Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brennan McGuire. I'm Chief Counsel to the Mayor and City Hall We are here today for another important labor announcement We've already reached historic contract agreements with DC 37 and the PBA Today we're proud to announce another tentative agreement that will impact one of the most important groups Here in the city work cities workforce That is the women and the men who serve our city's children So without further delay, I'll now turn it over to our mayor Eric Adams Thanks so much Brendan nay jock and Michael President of the U of T and your team really fighting on behalf of your members and New York is because your your members are New York is and we Are fighting for our children and we want to be clear that how important this moment is and how much has gone into Ensuring that we can get this right and To make sure that we're able to move the city forward And before we even start the conversation about this contract as you know Probably my proudest appointment police commissioner Kishan soon is leaving after 18 months as the police commissioner and I cannot thank her enough. I remember When we started in January Seeing what this city was going through many of you Lying these halls often talking about the level of violence homicides shootings Just about every major crime category was moving in the wrong direction The two of us was we were in hospitals where we saw the family members of police officers who were shot Officer Rivera and Mora who lost their lives as well as those who were shot that did not Lose their lives what was seriously injured Remember being together when the 11 month old baby was shot and sitting there speaking with the mother And a number of crime scenes that I responded to over and over again So I kept a firsthand look at what was happening on our streets but the commissioner was there 24 hours seven day a week of Running the largest police department in the country And I was proud that day when I appointed her she came in with the hammer and she broke the glass ceiling of being the first not only women But one who just led this department from the front and we're going to continue to Move this department forward with the amazing men and women that are part of our police department But I wanted to just really take the moment as we start this conversation to thank her for her service to the city and For being there during the most difficult times in the city and we're seeing a new city the city is moving in the right direction and We believe that we're going to continue that pathway To make sure this city is a city where we can raise healthy children and families and speaking on our children This agreement today sends a real signal that publication public Education is one of the most important things we do as a city and as a society because if you don't Educate you will incarcerate This morning I was on Rikers Island talking to a group of young people who are graduating from Rikers Island School receiving their diploma and many of them have been abandoned for far too long and the Chancellor and I with the partnership of the UFT and the CSA and all those professionals in the school system Need to ensure they have the resources and the proper pay So that they don't have to worry about their children at home as they educate children in the classroom I'm a blue collar mayor. I've made it clear that we were going to ensure that our City employees receive the salaries and benefits that they deserve because I am one of them And I know what it is to go and fight for a contract To fight for the proper health care and the items that you need And I'm proud to announce that the city of New York has reached a tentative Five-plus-year contract agreement with the United Federation of Teachers That provides substantial wage increases for the people who teach Support and safeguard our children and secures a fair deal for taxpayers as well The agreement will cover approximately a hundred and twenty thousand Municipal employees and include annual raises employee retention payments and a ratification bonus all of which will help retain our educators which we are losing at an alarming rate and It will ensure that we are able to provide the Educational support year after year this contract also established which I'm really proud of and I want to thank the Chancellor For the vision of establishing a virtual learning program that will create new opportunities for our students Included those who want the ability to take classes at non-traditional times Like evenings and weekends as well as those whom Traditional in-person schedules don't work for For them for an example some of our young people are working some of them have jobs Some of them are dealing with real obligations that a traditional classroom setting does not address The tentative agreement is retroactive beginning on September 14th 2022 and expiring on November 28 2027 Is a great deal for Rokas and as I stated is fair for city taxpayers and it would not have happened if it wasn't for the willingness of Michael Mogru and the UFT and our team of being led by our commissioner of the of labor and My legal counsel and Jocelyn the entire team coming together to come into a place of yes The input from Chancellor Bank and the dedicated members of this great union allowed us to land this plane and we're doing it today if The ratification goes through the contract agreement underscores how important educators are I see them all over the city and They asked for a fair contract. I told them we had a fair contract with DC 37 With the PBA and you better believe we're going to get it with the UFT as well. And so particularly for Miss Johnson who's an educator? I promise you and I deliver it for you. So I know you're watching this right now The administration will also stand with broken people throughout this city And as I indicated over and over again and never let you forget I'm probably one of the few modern-day mayors That was a member of a union. I know what unions do for this city In the backbone of this city, and we must ensure the challenges that they have faced it Should not be a hurdle of ensuring they receive the necessary benefits that they deserve So I want to thank the UFT and my team for bringing this contract to The working people of our school system. Congratulations to you all And now to discuss the tentative agreement in a bit more detail, I'll introduce our Labor Commissioner Renee Campion Thanks Brendan I'm very pleased to have reached this significant settlement with Michael and the UFT I want to thank the mayor again as he has continued to put his trust in me to represent him as his chief negotiator I also want to thank the Chancellor for his support and ensuring that his team and my team work so closely together These past nine months. I also want to thank the entire city leadership team first Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright Chief of Staff Camille Varlak Chief Advisor Ingress Lewis Martin, and of course, I want to thank Brendan Brendan Brendan for his tremendous support over these past 18 months We've done a lot together and we'll continue to do just a little bit more As we get through this summer I also want to thank the budget director Jacques Jiha and his team Ken Godner Kerry gow for their support and difficult work date working days and nights and days and nights And by the way more days and more nights I want to thank Michael and his team one of the important and most essential parts of the labor relations process Is this process that people sort of externally to this world that we live in of labor relations? Is that we spend a lot of time talking to each other? We talk and we talk and we talk and we talk and people are like aren't you finished talking yet? We're done and we say no no there's more talking and that's a good thing and This administration stands with that and my relationships with the union leaders have proven that out We'll continue to have respectful working relationship into the future. I Also just want to thank my negotiating team my first deputy commissioner Dan Pollock my entire negotiating team at OLR Including Tamara Lake and Matt Campese who were instrumental in resolving this contract They were there for these months and months and months of subcommittee meetings that we held Which which did seem to go on and they were just many many dozens and dozens of them and of course I want to thank Regina Fuchs the chief of our research team at OLR This agreement with the UFT is pattern conforming in the city's round of negotiations. It brings our settlement numbers to Nearly 67 percent, which is more than two-thirds of the entire public sector workforce And let me go through some of the details The term of the contract is from September 14th 22 through November 28th 20 27 that's 62 months and 15 days The general wage increases effective September 14th 22 a 3% general wage increase Effective January 18th 24 a 3% general wage increase effective January 18th 25 a 3% wage increase all of these are compounded of course effective September 14th 2025 a 3.25 percent general wage increase and in the final year of the contract effective September 14th 2026 a 3.5 percent general wage increase There's also the ratification bonus of three thousand dollars to all active members on the date of ratification and as the mayor mentioned For the first time there is a payment that we are calling a recurring retention payment that will be paid in May of Each year starting in 2024 in 2024 there'll be a four hundred dollar Recurring payment that will be paid to every member of the UFT the 2025 in May also there'll be a seven hundred dollar payment and In 2026 and every year thereafter. There will be a one thousand dollar recurring payment to aid in recruitment and retention I just want to give you a few numbers regarding the teacher salaries So a teacher who starts off with their bachelors the minimum salary prior to this agreement. They were earning $61,070 by the end of this contract the minimum salary for a teacher with a BA will be seventy two thousand three hundred and forty nine dollars That includes the recurring payment a teacher with a masters starts out started out prior to this contract at sixty eight thousand six hundred and fifty two dollars by the end of the contract that teacher with the masters Will be making eighty one thousand two hundred and one dollars to start and Finally those teachers with the longest years of experience or whoever masters plus thirty with twenty two years of experience Before this contract started. They were making one twenty eight six hundred and fifty seven dollars by the end of this contract That salary will be one fifty one two hundred and seventy one dollars In addition to that as the mayor has mentioned there are very other there are many other historic parts of this contract the virtual learning program Is a very important part of this contract. It's something that we probably spent Most of our time working on together with the uft and all of the city representatives It will be as the mayor said supplementing students in the classroom. It's not in lieu of student teaching in the classroom It is in supplementing it And it provides better options some more flexible options for students who require it There will also be parent engagement and as a result of the virtual learning will be able to do parent engagement Which was already an existing part of the contract going back years That will be able to be done with parents remotely on Evenings and weekends. This is very important to parents Who obviously cannot who were working during the day are not able to have the flexibility for the most part to talk to the teachers of their Of their kids so being able to remote work Remote in for parent engagement on evenings and weekends is a tremendous benefit And then I'll defer to the chancellor in his remarks about some of the other programs including the student pathways So with that and as I mentioned more than two-thirds of the contracts are settled I look forward to negotiating with the rest of the unions There are probably almost a hundred specific bargaining units still to be settled But again that is about a third of the workforce So we've taken another big step forward and I'm looking forward to negotiating those contracts with the rest of the workforce Thank you And now to hear about how this tentative agreement will impact the Department of Education and all of the adults and children within that The city's public school system. I'll introduce our Chancellor David Banks Good afternoon everyone I'm very happy to be here. I think this is a great great day First of all, I want to thank our mayor For not only his vision, but also his directing directives that we get this done and And and we've had some amazing hard-working teams who worked around the clock to do this and Michael you drive a hard bargain and you do it on behalf of all the teachers around this city And we want to thank you so much for being a great great partner in doing this work I also want to acknowledge a couple people that are on my team as well I'll lead negotiator Kim or Ward who is here today Kim. Thank you so much for your work and your leadership in this space And and thank you to our first deputy Chancellor Daniel Weisberg. Thank you so much Dan Lot of lot of hours that have been put into this and making this agreement Come to fruition and also also just want to acknowledge also the Superintendents representing every district around New York City are here with us here today And I'm just thankful that they're all here as well. Thank you all for your leadership This agreement this tentative agreement also establishes, which I think is a really big deal New York City public schools as the first major school system in the nation To offer an expansive virtual learning program ultimately available to all high school Students and at least some middle school students the virtual learning program will give students access to a much broader set of course offerings across the city and The ability to take classes at non-traditional times like evenings and weekends We learned during the pandemic That some students Especially non-traditional students Benefited from the additional flexibility in their schedule Students who were at risk of dropping out Were able to continue their coursework on a schedule that works best for them This expands those types of opportunities across the entire system Crucially it also allows educators to work virtually in support of those students becoming experts in the craft of virtual learning The days of simply working in the classroom in the four walls of the school are over This agreement allows us to do what the mayor has said from the very beginning of this administration Which is to reimagine How we even do school in the first place and to think out of the box with new and innovative and creative ways to engage all of our young people So this contract takes the best of what we've learned over the last three years and it refines those takeaways From teaching our kids to read with our NYC reads To innovative career pathways programs to virtual learning New York City public schools are the places to be for cutting-edge education and This contract represents that So in closing I simply want to say to every educator and teacher who's hearing me now I want to take this opportunity to say thank you Thank you for the hard work and never ceasing dedication that you show every day to our youngest New Yorkers You are critical members of our school communities and our city and I'm proud To be able to express my gratitude to you on this day It is very very important that this administration Have a good working relationship with the United Federation of Teachers and all of our unions And I'm just really proud that we are working very very closely with Michael and his team Together and I've said this to him many many times if we work really well together We can finally crack the code We can get beyond the point of contention and one-upsmanship and Seeing who's gonna be the winner on this day or that day every one of our kids can win But we have to work together in order to make that happen and Disagreement is the beginning of what it looks like. I want to thank Michael Mogru for His dedication to making this happen. Thank you everyone and now to close this out I'll introduce the city's partner in this effort UFT president Michael Mogru Thank You Brendan and I want to thank everyone who was involved in this endeavor Negotiating a contract is not an easy thing and it's not and it's a ton of labor involved with us I want to thank both of the commissioners both Renee and Jock. Thank you. I want to thank the DOE team for spending many many many late nights having difficult conversation and I want to thank my of course my UFT team who Understand that this is the important piece of paper for us all But I want to start first with the chancellor and the mayor The clarity of vision The fact that this chancellor and this mayor both said we need to get literacy right And said enough we're not allowing anyone to figure this out on their own anymore. We need to first get literacy right That is the foundation that we all as educators know will make the big difference But then this contract then reflects the next pieces How do we make our school system? Adaptable how do we allow the flexibility as students grow that we are meeting them where they need to be met instead of telling them you need to come here and If you can't come here, then too bad you will fail Those days are over We learned a lot during the pandemic. We learned what works in virtual learning and what doesn't work We learned that you don't put a camera in the middle of a classroom and then try to just push it out It does not work But we also learned things that really do work and that's what's inside of this agreement And we want to be able to tell a child if you want to if you fell behind in ninth grade And we know this is a critical piece. It's just as critical as literacy you fall behind in ninth grade Don't worry you now have access to take classes online So you can get your credits back to get you on track because that brings your put your ability to graduate a much higher rate And we also want to know the children who are facing so many the challenges this city The school system just doesn't work for them the way it's designed We want to give them access and we also want the children who say you know I want to accelerate and I want to move faster We give them access to all of this and we want equity We don't want the it to be dependent upon if you if a school was lucky enough to get an AP teacher or a physics teacher Only the students in that school can get that class. We want to open up that equity to all And that's what you see inside of this agreement and to the teachers of New York City This is the hardest and most challenging school district in the country to teach it Hands down. I travel this country. It is the most challenging most diverse, but our teachers love it our guidance counselors love it Therapists Social workers psychologists they take that challenge on they wear that badge proudly I am a New York City educator. You can not everyone could teach here But if you learn how to work here and you can work it you can teach anywhere And that is what the educators in no matter what has been thrown at them the pandemic a Large influx of us children seeking asylum. They don't shy away from these challenges. What do they do? They say we need to organize even more We need to run clothing drives and food pantries and everything else and we want to help these children That is the beauty of the work of the teachers and all educators in this city They take that passion and love every day into those buildings and yes, it's frustrating It is extremely frustrating at times and we always want everything to be perfect and it will not But we said to them in this contract. We heard you loud and clear one thing about teachers. They're not quiet They were loud and clear We want we want to be given respect that we can do the work You're asking us to do and we don't need to be micromanaged The mayor always says this we want the people we hire to work to be able to do what we hired them for When not here to feed bureaucracies and that's what we see in this contract They want and more time to actually do the work that brings meaning to the job and actually helps children to do that And they wanted to be able to see that they can live in New York City and afford it for themselves and their Families And we have that Renee spoke about the top salary, but the more significant part to me is When I started as president it took 16 years for you to make a hundred thousand dollars in New York City and That was a big problem and we are losing more and more teachers this contract If it is ratified and at the end of it by the end of the eighth year the teachers of New York City will now be at a hundred thousand dollars They will have their retention bonus whatever we're calling it at this moment And that goes on forever in perpetuity and we're saying to all of our titles and Every member whether you're in the first year or your 2050 year New York City is saying that we appreciate you We recognize the challenges that you take on every day and you will receive a thousand dollars every May for that And that is what the teachers and all of the people who work in our schools deserve so to the chancellor and to the mayor I I fully support your vision and I am glad we were able to get this done And I do believe when you have a tough process you land up with a better product And that's what we now have here today and to the uft members We will we will do our process to send it to you for ratification and God bless you all for what you do for the children of the city each and every day Okay, that's okay, right There is not any additional agreement other than the economics that we've outlined about health insurance health insurance remains as it is So we were negotiating with this union the uft The municipal labor committee is who I we actually negotiate with on all things health care So those are the conversations that we would be having there This is something we deal with a lot and I know there's a lot of a different information out there I will tell you this the unions and the city Are doing something that nobody else is doing in terms of a labor management relationship in this country We are not allowing insurance companies to just dump High premiums on us. We are not allowing hospitals to just get away with overbilling and overcharging. We are aggressively Negotiating with all parties because the goal of the unions and the city is that we will maintain a premium-free health care system We do not give up our benefits We use it in our negotiations people say oh, it's cheaper It's only cheaper because we bargain better and we're not getting rid of our benefits I wish the rest of America would do what we're doing here in New York City Because health care is a crisis and it is destroying the pocketbooks of so many families across this country. No It's more about Look, it's how you use your time and how do you use it effectively the virtual piece of this contract is going to be Quite impressive when it's a fully up and running because it does allow great more flexibility We still do what will do our traditional summer schools Which will be there and in terms of time itself. It's now you you know, you might have a teacher working three periods one day in school Personally and then they might be teaching two periods at six or seven o'clock at night So what we've done is create flexibility so it works for the student Multi-billion dollars No, no it does not and sometimes I think people forget when I talk about taxpayers. I'm talking about teachers also their taxpayers The power professionals Those who are city employees they want to protect their tax dollars at the same time And so this does not deal with the class size the law was passed as always We're going to comply with the law as long as you still work for the department for the Department of Education of New York City Yes, you don't retire and continue to get it René do you want to explain rate and how that works? The fun times the fun the fun part so so a recurring payment Is this payment is not unlike other payments where people get Longevity increases they receive different differentials for different things that is in in perpetuity. I'm sorry So there are different differentials that we negotiate that are not one-time cash payments This is not a one-time cash payment. This is a recurring payment It was costed as part of as a rate increase that goes up Continues year after year after year and that's how it was costed and that's what was how it was funded internally within the contract This is This is the first time we've negotiated this sort of payment for the UFT. Yes It's also the first time we had a mayor who was a union member that I could And the chancellor can go through it, but I don't know if many of you remember in the campaign trail That I stated that good teachers can teach a larger body of people And I became you know go back and look at that when I made that statement how I was attacked by many people But you have good quality teachers and I think Michael you alluded to that you have good quality teachers That are only in one school building teaching one group of people Colleges are different now. So really would the chancellor figured out We're going to prepare our children for what they want to expect many of these colleges are going to a remote learning This is really cutting-edge stuff that the UFT and the chancellor were able to come together on of what teaching is going to look like in the future and How you take that great teacher and have a wider pool of young people who could learn from from their knowledge particularly The accelerated learners the seller accelerated learners Really giving them that opportunity is amazing and those who have many of our young people are living a different lifestyle That the traditional classroom setting is just not fitting it up the chancellor Not much more that I could add other than to say that I think the seeds of this one fact planted by the mayor I think the concrete Conversations happened between my Michael and myself just saying you know an opportunity to reimagine And it's not just a reimagined experience for kids. It's a reimagined experience for teachers as well And and so when you want to really focus on how to make the profession Respected at an even higher level you have to engage in new and creative ways for teachers to even be able to teach and And I think this is this is 21st century thinking With the first major school district in the nation that is even taking this on I credit Michael so much really for for being a willing partner on this And we're looking many years down the line And I think once our teachers and our principles wrap their arms and their minds around this The opportunities that the places that they are going to take us that we've not even been thinking about I Think are just just tremendous And that's what I meant earlier when I made the point that I said the days of just the brick-and-mortar Being in the four walls of the classroom are over on the world has changed and it is moving very very quickly and And it's good, you know kudos to everybody involved here that this contract represents the beginning of of being able to represent a new experience And I remember I remember one day chance of miles across the street Showing a group of educators the first original Telephone Alexander Graham Bell did and I showed them the classroom. I held up both pitches I say here's the original telephone here is the classroom at that time and then I stated Here's where the foam is now. Here's the classroom the classroom was the same the foam went to a smartphone But we're still using dumb environments to keep our children prepared for the future We can't educate children based on Alexander Graham Bell when we have Apple That's what we are thinking about and these are bold moves initiatives and listen Look, you're not gonna appreciate what I'm doing until I'm done You're gonna look back and say you know this guy was just ahead of what other people wanted to stay This is New York. We lead from the front and that is what this chancellor and This union president is doing with this bold initiative. And you know what it's not gonna be perfect the first time You know, I'm perfectly imperfect But we're dedicated and that is how we're going to get stuff done Well, the virtual learning is the things that we learned during the pandemic We it's a whole different instructional style that we learned is to be effective It's not that it's a different instructional approach than being a class of regular classroom teacher So we had to put language is flexible inside of it because we're we're all as the mayor said We all know we're gonna learn as we keep moving this on and we want to be able to build that into it So that's the language that you will see in there and we're gonna we're gonna slow We're gonna bring it up with 25% of the high schools will start one year this this coming year And then we go right up to 50% if they want to do it. We're also gonna have a virtual basically a virtual city-wide school That's what we want to be able to have students can register in with their guidance counselors register right into that school And if they want to take classes again accelerate make up or they just want to switch the time that they want to take their classes So it really was creating that language that we realized and of things we did during the pandemic I don't think people realized that during the pandemic. We were constantly doing new agreements to meet whatever challenges we were facing So there were dozens and dozens of Agreements that were done at different times throughout the pandemic to ensure that we were doing things the right way and protecting children and teachers So that's what you see inside of it is what we've learned through that experience and the flexibility They not disappearing anyway Michael's still gonna be the union president. So you have another question you can catch it topics Yes, hi So we are content the status is that we're continuing in mediation with the union with the the union itself and the mediator The mediator has hung on hung on with us. I think we believe when you go started negotiate Mediating in August of 22. It is now June of 23. There's actually a mediation session next week So we will continue to work with the mediator to try and come to a settlement agreement I have confidence in the commissioner Today, I think that as I stated it was my one of my proudest appointments to be able to Find a woman who I stated when I was campaigning. I wanted I wanted to show the expertise of How women in law enforcement Can actually run the largest police department in the country and by doing so a noun I think that that the tide is is rising boats all over the city and I think anytime I had the opportunity to talk about Commissioner Sewell it has always been with just glad glaring admiration of her ability of how she turned around the Rial in the department and it was a tough challenge. All of us knew what was going on in the city when I took office January 1st 2022 and she took those tough challenges and Never lost confidence in her always thought she had the ability to do the job I'll figure out what I'm going to do. You know, I need to continue the success of the department We have more work to do. We got to get these glas under control We we appear to have gotten violent crime under control glas are just really driving our numbers And they're repeated offenders as I stated we need help with extreme recidivist But I'll make the right decision for the department. Listen, New Yorkers have to be safe and I've always stated over and over again the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety and justice That is what I must do as the mayor of the city of New York It is my responsibility to keep New Yorkers safe And I'm going to do that and we will put the right team to do so and the right team has done that She put a good foundation in place I Don't you know, I don't go into private conversations on what I have with You know, my commissioners and others I was very clear to her that are you can stay into you ready to do something else Said that over and over again to her I not only did I believe she was a great professional, but I just like that as a person I just thought that she was extremely impressive from the first day that I interviewed her Believe she had all the tools I need it of right now to turn around the morale of the department to be able to Manage and be just poised under pressure That's what we needed because you're inundated as the police commissioner over and over and over again And she was just poised, you know, you know, I'm just happy that I had her for those 18 months Okay, first let's go to the management Concern I have three hundred and two thousand employees my last catch account My style is a very unique style because of the unique perspective I bring and so in administrations on every level presidential governor gubernatorial City people come and go, you know, you don't sign up and say I'm a lifer You know, you come you provide your expertise you lay the foundation and then you go on to do other things That's nothing wrong with that and I have a rule do not stand in the way of a person's Desire to pursue their careers. I've always stated that now what's unique about My administration which is going to be part of my Portfolio when I be in the Museum of the City of New York and I look back on this administration is that I am The only mayor and probably I don't know who's the last way I think being that has actually worked in a city agency.  That's not how I function New York is elected me to be the mayor part of being elected to mayor. They want diversity They want ingenuity. They want to make sure government is responding to them And you know listen mommy said if you don't inspect what you expect is so suspect and so I constantly inspect all the time That's how I function. That's how I operate. That's how we get the product that we're getting That's how we're able to settle union contracts because I'm watching what is happening in labor That's how we're able to bring down crime. That's how we're able to improve our educational system I'm watching the product that New York is asked me to do as the mayor of the city of New York And so some people will say that's a management problem. I don't I say is that listen I'm a work harder than every New York in the city to get the product that we deserve as taxpayers. I Have to read it. I that must have happened while I was Well, you know, I don't know why people think the federal prison system is Is successful I'm just I'm curious that people believe that the federal prison system is the model for prison systems Because I don't hear that, you know, I hear just the opposite and so people think years of Dysfunctionality is going to be fixed because of receiver. That's just not making sense to me I do know this. I know if you compare our 18 months To the previous eight years you are seeing a qualitative difference I've inherited a department where overwhelming number of Employees were out sick that has turned around Inmate on inmate violence was up inmate on violence on officers were up the conditions were Problematic so I find it hard to believe that a few months ago People looked at what was happening on right kids and saying that these guys are moving in the right direction What happened in a few months? That's we're thinking differently. So I have to read what came out of the court But we're going to continue to do what we have doing. I've been doing and that is moving right is for for it Right kids was a mess. I don't know where all of this creative thinking is coming from that all of a sudden Right cuz was this beautiful place? No, it was a mess Commissioner Molina went in and corrected and moved us into a place of a dysfunctional system I was telling someone the other day being the mayor of the city of New York. You can never be surprised every day there is a new venture a new journey and You know, I'm a drilling and drunkie. I love every part of being the mayor of this city helping people every day I'm never going to get in the way of people pursuing the things they want to pursue And so my question to someone when that's it before me and say I want to try something else My only question to them is how do I help? What do I do to help you? You help me. How do I help you and that is out of the we have 70 something agencies Added on 70 something agencies. I think we have four or five Commissioners that then that left that's not a bad ratio, you know So people would think that all of a sudden people are running from the door. Let's do the math people are staying here and Helping and continue to help make the city the city that we all believe in The commissioners here until the end of June. She wants a smooth transition to whomever is going to take a position She wants to be as helpful as possible. She's made it clear that That she wants to you know be there to help this. She says she loves the city. This is the city. She loves I'm sorry, she told you that Did she tell you that? Oh It's been reported. Okay, so she didn't tell you that you would you acknowledge that She did not tell you that So because it's reported You automatically assume that that must be fact. I Mean, that's problematic for me There's a whole lot of things that are reported especially on Twitter, you know, listen if Commissioners who wants to tell you why she's she's leaving then you should speak to her She's not disappearing but for you to assume that well She's leaving because of ABC and D or that Brendan McGuire is Leaving for a reason or that max is leaving for a reason because it was reported Come on. Let's stop this. You know, let's stop creating the narrative This commissioner was given an amazing opportunity to show her skill set and she did and she did an amazing job Now if you want to create some type of narrative on why then that's up to you But don't don't put words in her mouth that she did not tell you She made the decision That she wanted to do something else and I respect that, you know So when you say that because so and so was around her That's the same creative writing that you guys have been doing throughout this whole administration and I find it I find it fascinating that the same people that made life difficult for the commissioner Are now standing up acting like they were treating up with the love and nurturing that she deserved She was bringing down crime and some of the city council members that are speaking now were they were tearing her apart They were putting obstacles in front of her every day no matter what she's what she did And some of you are writing stories right now about you know, oh my god when you were destroying her when she was here Every day finding in you in you in you in those in rumors We heard this and we heard that when she was doing what she was hired to do in a very professional way I mean, you know, you're talking about how she felt in the department How does she felt in the city when she was turning the city around and I don't see that's the Matter of fact, we need to search some articles Jonah of how often y'all wrote how well she was doing How often did y'all write how well the first women commissioner did how often did you do that Dana? You have one article you could point to Okay, yeah, I'm pretty sure so everybody's talking about how much you loved her Did you show her love when she was here? I showed her love I Adored what the commissioner was doing and the rest of you should ask what role did you play? Yes I don't know the question. What's the question you asked me? She Why What number of years would make it not a negative mark is there pre-determined number of years So Folding around where in room 9 Listen people out there people out there. You know what they say to me Eric how safe is the city?  That's what they want. They want the city to be safe My number one skill set is that I'm able to ignore noise and do the job We are doing the job even while we're dealing with assignment seekers. We're selling in union contracts Even while we're bringing down crime. We're improving our school system. We're dealing with housing So I'm doing the job because I'm able to do the job because I ignore all the noise that I'm constantly Bombarded with I told the commissioner from the beginning as long as I'm mayor you can be my commissioner.  She reminds me of my older sister Very poise. She's a good character and I think she's a good human being Yes Okay, first you guys were saying in January that banks was undermining her in January But you were saying that you were saying it in February March April That's been a narrative that you had all along you've been saying it of Deputy mayor banks is a deputy mayor public safety All of those pieces that fall under public safety. He's responsible for it. That's what deputy mayors do And so, you know, I have a short list you even on my list, you know, I think you are making, you know a great, you know Public official, you know, and so when we ready to make announcement We're gonna make announcement and you know, the New York City Police Department is a well oil machine It continues to function when we started decreasing crime when I was a rookie cop top under Bill Bratton Bernie Kerry came in we still decreased crime Bernie left Safer came in we still decreased crime. It's a well oil machine She put in place a platform that we can all build on and we're going to continue to build on it And so that's the role the role of the police department is to keep New Yorkers safe and we're doing that The people of the city elected me to be the mayor we need to be clear on that every agency Every agency we keep trying to isolate this into the NYPD I would encourage you all to speak with all of my commissioners every one of them Department of Parks HPD They will all tell you This guy is up all night Making sure New Yorkers are getting the product that they Expect it doesn't matter the agency I was I was elected or hired by this city to make sure they get the product they deserve And so if you're asking me that am I going to ensure that Whomever is the police commissioner that they're going to provide the product that New Yorkers have articulated to me yes and Every agency Understands that that this is a mayor that wants to know what product are you giving New Yorkers? That's not going to change that is who I am Because I know how good the city is I know how good the workers are and I know how good my commissioners are And so when you look at the number of commissioners we have like I said for Commissioners left Gary left the police commissioner is leaving was left now to think about it huh I Said I said Gary. I said Gary. So we took out of how many how many agencies do we have? Agencies we got 70 70 something agencies 70 something agencies Let's say five. I'm gonna give you five five decided to do something else at a 70 something Agencies and we're saying is everybody running for the door.  No, I'm I am listen I keep remembering what mom told me Inspect what you expect or is all suspect That's all she tell me trust but verify Now some people may call it a micromanager I called it being a mayor of a city that you love and taxpayers Elected me to give them the product they deserve and I don't think they've been getting the product. They deserve previously. They're gonna get it now


Aloha and welcome to Sister Power, I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Women's History Month in March is an ideal time to celebrate the brave, bold and fearless women who have influenced history. The important role women have played in shaping our nation and the world can often be overlooked, whether in the fields of science, politics, environment, legal and the arts. Sequoia Cara Brown is an international performance artist and founder of an award-winning company, Strange Fruit Express. The community-based company creates immersive, mixed-medial production and workshops. Their engaging projects are intended to inform and empower communities through creative culture arts. Sequoia Cara Brown, welcome to Sister Power. Aloha and thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. How are you, Queen? I am absolutely wonderful. How are you, Queen? I'm feeling absolutely fabulous, fabulous, fabulous, and I'm so happy to have you here. You know, for years, Sequoia, I've been watching you perform with our wonderful friend, Dr. Catherine Takara, and I've seen several of your performances. How long have you been performing professionally? Professionally over 30 years. Well, you look 30. Well, thank you. The power of dance and being positive and empowered and who you are as a person and knowing your culture, I give credit to that. And thank you for mentioning my dear mentor, Dr. Catherine Waddell-Takara. She's helped me navigate through the gauntlet of the academic systems here. And I could not have matriculated well without her. Oh, great, great. Well, tell us about your company, Strange Fruit Express. Yes, so Strange Fruit is a project that started out as my business plan for my interdisciplinary studies program at the University of Hawaii where, again, Professor Waddell-Takara was my mentor and advisor. So I was a history major and I was coming against a lot of pushback for incorporating the African-American experience within American history. So my contention was, and still stands, is that Black history is American history and I could not matriculate with all the pushback and the negative feedback I was receiving from my papers, so I switched to interdisciplinary studies and used that program that I developed and fused three majors, American history, modern dance, and fine art. And I fused that into my business plan to launch Strange Fruit Express after I graduated. And it's basically a performance art installation-based company that tells our history, American history with those unsung heroes, particularly African-Americans and women, and I tell it through a fun way, educational way, with dance and fine art. Wow, that's interesting. So you were talking about American history. A Black history is American history. What elaborate about the African-American experience and how to resiliently navigate through the system? How do we navigate through the system? Well, for me, I find it's very crucial to understand our amendments because basically if you- the formula stands that if you are not straight, white, male, Christian, non-Catholic, you have to be amended into our country to have your rights to be recognized. And even so with that, it may not be- it may be on the books, but it may not be in the hearts and minds of the people in general. So what do you do for that? How do you navigate through implicit systems that are designed to oppress and marginalize? So that's where Strange Fruit Express comes in. I put a positive spin on my work. I help people to see that you do not have to be put in a box. You do not have to be these tropes that are set to stigmatize us, to design to keep us from looking forward and being positive. So I create workshops, art installations that illuminate us, bring forth those unsung heroes that helped us to make it through, to revere our ancestors, to be proud of them. And with that, I think you find within your mind, body and spirit a positive light, a way to shine, to move on up. And I love doing it. I find that people who experience my work feel that empowerment, and that's what it's all about. It ripples through the community. It's not all about looking at the past and staying in the past. It's about looking at it, understanding it, feeling proud and understanding what our people went through, and then moving forward in like an Afrofuturist kind of perspective. I love it. I see you're dancing now. Thank you. Now your director, creator, performer, collaboration of live performance installation, explain that to our viewers about your dance and how do you weave in and out and get your message to the audience? Well, I like to research a topic, say, maybe I want to explore the American flag. I have a piece called American Me. I explored what were the meanings of the colors of our flag. Unofficial meaning, red is valor, white, purity and innocence, blue, perseverance and justice. So I would look at that and I would question, okay, so what is it to be an American? What is a patriot? What are these colors mean? And are we truly living up to them historically? And do they apply to all the people that represent our nation? I found that not necessarily, sometimes yes, other times no. So I would create a piece, in this particular piece of American Me, I used the form of movement, buto, which is a Japanese form of movement, to express the spirit of trying to navigate through implicit biases, the oppressive systemic elements of American society. And to keep in mind those colors and showing that, hey, I am, we are Americans too. The base of that piece of American Me also has African artifacts in the down stage space of that piece, where valor, for example, has an African sword, innocence has an akubadol. Justice has calorie shells, which represents the economic injustices that we experience. But at the same time we have so much economic power, we spend trillions of dollars into this economy, and calorie shells were a form of currency once upon a time in Africa. So just kind of bringing back the Black Wall Street 2.0 element of empowering and showing that we can flip this. And yeah, so I take the trouble with it, the dynamics of it is that trying to, all this information that I have about American history and trying to condense it to a clear, concise message without preaching is the trick, but I love it. Oh, good. Well, you can tell through your dance, and we can feel your emotion. It definitely transcends to the audience. Let's talk about Pico Dance Arts. Yes. Tell us about that. Well, Pico Dance Art, I enjoy collaborative projects of fellow artists, and Pico Dance Arts was founded by Sammy L.A. Kune, Jalakara Miller, and myself. We are international performance artists who wanted to bring, were from Hawaii, and we wanted to bring the hearts and audiences locally and internationally with a variety of quality performances and shows. Sometimes they have messages, other times not. We've performed in Portier, France. We've performed in Seoul, Korea. The topic in Seoul, Korea was climate change. We performed in what was formerly oil tanks in the 70s, and they converted them into these beautiful cultural art centers. So our piece, Slow Awakening, was all about addressing that. How do we fit in with this climate change? How do we, can we change ourselves and then resonate through the community in being more mindful about helping our climate, helping our planet, helping one another? That's wonderful. I received an email today from Wallet Hub Best Award, and let's talk a little bit about activism, and it's out of Washington, D.C., and it's a Hawaii was named 2020's best state for women. I mean, I love that we live here, the Queens live here, and now this is something so very positive for people to think about, that we have so many sharp, brilliant minds who live here in Hawaii, and now we know as one of the safest places for women to live here. What do you think about just a few of your experiences of living here in Hawaii? Well I would definitely agree with that. I find Hawaiian culture to be much more socially mature than mainland culture. I am originally from Chicago, but I am come in now, over 20 years, resident UH graduate, but I find that I can let my guard down more here. I don't have to have, like when I lived in Chicago, that street sense, you know, being street wise, and being conscious of 360, kind of looking around and making sure I'm safe. I don't have to do that necessarily so much here. I enjoy that I can speak to most people without having some kind of preconceived idea about who I am. I'm learning and found that here in Hawaii, if you say who you are and what you are, people just sit back and wait and see because the social circles are so small here, right? If you don't understand and gather that sense of aloha and get the way things work here socially and being connected to the Aina and all of that, people will see you for who you truly are. I enjoy living here, but we don't want people to think that we don't have challenges here. Yes. This is the 50th state. We have concerns and we are in discuss them here. This is why Sister Power is here. We're so happy to have you. I want to ask you, Sequoia, what are some of the components of your live performances? Well, my motto, my tagline is, strange root express, history, art, dance, and activism in mind, body, and spirit. So I like to take those elements of mixed media, buttoe, modern, or my based in terms of movement, and then art, surrealism is kind of my thing, modern art, and creating projects and pieces that resonate the message of inclusion, positivity. Creating this all together as Americans. Wow. Thank you. Oh, I'm looking, we're looking at some of your beautiful work, your art form. Yes. Some of those works were formerly, I was formerly with Iona Contemporary Dance Theater where I learned some of my buttoe movement, but primarily I am learning through Lori Otani from the Japanese Cultural Center. I've been studying with her for four years. She's a true buttoe, original, traditional style. And I thank her so much for grounding me in that. Wonderful. What's stayed with us, we'll be right back. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life. I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m., aloha. Welcome back to Sister Power. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, and our very special guest. We have Queen Sequoia Carr Brown, and we're discussing history, dance, and activism. And before we went to break, we were talking about different mini-forms of dancing, and I just love watching you tell your story. So who is the target audience for Pico Dance Arts? Pico, everyone. We are all inclusive. We are all about bringing our work, our message of positivity, and community-based projects to everyone. We are, of course, here in Hawaii, but we do work internationally and have been invited to various dance festivals because of that, but we don't limit ourselves at all. Our most recent piece, Raw Lineage, was kind of a heavy piece, we were addressing those social ills, those unspoken instances of some kind of oppression, racism, sexism, gender identity issues, walking on eggshells as the overarching term or title of that concept. And we wanted to bring it to light. You can't heal until you bring it to the light. So we produced and created this project in an untraditional stage space, which is another element of Pico. We like to take it out of the stage, traditional stage space, and put it in unexpected areas. So we performed at Art Zone. We graciously thank Kurt Kananaka for that opportunity to perform in that space. And just address things that need to be said, but at the same time, have our audience feel comfortable enough to feel safe enough that they can speak of it and understand and know that we have you, others in the community have you, and that you can be strong and move through those. I like that. You know, March is Women's History Month. Tell me about one or two of your mentors who has impressed you, or they have left a memorable imprint regarding your dancing. My dancing? Oh, well, there's... Oh, just in life, period. We don't have to label it. Okay. Well, being from Chicago in my first introduction to dance would be Katherine Dunham. And I loved her anthropological element of bringing in the African diasporic spiritual elements to movement. So that really resonates with me. Also Pearl Primus was similar like that. She's from Trinidad. Not very well known, but she has anthropological elements to her work as well. I also enjoy, for my art, anything out of the black renaissance, period, is one of my favorites. Afrofuturism greatly influences my work as well. I love, I love, I love, I love all of it. So I try to bring that, incorporate those ancestral ties to my work. But at the same time, have a spin where it propels us forward to be positive, to be empowered, to heal. Because like I said earlier, our equality and justice may be on the books, but it's not necessarily into the hearts and minds of everyone that we have to live with. So I'm at a place now where I don't care if not everyone loves us, wants us to be, reach our full potential. But I am out there, my company is out there to reach those who, who need that glimmer of hope that can see the light at the end of the tunnel, want to see that light at the end of the tunnel, and I am there, my company is there to help to bring you to that light. I love that. Yes. Well, Sequoia, how does your past work inform your current project? Well, the thread of my work is my core foundational piece, constructed red, white, and blue. And again, that touches on that American me piece of exploring the meanings of the American flag. All of my pieces also has an element of reflection, a mirror, if you will. So it's to show that I, not am only am I telling the story of others and helping, trying to get the general public to see us for who we truly are, the beautiful people that we are, but that I am struggling and working through it as well. So raw lineage, I introduced a piece called Reverence, part two of that piece, which is all about ancestral, recognizing our ancestors and my mentors that helped me to get to where I am today, connecting the black economic element I had experienced and have experienced a great deal of our racism here on the islands in the past few years, since returning from teaching in Japan. And I was really disappointed and shocked by that. Why were you disappointed and shocked? Well, I don't know if it's because of number 45 and the people's White House right now, and people are feeling a little bit more emboldened, but it wasn't like that when I first arrived over 20 years ago as a student at University of Hawaii. And I find that it's a constructed white kind of mentality and it's not just white, you don't have to be white to be constructed in whiteness. So I decided to put together Reverence, part two, to address that struggle, that it's a cathartic kind of way to release these experiences that I've had since returning to the islands, being a follower around in stores, being called the inward, not being served at a Japanese restaurant. And I had a noose at the center of this stage space, but the noose was made out of $100 bills because it's all about the Benjamin's. And that was to represent that we're going to flip this script. If you're going to have companies who want to exploit us monetarily, then hold your money, boycott, keep your money in your pocket, keep it local, make it balance at least five times in your own communities. Bring back Black Wall Street 2.0, if you will. In that center space, I also had where the noose was located hanging. I had on the floor the words, Black Money Manors, and still we rise. I would dance in that space by the accompaniment of Aaron Aranita, a credible jazz musician who played God Bless to Child by Billie Holiday, by which my company's name, the namesake, is named after Strange Fruit. So I'm all about taking these concepts and elements, and the thread is always empowerment. The thread is always exploring American history through the Black experience, but using U.S. constitutional history, exploring what the colors of the flag mean. Having mirrors within that space to reflect only on the past, but where we are going, who I am as a person, and who we are as a nation, and how do we move and progress forward? I like all of that. And all of that is so empowering, and it's motivating, and such a part. We continue to educate people. So I have a two-part question for you, Sequoy up. And the first part is, what did I want to ask you? You just don't something, yes. What is Strange Fruit Express Mission? Give us a quick 10-second mission statement for Strange Fruit, and then I'll ask you the second question. Our mission is to empower and foster resiliency in all who experience our workshops, our performances, our collaborative projects. That's it. Just empowerment and resiliency in the mind, in the body, in the spirit. Racism, sexism, all these isms are very, very physiologically, they really bring you down. And I'm all about reversing that. You don't have to internalize that. So my work is all about bringing that information forward through art, through movement. I even have exercise programs, these compressing stress projects, exercises that are designed to release the stress where we place that stress, you know, those implicit biases, you know, we tense up in our face, in our neck, in our shoulders. I have a program to get rid of all of that. Well, I'm sisters in part in Hawaii, and sister in part we're interested in talking about getting together to do that program. So Sequoia, what's next? What are you doing next? Next, well, I am with Along with Pico Dance Arts. We are, we just submitted some proposals for grants. We prayed that those will come forward. And I am currently, I was invited by Tau Dance Theater. Peter Espiritu is the director of this beautiful piece called Indigeneuity. It will be a Farrington Theater on March 27th, 7.30 p.m. by your tickets now. It's an incredible, beautifully powerful piece about connecting to each other, to the planet, to one another, respecting indigenous rights, indigenous cultures and people. Please come out and see that. I'm so honored to have been invited to be a part of that. And I'm also teaching. I teach Mixed Ability. I'm a dance ability certified instructor. So I work with people on the spectrum, Down syndrome, doesn't matter even, you know, we all have some kind of ability. So I call it handy capable crew. And we all work together regardless of your ability and have a good time learning creative movement. Oh, I love that. So March 27th, and is that what time? March 27th at 7.30 p.m. And we're in the location? It is at Farrington Auditorium. Okay, Farrington Auditorium. Well Sequoia, in 30 seconds or less, tell the audience something that we have not touched on that you would like to relay to the people out there. Oh, would you like to know, well, just know that I am here for all of you. I am a global village personality. I love to live, love and learn and laugh and all of those wonderful things in life. And just because you see me here in my melanin, I am not a trope, nor are my people and we are here, we have always been here and we all are about growing, educating, living, being spiritual, being grounded and just accept us and we will accept you as well. I love that. Thank you so much, Sequoia, for joining Sister Power.  Yes, vote, vote, vote. It's crucial to get out there and vote and celebrate Women's History Month today and the rest of the month and always. Always. And again, I'm Sister's Empowering Hawaii, President and Founder, and the host of Sister Power, Oceans of Allah, Peace and Love.


this is 63.8 now give you 63 okay through us one yes okay driver you touched zero cones first run with the zero cones touch magnificent it was good to see that you took your time you showed good the capability of knowing when to do the turns it was a great you put the tank in the the straight turn yeah it was really cool it was the driving skills have nothing to complain about it was a good job you were 63 centimeters off they'll give you 63 penalty points Gunner you have got the back reef from your other official yes yes no penalty points zero penalty point that gives you 63 penalty points in total and a score 37 that is average so very good one you as one perfect nice having you here do you have anything to say to the maneuvering lane weapons rails overall there will be five different tasks data in the competition come on come on come on come on one head 12 it is 3000 3,500 it will be half of this is


I'll just do a quick introduction so hi everyone and thanks for joining our global liberal arts taster session. Today we've got Dr Mark Whedon who's going to talk about time and histories of the world and give us a short overview of what global liberal arts is and what the programme is like at SOAS. We've also got a student ambassador so Mark do you want to get started? Yeah thanks very much. Okay then global liberal arts what is it? A lot of us probably have never heard of this before global liberal arts. Well it's an idea for taking a new approach to learning about the world essentially and to approaching academic learning in general. Oops why can't I go forward? Oh sorry sorry sorry here we are things are going a bit wrong already. Right so the traditional approach to academia is to learn a particular subject so academic knowledge is divided up into lots of different subcategories lots of silos you become a historian or you become a philosopher you study politics maybe you want to become a politician I don't know cultural studies sociology development studies these are all separate silos and the whole point of global liberal arts is a degree that tries to train you to do the basics in a good number of these disciplines and to basically produce an academic environment where these different disciplines that are usually studied on their own can start talking to each other that I would say is the basic principle behind global liberal arts it's an approach a holistic approach to education that involves learning lots of different disciplines and trying to bring them into communication with each other and so us let's say there are four principles underlying the education in global liberal arts we have flexibility you are able to design your own intellectual journey on this degree into disciplinarity that's really at the heart of it so the degree combines humanities linguistics and social sciences for example reflexivity which is all about learning how to learn and employability thinking critically and solving complex problems working in teams so I'm just going to give you a quick introduction to the structure of the global liberal arts degree and then I'm going to as this is a taster session give you a little extract perhaps a quarter of a lecture that the students got this year from year one from the year one of the year one core courses so the global liberal arts degree is divided up into four tracks you've got a skills and method track each year a global track each year a regional track each year and a language track so in the first year the skills and method track is approaching history which is we are we are situated in the department of history religions and philosophies and the global liberal arts degree its core modules are provided by that department so approaching history trains you in how to deal with sources it's not just for historians but how to do it deal critically with sources we have a global track from which I'll play you a quick extract from one of the lectures which is called well next year it will be called World History's Early Empires and Encounters and this gives you a global framework for your studies then you have the regional introductions from various different areas that are covered by SOAS and then there's the language track so you learn a language or and we encourage you to learn a language especially in the first year because a lot of people who are unsure about learning languages maybe you should try out a language in the first year because in the first year your marks don't count towards the end result of your degree but anyway we do encourage you to try to learn a language or if you feel really uncertain you don't want to do that then there are options for learning about language uh year two so again we have the skills and method track the global track the regional track and the language and literature's track um and in the skills and method track we have philosophies of interpretation and understanding that's basically a philosophy module which helps you to learn to think abstractly in the um global track we have African and Asian cultures in the diaspora for example economic economics of global of developing countries ethnomusicology public international law you can take a whole range of stuff from throughout the university and then in the regional track we have um for example art and culture in imperial China again regional um choices and then you can also change uh continue with the language and literatures and then finally in the um third year you have the skills and methods uh uh track which ends up with a dissertation a 10 000 word essay on a top of your choice uh again you continue with the global track with the regional track and you can continue with language or literature okay so i'm just going to give you then a short excerpt from a lecture that the students were given this year as part of the h102 world histories course uh it's the introductory session from the introductory session and i'm just going to play this back to you and then after that we can have a question and answer on anything we've talked about until recently many people grew up with the map of the world that looks like this all lots of different colors very nice um designating different imperial distributions of lands but also possessing a characteristic shape this is bacon standard map of the world which is based on the mokater protection projection which goes back down to the back to the 16th century i think and it's essentially a projection of the world an attempt to make the world into a from a sphere into a rectangle and if you do that if you imagine that you flatten out what's been drawn onto a sphere into a flat rectangle then obviously things are going to get distorted and that's precisely what's happened here you see green land and africa look like they're the same size africa and north america as well they look like they're the same size india looks smaller than scandinavia uh for example nowadays we have a few alternatives to this typical map of the world um the map on the left by neil k tries to show the respective sizes of countries it's very much about being divided into countries rather than land masses um and does so in a two-dimensional focus in a two-dimensional axis um and you can see there the problem is you've got all these white bits so the land masses don't meet up with each other you can't actually see what's next to what very easily so that's an accurate map but it's a rather difficult to use map the one on the right is a bit of a compromise this is what's referred to as an equal area map but it's also been made more aesthetically pleasing or more accessible for us really it tries to show the relative sizes of the land masses but at the same time it tries to make it accessible as a map that we can relate to um even if there are some inaccuracies so for example Antarctica at the bottom there looks like it covers the whole of the world and is absolutely enormous compared to all other land masses but what we can see from these two maps is how absolutely enormous the land masses of africa and asia are and how much of the world they take up how india is actually quite considerably bigger than scandinavia uh and indeed of europe so this gives us a much fairer representation of the distribution of land in the world land masses at least and one would think if all things were fair that africa and asia would be the central powerhouses of a world economy because they are at the center and they are the largest however that's obviously not the case and why is it not the case well let's go back to our mercator map where greenland was the same size of africa and let's look at our red areas there these are this map is from 1907 and at this time this world was dominated by the british empire so colonialism this is obviously one of the topics that we're going to be talking about in this course the british weren't the first colonialists but they are among one of the more significant and certainly that's what we get taught in this country is that the british empire was an extraordinarily important thing indeed it was um however considering world history from the perspective of the history of colonialism whether we think colonialism is a good thing or a bad thing is in fact to exclude once again all of these very large areas which make up most of the world so colonialism is frequently a distorting lens through which to view history and in this course we're going to try and put colonialism in its place we're going to try and show how there is an independent world in these places that colonialists came to and enthralled to their power and that these places interacted with colonialism they weren't just subjected to it and they changed colonialism so one of the things that we want people to be able to get out of this course is that these very large areas of the world that we usually only see through a colonial lens have their own histories and that history frequently needs to be reconstructed by listening to the voices of the sources that come from these areas let's have a look at another way of considering history of the world this is the histo map it was made by one robert sparks in 1931 and there used to be a lot of these kind of things and you can see he's trying to map 4 000 years of world history again and he does this according to what he calls the relative power of contemporary states nations empires so for him the historical subjects the entities that make a difference to history are states nations and empires this is something that we would want to question because states nations and empires are not always identical with the thousands and millions of people who live in them who perhaps don't have a share in the imperial wealth so here's the histo map now this was written at a time as I say when there a lot of people were doing this kind of thing and you had a lot of attempts to write a kind of global history that's encompassed everything so there was a famous study of history by arnold toinby for example in 12 volumes that saw the world very much through this kind of lens as a series of rising and falling of civilizations who held power to the detriment and exclusion of other civilizations other people let's put it that way and it's not surprising that this kind of thinking about history arose in this time it's very much of its time the 1930s were the time of eugenics of racial theory of so-called racial science the idea is that you could basically breed humans like cats and dogs and somehow make them better in some sense obviously no one accepts that anymore that human beings are divided up into races that are to be bred like cats and dogs but this was a very very frequent idea at the beginning of the 1930s during the 1920s and it was an idea that led obviously to disastrous consequences towards the end of the 1930s with the rise to power of the Nazis and similar movements not only in Germany but across the world so this was a very normal way of looking at things and it's always important when you consider any kind of viewpoint that you ask what kind of society did this arise in and how can we understand this viewpoint against the backdrop of the society that it comes from and the kind of debates that are going on at the time so here we have the Mediterranean people the Alpine people the Semitic people the Alpine and Protonautic people and the Mongolian people so these are the racial characteristics that this person thinks make up the motor of history the other thing that one can observe is that this kind of approach to history assumes that it's a kind of zero sum game that basically there's a limited amount of power to be had and it gets divided up among different peoples at different times let's have a look at it in a bit in a bit in a bit more detail so if we go to the end of the Histo map here we are United States of America has got quite a lot of power according to Mr Sparks in the early 1930s probably the most powerful place on earth you've got England Scotland Ireland Wales coming in second there possibly it's like a bit of a competition isn't it let's pan back a little bit further British Empire France so the period of imperialism essentially in the 1800s following the United States back we get back to 1600 and there's suddenly nothing there so there's no United States before 1600 well politically speaking there wasn't a United States until much later than that but as far as this history is concerned Americans do not go back past 1600 now the British East India Company was founded in 1600 seven years later the colonization of America began and one thing that immediately brings out of considering this map is that all the people that lived in the Americas for all those centuries thousands of years before the coming of the colonialists they don't exist as far as this map is concerned because they're not historically significant as far as the maker of this map is concerned again this is something that we hope to disabuse ourselves of in the course of this lecture or in the course of this lecture series as this is so as we are and as the title of the course suggests mainly going to be looking at populations and developments in Africa and Asia however you can see from this map is a very good illustration there how historical significance is connected to race and race is connected to nation nation is clearly seen to be well the nation state is clearly seen to be the vehicle of history and without having that nation state there can be no history so suddenly America just stops at 1600 so let's go back a little bit further Pan back Ottoman Turks Mongolians before them taking up most of the power that's the limited amount of power that's available in the world and we go back further Roman Empire and the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empire sorry and the Byzantine Empire the Basids Muslim Arabs and Persians Franks Roman Empire absolutely enormous and one has to remember I think that the Roman Empire lived beside a very very large Parthian Empire and other imperial formations um that were also very large if you think the Roman Empire was only really around the Mediterranean and up to Britain that's actually quite a small area but that's not what you learn about at school what you learn about is how the Roman Empire was really really important and so this map doesn't give you this this this hystomap doesn't give you any kind of real historical argument it simply reflects the perception that is communicated in school history go back to the Persians and the Greeks and the earlier we get you see the more the focus begins necessarily to shift away from Europe away from the colonial center and we see that earlier on it's your Babylonians your Assyrians are you people from Asia exactly the areas that we're going to be talking about who take up the most space in this so that gives us a slight overview of various different types of approaches to world history and as said we're going to be looking at history of not only types of people who usually get left out of the record rather than doing a history of events and great battles and great men and politicians and that kind of thing and then we're going to be looking also at areas that frequently get out left out of the historical record because of colonialism because most of the historians that write about world history were educated in a world that has been fundamentally formed by colonialism and in fact the historical discipline the discipline of history itself as an academic discipline started in the colonial world and many of its basic concepts are colonial concepts okay so that was the extract from the lecture so I would suggest we move now to the Q&A have we got anything in the chat so we've got a couple in the chat and also a couple in the actual Q&A right okay so a couple in the Q&A it's a Q&A we've got Sophia P's asking I was wondering if there any SOAS based scholarships funding options for international students yes we have a scholarships office and those are the people I think you need to get in touch with it's quite easy to find on the website just type in scholarships office have you got anything you'd like to add to that and Heron? No all I will say is there's been quite a few new scholarships and there's been a bit of rejigging around but the website has been updated now so they should all be on there with their closing dates and who's eligible but again if you need to know anything else or you want more information there's an email address there you can find out more okay great and then there's a further question from Sophia how does the one grade lower system work if it applies particularly for international qualifications my high school diploma is graded on a scale of 1 to 10 10 being usual I'm afraid I haven't got an answer to that have you got something on Heron? Yeah so this year because of COVID and because of all the disruptions what we've said is that if students have been accepted onto a course and have to get certain grades if it turns out they don't get those grades we will accept them if they are one grade lower so say for example you were you needed to get AAA in A levels and you got AAB we would still accept you for the course it works out we do have equivalents for international qualifications I'm not quite sure with that particular example what the sort of I don't know how much one grade in a level would be in equivalent but we can advise you on that specific qualification if you again just give us an email the general email if you need to know any of these things is studyatsoas.ac.uk Okay thank you very much then we've got a question from Mark about the lecture who says maybe I'm overthinking this but what exactly makes that map a map quite first it seems more like a graph since it doesn't represent the geographical locations of these societies that's that's absolutely right that's the maker of the map who called it a histo map and I suppose what he's trying to say is that the world is a rectangle as it were and you have various different entities which occupy it over a certain amount of space but you remember his his map as he's calling it is a map that traces the amount of power that the states have so I don't know I think you're quite right it's probably better to just call it a graph isn't it rather than a map um quite right that's a very perceptive question thank you very much have we got any other questions so there's something in the chat um so um so Sophia asks again um do you know if Chinese is currently not offered in the website it says to contact the department directly I'm not sure I have to go about that well uh Chinese is definitely offered absolutely Chinese is being taught this year and will be taught next year there's absolutely no way that Chinese is uh not going to be taught at SARS so yes we have people on the global liberal arts degree doing Chinese at the moment um and it's definitely uh something to be encouraged so on the website says to the to um contact the department directly but um you can do that by on the website there should be a um a page which says what where the main addresses are um so you can you should be able to contact the department through the website or you can contact the department through the admissions department what would you say to that and how sorry I couldn't find my unmute button um yeah so um again to contact admissions just use the study out so us email address yeah and comment on the lecture there so it's like the single story mind say absolutely uh this is something that we're trying to counteract um that there isn't just one story or one way of approaching any particular issue whether it be history philosophy uh politics there are lots of different approaches and multiple factors that need to be taken into account and it's precisely this kind of approach of which emphasizes the multiplicity of factors and causes and different disciplinary approaches that the global liberal arts degree is trying to train people to appreciate um so my leaker asks what's the number of student usually present for the lectures of this course so you're referring to the um particular lecture that I was giving that I I just played a fragment from so that particular course has 41 people on it registered on it and um yeah around between 30 and 40 is the number of students you usually have present for that particular course um the global histories the world histories course are there any field trips involved well yes and no um we are trying to organize a year abroad for global liberal arts so as we've got a language and literature track and we do like people to do languages um one thing we want to get going which has been difficult to get going so far but uh hopefully we'll manage it in the next year or so is for global liberal arts students to have a third year an extra year that they can take abroad if they want so it'd be like between years three and four and they'd go to the country of the language that they're studying uh so yes so that's um that's certainly something that we're trying to plan field trips it depends on the module but um quite a few teachers involve field trips whether that's going somewhere in London to look at something or um or something even more ambitious uh so yes individual modules can have field trips and it's it's it's certainly something that we encourage teachers at SOAS to do um okay uh something anything you can't oh right okay um so similar question is Arabic a language that's offered absolutely again there will never be a year at SOAS where Arabic is not offered so Arabic is extremely popular and um and continues to be taught and again extremely important for global liberal arts a lot of people take Arabic all right then um yeah is it likely or the big question coming in here is it likely that university life will be back to normal in September what is the current plan oh well I hope so I think we all hope so um the current plan is that yes it will uh but unfortunately the current plan was that it was going to be getting back to normal by now but the previous plan sorry and uh that hasn't happened uh so yes we will obviously be uh depending on um advice from the government but we hope indeed that we will be back to normal uh by September or at least back to a format that involves majority face-to-face encounters between staff and students I would say the current situation that we have with the online provision of courses has been very difficult for all of us but also has offered us an opportunity to learn a great deal about how we teach and I'm sure there's going to be aspects of this that we will keep on so for example using pre-recorded lectures and interactive online fora for debate um in the run up to uh live sessions and stuff face-to-face sessions these are things that I think we've learned how to use a lot better and it's so once we get back to something approaching normal it's going to be a much better experience that everyone's going to have around uh so it sounds like SARS doesn't take a particularly realist perspective on much topics Sophia says uh since it looks way beyond just nation states and their power would you say it's more like social constructivism oh um well certainly social constructivist uh yeah you mean realist in the in the terms of uh in the terms of uh sort of philosophy of history um yes indeed uh I think that's social constructivism the idea that uh history is something that is constructed by the historian um is essentially is is definitely um an approach that that we take uh and indeed um I would say that I personally as a historian find that the nation state is a very restricting way to look at uh the development of history so um I'm obviously just one historian at SOAS though there's lots of other ones um who take different perspectives so I don't think we can say that SOAS has a brand as it were approach to history or to politics um but you are going to find a multiplicity of approaches and a great diversity of approaches possibly greater than you will find at other places I would imagine okay are the so we've also got here how Malika says how is the course taught are there regular lectures or self-research based both basically um in your first year second year it's going to be more regular lecture based so you'll have four lectures you have to do four modules a a year and you'll get a main lecture in one of those in each of those sorry a main lecture of say an hour and then a tutorial which will either be small groups or a seminar with a larger group um in each of those as well so you should be expecting to get say two hours two or three hours per module and you'll have four modules um a term and uh that's yes so that's the basic the basic uh structure so we try to get a combination of lecturing and discussion going on because discussion is where the real learning happens essentially and as you go through the degree you take courses which are more oriented towards your own research so once you get to um the third year then you are going to be working for one of your modules on your own dissertation your 10 000 word essay which is on a topic of your choosing essentially and which is largely based on your own research but is that is research which is guided and advised by a individual supervisor okay uh do we have any more angharic that you can see questions so i've been ignoring the q and a yeah we've also got a few in the q and a all right so um peter asks can we take both mandarin and cantonese simultaneously i'm sorry i don't know about that um i think i would imagine yes uh i would imagine one would be able to develop from one into the other um but that's something you'll need to find out from the department from the east asian department um should we be taught from a younger age about the negative effects of colonialism i think absolutely we should uh but what i was trying to get at in that short extract from the lecture is that um whether one thinks of it negatively or positively colonialism is something that's shaped the way that we think about things and it's a matter of unpacking this kind of um bias that's inbuilt into the way we think about things and asking where the way we think about things comes from how the knowledge that we assume to have about the world has been constructed and frequently uh the kind of categories that we think in whether we're doing history politics or whatever are ones that have been largely formed by colonialism are assessments mostly exam based well no this is something we're moving away from there is a certain amount of exam based assessment particularly for languages i don't think you're ever going to get away from that um but um although it is possible if uh if people have certain circumstances then it is possible to to apply for alternative assessments um um yes but we are moving away from a system that is mostly exam based to one that is uh more coursework based so more based on essays for example or other kinds of tests um and it doesn't necessarily have to be essays i mean there's there's all sorts of different types of courseworks that we're introducing learning journals for example is a very interesting uh method of assessment that a lot of people are trying out at the moment and seems to be very effective where you have to write a few words that each week about an article you've read each week um and then you get an assessment on the whole journal that you've written over the year um or at least over the semester at the end of that semester uh so that's q and a uh yeah okay um and so we've got another question when exactly will be possible to add a year abroad to your three year programs already now and sometime in the future um sometime in the future i'd say year after next probably so if you were to start global liberal arts next year you would probably be able to do a year abroad i think we need to hear from Medina about the experience of studying at psoas yes um i just feel that especially with the pandemic it just feels very short because i'm in my third year now and um so by the time i finish my degree the half of it has been in lockdown but the time i've been on campus has been great i've really loved it because the atmosphere at psoas is so friendly and unlike any other university because you're surrounded by people who are not only curious about their studies but also about the world and especially with the uh global liberal arts people that are most like interested in this are also um have quite a world view so it's good to be surrounded by people like that so you have great conversations but apart from this studying at psoas and in london has been amazing as well so there are many societies and clubs you can participate in the support system is great whether it's your uh lecturers your academic advisors or the well-being team so especially in the current climate i think psoas has really gone beyond to ensure the students are coping well and staying on top of their studies thanks madina you've got a question in the chat there oh let's have a look i think my chat has disappeared i'll just i'll just try to get it up again i i just stopped screen sharing didn't i so that probably messed everything up for everyone um it says hi madina what is the student union like it's from sofia uh as well as the club societies uh the student union especially at soas is such a vibrant and such a exciting place there's so many interesting societies and uh to choose from so i know there's one which is pizza society where they got together and had pizza so that was nice and quirky um yeah there's there's a lot of sports clubs as well so um soas is part of the university of london so you can sign up to student central which is just down the road and you can take part in the clubs and societies offered by them so yeah there's a lot to do we've also just created a virtual tour of soas campus um we got some uh we got a company with drones and so they've come over soas and you can get a 360 sort of bird's eye view of the campus and you can then click through to different parts such as the library or the students union and you know in these current times where you can't actually get to the campus and see what it's like it's a really good sort of alternative so i'll just post the link to that in the chat in case anyone wants to have a look at it but thank you thank you very much madina no worries thank you yeah thanks oh another question for you madina does soas have anything related to dance uh very likely i mean the best place to find out more information would be the student union page uh there you'll be able to see a list of all the clubs and societies but i'm pretty sure there is yeah i'm pretty sure it would be very unusual if it didn't uh dance and there's lots there's an incredible music department at soas as well absolutely incredible yeah okay have we reached the end of this i think there's there's one final um oh hell there's there's two more questions which we probably have time for and then we'll probably have to wrap it up um is there a language option of russian oh no no i don't think there is at soas um but uh you can learn it at ucl and yes indeed there is a university of london resource sharing scheme um well okay you can every every soas student is entitled to take at least one course at ucl every year um and not many people do though but that is there that is there yes and there's one more on the chat about uh employment after a global liberal arts degree yeah uh yeah oh what employment avenues with a okay and yes indeed okay so we haven't the global liberal arts degree at soas has not been going for that long but um it's a a kind of degree that's much better known in the us um and global liberal arts degrees from other universities are also very successful in producing people who are extremely employable so um what we're aiming to train people to be able to do is to enter um a multiple multiple professions um such as well journalism is what people want to go for we have people who are um doing global liberal arts at the moment who are aiming to work for ngo's for example um because global liberal arts can allow you to combine law with um more humanities subjects in ways that uh you know other degrees can't law is usually something that just gets studied by lawyers um on law degrees that's that's again another avenue that people can go into and it's all also always possible if you decide you want to specialize in something particular it's always possible to do an MA afterwards and I would mostly nowadays say that whatever degree you do in the humanities whether it's history um or indeed in the social sciences whatever degree you do the you should normally take an MA afterwards as well just to uh to specialize a little bit because the degree shows that you can do certain things it shows that you're able to you have certain transferable skills but um nowadays more and more people are doing an MA as well and with the global liberal arts degree that makes a lot of sense too but yes um multiple professions and this is precisely what the global liberal arts degree is supposed to be training people to do is to make a fruitful contribution to any number of employment settings. Thank you very much Mark and thank you Medina and thank you to all our participants if there's a question that you didn't get to ask um I'm sure if you email the department uh is that right Mark we can probably get an answer to that or if it's more general about studying it so us then email us at study at so us I tell you what I can put I can put my uh my email oh that'd be great yeah great thank you yeah anyone wants to ask about global liberal arts particularly then there's my email thanks that's really useful and I hope everyone has a lovely rest of the weekend and uh thank you very much for coming thank you everyone bye