This is stock number 6J246A. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and use Jeep headquarters. Today we are checking out this super clean 2016 Jeep Cherokee Latitude. This vehicle has the 2.4 liter four cylinder multi-air motor which pumps out 184 horsepower from this HD video. You will be able to tell that this Jeep is extremely clean inside and out all the way around. Factory alloy rims on here, Firestone Destination 22565R17 tires that have about half the tread left. Four wheel disc brakes on the Cherokees. This color is called True Blue Metallic, LED running lights, factory fog lights and projector lamp headlamps. You get the chrome trimmed grille with the Latitude package. Passenger side rim is in absolutely perfect condition. And as we go down this side of the Jeep you can see just how clean that body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down. You can still see the vehicle, hear the vehicle and have confidence in what you're looking at before you even get here. We saw a lot of vehicles out of state, out of the county so you can have confidence that you're dealing with the right vehicle and the right people. Back rim is in excellent condition and these back tires have just as much tread as the front tires, maybe even just a hair bit more. As we come around to the back you can see the rear bumper is in absolutely perfect condition, no dense dings or cracks on that. The rear tailgate is in really nice shape as well. It has the LED tail lights which are proven to shine faster, brighter and farther than normal halogen. It does have the backup camera. Back storage area is very nice and clean. It has the factory subwoofer and you get a little storage container underneath here and then underneath there is the full size spare tire. Because this is a four wheel drive is why you get the spare tire, those seats do fold down flat. And that gate shuts nice and solidly, no dense or dings on that. And as you go down this side of the vehicle just as clean as that passenger side. And once again notice how nice that paint is, how clean the body is. This is a one owner local trade. We sold it here brand new and he traded it in on a brand new vehicle. The Lattu package gives you the power driver seat, no rips or tears on that seat. You got factory all-weather floor mats throughout, power windows, power locks and power mirrors. It has the auto headlamps right there. And as we go inside you can see it has 27,255 miles. It has the heated leather wrap steering wheel, cruise controls on that side, Bluetooth audio controls on that side. You have the 8.4 touch screen radio. Now this radio is nav capable so you can add nav for $5.95 on this radio if you want. It has the heated seats and heated steering wheel buttons right there. This is also where your backup camera shows up. It has your climate control down there or you can do your climate control up here. And this is your select terrain for your four wheel drive system. You got a auto which automatically puts it in the four wheel drive. Or you got snow mode, sport mode, and then sand mud mode. SD card, USB and AUX jack right there. And this is the nine speed automatic transmission. Factory all-weather floor mats on this vehicle. Part of the cold weather group, passenger seats very clean as well. No rips or tears on that seat. It has the 911 and assist buttons which are features of the vehicle. You never have to pay a subscription for those. It has AM, FM, and Sirius XM radio capabilities as well. Very nice vehicle inside and out as we check out the back. Seats are very clean as well. Latch child safety system has 10 airbags in this vehicle including side knee airbags in the back. And we have factory all-weather floor mats back here as well. And then 115 volt, 150 watt plug-in. These seats do fold down for extra storage and they go pretty nice and flat right there. And then they also, you can move them back and forth. They adjust. Take a quick look under the hood. The 2.4 liter four cylinder multi-air motor pumps out 184 horsepower. Engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth. This Jeep has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop. Has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. The vehicle has been gone through mechanically 100% and is 100% ready to go. To see more pictures of this Jeep or one of our other 400 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, wranglers, halftones, you name it we got it go to our website www.SummitAuto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle and a lot of videos of every single used vehicle that we have. All at SummitAuto.com. Thank you so much for checking out the video. If you like this Jeep and want to make it yours, give us a call right now<PHONE_NUMBER>. Ask for one of our sales associates standing by to take your call to make it yours. And that number again is<PHONE_NUMBER>. Thanks again for checking out the video. If you like it and want to check out more, go to www.youtube.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos there. In fact, in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left. A link to more used inventory videos like this one on your right. If you haven't been to our website on the bottom, a link to this vehicle on our website, click those, check us out, and we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2016 Jeep Cherokee Latitude Cold Weather Group. Thanks again.


Hello everyone, hope you guys are having a wonderful day. So today I'm creating a new video which emphasizes on creating ads for Facebook ad retrudge. So this is purely how to create a really good Facebook ad. And before I start this I want to tell you something I see a lot of people are not subscribed to this channel I would recommend you to subscribe because in the upcoming days I'm going to release more videos and what YouTube does is that if you're not subscribed and you don't comment or like or anything they're gonna lower down all the videos and then I'm gonna show up on your YouTube features and stuff so you're gonna miss all my videos I would definitely recommend to subscribe and I'm gonna create more videos on how to make money online and all this stuff if you have any questions for AdSense, Arbitrage and everything also I'm gonna share some deals and free giveaways for most of the plugins and themes so make sure to hit the subscribe button and without any further ado let's start all right so the first thing I go is I open a couple of websites are like dailymail.co.uk and express.co.uk these websites can kind of give me an idea on what kind of arbitrage ad are getting high clicks for example if you look at here Haiti Klum stuns in a slick cocktail dress and this this kind of ad the pictures looks really great also this one is also an arbitrage so if you guys ask me how I know this I look at the sponsored links so the only reason that these ads come up here is because they're really really well performed ads and if you click on this craft thoughts.co these people are already running the arbitrage game on this website so like we have to follow what they're doing so they click the next and sometimes they click on here and it becomes you know and our AdSense arbitrage so I kind of see what kind of ads are running here and kind of look at here and then express.co.uk I can also go here and kind of check out what kind of ads are running for example this one this one is actually not an arbitrage it's more like like a payment or job or something but it kind of gives me a really good idea like this one is an arbitrage this is Mike Tyson's network in 2021 so this guy's running AdSense arbitrage on a financial website I bet his CPC and CPEM is really high and you can kind of like I get a good thing like a good impressions on what you need to do and then we will come back here and we will create an ad so I'm going to create a whole ad from the very beginning to help you guys out and kind of you know help you guys with the AdSense arbitrage thing so the first thing we need to do we need to make sure that we are clicking on the traffic and we will give it some names for example arbitrage Facebook example just a just a campaign name going to create an ad set so we're gonna name this one so this is really important that you name this one because the after after creating and applying for the ad we're going to create multiple copies of this ad section and also we're gonna create an ad here which is this one just one and one and then the campaign name so we're gonna click on continue and then we're gonna click on campaign budget optimization our daily budget will be $10 and the lowest cost campaign bid table be lowest cost and then we're gonna click on the next here now we are on the ad set options so let's try to target more people so what we're gonna do here with we're gonna we're gonna target worldwide we're gonna target worldwide right so it's think 2.8 billion people and then we're gonna exclude some of the people from here to exclude that we need to click on here and then exclude some countries because they're very very low performing ads we're going to exclude this India Iraq Iraq Syria I guess not Syria let's like they have very Syria it's not showing me any city wow it's not even included in the city all right and if not then Pakistan I'm going to exclude all of these things all right and yeah that's pretty much it and if possible I'm really highly dubbed that the ad that we're going to target is going to reflect any of the African nations but if we do see any kind of African nations we just gonna we can just come here and exclude them all right so let's say your ad is about for example let's say your ad is about movies right so let's say we are gonna target people with the movies like a films this is called detail targeting and then what we're going to do we're going to click on suggestions and we're gonna put most of the stuff comedy films Netflix action films horror films action movie theater and we're gonna put all of this okay so after after we include most of the people we will see how much people we can target from this section and then we're gonna save this audience and we're gonna click on manual placement so we're gonna take out all these things that we don't need come down and take out all these things also just keep the Facebook news feed also take out this this this also this take out everything except the Facebook news feed and we're going to click on landing page views like optimization delivery so we need to make sure that the people that come to our website they're highly motivated so we need to make sure that we click on we select on this one and then what we are going to do we're gonna click on next yes so I will put the website URL later but I want to show you how you can create a very effective ad I'm just give an example let's say we go to screen rent it's a website about movies and stuff right so I try to create really really good picture with images like this one let's say I create all of these things beforehand so let's I create I copy this one and so I passed to this one I take out the link because it doesn't look good so I click on tag your tag your friends or something like that or or can you relate can you relate to this so I kind of like ask a question to my audience right I'm gonna click on the post so after this what I do is I come back to the ad manager and I click on the use existing post and I select post which I recently published this one and then I click on continue okay I don't create a new ad what happened is that when you're it's better to create a really really good article with really good high quality click-through rate pictures which I already showed you how you can find those stuff and kind of come in the in your website create those assets and then publish on your Facebook page like this and then try to pull that post from this ad section what it does is that if you create a different version of this you're not going to lose any of your likes and comments on the post that you get for your Facebook ad or engagement so it will kind of gives you a way high more engagements way have more social proof that people will look at and they'll comment you know they'll click on your ad so this is pretty much it that's the pretty much the deal I go through and if you're really interested learning about the whole process and everything I'll recommend checking the description so I'll put the the course link on there and you can check out and we'll get back with you as soon as possible so this is pretty much it thank you guys for today's session I hope you guys have a have a really great day and let me know if you guys have any question on the comment section I'll try to answer as much as I can I'm going to create more videos make sure to subscribe and let me know


Hello everybody and welcome to video number 34 of the online version of the fusion research lecture We are in chapter 6 turbulent transport and in the last video we talked about the underlying electrostatic instabilities the interchange instability and the drift of instability leading to turbulence This video we will have a look at an Approximate or estimating expression for the transport So we would actually talk about the turbulent transport Turbulent transport and In on this slide. I have shown you two time traces From measurements of a plasma on the left hand side. This is the plasma potential and on the right hand side This is the plasma density both measured by means of longer probes and You can see how both quantities are varying over time. So this is measured at a fixed position So they are the quantities are fluctuating and these are basically the quantities we want to measure. So, sorry the quantities to measure in plasmas Because they are mostly relatively easy to measure and they allow us To get quite a decent amount of information out of it. Let me rewrite that again Quantities to measure in plasmas This is like on the left hand side of the potential being a function of both both position and time Where we have like a background potential phi not Which is independent of the time just a function of the position and then plus the Varying part to the twiddle Which is a function of both position and time and the same is true for the density being a function of position and time where we have the unperturbed background density and not plus the perturbed Part which is then again a function of position and time Okay, now what to do with with such time traces One important thing to do is calculate the auto or cross correlation function Not to understand the a cross correlation function. It's easiest to look at the auto correlation function so calculation of the auto and cross Correlation function As illustrated here So let's first focus on the auto correlation function now What is the auto correlation function when you calculate that what you need to do you first need to duplicate? Duplicate a time series after You have duplicated the time series you need to shift one of the time series by a certain interval tau so you need to shift one of the time series by an interval by a time interval tau and then you need to multiply and and Integrate in the two time series you need to multiply the two time series with each other and the product need to be integrated and Integrate and that basically corresponds to the auto correlation function and if you do that then you Apply an additional normalization such that The auto correlation function the indice the index here is nn because I Correlated the density with the density so with itself That the auto correlation of zero so of a time like of zero is one So that is per definition If you look at the time trace shown on the left-hand side or the auto correlation function You can see that here At position zero so at time like zero we have a correlation of one again This is achieved by duplicating a time series shifting one of the time series by an interval tau multiply and integrate it then and We get this one over e value here This is something like this is called the correlation time and this tells us something about the lifetime of the structure at that position So this is how long the structure is correlated at the position where it was measured so the auto correlation function tells us allows us to deduce the correlation time the correlation time tau Core and the same is true. We for a spatial Correlation function, so we would make a spatial auto correlation function So shift it in space if we would have a measurement in space and not in time here We are in time then we would get from that the correlation length. So this is equivalent We can also obtain a correlation length Elcor from an equivalent measurement in space And now the cross correlation function is just doing the same with density and potential instead of density density so the cross correlation the cross correlation is the same But using density and potential and remember in the last video we talked about the cross correlation that the Cross-phase we get from that which is a quantity which you can get from the cross correlation is an important quantity for the transport now Let's try to make an estimation for the turbulent diffusion coefficient so a turbulent diffusion Coefficient Based on the random walk approach for the step size We take the correlation length and for the step time we take the correlation time For the step time we take the correlation time Meaning that the diffusion coefficient Based on random walk approach can then be approximated by a correlation the correlation length squared over tau correlation and the characteristic length the correlation length is given basically By the E cross B drift. So the characteristic characteristic tick length L car is given by The E cross B drift due to the varying electric field remember we have electrostatic Instabilities electrostatic turbulence here it is given defined by the product of the Drift velocity the radio drift velocity times the correlation time so the distance such Vortice travels within the correlation time and then This allows us to estimate a turbulent diffusion coefficient inserting in the above equation to be on the order of R the Velocity due to the E cross B drift squared times the correlation time As an estimation for the diffusion coefficient Now let's look at the transport so the transport is as we already said a few times given by a Diffusion coefficient now here for the turbulent scenario times density gradient grad n Then for the diffusion coefficient, we can now insert what we just had on the previous slide so the E cross B velocity times the correlation time and then the density gradient and then inserting the definition of the or inserting the Expression the expression for the correlation length which we had on the bar on the previous slide and we get minus l car Times grad n times the Drift velocity and Now we apply the so-called mixing length model the mixing length Model which basically tells us that the that the amplitude of the Fluctuation is given by the correlation length by the structure size the size of the vortices so the fluctuation amplitude can be roughly estimated by the Size of the vortices which is the correlation length and then times the density gradient So the larger the gradient the larger the fluctuation amplitude something easy to imagine if you have a Higher gradient. You have basically more free energy which can lead to larger fluctuation amplitude. This is the mixing length model and then We can write the The transport as and Twittles so the density variation since a core times grad n is the density variation times the drift velocity and Now we should have in mind that the drift velocity Is proportional to or can be estimated at least its quantity its amplitude by the radial electric field over the magnetic field and If we now were to look at the transport then we need Since you've seen that it varies it varies over time and we need to make a temporal average So an average over time indicated by these brackets and the t in the index is that is an average over time then we assume by We want to just know in order of magnitude expression setting the magnetic field to one here that this is the temporal average over the Density variation and then times the electric field variation Just inserting the expression for the drift velocity and What we now do is we take these time traces as Fourier series meaning if we have Some quantity f t then we've Take its take it into Fourier space or using its Fourier transformation such that f t Can be expressed by Normalization 1 over 2 pi times the integral of the amplitude components f omega Sorry, this is supposed to read f omega. Let's probably write that again F head With the amplitude components or omega So every frequency component has its own amplitude times e To the power of i omega t d omega Inserting that for the time series of density and electric field then we can finally write it as the integral over n head of omega times e head of omega and Now we can with it both with the exponential functions there. We can rewrite it finally as cosine of So this is like a bit of algebra involved here cosine of Phi e Minus Phi n d omega and This is the cross face. I talked about earlier This is the cross face. I talked about earlier So here we have this expression Which was basically Kind of mentioned in the last video Namely that the transport it depends on the cross face between density and electric field or density and potential and Here you can see this expression and by the way just as a reminder note that the face between Electric field and density is the face between Sorry this supposed to be a Phi the face between Potential and density plus or minus Pi half. So the electric field shifted with respect to the potential to its face by Pi half Okay, that was very briefly just in video to get an Approximate expression for the turbulent transport. I briefly showed you in the beginning of this video the quantities we interested in that is the Potential and the density and how these quantities depend to both on time and position I briefly talked about the auto correlation function and the cross correlation function Then we used the random walk model to describe Diffusion coefficient where we used the correlation length as the step size and the correlation time as the step time and Then the E the cross B drift resulting from the varying electric field Which defines to define a correlation length and interpreting it as a characteristic length and then here we have the in estimation for the turbulent transport most importantly we have an estimation which shows us if we do not regard the absolute numbers, but which shows us that the Turbulent transport depends on the cross phase between density and potential fluctuation in the face of these two quantities That's it for this video. Hope to see you in the next video


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we are going to discuss the following question and the question says that state which of the following functions are linear give reason a y is equal to 0.25 plus 0.5 into x minus 2 b a is equal to i into r square and c y is equal to 2x we know that a function is said to be linear if we can write it in the slope intersect form that is y is equal to n into x plus c with this key idea let us proceed to the solution now the first path says y is equal to 0.25 plus 0.5 into x minus 2 let us simplify it and therefore we get y is equal to 0.25 plus 0.5 into x that is 0.5x minus us 0.5 into 2 that is 1 therefore y is equal to now combining like times together we write 0.25 minus of 1 plus 0.5 x and therefore we get y is equal to 0.25 minus 1 is minus of 0.75 plus 0.5x we can write y as 0.5x minus of 0.75 and from the key idea we know that a function is said to be linear if we can write it in the slope intercept form that is y is equal to mx plus c now here we have written it in the form of y is equal to m into x plus c where m is given by 0.5 and the value of c is given by minus of 0.75 so we say that it is a linear relationship in the second path we have the relation a is equal to pi r square which is the area of the circle with radius r here variables r and r and here we see that the power of r is 2 so it cannot be written a is equal to m into r plus c form so we say that it is non-linear that is we can see if we put the value of r as 0 we get the value of a as 0 if we put the value of r as 1 we get the value of a as pi and similarly if we put the value of r as 2 we get the value of a as pi into 2 square that is pi into 4 which is equal to 4 pi now if we see change in r we get 1 minus 0 which is equal to 1 and 2 minus 1 that is also 1 so we can say that it is constant but change in a that is pi minus 0 is equal to pi and 4 pi minus pi is equal to 3 pi and we see that it is not constant so it is a non-linear relationship and in the third path we are given y is equal to twice of x and we can see that the equation y is equal to twice of x is of the form y is equal to m into x plus c where the value of c is 0 it is the equation of the straight line pattern through origin so we say that it is a linear relationship which is the required answer this completes our session hope you enjoyed this session


Good day, welcome, and thank you for your time today. My name is Shantanu, and I will be taking you through one of the crucial elements of effective PM communication. A little bit about me. I have over one and a half decades experience in building businesses and managing leadership communications. Today, we talk about effective PM communication. The need, what does it look like, and how do we communicate it well? But before we dive into this, let's look at two samples together. You see two styles, style A and style B listed here. Let's take a few seconds to read through it and then discuss which styles jumps out to us. Well, when asked, most people find style A jumping out to them. But why is that? Let's explore. To understand that, let's start off with what is the goal of a PM communication. Professor Larry simplifies the goal in a beautiful one-liner. Help the audience understand better something they want to understand well. Think about it, the problems, the products, the space in which we work in. Leaders are aware of that. They know it well. They just want to know better, and then they want to know what are you going to do about it? If you distill this down to four operating principles, we can break them out in this way. Find value in the content. Your communication needs to add value to the knowledge set, and then they care about the subject. Second, they can hook in quickly, get attracted to it. Third, it should be easy to read. And four, there should be a call to action, and they should lead with a good feeling and almost a gift back, which is a key takeaway for them. Well, at this stage, you must be thinking, this sounds good, but is this actually important to me? Well, let's explore that. Why is effective communication important? Well, without effective communications, PMs should just expect low clarity, limited collaboration, and no closure in all the PM stages. If we look at clarity, low clarity means confusion throughout the ranks, limited progress, and low motivations rule. In short, there's not going to be any innovation in such a climate as well. Low collaboration means all systems failure. There's no progress if people don't work together. Closure means the final output, the deliverable. There's not going to be a launch or much benefit to the ecosystem. So at this point of time, you must be thinking that this seems important, but then is it really that difficult to achieve? Well, let's examine the blockers to achieving this. The blockers essentially stem from us being human in a complex and ever-changing world. If we break this up into three buckets, we can consider them as the preconceptions of the audience, our short attention spans, and the fact that we are essentially jaded from reading and listening so much. The preconceptions are possibly the most complex aspect because it stems from our insecurities and our motivations. Short attention spans is pretty much a human feature now, less of a bug. And the fact that we have to read, listen, question, answer, it's not so normal to us as reading. Sometimes we believe it just happens with no thoughts of improving on it. Well, at this point of time, you may be thinking that this makes sense and I do want to level up on this, but can I not use the traditional styles? Well, let's explore the three traditional styles. Let's start off with the student way of writing, aka the five paragraph essay framework. We know this doesn't work in real life, but let's explore it anyways. It's a three-section framework, introduction, body, and conclusion, sharing relevant details in each paragraph. But does it meet the operating principles? Well, not really. Readers have no hook to latch on, they find it boring and get distracted, and that's a communication failure. An interesting fact about this framework is that when we used it as students, the teachers got paid to engage in this. But our stakeholders and leadership are not paid for this. They are paid to solve business problems. What you communicate may or may not be prioritized. Let's try the second framework, the news article approach, aka the inverted pyramid framework, where it sensationalizes content over actual content. It doesn't really work in a business format though. It follows a typical four-paragraph structure, executive summary, background, additional details, and conclusion with relevant details in them. But does it work? Not really. The main questions do not get answered, and the audience may leave feeling incomplete without any tangible thing to latch on. Well, let's try the third and the most popular framework, the problem-solution framework. It has a four-paragraph structure as well. Problem statement causes effect and solution with relevant details in all. The advantage of this framework is that it shares the problem upfront and can be effectively used in many situations. But does it work in totality? No. Audiences need to have a good prior understanding of the problem space to understand the content. They could also feel that this is a low value as it shares a local problem instead of a macro problem. At this stage, you may be thinking, it does make sense, but is there something better out there? Well, introducing an audience-based communication framework where the value is in the audience. Let's put their understanding before everything else. To answer their questions in a seamless flow, no three-part framework has been very effective. What to change? Which clarifies the reason for existence-style questions. What to change to? Introduces a clarity on the direction and how it will help the system. How to change? Answers to details around implementation and the cost to change. With full credit to the logic-trinking-processed TOC framework which has introduced this way of looking at things. But then, let's dive into each area to know more. We'll start with the first block. What to change? While we answer the audience question from the start, we need to prioritize hooking them in. Which is why I broke this up into three buckets. First, the opening. The most crucial in any selling page. Here's where we hook the audience, show the possibilities of value creation and pull them into diving into the content. Hence, I propose here a detailed full-line structure of implementation. Second bucket is the problem statement. Which presents critical business context only to help understand the pain areas. All the other details go to appendix or later conversations. Detailed business impact. This is where the leadership decides their engagement. Is this big enough for their focus? Or should they delegate it away or just end it? Please use visuals and data to show the impact and mention the prerequisites to gain their trust. Moving on to the next section. What to change to. This is the place where we introduce clarity on next steps, the direction, and how the specific direction will help the larger ecosystem. It follows a full bucket structure. The goal, where we share the aligned goal from earlier and introduce operating principles to decide the target state. The next bucket is the current state, which summarizes from the earlier communications. Third would be the target state, where we show how the target state you propose meets operating principles, and then we summarize the key aspects of that vision. Four, a phased approach, where we show the principles used to phase out the product into meeting the final solution, and then we actually share the actual phase. It's very important to share how each phase will develop the business further, and that's where the prioritization exercises happen. Moving on to the third area. How to change. This is a section where we answer the details around implementation and the cost it'll incur to change. This follows a full bucket structure. What's the goal? Which we summarize from earlier communication. What things do we need to change? These talks about the areas which need to change and the impact on the surrounding areas. The surrounding systems, processes, and goals. The cost to change. This is where we dive into the people process techniques to meet this goal. And then success metrics. How will we know how we're doing? Now, at this point of time, many people start believing that we need detail scoping to achieve this, especially the cost to change. But that is not really true. We can start off with some high level scoping from the key SMEs, and then use the leadership's help to delegate actions to key members for detail scoping. Well, at this point of time, you may be thinking, this is great, but does it really work? Well, let's see. Yes, it does. Remember, the value is in the audience understanding and not the communication itself. This framework helps in defining an opening statement which hooks them in early. They find it easy to understand as they gain clarity in a waterfall thought process. They leave with a better understanding and a strong call to action. And all of this combinations adds value to the audience and leaves them thirsting for more. Well, with this, I wanted to create one takeaway slide with the understanding that if you take one thing away from today, it's what Professor Larry has explained as one-liner. The goal of communication is to help the audience understand better something they want to understand well. And this audience-based framework allows you to achieve that in a systemic manner. Thank you so much for your time today. I would love to get your thoughts and ideas on furthering PM communication. I wish you the best in your PM journey and I'll see you later. Thank you.


How do they know it's the nitrate that's responsible for the beet-related boost in athletic performance? Beets have all sorts of wonderful phytonutrients. Well, first they compared beet juice to a berry juice, packed with phytonutrients, but no nitrate. Beets worked, berries didn't. Yeah, but still I'm sure there's lots of stuff unique to beets other than the nitrate. So they got creative. If it truly is this unbelievable nitrate-to-nitrite double-pass through the mouth, what would happen if you had them swish with an antiseptic mouthwash? Wipe out that integral population of tongue bacteria. They tried it, nitrite levels dropped, presumably eliminating the performance-enhancing effect. They even had guys drink the beet juice and then drool for three hours, without swallowing of their saliva, and that eliminated the beet root effect, too. The effect of beet root juice on the plasma concentration of nitrite and the effects of spitting versus swallowing. I told you this was a crazy story. They drank the same amount of beet juice, but by drinking and drooling, they removed that critical second pass through the mouth.


Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to this week's Future Trends Forum I'm your host the creator of the program as well as that's cat herder, Brian Alexander And I'm delighted to welcome you all here today on an incredibly stressful chaotic Fascinating and all too interesting time in higher education We have a terrific guest today, but before we plunge into that Let me explain how the program works where it comes from and then I'll introduce this week's guest So to begin with the Future Trends Forum is all about Conversation the whole purpose of the forum is to host discussions between all of you Including a spectacular guest this week. I want to hear from you your questions your examples your pushback your criticisms your Exemplifications all kinds of thoughts the whole idea here is to have a form of conversation and discussion We've been doing this for we're in our fifth year right now now the forum is Part of an overarching project called the Future Education Observatory and this is an ongoing multimedia Multimodal attempt to grapple with the future of higher education and includes a lot of different moving parts One is this our weekly program There's also a monthly trends analysis called the Future Trends and Technology and Education report This is a long-running trends analysis report which goes back almost ten years It's just head to future of education not us Now we can only do this kind of work if we have the support of some very generous folks And we want to thank them before we proceed to begin with in New York State We want to thank Nizer Net and that's a nonprofit that helps that state's colleges and universities get online and do great work With each other they have fantastic work with high-speed broadband and professional development and we're really really grateful to them for their support We're also grateful to Shindig because as you can tell Shindig makes available the technology We're using right now So let me just show you how this works if you're new to it or if you haven't been here for a while Where I am and my cat apparently and where the slide is just for a moment It's called the stage and we call it the stage because everybody can see and hear everything that goes on on the stage Now right below us you can see all around you a bunch of different Well, they're basically avatars You can see individual people there are live feeds like say Dennis Solnier You can see a few photos or silhouettes like I gave it wrong And each of those represents one or more people signed in from somewhere in the world Right now there are 42 of you and in fact one of the ways that Shindig works is that we break these into rooms So as people pile in they get segmented out into rooms of about 20 So if you want to jump around between rooms You can just hit these buttons on either side of the room screen and you can you know jump back and forth between rooms If you want to say hi to an individual just simply double click on their icon And if their audio visual systems are on and they want to talk to you there are two icons will click together like Legos You can have your own private audio visual conversation, which is pretty neat But how can you participate in the conversation that I just talked about a couple of minutes ago? There are two major ways and we draw your attention to them right now The bottom of the screen you should see a few different buttons lined up And one of those buttons is going to be a raised hand and one of them is a question mark The question mark is if you want to type in a question or a comment So it's really easy press the button typing your question or a comment hit send and I'll receive that and when the time is Right, I'll flash it on the screen so everyone can read it And I'll read it out loud so everyone can hear it Now people often do that if they don't have a camera microphone set up Or if they're in a space like a busy office where they can't talk out loud now If you have your microphone and camera on if you have a space where you can talk press that raised hand button That tells me you want to join us up here on stage. It's really easy I literally press a button that we don't up you appear on stage So if you want to have face-to-face conversation with myself and especially our guest, that's all it takes It's easier to do than it's for me to describe and I'll show you how that works Now if you want to also chat with everybody else, there's a chat box So take a look at the button there in fact I often ask people to type in where they are today geographically where they're coming from It's a good way to say hello, so you can do that So really the question mark and the raised hand are the best ways to participate You can do that all throughout the session and we're really grateful to Shindig for inventing this technology Now we're also grateful to our supporters on patreon And if you don't know patreon, it's a crowdfunding site like go start a Kickstarter or go fund me And it lets you collaboratively support someone who's doing work that you want to support in this case That's our work in the future of education So if you head to patreon.com slash Brian Alexander, you can find a lot of ways to support us The folks here contribute as much as ten dollars a month to support us, which is fantastic We're really really grateful to them for their support folks like Joanna Richardson Matthew train them Sean summer Jeannie Kim Han Lisa Prichard. We're really really grateful to them and you could join them Now before I get into this week's guest. I just want to put out one note It's obvious that right now the world is in a crisis mode. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic Recently declared pandemic and there's a lot to say about it And you can bring this up if you like today because I think you'll find our guest has some really interesting perspectives If you'd like to see more about that just head to this link tiny world comm slash COVID-edu That's where I have a few links to a resource page on how to track the spread of the pandemic as well as the world's biggest spreadsheet of colleges and universities that are closing or migrating online because the pandemic So just click on that link if you'd like to learn more and I hope that can be useful Now even more useful is this week's guest. So let me just introduce our Fantastic guest Bernard bull Bernard has been a guest before when he was in a previous position He is now in a really extraordinary position. He's the president of Goddard College up in Vermont And he was brought to Goddard to Goddard to save it from closing This is an unusual unusual perspective that you have very rarely Can you meet a college university president who is there when it's on the edge of existence? Who is right now taking steps to make sure it survives? So what I'd like to do is I would like to invite you all to ask questions of him I can assure you that Bernard is really really approachable and friendly Bernard you have time to disabuse us of that notion It would be great to hear your thoughts about this. So to begin with let me just Let me just say first of all welcome. I'm really really glad you can make it today Thanks, it's great to be here and and I have to ask a question of someone in the North country Which is since its March, how's the weather there? Iran actually I'm in Wisconsin today, but I'm usually in Vermont I had lived in Wisconsin before we still have a house here and I'd come back my family splits their time between the two states So I don't actually know what the weather is like there all of our meetings have been on zoom And we'll talk about that just a minute But I when I asked guests to introduce themselves and I did this with you the last time you came on which is a few years ago I usually ask if you could just speak about what you're gonna be focused on for the next year And what I'm guessing you're gonna say is you're focused on making Goddard thrive Why why don't you dive into that and I actually tell you what better yet Why don't you introduce Goddard to us because it's an unusual institution. Sure So my kind of elevator pitch is that In the 1930s the world was pretty much on fire In many ways with the growth of fascism in the West. There were serious concerns about the environment Although not the same as today There was finding their way out of the all of the implications of the financial crisis of the that had happened prior Which I'm serious concern and a group of people in central Vermont gathered together and had this vision Inspired by John Dewey and other progressive educators of creating a very different kind of learning community a different kind of college It was not built upon the traditions of the past But was instead embedded in the experiences and the challenges going on in the world at that moment And so most colleges when they start they look at another college as an exemplar And then they try to build practices and models based upon that exemplar and then maybe they put their own their own twist to it Goddard was not it was launched in the 1930s with a completely radical different viewpoint. There were never letter grades There were no courses in the traditional sense every student designed their own personalized learning plan from the beginning in the original Charter in the 1930s. The vision was to be serving adult learners in addition to at the time traditional residential students And to have a radical approach to a democratic community where the learners have a voice equal to that of the faculty and others From the beginning there wasn't there weren't ranks and promotions of faculty and titles Very different model from there. The college grew and had many iterations. There was a dream that it would it would not be dependent upon An endowment but that it would be Tied to the needs in the world and if it was meeting those needs and it would do okay and if it wasn't then maybe it didn't deserve to exist and And that was Tim Pitkin the first president so they never spent a lot of time building an endowment although there were several Foundations that gave key gifts at times the Ford Foundation and others had had stepped in at different different times and and given money The college had a variety of iterations by the 60s Evelyn Bates Assistant to the president had gone to University of Chicago did some work came up with this completely new model for higher education Called a low residency program and the first low residency program in the nation was launched at Goddard College Where students would come for an intensive time and come back. It was a program one of the first programs in the nation specifically for single mothers trying to create that kind of flexibility and so That that was added to the repertoire the mix in the 60s and Later in the early 2000s the college was going through a crisis actually when it probably it's fourth or fifth financial crisis by that time and It decided that its best way to make it was to shut down its residential program and to focus entirely on Low residency which is what it is today and so students come for 10-day intensives And it's like a conference on steroids. I mean they're from wake up to falling asleep. Even if you do fall asleep I mean, it's it's non-stop, but we bring in world-class Authors and poets and activists and others who are part of the experience very interdisciplinary A student in a given semester will oftentimes work with a single faculty member So they they design their own learning plan and they say this is 12 or 15 credits worth of work And they're assigned an advisor who guides them in their learning plan and in their work throughout the semester So they propose that plan during their residency They leave for the semester and during that semester They send packets of work and they get really detailed rich narrative feedback Sometimes pages or dozens of pages of written narrative feedback from their advisor On their work through the semester and at the end of the semester they come back and it starts over So that's kind of that's a little glimpse of the Goddard experience One of the ways people like to talk about Goddard is many people who come to Goddard are In the mid 20s or older and they've heard no and can't a lot in the education system They've heard no you can't do it that way We have these rules and policies here and they get to Goddard and the shock is how many times they hear yes And can and it really is the learner is really in the driver seat They their voice choice ownership and agency are central to the model the faculty member really is a guide Truly it's not the faculty member doesn't dictate specific books or readings or anything That's all negotiated or proposed or in in a rich kind of Conversation with a democratic flair to it. Hmm. It's it's extraordinary. It really is I mean you've you've got a bunch of different strands of experimental learning from higher education the lack of grades the narrative feedback you have the Dis the democratic structure of organized in campus you have low residency requirement. I mean it's really extruded how many students Are there right now in your program currently serve about 350 students at Goddard's peak It was less than a thousand so it's never been a large school But but right now about 350 and it's been declining. In fact this current semester is The first semester in eight semesters that we will have met or exceeded our enrollment targets the way this semester meaning spring or fall No, this this we're actually our last residency because our students start So our last residency for the spring is on the 20th of this month Very good. Very good. Congratulations friends, I have all kinds of questions for president bull and I just want to start with one, but I really really want to hear from you I want to hear your questions about how how Goddard works about the problems facing and and what he's doing as you can tell President bull is very very direct the question I'll ask you and this is a kind of you know Fo question away. Well, given this this sounds really appealing. Why any why to Goddard run into financial problems? What's what brought you to the edge of the wolf? Yeah, it's a great question and I won't be able to give a full answer for that It's it's messy and it's hard to tell sometimes I think people speculate and they claim they understand what's happening in the current landscape of higher education and there are these larger macro trends that we can follow and we can understand how things are working, but There's a lot internal to this Conversation as well. I can say that in recent history. We haven't been the best with managing our resources I don't believe that the financial model at Goddard that we've been operating from in the past decade was sustainable it was it was highly susceptible to Fluctuations and enrollment that would jeopardize it the college doesn't has a less than a couple million dollars in an endowment so it's very tuition dependent and The enrollment office had kind of fallen apart over the last number of years Right before I arrived. I mean, this is the level of kind of where we were After several months they discovered that the lead form on the website was broken In other words when someone inquired to learn about the college It was going nowhere Fill out a form. So we're talking about some really kind of fundamental challenges The college had a couple million dollars in cash reserves in its annual budget is only seven and a half million dollars at this size So a couple million, you know at one point I had a couple million in cash reserves, which is okay Non-profit should have three to six months of its annual budget in cash reserves to be pretty stable That way it can handle a fluctuation in Enrollment and if a roof falls in and it's not covered by insurance things like that By the time when I arrived I took the job I actually thought that there were some cash reserves because I'd asked for financial documents But those documents were a year old by the time I arrived the college was actually in a 1.4 million dollar deficit With no cash reserves and no endowment. Oh, no seven consecutive semesters of declining enrollment I Mean when it comes down to it it really did come to the basics Did we have a viable financial model? and I believe the answer was no that we were operating from a deficit budget and that's part of why we were put on probation with the Accreditors because the accreditation agency looked at it and said, you know, you're you don't have a viable financial model and your board Should have been should not have been approving deficit spending like that the board should have have Demanded that you create a model where you operate consistently on a balanced budget Hopefully you give me a chance somewhere in this conversation to share what's happened between 12 months or 14 months ago and now because it's kind of it's kind of fun and exciting Although our chance of succeeding is still not guaranteed. I mean we could be in September October I could be sharing pretty somber news. I think I lost Brian. I don't know if others can see Brian But I just see a black box So I feel like I'm alone in the stage. Can all of you still hear me? You see you can hear me. I see you. Yes, fair back A glitch on my end here It's you've taken us like a good story teller right to the edge of the brink of a crisis I mean you're talking about taking over a college which has no cash reserves a big deficit a board being censured for making bad decisions no endowment and in Really really stressful moment for higher education as a whole So let me ask you the quick question and then I want to get out of the way and ask everybody else for their questions Which is what'd you do? Bring it back from the brink. What are I studied about a dozen or more Colleges that were struggling and that closed or that They tried to successfully turn around and I talked to a number of presidents and other individuals And I really wanted to understand what are the you know? What are the best practices and higher-ed turnarounds is a great little book on higher-ed turnarounds that if you search for it There's only one that you'll find there the In fact Goddard was mentioned in there as a successful turnaround story from past struggle and And so when I looked at it I realized that one of the things that we we needed to do is is We didn't have enough money to make it through the year and we had a staff that was the size for 600 students And we only had less than 400 at the time. So this is never popular. It's never fun But we had to align our staff size with the number of students that we have No, no institution unless it's highly endowed can operate unless it has some kind of variable Financial model meaning that the Expenses go up and down with the size of the enrollment if you have a fixed Cost for staff and faculty and everything and it stays there whether your enrollment goes up and down Only way you can operate that way is if you had a really, you know a really significant endowment that just insulated you from those things all the time so So one of the things we did is we had to reduce and we reduced our expenses by 30 percent That wasn't even enough though because we're a unionized organization. Did you think 30 percent 30 percent? unionized organization and There are severance agreements. So even with reducing that Some people were eligible for three up up to six months in severance in some cases So then when we made the decision we were still spending that money for three to six months in the future So we had to raise money in the short term We did a small campaign that raised like between six and seven hundred thousand dollars that addressed some of the gap But I was really committed to not doing a massive multi-million dollar campaign Until we stabilized things because I wanted to be able to go to major donors and say when you give your money We have a model that's sustainable and we're going to make good use of that money to Amplify the mission of Goddard and the world to serve students and support our faculty and and just really Turn this into the incubator for educational experimentation that it's always been in the past So we actually we balanced we finished last fiscal year then so within seven months We went from a 1.4 million dollar or 1.2 depending on how you count it Deficit to a balanced budget in seven months and then today we have a three hundred thousand dollar cash reserve Now I believe that our best chance we have to have two to four million dollars probably by By September October for our best chance for the accreditors to let us stick around or let us remain accredited Because that's our three to six month cash reserve so in January I launched a two to four million dollar a four million dollar campaign called together for Goddard and We didn't launch it though until almost a year into the turnaround because I mean major donors typically don't want to fund closing a college They're not going to give a million dollars for you to close elegantly and And so we've been doing a lot of that work and we have to build some trust because We've had these incidents in our past enough Some people are talking about give Goddard a second chance. This is probably fourth or fifth chance for us in some ways So we have a little bit of the Of that to to work through So it's been it's been really fascinating in some ways it really comes down to the basics though The parts that are going to be very hard is We're going to have to be taking a really deep close look at our academic model and determine Which aspects of it is which aspects are financially viable and which are not Because when you're a small college Um oftentimes say you have faculty and maybe there's a faculty member that's full time But half of their load is actually not working with students It's some other uh released for another project And we're going to have to look really closely at all those release times and things like that because sometimes those Those interfere with trying to get to a variable model versus a fixed a fixed model versus a variable model Uh, well, thank you for being so candid and and clear What a spectacular and and very very hard process to go through And you're just starting the process. You have this campaign to fulfill Let me let me ask everybody else, uh, please I'd love to hear from your questions and again If if your camera is on and your microphone is on and you'd like to join us appear on stage Just click the raised hand button and I'll beam you up And if you prefer to type in a question just type in the question mark and I'll be glad to hear from you again We've hit a bunch of different issues already everything from enrollment management to online presence to Union struggles to the basic math of a budget to dealing with an accreditor and the board We'd love to hear your questions and thoughts and if if your question is please tell me more That's a great question You want to come back to ask them about what particular point that's completely about it So while everybody's thinking about that while people are are are thinking and typing Getting ready to click the button so they can appear on the stage with us Look, let me let me ask you a related question, which is You're in a state that's a very rural state Um, and it's a state that has lost three colleges in the past in the five years Um, what's the how does the vermont situation impact you? I mean is the state government helpful if you partner with other colleges universities or nonprofits or towns? um We we do have some partnerships with organizations, uh, and we're going to be deepening that one the god the in some ways Goddard was it it's um, it grew in the soil new england soil. It was really um a heart a heartbeat of central vermont in some ways and um as it's kind of Become smaller over the years. It's residential program disappeared things like that There's been a more disengagement with the community But still the little town of plain field of a few thousand people probably a third of the the residents or goddard alums The fire station was started by goddard students I mean because we didn't believe in in uh, we didn't believe in extracurricular activities We thought that there should be no separation between life and learning So if you want to do something do it in the world so they start a fire station or a health clinic or something like that um So we need so we have some work but one of the things we actually just launched is um, one of the ways I was looking at addressing the financial issue is selling some of our assets our resources, but right before I arrived we had We had uh taken out a loan right before I started A two million dollar loan for a heating plant a wood chip heating plant It's pretty cool. I mean we heat the entire campus and it produces the same emissions as two homewood burning stoves And that's really neat and we were given a couple of awards for some of our work We have a negative carbon footprint campus But that's a loan and the one thing that happened is we got it with um the lender The entire campus was put as collateral for that loan Which meant that I couldn't sell a portion of the campus. Whoa So, um, uh, we did 75 acres We were looking at selling it to someone who wanted to put it in conservation with really fit with our values a lot But that option fell through and this is one of the lessons by the way of when you're in a turnaround Um, it is like playing a cosmic game of whack-a-mole I mean, there are things that pop up and disappear More quickly than you can imagine and if one comes in with a strict plan Uh, one has to be ready to revise that plan two to three times a week sometimes So what we did though is we switched to a rental strategy where we had a number of dorms back from our residential days That were unused and we just released About a few weeks ago an announcement of the god of what we're calling the goddard college village for learning initiative Which is an invitation for other like-minded progressive education organizations To come and rent space at a low reasonable price and to join us on campus So that we can build a synergy of like-minded groups And of course we get the benefit of sometimes people will start in one group and they'll transfer to us One example is the vermont center for integrative herbalism where a lot of people travel from around the world to become Herbalists they now can come on campus. They're going to be renting space They can get there that they're training as an herbalist and they can transfer right into our sustainability program if they want to So we we we've been looking at those kinds of efforts Well, that's great. The questions are floating in So let me just put in a couple of these to give you a sense of this and if friends if you're new to The forum, this is how the environment works So first of all, we have a good question from Jessica Surden who asks have you been approached by larger colleges to merge? We gotta do that Um, we have uh in my first four or five months. I spent a lot of time looking at merger options And uh, most of the colleges that successfully are acquired Um, and people use the word merger because it sounds more democratic, but it's almost always an acquisition um the the um There There was very little interest because we have no assets in many cases If you require a struggling college, you still get a 10 20 30 million dollar endowment that you get to bring along Or something else like that our whole um our entire campus is has an estimated value of about six million But in central vermont on the market it may sell for for half that who knows and uh, and so The the idea of someone acquiring us it would have to be done just out of this incredible sense of of Passion for our mission and wanting to see it live and and most colleges are interested And I mean they're not in a position to be able to do that right now But I have had conversations with about a half a dozen different colleges Um during the time that we're never got to a really serious stage Um and people were definitely happy to take all of our students if we close, but the idea of acquiring the college Um was of less interest to most of the people that we talked to I'll tell you for example with two presidents. I talked to They said we would actually be quite interested in this if you make it through these challenges In other words, we'd be interested in an acquisition, but you have to you have to survive for the next couple years first um So because I mean just that's just the reality of higher the higher ed landscape right now taking on a liability um And justifying that to your board. Why did you take on a Liability that might have millions of dollars of expenses rather than using those millions to invest in some new initiative at your college That's kind of a hard sell to many boards. That's a good point. Uh, jessica. Thank you for coming right up with that We have another question here. Uh, this is coming from cindy Important state who asks the big question. What impact do you think the current covet 19 crisis will have on goddard? Great question. We have um our last residency for this this semester Is scheduled to be and we have a um a couple of locations in washington state and one in seattle and one in fort warden in port um Um, uh fort warden in um port towns in washington And that was scheduled to start Uh on the 20th of this month. So we actually just made the announcement last night to our students that we were going to be Moving that residency online now our residencies again are more like a conference So it's going to be very different from other schools when they say they're moving their activities online All of our interactions with students post residency are already virtualized So we're already have all those systems in place But um, we are moving that residency to a virtual format So it's tough because it's our master of fine arts and interdisciplinary arts and they're into movement I mean, there are a lot of ballet dancers and people doing other things. So it's hard to do that on screen But um, if anyone can do it, it will be this group. It's an incredibly creative group of mixed uh media artists Um, so for us, um, I'm not sure about the long-term impact We'll be monitoring this over the upcoming weeks to determine what impact it is our next residency doesn't start until july So we have some time to organize our thinking about that in the meantime We actually had released an announcement to all of our staff encouraging them to work for home from home Expanding our remote working policy Most of our meetings are already via zoom or other video conferencing tools Um, and our faculty actually We don't have any faculty who are on campus all the time Most of them live on the west coast or east coast and fly in for residencies So we already have um quite a bit of experience working in a a virtualized environment in some ways This gives us evidence to prove How we can operate as a very completely different model of online learning in a sense Because in fact one of the things that i'm hoping to do granted that we make it through the immediate challenges I'm starting a digital futures Work group and we're researching. What does it look like to create a virtual or digital expression of a truly learner driven environment that's not course based or instructor driven and um, and so we're actually in some ways Going to be able to experiment with that a little bit in this crisis It sounds ironic Yeah, the best position the college of university to do this in the u.s Um, well, I don't know. I don't know about that, but we're gonna We're gonna do the best we can with it. Um, I the competition in the online space is interesting Most of the people who come to Goddard aren't interested in a fully online degree Um, the the population that we draw they want to have these intensive in-person connections with the freedom in between But uh, but that doesn't mean that there are plenty of people who probably are looking for what we have to offer And they end up going to an online school. We don't have a budget Uh that can compete directly in terms of the digital ad space So regardless of c o v i d 19 and and um, whether we're virtual or stay low residency I believe that our strategy for growth is really going to come through strategic partnerships That's where we we actually get over 10 of our students every semester come from our existing partnerships That's really important to see we're learning a great deal friends. Uh, but we have more questions that are coming in in effect, we have Uh, a great question coming in from uh, denis, uh, is it sone? Dennis? Yes, it is. Hi, brennan Great to see you Bernard really nice to see you So my question is I was reminded of this recently There was just a great future you podcast interview with the president of dominican university She talked about the role. Um Her accreditors Played in strategic and innovation being really supportive and collaborative Can can you say a little bit about the role? Accreditors are playing with you and that um, how good a partner they are with you? Yes, thank you. And um, and by the way, it's really good to see you denis I got to know denis at the little work at harvard business publishing back in your previous work. Um, but uh, um I I actually watched that episode as well. I I I loved it. In fact, I had to pull over and take some notes I thought it was a great great conversation um I would say that the new england commission on higher education is a completely different experience with accreditation from Where I came from the midwest with the higher learning commission Higher learning commission is very large and this is not meant to be a negative It's just it doesn't feel quite as personal or intimate But in the in the new england space I went to my first accreditation conference and I was I thought I was on a different planet because I started going to Sessions and I was used to sessions like how to fill out this portion of your self study I mean, that's what I'd experienced in the past and I got to to the new england commission meeting annual meeting and it was about college mergers and future innovations and practices and there's very forward thinking and collaborative and um, and it truly is Is a collective so the commission doesn't feel like just this oversight body. It's a collection of of colleges and people reach out and they help each other and Certainly the vermont colleges separate from the the creditors have been very helpful and supportive Um, we were a recent crisis. We had even in our our records System a bunch of the presidents volunteer different personnel that came in to help us solve a problem The I will say the president the current president of the new england commission on higher education Barbara brittingham who's retiring is incredible. She has been an amazing, uh supporter They give rough draft feedback. I'm not used to that. I'm used to kind of submitting work It's like a final assignment and then you just wait to see what the grade is But they'll actually work with you and say, hey, I think you need to beef this up Even if it's just you need more numbers here or something um I can reach out to the president of the new england commission and um, I've never it has never taken more than two hours For me to get a reply from the president of the commission when I've had a question or a concern She's been a thought partner in times of of challenge Now there are limits to this, of course. I mean, uh, they're looking out for the best interest of the students And as a result, uh, I came in and I was really wanting to be able to launch new initiatives and new programs and grow enrollment quickly And there wasn't strong support for that In fact, the goal was that the interest was more Proved that you can be stable with your current enrollment and your current programs before There's going to be greater comfort seeing you step into the innovation space Um, and that some people see that as having your hands tied behind your back I actually saw it as a pretty responsible stance or position Why would we because because there are plenty of colleges that grow their way into financial crisis That they grow their enrollment rapidly and they do it through discounting and other unsustainable strategies only to find that their enrollment's twice as large and their deficit is twice as big Um, and um, and so the creditors have have held a firm hand where I think they should but they've also been a great thought partner Um, I I don't know if it was quite as deep of it's been as quite as deep of a partnership Is what I heard in that interview the way it was described, but maybe we're just at a different stage in our turnaround work Thank you so much, uh, then that's a great question and uh friends if you're new to the forum That's how video question works. It's really really easy to do And we can please join us with with more such questions Over on twitter. There are a couple of notes. Um, you have a few different fans We have one from uh, let's see Online course lady said, uh, thank you to bernard for being one of the world's most awesome bloggers and for sharing the web in all the different spaces She'd be glad to talk to you in here and learn more about you Um, and also people are fond of your comment that campuses have lots of ways to grow into financial crises Uh, we have more questions that have come in on text and we just put a couple of these Dr. Schlosser asks are you open to external folks supporting your digital futures research? Absolutely. I um, obviously Managing our budget and coming in below budget is critical for us every year. So, um, We don't have the resources currently to pay for people to step in But I actually had one structural design firm reach out and say hey, I'd love to help and do it pro bono Even be a part of this because I think it's a fascinating work And maybe it can be a synergy because the what we get to because most people haven't had a chance to work And a truly learner driven environment and we are that um So yeah, definitely openness to that and I'm that that work group is going to be gaining traction in april So it's good timing to pose that question Well, exactly Great. Well, I'm glad you guys could connect That's one of the things that we do in the future transform is that we we bring people together And I'm really glad to see that happen We have more questions coming in and this is one from a Nate, uh, so conic Who asks a kind of general question about strategy administration How best can administrators in colleges work with professors to better manage and plan a budget for the classroom? And what you've learned is really primal for this It's interesting. I don't know about the classroom part that that last part of the question throws me a little bit because this environment is so different We don't have classrooms um so, um I do think this is actually an area where we have some room for growth and improvement One of the things that is tricky about a turnaround effort I'm sure everyone would expect is You have to make decisions really quickly and yet we're a community that has a strong democratic value background I've made some missteps where I've had to move too quickly And I wanted to be able to engage people more We had to build a street a new strategic plan when I arrived. There was no strategic plan in place We had to build a strategic plan in less than three months. Um, so there's only so much input that you can get Um, we did get some input The spending part is tricky. Um in some ways I don't know if I if I think it's Ideal for faculty to have to be thinking about the expense side all the time And in some ways, I'd rather there be a healthy respectful tension Where faculty are pushing for what they believe is most important. Um, apart from finances Although there's out has to be some kind of sense of realism. What's what's possible? Um, and that there are others that are also saying yes We agree with this academic quality and and creating the best possible experiment experience But we have to do it within certain parameters in order to be um, uh in order to continue to be able to operate and Um, what I what I most value about our context right now And this doesn't it's not an answer that's as generalized as the question was is in our context We've made a lot of missteps And people have called administration out on it and I will step up and say i'm sorry. I messed up. How do we fix this? How do we move forward? um And and yet what I love about it is this is a community where no one's running out of the room Like we're actually Staying in and we're disagreeing with each other and we're persisting until we can find some answers So to me that is a really beautiful and important part of the process is The fact that we're sticking with each other. We don't have to turn everything into a personal attack We understand that there can be differences and tensions and we keep We keep moving through it. I will say that We are exploring a variety of work groups though to help address some of these one of the innovations That's really intriguing to me that came from the faculty the faculty came together and said How do we do this in a way that's sustainable financially? But really fits our values and one idea that came up was we have all of these these different programs But oftentimes our faculty have qualifications to advise across disciplines So what if we move to an all college faculty? Where students where you you don't have faculty just hidden within individual divisional departments as much And that way if enrollments high in one program and low in another you don't have to lay off a faculty member You can kind of just shift some roles and responsibilities And at the same time it creates some really cool synergies for interdisciplinary projects across across programs So I I think I maybe went off on a little aside with that question, but um, I was I was inspired by the question to at least answer the way I did That's a good aside and thank you Nate for that. It's a good question. Um, Bring more depth a lot of depth to be plumbed here Speaking of which we have a question from Let's see. This is from freedom Chattani who asks what is the future vr in education? We're seeing vr high schools in california Yeah, we certainly have not ventured into that at Goddard. That's not that's not really a Technology at my prior work. We actually had a little work team that got into vr a little bit And we had some people working on it, but haven't done much Much with it here. I do think there could be some really interesting possibilities for The way that we host residences because it's not really in a course environment. It's much more of Like I said more of a conference kind of feel and virtual reality could really lend itself toward creating some really rich multisensory interactions We have a lot of people in our community who are into embodiment studies and this understanding that we learn through our bodies not just through kind of what's behind our between our ears and And so physical movement is a really important piece of the experience And that's going to be a fascinating conversation as we as we think about the possibility what that looks like in a virtualized environment Great question. Freedom. Do you want to say more about that? Yeah so I think I think if you look at, you know, what's happening today Vr is is the future really in terms of, you know, being able to Maintain that social interaction the social aspect of education. I mean if you think about Everyone went online today, you know, we're struggling about our own evolution and existence I feel like we are on the precipice of our own evolution in the species, you know, where mobile devices are a natural extension of ourselves But with VR The only difference now is that You are interacting with avatars But the technology is only going to get better and better and with the with a rival of 5g And the conversions of all these other technologies We will not be able to separate, you know, reality from The virtual world And so I think we need to prepare for that. I think the the kovat 19 Is almost an awakening To a species because we talked about it that someday we're going to wake up and we have not trained Our students and our kids for the future It just happened faster than I thought I love your perspective freedom. That's fantastic Thank you Bernard, do you want to make the leap from talking about budgets to the Species and how we train our students and perform a massive civilization shift Well, I will say and this is not speaking directly to virtual reality, but it's something that that I'll get just a little background here last time I was on the on this forum was actually Two months before I started the job at goddard or maybe it was three months before And if you actually go back and look at the recording brian I made a reference to a school that intrigued me called goddard college It was because I had just been given the offer and I couldn't publicly say where I was in the decision But it was it was literally at that time A lot of my work has been around What it means to create deeply human learning environments And by deeply human what I mean by that are Um environments that really tap into the values that resonate across time and culture In terms of the human experience For example a sense of adventure being on a quest. It's something that transcends We see that in narratives across Time and culture a sense of meaning and purpose a sense of agency a sense of wonder Mystery this this kind of being drawn to a sense of mystery The desire to see some kind of growth or progress Happening in our lives or in that around us that these are these are these really deeply human centered principles I actually believe that part of the way that our contemporary education system has started to go off track Is that we have set aside those deeply human values For technical values Values that are celebrated in the machine world and these are values like mass production and mechanization And I mean there are there are series of them and I I'm not I did write a little book about this But I don't like pitching specific things, but um, I I use this example though of Oxygen of breathing that if you look at the symptoms of oxygen deficiency They're almost identical to the The characteristics of a disengaged group of students in a classroom They have difficulty managing their emotions difficulty regulating their emotions They get bored easily they get irritable They fall asleep It's literally the kind of thing that we see in some disengaged learning environments And I would argue that's because we built the environment around Values that are good for machines, but not good for humans And so to me what intrigues me about a technology like virtual reality is that perhaps it's a way for us to Bring those together in some in some new pieces We can create some environment We can leverage the technology to do new things But we can build it in such a way that it taps into those really deeply human yearnings Like a sense of adventure and meaning and purpose and wonder and mystery and growth and those sorts of things Part of the reason I mention this is Goddard is actually a place that that majors in those human values It's a community. That's why we don't have letter grades letter grades are largely a mechanized approach to assessing learning And grade doesn't really tell you much nor does a number And we are more interested. I'm far more interested in measuring the amount of seconds that a hug Takes place in our graduate ceremony Because it demonstrates a little connection Then I you know in some of those other measures So I think VR could be a really a humanizing and empowering tool. I think it also could be a dehumanizing Force if we allow it as well Yeah, I believe that it's a it's a humanizing technology I think if you can humanize technology And integrate it, you know into the values and the things that make us Who we are as human beings? And I think there has to be a responsible design of these technologies If you think about the industrial model of education, what we had was We were preparing factory workers. It was that age, but now we are in this autonomous age In the personalized age, you know, like where your device alone Knows exactly where you're going and when because it's looking at all those parents So the convergence of artificial intelligence Virtual reality and blockchain is going to bring us all Into this phase of this singularity if you may say Where there is a period of hyper connectivity I mean, I believe that you know in the next 15 years We know we'll be having, you know, the brain to brain communication Where our brain is effectively connected to the cloud You know the computers that we have today the phones that we have today, there will be dematerialized Learning will be happening anywhere anytime and everywhere To be a situation where you put essentially, you know, if You know, if it was looking if you're looking at let's say ar You could you could just say Take me onto this Tourist mode and then that will guide show up And then this buildings build their history and things like that take me to education mode Then, you know, you're able to map those standards and the skills that are personalized to you Um, so you can switch into all these different modes And it's intricately integrated into your life. So there is no longer um a separation of Your personal life and your academic life and your work life is all happening together Freedom I believe that's the future with a fantastic vision. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing it I would love to hear more about this. We're we're appreciate. We're approaching the end of the hour So, and I of another fellow I want to bring up on stage. Thank you so much freedom. Thank you Thank you for for envisioning that together We have bill Hughes as well from open for learning Will Hey, brian hi benard. Thank you so much. This has been a delight to listen to um I'm curious benard. Maybe it's the last question for running out of time Where do you see Goddard in five years and how do you feel like you have to get there?  Thank you. So um right now We have the I believe we've we've done all the things we need to do to have a successful turnaround With a couple of exceptions one is we still need some tweaking to Our academic model and the financial model just to make to make sure that it's uh, We don't need to reduce our expenses as much as we need them to be more predictable Um and manageable so that we know what's coming so we we're not surprised by expenses And that's a common problem in many higher ed landscapes. It's just whenever you're in a situation like ours There is no room for That kind of messiness. You have to have a detailed understanding of each piece, right? So for for us, that's a real critical immediate piece and then I ultimately need to build the cash reserves If we don't build the cash reserves, I don't think I have a very good chance with the accreditors come september We have a 20 a site visit and if that goes well, um, I think the best that could happen is I mean if I get a $2 million gift tomorrow, um, maybe you I don't know how many millionaires you have in here, brian If I get a $2 million gift tomorrow, I feel really confident about our future I feel like and we've done everything we need to do and so let's assume that that happens because I should say this I would feel guilty if I didn't say this I feel really proud of the work that we've done as a community but it's a high risk and there is I took this job knowing that it may I may succeed or fail and And uh, there's it's definitely not a 90 chance of success yet This fundraising is so key But if we make it through this piece and we hit that financial target and the accreditors agree with the model that we've created We have April 20th visit. We'll probably hear from them by september october I've already talked to the community and I'm asking that every year We're going to have a series of three to five key new initiatives experiments proposals around new innovations One of them is a dream that goddard college will become the uh the hub for integrative medicine in new england and beyond We already have a lot of interesting background in that and i'm expecting to see some proposals in areas Tie that into the national health care conversations It's a part of the conversation that's really not as central as it could be and it could be a way of reducing costs while improving well-being and outcomes If it's a new set of an alternative perspectives I do believe and I want to be part of the first truly learner driven digital learning platform in existence because I haven't seen one yet Um in a formal higher ed environment at least and so i'm hoping that we will be able to have the resources and the time To launch that and to tell the truth. I want to do it at goddard But even if it doesn't happen at goddard, um, I don't think I could let go of that one I feel like sometime in my lifetime. I want to be part of the movement that builds the first truly learner driven digital learning platform Um, those those are two key pieces. The third is this village of learning that we're launching I believe that the the strongest organizations of the future will be blurring the lines between Organizations that there will be a kind of synergy and interacting with and supporting one another such that You sometimes don't even know when one organization begins and another one ends And that's kind of the vision between behind our village of learning is bringing this community of different organizations together Where we can amplify one another's works in ways that none of us expected or anticipated Thank you so much. That's because I hope you get there. Thank you And I hope they give you some uh, some grace in april too if you've got interest Um pointing to successful, uh summer Fundraising then I think you're in a going to be in a good situation Thanks. Thanks Great question. And uh, what a great visionary answer bernard. Um, I I hate to say it, but we're we're right the end of the hour Um, the let me ask you two two parting questions. Uh, one is um What note do you want to leave this on is this this is a hopeful note about a College in the brink that is just turn itself around and aim to the bright future Um, I I'd like to actually, uh, offer, uh, uh, less pleasant Closing remark. Um, which is I I believe so strongly in what we're doing I mean, I left a really nice Roll and really safe kind of place in my lifestyle was working on my next three books One of the downsides of this is I have a book that's due to the publisher And I've never missed a publishing deadline and I've missed the deadline twice on a book My well, I knew I'll learn to be on letter grades. It's a critique of the letter grade system Um, so yeah, there are some sacrifices here I've been apart from my family a lot that there've been some huge sacrifices And I would encourage people to count the costs before they step into a role like this. It's amazing. It's life changing I'm so honored to be part of it But it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life And I can't emphasize that enough and I've been through some pretty major issues in my life And I will say that if we don't make it I don't have a great plan And I think that's a that's an important part I arrived realizing that there was no elegant way to close this college That really the best way for the best interest of everyone students and everyone involved Is to actually be successful that we don't have cash reserves. We don't have an endowment. We don't