math ways. So I had to do a lot of studying and also, you know, with just working so hard. I just I hadn't had time until 2020 to get that done. So, luckily I passed. And so it happened that it was in 2020 and you're right there to take advantage of the gift and that's great. Another, another question if I may. Joyce, Julie. I'm looking at the geographic spread, you know, and we have two kids from two students from Chittenden County, one from down in Brattleboro. Can you give us an idea of what the spread was either you were or Kate. Yes, I can. Actually, we were really thrilled we had we had participants from every county. And the highest concentration was from Essex County. Okay, which is so we had, we were thrilled at the level of participation. And I will say, you know, I am so grateful to Addy and Anna and Nick because I think as Brian will say, you know, we got this request a couple days ago, and we really scrambled to find a way to reach out and so I'm so glad that they were able to. But yeah, we, we were very pleased. We had, there was not a pocket that okay like you know all these students came from Chittenden County or all these. No, they came from everywhere and we were particularly pleased with a number of students who came from Essex County, you know, we, you know, it's pretty not not, you know, it's not a very populated county. And so yeah, we actually had that breakdown in terms of the spread. It was, it was impressive. And then one more question. Do you have a breakdown of the number of students who took advantage of the program that we're already taking courses, whether it was through dual enrollment or the free college year, you know, and we're kind of adding on to their course of study as opposed to students who were taking the course as a first time and a one off. We have, well, I can answer your question in, in this way, we can tell you how many students how many students of it that use the McClure gift took only one course last fall, and how many took multiple courses. I don't have that figure right in front of me, Katie, do you? Yeah, we can. But what we saw is we saw a number and I think for some reason about 50% six, but I can't remember who were just simply taking that one course. We saw students who were taking two, but with a free course added one. And we also saw which is interesting, not a huge number, but we did have a number of students who are enrolled at other colleges like UVM, and, and added a CCB course to their load, because it was free. And so they could, you know, so they took a full load at UVM, like maybe four or five courses and added a course at CCB. So we did see some students who, because also they could access it from wherever they were. So even if they weren't living in Vermont, and they were going to school somewhere, they could access an online course. And, and so we had some who were enrolled in other schools add to their mix by taking a course at CCB. So it was like, it was an interesting combination. People used it in lots of different ways. Thank you. And thank you students for sharing your stories. It's impressive. Center personally. Yeah. Mr. Chair, I have some questions about kind of around CCB and dual enrollment, not specifically about this program. Yeah, please go ahead. And a question for the students and maybe the folks from CCB can answer to and that I just wonder what the students perspective because it sounds like everybody did early enrollment as well as not early enrollment early college as well as this program. I just wonder what the experience is when you have high schoolers in these college classes. And seemed like from my daughter did it and seemed like some of our classes she said, there was a lot of high schoolers in the class and I don't know if that's, if that's just since it's a community college you're going to have a variety. I just wondered what your perspective was about either the benefits or not of having a mix of high schoolers and other students in the classes. Does that make sense as a question. It does and I do you want to answer that so not I would say Addy did not participate if I'm correct at E shake me off but did not participate in a dual enrollment or early college and it did but do you want to talk about that experience. Um, just as a high school student in a class with people of all ages, and just how my experience was, um, it was was interesting to say the least because on one end of the spectrum you have the students like me who have never taken a college class before. And it's kind of all you know bright eyed bushy tailed like we'll do whatever the professor says we're a little nervous. And then on the other end you have kind of these lifelong learners that have so much experience and inspiration and advice really to give and they have. I've learned so much. Um, I remember this one woman in my human anatomy and physiology class and I think that she was. I think 55 and she had been a single mother, and she was, I think she's one of the hardest working people I've ever known. There's a bit of a language barrier and sometimes it was you know kind of hard to understand everything that was she was saying, or sometimes you couldn't quite understand us but they're just kind of this really interesting bond that formed between her and the entire class, where we all learn so much from her and the And it was just really interesting to see how all of these people are there not because you know they feel like they have to or because you know, you know, mom or dad or whoever said that they must go to college but they're there because they genuinely want to learn about the world around them and they want to apply this in an amazingly useful way in their life. And I think that itself really brought me out of my shell, and really gave me a newfound appreciation for education. We're simple exchange really students and teachers it's great center person sorry to interrupt. No, it's good. Thank you for that and I guess a quick question for choice and Katie is, have you ever had a college student that's me only like, why do I have these high schoolers in my class. Maybe not just from the my experience for my daughter because she felt like the high school students worked harder than some of the college students but part of that is this like a lot of the other ones had jobs and, and some of the high schoolers didn't so but is that ever come up like, you know, Yes, you know I would say that you know and you know I'm looking at Senator Lyons who, you know as a faculty member and can probably speak to this better. Being on the ground, but I will say you know this is one of the benefits of C of the CCD classroom. It is the rich diversity and an age is one of those pieces and I think you know as Anna so said so well is that you know people come together in a class, because they're really it's unite it's united in the learning and it sort of levels of playing field because it doesn't really matter if you're 16 or 80, you're there to learn. And so I think that you know this is one of the things that we, we do that I think our faculty do amazing well is celebrate that diversity and people can learn from each other in really, really significant ways I will. I mean our average age is still in the high 20s. So even though we have more younger students our average age is about 28. It used to be 31, but I will say about 50% of our students now are traditional age students, but we also have a lot of students, you know, between the ages of 30 and 55, particularly people who are thinking of shifting careers they've been heard on the job. They've been, you know there's just a number of reasons why people come back but I don't know Senator Lyons do you have something to say about that because it is, it's just this melting pot of diversity in our classes and I think faculty do an amazing job at, at, at using that, but I will just ask Senator Lyons if she. Oh, I think you've done a great job. Yeah, yeah, you've done a great job explaining it. And even by, by historical knowledge from Trinity College was similar. So the mix is really is enriching at both ends of the spectrum so the students like Anna who come in and are just hungry for learning theoretical and basic information. They're very well aligned with people who have all that practical experience at the other end. It's kind of neat to see, and it makes for a very interesting. I don't know, maybe you two or three could talk about your classroom experiences and working with some of the non traditional students I mean there, you have to have had some kind of connection and picking up some of their skills and knowledge. Nick, do you mind starting just we get you back in to that quite did you hear that question from Senator Lyons. Yes. I think the best part about having a diverse classroom is that you get a lot you get in some ways you get fresher eyes. I would say the two experience that stuck out most to me was the first one when I was in do enrollment for Vermont tech in my senior year. There was a guy in my class he was like, I think either 60 or 70 and he was a veteran, and he was taking electrical engineering simply because he was retired he didn't work anymore and there was something to do and as the weeks went on during the semester, because we were all in the same classroom, pretty frequently. We got to hear stories from him from what it was like when he was young, not only just being at war but like how different the world was and for him. The class was as much about you know learning a new skill like electrical engineering but also he said he got him out of the house he said he loved coming in because he was able to. He was able to do something every day and he was able to feel wanted again and he was able to do something that challenged him and he was able to learn a new skill. The second experience that also stands out the most is recently last semester, so my first semester at CCB. One of my classmates he's a full time firefighter. And he is. I think he has like three kids, and he's on the job constantly and in our forums we would talk and he said, this was for my. Which class was it. Intro to visual communication. The whole thing was just, he wanted to have another skill besides his career under his belt. Something that he enjoyed doing he said he enjoyed doing art he became a firefighter because it was something that was in the family, his father was a firefighter and he would talk about like how he would mostly be at the station when he was doing his classes like when we would do a zoom lecture or when we would be doing our forums he would be. Nick I think we lost your. Yep. Yeah, Addy do you want to jump in and Nick if you get back just jump in. Did you have an experience Addy with sort of a mixed classroom environment you want to share. Yeah, not so much last semester, but this semester I'm taking sociology, and there is a huge melting pot of different ages in that class. Oh, I think next back I want to let him finish I don't want to interrupt him so. Yeah, sorry, it seems like I just lost connection for a minute. I think I was saying they brought very unique viewpoints because it's, you know, in each respective sense they're different people but both have very unique views on not only the world but on education from you know two different times mingling with people like me who are at a high school and still learning about what life is and then you have them who have been around for a while and they know what life is and they've built lives for themselves and they're just coming full circle where we're just starting out on our journey to learning and it's very refreshing because as much as I love talking to people my own age it's always nice to get a different viewpoint on how people see the world see education, how they have no opinions about it and how everyone learns in their own different ways. I'm wondering and I think this might be for Joyce and or Katie, you know I'm thinking about how you in general market, you know, and are getting the word out. I know I remember hearing Nick talk I remember there was a comment at one point from President Judy about whether this year and years past that you know not as many men are taking advantage of of of CCV and then Addie had her own experience as as a foster child and then you know a GED student. There are ways that you are marketing to these particular groups and then Anna, in some ways, I'm not sure, you know, again just broadly how how we're reaching, we're reaching certain groups. Well I can talk just generically but probably Anna and Addie and Nick can probably tell you more about how they heard about it directly, but I will tell you, Senator champion that is this is a huge challenge Katie overseas marketing and communications. We, we, we appeal to such a diverse audience that trying to target our, our message to a particular audience we are constantly thinking about. Okay, how do we reach this group, and how do we reach this group because it's very it's a very different message to someone who's 17 than someone who's 60 and is going to switch careers. Yeah. And the same way to you know we serve around 300 veterans a semester, or really trying to figure out how to market to, to particular groups is is a constant challenge and we are always, you know, trying to figure okay what message here what message there so, and then you add to the mix of, you know, for years ago, you know if you hit radio newspaper and TV you were good, you know those were the ways that you did it. So now you've got social media and so many different platforms on social media and, but you can't leave TV and radio and print behind you've got to keep those going but also, you know, our audience, you know so much of our, our promotional stuff happens with social media because that's how students learn about us. And then, by far the most important thing is relationships. It's our relationships with people in school, it's our relationships with teachers who teach high school students, it's relationships with different, you know, entities in the community, we are always and then with businesses, because I think as Addy said, you know it was her, her boss, who encouraged her to go back to school. So, you know this it's just a web and it's you know and we are always working at it we always can do better, but Katie I don't know if you want to add to that. American experience is now if you move into a community, you, you are looking sometimes for a community college I mean that you know they are part of, you know, certainly the state's landscape, the country's landscape. And I'm hoping more and more people, you know, are thinking hey you know you look where you're living and around the community college for a variety of different things classes, cultural opportunities experiences things like that. So one, one other thing particularly related to the McClure gift which I think was pretty interesting that we had as many students as we did take advantage of it. We did not ramp this up. The McClure Foundation came to us the beginning of June.  You know, we were at the end of a traditional school year so in terms of working with guidance counselors and you know trying to get stuff out to high school seniors. You know this was so in you know the beginning of June is when we actually, you know they came to us and said we want to do this and in two weeks we had stood it up. But by then kids were graduating. And so that was just a challenge in and of itself because the normal channels through through our school network were, you know, summers and different beasts and then the school year. You know, Ms. Weir from the McClure Foundation said that you were all incredible partners in that, you know, they came to you at the timing that they came to you and you were all able to get this while rolling and that was that was great. Hades group. Other questions colleagues, Senator Hooker. That said, about the marketing and the timing. You had 600 plus students participate of and that, I believe Ms. Weir said it was 10%, how many of 10% of the graduates. What if they had all done it. Would you have been able to accommodate them.  But they, you know, when they came to us, they were like, so do you think you'll have 200 or 1000 or six and because you know they, they didn't give us a grant and say okay, we can only serve this much they were committed to whoever came through. We could have we could have handled it on the CCV in, but you know we were curious to see how many people so you know this is the, this is one of the beauties of the CCV model, we can flex, grow and, and, you know, if we have to pull back we can. You know, we just have a very non traditional budget model that works really well. You know, in this, I credit, you know, this is the budget model that was established when CCV was established 50 years ago to be able to respond to shifting environments and it's really helpful for that so Senator Hooker yes we could have we were ready we can ramp up we can add courses, because you know we, we have a lot of, we have a lot of faculty networks and we have a lot of people that are very interested in, in teaching for CCV, far more than we have courses for. Senator I would just add that you know when we had preliminary conversations with Carolyn where she said you know how many typically high school grads immediately the year after do you serve and it's about 300 and then you know we sort of got aspirational and I will say you can go back as a staff member we thought well maybe we could get 400 450 and when we have to go back to them and say wow we're at like over 600 it was. It was amazing, it really it represented in such a tight timeframe I mean I think had we had six months to have you know and I have the conversation with the school counselor and map this out I have no doubt we could have tripled that number but it was a little to Joyce's point the fact that they were willing to just say just go. It's really easy to message something that's clear and easy and free. And it's more complicated when there's like oh you're interested in this but okay wait do you qualify for this or do you, it doesn't mean there isn't opportunity there but this was the easiest thing to promote that I've ever been involved in CCV and it was, it was great during that time for sure. Center personally. On that note, and I don't know, either addie or of the others from CCV know I thought the state had done a special grant programs specifically for those that are experiencing foster care. A few years ago something passed that said the state basically is going to take responsibility for those that don't, you know have the parental care. So, but, but it sounds like, maybe I misunderstood what that was or is there a special program for foster care that give them full tuition that state college. Is it okay if I answer Katie. Yes. So, I looked into a lot of different programs. Unfortunately, like I said I really only had two days to get it together. I'm not from my knowledge. I have been working a lot with Vsac. And I was able to obtain a lot of grants through them. Also through the fast set because I am considered an independent student. I was able to get that extra funding but I wasn't able to find anything through the state of Vermont for kids coming from the background that I was. Vsac is also an incredible program that has been invaluable to my ability for me to be able to help define this extra funding. Get help with you know because I'm also trying to figure out how to fill out the faffs on my own which is not easy. I mean they've been incredibly helpful also my CCV counselor has been amazing but yeah I mean I kind of had to go out and search for that funding after I got in and it was a little difficult but I was able to navigate that through both my CCV advisor and my Vsac counselor. Great. Thank you. And I just want to bring you back into the conversation here.  She described her was was really wonderful and she must be incredibly proud. How did you do your entire high school your senior year in high school at CCV. You get so you you you got the dual enrollment all the way. And in part did you say was high school in some ways that senior just not a fit or you felt as though academically you wanted to to broaden your horizons what made you do that. My freshman year of high school I was talking to my high school counselor about graduating high school a year early. I was already a year ahead of my peers. And I kind of like to fast track myself, and he had suggested the early college program. And there's something that was kind of at the back of my mind until junior year. When I realized that high school. Well was high school, and I felt that it would be a much better fit if I went to college and since I really wanted to graduate a year early. I realized that this was the most practical thing to do. It saved me money and it got me amazing experience that then fast track me to go on and get my associate's degree at 17. Great. Any other questions or comments. Anything from our guests and a Nick or Addie or certainly Joyce or Katie. I defer to students do you have any, any final comments for this committee. For those of you from Chittenden County, just know that Senator Lyons and Senator Chittenden are your two senators and a lot of where we don't have anybody here that represents Wyndham County but Senators ballot and white are your two go to folks in the Senate. And I are also both SB alums go wolves. I do have a question that is off topic now sort of, but maybe connected with the onset of the pandemic we try to help people retool. And I'm just wondering what kind of response CCV had from Vermonters who were looking to take courses to help them either get different jobs or, you know, just try to change their direction. And Senator Hooker, are you referring specifically to CRF funds that we see. Yeah, we had over 600 700 students enroll, and that again was over the course of a weekend to set this up so we had a lot of, you know, and, you know, I, I think this is an indication of, you know, once again, we were able to remove the financial barrier from can from investing in yourself, and we saw so many adults want to come forward and they you know in the testimony and the survey information about why they hadn't engaged earlier in education. And it's interesting if you look at the graph, the number of people that said it's just about finances. It was huge. So we had a huge number of people that that took at the end of that Sierra funding to to sort of invest in their education and sort of figure out ways that they were going to pivot to something different post COVID. And it seems from your descriptions of setting up both these programs that there's a real need to look at the red tape involved in getting into other programs so that may be something that we should take a look at as well to make it easier for students like these young people to get involved and for people who are older to, you know, have the supports that they need as life changes. It's really, really wonderful observation because one of the things that I think, you know, we, we and I will use the collective in this group now, you know, approach things from a place that we know about higher education we know the language of higher education we know what needs to happen.  And so, you know, the number of students that we that we work with who don't understand that that you that you that you that finding that it's financial support to help them and how they apply I think, Addie referred to the VSEC counselor helping her apply to the faster form the faster form is hard. And it, you know, it doesn't, if you know after you've done it once or twice it's not so hard, but the first time it feels really overpowering. And it asks for questions, you know, it asks like for your parents income. Well someone like Addie, you know, that's a heart that's what do I do about that. So and Addie, I'm, you know, I'm just using you as a, you know, I don't know how you dealt with that. But you know there's things that we have put in place that just make it really difficult for people to, to get through that system. So one of the things that we're always working like our admissions process. It's, I hope it's pretty straightforward for people and it was great to hear that a couple people were able to do it, you know, from start to finish within two days, because we have really worked at that to make the application, we're open admissions, but people still have to, you know, they have to apply but it's a very, very simple and hopeful a straight straightforward process because, you know, you get it doing that and you run into a stumbling block and the and people are gone. Okay, that's that's not for me, you know, and they take themselves out of the game. So simple is really important and I mean, simple in terms of ease doesn't have to be simple but it has to be easy and that can't be glitches. Yeah. Center lines. So, you know, given that and given that the McClure grant was so simplified, and folks could simply could access the tuition dollars that they needed without a complex process. This is for the, for the students. Once that burden was off your shoulders. Then what were the supports that you found at CCV that that enabled you to succeed. You know, because it looked to me as if there was a much higher success rate with that with the McClure cohort cohort of students I'm not positive about that but it looked like that. So I'm just just maybe Anna, or Addie, or Nick could just speak to what the supports were after the money was delivered that helped you. I'll start with Anna. Thank you for doing that Ginny. I think that my support stayed pretty consistent. My parents have always been a huge support to me, especially my mom, and I think that also my CCV advisor was a huge help throughout the entire process. Sometimes I would frantically email him and he would, you know, email me back in this very calm like explaining like this is how this is going to work your, you know, it'll be fine. I appreciate just his patience, and also, especially the professors, because they really took the time to understand everything that was going on, and to translate that into their lesson plans. And understand that things are really wonky right now and that students are doing their best but also knowing when to kind of give that nudge of, well, we can't let you, you know, not do any work at all. And so I think really just having the support of the advising system and having the professors after that financial burden was taken away it was, it really spurred me to keep going and to look past CCV and everything that they had given me and look towards my next education step. Great. Anything else. Nick, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, once the McClure Foundation grants went through, I too had a bit of a frantic couple of times when I would email my advisor and also my VSAC financial advisor because I also had to do a FAFSA. I remember it took about three days, three consecutive days where he had to do phone calls to explain how to do it. And I just remember how I always felt supported. And my guidance counselor, she's always really nice and really warming and really calm. So even when I would email her like three times and they're all like, Hi, so I don't know what to do with this form because it has to come on and I don't talk to him as much and he doesn't give me that information. She's like, Okay, so this is what we can do to get around that. And the same thing on my financial advisor, she was really good with thoroughly explaining everything because I wanted to understand what it was I was filling out so that if anything like financially happened, I could keep track of it and be responsible for myself as well. And I just remember how, you know, she didn't give me a hard time when I would ask questions and she'd always be really nice and if I needed something explained a little bit more in depth because sometimes finances can be like that. She was always really accommodating and the professors are really nice. Everyone's been really accommodating with my unique situation of not having internet but having internet because I have a hotspot. I've had a few times where I've dropped out of the zoom class on accident and haven't been able to get back in and just like a quick email and be like hey so sometimes I may actually drop off the face of the zoom and return five minutes later if I can get it working and it's nice only having to explain that once or twice and then not you know, getting in trouble or getting penalized and just having people be supportive and understanding that some of us aren't exactly in the most ideal situations for online learning but we are still making the best out of it and doing good classes. Great. Thank you all so much for being with us today. This was incredibly informative and interesting. You're all doing great work. We're all proud of you. That's for sure. And here to support you in any way we can as you move forward and I hope you'll keep in contact with us with either, you know, directly with the committee or with your elected senators and representatives. It's important to hear directly from the field and you've provided us with a really great look into CCB in your own lives, which, which is means a lot to us so thank you all very much. Thank you all for this time and again I just want to thank the students for taking the time to share your stories they are, they are powerful and so inspiring to all of us so thank you. Thank you Senators for allowing us to do this it was fun. It was a great way to end the week. Absolutely. This was a dream come true for me I'm really into government so I was. This was really I mean I'm like star structure really excited. So thank you guys so much for having me. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. Bye bye. To me let's take a 10 minute break and we'll come back and Jim is going to take us through yesterday's work on a draft literacy bill and updated draft based on yesterday's testimony. Great so see you.


This is gonna be my pre-patch build. To the end of the patch, I will go 46 points into red until the end of the- Oh, a sanctum- Oh-ha! Dude, I feel like I'm getting stronger in real life. Like, it's frickin- Oh! There it is for sure.  I have to turn off the button. I have no cam per second. This is, uh, oh my god. Gimme a break. Dude, I'm good on the ret, dude. Four months, dude. Also, what's this one? Paladin. Mom, not Ashbringer. Mom is way better than Ashbringer. Ashbringer's a Captain Ballsuck item. This is re- Dude, managing your bags without a bag? I don't- Uh, probably in the next couple of days. I've gotta set it up for- Uh, it's gonna be a nightmare, dude. I-I-I'm fully aware of that. Wait, what do you mean it's gonna be a nightmare? But what do you mean- What do you mean? What do you mean it's gonna be a nightmare? What do you mean it's gonna be a nightmare? It's fuckin' free money! Yeah, but it's- it's just gonna be non-stop. It's just gonna be non-stop, like, L's and stuff in the background.   No, you're right, you're right. The underscores what really gets me.  Show a little bit of the seal twisting. Maybe I will a little bit later. I'm gonna do some quests and then we're gonna- We're gonna look at that kind of stuff.  No, no, no. I'm gonna stay on the same server. We're gonna play on Feralina. Let's see. Like, that's a level 62. And then I go here. See, I shouldn't have a Lowe. I gotta change my keybinds a little bit. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to- Am I not regening mana? My mana isn't regening on its own. It is, okay. Seriously, the fireball deceived me! You're way out gearing it. You guys- okay. The lack of an understanding of nuance or anything and what people are saying blows my mind. I'm comparing it to the amount of damage I do on my character right now in a live classic, I should say. Oh, I'm still alive! I'm still alive! How did I- Oh, saved. Oh, McConnell saved me. Oh, dude, nice. Nice. Get War Chiefs for Pure Pump. Dude, I need to go- You know what I need to do? I need to go get full world buffs on this character. Cumber, thank you for the one year. Thank you, Cumber. Red Kool-Aid, three months. Oh, frick, ready? Sick. I don't have all my stuff. Give me a second. Okay, let's see this. In it, in it, in it. Thank you. No, there's no beta key, okay? Dude, it is so hard to play this game, man.  Okay, I'm ready. Dude, it's so much damage. What rings you got?  Oh, the parry? Beta keys were only $3 during the last beta. What the frick? No, there's no- Unbelievable. Uh-oh. The combo! Dude, what- We both do so much damage. Judgment, Seal of Command, melee, and then Crusader Strike. Okay, we're gonna get ready. Here's what we're gonna do today, Chat. We're gonna get ready for some- Man, I'm gonna get spoiled playing Rhett like this. Actually, I'm actually gonna get spoiled a little bit. The ones in Shadow Moon Valley are the ones who charge. Oh, okay. There's a World of Rizzle, a little 64 Rhett. No, I'm not doing that. I'm just playing and we're gonna have fun. We're gonna have a good time, okay?  It's always like the first beta is very small and then they open it up like- Last time there was like a second wave that went out a few days after launch. I wanna do viewer raids at levels, like the level 60 raids with the level 70 talents. That's what I wanna do. Are you still level 60? Because I've been- I have multiple characters. I'm not trying to level. Yeah, there's- I think there's gonna be no double command. They got rid of that on PTR, actually. That was not a thing back in the day, by the way. Oh my gosh, Chat. You wanna know something funny? You know that whenever there are four people or three out of four people, I forgot to go train my talent. So I don't even have max rank of like seal command. It's like really, really difficult to seal twist. The seal twisting needs to happen right whenever you swing. So without a swing timer, it is very, very difficult actually to seal twisting. So I really hope they open it up to add add-ons and stuff very soon, but they're probably just wanting to clean beta launch without any add-ons at first. Okay, I gotta- Dude, I gotta find some horde. If anyone sees horde, let me know. Blizzard is giving lines pal on seal blood at level 70. Yeah, I'm on the PvP server right now, but I'm probably gonna level a character on PvE with Azman. But I just wanna PvP. That's all I wanna do.  Is this game all about Warcraft? Yeah, it is. It's World of Warcraft. This is classic. This is the original game, and they've added a bunch of expansion and stuff. But this is the classic version of the first expansion. That's what people are really excited about because for a lot of people, this was like their favorite time in the game. How many people cry for fresh classic? Oh. Oh, this person's ready. Okay. They got their SL. Oh, frick. Oh, you got all your... This guy's got all his... Okay. Oh, slash cast turn evil. Oh, god. Those guys are coming. Unbelievable. I find one guy. It's not... Hold on. I can't really go... I can't really chase him because he's got guards. Okay, he's coming. Nah, frick. Slash cast turn evil again. This is so... Like, you have swiftness pots. This person has like... Oh, I'm just frickin'... I don't even have grenades. Okay, you know what? Shall I show you guys something else? I don't have a... I don't have bubble. The guards are coming again. Guards are coming again. I can't do anything. Okay, I got fear, and I'm gonna get aggro by the guards. This is par for the course for Warlocks Chat. All the stuns always get resisted. How do you feel about Blizzard introducing something like dual spec? No. It's like I wasted my land on hands there because they don't fight away from the guards. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Really? Come on. What is that mana regen? Did they change mana regen? My mana regen is so bad. And what is the funnest part of the game? I like PvP. I really, really, really like PvP. That's what I like. I mean, there's no PvP. I mean, there's nobody online. There's nobody online or... Hold on. What? What? Oh, come on. After all that, I was all town, my main. You've got... 15 years later, I still get fell reavered. You've got to be kidding me, dude. 15 years later, I still get fell reavered. You've got to be kidding me, man. Oh, oh, oh. What is this? Wait, tips?


Donald Trump recently got a much-needed ego check when he appeared at the World Series and this happened. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of that and my favorite part was after the announcer made it clear that Donald Trump was in attendance. Like you can see the look on his face. He was genuinely excited. He looked like a kid on Christmas because this is someone who craves attention. He just wants people to adore him and I'll give him credit. He held it together for quite some time because once people started booing, he was still smiling and clapping. But towards the end of that video, you can really see the look on his face that it was starting to get to him. Like you can see that he was dying inside after he heard the booze and that they weren't stopping anytime soon.  Seeing that look on his face, it warmed my heart. Is that okay to admit? I'm not sure that it's okay to admit that but look, I don't care.  But for those of you who like me enjoyed that, there was more because at another portion during that game, his face showed up on the big screen and once the crowd noticed that he was there again or was reminded that he was there, they chanted something that probably got under his skin. That was absolutely glorious and I hope that he heard them and was able to make out their chant and I genuinely hope that his feelings were heard because look, this is someone who is such a bad person. He's bombing babies, he's caging children, so not only should he actually be locked up for committing crimes against humanity but this is someone who should be impeached for being one of the most, if not the most corrupt presidents in American history. Because he is objectively, if you have a moral compass, a bad human being. He vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have ended U.S. complicity in Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen. This is someone who's so greedy that his only major legislative achievement was a tax cut that he signed into law for himself. He's a bad person. So, I mean, it's not just that he should be booed at the World Series, that wasn't enough.  He should be embarrassed to show his face in public, any restaurant that he attends with his family, he should be worried that they're gonna kick him out and boo him. Because that's how lonesome this individual is, who's not just doing irreparable damage to the country, but to the planet as well.   So I have absolutely no desire to defend him and talk about civility and respectability.  I'm glad he was booed and I hope that this hurt his feelings and ruined his day, quite frankly. Luckily for Donald Trump, all he has to do is wait a couple of years and he won't have to worry about being run out of restaurants or public spaces because in our culture, we really like to worship elites and if he just waits a couple of years then the establishment will welcome him back with open arms. In fact, they're already showing us signs that that is what they are in fact going to do given by the response to this because while most people didn't really care there was already some pearl clutching that we saw from establishment bootlickers. Nate Silver of 538 is one of them who tweeted, It's really amazing how many Libs can't even permit Trump to have one good day. Nobody will remember this stuff by Tuesday after US forces kill perhaps the world's most wanted terrorist. Unbelievable. First of all, doing one good thing doesn't undo the hundreds of bad things that you've done and furthermore, if the shoe was on the other foot and Hillary Clinton showed up to the World Series and Republicans booed her, do you think that they would say the same thing? Do you think that if she just killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that would be saying look, let's give her a little bit of a break, she just did something good?  No, stop with the pearl clutching. This is a bad person who's doing bad things. Don't feel bad for him because he was booed rightfully so. He should be booed everywhere he goes, but I don't want to focus too much on Nate Silver because he wasn't the only establishment bootlicker who clutched his pearls at Donald Trump being booed because on Morning Joe they did the same thing. Again, I speak to the lock him up chance. Again, it's just it's un-American. It started with Donald Trump. In fact, he's made it a centerpiece of his campaign rallies. We find it sickening when it happens at his rallies. I find it kind of sickening to watch people glaring at the president. We are Americans and we do not do that. We do not want the world hearing us chant lock him up to this president or to any president. That's what I'm saying. Let's hope as we move forward, maybe this is one less fascist tactic he and his supporters use during chance that you were going to actually imprison your political opponent. So let's leave that behind and just... I don't. We'll see if the Astros are gonna finish it off in Houston. I don't know.  I'm so tired of all of these political hacks who are just so disingenuous and all they want to do is cater to elites. It's so insufferable to me. They call this un-American. That's what they call this. They also said we do not want the world to hear us chant lock him up to this president or any president. Why not? We should be chanting lock him up to all of our previous presidents, especially George W. Bush. But we live in a culture where it doesn't matter all of the horrible things you've done. If you are an elite, we just love you. We adore you.   We worship elites because that's kind of the type of culture that capitalism fosters.   I'm just, I'm sick of it.   Nobody wants to hear pearl clutching. If you don't like that Donald Trump was booed, then I don't know what to tell you. We're not going to be nice to a fascist, okay? This fascist, like I said, should be worried that anywhere he goes for the rest of his life, he's going to have to deal with booze.   So Donald Trump should be booed and him being booed was good. I really shouldn't have to say this because, you know, I have sympathy theoretically for fascists, but that's where we're at in America right now, unfortunately.


Another hot summer in Sasebo, Japan, comes to an end as families from Fleet Activity Sasebo finish the season with a bang. Well, actually, a splash. We wanted to have a big party before everybody started going back to school and before the big Labor Day weekend. You know, after a long time staying in the house, it's good to enjoy, to have some healthy life in the pool and share time with other kids, I think. Most importantly, it brought everyone together. It just pulls everybody together at the end of the summer, which shows community over here at Hario. What I can say is I can't wait for next year's summer. Petty Officer Gabriel Cotico, Fleet Activities, Sasebo, Japan.


When we talk about photo content, and if you've been on my channel, if you've watched my channel, you've watched my content, then you already know that the biggest part of any success in this business, right, you have to bid, you've got to fill out RP's and all that kind of good stuff. But also, it's relationships, right? And even, you know, the badge I'm wearing says relationships is the new currency. How many of you, the people that you're following, the people that you're learning, the people that you're listening from, how many of those gurus that you're dealing with out there can actually introduce you to an eight-figure or a nine-figure business? That's the question of the ask yourself, especially with us ending eight days left on the program that we're discontinuing. Part of what I'm doing, I'm here in Virginia, actually, staff from Virginia, just down from Quantico. And as you can see behind me, there's a tent set up, and they're about to have this grand opening for a cyber lab. And so on the grand opening, I was personally invited by the guy who built the building behind us, Cesar Nadar, who happens to be on my podcast if you haven't watched that episode, make sure to watch it. But I was personally invited by him to come in, set up a booth, set up a table. And so, him and several other of my podcast guests, we've had conversations about working with my students. And that being you, the listeners, the people who are in our programs or in our courses, people who are taking our trainings. And what I want to remind folks is that when I'm talking to these business owners and when I'm talking to other people in the industry, right, and they're asking me for small businesses to help them when they're out trying to fulfill the mission. When they're asking me for references for small businesses, who do you think I'm going to first?   I know their business, I know who they are, and I know what they're capable of doing. And I know where their deficiencies are as well, because it's not always about capabilities, it's about your strong suits and some of your deficiencies.


Can't quite get my breakfast driven into me. Yeah, it actually took it must be hung up Yeah, it's got to be it's definitely around something I'm hoping it pops free. Yeah, it just came around one thing Feels like a pretty decent fish. Got it. Okay.


I see women going into corporate America and it doesn't surprise me that women are struggling with prescription drug abuse, alcoholism at record rates. They kick the can of marriage and family down the road so they can compete with men at the workplace. The ability to conceive drastically diminishes as women age. Moreover, the number of candidates for marriage like good men, they drastically decrease and the competition for those candidates go up because we all know that it's not normal for a guy to marry an older woman. But a woman marrying an older man, even a drastically older man, is something we see quite often. And so now you're not able to have children or it's getting harder to have children and you're finding a guy that you would even want to bear his babe, right? It's not great. But there's all these movies where this woman, like she's got the career world and she finally gets the alpha male that likes it and it all works out somehow, right? There's a reason that's a movie, why that fantasy sells.


I was thinking, why isn't there a singular event that covers it all? And it's non-pretentious and it's easy access that you can just come and talk to people and casual, you know, learning things from a different perspective. What's going on everybody? The Fun Bros here. We are in Singapore at Culture Cartel. This is the largest street culture convention in all of Southeast Asia. We're talking about sneakers, streetwear, local brands, designers, toys, tattoos, everything that relates to it. Today we are going to be speaking to different artists, different owners of different booths, and we are going to be asking them one, how is street culture developing in this region? And number two, since so many kids nowadays are wanting to get into the professional arts, what is the best piece of advice they can give to young aspiring artists like yourselves? Guys, there's a lot to find out and there's a lot to unpack. We're at Culture Cartel 2019. Let's go. The first floor of the event had a lot of booths from major brands, from Mercedes to New Balance to Puma and more. For me, the coolest part was having a dunk off with Andrew in front of a crowd and meeting a pro streetball player from the Philippines. Shout out to Hype Streetball from the Philippines. Representing Puma. Oh, he got some fix. Then there's the Food and Performance Hall. Obviously being in Asia but having formerly been a British colony, Singapore has a lot of East meets West fusion foods. There was beef rendang tacos mixing Malay cuisine with Mexican, tamago Japanese egg sandwiches, shabu beef and ahi tuna bagels, and even salted egg yolk mac and cheese. But my favorite food discovery at Culture Cartel Con was the Peepa Gao Boba. Peepa Gao was actually a honey medicine during from Hong Kong. I remember drinking it all the time when my grandparents came over, but I never imagined it tastes so good in a boba. Oh, that's good! I gotta give a shout out to WuBi, Andrew. We're in Singapore discovering and Singapore is not really known for boba. Is that true? No, no, it's not. And this is one of the best bobas I've ever had in my entire life. Pandan gula melaka coconut pandan gula melaka coconut. Ande, ande, ande. Wow, I'll tell you this, that is easily better than the hotel pancakes. Don't sleep on gula melaka. Ande pandan soup-labe pancake with the gula melaka. That is the one. Check this out guys, fresh tamago. Yo, you got bonito flakes, you have Japanese mayo, all on a toasted bread. My mom used to make a sandwich at home. It was an egg sandwich, it was just mayo and egg. This reminds me a lot about it. Cool Malay Mexican fusion. Let's do that. That is good. That thing, that is the best Asian fusion taco I've ever had. Yo, you guys gotta come out to Singapore and see what they're doing out here. It's crazy. That is a liver taco. Malado, I guess, is a sauce and then this is a liver taco. So, that is the best liver I've ever had. Yo, we might have to put the camera on. John's just trying to rendang taco. They didn't taste like liver at all. Meaty, delicious. Can't go wrong with a fried fridge taco. Shout out to this tortilla, this is one of the best tortillas. I thought this was pretty cool that Skechers has like three slushies. Lai Chi, I knew it was Asian. It's really sweet, it's really good. It does taste like lychee, but more like the lychee jellies. This very aesthetic bagel house called Bagel House caught my eye. I'm hungry because I'm looking at all the colors and colors make me hungry. What do you guys call this creation? Love, man. Here at Culture Cartel Con, it's not just street culture, but it's also food culture. Wow. The Yuzu Ahi tuna and it comes together well. Yolk, I think that is the shabu-shabu beef. Yeah? Four and a half out of five. Crazy rap performance going on right now, but the naughty boys, which is a boutique kind of hipster mac and cheese stall, they also do pancakes, had to drop off original spicy and salted egg yolk mac and cheese. Let's start with the original. Wow, look how milky this is. That's pretty good. It's really thick, a little salty. Just try the spicy one, bro. Okay, immediately. I like that one better. Last but not least, Andrew, the salted egg yolk mac and cheese. I like it. It tastes like golden duck as a mac and cheese. What have you seen here at this convention so far? A lot of energy, man. A lot of young kids, all types of sneakers that they're wearing, they're coming in with Yeezy, Jordans, a lot of hunger for wear. Any other market, they just want the product, but in the Asian market, they really care about the artist and the creator, and that's what's really cool about this region. Culture Cartel Con was not just another sneaker event. Obviously, there was a lot of skate, art, tattoos, food, fashion, everything that you just can't learn about during school hours. But of course, guys, we love to talk about sneakers. You gotta be a sneaker head to appreciate the subtlety of the Slam Jam Blazers, Andrew. Class. Yo, these are fire. This is my favorite all-white Air Force One to come out in a really long time. Claude Air Force One, they said that they're done putting the traditional Chinese patterns on sneakers after this. I thought this one actually turned out pretty well. I don't really like a lot of them, man, but this one was cool. It's getting hot in here, there's so much heat. If you guys do not know, and you guys are wondering why there's boost on this Reebok shoe right now, you have to understand that Adidas bought Reebok in 2006. This shoe, the DMX Fury, is like one of the most popular sneakers in Asia. We're talking about the year 2001. Yeah, yeah, way back then. Personally, I don't own a pair, I never have, but I wouldn't be opposed to wearing it with Boost now.  And you guys are doing legit checks and all this stuff. We're doing all that stuff to make sure that you don't buy fakes. That's why we're doing the real versus fake comparison right here. Here's why I think the left one is real. I think this tag right here, the DPI is better here, and then this one, I can't even tell what that R is. Usually on the fake pairs, some of the stitching and the cutting is a little bit frayed. Essentially to the untrained eye, you can't tell, but when they cut it on the fake pairs, it's just a little bit more raw and crude. All right, well, you've made your bet. We were thinking, what's the coolest sneaker ever? And we figured, well, why don't we make the coolest sneakers ever made by freezing them in a giant block of ice? They think it different here in Singapore, man. What's so special about your shoe cleaner, man? For our product, right, it's so-called chemical free. So we make use of lemon oil, coconut oil. By using this, okay, with the microfiber towel, it can just simply just wipe it off, okay, without under the sun or running through water. It's a minute in Taiwan product. Hey, this ain't Jason Mark, bro. It's Jason Lin. We have John behind the camera. He's gonna get his Yeezys cleaned real quick. John's played basketball in his Yeezys. He's traveled in his Yeezys. Feeling like a million bucks. Just his left shoe, though. Can you tell him real quick who you are, what you do? Well, I'm an influencer. I kind of meddle a little bit in the fashion industry. Some retail stuff. And I just launched a new Netflix show on Singapore's social, so check it out. Crazy. How would you describe street culture in Singapore? The nice thing about Singapore is that we are kind of a melting pot of all different cultures. We are really young, so we have a lot of things that we are inspired by the outside cultures, like Western and Eastern culture from China or from US. So you kind of see that in style. We kind of mix and match. You see a lot of different kind of variations of style. We are here with Fat Man's scoop hip hop legend. Around for so long, you know, you've seen hip hop develop and organically grow, and now we're in a region where it's almost still in the early stages. How do you see it organically developing here? You're at ground zero.  So it's just good to see the culture. All of these cool people together trying to elevate the culture to another level is nothing short of amazing. Yo, what's going on, guys? I'm here with the world famous stash and crash. Sounds good. Yeah, love it. In Singapore, it's going to take a life of its own and go put the basics of what's going to be there. So a tree is a tree, but there's different types of trees. That's how it's built, so you can do anything. When hip hop first started in New York City, it was all about party. Everyone say, oh, everyone have a good time. And then it went through an era where everyone needed to have beef. Everyone wanted to have enemies, and there was a lot of violence and gangster rap was born. And the same thing reflected on the subway trains. And then the subway trains died. Now, it has gone worldwide. And in some countries, you only get the artwork and the dance and the music, and everyone's happy. In Europe, I appreciate artwork so much more. But here, I don't know what the culture is like. So hopefully you guys will only import the good stuff, the fun, the beauty, and not the violence, not the vandalism and not the ugliness that sometimes accompanies this sort of artwork. So, so far, the vibe in this place is just awesome. Hype culture meets foreign culture. Hype non-chicken. Not high non-chicken. Let's just walk us through what you're doing here because you're mixing a lot of, sort of like what, national fast foods. Nothing too serious, nothing too ironic. We just like, we just like to have fun. Indomie migoreng figurines. We see the hype now. And then we got hype non-chicken too, right? Man. This is the roast hype non-chicken and this is the white. Yes, right. Yeah, this show, this is the first time you are seeing it. All right, can you guys explain the thinking behind the hype non-chicken?  What to do? This is like, the size, this is he-man size. It will fit in with the old school he-man figures. So we're like, what can we do? What's popular in Singapore? High non-chicken. We're hungry. Then we just started sculpting and this came out. This is really creative and I love this villain section here. It's really funny because it's kind of personifying all these things that are outlawed in Singapore that are not outlawed in many other countries. Professor Gum. All right, we tell us about Chop Chop. Chop Chop is by Diplomat. Diplomat is a group of artists where we do like illustrations and stuff and then on our free time because we have a day job. We make it into stickers. We make it into t-shirts and stuff like this and we try to sell them. Okay, so you guys were doing this piece for Adidas and then this piece for Nike. I just got bought and I wanted to draw some Gundam and then add some skulls because I just like skulls and then we just put it on a t-shirt. So it's kind of like a mash-up, huh? Yeah. All right, we are here with Murphin, an artist from Spain. Yeah, hello, my name is Murphin. What is the inspiration behind your art, man? So, well, what he does is spray paint. I like the acrylic and with the color pencils. So actually in Europe, hyperrealism is not very strong, but in Asia, it will still take some time to come. So what do you think for the kids out there? They want to do what you just did, but for whatever reason, it's not flowing. What's your best piece of advice so they can break through those mental barriers and be like you and make dope art? I mean, I can't give you advice that you don't already know, right? If you know what you want to do, then do it. Then do it. We did it. It's not all about talent. It's 50% talent, 50% business, and those people that fade away is those that don't know how to do business, don't know how to sell themselves, market themselves. People have ideas all the time, but execution, you know, that's rare. Not everything will work out. People respond well to certain figures, but they won't respond so well. They'll, we just keep doing it until we see the result that way. Also, I think the key is simple. You don't have to take it so seriously.  There's nothing like that. You just gotta be authentic. You know, you just gotta be true to yourself and really represent your intention of why you're doing the brand has to really stand up. A lot of times, I think people just want to do it for the sake of doing it. I think now consumers are really smart, so you can't just do a brand just out of that. You know, you gotta have respect for them as well, and then you'll return back to them. My advice is to keep working. Just keep doing it. Keep doing it, keep doing it. The thing with Instagram is now like everybody has a great window to the world. Don't listen to anybody, just keep doing it. Everybody have gone through the struggle. People, everybody at the top have gone through the struggle, so you have to struggle first, man. Break by break, layer by layer. Right, we're a space-inspired clothing brand from Indonesia. Our brand's about this guy, Nick Vlad. Is he part of the Russian space program? Yeah, so that's why I had to name Cosmonauts. Why space? There's like limitless imagination that we have in like kind of exploring it and anything can happen. So who's to say that there's no aliens or whatever pyramids in space and all the design that we do, you know, who's to say that they don't exist somewhere out there? What do you think it is about Indonesia, man?  To be honest, there's a lot of really creative people out there in Indonesia, and we haven't really been exposed to the rest of the world yet, you know, and it's really good that people are really taking it on now, and all these creative people are getting out there, so that's really exciting. So hopefully we'll start to emerge more out there and be more recognized throughout the whole world. Ghazalyn, what are we looking at behind us? It's actually an art installation, so everybody actually gets to participate in this. Ah! But great job, David, you are part of the artwork. She said her goal was to recreate that feeling of child-like spontaneity. And guess what? I felt it, do you want to do it? She called it second childhood. All right, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go spray the dinosaur.   Our own brand is called Lucky N. It's really about the Oriental, you know, Chinese, Asians, going out from Asia to the rest of the world, and that's how we ended up in Singapore as well. You know, so Lucky N is the extension of that. You know, we still have our family gatherings, our gambling, that we really love, and our food. So that's what this brand is about. Is this Lao Fuzi? It's an inspiration from Lao Fuzi. All right, this is Lao Fuzi. This is a character in Lao Fuzi. You see a lot of this, and you know, where you can have your haircut, the little kids will have this book. Okay, we've run a fidget around here, it's a book for you to read. So this is something that we grew up with. Okay, what is this? What do we look at? It's a reversible kid, you know, kimono with a hoodie. Oh, there's a hoodie? Hoodie kimono. Exactly, and it's a world of reversible. Wow, wow, the silk inside. David actually just got a big kimono the other day. So you've got, David's kind of on a kimono wave right now. Come out to the fight like this. I'm not the biggest bear brick expert, shout out to MediCom, but my favorite bear bricks, I'm more into the design of the bear brick rather than what it represents. So for example, I love these because they're shiny, they're darumas, and for me, obviously the other ones that really catch my eye is really this Jean-Michel Basquiat, RIP to Basquiat. But I actually really like this mickey, Nita Kahawa one too. Hey, nice to meet you, David. Thanks for coming. Can you tell us a little bit what is O-Bot and what are you guys trying to accomplish? It's a vintage toys with a new twist of a contemporary art message. You were saying the heart of the robot can always be switched out, right? So whoever's controlling the robot, for example, that has a panda controlling a cat. Usually the ones who control are the ones who are smarter. Especially there that we have this little one that we call the happy clown. So this is what?  Yo, I feel like, this is not McDonalds. This is whatever. Oh, okay, okay. All right, I'm with Appa Yang Fresh from Johou Baru. So can you tell us about your guys' art? Yeah, I mostly do mural art but slowly tapping into graffiti. So I usually draw flowers around town. I love other types of graffiti too but it doesn't, sometimes you look at it, if you don't understand that world, you just like, I don't know what it is, right? But though everybody know what you're doing. Yeah, I hope so, but actually to be honest, I'm just gonna give it a go with whatever I do. The most important thing is just to have fun with it even though some people might say, this ain't graffiti, but then again, I'm just doing what I love, that's all. All right you guys, we are here at an exhibition by Andre Tan. He mixes a lot of pop culture and high-end sort of brands together. Like look here, Chief Wiggins from The Simpsons. First of all, he has funny eyes. He's got the Louis Monogram print Gucci coffee cup. This is trippy. A lot of stuff going on and then there's Chanel in the background. This is one of my favorite booths. This has some really cool artwork here. I think for me, art really needs to have an accessible entry point for people to even get into it. And you know, we used to live in the Lower East Side. There were so many different art galleries and some of the stuff is so abstract. It's difficult to sink your teeth into. This is easy to sink your teeth into. This is pop art. Pop art using pop culture. It's generally easier to enjoy and understand at least on a shallow level. We're here with Joanna from Cartier Cartel. What we want people to take away from the event is something new. We don't want people to come here, see what they usually like and just take home that. We want them to learn new things. If you're into sneakers, great. Come here and learn more about art. Learn more about tattoos. Learn more about anything else that on top of the things that you're here to see. It goes beyond product. You're not just selling the product. You're selling the minds behind who designed the shoes or who designed the clothing or who's the artist behind the collaboration. You're learning all of those things. Today, I'm one of the co-founders of Cartier Cartel. Guys, check out every year in December where and when Cartier Cartel is happening and hope you guys can come down and take a look and experience yourself firsthand.  But right now, you can see all sorts of people going through. You have families, you have young kids, some rocking expensive sneakers, you know, rocking boots, even. There's no comparison. Without comparison, there's nothing to pretend. And egos are put aside. You just want to learn passion as its simplest form. And I think it's just cool to see like people care about street culture but they still care about being Asian. I think like in the West, a lot of us, we are born and raised there. It's pretty much you're going to pick one or the other. It's like you're either going to speak your parents' language but then you're just going to become a doctor or a lawyer or you're going to project being Asian and you're going to go into the street culture or whatever subculture your parents don't approve of. And it's like, this is going to be one or the other but then here I see people do both. Yo, thank you so much for watching that video here on Culture Cartel 2019 here in Singapore. This whole scene for street culture in this region, Southeast Asia, Singapore is really, really on its way up. Obviously because it's a new culture to the region, there's a ton of room for opportunity. And I think that that gap is going to be filled up in a unique way, its own distinct version. They have a good starting point right now. They're starting pure, they're starting with the culture, they're starting with understanding and teaching and learning and that's the best way to start. One last thing, if you're going to visit Singapore, I say come during one of these big conventions that gives you something to do. Listen, the food here is good and it's always here though but stuff like this, it only happens a few times a year. Shout out to everybody who showed so much love. Shout out to everybody that was in the video and just thank you so much for watching. Guys, if you like that video, make sure you give this video a huge thumbs up. Click subscribe, hit the notifications. Let us know in the comments below what you took away from the video because it was really long, there was a lot to say. And then also tell us somewhere else or some other event that you know that we should check out. Let us know in the comment section below. And until next time, you guys we're in Singapore. We're out. Peace. A-O-D-J, can you turn the music up? How do they feel? You have the power.