ere like literally bulging in because there's that much gap I don't know they're just held together by bits of stuff that my husband is trying to put in the gaps to secure it for as long as possible it's just an absolute living nightmare the house was that cold that night of the storm it's cold normally but it was worse because of the winds and coming in through all the gaps people like ourselves head into bed with blankets there's no heating just one word it's horrific my heart goes out especially to the pensioners my mum and dad is one of them and I'm talking for everyone when I mean this they are living in a defective concrete block home also they're in their 70s and their houses they literally shouldn't be in it at this time they've nowhere to go because everyone in our family has the defective concrete blocks it's just a terrible problem it's a terrible problem but it's horrible Sharon I was watching a video on tiktok as it turned out to me and it was a fella talking about air getting in through air vents and getting down into your cavities and I was looking and I was thinking my word if that's all you had to worry about during the storm no disrespect for him but I mean you can't hit your house people's mental health is, I would say, not even deteriorated, it wouldn't even be a word you could use. And then with the storms and their fears heightened, you know, they're living an absolute, every one of us are living an absolute fear with the, you know, the possibility of the house coming down the top of us. And as I say, with the storms, it's worse. I just don't know now we're given another storm supposedly coming tonight. I don't know if we can stand another storm with all the battery. And I just don't know where it's going to end. I just hope that house doesn't come down on top of someone. But you see, the thing is, the thing is, Sharon, it's, you know, we've been talking about this for a long time. It's pure luck that someone hasn't been severely injured by a falling house or a falling element of a house. It's only luck. It's inevitable that it's going to happen.  Yeah, as I say, it's heightened with the storms. And it's definitely only a matter of time before something comes down. Because, for example, even to close a door in our house, like if you close it out and you have to actually slam the back door now, because it doesn't close, right? You can actually feel the house vibrate and Karen, we're looking at these, these cracks in the video that you posted. Can you? I know you talked about it a little earlier on. Can you talk about that? That's effectively the house parting, isn't it? Yeah, that's upstairs in our house is a no go area. It has been out for a long time. The children, we moved them downstairs. They're in the sitting room downstairs. You couldn't even sleep in that room because the gap is you literally could slide your hand into the gap because the roof has raised. It's pulling. The house has just been pulled in every direction. And there's there's no way I don't even know how the house is still standing. And I'm speaking for a lot of people around this area and never mind further on. I don't know how. And again, people too also that have paid money and bought holiday homes and they can't even know they had to do the outside skins for the fear of the house coming down. And it's just it's just unbelievable. And, you know, I keep saying this, anybody that doesn't believe how bad these houses are would need to come down stay night and, you know, I don't think they would. I'd say, you know, with the bison floors and with a roof, I don't think they would. I think they'd have a look and go, look, I get it now. I'm out of here, but you don't have that luxury to get out of there and inverted commas. Is the scheme anything to you? Is it accessible to you at all? Or are you waiting to see if it's enhanced or improved or as somebody actually 100% or maybe you're in the process? I don't know, Sharon. Well, we're we're sorry. Go ahead. No, no, that's a question. Yeah, we're we're in, like we are in this game, we're just waiting to see as it becomes an enhanced game. But the problem is you see what's the what's the scheme is you need to have money upfront to be able to start because, you know, if you get contractors in and you start off, you have to pay them. I just don't know what way it works. You know, obviously, whenever they start work, you have to send in invoices and stuff. And I just we just don't know yet. But you still need money upfront. And a lot of people having to go and try and get a mortgage again, or a loan, especially for older generation, they it's going to be impossible for them to get a loan to start off even if you're a family, a family in your 40s or something, like, not all of us have access to the type of credit that we're talking about here. There's an awful lot of people that don't have the income to get an additional loan on top of a mortgage or what have you. I mean, that is just a fact. And then why should you? Are you going to get it recouped? Is everything going to be covered, Sharon? Listen, thanks for helping us understand the reality of what you and others are living. Just one question. If you were able to make it work, I think you referenced this a little earlier on, to get out of that house, is there anything locally that's rentable or affordable, like in terms of those options outside of family and friends who have their own defective issues to deal with? See, the problem is, and again, in our area alone, there's very little houses for rent because majority majority of them have the defective concrete block. I mean, nearly every second house in our area has it. So the rental is just so hard to get. I don't know how any family, you know what I mean, a lot of families are going to have nowhere to go, and that's a problem. And again, I'm talking for like, even for my mum and dad and their 70s, where do they go? They don't want to leave there.  Yeah, okay. Listen, Sharon, thanks for helping us to keep highlighting this. I really appreciate it with everything you've gone through. Okay, and hopefully tonight just doesn't isn't as bad. But even as the storm might happen, something might not be falling falling down, but the water is getting in there deeper, and more damage is being caused. And we've seen people can tell from one winter to the next how their house is worsening. So we wish you hope you're safe, as safe as can be. And hopefully we get some more calm or weather. It's crazy. It's crazy. Thank you so much for helping us speak about that. Kate. Hello there, Kate, you're in the malinary. How are you keeping? All right, thank you for letting me come on. No, it's really important that we are your platform to be able to do this. Talk to me about your situation. Well, basically the same as Sharon there, our house is our house has fallen down, it's been condemned. We on Sunday, the same, put the children to bed, eight o'clock. My little girl, who's nine, has already severe anxiety over the house falling down, because visibly, she can see it, you know, when she's outside, there's not just the cornerstones missing from our house, but the whole block, there's block bits of blockwork actually missing and it falls down and then my husband would patch it back up again. So she can visibly see that it's actually crumbling. Her nightmares that she has is of a chimney coming down into her two sisters room. And she has had a nightmare that she has to be digging through the rubble to get them out. That's her real core nightmare that she has on her fear. Now, on Sunday, we put them to bed, so it was around eight o'clock and at that time, it was bad, but it wasn't, you know, it was okay. And we were thinking, yes, it might not be as bad as what they're actually going to say. But then on by 10 o'clock, half 10, she was up, she was hysterical. The noise of the whole, the corner, the whole corner of the house, Greg, like a big, huge chunk of blockwork fell out to where her bedroom is. So she heard the smash when she was like in her room. So she's up, she was hysterical. She had her wee bags packed. She was leaving. She wanted to go down to Granny and Granddad's.   I'm living at home with them in it. And so half 10, we had two cars packed every two minutes, kids, the dog, everything. Then we had to make the drive from Malin to Karen, which was absolutely horrendous with trees and bits of things driving on across the road.  Is that just to make sure that the listeners fully get this? So we've got a family, Kate and our family in a house that is so structurally unsound. And people are so afraid that the better of the two options is to load a car and travellers, you recognise yourself in a wet weather warning. That's how bad it is, is that you've had to make that decision that right, what is the lesser of two eagles here? Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's it. And, and 11 o'clock at night. And it was, and then I was thinking, why did we do this? We would have been, but when we got out to, when we, me and my husband were actually packing the car, there was bits of debris blowing, I had to move my car away to the other side of the house completely. Then we also had to knock on to our neighbour's door and tell him that look, if that house falls in the middle of the night, we are not in it. So don't, you know, like it's because the whole side of the noise that comes in, it's horrendous actually. You'd need to be here in a micro house living in it.  It's horrendous. Just to reiterate, it's 2024 here. We've had a scheme out for years and then this new enhanced listen, it's 100% scheme. That's what we were told 2024. And we've got a family here in UK with your kids and in this house that has been condemned. The house has been condemned and you're fleeing the house for fear of it collapsing down on your children. This is 2024 here. Let's not forget. And in terms of going back, go ahead, Kate. Sorry, coming back yesterday, my children, then it was like two o'clock in the morning before they settled into bed, especially my little, my youngest one. And she felt safe in her granny's house. And we were lucky to have that option to go there. But coming back up the drive yesterday, I was actually dreaded to what I was coming up to see as our home. And I looked on the back of the car and she had her fingers in her ears thinking and she goes, is it okay? And I had to leave them and walk around the house to see if I could take them back into the house. And I don't know the impact that that storm has had on our house, whether it's going to be standing, whether the whole side of it's going to be gone. But we cannot afford to stay in the house because it's just so dangerous. It's, it's awful. Now, you we try and protect our children as best we can.  Keep them as safe and sound as you can. The problem when you live in a defective concrete block home is there's reminders everywhere. It's all around you. What can you say to five children going to bed? Can you say everything's going to be all right? The house is not you can't actually I mean, you can try your hardest, Kate, but you can't protect them emotionally for this devastation that's around them. When she went when they hear the con that the actual from the corn stores, most of my consoles have gone now. So it's actually the block that's actually falling down. So when they hear that thought they can hear it. So they can hear that and it was a huge big piece that's that's come out of the corner of the house. So she heard that. So it's not like they were saying it's going to be okay. So how do you tell your children also want to be okay. So it's your house blown around the street, but you know, we're safe in this house. So that's they know that's not so your house is condemned. You're stuck on the on the scheme. What about alternative accommodation? No, Greg, there is no way I feel so strongly that the government are not letting this scheme be accessible to people here and in the show. And because we have no plan to go there is no affordable accommodation here. We have been inundated with refugee families that have taken up a lots of accommodation, right? Now that makes it impossible for people like us to access the scheme. So we are stuck in a rut. We are stuck in our house. We cannot get out of our house. So we have got plan permission in now. We're at the stage where we have plan permission for our house. So but when that plan permission comes back to us, we have nowhere to go. We have nowhere. So we have to wait until we either build a shed next to our house, get a caravan or stay in the house because we there is no houses in our area. That's and say maybe I rang up about maybe two months ago to a local estate agent. And it was like something extors nearly a thousand pound a month to rent the house like and there is and and there is and this is where in this is where people with no issue with with refugees or asylum seekers. This is where the problems arise in terms of how it makes people feel. I'm just wondering there's no local accommodation because it's being used for these people, which again, I'm not pitching one group against another. That's but this is where the anger comes from because you're stuck with your kids and the house could come down on us and use of no alternative, no options and it feels like you've been abandoned by the government, does it? Yeah. Yes, the reality is why did our government send so many refugees to Donegal, especially to Inish own, right? Where we are already in a crisis up here because the reason they don't even accept that we are in a crisis in Donegal. So they have said all these people up here to us and we cannot we cannot access the scheme now because there is no accommodation for us. So people are waiting and waiting to get accommodation. There's families living in caravans. There's families living in sheds. It's absolutely disgraceful, Greg, that you know that this is actually happening. We are actually we're going to be homeless. People are going to effectively you are homeless if the truth be told. I mean you're squatting in a in a house that's not fit to be lived in. It is your own house. I hope you understand the language that I'm using. Yeah. You know, that is what you're actually doing. You're sticking it out in the house that your your engineer has condemned in terms of the scheme as much as you can determine now, Kate, if the if the walls wheel started moving, is it 100% for you and your family? No, it's not 100% no, no, no, not not at all. For us to rebuild like we have our house is like 2,700 square foot because we had eight children. We built our house in 2003. And we built the house for our family. It's not like we built an extortionate house just to have a to not defend the size of your house. It's worked very hard to build your house and it's you know, there are advantages to living here that sometimes the house can be a little bit bigger. We don't need to but I get where you're coming from but and I understand why you why you might really have to explain that but you don't. It's your house and you've worked really really hard for it and it's falling down through no fault of your own. So whatever the house is, it should be returned as as is. But go on Kate. So we still have like I said we still have five of our children at home. So we still need like the same size house would be we still need it. We still need our the amount of living space that we have. So for us now the big question was you have to downsize downsize downsize downsize everybody's downsize and you know and like some people can't afford to downsize like you know if you have so many children at home and you need your living space you like I said we built our house in 2003 with that in mind that we had a bigger family and you know for us now we don't know what we don't know what's ahead of us. We've put our plan permission in for the same size house we have and we'll just have to see like our architect and everything they're saying you know that with this current scheme you're going to be out it's not going to cover your but also let's let's not forget that there was there was some cause whether it would suit you or not Kate for penalty free downsizing that you could use the maximum grant available and build a house that's somewhat smaller and that was rejected. They they they says no so you know your only option really if you want to get the maximum grant is to rebuild the house houses. Kate I'm sorry with everything that you said going through I hope you get through tonight okay I hope. Yeah I'm sorry Greg just before you go. No it's all right go ahead. As well as that right not just about the storm but health impact on my children living in this house with mold. I'm there are nebulizers constant steroids constant antibiotics okay time off school this is a bigger picture than just like you know flat fleeing from a storm or whatever this is that whole impact on our we are living in terrible conditions here that and to make it worse we're paying for living these conditions you know and this this nobody realizes only people that actually live that what the impact is happening on children's health the amount of times they're off school you know because they're on steroids antibiotics and and nebulizers and diagnosed with asthma and top of everything else all because of off living conditions. Sorry okay so listen thanks for your time thanks for helping us okay thank you and that's a really I really wanted someone to explain as difficult as is the health impact on our children living in these houses. I want a study or something done so that they get the same coverage as the awful plight of those families in Dublin this is as you quite rightly said the untold story thanks so much Kate and I wish you nothing and nothing but what what can you wish someone in that situation that it's resolved. Watch the show live now on YouTube Facebook and at highlandradio.com The 9th old news show is brought to you by letter Kenny credit union offering low-rate car loans with fast approval apply online at letterkennycu.ie or in office today is that the new opal yes of course does it really look that good yes of course is it fun to drive yes of course is it packed with smart tech yes of course can i test drive it right now at manner motors opal yes of course the new opal corsa now available hybrid and electric coming soon see manner motors.ie for details we often make new year's resolutions involving healthy eating only to then break them well at kelly centra they've put together some easy healthy eating tips by keeping an eye on your saturated fat intake it's often tough to cook up a convenient meal that takes all the health boxes so why not check out kelly's range of ready meals many low in saturated fats and high in flavor healthy eating tips from kelly centra mountaintop letter Kenny imagine broadband's january sale is here grab our hero high-speed broadband package for just 49.99 per month act fast sign up before january 31st to enjoy a massive 180 euro in savings head to imagine.ie or free phone us on 1800 938 407 to upgrade to faster broadband faster subject to location and availability minimum 18 month contract activation fees and annual price increase of cpi plus 3 percent applies see imagine.ie for full terms and conditions. sailor bill returns to the baller theater on saturday the third of february a night of music and crack with special guest chelsea evans tickets are 15 euro are available on the baller website at ballerartcenter.com or by calling to the baller theater front desk. Hamilton is coming to the board gosh energy theater on monday 21st of october 2024 this hugely popular musical is almost sold out but here at highland radio we've got you covered we include luxury transfers overnight stay at the four-star city north hotel Dublin your ticket to the show and a shopping trip to Dublin the next day to book simply call us on zero seven four nine one twenty five thousand or visit the outlet at highland radio.com okay for some people the storm has taken everything with another on the way kira from lk hair design john says kira how are you getting on? hello greg how you doing thanks for calling oh no it's important and sorry for holding you there i do appreciate your patience there your business i mean obviously you've got a really loyal clientele who will be sharing the heartache for you your business effectively wiped out the premises sorry i mean i don't want premises yeah no not yeah and i suppose before we go on you know after listening to that lady and stuff and you know after everything digested and over the last 24 hours and stuff you know i am very grateful that it is the business it wasn't the house um and no one was hurt you know so that's i have to be very grateful for that and i'm very conscious of everything that happened in Newton yesterday as well so and but i have two businesses and to be honest they are like my third my fourth and past babies really you know i do i love my businesses so and no lk hair design so third lockdown and my lease was up in the premises in nether kenney and i decided to change it up and i put a log cabin at the house so didn't just pick out any random log cabin research that you know made sure that everything was proper and it's not just a e-flimsy thing but so great job everybody loved it and sunday night then unfortunately just whatever way stormy she was blowing she just got right and under and just lifted the roof clean i mean there is nothing left but the four the four walls there well no and yeah and fairness now the video that i put up was after my husband had managed to you know salvage something so yeah and he was actually working on night shift so it was just myself and my youngest daughter she's 16 and i'll tell you she was a we trooper she was just brilliant and so we were sitting in and and fairness now we were kind of waiting for the red but thinking to ourselves this feels like a red before it was supposed to be the red and i joked at one stage and i said i'm afraid to look out in case macabre's gone just joking and then when i did eventually look out then it was just oh my god yeah and but my husband was on he works shifts so he was actually on nights and again by pure luck and chance i managed to get hold of him before the power went out and before our phone lines went down because they were out for i'd say over 24 hours then it was last night before we got in i mean obviously kira yet you know your your you talked about the hairdresser's being the premises being like one of your children but also your clients to the loyalty that's there and what have you do you have another premises that you're able to accommodate them or was this the only area that you were you were that was the hair salon well that that is the hair salon yeah so now in fairness i have a lot of lovely hairdressing friends that have reached out to offer me chairs in their salon and other people that are offering me you know units and stuff that they have in storage and that's what i'm so grateful for that but as i say even yesterday my head was just um it just i couldn't even go there yesterday it was just a matter of trying to work through the stuff that we managed to get out of the salon and then you know just i suppose get my head around the whole thing and but it was so scary it's just you know as i was saying yesterday to my husband like you watch the the tv and you see these storms in america in different places and he actually can't you have no idea you can't appreciate what they actually go through you know we sit there and go oh god that's terrible until it visits your when i was out trying to salvage yeah when i was outside trying to salvage something like he it actually took your breath away i couldn't even breathe it was just the force of it i've never experienced anything like it my life and unfortunately i mean obviously you had your public liability insurance all that kind of stuff but long cabins uh by their nature are hard to get insured so you have to sort of rebuild this back yourself uh it just in a minute kira what's the plan or any message for your clients i know you've got your social media and you've reached out all to them but uh yeah what's the situation for you going forward now kira yeah well i will be in touch with everybody individually i just kind of put out a general message but it will be in touch with everybody individually but hopefully um between all the offers and everything i will get everybody sorted at the minute i'm only working fridays and saturdays anyway because i was actually in an accident uh a year and a half ago so my hand is still not 100 so i've only been able to work friday saturday so in a way that's lucky enough too that i have time now to get organized but like as far as the cabin goes i don't think it's repairable um but locket it's as i say it's only a piece of equipment and and you're so kind in thinking of what other people have been going through in the stories we've heard but this is also your thing as well and it's all very subjective and we appreciate your kind words for others but it's a a really big deal for you too and a big last kira listen thanks very much for joining us and i'm sure you'll get back up fully functioning really really soon that's kira from lk hair design we'll be back after the break with a chat with minister simon harris the nine till noon show with letter kenny credit union simplify your debts with a debt consolidation loan from letter kenny credit union call us on zero seven four nine one zero two one two six or apply online via our app or in office today if life's moving too fast why not soothe tired muscles in the lava sauna enjoy some bubble therapy in the hot springs garden purify body and mind in the salt steam room swim by starlight in the outdoor pool surround yourself with a nature and reach peak relaxation in the forest garden aquasana longford forest indulge yourself with a spa day or spa break at our award-winning destination spa visit aquasana dot i i motors are your main nissan dealership in the northwest a trusted japanese brand for generations contact i motors to find out why people who make the move to nissan never change to check out our two phone offers visit i motors dot i are you building rebuilding or renovating what heat pumps or solar panels would suit your build come along and speak to the experts efficient renewables on heat pumps and solar panels get advice on installation and grants available efficient renewables will be at the home build rebuild event at the mojerical hotel letter kenny from the second to the fifth of february see you there the lotto jackpot is an estimated 14.2 million euro play responsibly in store in our breath lovely dot i the national lottery it could be you do you work in the water utility sector syftec are running e us or electro fusion welding on the 24th and 25th of january and but fusion welding on the 26th of january certification is accepted by irish water and all programs are part funded contact syftec today at syftec dot ie or call syftec on zero seven four nine one two double seven eight six highland radio weather updates brought to you by grant building a new home choose grants a triple plus rated air owner air to water heat pump and you flex underfloor heating visit grant dot ie so minister side with our minister of further and higher education research innovation and science talks about the significance of this announcement or these announcements i should say for kelly begs and the atu and letter kenny yeah i was delighted to be in kelly begs and letter kenny yesterday for a series of announcements and maybe first in relation to kelly begs i went there to to announce two things firstly that that campus will now provide for electrical apprentices from next september this is something that has been long sought after is much needed in the area but crucially it will also bring a hundred and ninety apprentices into the kelly begs campus so in terms of footfall in the campus and in terms of footfall around the town it's going to be a very very significant increase it will provide opportunities for local employers to be able to access the premises and also for local people to be able to take up an apprenticeship without having to travel the second announcement we made is in relation to kelly begs and other smaller regional campuses we announced a fund yesterday of four and a half million euro to support universities who have multi campuses because the cost of running them can be more expensive for you still have to provide the library and the student services smaller classes and with that comes cost so of the four and a half million two point six million of that will go to the atlantic technological university and they will obviously decide the proportions for kelly begs will definitely benefit from that so that was that was the kelly begs element of the trip and just focusing on that sorry if you don't mind but just focusing on that it is not that long ago people might remember that there were question marks over the future of of that campus like we have to go back some time but this clearly obviously is a commitment to its future we look very much so and I was very conscious in visiting yesterday of exactly what you say because I remember when we established the atlantic technological university I think it's fair to say there was great excitement in the region but there was also a little bit of nervousness as to what would this mean for some of the traditionally smaller campuses I give a commitment then that they would have a bright future and I need to deliver on that and the apprenticeships is a big part of it and to be very honest Greg from my visit yesterday I get the sense to kelly begs campuses only warming up here I mean they have a very proud record when it comes to culinary courses now they'll have electrical apprenticeship and yesterday they were already making presentations to me about what next they want to do in plumbing and pipe fitting and I'm sure you and your listeners know they've also received funding to develop an ocean innovation center which they hope to submit planning permission for in the next couple of months because it's very obvious to everybody in Donegal it's very obvious to me when I visit the whole marine industry there and the potential for skills and courses to support local business is huge so it's very much of the bright future I want to I want to spend some more some more of our taxpayers money on finishing the building they've done an incredible refurbishment job of what has what is quite an old building but very modern now but there's a little bit more they want to do on the top floor and I'm looking forward to getting an application from them for that as well you know and of course we need more houses we need skilled labor we need labor to build those houses and we need different skill sets I mean the last couple of days have has proven that we need people that can do different things such as keep power coming to homes and that type of thing it's I think it's most welcome and most people listening would agree that we're talking about you know not just the IT sector and people going into education in that direction but also have an opportunities to grow what they're good at in different sort of skill sets yeah I couldn't agree more I mean we have a huge shortage of people working in what what are traditionally known as the trades and the crafts and we fix us we need more people to build our homes retrofit our homes as you rightly say the storm and I know that any goal is badly hit one to everyone they work so hard to restore power and the likes absolutely key and we support some of those traditional crafts and trades but it's also important that I as minister don't just look at the headline number like we saw more people registered as apprentices in Ireland last year than ever before a historic number and nearly 9 000 new apprentices however behind that number is another reality that sometimes people are having to travel too far to become an apprentice sometimes business to say well there aren't any apprenticeship courses in my community and that's why I'm really taken by the idea of looking to facilities that we have in places like Kilbex and others to see how can we actually put apprenticeships in locally so that local people don't have to travel don't have to experience the cost of traveling and also so that local businesses can avail of that skill session and you had further announcements yesterday yeah I went on to letter Kenny then to the Atlantic Technological University campus there and I said three things happened there the first we opened the a new biomass heating center and now I don't know how good you are in the technical detail I certainly had to learn a lot but I was absolutely blown away by this this is an investment of about 1.9 million in a biomass center and what it basically means is they're using wood chip and to heat 80 percent of the main building of the campus it is an absolute leadership project when it comes to how we can make our university campus green they will reduce their carbon emissions by 24 percent I think a lot of times some people hear about climate change and climate action they kind of sometimes worry that politicians are lecturing them or it's all doom and gloom what we've actually seen in letter Kenny and huge huge huge credit to the ATU and all those involved what we've seen in letter Kenny is for relatively small investments from government they can now as I say heat 80 percent of the main building of their campus using renewable wood chips and cut cut their carbon emissions by 24 percent so it was an absolute honor to open that yesterday to talk to people who'd been involved in the in the project to talk to representatives of the chamber of commerce and we then had the signing of two two agreements one between Atlantic Technological University and Ulster University and you and I've talked about this before that I just think there's huge opportunity for collaboration in the northwest between Derry and Derry and letter Kenny and Derry and Donegal and we now obviously have the university in letter Kenny we have the university in McGee we the Irish government are investing 44 million in expanding the Derry campus and we want we want to just see I think as people in your region do we just want to see people working together in a practical way they signed an agreement yesterday and in my presence to put in place joint programs to develop maybe joined awards and also to put in place opportunities for students and staff to go and exchanges between the two universities a lot of been a lot of fairness has happened in this space already and I suppose yesterday they just formalized that agreement and then there was also an agreement signed with the HSE and one of the big challenges I have as minister is I want to keep on expanding the number of places in healthcare training more nurses more speech and language therapists occupational therapists paramedics all the things we need but for every for every college place I create we need to then obviously have a matching clinical placement within the health service so the agreement yesterday with the commitments from the HSE to work with at you on clinical placement pathways and also to develop that at you would develop new programs to help people who work in the health service up skill and re-skill in a way that works for them so the busy day but it is really really impressive all very positive in terms of development and I suppose that's the ice cream and we kind of have to get on to the veggies now in terms of you know we need accommodation with the success of the atu and letter kenyan indeed kitty begs and we need you know houses that people can live in to live and work hopefully in this region look we'd never begrudge anyone if they want to go and spend a year or two years in another country to grow themselves but we do need people to be able to see their long-term future here and I suppose at this point you have to look to your your minister's ministerial colleagues and they have to to really fast track the delivery of that type of stuff but firstly just in relation to student accommodation in and around letter kenyan what is the situation there in terms of the the atu being able to provide its own accommodation borrow money to do so or what other plans are there yeah thank you for reminding me that because I met the student union in letter kenyan this yesterday as well I got a government agreement last Tuesday and that we would finally allow the technological university submit plans to build student accommodation in the region and people may have seen last week we we press go on a number of major student accommodation buildings but truthfully they were all in Dublin or Caudaire and that's not because we're favouring Dublin and Caudaire it's because they had planning permission and were ready to go I'll be writing to all the technological universities this month including atu and asking them to submit their proposals for student accommodation to my department by the end of March and I want the technological universities to now submit plans tell us what you can do tell us what you can do in letter kenyan in terms of atu tell us what you can do in slago and castle bar and gallway as well and I know they have plans and ideas and that's the base so I spoke to students union in denigal yesterday on this spoke to the management of atu and I really look forward to receiving those plans and I now have a government decision as of last week and that we will then look to provide funding and mechanisms to deliver these projects it is key I do agree it is key to their success because yes I want and I met a lot of local people studying in atu yesterday which is great you know local people able to access university in the region but I also met people from all over the country I remember talking to one young student yesterday from cork you know I don't want the atu just to be about denigal people studying in denigal of course I want that but I also wanted to be about other people from other parts of the country saying well you know that course up in denigal there is one of the best in the country I want to come to denigal to do that and that has a huge economic benefit for the region but it does require accommodation and last week was a very important step on that road okay minister minister of further and higher education research innovation and science minister Simon Harris thank you very much for your time this morning good morning Greg and that's where we have to leave it we'll be back with you tomorrow morning at nine stay tuned John Breslin's coming up around the northwest


I've got the top of the hour, so let us begin. Welcome everybody, welcome to the Future Trends Forum. I'm delighted to see you here today. We have a terrific guest on one of the great topics of our time and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Now today's topic is one of immense importance to us and also to me personally, it turns out. We've been studying, discussing, exploring the implications of COVID-19 since it came out of Wuhan. We've been exploring it in all kinds of dimensions, the impact of COVID on geopolitics, on pedagogy, on faculty, staff, and student mental and physical health and we've got a lot of back sessions on this. Now, for some, we may be entering a post-pandemic phase where the COVID-19 virus is simply endemic. It's a good question right now to the extent that that's true. But we do know that colleges and universities around the world have had quite an experience for nearly three years. Everything from helping develop vaccines, to doing community health, to closing, to moving online, to trying new calendars, all kinds of different changes. How can we put all this together? What have we learned and experienced from the pandemic that we can apply? What does it tell us about the future of higher education? Before I introduce our guest, let me just say the background behind me is unusual. It is a background of my bedroom, which I have not left for a week because in some weird form of method acting, I came down with COVID on Saturday. So I am enjoying the delicious irony of having COVID while leading a session on COVID. So hopefully I'll be fine today. If any of you noticed me falling asleep or coughing or turning into a zombie, please let me know in the chat. Benjamin Renton, though, is someone who knows more than almost anybody on earth about COVID and what it means for higher education. When it started, he was an undergrad at Middlebury College in Vermont. And Benji did an incredible amount of research, cobbling together all kinds of data streams to a wide range of source, rapidly scaling up on public health measures that his tweeting and then his newsletter, which you can see linked from the bottom left and the right of the screen, became incredibly valuable resources. His even-headed responses, his equanimity and response to a great deal of chaos and dynamics just was just remarkable. He graduated from Middlebury, got a job working in public higher ed and is still an incredible analyst in this field. So without any further ado, with a great deal of pride in the liberal arts tradition, let me bring Benji Renton up on stage. Hello, sir. Hi, Benji. Oh, it's really good to see you. Thank you for coming. You as well. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you also for having the bit of subtle Vermont propaganda behind your head. So we can all see. Thank you. Benji, the way we introduce people on this program is we ask, what are you working on for the next year? So I'm curious, what's on tech for you?  Yeah, I think my focus for the next year is twofold. I think number one, a lot of the research that I've been doing in recent weeks, in recent months has been focusing on how to document previous waves of the pandemic and similar to the discussion that we're going to have today, discussing some of the lessons that we have learned. A lot of the research that I've been focusing on is on mortality, disparities in mortality along racial and ethnic lines, as well as states and regions of the U.S. So a fair amount of work on that. And I think there's still a lot more to learn when it comes to learning from the previous waves. And that leads to my next sort of year in the future waves. One of the projects that I've been working on works on hospital capacity and looks at cases and other infected metrics in the community to determine when hospitals could face issues of capacity. For example, in the Oma Crime Act last year, when people were in hospital beds, is there a way to sort of have an early warning system in place for hospitals and for communities? And so that's sort of the two areas that I've been focusing on most recently. And I think what will certainly take up a lot of time in the months to come. Oh, excellent, excellent. That sounds like very, both extremely important work looking ahead, but also building really well on what's been going on for the past three years. Thank you. Friends, if you're new to the forum, I'm gonna ask our guest a few questions just to start him spilling the beans on what he knows and what he's been thinking. But then I wanna yield a floor to you all. I wanna make sure that you have the opportunity to ask your questions and put forth your ideas. So as we go, start thinking of the questions you'd like to ask. I guess on a positive note, what are some of the great achievements that higher education can point to? What are some of the strengths that COVID revealed that we should know about and embrace going forward to higher ed? Yeah, I think I approached this question first as a higher ed and sort of a, I was experienced the higher ed, you know, COVID transition, I was an undergrad, as you've mentioned, at Middlebury during my junior year, I was actually studying abroad in China for the first part of 2020, left China in the end of January of 2020 and returned to the U.S. In February, completed about four to five weeks of education at Middlebury on campus in 2020 and then returned home to New York, you know, when most colleges dismissed on campus at the time. And I think for me that the first thing that comes to mind about what is higher ed in the positive space of what is higher ed learned from COVID is the ability to sort of have more flexible course modules. I think both in terms of timing, we obviously, we talked in previous editions of the forum about high flex and other methods of teaching, virtual, but for me, I think one of the sort of best examples of that was I took a class in Chinese, I was an East Asian studies major and my Chinese class in the fall of 2020 was actually taught remotely by a faculty member from our school in China. And so obviously, you know, that fall, most study abroad programs are suspended, we couldn't go to China. So instead it really lended itself to having the professor from China use his skills and his expertise and teach us remotely, which I thought was really cool and a really innovative mode of teaching that we had really never done before. Because I think obviously students were abroad using the faculty there in China, but it was really interesting to have that experience of being taught not only by someone who was in the country, but the class focused on Chinese social issues and it was really interesting to have that experience virtually. I think the second thing that comes to mind, especially when it comes to student life, the outdoors has been certainly used as a lower risk space for student activities, student events. And I think we really, you know, a lot of students in the higher ed space spent a lot of time outdoors, you know, in the past couple of years, I think more than students have really done before. And so I think using outdoor space and being creative in that way, we just were never really thinking about those issues. And I think the pandemic really prompted us to have discussions and reflect on those different, your ways of use education and space in that way. And that really counts in a campus like Middleburton, which has such a beautiful outdoor campus, but that can really apply around the world. Yeah, no, definitely. I think not only in the global footprint, but even smaller campuses in city spaces having tents, for example, or other different ways for students to have events and activities. I think all those were really important. What did you think of the changes in academic calendars that schools like Beloit did, where they tried to take a long semester and break it up into blocks so they'd be more flexible? Yeah, I think when it comes to that, you know, Colorado College being one that media comes to mind is having a block like system before the pandemic. And then they divide their year into nine or so three week blocks, you take one course. I think breaking up, you know, the semester was really beneficial. I know particularly from my own experience at Middlebury, we had decided, you know, the administration had decided to run the entire fall semester without any breaks.  And just for a number of reasons, you know, COVID transmission risks, we didn't really have that break. And that was incredibly tough, I think, for a lot of students, you know, to go an entire fall without breaks. So I think being able to break up the semester, being able to have other different flexible ways of teaching and delivering courses, I think is a huge plus. And I hope that college is really consider implementing some of those changes, maybe on a longer term basis going forward. Well, those are some excellent strengths. And friends, I would love to, you know, anything else that you would like to add to that pile of triumphs would be great. Welcome, Vanessa, I'm glad you could join us. Well, what do we do wrong? Where do we fall down? What are the mistakes that we made that we need to really address for the next crisis? Yeah, I think, you know, when it comes to the pandemic as a whole, we've always heard about, you know, the science changing. And the science has been changing to an extent, but it's also our understanding of the science, you know, coming from the beginning, for example, recognizing that COVID is more likely to be spread as an airborne disease, for example, in the air and seeing that, you know, disinfecting surfaces or washing hands while maybe useful is not the primary method to prevent transmission. And I remember, you know, and in that vein, I think a lot of colleges really went into the fall 2020 semester, just not knowing a huge amount like all of us about how to keep students, faculty and staff and even members in the community safe from COVID infection and COVID illness. And so I think, you know, one of the things I remember on my campus in the fall, you know, people were wearing masks outside, which was our understanding really at the time and was the measures that we had at the time. And I think that's obviously changed in the last couple of years. I think obviously wearing a mask indoors is a great idea, particularly in areas of high transmission or under surges. But those different types of small adjustments, I think, you know, I wouldn't say necessarily we got it wrong at first, but certainly our understanding of that has changed. I think also there was a lot of talk initially in the fall 2020 semester about a concept called harm reduction, which is often used in discussions on HIV and other different viral illnesses that basically you're using multiple layers of preventative strategies to reduce risk broadly defined. And I think one of the primary ways to do that, which I think some colleges may not have done enough is pushing and motivating students to do things outside and to have events outside. And sometimes colleges may have been overly prescriptive in terms of restrictions, of gatherings outside. I think what we know and what we continue to understand is that having events outside to an extent, regardless of the amount of attendees or people on one basis is infinitely safer than having events inside. So, you know, some colleges had patrols or people or other different types of ways to limit sort of gathering broadly defined outside. And I think at least in my opinion, you know, we should be encouraging those outdoor events and outdoor activities because the alternative indoor events would be a much riskier endeavor. Obviously, this was all pre-vaccine. I think the vaccine has certainly changed the calculus of a lot of those different types of planning and methods like that. Well, how did we handle the vaccines, do you think? You know, different campuses, the record seems to be different campuses have had different policies, everything from mandates to requirements to requests to varying depending on which vaccine brand was used and which stage of vaccination was used. What do you think? Yeah, I think that the conversation around vaccine mandates has certainly been politicized in the past couple months and, you know, a year or so. Research from the Davidson Colleges College Crisis Initiative has sort of tracked a lot of those mandates and has found that political drivers have been a huge factor in whether a college has a vaccine mandate or not. And the discussion around vaccine mandates, I think has changed also because our understanding of the limits of these vaccines has changed. You know, these vaccines are incredible. They prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death incredibly well. But particularly in recent months with the Omicron variant and other sub variants, preventing infection was never really a goal to begin with because we never really had discussed that in vaccine trials, but preventing infection is certainly not as attainable, at least fully, from the current vaccines that we have. Vaccines certainly reduce the likelihood of getting infected, but the concept of breakthrough cases and other issues, you know, they're certainly there. And so I think when it comes to vaccine mandates, I personally would support them and the reason would be because I think it provides a baseline layer of protection for colleges and also the surrounding communities. And I'm sure, you know, the town-gown relationship is something that we'll dive into throughout the course of the hour. But thinking about, you know, colleges do not exist in a vacuum and we've seen research in, particularly in the 2020 to 2021 school year where students return to college and people in the community were infected as a result of, you know, of transmission on college cancer.  When it comes to boosters, I think there's still a lot of open discussions on that. But I think also just as one final point, communication has been key throughout the pandemic, particularly communications from college administrators to their students and to their faculty and really trying to simplify, you know, vaccine requirements or booster requirements, you know, having a real simple explanation, having a real simple, you know, set of requirements. You need to have this, this and this to attend school in many cases, very similar to other vaccines that students take before they go to school. I think, you know, having that laid out simply, I think is a really good strategy. That's a really good point. I'm amazed at how much history you managed to elegantly bring together in just a few sentences, Benji. I have more questions, but already questions are coming in. And again, if you're new to the forum, this is the venue for you to have to share your questions. And we already have one coming up from our dear friend and several times guest, Tom Haymes from Texas. And Tom says, there was already a lot of data on transmission in the fall of 2020. Do you think institutions ignored this because it conflicted with the desire for normality? Yeah, I don't know necessarily if institutions sort of had ignored, you know, the data on transmission. I think it may have been a question of feasibility. You know, I think one of the biggest topics, particularly when I started writing my newsletter and working on research in the late summer was whether schools were going to return. I think a lot of schools attempted an in-person semester for some people and for some institutions that did not go very well, you know, particular institutions that shut down two or three weeks in the start of the year just because they had large COVID outbreaks. You know, I think there was certainly that quest for normality or returning to a normal semester. And it was just that the conditions in particularly in the summer and in the fall of 2020 were just really not conducive to having a restriction-free semester. And I think framing it not necessarily as restrictions, but safety measures and public health measures, you know, masking, for example, you know, having events outdoors, ventilation. I saw someone have posted about ventilation on the chat and that's certainly something that we can discuss in greater detail later. But, you know, ventilation and testing, all those tools can be used. And I think for a lot of schools, you know, my own undergrad institution included at Middlebury, you know, we had a very successful fall 2020 semester. And that could have been achieved, I think, even with the data that we had had, you know, at that present time. Well, good question, Tom. And thank you, Benji, for that really thoughtful answer. And if you're new to the forum, that's an example of a text question. So just hit, you know, the very bottom of the screen, press that question mark button and type in your queue so we can hear from you. Vanessa mentions ventilation. And I've got to just put in a Vermont plug because on the ventilation theme, University of Vermont students did invent the Vermont later, you know, nice open source ventilator, which is pretty cool. But I'm curious, what you think about some of the impacts of ventilation? By that, sorry, it's an ill-formed question. Thinking in part about how we responded to the need for more ventilation, how many across the spectrum, higher education, how many campuses, for example, open the windows or moved interior classrooms to exterior locations. What we did in order to increase ventilation, did we add technology? But then looking ahead too, I wonder, do you think we're gonna see any impact on higher education architecture? That is more building renovations, more building designs that have more doors, more windows, bigger windows, bigger doors, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I think ventilation has certainly been a very complex topic and particularly at times sort of just a nebulous idea or concept just because it's hard for people to sometimes understand, oh, opening a window that's going to make a huge difference or buying this air purifier or this fan. And I'm not personally an expert in ventilation. I think one person who is is Dr. Joe Allen at Harvard was written extensively on not only colleges and universities but healthy buildings. We spend 90% of our time indoors and how do we make indoor spaces healthy, not just for COVID but for other respiratory diseases and for viral illnesses and even allergies. I think when it comes to sort of those different types of strategies, those can make an impact and they don't have to be that expensive. I think we've often heard of ventilation upgrades, particularly in the K through 12 school space. Less talked about in higher ed but in the K through 12 school, thinking about upgrading HVAC systems or upgrading other types of ventilation systems that schools may have but there are other strategies that may be cheaper. There's a device called a Corsi Rosenthal box which was developed by a scientist at the University of California and it's a homemade sort of ventilation machine that you can construct with a couple of fans and like those air filters that you put in your air conditioning, those like long unit things like a square thing and you put it together and those types of devices are extremely effective and while that may be sort of a cheaper method there are ways for schools and ways for indoor spaces to be upgraded in terms of ventilation. I think one other final point that I was just thinking about when there have been some studies on COVID transmission in colleges, particularly in the fall of 2020 in the spring of 2021 and a lot of the researchers came out and they found that most, the classrooms were not a source of transmission. Most of the infections that were happening among students at the time were happening outside the classroom which was understandable in residence halls, in other events, parties, social gatherings, all of that. So classrooms at least for the first year were incredibly safe. Students were masked, those were controlled spaces. Many classrooms had ventilation that was in place. And so I think when it comes to the next couple of years just thinking about ways that we can upgrade not just classroom spaces but residential spaces. I'm not saying, you know, every college needs to invest in having a full ventilation system in dorms. I know a lot of dorms do not have air conditioning because most students are not there for the summer depending on obviously what part of the country you live in. But thinking beyond the classroom and thinking into other spaces as well I think would be certainly very important. Well, that's fascinating. I'm thinking about that proposal for an enormous single dorm building that's been built once before Michigan. You may have seen this which had no exterior windows. Oh, yeah. And so that would be definitely a death trap in this case unless you had sufficient ventilation through other means. Thank you. Thank you for that question. Thank you for that answer rather. Eileen Frank in the chat shares a really nice how to build of course, the Rosenthal box. So that's a fun exercise for the maker-maker mind. Friends, again, this is the time for you to think about your questions, your comments and your thoughts. I have a few more, but I wanna make sure that I don't get in the way of the rest of you because this is your venue. One question I have, Benji, is thinking about town-gown relations. It seems like famously they can be quite vexed. I know my own alma mater, the University of Michigan twice was basically smacked down once by the state and once by its county for not following enough public health measures sufficiently, at least according to the county and state guidelines. And yet there were cases of universities that would bend over backwards to help their community by providing vaccines or providing tests. I'm curious, looking ahead a bit, what can we learn from this experience? I mean, what does COVID tell us about the future of town-gown relations? Yeah, I think certainly as you had mentioned, particularly in the early days of the pandemic and in the summer of 2020, the relationship I think between many colleges and the surrounding towns was certainly fraught. People were spending time at home in the local towns and they were dreading the possible reopening of schools. And in some cases wrote op-eds or letters in their local newspapers saying why students should not return and why colleges shouldn't go through with their reopening plans. And I think what we had sort of learned over that first pandemic academic year was that colleges can use their places in the town-gown relationship matrix, depending on sort of how the relations were before the pandemic, they can use that place and really approach it from a point of growth and from a point of improving that relationship. I think one of the best examples, there was an article in Politico a couple weeks ago and it was reported in New York Times, I think a year ago too, the University of California at Davis provided COVID testing for not only the students and faculty but for the surrounding community. And that had a huge impact just epidemiologically too. The cases in that area were significantly lower than cases in surrounding areas. There was a paper and a study on that. And so I think that's a really good example of a partnership that may not be that expensive. Obviously testing is costly, particularly at higher volumes but certainly a way that colleges can help the town serving as I remember at Middlebury, there were initial plans to, if needed, turn our hockey arena into sort of field hospital during the early days of the pandemic. They had drained the ice in March 2020 anticipating if there was an influx of patients and they would need more beds, the college volunteer to serve as a field hospital. And I think those types of examples, particularly learning from the past two years, providing vaccines, even some larger schools with medical academic medical centers serving as sites for vaccine trials, serving as also medical sites for the surrounding community, the surrounding community, university hospitals for example. And I think all of those different ways to help the community can certainly be transferred beyond the COVID sphere. And I think one of the ways that I've been thinking about this, maybe not necessarily for the local community but particularly for the college community is thinking now of, there's been a lot of talk of health and wellness over the last decade or so. But thinking of the college as a health hub and thinking about how colleges can provide health care and better supplies and tools for students, faculty, staff and even the surrounding community. Thinking COVID testing for example, COVID vaccines, potentially even there's been discussion particularly in some colleges in states where abortions are less accessible having colleges provide abortion, medication and pills and stuff like that. So really thinking, what can the college provide and what the college has the resources to provide? I think there's a really infinite range of possibilities there that college can continue to serve local communities. Oh, excellent, excellent. Thank you, that's a very positive look. And I love the idea of a health hub. I wanna come back to that later on before we end. In the chat, we've had people sharing different resources about some of the points that you've raised, Benji. And we've also had some, I think some suspicions about universities and colleges not doing enough. One person mentions campus deliberately not listening to data. Tom mentions not wanting to disrupt fall football schedules for example. And looking back on this, I wonder what did we learn about inter-campus collaboration? To what extent did we see colleges and universities team up together and work with each other, both locally but also at a larger scale internationally or nationally? Yeah, I think, I'll start on the local level and sort of within a college. There was certainly a lot, at least from some of my experiences and what I've been working on and reading, I think there was a lot of collaboration when it came to campus reopening. Working, as you have mentioned, between athletics and working with Student Life, working with academic departments, there were a lot of conversations on campus reopening. And I remember attending some forums where attendees really, although they worked at the same institution, they really had never met each other or even sort of worked with each other before. So the pandemic certainly provided a lot of the need for collaboration and just in general for people to work across different disciplines academically and as well at different offices and services on a larger college level. I think when it comes to collaboration globally, virtual, there was a lot of talk initially in the higher ed media and other places about virtual study abroad and seeing if that's a sort of a substitution for study abroad. I think in the short term, certainly, that can be possible. But I think in the longer term, I think, obviously now with a lot of most of the world being open, I think there is, we're going to go back to a sort of a normal study abroad experience where people will travel to places. But I think beyond the traditional study abroad experience, there are other ways that colleges collaborated globally for lectures and for speakers. I remember at least at Middlebury for the first couple of years, I was working on a couple of speaker series academically and through some other student life departments. And I remember every time we had to sign a contract with the speaker, we would fly them in, we would pay for them to fly in, they would have to stay somewhere. And for those who do not know over Vermont, the availability of a lot of different services that you would traditionally find in cities like car services and flights and hotels, certainly there were challenges there. So I think the virtual world when it comes to lectures and guest speakers and all different types of visits, I think there's just now an impetus to continue a lot of that. And I think that's great. I think it really, particularly for people who may not be able to travel, particularly for people who are schools that are located in areas where it may be hard to get to, there's a lot of room, I think, for collaboration when it comes to bringing, giving students a lot of those experiences that they may not have really gotten before in a fully in-person environment. Do you think overall, do you think we are more, the higher education is more digitally immersed than it was in say, January, 2020? I think so. I think for most of the population, I think I remember using Zoom a little bit, but for most people had never really heard of Zoom or Teams or blue jeans or any of those types of platforms. And I think a lot of those will certainly continue beyond the simple reason of holding a Zoom meeting because it may be safer than a fully in-person meeting. But I think a lot of those different technologies will certainly continue in the next couple of years. I think being able to use it for lectures, for guest speakers, for academic events, it is I think a newer version of, for some schools, particularly in the K through 12 space, having like pen pals for people with a exchange with the school across the world or something like that. The new pen pal has now sort of this Zoom entire experience and universe in that way where there's so many possibilities to hear from people, to really get people's stories and get people's experiences and use technology to do that. And I think what Zoom has done particularly is it has a lot of power and a lot of capability, but it's not a technologically hard tool to use. You don't need to have a full video conference room. You can set up a computer somewhere and you can have people join that way. And I think it's certainly lowered the barrier for forms of educational technology in that way because it's so easy to use and so easy to have those experiences without a lot of technology. That's a huge takeaway from this pandemic. That's a historic shift, a nudge forward in digitalization as the Europeans say. Lisa asks a question that relates to that, which is how has this changed pedagogy in higher education? Yeah, I think from my personal experience having, it was pedagogically quite challenging as the recipient of a lot of the teaching. It was pedagogically quite challenging in the spring of 2020 because a lot of faculty had not just, understandably, we had no real knowledge of using Zoom, but I think using Zoom to teach effectively was certainly quite challenging in the first couple weeks. In addition, obviously the just scenario and the situation around the country was quite grim at that time. And so I think it was hard mentally for a lot of students and faculty to have those rich pedagogical experiences in the first part of the pandemic. I think that certainly got better in the past couple of semesters now having into sort of a third pandemic year where in-person learning has resumed to in much of the country and many schools and most courses are in-person. But I think pedagogically it really opens the possibility to have other types of experiences that may not be in a fully lecture-based course. I know a lot of my professors at the time had sort of changed formats or teaching into, we talked a little bit, I think there's been discussion in education about the flipped classroom, having people prepare for a lesson by watching a lecture or watching a video and then having the class be more of a Socratic style discussion on the material. I think a lot of my professors had sort of used that method because it was just easier to have a sort of a video recorded lecture and then we could spend time in discussion. And so I think a lot of those different types of strategies will hopefully continue because I think discussion-based courses, to the extent that they're possible and other real types of teaching, not just discussions but other experiential activities, not just the traditional field trip of going to a place but really having those interactions and those connections leveraging those connections on a university front, I think we'll hopefully stay with us past these couple of years. That's a good call. That's a very good call. Thank you. In the chat, our friend Charles Findlay had made a couple of great responses to some of your notes, Benji. He even wants to add that Northeastern Boston campus just added a contraceptive vending machines, which is one way of using that campus space for community purposes. But he also adds that he thinks the mindset about digital technology has changed. They're more virtual meetings or they are added to in-person events now. I've been thinking for a while that we have a kind of high flex as a baseline, that what we're doing right now entirely online is one pole of that. And the other is, of course, entirely in-person, no digital component. But perhaps what we should be expecting is a kind of centering around that mixed virtual plus in-person environment. Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of merit to sort of having necessarily a virtual first environment, particularly because it can be more inclusive, it can include a lot more people. But I think one thing that I've also been thinking about is particularly for me, I attended school at a liberal arts institution where 95, I think percent of students lived on campus. And the student life, the academics, everything would really occur in a central location, albeit a very large campus, but it's sort of one place. And I think that, I don't want to say it's in-person first, but I think there's still going to be a lot of anchoring, obviously, around the traditional college. I don't think virtual-only college experience will succeed in that way. But I think using virtual technology, using a lot of the virtual world in that way to have adding on to a centralized experience. But I think nothing can really replace people gathering in one space for an event or a class or something like that. Quite true, quite true. Friends, I'm driving this with far too many of my own questions and comments, which is ridiculous. And I'm going to, right now, ventriloquize a question. This came in actually from a really good friend who couldn't make it today and who is the head of NizerNet, one of our sponsors. And I wanted to thank her for this. Jeannie Casariz asked, looking ahead, the broader question is not simply what we have learned, but what new changes are we willing to undertake? I wonder if you want to wrestle with that question a bit. What have we learned about our ability to make changes? And what are the changes, at least in terms of public health, do you think higher ed has a capacity to undertake? Yeah, I'll start on the public health side and then I'll go on to the more traditional higher ed space. I think when it comes to public health, obviously a lot of the tools that colleges have used, testing, masking, a lot of those different types of tools, our way to use those tools has changed over the two years of the pandemic. Initially, a lot of schools were testing every week and that was a strategy that I certainly supported. We had done some research on what schools were using what testing strategies and testing every week was really, at the time, was a really good way to keep infections lower. I think in the post-vaccine era, and particularly in the last couple months, you certainly don't want everyone being infected at once, but you are going to have infections on a campus now and for the vast majority of people that will result in a mild case. And the threat of severe illness has been significantly reduced because of a vaccine. So I think our way to use the tools, for example, testing now when there are symptoms or having tests widely available, I think it's certainly a great way to use testing now, but not necessarily testing every one every week. So I think there's certainly still a lot of room for investment in those tools, testing, having masking widely available. I know Charles had mentioned having contraceptive tools available in vending machines. I know there was a school in California who was also doing that, having masks and having tests available in vending machines. So ensuring that those tools are widely available and equally accessible to members of the college community, I think is a change that that's a change that I think a lot of colleges have grasped onto and ensuring that students have the tools to be protected. I think when it comes to other sort of changes, COVID had obviously disrupted the traditional academic world and academic calendar in that way, having switched to a virtual method of instruction early on in March of 2020. But I think one of the things that at least at Middlebury and I know a lot of other schools have this before, we have what's known as a FED program where students matriculate in February, midway through the year, and then graduate four years later in February of that year. I know a lot of schools, I think Northeastern, for example, offers incoming first year students the opportunity to study abroad for their first semester and then matriculate on campus. I think there will be a little bit of motion towards sort of that flexible college experience, thinking beyond the four traditional years where you come in in one September and graduate four years later. I've seen a lot of students had taken semesters off because of virtual education. They may not have wanted to have a fully virtual semester. They may have had other plans to travel or spend a semester elsewhere. And I think that flexible college experience, I hope colleges will continue to embrace in the coming years, being able for students to have the opportunity to gain whatever they would like. If that means they take an internship for the fall semester and then come back to school in the spring semester, graduate midway through the year, if that's an option. I think a lot of those changes I think colleges are thinking about. And I think in my opinion should certainly embrace to give students the opportunity to explore their interests, both academically, pre-professionally, around the world, a lot of different areas I think for students to experience beyond the traditional on campus for all four years. Well, this is really good. Thank you. That's a great answer. That's a really, really great answer. Thank you, Jeannie, for the good question. We have time I think for four really quick questions before we run out of time. And one of them comes from Keith Young at CMU. And we just bring his up here on the screen for everyone to see. So will the post COVID ubiquity of virtual teaching lead prospective learners to more regularly consider alternative providers of instruction? That's a side effect of the net increase in digitalization. Yeah, I think in terms of thinking beyond traditional the role of a traditional college professor or instructor in that way, thinking about other ways to receive instruction. I think a lot of that, the availability and not just the availability of virtual technology but also the familiarity that people have with it. Now people are able to use technology in a classroom setting. People are able to use technology in other different, whether it's a guest lecture or something like that. I think there is certainly a motivation to continue having those different types of, at Middlebury at least we call them professors of the practice, which were practitioners who may not have come from a traditional academic PhD carrying background, but for those people who are experts in their relevant fields. I remember one we had was someone who served in state government, another one was a public health practitioner who had spent some time working in the public health sphere. And I think those types of courses, being able to offer those types of courses is certainly creates a really rich experience for students. Thinking beyond at least the traditional liberal arts offering those different types of, not necessarily pre-professional but courses that may be relevant to certain sectors of the workforce, courses that may be relevant to other areas that may not traditionally be covered in a college education. And I think being able to use outside instruction, not necessarily from sort of an outside entity or company but practitioners or people who may not be co-located on the campus, I think the virtual world certainly facilitates the opportunity to have those types of experiences and have those courses. And I hope that will certainly continue. That's a good answer. That's a very good answer. And thank you for the question, Keith. It's only to keep an eye out for. We have a question for our good friend, Ruben, who put the door. And Ruben asks, what do you think about the impact of long COVID? We have some number of faculty, staff and students who are enduring this curse. What kind of impact is that going to be having on college and universities? Yeah, I think long COVID is certainly real and is certainly a serious issue that has impacted many people regardless of whether they had a severe infection. There are people who had a so-called mild infection and even end up having long-term symptoms. I think long COVID just on a national and even global level is not, needs to be further studied and needs to be understood better. We don't know what's necessarily causing that, whether that's a persistent virus that is remaining in the body or whether that's some other, are there triggers, are there sort of things that make individuals predisposed to having long COVID? And a lot of that, hopefully in the next couple of years with more studies and more funding for research will hopefully make a lot of that clear. I think when it comes to the colleges, it's honestly quite challenging to provide support for individuals with long COVID just because we don't necessarily know what resources are needed to support these individuals with longer term symptoms. There are long COVID clinics that have been set up. There is no cure all drug or treatment that currently we know that can treat long COVID. So a lot of these long COVID clinics have focused on managing symptoms with other drugs, maybe repurpose from treating other illnesses. And colleges can certainly play a role in maybe referring people to those resources. But I think it will be very hard for a college to set up that type of support structure just because it's very hard to do even on a national level. But I think in general, being supportive, having flexible work schedules or having flexible teaching schedules, I think a lot of that can be used as not honestly a cure all or strategy, but I think will hopefully help a lot of individuals with longer term symptoms. And I hope our understanding will change in the coming months and years. And hopefully we'll have treatments or whether they're, for example, pan coronavirus vaccine or nasal vaccine will hopefully do a better job preventing infections which will prevent long COVID. I think a lot of those advancements will come in the coming years and we'll certainly have impacts if deployed impacts for college campuses and the community. Thank you. Thank you. Great answer. And Ruben, thank you for the question. Really, really good. Charles comes out of the chat and he asks a question which I wanna share up here. It's possible that the newer digital access that occurred will break up ownership of courses and degrees to create easy movement among all colleges. Yeah. I think there could be some sort of transferability there. I don't know that much when it comes to sort of degree, the intricacies of degree programs. But I think there is, particularly in sort of the model that I've been thinking about and we've discussed a little bit of having a flexible type for years. Where for example, and this has been, we thought a lot about this at Middlebury in particular just because Middlebury has a large global footprint. We own our own study abroad programs in 17 countries. I think it's now 33 or 34 sites around the world. We have a graduate school in Monterey, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey and California. And so I think at least in Middlebury there's always been this conversation of having flexible academic programs for people. As a student, being able to take your first two years at Middlebury, spend your whole year abroad and your junior year and then your senior year and being able to get a head start on a master's degree program by spending a semester in Monterey and ensuring, because we own all of those programs, ensuring that all of those credits and all of those academic lessons will transfer across all those courses and all those places. I think that can certainly be applied to larger universities too and maybe even in between universities. I don't know necessarily too much about that. But thinking beyond the traditional four-year college and into other academic programs, I know a lot of schools have also done dual degree programs. I know we have one in engineering, the three plus two, you spend three years in undergrad and then two years in engineering school. I think a lot of those collaborations and partnerships I hope will continue and I hope we'll see new ones of those different areas of study and beyond pre-professional, beyond engineering, maybe having something more in the humanities or social sciences. I think we'll see some of that. Very nice, good foresight. Charles, thank you for that terrific question. In the chat, someone mentioned having, being able to take classes at two other institutions, BLI, it's their own College of Record. Now, let me ask, if I can point you a little further ahead of it, the late philosopher of science, Bruno Loutour suggested that we might view the COVID experience as a kind of test run for how humanity responds to climate change, which is of course a far vaster and slower moving crisis. I'm wondering if you could follow that logic a bit. What have we learned from this experience which is still going on of COVID? Might help point the way to how higher education and indeed society will be able to grapple with the Anthropocene. Yeah, I think one of the things I'll start off with, the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College, which has been a tremendous resource and not only for higher ed research for COVID, but I think it was initially set up by Dr. Marks O'Connell there and the team as a way to study how colleges respond to crises and beyond necessarily a pandemic, they had started I think a year or so before the pandemic and obviously the pandemic being a large crisis pivoted a lot of their resources and their research to COVID. But I think beyond the pandemic, I think humans are resistant to change but somewhat adaptable, I think. And using the college community as an example and thinking about how communication works in times of crisis. As you mentioned, obviously the climate crisis would be a more slower moving crisis. There's not gonna be one Tuesday in March unless the college is under water, I guess, but there's not gonna be a Tuesday in March where instruction's gonna shift and there's gonna be this large change. But I think a lot of the lessons when it comes to communication, a lot of the lessons when it comes to support, one of the examples thinking of like supportive isolation for students who had COVID in the first academic year for colleges to provide those resources for students to isolate safely, to have food delivered for them so they can keep up on their studies. I think a lot of those lessons when it comes to those issues are transferable beyond the pandemic and into future crises. And I think there was no textbook on to handle pandemic. I remember when I was studying abroad in China there was sort of like in the study abroad office, there was a paper with some of the sort of potential issues that may happen. One of them was like security issue or terrorism or stuff like that. And there was one that said pandemic like SARS, which was the first SARS in 2003 and this being the second sort of severe SARS pandemic. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I'd sort of never really heard of that before fast forward two to three weeks later. And that was certainly applicable. But I think there was no textbook for the pandemic. But I think there are lessons that we discussed on other issues. There are lessons that we can use beyond a public health crisis and into future, whether climate change or change in demographic crises or other different issues. I think colleges can still play a huge role in tackling all of those issues. Well, that's a fantastic point to end on. Benji, I appreciate your timing, your optimism and your ability to have wrangled and addressed a whole series of questions from a wide range of areas, everything from the thermometer to the future of higher education. Thank you so much. What's the best way to keep up with you and your work right now? Is that Twitter or somewhere else? Yeah, I think Twitter has certainly been a form that I've been using. I'm at BH Renton on Twitter. And I tweet about research that I've done, research that I've seen that's interesting. The newsletter, which Brian linked on the bottom left of your screen, is also a way to follow some of my previous work on higher education. I stopped the newsletter in May. It was a weekly endeavor. And I stopped it in May of last year. But depending on the work, I may also use that as a forum. So I think those two ways are certainly a great way to keep up with some of the work that I've been doing. Excellent, excellent. Well, thank you for all of that work, Benji. Congratulations on starting a great career. And we really, really appreciate all of your time here today. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for everyone for attending and really asking a lot of those great questions. Our pleasure, our pleasure. Take care. But don't everybody leave. Just pointing you ahead to where we're headed over the next few weeks. If you want to keep talking about this, please hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag FTTE. Or of course, you can find me on my blog, BrianAlexander.org. If you'd like to look into our previous sessions on the pandemic, we have a whole stack of them plus a whole bunch of sessions on other topics. Just go to tinyurl.com slash FTF archive. If you'd like to look ahead to our next sessions, go to forum.futureofeducation.us. You can see those. And if you want to share any of your own work, be it pandemic related or other, please just drop me a line. I'd be glad to share with everybody else. In the meantime, thank you all for coming today. This is a vital topic, although it is very heavy one. I appreciate the chance to meet with all of you and to enjoy your questions. Please everybody, stay away from me, at least for the next few days in person. Everybody take care, be safe, and we'll see you next time online. Bye-bye.


If you're wondering if you can feed bananas to your cat, the short answer is yes. The long answer involves a look at feline nutrition and steps you should take to keep your cat safe and healthy. Sure, bananas are an appealing and healthy snack for humans, but what about our feline friends? Can cats eat bananas too? The short answer is yes, bananas are generally considered to be safe for cats.  We paired up with the University of Missouri Small Animal Clinical Nutrition Service to find out more about feline nutrition and gain some expert advice on what's considered a balanced diet so you can feed your cat a diet that's healthy and meets all his needs. Do cats like bananas? That depends on the individual cat, but considering the fact that felines are notoriously picky eaters, most of them are not as interested in experimenting with new foods as dogs are. It's more, many cats are even scared of bananas. You've probably seen funny videos where cats get terrified by a harmless banana. Experts explain that this is because most cats dislike the ethyl acetate odor these fruits give away. In fact, rubbing banana peels on furniture can be a great trick to prevent your pet from clawing them. There's also the possibility that the shape of the banana reminds them of a snake and startles them. Are there any risks with feeding cats bananas? While the Clinical Nutrition Service says that banana is considered a non-toxic food for cats, it notes that there are caveats. First, good luck getting your kitty to eat one, cats are notoriously picky eaters and since they're naturally inclined to eat an only meat diet, you probably won't find that they're as interested as your canine companion. Second, bananas are only considered to be a safe, occasional treat for healthy cats. So if your cat has a health condition, such as diabetes, avoid feeding them bananas. Third, remember that no cat is the same and that their diets can vary a great deal when it comes to tolerating certain foods. The Clinical Nutrition Service explains, some cats may consume a particular food item with no issue, and another cat may consume the same item and develop vomiting, diarrhea, or other adverse signs. Lastly, keep in mind that the vast majority of your cat's calories should come from foods specially formulated to give him the nutrients he needs. Human foods like bananas should only be offered as an occasional, tiny treat, not a daily dessert option. How can I feed bananas to my cat safely? Taking into account the caveats above and feline nutritional needs, the Clinical Nutrition Service says to follow these steps to safely feed bananas to your cat if he's meowing for a bite. Ask. Talk to your veterinarian before giving your cat any new human foods, even if they're typically considered to be safe for pets. Your veterinarian is in the best position to advise on what your cat should eat. Calculate. To determine how much banana your cat can safely eat, you'll need to do a little math. The Clinical Nutrition Service says treats shouldn't account for more than 10% of your cat's daily caloric intake. For example, if your cat eats 250 calories a day, only 25 of those calories should come from treats. According to the FDA, one medium banana is around 110 calories. Cats vary in the amount of food they need to eat each day to maintain an ideal weight. If you aren't sure how many calories your cat needs or what his ideal weight is, visit with your veterinarian about developing a nutrition plan that's specific to your cat. Hello. This video is sponsored by Beemix Pets. Are you looking for high quality cat collars at an affordable cost? Check out BeemixPets.com. Use coupon code KittenLife, to get 20% off. Prepare. To prepare the banana for your cat to eat, first remove the peel, which could be difficult for your cat to digest. Cut up the banana into cat bite-sized pieces that are easy for your pet to manage, about the size of your cat's kibble. Or try mushing a tiny bit into a puree and sprinkling a top as food, if you're ready to put your culinary creativity to the test. Monitor. The Clinical Nutrition Service says that even foods that are considered safe, such as bananas, can have unexpected reactions, so watch your pet for signs of gastrointestinal problems like vomiting or diarrhea after trying new food. It's also a good idea to introduce only one new food at a time. That way, if your cat does start showing signs of illness, you can more easily determine the source of the problem. If you think your cat is having an adverse response to bananas, call your veterinarian. One are bananas bad for cats. So your brave little lion defied the odds, dove into his banana snack, and devoured it. It's rare but entirely possible, but before you start adding this into his daily diet, remember that nutrients are more important than treats, and bananas don't provide the kind of nutrients cats need. So while a small amount every once in a while probably won't hurt, too many bananas can cause diarrhea, allergic reactions, and even spikes in blood sugar that could lead to diabetes. Cats are sensitive to strange food. Digesting plant-based foods is a struggle for them, so feeding your feline friend bananas might cause stomach upset. Bananas have a high carb and sugar content. Cats lack the enzymes required for their digestion, which is why a healthy cat diet should contain no more than 2% sugar or carbohydrate. So, while a slice of banana here and there won't harm your cat, feeding them bananas frequently or in large amounts can raise blood sugar levels, which can lead to obesity and diabetes. The most common clinical signs of feline diabetes include constant urination, excessive thirst, lack of appetite, vomiting, and reduced mobility. Protect your vet right away if you notice any of these symptoms and keep your pet's age in mind, as cats are more likely to develop diabetes as they get older. Bananas also contain high levels of dietary fiber. Cats can't absorb some of the nutrients from bananas, they will only benefit from the fiber, which can bulk up the stool. Fiber is not considered an essential part if a cat's diet so the added benefits of bananas are limited.  According to the Clinical Nutrition Service, even foods that are considered safe, like bananas, can have unexpected reactions. Symptoms of allergic reaction to bananas include itching of the mouth and throat, swelling, itchy rash, wheezing, narrowing of the throat, etc. If you're unsure whether your cat is getting the nutrients he needs from the food he eats every day, bring up your concerns with your veterinarian. They are ready to help you find good options for your pet. And don't be shy about asking which foods are considered safe for your cat, open, honest communication with your vet is key to keeping your cat safe and healthy. If you notice any symptoms or anything else that were mentioned earlier of the ordinary after serving a banana to your cat, be sure to contact your vet. Can cats eat other fruits? If you're having second thoughts about offering your kitty a banana, or they simply dislike the taste, you should consider giving them other cat safe fruits as a healthy snack. Some of the acceptable fruits for cats are blueberry, strawberry, watermelon, and apples, without the seeds and core. Some vegetables are also safe for cats, including carrots, spinach, green beans, zucchini, lettuce, and potatoes, without any added salt, seasonings, or butter. Pay attention to the quantity that you will feed your cat. Bananas aren't toxic to cats, but they contain a lot of sugar, which cats have trouble digesting. A piece of banana as an occasional treat will probably not harm your pet, but consuming it on a regular basis can increase their blood sugar levels, causing weight gain and diabetes. Too much banana can cause gastrointestinal upset, vomiting, and diarrhea. Your cat won't actually benefit from eating bananas. They'll be better off if you feed them healthy, meat-based snacks. Your vet is in the best position to provide advice on what your feline companion should eat. If you enjoyed this video, kindly press the like button. Also don't forget to subscribe with notifications on, so that you don't miss out on videos like this. Thank you for watching.