Good afternoon everyone. I want to welcome you to today's discussion on Building Collaboration and the question of repair. I'm Professor Malo Hudson and I'm also the Director of the Urban Community and Health Equity Lab within the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. Today's discussion will be the first of many on a very important topic about how within the university do you build real relationships and partnerships that are based on ethical principles, trust that are long lasting and actually effective. I prepared a few remarks today before I introduce our two panelists just to frame the discussion so bear with me as I read this and then I will go into the introduction of our panelists. I first want to start off by thanking Dean Amal Andrews, who has been incredibly supportive of the work we've been trying to do within the Urban Community and Health Equity Lab, as well as more broadly the leadership she's shown throughout GSAP in terms of us being more outwardly thinking and taking our research and scholarship and trying to apply it to address some of society's most pressing issues. This event also wouldn't be possible without the great work of Lila Katie, who works closely with all the faculty, staff and students to ensure that we have high quality programming that we hope you will enjoy today. Again, I want to thank everyone for attending this event. All of this discussion is one that has been happening at the university for decades. Today's event is at the right time in our history and ideal as we celebrate Black History Month. Given the growing challenges we face, it is appropriate that GSAP hosts this conversation. We are at a critical moment in our society when institutions matter a great deal, and universities are among some of the most important institutions. Universities have the potential to play a unique and positive role in helping to usher in positive societal change. Universities can bring students, faculty and staff from every corner of the world together. They hold the possibility of embracing difference and be a venue for debate, discussion and learning. They may offer cutting edge new ideas, challenge the status quo, and push for human rights as well as social, economic and environmental justice. Unfortunately, universities have not always lived up to their potential. Many of the oldest and most elite universities in the United States were built by enslaved laborers. They have also been places of exclusion, racism, and white supremacy. They have been a part of massive land acquisitions leading to the displacement of Black Latinx and other people of color from the surrounding communities. Columbia is no exception. In Sharon Sutton's book, When Ivory Towers Were Black, she documents the role of Columbia University as the mega-builder in the heart of Harlem, which by 1961 had announced a $68 million expansion plan, including $8 million for a gymnasium that was to be built in Morningside Park. This sparked outrage and major protests from the community as well as others. Columbia's Manhattanville development has been controversial, further highlighting the need for repair and healing between the university and the broader Harlem community. In recent years, Columbia has begun facing its past wrongs and is striving to do better. President Bollinger has called on the university to focus on the fourth purpose, a commitment to strengthen Columbia's capacity to connect its scholarship and teaching so that it has impact on pressing real-world problems. This ignited conversations across the campus about the importance of partnership, collaboration, implementation, and ethics. The timing couldn't be better. This past year, we have witnessed New York City battle a global pandemic that has had a disproportionate negative impact on Black Latinx and vulnerable populations leading to higher death rates and creating an economic crisis for hundreds of thousands of workers, especially frontline workers who are, who in New York City are overwhelmingly people of color. The pandemic has left individuals and families struggling to pay their rent and mortgages, purchase medicine, and keep food in the refrigerator. Small businesses have closed. Now there are reports that the coronavirus vaccine distribution has bypassed the same communities that were the most devastated. The pandemic has exposed the spatial inequality within our cities, the unequal distribution of resources, and the inequities in our healthcare system. The persistent and pervasive gender inequality in our society where women are paid much less than men in the workplace and are taking on the majority of work inside the home as caregivers and educators. And the profound inequalities, inequities in our educational system where the least well-off children are struggling to learn and find support. This past summer, the city also saw the swelling support for the Black Lives Matter social movement to confront anti-Black racism and racism in general, antiprotest police brutality, and the murder of Black and Brown bodies. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castillo. The complete list is too long, making me feel both infuriated and heartbroken. All of these historic events has led to community residents, students, faculty, staff, alumni, university leaders, and friends of the university to call on Columbia to do more. The university now more than ever needs to live up to its potential to break down its walls, root out deep-seated racism, strive to address societal inequities, and find ways to build collaboration and repair the damage it has done in the past. As President Bollinger said in his statement on Columbia's commitment to anti-racism on July 21, quote, Columbia is an old institution by the standards of the United States, and it has its share of shameful periods and moments of great progress. I hope we can collectively add to the latter. Across the university, there are many people reflecting on what can be done. President Bollinger's quote that I just read to you is part of the spirit of today's discussion and key questions. How can Columbia and GSAP in collaboration with community partners more effectively address pressing societal challenges? What is happening now at Columbia and GSAP to repair previous actions that have caused harm in the greater community? What opportunities exist to do more to build long-lasting ethical and effective partnerships with community partners, which can lead to the co-production of knowledge? Given the complex issues facing us as urban planners, architects, urban designers, and public health practitioners, we must stand up and make a difference. So thank you very much for that. I'd like to introduce our two panelists. I'll read their bios and we'll jump into the presentations. Our first panelist is Akilah King. Akilah King is the CEO of Room to Grow, whose mission is to offer structured coaching, material goods, and community connections to support parents as they activate their natural strength and expand their knowledge so children thrive from the start. Ms. King joined Room to Grow in 2015 and has held several roles in the areas of program operations, external relations, and evaluation. Ms. King was appointed Executive Director of Room to Grow New York in June 2018 and CEO in 2020. With a deep desire to achieve health equity for all families and local communities, Ms. King began her career in research at the renowned hospital for special surgery in the New York City and its affiliated nonprofit, The Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine. While at Focos, Ms. King gained extensive fundraising and development experience and was a member of the team that opened the first modern orthopedic hospital in West Africa. Ms. King holds a Master's in Public Health from the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a BA from Brown University. Ms. King is an alum of the Princeton Alumni Corps, an emerging leaders program, and currently serves on the Executive Board of Veteran Mental Health Nonprofit Operation Heal Our Heroes. Ms. King, welcome. Our second panelist is Mr. Flores Forbes. He is an Associate Vice President for Community Affairs in the Office of Government and Community Affairs at Columbia University and an adjunct associate professor within the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. He is a writer, urban planner, and economic development expert. Mr. Forbes has practiced urban planning, city planning as a land use expert, community development and real estate developer, planning and building thousands of affordable housing units in lower Manhattan and Harlem. He is also the author of two books on urban planning issues and race. His most recent publication, Invisible Men, a Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration, won the 2017 American Book Award for Nonfiction. His first book, Will You Die With Me? My Life in the Black Panther Party, chronicles his life and transformation from an urban gorilla to an urban planner. As an economic development expert, Mr. Forbes has been involved with providing technical assistance to small businesses and nonprofits over the years. His focus at Columbia University for the past 12 years has been urban planning, entrepreneurship, and small business development, criminal justice change, and community development. He has lectured on urban planning and economic development and criminal justice change at Columbia, Stetson University, Colorado College, NYU, Howard University, and the City University of New York. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, Interdisciplinary Studies of the Social Science from San Francisco State University, and he masters of urban planning from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. He has also been a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow and Charles H. Rebson Fellow. So I want to welcome Mr. Flores. Why don't we start with Ms. King? Thanks, Malo. It's a pleasure and an honor to be invited to this conversation alongside Flores, and I'm looking forward to sharing more about Room to Grow, our partnership and work with Columbia and some of my reflections over the last several years. So I'm going to share my slides here. Great. So as Malo so beautifully read, here is our mission here at Room to Grow. Essentially, we partner with low income families in an effort to close the socioeconomic achievement gap for young kids ages zero to three. And so we provide three critical types of supports, and that is parenting coaching, community connections, and material goods. We partner with families when mom is in her third trimester. We really try to envision ourselves as a very upstream model, and families stay with us in the program until the child is three years old coming in for quarterly visits. Each of these visits are two hours long. And the first hour really diving into our parenting curriculum. We're talking about child development. We're talking about routines, all of the messy things that come with parenting. And we truly see ourselves as a two generation model. So we're not only focusing on the child, but the needs of the parent as well. And we're setting short term and long term goals with our families. What really makes our model quite unique is outside of this traditional coaching or therapeutic work. We have baby boutiques in all of our locations. So for the second hour of the session, we move out into the floor and this is really an attempt to help close gaps on material hardship, but also to extend that first hour and talk about strategies and activities to help promote growth and development at the home. So we're co-selecting books, toys, clothing, equipment. If we're talking about fine motor skills in that first hour, we may pull out a puzzle and model some activities for the parents. And the ideas that families are leaving with the knowledge skills and the resources they need to really create this thriving environment. And then the last pillar of our model is community connections. And so in an effort to help families achieve their long term and short term goals, we pull in other resources and other partners in the community. And these include early intervention. They might be meant to health referrals. We have dentists. We're trying to help families find quality healthcare. It really is a wide range of partners that we can call upon. And since COVID, we've had to adapt our model. So right now we are virtual. Our families are engaging with our clinical program team over FaceTime, over the phone. And we're finding that although we don't really get a chance to observe child and parent interaction as well as we could in person, we are still having rigorous and in-depth conversations with our families. They know what this time is for. It's preserved to really talk about their child development, someone to talk to, and really continue to brainstorm with our clinical team on how to support their families during these challenging times. And then in addition to the FaceTime work, we are sending bundles of our clothing to our families. So these are some photos of the kids there. And as I tee us up for a conversation around our partnership work, I just wanted to share some of the demographic statistics of our families. 100% are low income. And we have about 50% who are single parents. You do not have to be a single or first time parent to participate in our program. And another stat to highlight here is 95% of our families or parents are of color. I'm about to talk a little bit about our evaluation because this is where our partnership work with Columbia really comes to a head. But I just wanted to quickly share that we think about evaluation holistically. So we're looking at the parent, child, the family and the community. And our strategy really includes, yes, case management and curriculum data that we complete via electronic forms externally validated tools that are used widely in early childhood field or mental health field. And then we have our Gold Star academic research partners. And that is where Columbia comes into play. And so room to grow. We are three years into a randomized controlled trial in partnership with Teachers College and the School of Social Work. And it really is to assess the impact of our program model. The story is that, you know, we had two top researchers out of Teachers College and School of Social Work who for years have been talking about it would be great to understand the material effects and material hardship when it comes to low income families and young kids. And we had another research partner who was really looking to see the impact of parenting curriculum and a parenting program and what if there was an organization or program that did both. And we happened to meet. And so they were happy to jump on board and really help build and design and implement this study with us. And then the other partnership to note is we are a project listed in the Columbia World Projects Initiative. And also kind of talked about the fourth purpose that President Bollinger has laid out. And I think this is really, you know, bringing that fourth purpose to to light. And so we are working with the Columbia World Projects team to continue and expand our current research. But also, there is hopefully an opportunity for CWP to partner with us as we think about growth and expansion of the room to grow model. You know, I've had many reflections over the years about, you know, partnership work, in particular with, you know, Columbia and Malo really emphasized to be really honest and forthcoming. And so here are just some of my thoughts and, you know, I say all of this with a grain of salt because our partnership with Columbia over the years has been quite fantastic. But these are some things that really are top of mind. And the first is, you know, an organization like Room to Grow, we are a living breathing organism. I threw business on the slide because often it is forgotten that a nonprofit is in fact a business. And sometimes in partnership work, especially with, you know, funders or institutions, you know, we can be referred to quite explicitly and deduced to a project. You know, and for us, this is our everyday work, right? We're talking about the livelihood of not only program participants, but also our team. And, you know, while there is potential and opportunity in our model, you know, if for us, we're not just a sandbox for experimentation.  There are financial and political dynamics on the day to day. And when it comes down to it, keeping the lights on comes first. And that also includes team retention and ensuring high quality programming. And, you know, one thing that I always think about is making sure that we are in the driver's seat of our own destiny when I feel like there may be as a threat from a community partner always coming back to that question. My second bullet here is internal expertise in collaborative design and development. And this is really just speaking upon, you know, making sure that we really have a seat at the table when it comes to partnership work. We are on the ground every day. We know our community. We know our families. We know our work and we have something to add. And we are fortunate enough to be invited to work with some of the most brilliant minds in the country or in the world. But remembering that we have something to offer to and that together, if we, you know, really design and develop whether it's a study or a project collaboratively, it really can be the best of both worlds and result in a project or a deliverable that is not only comprehensive, but something that could actually be implementable at the end of the day. I also really feel like it's important to talk about the elephant in the room. And that is the power of funding. When you are partnering with an institution like Columbia that has money, it is easy for a nonprofit who, you know, there's really a culture around always fundraising and scrapping to feel beholded to that partner. And, you know, we were just talking about this before the session got started that, you know, it can result in tensions and identity crisis. And I think it's really important for any funder that has a lot of financial power to realize that it can cloud our thinking. It can lead to internal organizational fractions.  And I think the most important thing that we can do is acknowledge and talk about those power dynamics, should they start to bubble. And then last but not least, and I think this is probably the direction of the rest of the conversation is just reflecting on the history of research in communities of color and this note of collective efficacy. And I know many on this call probably know more about the research than I do, but it's important for us as an organization to build trust with our families, our model on our work literally depends on it. And then when you bring in research partners who are interacting with our families, especially I spoke about the 94% of our families are of color. I think it's important for us to stop and talk about the history and the dynamic when it comes to people of color who are interacting and in participating in research. It is known to be a research barrier to research by particularly with blacks, and you know that stems from historic events, but also I think it's exacerbated by socioeconomics and other system inequities. And I hope to do more of this in the future not just in partnership with Columbia but just in the everyday work of room to grow of really bringing in the community and not only our work with our projects, and having are achieving true collective and making sure that our families are really bought into the work and our goal of achieving common good. And I can talk more about the ways in which we are doing that but I wanted to highlight that. And that's it for my presentation I'm looking forward to answering any questions and in indulging in further conversation. Thank you so much for that I mean you gave us a lot to think about in terms of not being reduced to a project. We're not a sandbox for experimentation, asking for a seat at the table and certainly highlighting the issues around the power of funding so many things for us to dive into you said, gave us a lot to think about and certainly also around the issues of collective efficacy. And the perspective from an outside entity. Let's hear what it's like from someone who sits more at the seat of power if you will are closer to the decision making process of Columbia University and let's hear from Mr Forbes, how do you approach your work and sort of navigating those faces, not only a researcher but also as part of the administration. Okay, great. Thanks, Malo, and Akilah, you know that was some great information to get and I appreciate this forum. To talk about some of the work that we are doing at the university so I'm going to briefly talk about a project I'm working on at the moment that is part of my focus as an urban planner. Who is an administrator at an urban university like Columbia, so more broadly it can be called you know surrounding communities, organizing internally, the outward facing intellectual capital of the university, and how we can help with regards to economic development workforce and education in the Harlem community. So this collaboration, as it stands, involves specifically Columbia Business School, the School of Social Work, Columbia Law School, the Data Science Institute, Central Administration of the university, the trustees, and many departments and staff here at Columbia University. Let's reflect on what happened this past summer, beginning with a deeply disturbing image of a black man being lynched by a police officer on national TV. You know and I think that that affected people to the point of you know if you look back at the black and white photos of crowds of white men standing around smiling pointed up at a lynch man in a tree. You know that was on a picture, this was national television, where you can see the non shallots of this officer, you know which is this manifestation of white supremacy which embeds all police departments I think it was shocking. And I think that this is what triggered this this particular moment. So the image of George Floyd followed by the protests affected many, but especially here at Columbia University. It was a pandemic, which was a real black swan to the economy that has devastated our surrounding community. So as a result, President Bollinger on July 21 2020. So not a charge or a challenge to Columbia University community calling for us to do better and work at ending anti black racism and focus on racial justice. Our efforts were created via a task force to look at staff experience, public safety images and monuments, recruitment of African American Afro Latino students staff faculty, and how we can help the surrounding communities but they focus on African Americans and Afro Latinos. Now I'm on that task force and involved with several areas but for this aspect of building collaboration I will focus on the Harlem community. By reviewing the existing conditions with regards to what we do in the community. I saw that our strongest work was in Columbia business school with the Columbia Harlem Small Business Development Center and the technical assistance and education we brought to the local small business community with probably numbers somewhere around 8000 And we decided to build and enhance with Columbia business school as the foundation creating an emergency loan fund for small business. We also made an assessment of our other assets that were outward facing for example the Community Benefits Agreement which we signed in 2009 as part of the expansion plan in terms of building our new campus programs for you. Education workforce and criminal justice change. We met with internal stakeholders and connected with each about how to work together. But we quickly realized that this was new to us because internally we were not organized but in silo and thus needed an infrastructure to develop a project of this nature. We needed a delivery system as we worked on organizing the marketplace at Columbia University and then the community. So the research we looked at we looked at community development corporations and I had a long history of working with community development corporations and I think for what we wanted to do was a very weak model. So what we also did is we explored other manifestations of community development so we looked at the community development financial institution which is a an operation that is funded or is this many ways funded and certified by the US Treasury Department that you know and it was a way for us to also organize create an infrastructure to organize all the other outward facing operations that we have at the university. So we retain the consultant to work at this and currently we're conducting a feasibility study. And this feasibility study is allowing us to actually talk to the marketplace. We're not only talking to the marketplace internally and looking at what we actually we're looking at the marketplace as it exists today with most of the major stakeholders that are out there. It could be the upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, Harlem Community Development Corporation, most of many of the affordable housing developers and a lot of the criminal justice change groups that we're working with. So so we're collecting that data and this feasibility study will probably be done sometime in the spring. We're also moving on two tracks focusing on how we're going to create this entity and have it evolve in within the Columbia community. So I think that that's a, you know, so it gives you a pretty good idea of what we're doing and how we look at projecting outward. And so I, you know, the study will be done in the spring. And I think that it's a, you know, it's a worthy effort. And I think it's probably one of the most important organizational efforts in terms of Columbia harnessing its intellectual capital. And using it to help improve a community that's been devastated by a pandemic. So I guess I'll stop there and we'll take some questions. Yeah, well, thank you, Mr. form so you highlighted it again just like Miss King highlighted many important issues and I think one take what that stuck out for me is that oftentimes we think of Columbia University as this entity that's organized and you actually said well it wasn't what you were not organized. We're oftentimes siloed, and you're really working against that internally not to mention needing to branch out and do other work. And I also like the fact that you highlighted some of the other work that's happening in other units such as Columbia business school that is science Institute school social work. So I'd love to talk more about that. And I'm going to take the privilege as being the moderator, as well as the presenter but I wanted to just present a little bit about what they're being community and health equity lab. I've been working on and sort of the focus of the lab and then we'll open it up to the broader questions, but I think it's a good representation here to show you. No, not only from an outside perspective of the university but then also from the administrative perspective and now from the seat of a faculty member so hopefully you all can see my slide so as I mentioned before. I'm an associate professor within the graduate school architecture planning and preservation I direct the every community and health equity lab. Much of my work is at the intersection of community development health equity and the circular economy or what some people refer to as sustainability. The labs mission is really to conduct interdisciplinary research so much like Mr Forbes talked about is breaking down the silos into work with colleagues across the Columbia campus so I have partnered with colleagues in public health. I have numerous conversations with colleagues over in social work about things how we can work together. I'm involved with the Columbia Columbia population research center, which brings faculty across the institution. But more importantly, how do we take our research and scholarship to really try to influence or transform institutions, whether that be nonprofit organizations larger institutions such as Columbia, and to lead to real policies and practices that cause that cause these health inequities that we see both domestically and internationally for the purposes of today's short talk about the lab I won't talk about my global work but I do some work in Chile around disaster management recovery. There are three real distinct research areas within the lab one is the built environment natural environment and health. The second is around community development in the circular economy or as I said earlier sustainability. And the third is law and governance. I just want to highlight some of the most recent things that my colleagues and I have been doing one has been a focus on housing and health. So my doctoral student Carolyn Swope and I wrote a piece for the for this new book contributing author to this new book urban public health, a research research toolkit for practice and impact, edited by our colleagues down at Dressel University. We've also I've also worked on writing a piece about urban health, the encyclopedia of environmental health and how do we think about approaching our work from a more holistic perspective. Most recently and literally when I say most recently just this week. I have received a grant from the Columbia population research center to do a study with local school districts within the city of California as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia to look at support, look at districts how districts have been supporting the farm to school effort and especially healthy eating during this COVID-19 school closures. As many of you are I'm sure well aware there's a tremendous amount of food insecurity given the COVID-19 crisis that we're in. And many children and families are going without a steady and regular meal that they normally may have while they're at school and so this will study how schools are addressing that this comes from the work that my colleagues and I, and I have looked at with Oakland school, Oakland Unified School District, their healthy meal program so we were involved with the research that went to support the new efforts by the school district to provide locally sourced food and build a central kitchen urban farm and education center. But the piece I really want to just talk about briefly is since we're talking about collaboration. For the past year I've been involved with the partnership for social and economic mobility. And now as part of that there's also a social mobility impact fund. This was founded by the former mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter and Lisa Nutter who's also an urban planner. What it really is to create this collaborative network, focus on collective research and partnership at multiple levels so obviously at the university level but also understanding that in order to be effective, you have to build real partnership within communities within government within the private sector. And so the key partners of this network are Columbia University, which is us obviously Johnson C Smith University which is a historically black college university in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the University of Pennsylvania just now as part of the partnership. The social and economic mobility component of this not talking about the impact fund just yet, but just the the partnership for social and economic mobility. There really four broad areas, cutting across race gender and geography, but one is to really understand economic hardship. As we heard Mr Forbes talk about. This is an unprecedented time in our society there have been a, you know, people are dealing with the pandemic. We're dealing with anti black racism. We're dealing with the economic crisis. And so all of these things have obviously led to major challenges for communities and so a big part of this work is understanding economic hardship and really connecting with the people who are being the most impacted where it's not as Miss King earlier said, it's a project or it's something to just be studied, but actually a real partnership. So there's a tremendous amount of interest and understanding how do you really sustain economic stability within communities and within cities. And so there's a lot of work being done there, and then new ways to think about a new social safety net as I highlighted in my introduction, the pandemic has exposed us in so many different ways and certainly we know that we can do better and so there's a big conversation of what does a new social safety net look like what who needs to be at the table what needs to be taken advantage of the movement that we see in in not just in the United States but globally to really address health inequities and no broader inequities in our society. And then lastly, you can't do much of this without the cost right and the financing behind it so there's a big discussion about how do we do that. The partnership has decided to start with the work that's already been done at Columbia University by my colleagues are Garfinkel and Christopher Weimer around the poverty tracker so this is a partnership with the Robinhood Foundation, but really looked at the data across New York City and now expanding to Philadelphia and also into Charlotte, but to really look at these issues from a poverty lens. And then most recently, this partnership has expanded to create a part of investment fund so it's a it's an investor supported impact fund that blends social finance and traditional funding vehicles to scale effective solutions that communities have the capacity to implement. The idea is that this is something that is not just top down but actually engages with communities to come up with the ideas that could be funded to bring about real change in the community so this is just up and running our first meeting was held at University of Pennsylvania last February action so we're literally a year after we began.   I will just end by saying as part of this partnership I was asked to think about possibilities given my own work and what the lab is trying to do and obviously being situated within the Graduate School of architecture planning and preservation to maybe pitch something that could be developed further and scaled up and so one of the things that came out of a some work I had been involved in and I was a professor at Berkeley was really how do you create an eco village or eco community and the idea in Oakland was that if you took a whole block. And you completely made that an eco friendly block from the buildings retrofitting all the buildings, thinking about the energy usage, the waste waste usage in general thinking about water transportation so forth. What could you do and what you know over time, what kind of changes could you see within the community. And so that's very similar idea would be how could we potentially either partner with the New York City Housing Authority or another nonprofit housing developer. That may be interested in retrofitting buildings that need to be retrofitted and and do it in a more sustainable holistic approach not only in the physical aspects of the building, but also thinking about the people who actually live in the building. So how can we create a real partnership where the local residents are part of the overall solution and the public health intervention to bring about real change and so this is not only just about the physical and natural environment, but it's very much about incorporating the public health component to this. So this is getting started. I have had a former student of mine within GSAP that's been doing research to help me get going. I've been meeting with the fund partners and having conversations with colleagues within GSAP and across Columbia about how maybe we can scale this up and make it a reality. So I will stop there. I just want to give you some different perspectives and obviously there will be lots of questions that people will have and so I'll stop my sharing. I will ask the panelists to please turn on their cameras. And then I want to start with a few questions. Obviously today's discussion is just the beginning right and it's it's a very narrow slice of discussion because we're within the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation right now. But there are these similar conversations that have been happening across Columbia and have been happening for some time. But one of the things if you've touched on this but talk about it more broadly is what are some of the real challenges and certainly Miss King you brought up the issue of not wanting to be studied and I really highlight the part the part where you said, we're not a sandbox for experimentation right you're a living breathing organism you have real outcomes you're working with real people in a different timeline. Can you expand more on what those challenges are and sort of what can be done in a different way and certainly bringing the issue around funding and power I think that's a that's a really important point that you had made. Yeah, you know I think is a unique problem to have right so I've been speaking about the potential of room to grow and it's almost like as you talk about it as people hear about it I think you know my love you're in the room. It's such a unique idea no one is combining the services the way that we are. It's one of the reasons why Columbia was interested in getting involved with the research. It is, you know, you just cut what eyes just wide open. And we, you know when it comes to academic institutions or top thought partners or journalists who, you know, want to dig in or work with us. You know, it's important for us to remember who we are and we're still a small to medium organization. And, you know, we're also a nonprofit right and so we are just naturally designed to run lead. And so some of the challenges include just capacity on the team, right, to be able to not only do their everyday job funding for the organization for the program and funding for the study. You know it's almost like you could hire a whole new person to do that those are some of the challenges that just are happen every day. I also, you know, I think about, especially when it comes to the research and this is probably a good thing to have is, you know, we are continually trying to improve our systems, our program operations, you know, even HR, and when you have a lot of suggestions and recommendations that you'd like to implement prioritizing them. And also realizing that you can't even really implement many program changes because you're in the middle of a randomized control trial.  And so I hope that answers your question on some of the challenges that we face. I really do think, you know, bringing or taking on RCT is a huge undertaking period. And for a nonprofit, you know, it's something that we like to recommend to be honest because in order to get ready for one you really just gonna have your stuff together. But it is, you know, there is, there is the management of the partnership and I, and I say that in a good way because we are really partners in this work with Columbia that also takes time and energy. Everything from check-ins to passing on process evaluation data to designing surveys and questionnaires together. And, you know, also that could be a whole other job is a person on our team working with the Columbia team. So I think that was the first part of your question. I don't know if you want me to pause there. That was fantastic. Why don't we pause and I just want to bring Mr. Forbes into the conversation. So you highlighted obviously, you know, what you're trying to do now. President Bollinger made his public comments on July 21. Last summer, you've sprung into action. You've been at the table for many of these conversations and helping to shape how Columbia moves forward. Can you talk about just some of the challenges that's been, you know, I think of myself as a researcher, a professor obviously, and more than that, obviously. You know, we have colleagues who say my job is to do research teaching and I'll do my service and I want to go home and or go to the Hamptons for the summertime and I've done my part because I published my work in journals. How have you broken down those silos in that way of thinking. And, you know, if you could just talk a little bit about that because I think those are some of the real challenges and maybe any other challenges that you've come across that I didn't just ask you about. I think the first thing was that there was a charge to create something that's going to respond to the to the pandemic to racial injustice and that sort of thing. And so, you know, we look internally at what do we do well. You know, we know that we are a world class academic institution, but we also are a workforce development.  So our intellectual capital, you know, is around science technology engineering art and math plus entrepreneurship. So we started organizing around those spaces we'd already been collaborating with various parts of the university, but how we actually got into the community before like with the community benefits agreement. It was about putting money on the street, but not being present with regards to your, your know how the capacity, the, you know, the team that you may be able to bring forward. With this instance, we're actually organizing within the university, we have to educate ourselves about okay if we're going to respond, then we need to look at how we can respond and how do we actually get organized.  But how do we take that research, you know, into the community and actually organize around that. And so that's what we need to do internally, in terms of bringing that together. You know, the obstacles are probably based on the fact that there hasn't been a conversation about it. There hasn't been education.  Well, you know, one of the things in the research I've done in the past I realized sure community development corporations were great for what they were set up to do. They were primarily set up out of the 60s. And the, I believe the original intent was in many instances, counter insurgency. And they said, well, we're going to have home ownership. Well, people don't burn down their own homes. You know, so it was a very interesting model to look at. And it was also one that was always seriously underfunded. And one time in New York City, there were 200 community development corporation. Now you have maybe a handful. You know, they were supported by foundations that only did demonstration projects for three years. And so one of the things we realized is that we need to come we need to go all in. So we put the full weight and force and the intellectual capital of the university behind something that can really impact the community. And so a lot of this in terms of the, the, the, you know, like I said, there are obstacles. There are limits to the information that everybody has. And we have to give people information. We have to educate each other about how we can do this. You know, so, so, you know, so a lot of it has to deal with that. And, and I think that we're, you know, we're, you know, we're, we're moving forward. I think that educating the community now is going to be is the next phase and that's was part of the feasibility study. It's a big part of that going to many of the major stakeholders in the community and educating them about this is what we want to do. Sure, we've been here in the past, but we haven't been participating the way we think we should now. You know, so, so, so, so it's a two way street in terms of how we're, you know, educating ourselves and educating the community as to how we can participate in helping the community. So I want to, I will actually want to follow up on that and bring up the issue for both of you. The issue of repair and healing. We know the long legacy of universities and certainly as I talked in the opening. Columbia, we also have our past sins and, and you know, we will continue to make mistakes and we have to address those things but how do you see the university being able to really move forward in the way that you've described Mr. Ford's and certainly the kind of work that you're doing Miss King with your work at room to grow without the repair and healing. What do you see needs to happen. In order to kind of get to that place where communities will be willing to trust the door, they feel embraced, and it's not just a top down approach of Columbia, Columbia dangling money or Columbia expanding, or even in the case of me as a professor I teach planning methods, and part of the planning methods students have to do an analysis on a neighborhood. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to partner with the community organization in a drive students create half like it the other half of drives crazy because they say we don't want to go in and be this the continue the problem of Columbia. And I, no matter how hard I try to explain to them and say look, you might have a tool and specialization you're not going in as the expert you're going in to learn if people are willing to embrace that right and but it's still this notion of where Columbia and the rest is all separate as we're Columbia University in our full name in the city of New York which is our full name right so sorry for the long question but I just wanted to just highlight some of those intricate challenges but but especially around the repair and healing piece and I know this is just the beginning of many conversations that we're not always the right people to have that conversation with bring other people to the table and future conversations that will be more that may just have a different perspective as well on that. I think the, the, you know, the asset say that look at the aspect of research right. It was Columbia researchers that along with information that was collected by formerly incarcerated academics with regards to what was called the seven never seven neighborhood study, which showed that seven neighborhoods in New York City, make up 75% of the populations that are in state prison. Right, that's not seven neighborhoods in New York State. That's just in New York City. Okay. So that research was used by people in GSAP. Okay, to organize a project called the million dollar blocks collaborating with other people who were involved with that so one of the things that we looked at we said okay. We need to be engaged in this because Harlem was one of the most heavily impacted communities for people returning from prison. So what can we do. Well, we have we have resources we can teach entrepreneurship, we can get involved in workforce development. Right, but a lot of it has to do with opening up the university to the education opportunities. The university, you know, there's been on pause now we teach in six different prisons. Okay, we have some of the most I think innovative programs in our business school teaching formerly incarcerated people. Entrepreneurship coding, you know we have other programs that say out of the School of Social Work, the beyond the bars conference, it's actually probably the largest conference, or event the university does outside of graduation and probably one of the largest events in the country that looks at the plight of formerly incarcerated in the United States. Okay, so we started building these relationships long before so and plus we don't send strangers into the community. You know the when I was an urban city planner for New York City, I lived in Harlem. Okay, most of the people on my staff are very well versed in what's going on in Harlem and are familiar. And so that's the other what the other aspect of is that you can send strangers into the community. You know, you can't say well we can't find any qualified people who look like people in Harlem well we know that that's not true. You know so I think that that's been the kind of the foundation of a lot of the work that we're doing. You know and we're striving on that and so some of the people who are familiar with the community, who are also involved with the university internally are helping to educate the university about how we can best, you know, move forward with these things. And I think, you know, the issue of capacity in building, you know, do you have the right people that can do this work, you know, and we ever since I've since like 2008, we have actually been building that internally, and a lot of it was was focusing on the community benefits agreement. But I think now we know we have you know it's like like Mike Tyson says right every time everybody gets in the ring. Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Well we've been hit. So we've had to pivot. And we're actually probably better prepared to pivot. Then we believe we were when we first started out, say in 2008, in terms of this focus on the Harlem community. Thank you and Miss King if you could follow up on this question of repair and healing from your perspective and then we have a whole series of questions from the audience that I want to start engaging you on. Yeah, and I think floor is touched upon a couple of thoughts that I have, but I mean the first step is to acknowledge right that you've done harm and that repair is needed. And, you know, that I know Columbia's taken steps and other institutions I'm a Brown alum I remember we came forth with our study on the history of slavery on campus. So really just just getting that out there and I, I have found, even in my own work at room to grow that it's one thing to let people in into your community into your rooms. But I've also found that it's important to venture out and really establishing and committing to the community and showing up to what's important to them and so I think about, you know, we just opened a site in the South Bronx last fall. And although a majority of our families would commute from the South Bronx to Manhattan, and it was something that we've been talking about for a while. We've, I realized we really didn't know the South Bronx well and they didn't know us. And so what would it take to establish trust, and it wasn't about inviting them to open houses and selling room to grow as much as it was for me and my team to show up to the community board meetings and showing them support listening to what really matters to the entire community. And not necessarily pushing your agenda, but, you know, genuinely and authentically becoming a fabric of that community. And I think that that is something that, you know, Columbia, you know, can offer, not just in Harlem, but the, you know, the whole city.   That's one thing that we've done is established advisory council. The people are there who know the community, who know the priorities, who can not only advise you, but can lead in the work with us. And so those are just some of my thoughts. Well, thank you very much. Let's turn to some of the participants questions in the audience. A question for you, Mr. Forbes, can you please talk more about the way that Columbia is currently reframing its relationship with the West Harlem community, especially in light of the Manhattanville campus expansion and the community benefits agreement that the university signed. Oh, you're on mute. Okay. So, you know, the work that we're, that I just was talking about is, it's about race.  That's about race, what we're talking about in terms of what we can do to organize intellectual capital to help the Harlem community of African Americans, African Latinos. The community benefits agreement, which was one of the reasons why I was I was recruited to come to Columbia is part of a an expansive urban planning project where the university was in need of space. And we had to go through two public approval processes, the uniform land use review procedure in terms of Euler terms of changing the zoning. And because we had a desire to expand and in the area was declared a blight so we had to go through the general project plan through the state. And so the benefits package kind of came out of that and was focusing on that particular real estate transaction. Now, our focus is not just on West Harlem. We're talking about Harlem and Washington Heights inward. You know, so I think that those are some of the things that we're expanding on and like I said the one, you know the work I'm talking about now, and I'm involved in all aspects of the work whether it's the community benefits agreement. You know the manhandled expansion and what we're talking now with regards to the surrounding communities. And so I think that, you know, I think we have the bandwidth and the capacity to do it all. So we're not really reframing the conversation. We're actually expanding, you know, the discussion to be a little more inclusive. You know, I think it's really important because it's more comprehensive, you know, it's economic development is affordable housing entrepreneurship is workforce criminal justice change, which is a really important aspect of this because of the number of people who make up the population that are impacted by the criminal justice system and the work that we can do to help bring them in to a to develop their whole ask them to help them reintegrate into society. And so these are some of the things that we're looking to do with regards. Thank you so much. So there's another question that says hello thank you for presenting. Would you have any suggestions for how other cities can participate in the work, or how cities could help each other. I'm coming out of Cleveland Ohio like to would like this work. And these thought processes here and wondering how to get involved with these initiatives from Cleveland. Thank you for the presentation so I will answer that as well and I think, Miss King you can answer that maybe with room to grow and I don't know if you have any questions. And then maybe Mr Forbes if you feel like you could think about it from other universities but they might how they might approach this work. So, so with the work I do, I everything I try to do is is based on real relationships organic relationships so I'm always open to work other places as long as I have a real partner on the ground right it's very difficult to just do it by researcher just to drop in a particular place, but to have real connection now I happen to actually really love Cleveland Ohio I've been there to give talks that know lots of other people who work in the planning agencies and do great work there so it's a city that is doing wonderful things I always joke and say, you know, many of my students who live in Brooklyn they should think about living in a wonderful place like Cleveland you have those waterfront developments and people are riding their bikes and so forth so I'm always open but my philosophy has always been how do you build real organic partnerships where can I add some value to what I'm trying to do if not, then I'm always happy to just share the research that I'm doing but if it's a real project I always think it has to be replicable. It has to be applicable. It has to be scalable right so that other people could do it, or engage in that or certainly share those lessons learned so with this partnership for social mobility that I talked about with Johnson's I'm trying to see Smith University as well as pin in Columbia. I'm sorry I'm trying to do too many things at once. We really are trying to first focus on Charlotte, and then branch out, you know, from Philadelphia, New York and then think about other cities but right now those are three cities that we're primarily focusing on. So I don't know Akilah or Miss King if you want to talk about that as well. Yeah, right now if I haven't stated room tour is also in Boston so we're a two city organization and it is my vision that we branch out to a third but a key word that Maladis brought up is sustainability and so until we do that we need to make sure that we can handle our work on the ground now. And, you know, the whole inventory side of our operations is, you know, one of the biggest barriers I'm making sure that we can ensure the same dosage when it comes to material items as well as in the coaching work. And I think that, you know, we will when the time comes embark on a location analysis and, you know, if Ohio is on the list, you know, we'll we can circle back, but you know I think there are some other Midwest cities, as well as some other East Coast cities and some southern cities to on that short list. So if you do a plug for the work at those the, you know, people in other places that are interested in the kind of work that room to grow does I mean it's a great model. And really with the parental coaching, the material support as well as the community connection is one of the few programs that I'm that I know of and certainly other colleagues at Columbia searched high and low that does this all three so some do one or the other or maybe two but they do all three. Move forward a bit though so there was a question that has disappeared but it was for Mr Forbes to talk about the efforts around small business development that Columbia is trying to do and the work that you're involved in because we know that with the global pandemic certainly in New York City small businesses, businesses of color have been hit very hard and certainly we know Harlem businesses have suffered. So there was a question about small business support and the work that you're doing. Right, I think we've been probably like I said that's probably one of our strongest areas with Columbia Business School as a university partner, we have the Columbia Harlem Small Business Development Center which is one of the top SBDCs in the state out of 25 were usually ranked either number one or two. And and and it involves a staff of professionals and also involves the academics there with regards to our education training programs and but I think that we're looking at that's that's the that's the economic base of Harlem is small businesses. You know, yes, there are the Columbia is one of the where the largest employer in in Harlem. Okay, but most of the vitality of the community is in is with small businesses. You know, Harlem used to be a heavily traffic place with regards to hospitality with restaurants and jazz clubs and things of that nature so all of that is coming back. You know, there's a there are hotels being built in Upper Manhattan so so I think that one of the things we need to do is to be able to say how do we take what we can do and provide that in many ways like a consultant to provide these services to these small businesses, and it's been growing and growing over the years and I think it's a it's a really important effort. We kind of doubled down on that during the pandemic. We hadn't been involved with providing loans to small businesses now we're doing that. We think we have a very innovative approach. And, you know, and I think that we're involved with training, you know, entrepreneurship, as with regards individuals and that sort of thing so I think we're building you know trying to manage you know trying to maintain the economic base of this community, you know, especially in this, you know, it's really really a serious period, the way the pandemic has impacted the community here. Thank you for that. So we have a we have a wonderful question from one of our alums Jennifer son, who also is a leader of a New York City community development organization so much of what we've been discussing. So, Miss son has asked, how are research projects building into their process, the case making to funders for the organizational capacity building that is critical for nonprofit partners to successfully operationalized strategy and program change. So I can start with that and then Miss King if you want to jump in and certainly Mr Forbes. So everything I try to do that actually does involve community partners, they have to be written into the any kind of grants right so oftentimes the old model has been Oh, as a researcher you then want to go to a community and say what can you give me your time for free can I poke around your organization for free. And I think anytime you're thinking about a real research project certainly you know, with equal partners, I think Miss King said it best earlier is that funding and the power dynamics around funding is incredibly important and I think you also said, Miss King that it can shape kind of how the organization might think about going forward because the funding is at the table right whether that's, you might go down a road that you otherwise wouldn't have gone so with the grants I've submitted. Certainly, I've thought about the capacity component it's a it's a big one, and organizations are businesses right and so they are always have to run efficiently they have staff. They oftentimes are under staffed right often so these are all major challenges so I'll stop there but Miss King if you want to talk Yeah, I really like this question because if I, if we were to embark on a, you know, a second cohort or do this all over again, you know, I think this is something really consider, you know, most of the, you know, researchers right they they know what they need this is not their first rodeo so written into budgets are postdocs are additional support needed for specific projects. And when it comes to submitting and writing for grants. Yes, we do incorporate a portion of portion covering my salary or maybe some other team members salaries but we have not written in you know what does it look like for us to have a temporary person on our team to support in the research. Certainly a lot of funders are really focusing on the work on the ground, supporting general operations and you know I do think that there are some fantastic research partners, sorry funders who would understand the need for this but also some could see this as a nice to have so you know I think you know there's no real roadmap for a nonprofit entering into an RCT. And I think, you know, I had to give advice to fusion nonprofits yes get ahead of this right whether it's a new hire right in for funding. And, you know, it's, it's something for me to absolutely keep in mind in the future, you know, in terms of, you know, additional funding for just general for general general capacity building at room to grow, you know that is more of a traditional grant writing that we do. You know, I, I worked in a project called the comprehensive community revitalization program in the he was running the kind of mid to late 90s. And one of the things that it showcase was capacity building and the a certain foundation. One of the leadership of Anita Miller, who is one of the first women program officers at the Ford Foundation she realized that you know, in order for community development to be successful. You need to have capacity and capacity actually is people hiring the best people you can have them on the ground to actually do the work. And it was supported with a lot of other efforts, you know, with terms of research terms of technical assistance, but we use I guess as the foundation for the project there were six community development corporations in the South Bronx that participated, and there were a few others. And, you know, and I thought that this was a very it was very innovative, because up until that point, and even at times today, foundations don't support staff.  And so I think it's really important. I think that's one of the things that's helped us here at Columbia. Okay, we can get involved in efforts, where we actually do have the capacity to do many things so I can go around to different departments and meet with some of the, the academics who are doing research in that space, and you can get them to participate. You know, and so I think that these are some of the things that we need to look at with regards to getting foundations to underwrite these efforts and foundation they should look back at that. You know, there was a report done, you know that focus on the capacity building efforts. Unfortunately, it was again one of those three year demonstration projects. I think are really problematic with regards to foundation funding, you know, in terms of them being in for the long haul because we're, you know, you do a three year three year demonstration project for a community that's been depressed, oppressed and devastated for centuries. I think it's really difficult in order to make that happen but the capacity building aspect of it, you know, in terms of having personnel, the best personnel that you can find is is probably really key to a lot of that. All right, we've got lots of questions so in 15 minutes left as usual so we'll have to definitely have another part two to this but there's a question from the West Coast says thank you so much for this enlightening panel. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the college California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I'm interested in introducing community partnership and developing design studios. Looking back at your experience with partnerships both from the side of academic institutions in the community. What could be some structures and protocols to be implemented and forming these partnerships such as CBAs to help both the academic partner to ensure a tangible positive contribution to the community and to reduce the burden on the community and promoting this partnership. That is an excellent question. I can start with that and then if others want to jump in. You know, I've taught studio for a number of years both at UC Berkeley and also at Columbia, and I would say that when I look back on the, you know, 10 plus years of teaching were the most successful studios without a doubt it's with having a real community partner that is one of the co instructors with you. There was a case in East Oakland I've been I was able to work with the organization and it wasn't like we normally talk about as a client I actually don't like the term of referring to partners as the client or people that were you know it's it should be more of what's a real partnership and so I was able to work with this particular organization and so that works with you really around violence and entrepreneurship and so forth. And by building that trust and understanding that the director or the leader of that organization was very much a partner with me in this. It just changed the whole dynamic not to say that there still weren't power dynamics with between the university and this organization they were. There are different cultures and perspectives. And so one of the things we did right away was sit down and come up with an agreement with who would do what what the expectations were and try to involve young people as researchers and part of the studio as well right and so it's very difficult the way oftentimes classes are structured within universities as you know as a faculty member yourself, but you have to think outside of the box there. And a more recent studio that I've taught at Columbia University in Chile, one of our alums who's back in Chile doing the work around natural disasters or like it's nothing natural but the disaster today but disaster management recovery. And it's a co instructor with me and you know it was very clear that I had a certain level of expertise and knowledge or what do you mean college expertise more like skill set. And she really had that local knowledge right much of what Miss King had talked about and I think Mr. Forbes has touched on. And so I very much was an outsider and I was very honest about that and tried to learn and so that was a much more productive and helpful studio I do think the agreements are agreements are important whether you go as far as creating a community benefits agreement. You know it's up to you but it's at the end of the day it's how do you hold people accountable, how do we hold the universities and the faculty accountable and how do we hold our community partners accountable if we agree to engage either around the studio or a community project, or some process so I'm sorry that this is something we can talk about forever so let me turn over to Miss King and Mr. Forbes. I'm not sure I have anything else to add. I think that the only thing is, you know, ensuring that your mission aligned and you're aligned in your work right everything else I talked about in our slide the being equal partner is just crucial. And I also think not being afraid to disagree and to engage in discourse and you know that comes when you have a trusting relationship of course, but, you know, everything Malo said was spot on. What am I glad Mr. Forbes sorry. No, I think for me one of the most successful operations, similar to what you're talking about was at GSAP. Several years ago it was called the urban technical assistance project. And it was run by an urban planning professor named Lionel McIntyre. And what he did is he worked at it in different different ways. It was a studio that educated students. And it was also like a consulting operation where they were also the employees doing work, and he did urban design projects, urban planning projects in the community. I actually, he held he worked with me on one of the more successful projects in Harlem when I was a city planner, the Freda Dougs Boulevard initiative, and he probably worked on several others in that community. And he was somebody who had worked in the Harlem community was well known, was a professor at GSAP students were actually recruited from an HBCU in Diller. And there was a three two program they did three, three years at Diller to at Columbia they graduated with a BA and a master's degree in urban planning. And, and I think that they, you know, they brought real value to that relationship, you know, so I so I think that that's that's a model that I think people could actually look at. And, you know, that that that combined the studio with the actual consultant operation with the Academy and actual doing work in the community. So, so tied to that and I think, you know, in the last nine minutes that we have we really want to focus on the role of the university, right we know there are many different functions of the university but one of the functions we have is squarely that says, do you think that Columbia's role in this is mainly to conduct research in order to know whose resources should in order to know where resources should be directed. Are there ways for students to get more involved in the work that direct that offers direct aid and resources to surrounding communities. How do students overcome issues of trust that these communities have with their institution when they're are only in school for a few years. Thank you all for your thoughts and presentations. So the question that this, the question that we've got is very much about the role of the student and also about the role of resources within the university and the role of the university so can you to talk about that I think it's an excellent question. Yeah, I think that the students. You know, like I was talking about with the utap operation the students were heavily involved in doing work in the community while at the same time getting their education. A lot of times, I'm not so sure you want to as Miss King said, you know, to be a sandbox for experimentation and research. I think that we have to be careful about saying that we're doing this and we're collecting data. A lot of times, say for example with the small business where the technical assistance we do. It's about helping someone. You know, it's not about what we're exploring this so we can come up with a better way in terms of doing this, you know, or, you know, even with regards to the work the criminal justice change work. You know, I think it's about helping people. It's not about saying well this process came together to help someone. So therefore I'm going to go write it do some research and write a book about it. You know, and come up with this manual, you know, so I think that a lot of times that I mean even somebody who's I mean I've done research and I've published I think it has its place. But I think that when you're working with a community that's suspicious of you. And you haven't treated them fairly in the past, even though it wasn't you but it was the institution. You need to be cognizant of what it is you're doing. You know, are you working to really help people, or are they just a sandbox for experimentation. Yeah, I think that it's spot on and something that's very much weighs on me to a room to grow because we are equal partnerships in this research what are we going to do with our findings. Right, are we really committed to not only modifying our program model but taking it to, you know, the capital really fighting for policy change right and you know that is our hope. But you know that's a big commitment right and like I said going back to our capacity are we really capable of that and that's where I think we will be leaning on our partners at Columbia to help us really see this through and making sure that the research wasn't done in vain wasn't just for a manuscript and some publications that it is really about coming back to the community. And you know I love this question around students to because you know you're here on this panel and you're questioning, you know, what can you do to really get involved but could you be causing more harm yourself, which is really self reflective. My suggestion is, you know, find a community organization in New York if you're at Columbia that you know that really speaks to who you are, what your interests are and get involved genuinely just as a human being right and this is kind of the same I tell many youths, but you know if you find something that's authentic and genuine, that organization is going to accept you as part of the family and then naturally, you can get more involved, whether it's joining, you know, a junior board or a board getting involved in some evaluation work like I said we're running lean we're really looking for, you know, supporters and volunteers who really are invested in our work and moving us forward.  Like I said and I know that obviously the students that we have in our program are absolutely fantastic across all of GSAP in our thinking about these broader issues that we're all dealing with and so I'm sure that your words today have been so helpful and then thinking about how they move forward. And don't be shy and letting us know if there are opportunities as you just laid out to certainly to volunteer or Mr. Forbes get involved with your work, because I'm sure many of the students that are participating today would would love to get involved, as well as the alumni I mean one of the things that we would like to do is really break down these barriers that I talked about earlier and to be bi directional in terms of us learning as faculty students and staff from community, bringing community members to Columbia to be a part of that co production of knowledge that takes place, as well as us being able to go and be invited as and welcomed into communities that hopefully we are already a part of right and so I do appreciate that. We only have a few more minutes but I just wanted to know given this, you know your reflections on this point of time that we're in. Certainly, all of us have highlighted kind of the time that we're living in, and there's an opportunity to do something different in your own work thinking about this conversation is there any things that you are hopeful for that you want to just some reflections that you might have as we go forward. I'm just encouraged that you know Columbia is having these conversations right and it's not just in this forum, but recently with Columbia World Projects and our researchers, you know starting to really go for it. And I think that that is promising. And I think for me I'm just looking forward to doing more with our communities. How could we get them involved in these in these projects and the research. Thank you very much Mr forms. Yeah, you know, I'm encouraged, you know, I know that to many people Columbia has a bad reputation. But of not what caring for the community of being the 800 pound gorilla. You know I use that better symbol instead of the elephant, because the gorillas actually swinging around and moving from place to place. You know, but like I said I'm more encouraged because I know Columbia as an international focus. And when I started hearing academics say what about three blocks away. You know, I was really more encouraged there so I think that you know because of what we're doing with regards to the surrounding communities. The conversations that we're having internally about how can we do better. And, and knowing that we can, you know, I think that that's very encouraging. Well, I have to say thank you both for such an engaging and thoughtful conversation. I know it's not always an easy one and you two are both very busy people so on behalf of Dean Andrews and the student body and then my colleagues at Columbia within G SAP and more broadly. I want to thank you for participating today and I would say that, you know, I like that. I like the words that you've offered in terms of what may happen next and you know as we think about the role of the university in the 21st century there's a lot more that we can do really die tying into what Bollinger has laid out around the fourth purpose of really thinking about ethics and partnership and collaboration and how do we do this. In a more thoughtful and effective way where our work doesn't just sit in a journal or you know we're in our silos but actually leveraging all of our alumni. All of the resources that the university brings to the table of our students all our staff all of our friends from around the world to really try to bring about the kind of change that we all want to see. So on behalf of G SAP and Columbia University I want to thank you all for participating. I'm sorry you can get to all the questions but we look forward to having more conversations like that in the near future. Thank you very much.


The career intermission pilot program gives sailors the opportunity to take a break from naval service and later return to active duty to complete their career. The program manager talked about these benefits. The Navy is offering this program so we can compete for the talent that's out there. I mean there is a war for talent between the Navy, the other services industry, and a sabbatical is a proven option that is offered in the industrial world for retaining talent to allow people to take time off to raise a child, complete schooling, any kind of life goal that they might not be able to otherwise complete while full-time work. And this is one option that allows us to retain sailors we would otherwise lose. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Jonathan Pancall.


I have this little table next to my doorway with all my crystals and things on it, and not only does it really desperately need to be cleaned off and decluttered, but I want to paint it. So we're going to do that today. I'm going to speed through the process and we'll be right back. This is my little table all finished.   And this little table was going to be one of them. And I rescued it then for our daughter's bedroom and painted it that patina copper color. And then when she got old enough where it wasn't cool anymore, it came into mom's art room and it was in here for a long time. I love the shape. There's something about the shape of it. I love it. The one drawer, which is where I store all my clips and S hooks and weights and things like that to weigh papers and things down. So I love this little table, but the dark color was just kind of dark and gloomy for me anymore and I wanted it to be lighter and brighter. So I did this distressed sort of finish with the deco art chalky finished paints and I love the way it turned out. I am going to probably do other pieces of furniture like this. I rearranged everything that was on or under the table. I realized as part of this process, I have way too many business cards, just FYR. I'm going to use some of them up, give them out or something. Start putting them in happy mail. I also washed and dusted off all of my crystals and candles and things that are on the table and I love it. So I hope this gives you some ideas of what you can do if you've got an old piece of furniture that you just love, but the color of finish on it is just not working for you anymore. This was super easy to do. I didn't have to sand anything. I finished it with a layer of the deco art Americana cream wax and it has this sort of matte finish on it, which I love, but it's protected from the wax. It's just fabulous. So give it a try. See what you think and that's it for today. I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do. Don't forget to go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later.


Test your English, Quiz 5. How good are your English skills? This test checks your listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary. All you have to do is fill in the blanks with the best answers. Ready to begin? Get out a piece of paper and number it from 1 to 20. In a moment you will hear a passage written in English. Then you will see the text of that passage. It has been divided up into sentences. Every seventh word has been deleted from the text. Your task is to fill in the blanks with the missing words, only one word per blank. Good luck. Listen as I read the passage. Hurricane Ian, Death Toll, Topps 40 The death toll from Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, soared above 40 Saturday, as President Joe Biden heads to Florida later in the week to survey the devastation. Shocked Florida communities were only just beginning to face the full scale of the destruction, with rescuers still searching for survivors in submerged neighborhoods and along the state's southwest coast. Homes, restaurants, and businesses were ripped apart when Ian roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday. The confirmed number of storm-related deaths rose to 44 statewide. The Florida Medical Examiner's Commission said late Saturday, but reports of additional fatalities were still emerging, counting by counting. In a hit lead county, a loan recorded 35 deaths, according to its sheriff, while U.S. media, including NBC and CBS, tallied more than 70 deaths either directly or indirectly related to the storm. Write your answers on your paper. First five blanks, you have 25 seconds. Next four blanks, 20 seconds. Next three blanks, 15 seconds. Next four blanks, 20 seconds. Last four blanks, 20 seconds. Here is the whole passage. You have one minute to review and revise your answers. Here are the answers. One, one, a perfect answer is two points. Two, two, perfect answer, two points. Three, above, perfect two points, acceptable, one point. Two, around, over, beyond. Four, two, perfect two points, acceptable, one point, toward. Five, survey, perfect two points, acceptable, one point. See, view, check, witness, observe, inspect. Next four blanks, six, only. Perfect two points, scale. Perfect two points, acceptable, one point, effect or effects, extent, scope. Eight, searching, perfect two points, acceptable, one point, looking. Nine, along, perfect two points, acceptable, one point, near, on, around. Ten, and perfect two points. Eleven, roared, perfect two points, acceptable, one point. Came, crashed, went, rushed, surged. Twelve, hurricane, perfect two points, acceptable, one point, storm. Thirteen, storm, perfect two points, acceptable, hurricane, one point. Fourteen, the perfect two points. Fifteen, Saturday, perfect two points, acceptable, today, yesterday, Sunday. Sixteen, still, perfect two points, acceptable, one point, just, yet. Seventeen, county, perfect two points. Eighteen, it's, perfect two points, acceptable, the, one. Nineteen, and perfect two points. Twenty, either, perfect two points, acceptable, that, which. Here's the complete passage. Hurricane Ian, death toll, tops 40. The death toll from Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, soared above 40 Saturday, as President Joe Biden heads to Florida later in the week to survey the devastation. Shocked, Florida communities were only just beginning to face the full scale of the destruction, with rescuers still searching for survivors in submerged neighborhoods and along the state's southwest coast. Homes, restaurants and businesses were ripped apart when Ian roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday. The confirmed number of storm-related deaths rose to 44 statewide. The Florida Medical Examiners Commission said late Saturday, but reports of additional fatalities were still emerging county by counting. Hard-hit Lee County alone recorded 35 deaths, according to its sheriff, while U.S. media, including NBC and CBS, tallied more than 70 deaths, either directly or indirectly related to the storm. The source of this passage is Voice of America. This is just an excerpt. How did you do on the test? Here are what your score results mean. 40, perfect. Wow, that's nearly impossible. 36 to 39, excellent. Great, your top notch. 28 to 35, very good. Your English skills are quite high. 20 to 27, good. Not bad, keep trying to improve. Hope that was helpful. If you liked this, please give us a thumbs up in the comments section below. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our channel. Thanks for watching. If you have ideas for our next video, please let us know at the link below. And please check out our websites for more information.