It happens to be in the range of our 180th I think take Hawaii human-humane architecture show. This show is looking at how climates, so the natural environment informs cultures, so the built environment as its manifestation. And we're doing this in a continued post-context scenario here in Hawaii, looking at other places in the world to learn from. So today we're going to look across the pond to Germany, which is my native country. And we have a guest with us who is very knowledgeable about that culture as well as his native culture, the United States of America. And that's educator and practicator Larry Midland. Hi, Larry. Hi, Martin. How are you today? Nice to be on your program. I'm good. Thanks for being with us, Larry. And let's bring up the first slide and look, share with the audience a little bit how we got to know each other. So me coming from that tempered German climate. And in the early 90s, I had a chance to be a college student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And one and a half decades later, I was kindly asked to come back as a teacher. And after another half decade, I thought I might need to leave home away from home as nice as it was to move on and to grow up. So this is gives you an idea of the scenario about now almost another decade ago. And same weather conditions, climate conditions we're currently having here in Germany with a cold front up there you see the Celsius temperatures and down at the Fahrenheit. Anyway, it's freezing cold and I was living in the Century House apartment where I had two options to live on the south side, which I would have had to have the curtains pulled close and AC on in the summertime or on the north facade where it was fine in the, in the summertime In the wintertime, as you can see at the bottom right I had this sort of thermally not disconnected and unbroken window frames that let them over eyes from the inside. So at the same time of the year must have been in March, about a decade ago on a Saturday morning I will never forget my phone rang. And you were on the phone Larry and why were you calling me. I'm calling to invite you to come visit us at the University of Arizona as a candidate to join our faculty you had sent us a very impressive resume and supporting letters and so forth. And we were hoping to have an opportunity for you to come to be as me as in Tucson and get to know about the university and us to get to know a little bit about you. I can thank you enough and let's get us to the next slide and take that as a chance to have you explain as you being an expert in many things as climate explained to us the very different climate in your hot arid desert of Arizona Larry. The main difference is that most areas of the country have diffuse sky. So you have indirect radiation and then limited amounts of direct sunshine. And so for that your temperature swings, or maybe five to 10 degrees at the most in most places throughout the year, and you have softer light. So there's very limited cloud cover. So what happens is you have a very large, what's called the dial temperature swing the swing between the highs and the lows is about 30 degrees plus or minus and fair height every day of the year. So what that means is that in the summer, it can get up to maybe 105 or so, and in a few exceptions even more than that. But then by the evening and actually the coolest is that the following sunrise at the nighttime, it'll get back down into the 70s. And then the same thing happens in the winter. It's just reverse. It gets up into the many of the 70s to 75 like it will be here today. And it'll get down to about 40 as it did here last 43 I think to be specific as it did last night. What that means is there's energies that you can deal with throughout the year and in the summer, you want to shade yourself and protect yourself from the hot summer sunshine but you can bring in the cooling night air breezes and in the lower temperatures. And that's where high thermal mass has been used to aid you in that purpose at both times of the year. And the winter, the sun shines directly in hits the thermal mass gets absorbed and tied you over for the later part of the day. And all of that itself continues on having a good insulation you'll blow around the exterior of that in most cases. So that that's that's the basic just it's a very exciting for a designer to think about these opportunities and how the climate responses can relate to your lifetime and activities. Absolutely. And the images illustrating what you just said is my Lincoln from Lincoln that I brought with me, and that one, your son Anton thankfully nicely took care of because that one was just like the space shuttle that is losing his heat shields. While entering the atmosphere again that car was basically losing parts of his front lights and the, the window gasket was just basically dilapidating away and that just illustrates how hard it can get and the picture at the very top is almost exactly the 105 it says 102 and I took this picture when you picked me up from the airport and drove me around. And so the situation we see on the left is what a couple days when you send me a picture from your house, there was the rare situation of some snow on the mountains, which we currently also have as I remember back in Hawaii only on the highest summits of Mauna Kea and and on Maui on the mountains, and we have it a lot we drove up to Mount lemon but that's another story maybe we save this for later. We had a very significant snowfall we had up in the village of Mount lemon there was almost two feet of snow there's actually there's ironically with a southern most ski slope in the United States. The ski slope was open for a week or two, because of the snowfall up there, and you can look out from the valley below and you know it got down to the foothills level but not right down into the lowest level of the city itself. It was a beautiful view to look at that day. I know well it maybe then say it now because it's interesting because I were still in covert days and you luckily and thankfully got your first shot already Larry we're happy to hear that. And so, hopefully you guys have cases under control. So you might be able to do what we are not because we're the origination of October fest is of course here in Munich and that one basically got shut down. And so, the closest in authenticity to October fest I ever experienced was actually up on Mount 11 where we went you have a little October. That's right. That's right. That's up on Mount lemon it was great.   I got to wear a hat, and I got to have a water bottle.  They, they sense that heat they they always go back in. If you're about one meter below the surface level of temperatures constant. So they don't always burrow into the land and find a place I think you may have a picture of a snake on a shelf somewhere where they go and stay in the daytime and then they crawl back out at night when it's more comfortable. Absolutely. Yes. So then, let's go into your hideaway place that protects you from the elements which is your home so gets let's go to the next slide. And amongst the many treasures in your house that hopefully if we can get zoom the work and in the next couple volumes that we're going to be together. So, be on camera you can show a couple of your beautiful treasures but so far let's look at this magic memory wall here that you have. And in particular, let's zoom into one particular image there and let's bring up the next slide that shows it. And who are all these people we're looking at. So that was the Institute for lightweight structures at the University of Stuttgart. And they had a grant to explore lightweight wide span buildings is a federal research grant that was given to the University of Stuttgart and instead of sprinkling money throughout the country what the University does they identify a special research topic number fear and section number 64 was lightweight wide span structures, and those run for five years. And then they bring in international scholars and people working in the field and it's an interdisciplinary process there at the university itself and so all the participants are also there. And they come together and have it's a one week meeting and everybody makes a presentation about their work and you talk and all these are documented and I'm sorry we don't have the video today because I could hold up in front of you and show you some of the books that document these things. And that's the purpose but the incredible thing about that is that you meet these people that you otherwise might not have the chance to meet. If you look at that the picture on the first row of the person sort of sitting on the steps and looking straight ahead that's fry auto. The, that's Sammy on glory from Sawyer Arabia who later was a collaborate on some of the projects that fry auto get there. And then right next to him is my dear friend and who became a lifetime mentor to me. That's Conrad voxman. He was an architect that was original member of the bow house. He was good friends with Walter Gropius, and he was a very good friend with Albert Einstein, and actually went out but Einstein won the prize for his work with the Adam and energy. He was awarded a house to be built for him in his honor and pots them and fry auto became the architect of that. And so from that they became very good friends, and then I'm sitting right next to a voxman there. And then next to him is another German who lives in Ireland I think now he moves around so I'm not sure where he is now called Wolf Hilbritz. And he's worked with seawater accretion structures which is a very interesting field.  That's Herman Kindle. He was the principal of a fry of growth good growth offices I was the principal and fry auto's office when we worked on the German pavilion. Let's go to the next slide, Larry, and that's going to show once again fry to the very left and you onto the very right. And then we see in the middle. What connected you right what you guys were working on and where you were working on that right can you explain that a little more to us. Yeah, that's actually if you look up that's actually in. The inside of the Institute for lightweight structures which is now a historic landmark in Germany. And the main structural element which was a theme of all of these is how to use pencil elements, instead of big massive things like columns and, you know, tapered columns and beams and so forth to support pencil structures we found it by working with so films. You could do it with pencil members which allow the structures to become even even more important. So what we're looking up is we're looking up and we're seeing the roof. In what was the test structure for the German for me and at expo 67 and Montreal. It was on the adjacent area of the off campus side of the University of Stuttgart, but it was four and a piece of land for there was a future roadway to come through so it was what was found that there was be a possibility to develop to a permanent building. It was picked up it was about 8000 square feet and move to a site about a half a mile away, which is now where it is re erected. And in that site. Going up there, one of the things that supports is there's a two rich cables to parallel cables that go. And in this case one of them opens up with what we refer to as an eye loop. So that allows sunlight to come in and use way, and it gives you sort of a greenhouse space which is, you know, very useful and that's, that's the spot where everybody would get twice a day for coffee or tea in the mornings in the afternoons. And then the stair beyond that is is the library out there up in the upper part of the deck. And then there was an enclosed space for dark room and other things. So that that pictures if like, if we instead of just looking straight across where we work to speakers on the same level we were, if we looked up that's essentially the view that we would see. And that's where you see, because the fabric can span great distances in the time of Montreal about 200 feet. We use the cable network with a fabric roof suspended below it. So we wanted to be a permanent building. We developed that wood decking system with insulation in a single system on the exterior that we could. It was a single that was square with one rounded corner so it worked like a fish scale so we could adapt it to the curves of the overall form. So we will see that a little later but take that little time to explain why that sort of tongue and groove wouldn't, you know, layer over the cables was different than in the in the future in the other projects following. Well, it was because you could you can spend fabric and then, and then also like in the Munich Olympic complex, it used a panel system of plexiglass panels with a flexible joint in between them it used about. I don't remember the exact size probably about four by four meter panels bigger, bigger panels. But that was if you look at there's a network of cables. And I know it's very difficult to see in that photograph but if you imagine there's a top layer in the bottom layer and laying in between on the bottom layer in between the two top layers exactly in the middle point is a one by three structural member that if you pick it up in the middle as 20 feet long it'll great. Two feet on each end. So it's flexible so you just lay it on and let it make the curve that way, and then by, rather than pushing the tongue and groove in, you slightly turn the tongue and groove. So it follows the curvatures of the form in the other direction. So you're able to make that would look very elegant up there. So it's like a wood deck that actually is using its nature to adapt to the forms of the steel cable network. Impressive. And let's you've been using the term soap film and let's go the next slide that we picked from the web representative for made by yourself models and explain to the audience a little bit what what that is and these models that you made Larry. Well, the one model that you're looking at is a model actually basically the form of the Institute for lightweight structures with a soap film and the thing about so film so film. If you take a flat piece of the soap film and you put a thread, the double thread in there, and then you burst the area between a rubble thread, the equal tension if it's a flat film will pull that to occur to complete the perfect circle because it's pulling it will equal tension in every direction. But if you take one point on that curve and start to lift it up. You begin to lift up the form and go upward so you get the anti classic curvature or the double curvature of the film which in a structural purpose will allow you to pull it together with counteracting tensions to support compressive and and suction and all kinds of loads to make it stable. And so that was, and if you take a, if you keep pulling a circle up eventually you'll pull it out. But if you had, as you see in that photograph of rich coming down below it, or behind it as a continuous rich, you can lift it even higher and create a larger volume. And that that opening in a cell film is what we just saw and the actual real structure looking it up from the underneath side inside. And share with us that moment where you had to make a smaller model in a very short amount of time very quick and fast share that situation there. Well, the German Pavilion was the first of the Barcelona Pavilion was a major work that Germany did, you know, before the world wars. And, and it was very famous. And so everybody was very nervous that Germany didn't want to build something new on the stage unless it was really was an outstanding building that has to live up to the same standards that's a Barcelona Pavilion. So it wasn't just an ordinary project there was an invited competition. Six architects were invited by the German, the, at that time the West German government to some do submissions. We fly auto and real good voters a team. I mentioned Herman kindle and myself collaborating as leaders of those teams work together and we won one that competition. But when we won the competition, they said, Well, we're not just going to design something and carry it over to Montreal and build it and have it not work. You've got to build a test building to show that it works. So, the, Mr. Glandy had come down from the bond at that time, which was the seat of the government to stood guard for a big important meeting to decide after we have won the competition, if we're really going to take this seriously and go further. Again, that meeting was scheduled, I guess at about eight o'clock in the morning we were there in the office. Actually, you're working on further development ideas for the design and the prevain itself. But Friday auto came up to me and said Larry, I think they're going to want us to build a test structure for this. And Kenny, and we talked about it. Well, let's build a piece like what you actually saw in that cell phone, a piece that demonstrated a sky loop with a ridge and I wanted to do the ridge and all the edge conditions, and, and try to make it become elegant proportions and form and shape. So it would be a reasonable building so that we might find a uses for it later. So, I don't know how I did it, you know, when I look back, but I was younger and had more nimble fingers and stuff. We had a model built in about two and a half hours and in about 15 minutes later fry auto showed up with it and looked, looked at that model. And the irony of that that that that shape and that form was tweaked and moved with all kinds of computer problems and stress analysis but it, it didn't move by more than three or four inches in either direction that was pretty. It was one of those lucky sort of things you just try to use your best thing and, you know, get it together and do what you can do and it worked out very fortunately for us on that occasion. Priceless Larry, and let's go to the next slide and look at the next stage model which I think we can call this steel model because there's a steel frame below. And that's going to look into the next sort of elaborate stage of prototyping which is very much is right. The next stage is the, that's actually the, the steel cable network that we built for the German for then it was fabricated in Strollmire factory in Constance. And it was actually the cable network was a half meter by half meter and half inch cables. And the reason for that was that you could walk through it. And work and crawl all over it and, and building it and stuff. And plus, it was flexible enough so that you could make it into literally 10 meter sections that were like a giant piece of carpet that was 10 meter by however length they were with an arching edge on both edges and, and then splice joints to connect to the next panel. And those were rolled up and shipped over to the side in Montreal and then laid out on the ground and then all connected together. And then it was like putting the strip patterns of a sale together on the ground and then raising it up the mass later to erect the structure. I know, and this is something interesting for us in Hawaii where we tried to and we were talking you were talking about building less basically ethereal heavy elephant like and more ethereal, more like a bird and so in Hawaii where we ship in lots of things. If you're shipping in things you want to ship in as little as possible. If you're shipping in cable. And it also allows you to take it to remote sites and remote conditions. Yeah, and Hawaii is pretty remote right. Yes, yes. I actually and I'm not one of these parts, but another project with working with medical doctors at the University of Arizona, a public health college. A portable prevain for nighttime blindness. And it was a double layered fabric tent that was about, let's say, 20 feet by 15 feet, where people could be tested for nighttime blindness. But to do that testing, which was provided on a deficiency, it was made in parts that you could literally, in most cases you put it in the back of a pickup truck and took it into the local villages where they're going to doing the testing. But if you had to, you could take it including the big structural art supports which broke down into pieces. You could make it in the backpack so surplus could carry it up to the most remote sites in the world. And it was used in Nepal. So it did get to some of those kind of sites. Well, that's great. So to do the most with the least, which was, you know, fries agenda. Well, you know, another point, Martin, about that is that it is this and particularly as you advance through your project to looking at space net structures is how it meets the ground. Most buildings, you know, build huge foundations and they destroy the local ecological system and so forth. And you have to often distort completely the contours and the runoff and the impact upon that. But with lightweight structures, you literally can sort of almost hover them above the ground so you can discreetly decide where you're going to put your points of contact with the ground and let natural things move through and around it. So that creates a really interesting problem across possibilities and applying these in space nets in the future projects. Absolutely. And speaking of barely scratching the surface. That's what we did in our almost 28 minutes. And so let's get to the end of the show and bring up the next and the last picture, which is an exterior photograph of that test building you were talking about. And by that point, maybe phasing out and maybe we go, we switch to German because people might wonder, you know how you've been communicating and you're pretty fluent in my native language. So maybe from now on, you see this in that one just to refresh it. You're doing good in that. Don't don't worry about it. If you say it's just then, you know, it's not which we have. It's a very good leg and height in Tucson. Also, when it's get to the Wuster Museum and Deutsche Besuchers in Deutsche Her and Albert. It's much more, it's a winner canoe, but it dowered on this side, but you know, it comes. This isn't a good leg and height. This is a good opportunity to refresh your German, which is, it's still pretty good. Believe me, trust me. And again, we're at the end of our first 28 minutes and we're looking forward to many more shows which is going to be many more volumes and continue to tell that exciting story of your life and work Larry, both professionally and academically with the great fry auto with Bucky Fuller, in addition, who you got to know your friend Conor Erexman, and many more and you work at the University of Washington and the University of Arizona so I can't wait for next week to reconnect. And until then, we say tschüss und auf Wiedersehen and stay all happy and healthy there and stay warm in the evenings Larry. Yes, thank you very much and I wish the students all the luck in their project. It's a very exciting project and I'll look forward to opportunity for a couple more interactions with him so. Absolutely, your mentor and master so thank you.


But the law chamber ad hoc committee constituted a review the first January 2023 deadline to phase out old currency could not hold as scheduled. After the members of the committee waited for an hour for the commencement, the chairman Alhassan Addo Dogua informed that it has been rescheduled for Thursday and Friday. Now the chairman explained that the meeting was scheduled to meet with the officials of the central bank of Nigeria, but due to the late receipt of the letter, it was agreed that they should appear on Thursday by 1 p.m. Our letter of invitation got to the bank very, very late yesterday. You can all agree with me that the resolution was taken at the end of our sitting yesterday, the 24th of January 2023. And before we could finish necessary procedures, the letters were signed in to the central bank late. So the liaison officer of the bank spoke to us this evening that they were not able to really act on the letter to allow for their engagement today. And on this note, I would like to convey to members of the committee and of course to the members of the public and the press that are here with us that we have considered to allow the central bank officials to come up tomorrow by 1 p.m. tomorrow by 1 p.m. So that we will engage them and immediately after our engagement with the officials of the central bank will engage the bank operators. This is the decision of the committee. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Ah Super Mario Odyssey folks welcome to our first ever first impressions video And we're talking about Super Mario Odyssey. I played it for about two hours last night. I actually did it through live stream and It We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about my experience with the game We're not we're gonna be reviewing Super Mario Odyssey. We haven't hit our stretch goal yet on patreon, but we're getting closer so Let's just talk about What I feel there's a lot of people asking questions in the live stream how I feel about the game right now and I gotta say I'm gonna try to keep this a spoiler free as I can but because it's only the beginning of the game I'm talking about I feel like I don't need to hold back too bad You start out, you know with a light story, but it's an interesting story And this is probably the one spoiler. I'm gonna throw in there So I'm warning you right now. I'm gonna spoil the very beginning of the story The game starts out where you're fighting against Bowser Mario is literally already fighting Bowser This is usually what happens at the end of a Mario game so he's fighting Bowser who already captured Peach and Yeah, the Bowser's all decked out like he's getting married Peach is not decked out like she's getting married nor is Mario and It's an interesting situation because Mario loses and his hat basically gets destroyed And before we even see Cappy we see, you know, tiara or like the I don't know the name of the character yet but the tiara character with the eyes that That Bowser has put on top of Peach And it's just a really interesting beginning It's not like it's a super super in-depth story and you find out that the tiara thing is Cappy's sister So he's trying to save his sister. You're trying to save, you know the princess as always So that's kind of a setup and there really hasn't been a whole lot of story sense Also, the fact that Bowser's kind of destroyed the world Or at least destroyed the Cap Kingdom. So that that that happened, I guess. I Don't know. I don't know how the rest of the world plays out yet, but You start on the Cap Kingdom and you can't really do much. It's a tutorial. It's teaching you how to play There's not really a whole lot of like interesting discoveries beyond some coins But it's fun. It's interesting. It's a nice little tutorial area And that's all I'm gonna say for the story. There's a couple of other things that happen But you know, I'll leave them for you guys to discover You do get to fight, you know a few bosses or a couple bosses so far I've fought in two bosses both of them relatively easy Although this is the beginning of the game now I've heard one of the criticisms of this game by certain reviewers is that it's not extremely challenging and I Think if you're just playing from start to end if you're just going from I want to go from point a to Saving Princess Peach at the end of the game. It probably is pretty easy I think the required moons that you need for your odyssey ship because you need to collect moons for your odyssey ship to travel from location to location Are relatively easy to get because you get some for beating the boss you get some you are just really easy to find or right out in the open And because of that, I don't think you actually need to do a lot of exploration To at least early on in the game to get the moons that are required to move on to the next area So from that perspective, I think I understand the lack of challenge But I think what some people forget is the challenge in Mario games isn't the boss fights I mean if you think back to Super Mario 64 because that's what I'm gonna keep comparing this game to The challenge is not the boss fights. The boss fights of Super Mario 64 are not hard I don't think I ever died to a boss in Super Mario 64 and I was like 10 or 12 at the time So I'm not gonna die now Unless I really really screw up And that's despite the fact that if you watch that live stream or you're watching now I'm a little clunky with the controls not only because there's a lot of new moves But even some of the old moves like the triple jump I was struggling with and that's okay I mean, and I'm I'm sure you guys didn't want to spend out the footage. I'm showing you right now Isn't from our live stream. I'm playing Cascade Kingdom, which is the second kingdom you go to after Cap Kingdom and Yeah, I mean, I've already done everything I can do I've already like 100% of this area for as much as I'm able to there are some moons You can't get into a late game or like end game like you beat the game that you can go back and collect more moons So I've done everything I can so you're not gonna see you you'll see the outlines of the moons and the coins or whatever But I'm just showing you some gameplay because I was doing this all during live stream Anyways, it's it's very interesting Just experiencing this on the whole When I first got the Cascade Kingdom during the live stream I got to the top of the pole there's a pole you can climb right away and I just wanted to see like, you know the world itself and Nostalgia just rushed over me. I got emotional. I cried. I legit cried because this world looked like a world from Super Mario 64 and if I'm being honest I've been waiting 21 years for a true sequel to Super Mario 64 like a true honest-to-goodness Slap me in a world and let me freely explore game. Yes, there is an objective Then they give you a mark on your map for the objective But that's not what made Super Mario 64 the way it is and that's not what makes odyssey Well, when people talk about the lack of challenge I question how many of those people 100% of the game and I'm not saying that because you need a 100% odyssey to enjoy It no no no well one of the great things about this game is it is a 3d platforming collectathon This is just like the games we got back in the 90s Just like the Super Mario 64 is in the banjo kazoos and even the conquerors bad for days of the world You can even argue Crash Bandicoot back in the day was a little bit like this a different style of platforming But still This is what we grew up on in the 90s and these kind of games just don't exist very much anymore We got ukulele which some people chastise for being too much like the old-school banjo-kazoos games Including all the faults and I haven't played it So I don't know what that means because I didn't see any faults like to me banjo-kazoos from my memory I know it's rusty. I keep thinking it's a perfect video game, but I know it's not actually perfect You know, it's one of those I'm older now. I'm not a child. I understand. There's probably flaws I just because of nostalgia or whatever the case may be I can't see what those flaws are but Super Mario Odyssey Really, as I said, I only played the first Kingdom.  Hey, is this the is this better than Breath of the Wild? Like you that's something you can't determine till you've experienced the full game And that doesn't mean you have to 100% if you got a lease get to the end And I got to the end of Breath of the Wild. I have any 100% in Breath of the Wild I'm working on a 100% master mode run which is now on pause for Super Mario Odyssey because it's the new hot thing out And I guess I said 21 years in the in the waiting for a game like this So far just in the Cascade Kingdom, I'm very impressed with this game The T-Rex They let you control T-Rex early that's that's in the Cascade Kingdom Cascade Kingdom Basically the dinosaur kingdom And the T-Rex it wasn't as exciting as I hoped Maybe because I saw a small preview video where I just saw it kind of walking around wrecking things That's pretty much all it does I don't know what I really expected the T-Rex to do if I'm being honest It's a T-Rex.  That's just what it does But yeah, the game Basically gives you the ability to control it as soon as you get cappy It enables you to do basically every move in the game But it slowly introduces you to these moves So if you don't want to go into the action menu because there's an action menu and you can learn all the moves there it will show you As you need those moves like eventually I'm sure I'm going to need the move where you throw the cap and you jump on the cap and you get across the gap Now I've done that a couple times during the demo or during the demo during the the live stream But uh, I'm not very good at it and it's going to take a lot of practice because it's a new move Um, even the old moves as I said, you know the triple jump I was really really struggling with the triple jump even though some people were saying it works exactly like in mario 64 Well, here's here's a new here's a news flash. I haven't played mario 64 in probably 20 years as much I'm not one of those gamers. I guess that plays game like there's some people that oh, I love mario 64 so much I play it every single year or I played through it a zillion times I played through mario 64 twice in my life both of it the year that the game launched So I haven't really played sense because I'm not one of those gamers that feels like I need to I feel like there's always great games coming out And I should be moving on to those experiences because I already got my full experience And one thing I actually struggled starting super mario odyssey. I almost got emotional before the start because Sometimes there's those rare moments in life. You know, you're about to start a special journey And I've seen the reviews. I know how well this game is scoring I know that it looks a lot a lot like mario 64 And sometimes you just know you're about to embark on a special journey and you're afraid to start Because once you start you can never do that again You can replay the game. You could have fun with it and not saying the game gets old or boring But you'll never be at that point where you're first experiencing the game I never played the demo for this game whether it was a best buy or game stop or target or whatever I didn't play it at e3 like literally Unlike breath of the wild which I had played demos of and had experience with before it came out Especially in that opening area So a lot of the luster of the opening area was kind of lost on me A lot of the wow factor because I got that wow factor at e3 2016 I've not had the wow factor with odyssey So it was one of the games like for the first time since I was a child. I went into it almost blind barely knowing anything about it and That experience of just Starting that special journey playing it for your first time Even if I had known a bunch whatever playing the game for your first time Very few times in my adult life have I experienced the rush and the thrill And the reverence of just knowing I'm in the midst of something special And I'm never going to get that again and because I'm never going to get that again I'm going to 100 odyssey this first time I play it and I'll probably never touch the game again Unless I'm recording gameplay specific for videos that we're doing here in tender prime And that's just because it's a single player game. That's just the way I am with single player games I usually play them through once if I want to 100 the game Maybe I'll play it again or I'll try to 100 the file I have and that's it In fact, the only reason I'm playing the breath of the wild twice is because master mode I wasn't available till later if master mode would have been available day one when breath of the wild launch I would have started the game of master mode never even played in normal mode And I would have already beaten it and maybe even 100 of it, but The reason I didn't 100 normal mode in breath of the wild is because I knew master mode was coming And I wanted to 100 master mode because I feel like that's a grander challenge to me as a zelda fan This is just There's not a lot I could say that hasn't been said by other people about mario odyssey so far I'm at the beginning of the game. There's no way in heck. I can I can use the beginning to judge the rest It is relatively easy. It is relatively holding your hand a little bit just a little bit Exploring and collecting all of the 50 coins and all of the The moons I could collect. I think I could collect 18 moons or 17 moons or whatever the case may be Right now in cascade kingdom It wasn't exactly easy because you really have to look around for everything possible to collect those moons It just takes me back Super mario odyssey is a 3d platformer built on basically the husk of you know, the dead husk of super mario 64 And it's just brilliant that formula that super mario 64 had that all those collectathon 3d platforms had still works It still works today and the game is gorgeous on top now. I was only in cascade kingdom, but it is it's a gorgeous game Uh, I don't really have any I didn't see any graphical issues. I never saw any frame rate dips now There are frame rate dips. We know and it happens in new dong city actually a lot so i'm sure i'll i'll experience some stuff there, but Yeah, i'm really really pleased with this game and i'm actually curious what your guys's first impressions are of super mario odyssey as well because I mean, I could tell i'm playing something special. Is it going to be my favorite mario game? I don't know It's got a tall mountain to climb because the super mario galaxy 2 is my favorite right now And that's an excellent game. So it's got a it's a tall task to top that It's also a tall task to top my favorite game of all time, uh breath of the wild And it's a tall task to top my second favorite game of all time secret amana. So Um, I don't know what's going to happen But that's the crazy thing is that I don't know what's going to happen I know some of the kingdoms, but I don't know what to do in those kingdoms.  I can't wait to 100 percent this game Uh, it's one of those games these collectathon style 3d platforming games are the kind of games I want to 100 percent So I'm I'm I'm just having a blast. That's all it really matters, right challenge or no challenge I'm having a blast and yes, I'm going to continue our live stream of this game later today Uh, I don't know when Just tune in when it happens Anyways, folks, I'm Nathaniel Robledance from the tenor prime if you like this video You know what to do and if you dislike this video hit that dislike button subscribe for more Content just like this and I'll catch you in the next one


So just to explain the format to everyone, I would like to give a moment to all of our panelists to introduce themselves, give us just a very brief overview or at least some indication of the area that they do their research in, how long they have been at the University of Michigan. And then after that, we will move on to the questions from the audience. There is a Slido link, if you haven't seen it already, where you can ask questions and vote on questions. I will go through those and select them and ask them from our panelists. But if anything comes up, feel free to add more questions as we go. And then we'll try to go about 150 Eastern time, at which point we will take a little break. And then again, go into the different breakout rooms and assign some of our faculty, our panelists, to those breakout rooms. So we have a chance and opportunity to perhaps ask them some of the more directed questions then. I hope that sounds great to everyone. So what I will do is I'll just call on you to introduce yourselves in no particular order other than the order in which I see you in Zoom. And that might not be the order that you will see yourself in Zoom, just note that. So we're going to start with Jenna. Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Jenna Wiens. I'm an associate professor of computer science and engineering and the co-director for the Precision Health Initiative at the University of Michigan. And I'm part of the AI Lab. I had the Machine Learning for Data-Driven Decisions group where we develop and use machine learning techniques to improve health care. And I'm very excited to be here today. Thank you, Jenna. Mark, you are next. Hi, everybody. My name is Mark Gozdial. I am also a professor in computer science and engineering. I'm in the Interactive Systems Lab. And I think we got here. What was it, Nicola, last week or something like that a couple years ago? Still trying to find our bearing. Thank you, Mark. Hasha, you're next. Hi, hello, everyone. I'm Harsha Madhyashta, being at Michigan for, I think, six years now, time flies. My research is broadly in the area of distributed systems and networking. In the last couple of years, I've also been part of the program committee for the Masters in Data Science program. So if any of you have any questions from that front, happy to answer that too. And I've also been serving for the last couple of years in the department's diversity, equity and inclusion committee. So any questions from that front, I would be happy to answer that. Excellent. Thank you, Harsha. And we have quite a few questions about that as well. So it's great to have you. All right. So now let's see who is next. We have two left. Emily, would you like to go? It's me. So hi, I'm Emily Provost. I'm in both AI and interactive systems. I've been here for about eight and a half years now, nine years in January. And my group is really interested in how you can use speech to understand behavior. So we do work in emotion. We're interested in how speech also tells us something interesting about someone's health, either mental or physical. We've been looking at how you can design new algorithms to just get a better sense of how someone's behavior changes when you get outside of the lab and into the world. Oh, also, I'm the chair of our graduate program. So I'd be happy to take questions about that as well. Thank you, Emily. And Manos. Hi everyone. I'm Manos Capritos. I'm an assistant professor. I've been at Michigan for about three and a half years now. And I work in the software systems lab. I mostly do work on distributed systems and for modification and for tolerance. And I've been last couple of years have been part of the graduate committee. So any questions related to that, I'm happy to answer. And again, thank you all for joining us for this panel. So I will just switch here to the questions that we got from the audience. There's a lot of great questions here. I do want to start with some of the easier ones just to get you warmed up before we move to some of the very important ones, but challenging and difficult ones. So let's take a look here. So what happens as you're voting for these questions, they change their order. And it looks like you all downvoted this particular question since the last time I looked at it. No, I'm joking. So this is perhaps an easy one where one of our audience members asks, what separates University of Michigan CSE department from some of the other departments out there at other top universities? And I would open this one up whoever sort of wants to go first. Everything. So anyways, Michigan is a great place. And it's a great place not only for the people and the really cool research that happens here. But I think one of the things that I personally find most exciting about Michigan and specifically Michigan CSE computer science and engineering is the focus and the embrace and the respect for interdisciplinary collaborative research. I think that this type of research is really inspiring because it allows us to answer questions that are not only relevant in the domain of computer science, but really asks about impact beyond how what we do really influences how other people think about computing, how other people think about health, how other people think about so many things. And the fact that this is a core component of the work that we do at Michigan, I think is what sets us apart. Like to add anything to that one? Or should we move on to some of the burning questions that everyone has about the applications? So I guess one thing I want to say kind of compared to a few other programs that I've seen, I think Michigan has a pretty kind of a developed culture of actually getting students engaged in research right away, which I have not actually seen in, I mean, it exists in some of the departments, but there's a kind of a big focus of research being the primary thing that you're doing. And that's kind of a combination of a reasonable load of classes and kind of the structure of the program being developed in a way to make sure that people get kind of in their research, kind of the first research project gets started right away and it's like as successful as we can make it. And that's kind of one of the things that I've actually seen gets people engaged quickly and makes them successful for the rest of the program. Thank you. I think those are really, really good answers. So I would like to switch to a lot of questions that we have about the, not so much the application process, but more about what you all look for in an applicant. What do you look for on a statement of purpose when you are considering applicants? Do you consider whether they contact the upfront or not? And I don't know, maybe, Jenna, would you like to take this one? Sure. Yeah, happy to. So what I look for, I think we all look for similar things and different things at the same time. I focus a lot on research interests, but not necessarily perfect fit. So oftentimes in a research statement, well, one, the different components of your application involve a statement of purpose where you're going to describe what type of research you're interested in. And you're not necessarily tied to this statement of purpose, but it does help us in terms of sorting research interests in fit. And what I look for is someone who overlaps with my research interests and also someone who has persevered. So I am drawing towards applicants who have faced some sort of challenge. Maybe they had a paper rejected or they did poorly in their first year and then overcame that challenge because research is very challenging. There are a lot of ups and downs. And being able to overcome those challenges and persevere is a really important quality for a good researcher. So that's one among many other things that I look for. Emily, raise her finger. Would you like to go next? Yes, I should do the full. The other thing, the thing that I look for is the thing I focus on most actually is in the statement of purpose. I'm really interested in why someone is interested in something that's close to what I do. And so when I'm reading statements, I'm really, I'm looking for someone who I think I would love to have a conversation with about these topics, someone who's telling me why they're deeply inspired by this research question. Because, as Jenna mentioned, the research process, I always described it like a sine wave, but someone recently told me that's also what a roller coaster looks like. So fair enough, a roller coaster, where it's so exciting and you're getting these amazing results and you're getting to a publication and you have really understood where your problem's going and then you start the next problem and nothing works. And what you have to do is make sure that what you get when you're down here and nothing's working, you still have the willingness to commit your time to go back up again. And so to me, when I'm reading these research statements, it's sort of a way for me to understand that someone is intrinsically motivated in the topics that I care about, so that when they do hit these low points, they're going to want to continue to find an answer. And so that's kind of what I'm looking for too. I also wanted to ask, Harsha, so you have been involved with the Master's program, right? And I think what we heard from Jenna and Emily was maybe more targeted towards PhD students. Well, what about what about Master's students? What are we looking for? Yeah, so Master's, at least I would say the admissions are largely bimodal, like if you're coming from a really good school with a high GPA, then that's kind of almost that's easy way to get in. But if you are not coming from a well-known school and your GPA is not great, still the statement can make a huge difference. Because if you can articulate why you're really passionate about getting into graduate school and why you're not just pursuing this as a way to not be a software engineer, but you have some intrinsic motivation to do this, that can really persuade the committee to have overlook maybe other considerations. So I would say, I mean, this is probably true for, I mean, I should say definitely true for PhD applicants too. Personally, when I admit students, I really look for, does this student know why they're applying to grad school as opposed to just following maybe someone else advice them, do this, and they're going along. So that's true for both Master's and PhD applicants, I would say. Marcus seems like you were agreeing with quite a bit of what we heard. Is there anything else that you would have? I'm basically just a bobble hood. Yeah, my area is kind of nichey. So it might be a bit different than Jenna and Emily in that I do computing and education research. So the theme that particularly struck me with what Harsha was saying was that I want to see why you want to go to graduate school. And it's particularly relevant for me that students have had prior research experience. I want to know that you know what you're getting in for. You probably know the ROI, the return on investment for your Master's is really good. You spend another year or two, you'll make a much higher wage. You spend several years in PhD compared to staying out in industry, you'll never make it up, right? So you've got to really be bought in. And particularly in my area in computing education research, I want to know that you know what that is and that you've had research experience and know what you're getting into. That's pretty important to me. Anas, any thoughts? I just want to second what Mark said. It is really important that that's actually what I'm looking for in a statement of purpose. Is there an actual reason why you're pursuing a PhD? My experience says that people that actually start with that reason firmly in mind, preferably they actually write it down in some notebook that they can go and look at later when the hard time comes. Those are the people that really do persevere through the hard times because it is inevitable that hard times will come during the PhD. This is much less true of the Master's degree. Of course, there could be hard times, there's still a lot of workload, but the PhD is a different beast altogether and it takes a lot of perseverance. So that's really what I look at. Someone that is consciously doing this, not just following the, you know, I got my, I was good at school, so I'm going to do PhD. That's not a good enough reason. There was a related question. So you talked quite a bit about what you might be looking at from the perspective of statement of purpose, but what about getting in touch with students? How can they actually get in touch with you? There were some questions about should they directly email professors? How should they go about it? So I think it's fine to email professors. I would say email me once you've applied, right? We receive a lot of emails before we even see an application and there's very little we can do with that. But once you've applied, I can go in and I can take a look at your application. So that would be my advice. That's a very good advice, actually. Harsha, were you going to say something? Yeah, I was going to add that even before applying, if you email any faculty member, at least I find it's most helpful if you make it personal, like show that you're maybe read some of my papers and you, there's a reason you're emailing me as opposed to others, particularly like just this week I had an email saying, hey, I want to work with you at the University of Southern California. So that clearly shows me, okay, you didn't meant to email just me and so if you do email faculty that do take care and in crafting your email. Yeah, don't address me as dear sir. I've gotten those. I actually, I'm going to agree with both Jenna and Harsha, but I also really like it when students reach out to me like a year before. So this is, you're looking around, you want some advice, there's a lot of undergraduates I've talked to who say they're interested in the area. Could I advise them on where they should apply, me or elsewhere? I'm happy to take those sorts of conversations. It's kind of fun to talk about where your match is across the country. And also perhaps gives us an opportunity to help students prepare their applications better. So yeah, both great, great advices. Anything else to add on contacting professors? Because there's something else that a lot of our audience members asked about and Mark almost alluded to. And that is interdisciplinary research. I think there's a lot of interesting questions there. But I want to first start with asking kind of a broader question of is there really such a thing as interdisciplinary research at CSC at the University of Michigan? And Mark, because you brought it up that you are interdisciplinary, you want to go and try and answer that one? I did. I'm pretty sure it was Emily who talked about interdisciplinary. She's right there next to you. Emily is next in line, believe me. Yeah, of course there's interdisciplinary research at the University of Michigan. I think that in particular there's a lot of collaboration between CSC and the med school. And also probably the School of Public Health, though I'm less aware of that. Just because we've got a great med school, one of the top public health programs in the country. If you want to do things with computing and health, this is a really terrific place to do it. I am a courtesy appointment also in the School of Information. So I have the title of Professor of Information, which I think is a pretty cool title. And there's a lot of stuff that goes on between SI and CSC. And all of SI, I mean for the most part, is interdisciplinary. I mean, what is information? Well, it's about connections across. So I think that you can find a lot of that across the campus at the University of Michigan. I do want to ask more about that healthcare angle that you pointed out, both from Jenna and Emily. But there's another thing that I also wanted to ask Emily about, because Mark brought up this connection between CSC and SI. But what about CSC and ECE? And what's the difference? So there are a lot of differences. And then when you get closer to the overlap, some of those differences become more subtle. So to say actually just straight out, every single one of my degrees is electrical engineering. And now I find myself in a computer science department. So clearly there is a period of overlap, particularly when you're talking about systems, the system side, anything doing with, again, information or signal processing. There tends to be a lot of overlap and machine learning. And so my first student, it was an ECE student. And I have a student now also who's an ECE student. And so there are some really great questions that exist right at the overlap. And actually another one of my students is a CS student, but I think could just as easily be a signal processing focus program instead. And so I think that the question, I think the question that you should be asking really when you're trying to decide where to apply, which I'm assuming is the motivation behind that question. It's not so much, what should my degree be called? I think all of these degrees have great potential for future employment. The question really is, who am I most excited about working with? And you should apply to the department, assuming you have the background so you'll be able to get into that program, but you should apply to the program where you feel most aligned with the people in that program. And if there are multiple departments with people that you're excited about, apply to those departments. Because really, I think the biggest thing when you're thinking about where to apply, and then when you're really deciding where you want to go, is who do I gravitate towards? Because the PhD, it's a long process, as you know, we've alluded to already. And you really want to make sure that there's alignment, not only in terms of topic, but in terms of personality, in terms of the milestones that are relevant to the program. Because you just want to make sure that you're setting yourself up to, given that it's hard already, you want to make sure you're setting yourself up for as smooth sailing as possible. And so if the decision is CS versus EE, I'd argue that's less meaningful than who is in each of the places and what flavor their research brings to the questions you care about. That's great because you also answered another question that somebody posted and it was about, I'm interested in both in SI and CSC, where should I apply? And I think this already answers that as well. But I wanted to then go back to some of these collaborations that happen, obviously, with other parts of University of Michigan, but maybe some of the other entities like medicine. And Jenna, I know you have a lot of collaborations going on. Would you be able to tell us more about that? Yeah, yeah. So as Mark mentioned, we have a top med school, but we also have a top hospital. And it's filled with clinicians with interesting challenges that are ripe for AI solutions. So I sit in CSC, we develop machine learning techniques, we ultimately aim to make contributions to CS, but we are very inspired by challenges in healthcare. There are very rich data, multimodal data, so everything from physiological time series data to imaging data to work with. And at the same time, while we're making contributions to machine learning, we can solve some problems in healthcare and improve patient outcomes. So that's also what keeps me motivated. In those research lows that Emily was talking about, the promise of improving society and people's lives. That's a great answer. And then I just wanted to also touch on this. Maybe it wasn't directly asked in questions, but I'm curious, what about collaboration with industry? I don't know, Manos or Harsha, would you like to maybe touch on that? You might know more about what's happening at the University of Michigan about those kinds of collaborations. So we usually, yes, I guess it depends on the field. My group has, for example, collaborations with Microsoft and Microsoft Research, that is usually on the start on the academic side of working on a research project together. But then there is a lot of, the collaboration is multifaceted in the sense that we actually sometimes work on the project together. Sometimes the students go over and do internships, and it's much easier for them to actually bring the project down to whatever product Microsoft cares about. And that collaboration is helpful for both sides. Because the company benefits from the ideas and the research side, and we benefit from having a clear view of what's important to them. And how do we get to actually solve real world problems? Yeah, I can only speak on the systems side. I know the systems lab, we have quite a bit of collaborations with industry. For example, just my own research, I would say in the last couple of years, my students and I have co-authored papers with Google, Facebook, Nutanix. So it's, I mean, University of Michigan has pretty close ties with most of the big, I mean, companies which have really large scale infrastructure. And the university is pretty flexible in terms of, in most of these cases, the students went off, did an internship, then they came back, they continued working with the companies. In some of these cases, the students had like part-time appointments with the companies even after they came back. So this is, I think, a win-win for both the student in terms of getting a lot of good experience and almost be guaranteed an employment place or employment once they graduate, because the company then knows the student is good. And of course, having some real impact gives you a lot of fulfillment without doing a research. So you mentioned a lot of different research areas while you were talking about this. And there are some questions about, you know, how to pick a research area. What research area to mention in your application? Can you switch between different research areas? So maybe we can spend a little bit of time on that. And I don't know who to call on in particular, but Jenna made this easier for me and then Emily also raised her hand. Okay, great. Thank you. Jenna, you want to go first? Yeah, just in terms of advice, I would say keep an open mind. So you don't want to list all of the areas in your research statement, but you also don't want to be so specific that you're really only interested in working with one person on this one problem. And that's it, because maybe that person's not taking on students that year, maybe there's funding in that area. So I would say try to keep an open mind when writing your statement of purpose, but also write about what you're excited about. And again, you're not tied to your statement of purpose or what you say you're going to do there. So that gets you in the door and then during visit weekend, you get to meet with faculty and discuss research topics and you could change your mind then. And that's totally okay. Yeah, as a personal anecdote, so I was very, very inspired by Star Wars when I was writing my statements. And I really wanted to create Luke Skywalker's hand. That was what I wrote every single essay about. That's what I wanted to do. I was really excited about designing control for robotic hands, robotic prosthetic hands. And so I think I even decided to write that statement before I even looked at various universities. And so then the only places I applied were places with robotics programs. And the place, so then when I got in, I went to the different universities and was talking to people there. And I ended up going to USC University of Southern California. So maybe I was the one who emailed Harsha. And so then when I was talking to the people who would be my advisor, the one who was in human-robot interactions, HRI, she said, you know, we don't do prosthetic hands, but if you're interested in HRI instead, you could come work here. And so I decided to totally switch topics. So away from this idea of prosthetic limbs to thinking about HRI. And then as it turns out, once you get into a PhD program, that's also not the last time that you have to decide if you wanted to switch. Because I was working in, I was working in this area for a few years. And by working, I mean obsessing with the details and not making very much progress. Until finally, I decided to internalize all the feedback I'd been getting from people, which is maybe you've chosen an area that is a little bit too large. And I narrowed down entirely to a speech emotion recognition. And so my essays were about prosthetic hands. My PhD was about emotion recognition from speech. And so, yes, there's a lot of flexibility. Sometimes, frankly, the flexibility comes from making a decision midway through the process to switch who you'll be working with. But sometimes if it's a close enough jump, you can just switch topics too. And so you're certainly not tied to a specific topic of whatever it was you wrote your essays about. In fact, I think for most of my students, I couldn't even tell you what they wrote their essays about. And I guess just to add on that, you're not tied to any topic and you're also not necessarily tied to any individual faculty. There's plenty of students that, you know, they start working some faculty. And if that relation is not working for either party, then they decide to move on. And that's something that's perfectly okay, perfectly acceptable. In fact, it's incorrect if you, you know, if that's not the best place for you to be, to rather work with someone else, then that's exactly what you should be doing, you know, just because you started working with some faculty, you're not like married for life. Then I brought something interesting and said, maybe the faculty that you really want to work with is not taking students. How do students or how do applicants know who's taking students and who isn't taking students? How do you find out? Again, if anybody can make this easier on me, otherwise I have to pick on Mark. Ah, there we go. Ask them. I mean, I'll take those questions. I, you know, and when you ask them, it's not just you take any students this year. Describe yourself and what your interests are a little bit because there had certainly been years where I don't think I really want to expand my group at all. And then I get an applicant that's right up my alley and somebody that I've known before because they've contacted me previously. Yeah, I'm, I'll be interested. So I wanted to make a slight twist to the jumping between areas. It's, it depends on your area. You know, it's easy if you're going into easy, I don't quotes robotics or AI, we have several great faculty in those areas. If you're interested in computing education research, yeah, it's probably going to be me. And so we're going to have to have, we're going to have to be able to get along.  But if this is the area that you want, there's not a whole lot of other faculty to connect with in CSC. It's a really balancing point and writing your statement of purpose. You want, I mean, if you're excited about Luke Skywalker's hand, I mean, it's great to communicate that passion and what you want to do and that you have interest and you see why it connects to these particular faculty, that's what you want to do. But what you don't want to do is come across and say, I'm doing this and only this and I won't do anything else. Because then it's like, yeah, well, nobody's interested in that, you're not going to get in. You got to say, you've got to show the passion, but also show a willingness to say, I mean, a PhD is all about learning, right? You're growing, you're going to expect to change your focus, you're going to expect to narrow your focus. I shared in the chat the Matt might illustrated guide to a PhD, which I think is like the thing to understand what a PhD is about. Yeah, I think just to follow up on that again, like that's why the statements are so important because it is your chance to say, this is why I'm interested in this question. This is how I think about research. These are the types of problems that explore these are the things I might be interested in following up on. And so again, if you were really specific and wrote something that no one else in the department even did, you can still be of interest. It's just a matter of conveying what that might look like. And you should do your homework and know who does what at the institutions that you're applying to. And I would call them out in your statement. So list the faculty that you're interested in working with because we have a mechanism to search for our names when reviewing applications. And that's a really easy way to find people where there might be a good fit. So then basically, I think the answer to how do you know if somebody's taking students is contact them. And I would just perhaps also say maybe contact even their students and we'll talk a little bit more about that in the graduate student panel later on. There was a question that I want to maybe circle back to because I think it's a very specific question about the Suggs program at University of Michigan. And I don't know, Harsha, maybe you can tell us just a little bit more about it briefly. And also, what do you look for in students who are applying to that program? And maybe we can expand then later on more discussion about just very quickly, you know, are GREs important? Are GPAs important for those students? So I mean, I'm not personally involved in Suggs or maybe Emily could actually say better, more accurate information. But my understanding is it's only a program for those who are currently undergraduates at the university already. And it's meant to be a way for you to get a master's with one more year at school as opposed to if you go to a different school, then maybe you would have to put at least a year and a half or two years to get a master's. And best I know, as long as you have a good GPA and you have at least a couple of faculty who are willing to recommend you, you should get in. I believe, especially this year too, the GRE has been made optional in graduate admissions. But yeah, I think maybe I should defer to Emily on this. I don't know to put her on the spot, but maybe she knows more accurate information. So the one who actually is in charge of the Suggs program at NCS is Quentin Stout who unfortunately is not here. But yeah, exactly what Harsh has said. The idea is that when you hit certain achievement points in terms of GPA, then it's a relatively straightforward path to getting admitted to the program. And the idea is that it's a streamlined master's program. But we can follow up with details, more details if necessary. Okay, so no, this is really great information. I hope it's really great for our audience as well. But there is a set of questions that I really want to move to right now. And I am leaving them for the last, but it doesn't mean that they are not important. They're actually exceptionally important. Now it's really great to have a lot of you who are actually involved with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Some of you also serve on the DEI committee. So it's great to have you here and maybe we can tackle some of these questions as well. And the one that I would like to start off with is a question that says, how does the University of Michigan make sure that people from marginalized backgrounds in terms of race, gender, disability and sexuality feel supported and welcomed? And perhaps, I know Emily, Harsh for both of you are on the DEI committee. Emily, would you like, you are involved with the initiatives though, right? I don't mind commenting. I'm actually not part of the DEI committee. Okay. I'd love to hear from Harsh too, who actually is part of the committee. I can start, it doesn't matter. So part of what we do, and part of, especially as the pandemic has been hitting, but just in general, I think that one of the most important things that we can do is listen. Because I think as academics or humans, I think that there's this big impulse to try to say things like, oh, I am a person who has challenges. And so therefore, I understand your challenges and I understand what you need to make those challenges more palatable. And I think that that's a step to just doing things that aren't very helpful. I mean, sometimes it works out. Sometimes whatever challenges they are are sufficiently universal that those strategies are effective. But I think the most important thing and the thing that we've been really focused on is trying to build bridges with individual communities so that instead of speaking in the abstract about strategies that might make people feel more welcome or more included, we actually understand the problems. Because once you understand the problems, you can start to build tailored solutions that people will feel represents them and their needs. And so this is something that we've been heavily involved in. I started in this position in September. So we've been heavily involved in it since September. We have standing meetings with different student groups. And the goal really is to do not a lot of talking, but more listening to figure out what the biggest challenges are and how we might be able to address those through small local things. And so one of the things that has started this year as an example is this peer onboarding. I forgot the name that we've actually that the students came up with. It was really great onboarding buddy. It's something like that. And the goal there is to allow our incoming PhD students to understand what a healthy DEI climate would look like. And so that way, if students are encountering challenges, but don't really know anything else, because they've just started in a PhD program, they have an outlet. Another thing that started this year, actually one of Jenna's students is co starting it is a wellness group, which is also designed as a peer mediation group that again is trying to find ways to sort of solve problems that might arise again through lots and lots of listening. So I think that to me, the thing that I'm beginning to understand is so very important or continuing to understand is so very important is just a lot of active listening and solutions based on things that we're learning. Yeah, I think that's perfect. Our strategy since, I mean, especially since last year has been that we really need to better understand the concerns of the students. So for example, Wes Weimer, who's been leading many of these efforts last year, he organized at least a couple maybe more, what we call these town halls where students show up and we typically have the chair of the department, even some of the deans present there so that it's meant to be an environment where everybody is welcome to raise any concerns without any consequences. And having that even the deans be present there is really important so that even those who are higher up in the administration know what problems exist and what measures need to be taken. Some of the other things we have been doing in terms of even understanding concerns is for example, over this past summer, we had a staff member who's part of the DEI committee talk to every single PhD student in the program. I spent 15 minutes try to see what concerns they have with their advisor or with their group and see what patterns emerge. They're still trying to make sense of this data but that's kind of part of the overall effort towards just trying to understand even the concerns that exist. I would just add to that the DEI is really core to our values and beyond the grad committee this is something that comes up often at faculty search. So I serve on the faculty search committee where we review applicants after graduate school but to our faculty. So people we plan to hire and they're not only do does the application involve a DEI statement we also listen again going off of Emily's theme of active listening to the students and their feedback. So we have a round table after faculty candidate job talks where the students can ask them questions and find out what are their thoughts on how we can improve things like climate and what contributions they might make to climate in CSC and that weighs very heavily when making our decision. And we're actually just to increase the participation of the grad students in the in the research process which is critical for for maintaining the DEI climate we actually have as of this year a graduate student representative on the faculty search committee just to make sure that the graduate students opinion is always heard and that they have a voice not just in the you know in the abstract but actually you know if someone that you know kind of the the searching process is transparent and and and they can they can voice their concerns and opinions. It's in transparency as well because then the students have more some of the processes that are happening behind scenes are more visible. This is great because you also answered another question that we had and that is what has the department done in response to a lot of challenges that we've been facing and you know things that put the University of Michigan in general in news for for all the bad reasons. But I want to also ask another question. This was a very interesting one so but what do we do to make sure that these kinds of issues are not disproportionately assigned to underrepresented groups to deal with at CSC because every once in a while we see cases where members of these underrepresented groups are almost called on to take part in panels committees to almost solve DEI issues. What do we do about that? I'll take it. I think that it's really important that the DEI burden not fall on the members from underrepresented groups. Women faculty BIPOC faculty often have to pay a tax because they get asked so often to do these sorts of things and that's just wrong. It's important. I think it's really cool that several of us have mentioned Wes Weimer who's really been very active in DEI and like me he's an old white dude. It's a good thing. I think that it's really important that the burden be shared across all of the faculty and I see an effort within CSC to do that. I think again part of it is having conversations and building community so that people who are not in whatever underrepresented group we're talking about also understand the problems because again if people don't understand what the problems are and what the challenges are it's really hard to figure out how to be a good ally and whenever you say something like that immediately like a very fair reaction would be well that's still putting pressure on people from these underrepresented groups to be the educators and so I think something that's been I know personally very helpful this past spring when we were thinking about how to support people going through participating in the Black Lives Matter protests is the the sheer quantity of reading lists and podcasts and other types of resources that were provided so that people in these groups didn't have to have these really hard conversations again didn't have to explain all of the challenges they faced again. Instead we could be pointed towards resources that would allow us to begin to understand what these conversations are looking like and begin to understand how else we could gain the information that we need to be supportive allies without asking people to inform us. Thank you so much it's 150 and I know that there's so many questions that audience asked so many great questions we couldn't cover them all but I hope we covered a good majority of them I hope that this was really good information for everyone I hope you learned something new let's let's thank all of our panelists if nothing else with that little clap icon in


Last year, I was invited to OTK's Game Day.  As you can imagine, when you get a bunch of unathletic people together to do an athletic event, it makes for fairly good entertainment. Will, at the time, was living in another house with a streamer who was reacting to the event. I was watching a stream when he says... I think it's a while. How is there only one neighbor? Oh, I forgot. He robs half. Way to say that live on stream. So I see that and I'm like, What do you mean by that? So I confront the dude and instantly he goes into total denial mood. Nah, that didn't happen. I didn't say that. I would never say anything like that. Things get super awkward in the house. He starts slinking around trying to hide while we live in the same house, closing his door when he hears us walking around. A week goes past and he walks up to me and just pushes this graphics card into my chest. And he's like, Hey man, I'm sorry about everything that happened. I hope you don't think of me any type of way. Like I'm really not like that. So now we have a racist graphics card.