Hi and welcome to our video channel. We're Rivka and Shlomo of The Marriage Restoration Project.com. We are bringing to you our very first video blog. We have a podcast called Can This Marriage Be Saved? And we decided that it would be really fun to talk to you guys on video while doing our podcast episodes. So if you're watching us on video, hello, and be sure to subscribe to our channel so you get notified of upcoming videos that we release. If you prefer to listen through audio, be sure to check out the Can This Marriage Be Saved? podcast. And now for today's topic, we want to talk about why communication stinks. Why is it so difficult? What are people doing wrong with communicating? Because as you probably know, which is why you're here, you're looking to improve your communication at home. So you know by now that it's really critical to have communication go well at home because otherwise everything ends up into a fight. Everything ends up being bickered about and just constant negativity. And so it's really important for you to learn how to shift the energy. So Shlomo is our marriage counselor and relationship expert. So we'd love to hear from you about what are couples doing wrong with communicating and what can they do to fix it? Sure. Communication is something that I would say that every couple, no matter what their needs are, no matter how big the crisis is, there's always a communication issue. Because the communication issue really is symbolic of the relationship as a whole because communication is the way that we interact with another person. Unless you can read someone's mind or their heart. Usually the only way to really understand what's going on and interact with another is through communication, whether verbal communication or even nonverbal. If you have a scowl on your face, your spouse is going to tell you how you feel. Or like, yeah, when is this conversation going to be over? You're talking about body language. Yeah, I mean, that's another form of communication expressing. So you have to work on your communication. We have to understand why the communication is challenged. And so it's a holistic approach. It's not just some type of little technique that you learn to fix communication. It really addresses everything. It's the quickest way to really deal with the core of the relationship. So you're saying that communication is not just about techniques or ways of talking. It's actually indicative of the core of the relationship. Of the relationship, the health of the relationship, of the safety that you feel with your partner. Because if you don't feel safe, then you express that in either not talking or talking in a certain way or a critical way or not feeling open or nonverbals that you show. So if you can feel safe, if you can feel connected, then the communication is going to come across the way you interact will be different.  And then that also has a, you can get it, go from either end. Wow. So this sounds actually like a huge concept. Really meaningful because am I hearing right that what you're saying is if you change the safety of your relationship, the communication will change. Or if you change the communication of your relationship, you will feel more safe. So which comes first like the chicken or the egg? Right. So the, you know, I find the easiest way with couples is teaching them a different way to communicate putting an artificial structure that can slow the brain down. They can get the brain out of that reactive state, out of that triggered state into a more frontal lobe and into a more conscious and intentional state. And when you do that, the body, you change the whole physiology. When you change the brain, you change the way the body feels, you change your emotions and you're much more able to engage in a productive way. So I find that the easiest ways you change, you know, change the brain by changing the way you communicate, by slowing things down and putting that, you know, artificial structure, not like the typical way that we back and forth and very quick. Running from room to room. Yeah, just really to slow down intentional way. And as you change the brain, you change the way you feel with each other and you come up with a whole different type of relationship. Wow. Who knew that there was a brain connection to your communication guys? I hope that you're writing this down because that's actually a huge aha moment. And we should have another video talking about the brain and we will in another episode. Shlomo, tell us what are, let's say, four mistakes that you see people making in communication? Sure. So I mean, one mistake I think if you could master this change half of the interactions will be different is finding the right time or the mistake is that we don't have the right time. So you can use common sense if your spouse is coming in from a long day of work and they're hungry, tired and hungry, you know, you just start brought, you know, dumping on them the minute they open the door. Honey, I have a whole list of things for you to fix. Or at least that's better than other things. Honey, I'm done with the kids. It's your turn. So that's probably not a good thing or to confront them with something they did. Probably not a good idea. I'm really mad at you because you did this today.  Probably not smart. How do you think your spouse is going to react at that moment? They're going to be caught off guard and they're going to go right into defensive mode. So you have to think a little bit about what's the intention of your interchange. You just want to dump on your spouse. You want to make them feel bad and want to punish them. There may be a part of that there, a little bit of anger, but it's more about I'm not happy with what happened. I want a change. I want to see something different. It's hard at the end of the day, though.  Life is about becoming being intentional and being in relationship is about acknowledging that there is someone else in this relationship other than you. And that all because you feel a certain way, you need to have a little bit more intentional in thinking about how is this going to impact the other person? Are they available? And from a selfish perspective, is it going to get me my results? So you mean you can't just lash out at someone whenever you want to? No, I'm sorry. Coming from a very highly reactive home, that was a huge new concept for me when we first got married 20 years ago. And you can read more about our story at themarriagerestorationproject.com. But that was one of my very first learning experiences in our beginning years. Like, oh, I can't just talk to this person because I'm mad at them the way I want to and blame them and yell at them.  Anyway, it's not to interrupt you. So if you want to get the results, again, think about it. If you want the results, if you want someone, again, you don't want to put them on the defensive. You want them to be receptive because let's say you want them to change. I don't like that you come home late every day from work or I don't like that you don't help me with the kids. So I can yell at you and that can make me feel a little bit better and let out some steam, but it's not going to get you to change. So the best way to get you to change is to actually be able to listen and be receptive as opposed to be defensive. So checking is now a good time. Are you available? I'd like to talk to you about something. And that can diffuse or prevent, I would say, 50% of blocks that people have. That doesn't sound too hard. It's not that hard.  Are you available right now? I have a question to ask you. I could see that it might be hard when you're in the fit of anger or in the moment of feeling angry and you want to dumb. And that would be a good time to what? Breathe? Take a break. Yeah, take a break. I mean, it's definitely harder for the person who's the more of a called health swarm. The person who's like a little bit more emotional and has a hard time holding back. It's definitely a challenge, but it's also going to be a challenge for the other person who would rather than ever talk. They need to make a time as well. At some point, they need to grant you a time. So if you say like, I'd like to talk about such and such topic. Are you available? I could say no, but I need to reschedule it preferably within 24 hours. If not sometime within the near future, because that's not something I want. I don't want to have that conversation. But you're making the stretch to ask me to be available and then I need to. And I think that most couples could have difficult conversations if they were in the right frame of mind and could really sit down and focus on it. Most of the problems happen when they get caught off guard, where they're not expecting it when they're not really fully present and ready to be able to hear what their spouse has to say. So this is step one in communication pick falls and mistakes is find a good time. Make sure it's a good time to talk. And if that seems really hard for you, know that there is going to be an ultimate side benefit, which is your partner will be more receptive to actually making changes when they're available to hear you. So it's worth it to stretch and grow and be able to hold back and make sure it's a good time. Instead of dumping because your partner will be more receptive to hear you and ultimately maybe it will change. Maybe not, but it's a possibility. What would you say another step would be? So another step would be is the love. Another problem in relationships is the negative criticism, the shaming and blaming that goes on. It's kind of ties hand and hand with us. We were saying about finding the right time to share. And you really want to just criticize or do you want? Is there a need that you have? If you, if you talk, it's so we're talking about the first step was finding the right time. The second step is talking in the right way. Is my spouse going to be receptive to criticism, shame or money? So for example, if I say like, you don't care about me, you never spend time with me. I'm not important to you. You know, how do you hear that? Well, automatically, I want to defend myself. Yes, you do. I want to defend myself or you don't either. Whereas if I could say, you know, I really want to spend time with you. I really like enjoy your company. I would like to figure out a way we can do that together. Sure.  You have the complete opposite answer just by changing the way you talk about it. So when you think about what you're frustrated about, when you think about the criticism, the things that you don't like, what is it that you want? So like, what is it that I want? Flip it around. What is the unmet need? So instead of saying, why didn't you do that? Why did you do that? No, I wouldn't say why. I would not. No, not. You know, we're saying instead of saying something like that, blaming. Yeah, you would say, I want, I would like you to do such and such. Or I really, or think to myself, I really wanted Shlomo to fix that broken thing. And instead of accusing him, what could I maybe say? Can you, you know, can you help me? This thing's broken and I really could use your help. What do you suggest we do? Much better. You know, you didn't fix it and what's wrong with you. And I told you for two weeks already and our water bill is so hot and whatever it is. It doesn't motivate a person.  So I'm just going to do it begrudgingly because like, I don't want any tension. You have people that do that. I'm one of them sometimes. But in general, you don't want to, you don't want to reign by force. You want to be able to have a person, your spouse, join you and want to help you. And you can use it with the kids too. You know, instead of saying to your kid, why did you do that? Which is going to make them feel defensive and maybe why? Because they're afraid of your response or your reaction. Right. So it would be good to learn how to communicate in this way with no shame and no blame, which is what we teach couples. It's really the premise of all of our programs, especially our in-person work, our on-site work. Everything is how to learn, no blame, no shame. Because that's really everything. Yeah, because again, you're making the person feel bad. You're making them defensive. You're putting them on the defensive and you're not going to get what you want. So treat them in a respectful way. Talk to them about what you need or share what you're feeling. Use eye statements. So you can have a, nobody can argue with your feelings. If you, you know, if I say like, I'm upset about this, well, yeah, you're upset about this. I can't say you're not upset about this when you are. But if, if you want to argue about the details, like you didn't call me last night. Well, maybe I did call you. Your phone was busy. You can have an answer for everything. So you're saying when you really connect to what the need is, what you really need, you can't argue with that. So I need you to fix this. Or your emotional reaction to what the other person feels. So again, it's stop focusing on the other person and what they're doing wrong. Focus on yourself. What do I need? What do I feel? And when you do that, it is going to create a more receptive partner who can actually listen to you. And when they can listen to you, they're much more likely to be able to meet your needs. So like back to the sync example, could I say, you know, I really feel nervous and uncared for, and like I have to figure everything out myself when I see the sync not fixed for weeks at a time. And my need is I really know about myself that I need to feel cared for and not like overwhelmed that I have to figure out everything myself. Would that be an okay way to show it? Yeah. And I don't have to. And if you feel uncared for, that's what you're feeling. I can't say you're not really feeling uncared for your feelings. That's like, you can't argue with someone's feelings. You can argue with the facts. You can argue with what happened. And then you get into the whole season. He said, he said, she said, but you can't argue with someone's feelings. So step two is really learn, no blame, no shame communication. We have a process and a methodology that we use to teach couples. It works amazingly. It's actually what saved our own marriage. When we went to a therapist in a mogul relationship, therapist 20 years ago, thank God we found him. And 20 years later, we're still here to tell the tale, but learn, no blame, no shame communication. And this step really helps. No blame, no shame communication. And this step really get in touch with, what is the need under your complaint? What are you complaining about? And why really, before you lash out, thanked for a minute, like, why does this feel so pressing right now and connect inside of yourself to what the deeper emotion or need is like she's almost saying. And then the side benefit is your partner will be able to hear you much better. Great. I'm going to get you what you want. Hopefully. You have a better chance. Yeah. So it's kind of dovetailing to that. It's just overall environment of negativity in a relationship is really bad for communication because if you're not feeling good about each other, if every interaction is negative, then you're not going to be able to communicate effectively either. You're not going to even talk, maybe even talk to each other. So you want to work on, even though it's not necessarily with the communication per se, you want to work on creating a more positive environment in the relationship. Because when things are good in the relationship, then you're able to see more good. You know, when you're feeling negative, you notice everything that's wrong. Every flaw. Oh, you left your socks on the floor. You left your coffee mug by the bed. You didn't put it in the sink. Another thing you did, another thing you did, it just comes down. It's a spiral negativity. Whereas if you're feeling good, so it's like, okay, I didn't notice that. And I don't notice the bad things. When I'm in a bad mood, then everything's wrong with the relationship. Is it true also that our brains are wired to see things that are negative due to our survival? Right. Yeah. So we are looking in our most basic goal is to stay alive. So anything that threatens that, anything that feels danger. So we're kind of hypersensitive to looking at the negative. So we really have to make an intentional effort to be more positive. It's not just something that comes natural. Now some people go up in homes that are like more positive or some that are more negative. But in general as human beings, we're going to be more, it's going to be much easier. That's going to be our default to look for the negative because this is threatening like, I'm not getting my needs met. And like another thing you're doing wrong, another thing you're doing wrong. I got to protect myself from you. So we need to make an intentional effort to make more positive. So that means noticing what's going on, sharing appreciations, which we talk a lot about in our programs, like spending a few minutes each day, just sharing something you like about your spouse or something good they did. Just get you in the mode of looking for the good things. So this is really the opportunity for you to create an environment of your home that you want it to be.  It's horrible for the kids. It's the home that I grew up in. We know it's bad, but sometimes we just don't know how to shift it. And that's why we really recommend you getting in touch with us to learn how to help your home environment. But you've got to learn to transform especially if you have an environment of constant nagging, criticism, negativity. Negativity is really a killer and there's only so much that a person can take until they snap. It's just not possible for someone. Snap or they just like disconnect and become apathetic. It's like a bank account.  You've got to start making deposits of positive infusions in your relationship. Exactly. So keep it more positive and then you'll see that it'll be easier to communicate even with whatever skills you already do have. It'll be lighter, it'll be more productive and you won't just feel this negative energy permeating the air. Yeah, and this is really going to be a shout-out and a wake-up call to you that if your home environment again is one of constant negativity you've got to make a change now because it's only a matter of time until people really suffer in the home from the constant assault of negativity. And then finally, another to rhyme, are you all right now? Negativity, reactivity. Reactivity is goes hand in hand with negativity but specifically in conversation and communication it's a really big problem because reactivity is what makes it really difficult for us to communicate and what makes your communication really bad because when you share something with your spouse and they react then you don't feel, besides the fact that you don't get the problem resolved you don't feel heard, you don't feel validated it doesn't encourage you to share because you feel like well whenever I bring up something you're just going to discount my feelings anyway so I might as well not share with you at all so if you're in a relationship where you feel like your spouse doesn't want to open up think about your reactivity how do you respond? I was working with some of the other day they were saying you know, I bit, I used to bite his head off when he would talk so he just doesn't talk anymore so that's case in point that reactivity discourages the other person doesn't make it feel safe because if I don't think I can talk if I can't get a word in edgewise if I feel like there's going to be a reaction it's better not to say a thing so how do you work in the reactivity? so in our programs we teach a very specific method how to be able to really listen and respond without reactivity but the simplest thing to do is when the other person is talking don't say a thing don't interject yourself don't respond, don't respond don't be silent we teach couples how to mirror back and repeat back what they said and the whole process but at the very least don't say anything they're expressing their feelings look like you're intent like you're curious you wouldn't hear what they have to say and don't talk don't respond that's going to be hard for some of you harder than some of you that are much more verbal and more emotional but again it all goes together with creating that environment that you want having your spouse more participatory with you and more, you know interested in engaging with you because if you're someone who's going to constantly react you're not it's not so fun to be around you and don't respond doesn't mean just don't talk it means no eye rolling or anything like that like you can be sitting there and going like you know it's like don't show that you're react don't show a reaction so yeah and if you're not comfortable being silent definitely get in touch with us through our website about I want to learn the five step process I want to learn the real process for communicating that's no blame, no shame so I don't have to just be silent and let us know you watch this video so we'll know what you mean but yeah I mean being silent is better than yelling back and being reactive or defending yourself or explaining yeah well that is a lot of insight into communication why it can go so south why it's so critical to get it right and we hope that these four tips will give you some insight and some real actionable tips to be able to shift the energy right now in all of your relationships it was a pleasure talking with you we can't wait to do the next video podcast episode of can this marriage be saved please comment let us know what you thought of this video your comments will help our videos get seen and shown to more people so it's really important to have that commenting liking clicking the bell notification so we can get the word out to more to improve things at home we are really excited to create the next episode if you would like to put in comments also some topics you'd like us to talk about topics we're happy to address yeah we love answering questions and we'll have some free resources for you in the comment section under this video namely our free guide the 60 second action plan to a happy and healthy marriage that's the first step introduction to our work to get to know us a little bit and then beyond that you can always contact us and apply to work with us in person at one of our destination retreats in beautiful tropical places or just around the United States around the corner in your backyard yeah we might have someone who can work with you to teach you also the no-blame motion process so we look forward to seeing you again be sure to like and hit the bell notifications take care take care


As my PowerPoint uploads, I will note that we have some snacks in the corner there. Please feel free to help yourself through the course of the afternoon. If you are looking for restrooms, you can find a women's room just to the right of this door, a gender inclusive restroom on the third floor, and a men's room in the basement of the building. There is an elevator that you can access as well as the stairs. So this is my talk that's opening, Strengthening Job Prospects Within and Beyond the Academy, a state-of-the-field address for the fourth symposium of doctoral programs in theater and performance studies. Thank you for coming together on this day. I'd like to thank again my graduate assistants, Emma Feuthi and Reza Mirsajati for their tireless work, as well as my data visualization consultant, Danielle Rosvalli at the University of Buffalo. Thanks to financial support from Tufts Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences, as well as the Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies. Thanks also to those of you who are following along with the convening via HowlRound and on Twitter using the hashtag TAPSPHD. My hope is that today marks the beginning of a collaborative field-wide effort to answer the following questions. One, what does the state-of-the-academic job market look like? Two, what are the skills that graduates who come out of our programs developing and how are we shaping that process? And three, how are we utilizing our graduate students' time and energy in our doctoral programs in order to help prepare them for careers within and beyond the academy? Later this weekend we'll also have space in this convening to talk about the ways that we can better advocate for the value of our PhD programs to university administrators, fundraisers, and prospective applicants. My knowledge of the academic job market is shaped by two experiences. The first is as a graduate student matriculating from Indiana University in 2009. As a first-generation college student, I came to grad school with the expectation that a PhD would lead directly to a tenure-track job. During my time at Indiana, I regularly directed productions, wrote a dissertation on a topic of growing interest to the field, presented research at major conferences, published reviews and essays in academic journals. Nevertheless, I spent three years looking for a tenure-track position, finally buoyed by professional directing and dramaturgy work accumulated through my time at Cleveland Playhouse and Cleveland Public Theater, as well as an expansive portfolio of adjuncting in schools across northeastern Ohio. Although I'm glad to be one of the fortunate individuals hired into a tenure-track job, I spent most of those three years in the market wondering if I was personally doing something wrong. I never stopped to consider that academia and theater and performance studies didn't have enough room to accommodate all of its graduates. The next time I felt compelled to seriously think about the academic job market occurred a little over two years ago when I became director of graduate studies for the PhD program in theater and performance studies at Tufts. In order to take on the labor of preparing graduate students for careers within and beyond the academy, I wanted to learn what trends were emerging from academic job postings, what institutions were doing the best job at getting their students hired and whether there were any commonalities among the programs that demonstrated repeated success. But this data, which is so essential to understanding how academic labor markets operate, didn't exist. And because as the members of my fantasy sports leagues will attest, I'm a stats nerd with a love of accumulating unusual data. I developed a couple of longitudinal studies to help me discover how many graduates of our PhD programs are getting placed, how long it's taking those folks to find academic positions or ultimately decide to leave the academy, what programs can do to better position their doctoral candidates for the market and what search committees are looking for. But as a scholar and theater artist who has not applied for a non-academic position since I was an undergraduate, I also know that I need to learn how to help students find opportunities beyond the academy and that I didn't know where to begin two years ago. In traditional academic form, I turned to books. I started reading everything that I could get my hands on, including pieces by Susan Basala and Maggie Dabilius and Karen Kelski. In addition to blogs, web essays, and workshops that I found through social media. The totality of this work has helped me to develop a pedagogy and professional development course for first-year doctoral students at Tufts, where we discuss academic and alt-academic job markets and how to prepare for career success in multiple sectors. Although I don't claim to know everything about helping doctoral students market their skills, I feel more comfortable giving students the resources that they need to think about career trajectories from their first year in the program than I did two years ago. And I know that many of you are engaged in this work too, so I'm pleased that we're joined by leading experts in training graduate students to understand how to market and develop their skills. I'd like to welcome Maren Wood of Beyond the Professoriate. We'll later be joined by Paula Chambers of the Versatile PhD and Sarah Peterson of Imagine PhD. They'll speak with us about how we can better shape our graduate programs from coursework to the dissertation in order to better serve our students. I look forward to hearing from our speakers over the course of this convening, but before we do, I wanted to take the time to share some broad data about how we are admitting, moving through and training graduate students in the field, before looking to explore theater and performance studies job ads over the past two years, and finally to look at the current careers and trajectories held by over 98% of the 633 PhDs who have earned degrees in our programs from 2011 to 2017. I'd like to begin by presenting information about the 465 graduate students who were discussed in our self-reported surveys and how they're utilizing time spent in their programs as revealed through the survey that many of us filled out. I'll compare the results of this year's survey with results from the 2015 survey taken by program directors who attended the third symposium at Colorado Boulder. From there, I'd like to talk about the academic job market for theater history and performance studies from 2012 to 2017-18, drawing from data that my graduate assistants and I have accumulated. Finally, I'd like to conclude with a snapshot of career paths for the over 600 individuals who have accumulated PhDs in theater and performance studies in the United States from 2011 to 2017. Using ProQuest's dissertation database and other digitized searches, I've learned about the career trajectories of over 98% of these graduates. I hope that all of this data provides a starting point for thinking about our field, our programs, students who emerge from our institutions, and the way that we can support their work. So part one, who are our current doctoral students in theater and performance studies programs and how are they navigating? Much of the data for this section is drawn from the self-reporting survey that I sent out to every director of a theater and performance studies program in the United States and Canada. 25 institutions responded to this year's program. In comparison, the 2015 survey had 30 respondents. Although both surveys had over 40 questions that were being addressed, and I've posted the full surveys for both 2015 and 2018 on a Google Drives link that you'll have access to later in this convening, I'm only going to pay attention to some specific data that's germane to this year's convening. I'd like to begin by looking at some statistics on how many students are currently pursuing doctoral degrees in our programs. In 2015, the mean answer to this question was 17.76 students per PhD program, with variations in enrolled students ranging from a one-person PhD cohort to an institution that enrolled 67 doctoral students. This year, the mean number of PhD students per program is 18.6, with the smallest sized university enrolling seven students and another enrolling a high of 62. This slight increase in program size also corresponds with annual admissions patterns. In 2015, graduate programs that completed the survey admitted a range of one to eight students per year, with a mean enrollment of 3.0. In 2018, responding programs revealed the same minimum and maximum admissions numbers from one to eight, but the mean number of graduate students enrolled on an annual basis has risen to 3.45 doctoral students per program. As the job market has some sense of recovery post-2012, the number of students who were admitting into our program is slightly growing. Moreover, as our enrollments increase, the average theater and performance studies PhD students' time to degree also seems to be seeing an uptick in several markers. The survey reveals that graduate students in our programs are taking an average of 2.87 years to finish coursework and other requirements before beginning their dissertations, and that the average time to degree is 5.735 years. Both of these data sets mark escalations from 2015 when PhD program directors noted that it took their students 2.72 years to reach ABD status and 5.07 years to attain their PhDs. This also bears out in the growing number of students who we have at the ABD stage of our programs. At present, there are 10.45 doctoral students on average who are ABD as opposed to 9.24 in 2015. While our admissions numbers and students' times to degree are slightly increasing, however, there is some stability in the number of PhDs that we're producing in any given year. According to information accumulated from ProQuest dissertation database and several university libraries, the US-based PhD programs and theater and performance studies have produced approximately 90 graduates per year between 2011 and 2017. You can see two outliers, that's a high of 124 PhDs produced in 2013 and a low of 72 PhDs produced in 2017, but aside from these two, there's minimal variance in numbers. The number of PhDs produced by US theater and performance studies programs also varies widely from university to university. Between 2011 and 2018, NYU has conferred 49 PhDs, while the University of Buffalo, for instance, is a newly formed doctoral program that is yet to confer, but will this summer, I believe, its first PhD. Congratulations. The average number of PhDs produced per institution, if you want to get a sense of mean average between 2011 and 2017, is 16.62. And all of this data will be made accessible to you as well, because I know that this chart, particularly, can be a little bit difficult to read. The racial and ethnic diversity of our programs also seems to be holding steady from 2015. Of the 465 students accounted for in our self-reported survey of doctoral programs, we note that approximately 5.65% of our students in our programs identify as African American, 7.1% of our students identify as Latinx, 6.24% identify as Asian American, and 1.29% as Native American or Indigenous. Just under 20% of our enrolled graduate students come from countries outside of the United States, and these numbers do closely correspond to statistics presented in the 2015 symposium survey. As a field, we're still supported by a university infrastructure that trains students predominantly as teachers. All of our institutions who reported on the survey noted that we offer teaching assistantships to students during their PhD programs, and that the vast majority, 80% of programs, are able to offer teaching assistantships to all of their enrolled students for at least some part of their time on campus. Fewer of our programs, 60% or so, offer research assistant positions, and the vast majority of us who do so are only able to do so on an extremely limited basis for fewer than half of our graduate students. There's also an extraordinarily small number of programs, roughly 32%, that offer administrative assistantships that train students to work in arts administration and other organizational capacities. In sum, we're a field that has had a slight increase in the number of enrolled doctoral students we've taken into our programs over the past three years, but while our enrollments remain robust, we're not necessarily creating more space for students of color, and we're currently offering the same types of assistantship packages that have existed since many of us were in graduate school. As my first call to action in this address, I wish to invite the members of this convening to imagine how we might reconceptualize the assistantship in order to train students for a variety of potential career sectors. Part two, what's the state of the academic job market? The research for this portion of the talk was collected from a project undertaken with my two assistants in the summer of 2016. I began to explore academic job ads in order to see what courses applicants were being asked to teach within academic postings, what types of production experiences universities wanted from their prospective hires, and who was being appointed into these positions. I wanted to look at historical data that existed prior to 2016, in addition, as a way of getting a sense of the current landscape of the academic job market. So in order to accumulate this information, I used the following methods. From 2012 to 2015, I drew from the academic jobs wiki, which has long been a repository for academic job listings and conversations about trends in higher education employment. For job advertisements written during the 2016 and 2017 academic years, I looked at academic positions listed on Art Search, the Atha Job Bank, the Chronicle of Higher Education Performing Arts section, and Higher Ed Jobs Theater and Performance section. I specifically limited myself to posts that advertised in these sections, noting that a position truly wanted to capture the attention of a theater and performance studies Ph.D., that those are the places that would be most visibly marked for graduate students understand to look for postings. Additionally, I restricted my search to positions where the Ph.D. was either a requirement or a preference for the open position. For instance, an announcement advertising for an assistant professor to teach introduction to theater, theater history, and acting that listed an MFA as the sole requirement for employment, educational requirement for employment, was omitted from my list. From 2011 to 2016, I focused solely on tenure track positions, but last academic year in 2017-18, I opened the search of the parameters of my search to include all full-time positions, including visiting assistant professors, professors of practice, lecturers, clinical assistant professors, and other language that's used to determine a full-time position. Although the academic job wiki from 2012 to 2015 has many gaps in efforts to document open academic positions, particularly in its tendency to privilege, research one universities and small liberal arts colleges over, let's say, regional universities or other types of academic appointments, from 2012 to 2015 I collected a sample of 96 tenure stream assistant professor positions and learned some important baseline data. Among the 96 positions listed on the wikis in those years, 33 job postings required that the hired candidate direct as part of the production season, seven required engagement in production dramaturgy, and another two required expertise in at least one element of design. In addition, there was a wide array of courses that job ads specifically called for new hires to teach. The most frequently cited position was theater history, which was listed in 67 of 96 job ads. This was followed by non-western theater and performance, 31, dramaturgy, 21, directing and or devised performance, 19, racial or ethnically specific theater and performance, e.g., African-American theater, Latinx theater, Asian-American theater, etc., 18, acting, 14, script analysis, 14, intro to theater, 13, performance studies, 6, and play writing, 4. Finally, my assistants and I were able to navigate university websites in order to determine who got hired into the academic positions listed on the wikis. The field of theater and performance studies reveals itself to be grounded in the modern and contemporary as 86 out of the 96 hires specialized in theater and performance studies grounded in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. 57 of the 96 candidates hired grounded their research in theatrical practices and performance studies methodologies that emphasize non-western and minoritarian subjectivities. Moreover, 19 of the 96 positions were accepted by professors who moved laterally from one tenure stream position to another. In the 2016-2017 academic year, which was the first year that I was able to draw fully from job ads, my assistants and I were able to conduct a more robust search of academic job advertisements drawing from trade papers. In 2016-2017, we found 59 job advertisements written as tenure-track positions ideally suited for PhDs in theater and performance studies in the United States. Of those postings, 32 required directing in the department season, two required dramaturgy, one required contributions to costuming the department season, and another required that the hired applicant participate in marketing the department's productions. The courses frequently desired from prospective hires in the 2016-2017 job listings included theater history, directing and devised performance, acting, performance studies, script analysis, introduction to theater, racial or ethnically specific performance, non-western theater and performance, and playwriting. As Reza and Emma and I began to unearth the results of the 2015-2016 academic job searches for PhDs in theater history and performance studies, we found that nine of the 59 positions, so about 15% of academic job searches in theater and performance studies that year, ended in failed searches. Additionally, 13 jobs went to candidates who moved laterally, and in spite of the PhD being called for as a requirement or strong preference for the job ads, eight positions still went to people who hold the MFA without a PhD. That meant that only 29 of 59 positions were taken by PhDs accepting their first tenure-track position. If we can hold questions until the end, please. Moreover, ongoing trends to hire scholars grounded in modern and contemporary performance, as well as those researching non-western and minoritarian subjectivities continued. 84.1% of hires specialized in 1920 and 21st century scholarship, and 54.2% of openings were taken by scholars working outside of the White Western Canon. In 2017-18, my research team expanded its capacity to not only consider tenure stream academic assistant professor positions, but also to consider full-time contingent postings, including those job ads for VAPs, lecturers, professors of the practice, etc. Last academic year, we found 56 tenure-track positions and 34 full-time contingent positions. Among the 34 contingent positions, 19 job advertisements required directing within the production season. Twenty ads listed theater history as a course that the institution would like the hired candidate to teach, followed closely by acting with 16, directing and devise theater, 13, script analysis, 8, introduction to theater, 7, racially or ethnically specific theater in performance 7, performance studies 7, non-western performance 5, stage management 3, playwriting 2, and one critical theory course. The 56 tenure stream academic positions required directing as part of the production season in 30 instances, while advertising for post-calling for candidates who could teach theater history in 34 instances, directing or devise performance 28, racially or ethnically specific theater in performance 22, script analysis 15, performance studies 15, acting 14, non-western performance 9, introduction to theater 9, dramaturgy 6, stage management 6, and playwriting 2. Now, because most of these postings, if they only got filled leading to people starting in August and September, my graduate assistants and I have yet to do the work of determining who precisely got hired into those positions, how many of them were lateral hires, and how many were failed searches. It's my hope that as soon as this convening ends, we'll be able to turn to that work, and once that works complete, I'll post it in the Google Drive that we'll all have access to as well as on Twitter at Noe Montez. So through this point in the presentation, we can comfortably discern that the field is producing approximately 90 PhDs per year and 55 or so tenure stream positions each year, many of which will lead to failed searches or to candidates making lateral moves. We can also determine that over half of the academic positions posted from 2012 to present require hired candidates to engage in their department's production seasons and that there's particular demand and consistent demand for courses that stretch students' understanding of theater history and performance beyond a Eurocentric point of view. Although the self-evaluation survey reveals that we're generally doing a pretty good job of incorporating non-western and minoritarian experiences into the coursework that we're offering our graduate students, I'd like to invite the members of this room to think about how we can use our program's resources to enhance our student skills as artistic theater and performance makers. Doing so will make our graduate students more competitive within the academic marketplace and also serve to empower those newly minted doctors who may not be able to find academic positions so that they can develop skills as theater artists that may serve them as they venture into careers beyond the academy. Part three, where are theater and performance studies PhDs finding jobs? The largest and final part of my research project on the state of our PhD programs in the academic and altacademic job markets has been an exploration of where each of our field's 632 conferred PhDs from 2011 to 2017 are currently employed. In order to conduct this research, my assistants and I have spent countless hours scouring through university databases in order to compile a full list of PhDs produced by each institution and from there we began to search for information about these folks using web searches, social media, and other publicly available information. We've compiled a spreadsheet documenting the current employment of 621 of these 632 graduates from theater and performance studies programs in the United States. From there we've categorized each individual into 6 different groupings depending on how they're employed. Tenure or tenure track, contingent, and this includes everything from multi-year VAPs to adjuncts, university administration, a self-identified independent scholar or artist, career trajectory outside of academia, or those 11 people who are simply unknown. In instances where an individual claimed multiple positions, such as an adjunct faculty member who also works as a freelance director or a real estate agent who also works as a freelance artist, we categorized the individual by their academic affiliation followed by their primary work affiliation so as not to artificially deflate the number of theater and performance studies PhDs working in academia and not to overinflate the number of individuals who work as freelance artists. We find that among graduates of theater and performance studies PhD programs from 2011 to 2017, 38% hold tenured or tenure track positions at colleges and universities across the United States. 25% hold contingent positions that range from these multi-year VAPs to adjunct positions. 16% of our graduates work outside of academia in a wide range of career sectors that I'll address shortly. 13% identify as independent artists and scholars. 6% work within university administration, and then there's that final one and a half percent or so who are unknown either to me, to my assistants, or to the directors of the PhD programs who I emailed in order to see if I could find further information about these individuals. Our placement rate for graduates varies widely from program to program with some but not statistically significant connection to the number of PhDs that each institution has produced over a seven-year window of the study. For example, of the top ten PhD producing institutions, three are among the top ten as I ranked them by placement rate, four are among the bottom ten. The tenure and tenure track placement rate reveals some slight improvement across time with graduates from 2011 to 2014 holding higher placement rates than those who finished their PhD programs from 2015 to 2017. Now what you're looking at in this study is just a snapshot of data as I conducted it from May 1st to July 1st of this summer. What my goal is to be able to track this data every single year so that I have specific information about how long it's taking folks to find jobs and where people are moving over the course of their careers. You can generally surmise some things from this data but again here it's not an exact science. For example, in exploring the year-to-year shifts among graduate students in a different way, we can estimate that it takes a significant number of PhDs three to four years to find their first tenure track position if they ever find one at all. Heather Nathans will present information from her conversations with contingent faculty members as part of a joint ASTR at the study later in this convening, but it does bear out with some of the preliminary findings that she shared at the 2017 at the conference. As an aside, I've learned that among the 632 PhDs produced by the field over the course of this decade, 48 are working in universities outside of the United States and 64 are working outside of theater and performance studies, departments and programs. The vast majority of these hires have found positions in English departments and women's gender and sexuality studies programs, but graduates of our degree programs have also found work in film, business, communication, ethnomusicology, ethnic studies, languages, art history, classics, general humanities, arts administration and policy, journalism and philosophy departments. The PhD students who work outside of academia have found employment in a wide variety of positions. Although the vast majority of those out of academia have worked as university administrators, there are several who have taken positions as elementary and secondary school teachers. We're also finding that graduates of our program who leave academia are finding jobs in arts administration, museum and archive curation, developmental editing, grant writing, nonprofits, office management, publishing, real estate, theater administration and theatrical production, and tutoring. There's also a small but statistically noteworthy number of graduates who have decided to stay at home as full-time parents. But in totality, after reviewing the data from folks who are working outside of the academic marketplace, I'm impressed by how widespread their labor is. Nevertheless, I wonder how many of these individuals feel as though their graduate programs could have better prepared them for careers outside of the academy, and how many might feel some stigma and disconnection from their programs because they've chosen to work outside of the academic world. So as a group, as we move forward over the course of this weekend, I pose the following questions to us. One, how can we work in unison to decrease the stigma that PhD students feel when they start to look for work outside of the academy? Two, how can we as directors of PhD programs incorporate professional development training and professionalization practices that encourage our students to consider positions within and beyond the academy? And three, what are action steps that we can take today, tomorrow, and after the conference in order to share resources and pedagogical practices so that we can reduce each other's labor? I think we've got a great convening ahead of us, and I look forward to what comes next. Thank you. We do have about 20 to 25 minutes or so for questions, so if there are any, I'm happy to take them. Yeah, go ahead, Nadine, and we have the questions. Okay, do I have to look in the camera too? I think you're probably okay. So I have a comment and a question. My comment is that it seems as though there's something to be looked at in terms of MFA's and PhD's and as terminal degrees and how there's sort of crossover in the labor. So it looked like you were saying sometimes the job went to an MFA and sometimes PhD's are being asked to do the work of MFA's, so that seems interesting. And then my question is, did you, in your research, are you able to determine how many people are doing something other than what they want to do? Right, so how many people are settling for something else? Because some of these positions might be what they want to do, or some of those other sort of ancillary positions might be right up their alley and some people might be settling. So those seem like different outcomes. Sure. One, this project is not interview-based. I'm not generally speaking to candidates who are on the market. The study that Heather is conducting with Help of Vero and a few other people through Atha Aster is conducting interviews and has conducted several dozen at least. And I think Heather will be able to speak to some of that more tomorrow in her session. I would love to be able to chart the number of MFA's produced by the field and their job placement rates also, but it's a long haul of just doing that data for PhD students. There are several hundred more MFA students produced by our programs in any given year, I'd suspect. I can also just say I want to just shout out to the like geeking out data collection that went on here, so thank you. Thanks. I can speak for my people. Pass it on to Oda. Thanks, Oda Johnson. Yes, again, this data is marvelous. This will be so useful, so I'm so thankful that somebody has the aptitude to make pie graphs legible. So here's where my confusion in that same conversation around MFA's come from. A very frequent profile of the MFA of the PhD is they come in with an MFA and then they transition back to this. And, lamentably, of all too frequent profile is that they remain ABD. So when these MFA's are going out, and when these jobs are going to the MFA, are they really just MFA's? Are they MFA's ABD's who have not wholly finished? Where is the ABD in all of this? That's a good question and one that I don't have an answer to, where ABD's fit into all of this. In instances where an ABD has been hired, I have listed them as PhD's with a presumption that they are going to do the work to finish their PhD program. It seems as though you may have some skepticism about that. It's just the experience that once they land that job, they sort of remain as a perpetual MFA ABD. And they are so skilled at what they do, the final requirement is a promissory note that is never delivered. And I'm just curious where that fits in all of this because that seems like a larger population than we may want to admit to. Sure, I think that's worth looking into, but it's easy for me to go on ProQuest and see completed dissertations. It's much harder for me to go and look at the dissertations that were started and never finished. I'm not sure how I would go about doing that. At one point I thought about TJ's dissertations in progress, but there seems to be wide variation from among the programs with regards to, A, whether we submit our students' names and B, at what stage our students are in their dissertation projects when we submit those names to TJ. This is Beth Osnes with the University of Colorado. I'm just interested to know if you, even if you don't have it as a point of data, if you have been noticing how many calls there were for explicitly applied theater or even publicly engaged theater, so many of our PhDs are doing work of this nature and I'm just interested to know if you saw that emerging in your data. I haven't listed specific applied theater positions, so I don't have an answer to that. I can say that in many of the positions that list devised theater as something that they're looking for, and I've lumped those together with directing and the job ads for the sake of my own expediency, many of those devised positions are looking for someone who can do devised work in an applied theater setting, but I don't have the hard statistical numbers on that for you right now. I think Andrea had her hand up a while back too. Thanks, Josh Abrams. One with regard to the TJ thing, there have been conversations within ATHA about moving that outside of TJ because it doesn't make sense and I think one of the things that would be really useful to think about is how if that moved to an online site it could be more used by all of us and more productive in producing the kind of data you're looking for. But then the second question I had was a methodological question about some of the pie charts. So the pie charts assume that everything adds to one, and when you're doing that with... With the course listings. Yeah, that's what I was wondering, it implies that you're only choosing one? No, those are just... So if you counted up the numbers, for instance, that I listed in the first pie chart, you know, they add up to more than like the 92 jobs. I'm just noting the frequency with which they're listed. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Pete Defray University of Alberta. At some point in a way you refer to the fact that a number of pages, and I forget the number, got a job outside of the states. Do you have further data on that? That's kind of interesting. There were 48, I believe, I forget, let me... Yes, 48 working in universities outside of the United States. I'd say approximately half, maybe a little more than half, were international students, particularly international students from Asia who then returned to their home countries and teach at universities at those institutions. But there is not inconsiderable percentage of students who proceed to find academic positions in Canada or in the United Kingdom or other parts of the European Union as well. And the other part of the question is, of course, then what about foreign hires in the states? Do you have any data on that? Like, for instance, Canadian PhDs, for instance. That is harder for me to discern because, again, it's difficult to look at university websites and know from that data what nation a person comes from. I would love to get a sense of that. I just don't know how to do it in a reasonable way yet. So if there are any suggestions from the room, I'd be glad to hear them. Maren, we can pass that back. And then we've got to get on to you. But just to sort of answer part of your question. So I did a big study for the Chronicle of Higher Education. I looked at 2,500 jobs across humanities, social sciences, and STEM from 2013-2014. Very similar methodology. And I found that Canadian schools, about 50% of the hires in Canada, went to Canadian-trained PhDs that year. And that the other jobs that were listed in Canada went to international hires. As far as Canadian-trained PhDs going to the United States, across the 2,500, it was about 3%. So there was not a big draw for Canadian PhDs into the United States. I have looked at every four-year institution in Canada who was hired in English and History. I did a piece in the University Affairs about that. And I know that in that it's about 56% of history faculty earned their PhDs outside of Canada. And it's a little bit closer in English. And I know there's been similar studies done in sociology, where again it's about half of PhDs that are on faculty in Canada, are trained in Canada, and the rest are the United States. And then a small number are coming from the Francophone schools. The Francophone schools, of course, they are some that are being hired from France. But in terms of who's going into the Canadian schools, it's largely American-trained, and then Oxford and Cambridge were the two biggest ones from the UK. Thank you, Noe. And thank you so much for this presentation. It's really absolutely fascinating. Shocking also a little bit. So my name is Anciputi University of Toronto. I wonder if we as a group over these two days might identify professional skills that we could call transferable skill sets. Because it seems to me that given the diversity of jobs outside academia, requires something that is somehow inherent in our fields and our methodologies of organization production and research, but at the same time applicable and desirable in other industries. So I wonder what that might be. The other question or idea we could discuss is if I listen to my colleagues from the sciences, what I find is that there is a number of, they have a number of industry partners who do actually fund future generations of their leadership by funding PhD students. So I never heard that any department has such collaborations going on in the drama, theater and performance studies field. Is there maybe, are there opportunities that could be built for PhD students who come into programs, who come already as people with the future job working through programs that are funded by industry partners, for example. I think this would also make it much easier to limit or decrease stigma for applicants who want to go into PhD programs and don't want to pursue an academic career. So just to share these thoughts. So to address your first question, it's my hope that Marin, Paula and Sarah will be able to help us identify those transferable skills that through the work that they've done across multiple career sectors and in thinking about how humanities PhD students might be able to make those transitions. So that's very much a part of the conversation that I hope that we'll have over the next three days, two days. With regards to forming partnerships with other industries, I'm certainly not familiar with any practice like that, not only within drama, theater, performance studies programs, but across the humanities largely. So it's worth thinking about and brainstorming, but I don't know what sort of models are actually in place for us in the humanities that we could actually replicate. And again, maybe some of the folks in this room do know of some things. Shannon Steen, UC Berkeley. I wanted to come back to the theory practice question that I think is really at the heart of this MFA versus PhD question. I in the middle of this. And that's to raise what I think is probably a pretty profound existential question for us as a field around this on a curricular level. I know that a lot of us were around in the 90s when there were the threatened closure or the actual closure of several theater departments across the country. And that one of the reasons that that happened was because theater departments became unable to articulate to the rest of their university colleagues how what we did fit into the missions of the institutions. And that the shift in training in the 90s that really de-emphasized practice was partly an attempt to train people who did the research wing of theater studies to really be able to have conversations with our colleagues in other fields and to talk about the intellectual importance and weight of what it was that we did. And so one of the questions that I have coming out of this really important data is that if we train our graduate students back into something that looks more akin to the artist scholar models that did operate inside of our field prior to the mid 90s. How do we do that without disabling ourselves from being able to have cross disciplinary conversations that people in other fields take seriously? There's a real curricular problem and a real time issue about how we manage to ensure that our students are conversant with people in other fields if we also make them conversant with practicing artists in our own departments. And I would really love to hear a conversation about how we deal with that conundrum because I think it's really serious and particularly at a moment where we're looking at funding crises across universities in the U.S. and especially around humanities and arts departments. Sure and that's something I think a lot of us can feel invited to weigh in on as we consider Shannon's question. Can I just add one quick thing to that? I think also it works in the other direction. So if MFA's are getting jobs teaching theater history and theory, what does that mean for the field and the conversation and how are we training them to be conversant in these other fields? Hi, Heather Nathan's Tufts. I know that Henry Bile gathered a lot of data about the MFA slash PhD placement two, three years ago. So a lot of that information was gathered through ATHA and was made available on ATHA sites. I don't know if anyone has continued to keep that information current, but at least it exists up through 2015. If people want to look back and say, what are the actual percentages of jobs that were available that called for one or the other or both? And where did those jobs fall out in terms of placement? Thank you. Sean Metzger, UCLA. I just have a question again about methodology. I wonder if the contingent labor pool is disaggregated at all because I know it like it do. Professor, the practice is a 10 year renewable contract, but people make into the six figures. And the same thing is true of UCLA adjuncts can go quite high. So you may not want to get a tenure track job if you're in that kind of a position. Sure. I can divide that contingent labor pool into, you know, the various titles, you know, visiting professor, the practice, etc. For the purpose of providing this overview, I've listed everything together, but I'll go back and take a look at those numbers and create another chart that divides things up a little bit more specifically and post that to the Google Drive. And I think Heather has some thoughts about that, maybe. Yeah, please. So what I was going to say is in the interviews and the surveys that we were conducting for the study that Jonathan Aaron, some other folks and I were doing, we didn't have any people that were reporting that it was more profitable for them to be on the contingent labor track. So I know that Noe has the data about professors of the practice and things like that, but no one that we were speaking to was seeing it. I think I'm right, as preferable or more secure than a tenure stream position. Is that no one in a full-time? Because I'm thinking about people who are combining artistic professional and academic practices in ways that are potentially desired. Yes, so no one who was reporting that they were making their living as a contingent faculty member was suggesting that it was more profitable and more secure. Daphne, did you have a question or comment? Well, the question between the MFA and PhD students or faculty. And then, well, I mean, the department that I think Sean was just talking about that too, like the MFA program spends so much more money than the PhD program. So I feel there's a constant threat that for the faculty and students have to prove that what we do is valuable. So I feel like part of the training for graduate students is also how they converse with MFA faculty or the artistic side of the people that what scholarship means and things like that. We have about five minutes. If there are any, if there are one or two more questions, go ahead Nadine, and then we can take a brief break before we turn things over to Marin. I just hate pauses and so I could always find something to say. I was wondering, you know, I know we're going to get to advocacy, but do you have data in terms of sort of what upper administration thinks about what we do, getting to, you know, how do we articulate what we do and the importance of what we do in general and sort of how that plays out in terms of the jobs that are advertised? I don't have any data about administration values or beliefs. I think that there's probably such wide variance from institution to institution that it would be difficult to come up with any sort of concrete or definitive answers. I mean, just like as a field, are we growing? Are we shrinking? As Shana was saying that there was a fear that departments were shutting down and under threat. So, you know, we have lost a program recently, the Indiana PhD program is technically under, is technically a suspended program, but that's only because the state legislature has to vote on the closure of that program for it to become official and they haven't done so yet. But beyond Indiana and looking at the data from the self-reported survey, it seems as though our numbers across the institutions who reported are remaining stable or even growing a little bit in terms of the number of PhDs that we're taking every year and the number of students in our programs. I can say that just looking at our application pools at Tufts, there still seems to be a strong and robust interest in the PhD as something that students are applying towards and we can probably, as we have our advocacy conversation, start to discuss some of your other program application numbers to see what sort of trends might be emerging. Just a quick question as to whether you have any data about the university profiles of the tenure track posts. So, are most PhDs going into research or universities? It's widely variable. The posts consist of everything from Ivy League schools to small liberal arts colleges to regional universities and community colleges. I haven't done a specific breakdown of, because I find it hard to categorize institutions in that way about what types of institutions are doing the most hiring right now. But I think that is something that's worth looking into. If there are no other questions then I think we're at time. Thank you all for hearing this data and thank you all for your engaged conversation. Why don't we take about four to five minutes to get set up for Marin's talk. You can stand up, stretch, grab some candy and granola bars or use the facilities as you like. Thank you.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jaspyscasebrakes.com. We just sold out 2022 Top's gypsy queen baseball that just dropped today guys five box half case break three random teams each number one As you can see number two already sold outside of doodle over it put in number one guys But again three random teams number you get three random teams in the MLB member note veteran commons We'll ship everything else will and you get two autographs and three exclusive gypsy queen chrome cards per box And here we go guys. Here's a dice roll. Here's a customer So we tripled up your names Right to match up with the teams there. Let's roll it and It is a six and a two for eight times six and a two eight times. Good luck one two three four five six seven and eight Six and a two eight times Michael down to Patrick Davis Boom Six to eight one two three four five six seven eight Eight times eight eight Rockies down to the Braves next there you go now. 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Here you go So again, I don't think I'll be able to catch every single potential short print or anything crazy But of course the shipping team Will make sure of that But there's like no name plates here to watch out for That manning rookie And these are your like exclusive gypsy queen chrome cards that I think about I also have like a little globe die cuts And there's usually one one wander per case of the one wander per box at least rookie wise Dalton varsh was your first autograph here. That's for the atlanta. Oh, sorry, not atlanta for the uh diamond backs arizona diamond backs She got az is going to patrick k kunya Yeah, it's kind of like hectic It's always kind of a little bummer to rip this because Obviously we can't take our sweet sweet time ripping this Because obviously it ends up being a long name. Look at that one right there. That one has a no name right there But obviously we'll try to catch as many as possible, but The shipping team obviously will try to catch all these as well chrome trades herner There was a logo variation you mean already in this box Okay, I'll go back and look at that right now Wait, which card are you talking about mike? Is it one of these three? Oh, this one right here interesting So basically there's a logo in there. It's already a variation casey mice and a no-name autograph rookie For to rano That's kevin smith Mike fresh water with that one francisco lindor little chrome will mires That should be numbered to 250. There's a wander franko. All right, so there was the first box right there a couple chromes And your two autographs right here No name rookie and varsity Next box If it's a base if it's a base card tyler. No if it's an insert variation numbered card. Yes Uh as it says in that in the description tyler George springer chrome and redemmers rookie autograph, I believe for the angels Which is going to tyler ilay heaven is for the white talks to 150 We got antony rindone number two three ninety nine That's for the angels as well solto I don't think they have bazooka backs this year. I was told I checked on the couple boxes that I did on instagram And I didn't see any so that's why I'm not really checking the back Jones blue Jamiah Jones to 99 That's going to go to the There's that boltzma oras. Yeah, boltzma oras janet garcia for texas to 250 antony rizzo Vidal brujan I didn't see a wander in this one. I may have missed it, but again rookies inserts short prints variations autographs numbered cards of all ship so Just in case but There has been one per box on average, but Again, obviously every box is different next box guys. So again, we you can run this back if you guys want The next one is on the website Seems like people are buying spots into that dynamite and it's actually someone just grabbed uh Someone just grabbed like five spots in the next gypsy queen. So I guess technically We could probably run it back right after this if you guys want Just remember though guys, obviously this is probably the longest break on our website minus maybe the hockey mixer, so Just remember, of course, you know try to get the other breaks going as well because If we do all these all night, which is fine with me We'll run out of time of course for other stuff. So But if you want to rip gypsy queen all night Who might have stopped you guys Remember a lot of the other breaks though are really really close guys They're just either filler a couple spots away It's from selling out straight up. So definitely grab your spots and francisco indoor. It's like a gold Out of 50 very nice Josiah gray rookie for the washington national squandered tyler Come to 250 Show time Little tony chrome and a no-name autograph for detroit That is tarik no name short print there. There's a wander franco base ricky kibri uh kibiru isar So again, there's like no name short prints. There's also like the team logo variation short prints So obviously we're trying to catch those of course, but if we don't we miss some don't worry the shipping team obviously We'll try to do their best In catching them as well de la cruz That's going to go to uh, miami Which is uh, michael for since an addy Since an addy razz going to patrick hay wendy is Bruhan chrome Be nice of those Wonder franco joey barts Number to 399 newt bar For st louis numbered Uh, st louis is michael and that's number two, uh, net 199 And a gold bulb is shut to 50 beautiful looking card 11 out of 50 No wonder in this box again, so maybe other every other box Box here guys. All right, so I got some motors in so that's a good thing Look at that dynamite's getting really close to you guys Almost in single digits Last box guys. Good luck the oakland a's looks like a picture James capri Ellen It's 199 Joey gallo and is that gin? Yep, california angels So you have it a little black and white kentamaita minnesota 250 park ruggy for pithford chrome transition for the padres Number to 250 Now the last stack Which should have the second autograph I believe Unless we already pulled both of them I don't think so JC mice Castro for the pirates. It's like a little rookie mini 23 out of 50 Pirates that's going to patrick a a gold cow rally Rookie as well to 50 for seattle Walker Bueller So again guys obviously the shipping team will go through the cards to pull out the You know inserts and rookies variation anything like that that they find And of course a lot of numbered cards usually get I think three or four per box as you can see Minus the chrome cards as well. We have a lot of numbered cards. We'll stack up cars guys look in there As you can see a lot of these here to no name short prints Mike did catch that one logo no name a logo swap Like that's the only one I've seen but Again, they'll count for those and Of course, I'll top all these autographs right now, but one two three four five six seven eight nine ten Appreciate it guys. This is break number one number twos in the store jazby's case breaks dot com


I thought it was going to change everything. I was actually in the Middle East on 9-11. I was in the West Bank and in Jerusalem, and I thought it would change absolutely everything. And I was with an international group. I was the only American, and no one else thought that. I was the only one who thought it. But I said, you have no idea what's about to happen. We are going to have war. There are going to be Americans on the ground in this region, like hours from now, and nothing will ever be the same. One of the things I thought on 9-11 sitting in Jerusalem was, I hope this doesn't become our future, that we get used to this, and that we have to be confronting terrorism as a daily reality in our lives. And we're not there, but I think we could be. I think that we could see a future where we're going to have a lot more domestic attacks, a lot more attacks in our allies and partners, which is certainly what we've seen in the last couple of years.


Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel guys. Today is part three of the differences between New Zealand and the US. So if you have not seen the first two parts of this, I will link them in the description below. So make sure that you subscribe. If you want to see content like this, we talk about my journey from the US to New Zealand and what it's like and some of the differences living here. I offer consulting services if you're thinking about moving or traveling here and I offer lots of cool things. So make sure that you check about in the description below and subscribe. Here we go. The first thing that I want to talk about is the type of measurement. In New Zealand, they use the metric system. In the US, they use the imperial system. There's only a couple of countries in the whole world that use the imperial system. The only other countries that use it beside the US are Liberia and Burma. They're the only other ones that use the imperial system. So when you're coming to New Zealand or you're going to the US, just know that the types of measurements that you use are different. Now here's my handy tip because I get this question. How do you adjust to the metric system? Like how do you adjust when you're used to thinking, you know, in feet and miles and whatever and pounds and it's called Siri. I just say, hey Siri, how many grams are in this? Hey Siri.  So that's my handy tip. Use Siri if you're traveling between the countries because I use different systems and sometimes it's hard to just kind of calculate in your head. But yes, the US uses the imperial system, New Zealand, the metric system. Another big difference between New Zealand and the US is the term jelly. I get this asked to me all the time, what in the heck do you guys mean when you say you eat peanut butter and jelly? That's because in New Zealand, jelly, the jelly that we're talking about in the US is called jam. Jelly equals jam. Okay. Because when you are saying jelly in New Zealand, it actually means like jello. Okay. So that's what they don't understand how you're putting peanut butter and jello on a sandwich. Okay. Cause it doesn't work. So in New Zealand, jelly is jam. Okay. But in the US, jam is jelly and then like jelly is jello. Okay. See if you can figure that out. In New Zealand, your mail is delivered and these like cute little mail bikes, mail carts. I don't know what to call them. Comment below if you know the name for them. But they're like these cute little mail guys. You can like see them. It's not like in the clothes. It's crazy. They have mail carts and bikes here in the US. They just have the mail truck, the US postal mail truck and it just looks different. So just note when you're in New Zealand, the mail truck looks really different. And it's like this bright red and bright red and yellow color. And they're cool. So check them out. In New Zealand, they have this interesting flavor called chicken flavor like chicken chips or chicken salt. Like, yeah, you can buy chicken flavored potato chips and then chicken salt. And they put it on a lot of things. It's a very, very common chip that they eat here in the US.  I mean, I think there is chicken salt, but they do have unusual types of chips that they don't have in New Zealand. So in the US, you'll find like cool ranch Doritos. Just like ranch in general is a very common flavor or cheddar is a common flavor that you don't have here because they don't really have cheddar cheese here. They do, but it's not as prominent in everything that they have in the US. So yeah, so they have chicken chips and chicken salt in New Zealand, but they have like ranch and cheddar and flaming hot, flaming hot everything in the US. And just so you know, Kiwis, New Zealanders, they don't like things hot. They like things plain. They don't definitely don't like them flaming hot. So just a tip from today. So chicken salt, chicken chips versus cool ranch, ranch, cheddar and flaming hot. In New Zealand, they have a thing with heated towel bars, heated towel bars. It's like in every house and it's very common. It's kind of sold as like, guess what? This place has heated towel bars. Like what? I just remember noticing it's like, it's almost a selling point to a house, a heated towel bar. And that's because the houses here are not heated well and so things can get damp and moldy and so it's kind of like to heat up your towel because it's hard to make it not wet because it's not dry enough in the house during the winter. And so heated towel bars are a thing in New Zealand that you don't see a lot in the US. But in the US, you will see things like essential oil diffusers. Like essential oils is like a big thing in the US. I've seen them here in New Zealand. It's not the same. They're like in every house in the US like essential oil diffusers or like water purifiers or you'll have like your own water tanks in the US. You don't really have that here because the tap water in New Zealand is good and you can drink it. But in the US, you'll find that. So those are some odd things that you'll find in a house in the US whereas in New Zealand, yeah, heated towel bars. In New Zealand, they have Cheerios, which are flaming red colored sausages. Very commonly used as a party favor at kids' birthday parties. It's kind of a kids' food. And they're called Cheerios, like spelled like Cheerios. In the US, Cheerios is only a breakfast food. It's those same little round. They have them here in New Zealand. So New Zealanders know what Cheerios are, but for some reason they have these really red disgusting looking sausages that are also called Cheerios. I don't know why, so comment below if you know why. But I have a hard time eating them just because they are this really bright red color. So Cheerios in New Zealand is a sausage. Cheerios in the US a breakfast cereal. Let's talk paper plates in New Zealand that don't really use paper plates and they certainly don't use paper plates when they have guests over, unless it's like this huge, huge party and there's just no other way. But generally guests or generally in general, they don't use paper plates. In fact, they're like really good with environmental issues and making things not plastic. In fact, my kids, when I first moved here, they went to a school and you couldn't wrap your stuff in plastic. It was like, they didn't get as many points or whatever because they were in viral school. And so you have to just have one of those containers that have the compartments so that you don't need to use any sort of wrapping and waste. So they're not wasteful here in New Zealand. They're much more advanced in that area, I would say, in the US in general. They've moved away from plastic. You can't even get plastic bags at the grocery store anymore. And they're just kind of eliminated plastic. And so they're very good about that. In the US, you will use paper plates. And I think that's because you could buy like 100 paper plates for like a dollar. But they don't have any problems serving it to guests. And they don't have problems using it like every day for normal dishes because it can't be bothered washing dishes. And so yeah, Americans, they like to just throw things away. So they are way behind New Zealand in terms of being wasteful and in terms of eliminating plastic and using different sources instead of plastic. But in the US, they just love to throw things away. Well, this was part three of the New Zealand compared to the US. So you're not going to want to miss the first two. So I will link them below. But make sure that you subscribe. And thank you for watching my channel. And thank you for joining me on my journey to New Zealand from the US.