The only other guy that I heard of that put that kind of fear most recently was Ron Artes.  I never heard that. I know back in the day, we got a lead. They used to always say, we're going to send a limbo to pick you up. So when they used to say, we're going to send a limbo to pick you up, that mean, that guy trying to get 40 points, he try to make sure you come to the game. Mentioning the great things that you're doing in the community. Tell me about the Charles Oakley Foundation. Yes, the foundation is something that I really got involved with. I've been doing stuff about this side like a year ago to get involved in the foundation. So I'll start weekend with my first event for the Oakley Foundation and we was trying to go like that, get out in the community, go back, do stuff with kids, show people that, you know, what the foundation is about. It's a lot of love.  Like I said, a t-shirt in a bag, key chains, some stuff that they can take home and pull on the wall and look at it as a motivation. But we, you know, try to go around a couple centers and serve great meals, hot meals and go to, I went to a high school game and just walk in. Now we're 20, 30 people walking in by myself, sit there and watch the game, the pet rally. It was a great weekend. I think we got some really good, a lot of good contents out of this going forward. And then we work on our scholarship program, then we work on other programs that, you know, after school with kids. How did the idea come about put together your book, The Last Enforcer? Okay. The Last Enforcer. It's just a book that I've been working on for a while and I was, I'm trying to get the deal, like, 10 years ago. It didn't go through. So two years ago, me and Frank talked, I said, we've got to get this book. So we got the deal. The book is just a book just like my grandfather growing up in Cleveland and going to live with my grandfather, my grandmother and my aunts and uncles in Alabama for a while, coming back to Cleveland with mom. Mom had, you know, worked two jobs. One job, she had to catch two buses every day for so many years, but she got it done raising six kids. But the book is just a lot about the family, MBA, stories and just my growth as, you know, as the book goes stronger again, you know, sort of my grandfather and all my strength come from this book and show you my toughness from just growing up. You had to be tough, mentally tough in Cleveland growing up because a lot of things was going on. But it's just like doing podcasts a year on the back page of the post or whatever. So everybody can see like the inside of me. They might see my face, but don't know what's inside of me. Now they can get the whole thing out of this book. What was it like working with our guy on this network? Frank got stolen for this book. So Frank, the great guy, Frank was working with the beat for the data's news. So last two years in New York, but I got to know Frank. But I think that when you were beat writer, you come into interview guys, you need some kind of spark in the story. So he knew he could always come to me, all the writers, I was good with the writers all around, not just New York, because I think they have a job to do. I have a job to do something. Even though we didn't lose a draw, you still have to talk to him. And that's how I go. And these guys, like now, I see a lot of writers and stuff. Now I got a book come out. I'll be going to write some about it because you got to be real with people, you know, we all down sometimes when we lose, but they have a job to do. The job they owe until you leave the arena. So you have to give me a time, 10, 15 minutes. And I was good. I was good at that. I didn't, I didn't blame the writers. I blame within the team we lost. Real quick, just for young reporters out there, a lot of players don't like reporters. What did you like about Frank Isola? What would you tell young reporters who are interviewing players because there's not a lot of great relationships out there between athletes? It's a lot of bad. It's about a lot of bad. I mean, with reporters and players now, I see, I see a lot of players are not doing reporters out there. I blame management because they shouldn't contract. So I finally got 10,000, 200, 300,000. They shouldn't even come to that. But now writers, they have a job to do.  You have the playoff. You have a right to say something, but most players are going to try to, most writers are going to try to work their way in. They'd be good because they know that they got to be with you for 82 games and close the playoff or preseason. So some, some every night they go out their way and try to slide something in the story. And then you read the story that I didn't say that. And that's the issue. But I give 90% of the good guys. It's always going to be a bad apple in the bunch. So that's life. I loved, I finished the book. It was terrific. Again, I'm very nostalgic of that time in the 90s and the physical play and, you know, I mean, you have to be mentally tough today, but, you know, different type of mental tunnel is talking about that time and the battles that you had on the court with Pistons teams, the book and real quick out the Pistons. I think it's bad. I had, I was doing some work in the WNB, now I'm going Bill M. Bear when he was coaching. He was still taking shots of Larry Bird. I don't know if it's like that blood, bad blood with the Pistons, whether it's from Larry's side, the Bulls side, the Mcside, it's still there about those Detroit guys. Yes. In this book, we talked about all of the 80s and 90s, all the matches with the, you know, with the Bulls, Boston, Indiana and the Knicks. But I mean, yeah, Detroit was there, but I think Detroit went over there a lot.  You can be big bag and tough, but I never tried to hurt another player. A certain way you can see things happen to court that they try to hurt guys. But I mean, you know, it was physical back then, but a lot of them guys weren't really physical. It was just part of the game.  So I was like acting. What were some of your favorite rivalries during your 18 and a half, 18 and a half year playing career? I look at it totally different. I look at it as a desert game. I know a lot of people say, oh, the Knicks and the Bulls, the Knicks and Indiana. I mean, yeah, we all went down to a wild tough game. We played physical. I just liked the challenge.  Go office, take a lot of shots. So I didn't play defense, rebound, take the charges. So I didn't look at it as one special team, but I looked at everybody I had to play hard and tough against. So you go out against the weaker teams that this is not at all. And then you lose and you be upset at yourself. So I looked at it, I took the same approach for every game.  It was over. Who are some guys that earned your respect for their toughness? I didn't look at them like that. They earned it. It ain't a dollar sale with me. Just saying, just come and play because I'm coming to play. I'm coming to play hard every night. So what happened happened? What was your favorite game? Do you have a favorite game from your playing career? Either a great win or a performance that you had? What's one that you reflect on that's your favorite? Well, it's got to be in the paces and 93 out of four going to the finals, you know, the win that game, get to the finals. I mean, that's when it comes first, where we, you know, advance a chance to win. I don't look into career stats. I could have had 30, 30 or 35. That don't mean nothing. I looked into the game and got us to the finals. And that's the most important game because we would never won that game. We never made it to the finals. So we, we had a chance to win a championship. That's the most important thing. On the flip side, what's the toughest loss of your career? The toughest loss, probably, in the, in the, well, the toughest loss, probably game seven. I mean, it's still, you know, I'm trying to win. So that game stop was from winning. Anything had, my life, my story was about a point in life that you get a chance to win a championship. And that, in that game against Houston and game seven, and then the game in Indiana to get the violence. So there was two important games. And I think that by the fact, I was talking to boomer yesterday about the Cincinnati bingo. And I went back in time with him. I guess a lot of people, he probably never knew, I knew this, the drive that the Rams had on Cincinnati was the same drive that the 49ers had on Cincinnati back in eight, I think eighties, last 97, last time he went. Eighties, seven, 97, I don't know which one. Whenever it was, it was two times since that loss, the two Super Bowl, both of them was on the last drive. Wow. Wow. What is the, fans are a part of this too, when you're out in a, give me a game that fans remind you of the most. Is there one that fans remind you of the most? Not really. The fans, I mean, I talked to a lot of fans. They come with me. We love how you play. We like how you play.  They just be real with me and just, you know, they'll get to the numbers and just send, and they like, hey, you showed up every night and you put it on the line. So I respect them always for knowledge, me, but I respect them, but just don't understand the basketball. He bought the guy who scored 20 points, 25 points every night. You come from an HBCU, very proud in that respect and drafted and then traded to Chicago. When did you, what was the first moment you realized that you really clicked with Michael Jordan?  So it could have been that time we was in Seattle and we, we was in Seattle, we had dinner and something happened, you know, he had made the All-Star team. So this is the second year of my first year and something happened at the table that everybody ordered food at the end, the check came, right?  So the guy was like, why are we trying to put this build together? Let's make Michael pay because he was, he was an All-Star last year and he is, and he just went over like, y'all get paid the same way I get paid, good, you know? So one thing led to another. So they almost got into a fight and I broke the fight up and it just seemed like we clicked. Like, I'm like, no, it's okay, you know, we go, oh man, let's take care of our own bed. But that, and maybe take me to the rookie All-Star team. We just, we just clicked it for some reason, you know, I guess my work habit and I didn't take no mess. I always, personally, I always think it's amazing when two people stayed for who want blood, you know, stay close and remain friends over a period of time. You know, there's so many things in life that you can have it falling out. You never talk again, whatever it may be. How special is it to you that you have friendships like the one with Jordan where you guys remain close? I mean, it's great because I think we all get old. Our life changed in his book. You know, he got married. I got married and I think that he had a relationship with my family. But the most one we still, he still asked him a call. Like, I know he's coming to Cleveland Sunday and I was talking to him and he was, you know, he left Daytona for the race and flying to Cleveland. When he got to Cleveland, I talked to him about that. But you know, communication is there.  So I'm still on speed dial. He on my speed dial and you know, so it's still love there. Always going to be love there. I'm going to ask about a couple of guys in the book come up a bit. First, you know, you were traded from Chicago to New York. What was it? What was your issue over your time with Patrick Ewing as a as a as a as a player performer and leading in this? So in the book, I talk about Patrick, right? My thing, when I got traded in New York, I talked about it. I don't think I'm going to New York play a passenger.  He was number one pick. I was the name picking the draft, but I just found out he was a different guy.  I know what Mike is. You know, I didn't really know Patrick like that. I know I've been around his name and seen him play on TV, but he wasn't what I thought he was. And that's just like, okay, let me, you know, continue with doing what I'm doing and try to make this train, you know, make sure it's smooth ride all the way through with, you know, playing with him. So I got to deal with it. But it just, it was just a hard, it was a hard task because it was like, you know, leaving the White House going to the next house. And, you know, he was a different guy.  But I think adjusting to who you're around. But the player, if it would be your marquee player, gotta make sure everybody okay. That wasn't the case. So it was a lot of learning point with Patrick. It was less learning with Mike. The Mike had it. Patrick was trying to get, Mike had the impact, but Patrick didn't. So that's the big difference in basketball because Mike and Patrick couldn't care. The altercation with Dolan folks know about it. What's your relationship with the Knicks right now? My relationship with the fans is great. My relationship with MSGs is still the same. We're still in court. We got some things come up in the next two months. I mean, it's just bad what's going on because someone created us something and don't want to count it before. Whatever happened that night, he was the reason behind it because he don't like me. But he don't like me. He could have started a ride or anything in the garden because of one person. He didn't care about whoever's there. That's the disrespect this guy. He shouldn't even have an NBA team. He's not fit for a team because all the time you hear about him when he's doing something wrong, you hear about the team. The team has struggled for 20 years and they said all start up at the top and he run the show. Look what's going on this year. God don't like ugly. You're starting the book. You mentioned the four word by Michael Jordan, but the start and mentioning Charles Barkley and setting the record straight is one of the more hilarious intros I've read in a while. Do you and Charles get along now? Not really. He said he don't know why I talk about him. I think he's full of s. He talked a lot down. Didn't talk a lot when he played. I guess working with TNT, you got to be an actor. Got to be a clown and a commentator. All three of them is him. I don't know, but I think if you want to be a commentator about basketball, you've got to talk about basketball, not about doing flicks and skits and stuff. I mean, I just never, I never seen a talk show like that before, but they win an award. So I guess acting is part of the job these days. Does anybody in today's game remind you of yourself? It's a completely different game than the one that we saw, but do you see anyone that has similarities that you appreciate? I get a lot of dreamers. Dreamers is a good guy. He plays hard. He do a lot undersized. He can play three or four positions. It's hard. It doesn't matter as long as my team wins, and he don't try to come out and get 20 points. He give a lot of effort. He's the leader of the team. I'm a good dreamer. I like dreamers because he's a fighter on the court and off the court. He don't let people talk about how he play all this and that, but he get the job done and he got a championship. So it's great to be compared to Dreymont. And I'm just bigger. And Dreymont will be playing out early. It might have been different, but right now what I see, he get the job done. Charles Oakley, Ben, I really appreciate your time. Really, really quick on you mentioned LeBron and Stephan, both these young guys in today's game were still doing it. You know LeBron for a long time with that Cleveland-Ohio connection. Steph, you mentioned watching him as a little kid in Toronto. How amazing has it been watching those guys not only live up to expectations, but exceed expectations? Well, I think LeBron came out with it. Steph had to earn it. It's a big difference, but Steph had the dad to teach him how to shoot. One of his dad, Dale, was one of the best shooters in the game, but Steph worked on his craft. Even though he was young, playing one-on-one events in Toronto, but you can see he's seen like he's working more every year because his game is all about feeling, moving, and you know, LeBron is 18 years strong and still doing that thing. So you got to take the head off the one, both of them guys, because like I said, both of them on the West Coast now, Steph and all star games, still going on the shot, he had 50 points, 16 out of some 16 threes, I don't know how many he took, but he made 16. But on the flip side of that, that can be bad having for the younger kids. So they want to shoot threes, but they can't make a jump shot layup. You know, so it's good for television, good for advertising, but it ain't good for the young generation. Work on your craft. You got to work on your craft to get what Steph had. So you work on your craft, you can be Steph. When you start shooting threes first, you can't be Steph. So what was it? What was it like with Sean Markson? And you told you his vet, what did you see as your role as a vet with young players like Sean? No, just, you know, making sure they're okay at all time. And you know, as a young guy, they tend to pick on you more of the coach, this and that. And you got to stay at the practice and work with the other guys. Sometimes the veterans always practice. But no, Sean was smart, understand, knew his craft. And I think that's the harder part. A lot of guys come in and they don't know the craft of how they can fit in. He was a runner. He can jump. He was a great athlete. And he really was a good athlete. He was just smart. He understood the game. So most of you and Pam, they have the smarts. So they pick up quick. Sean, pick up quick. I didn't have to say too much to him. Let's go to lunch. Let's go to dinner sometime. The last enforcer, Charles Oakley. I got to get a signed copy. Charles, are you going to have a signing anywhere soon? I'm going to start by late March in New York. I'm at four or five signings a day. So I'm going to be in the city for like every other week in March. I love it. I love it. Folks, look forward to that. And please check out the book. Charles, thank you so much for your time. Greatly appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.


This is Higher Education Matters and I'm your host, Jeb Spaulding. I'm the Chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges System and in this program we try to explore issues of higher education. Often we do focus on the Vermont State Colleges System as a whole but we also address generic issues in higher education like affordability and access and technology and hopefully we have interesting guests that make it something that you want to watch on a regular basis. So thank you for joining us today and thanks to Orca for hosting us and producing this program. Our guest today is Jesse Streeter. Jesse is a junior at Northern Vermont University Johnson. Hello Jesse. Hello. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on the program. So Northern Vermont University, we may as well start right there. This is the first official year of Northern Vermont University. What is it? It's very exciting changing Johnson and Linden combining together to become, go from a state college to a university. I don't know, it's exciting to be attracting a lot of new people to do it. It's a unification of bringing the best of Johnson and Linden together into one institution but with two campuses. Yes. And one thing we may as well say right from the start if people are watching this and wondering, the athletic teams are staying on each of the campuses. Correct. So each will have a soccer team or a basketball team or what have you, right? And they've sparked a competition between the two schools to see which one is the better campus. Yeah. Athletically. Okay, well that's good. Yeah. But I think the purpose of it really was to try to make sure that the dollars we're spending are spent on the things that matter most to students. Yes. So I happen to know being the chancellor of the Vermont State College of the System that in the first year, the transition year before they even became officially Northern Vermont University, we saved over a million dollars in sort of executive management fees by having one president, one CFO, one academic dean and trying to re-plow that money into things that actually matter to students like education and extracurriculars and stuff like that. So that's really the purpose of the whole thing. And over time we are hoping that it will actually mean the faculty members at both Lyndon and Johnson get to know each other a little bit better and work together so students like you will have access not only to faculty members at the Johnson campus where you go but faculty members from the Lyndon campus as well. Yeah. And some of those things take a while. Like right now I know that the business program has already become one department and that's sort of the vision of where we're going in the future. And I was actually up at Johnson fairly recently talking to a professor that takes trips, I think he was taking a trip to India and they didn't have enough students last year but when they look at both NVU, Lyndon and Johnson they'll have enough to actually run the trip. And so that's another example of like where we're doing more for students. I mean have you noticed Jesse any difference or is it in your own way it's just the same as it always was? For me personally it's been pretty much the same. A lot of the faculty in my programs have stayed there and I've experienced them but I do know people in the business department who have experienced meeting professors from Lyndon and kind of getting to know other people through the unification. Well let's learn a little bit about you to start with here. Yes. Jesse Streeter, where are you from? So I'm from Richmond, Vermont went to Mount Mansfield High School, grew up in the area and I wasn't really sure exactly what I knew I wanted to go on to higher education but I wasn't sure where I considered going to a large college out of state or staying home kind of went back and forth with that but I decided to stay here, come to Johnson because I like the small community aspect, being able to get to know your professors really well. Well it's interesting that since you mentioned that about getting to know your professors well because I know a lot of times I have two daughters and one of them went to a fairly large university and really didn't have much opportunity to get to know the professors. Have you had the opportunity to actually not only see them in class but you know get to know them a little bit? Yeah, I don't know what it's like at a large university, I imagine it's a lot harder but from my experience when you have classes of 20 or so students you really the teachers get to know everybody's name, they know how you're doing in the class, if you're struggling they'll come work with you more, if you're not they might help you go even farther than the class would normally take you and you build a strong connection with your advisor and they all really care about you and how you're doing in classes and will bring opportunities to you that I feel like you wouldn't get elsewhere. Okay, well that's great. Yeah. So I'm just kind of curious back when you were, if you can remember back in the old days when you were still a high school student a few years ago, did the school counselors or the teachers you had in high school welcome you with thinking about going to one of their state colleges or discourage you or they had no role at all? It's hard to remember but I feel like there was a limited role and they tried to help you go somewhere but it wasn't like they were necessarily pushing one thing or the other that was just kind of a decision on my own to really stay around. Okay. I mean the reason I ask is because sometimes I feel like people in Vermont, regular citizens or educators don't really understand the opportunities that are available to students at our own public higher education system and oftentimes I see people that are go out of state and pay more and get less out of it and that's unfortunate in a way and it makes me think about like for you and you might not have, I don't know the answer to this Jesse but have you taken advantage of any of the foreign exchange programs or anything like that? I haven't taken advantage of any of those. I have some friends who have had a great experience but I personally haven't looked into it at all just because it doesn't fit in necessarily with my interests. Yeah. We'll get back to your interest but just so people know, I mean all of our colleges and I should maybe say, you know we have four institutions that are part of the Vermont State College's system, Castleton of course, I'm doing an alphabetical order here, no other reason for this but Castleton University down outside of Rutland, we have Community College of Vermont which has got 12 locations around the state and fully one-third of the courses at Community College are actually online courses now and then Northern Vermont University with our two campuses and Lyndon and Johnson and then Vermont Technical College which has its main campus in Randolph Center but a really nice campus in Williston which by the way is getting so popular it's hard to park there anymore and then they offer distance learning and programs throughout the state and allied health and nursing so those are the main institutions of the Vermont State College's system but all of them have opportunities for students to actually spend a year abroad or to travel and at Johnson for example, Johnson is a member of the National Student Exchange and the International Student Exchange which means that students can go to study for a year at you know hundreds of universities and colleges in this country and around the world at in-state tuition so you know I think it's fine if students like and families want to go out of state for a while and often that that's that's nothing wrong with that it's a big world but often people don't realize actually you could do that at in-state tuition rates at one of our state colleges. Yeah it's a really really good opportunity I have a friend in Montana and then one that just went down to Rhode Island so you can go anywhere and it's a very good opportunity. So what is it what is it that's your what are you majoring in? I'm majoring double majoring in history and political science and I feel like the programs there have created a lot of opportunities for me they've got really well connected professors a senator Bill Doyle who's no longer teaching there but when I first started he taught a course down at the state house which was a really good experience we went down over winter break and observed the legislature and then through that I got a couple internships down there so there's a lot of connections connections and smart people there that really want to help you. Yeah it's amazing you know when I sort of look at the makeup of the legislature how many of the legislators actually went to one of our state colleges system so I'm glad you had the opportunity to do that it is unfortunate that Senator Doyle retired but he is you know well past normal retirement age so it happens to everybody eventually but we're certainly gonna miss him but I'm hopeful that we'll still have programs that allow students to go down and spend time in the state house. Yeah and you know have you gotten to a point where you're thinking about what you wanted I know you're just a junior but are you starting to think a little bit past graduation and what you might want to do with your education? Yeah I plan on going to law school after I graduate and just another thing is going being able to go to a Vermont State College and get a really good education at a very affordable price makes it a lot more realistic that I can then go on to the cost of law school later and still feel very prepared for it. So and what just on a personal level if you're thinking about law school and you're a history major when you said a double major history and what was the other political science are you thinking about politics or maybe a maybe eventually I haven't decided on that but I definitely have the interest in that area after what I've done and this general interest. Well you're sort of involved with politics right now so have you been involved with the Student Government Association? Yeah I have last year I was a senator on the student government and this year I've taken a role as the director of clubs at the school which is lessened the decision-making but kind of the role of just helping out. So and you've recently been elected to become a trustee of the Vermont State College system right? Yes. Okay so you just you can did you know you can do that for two years Jesse? I didn't know that.  If you enjoy it at least keep that in the back of your mind that you know you can do it for two years if you're elected. Is it is the Student Trustee elected by the all the students of Vermont State College system or by the board of the Student Government Association? It's by the board of the Student Government Association all the presidents and vice presidents of the different student governments at the schools. Yeah and did you have to did you have a contested election to get to be trustee? It was lightly contested yeah but it was yeah it was good. Okay well I'm glad you got on board. Yeah. And what have you thought of a trustee meeting so far? They've been very good I mean it's still very early so there's a lot to be seen and learned but it's been a great experience so far I'm learning a lot and hopefully we'll be able to contribute. I like to be a voice for the students I like to think that I have connections with a lot of different people on campus all different kinds of interests so if I can represent them the best at these meetings that's the goal. Looking forward to that you know we have four institutions that are part of the system I already mentioned them we only have one board of trustees and there are 15 members of the board including the governor and my experience governors don't usually have the time to participate so it's really more like 14 people and the Student Trustee brings a perspective that's really really important and we try to stay involved with what's going on the campuses but there's nothing like somebody that's actually there and we encourage our trust student trustees that they're just like any other trustee we all come in with you know certain backgrounds and when they're on the board though they're everybody's equal so we look forward to that you know you mentioned clubs and you're involved with that this year are there what kind of clubs do we have? There's a very wide variety of clubs there's a lot of skiers and snowboarders and johnson so there's a club that tries to get them up to the mountain as much as possible there's clubs that play like tabletop games there's clubs that it's really just bringing interests together of any kind to do activities or there's model un which is a really good club that brings together bright minds and they go down to massachusetts every year with I don't know if it's from around the country or from around the world just different schools coming together representing a country and kind of in a diplomatic situation you know it's the reason I mentioned it is because in this day and age people are sometimes attracted to getting their degrees online or some way like that which is nothing wrong with it but you know you're not getting the full student experience like you can at one of our state colleges that have all these extracurricular activities model un or or athletics or whatever you and have those kind of experiences been you know something that's been attractive to you and useful for you? Definitely and I know I've talked like there's commuters at johnson that always say they want to get into things but they have a hard time with commuting being able to participate in these activities and I just I do think they're a great opportunity to meet new people but even get to know even more faculty that aren't just in your classes and build those really good connections and opportunities so I guess the college experience is at the heart of it is the academics but it's a lot more than that yeah there's a lot more personal growth and learning how to you know deal with people that are different than you and you know actually struggling sometimes just and getting through the other side hopefully with some support from the the college is a good experience that you can't get online exactly so I'm curious Jesse have you ever run into any students that are early college students at at NVU Johnson? I have um this past summer I was actually an orientation leader um so bringing in all the new freshmen helping them find things and I had an early college group all the students in my group were early college students and they were they're very like I feel like they were a little more nervous maybe than some of the regular freshmen just because they're they're younger and experiencing a totally new thing but but they're very smart kids and they're they're ready to tackle yeah what's in front of them it's something that I for our viewers I just want to elaborate on a little bit early college is when seniors in high school combine that senior high senior year of high school and their first year of college so they could come to NVU Johnson Lindencastleton Community College from Montec and actually by the time they graduate from high school have completed their first year of college with no tuition cost which is pretty amazing when you talk about affordability is is a big issue for people these days but you know if you were going to get an associate's degree that would be a 50 reduction in the tuition cost or even with a bachelor's a 25% reduction in tuition so you know not only do you get a like for first for many in fact on this program we had had a student from up in Franklin County who was an early college student you know really recounted that he was kind of like just drifting along in his high school and got to go to Johnson and really had a much more meaningful and productive senior year that was going to lead him on to go to college that he really didn't even know he was going to go to college so you get that experience but also really helps in the affordability angle too yeah and it's growing I mean it's amazing and within the Vermont State College system the numbers of students participating is is increasing fairly significantly yeah and you can also as high school students take you know without without doing the full early college year you can every high school student in Vermont is entitled to taking two college courses while they're still in high school and it was one student that was down in the Rutland County area that did in their junior year of high school two dual enrollment courses did the early college at Community College of Vermont and then you know their first year out of high school was already into their sophomore year at Castleton you know I just I mentioned that because you know there are a lot of opportunities that people if they think ahead a little bit about can can actually make it much more possible for them to go on to college definitely that's that's an important one you know I also at Johnson have you ever met any students that are in the have you ever met professor Les Cannon I haven't it's in science but they have a program through the National Science Foundation where you're basically for students that are I know your you know history and political science but for students that are interested in math and science where they can go you know for a free boat for four years you know oh is that right yeah and you know you've got to be motivated right there are ways to do it there's incentive to do well yeah yeah so you know I'm just I'm saying that Jesse because a lot of parents and grandparents and students may think gee you know with the sticker price of colleges we just can't even think about it at all and you know there are ways that people can't access higher education in an affordable fashion with a little bit of planning absolutely yeah so have you gotten to know any of the students at the Linden campus yet I haven't yet I'm looking forward to doing that through some of the new positions I haven't then hopefully outside of that the unification brings brings us together on many different levels but I haven't haven't yet no have you've done any courses through telepresence no well what that is I don't know what that is well what it is and we're seeing more and more of it and not only between the campuses of Johnson and Linden at Northern Vermont University but also between community college and and and Casselton or or what happens throughout the system we have classrooms using technology that are connected so a professor can origin it's not not like online I mean it's live and it's happening Monday Wednesday and Friday above whatever time it is but the professor originates the program from one campus but students at another campus can take it live can see the professor can see the white board can ask questions say I didn't understand that equation could you you know just kind of go through a little bit and it is a way to actually allow students to have access to more professors to make sure that we don't have to not you know that we're not running classes with you know four or five people in them that we really is not economically viable for the long run so you know we're trying to take advantage of technology to make sure that students you know really have access to as many of the professors as they can that seems great yeah so Jesse you're how tall are you I'm six six six six six so do you play basketball I was considering playing basketball my freshman year I had a really bad knee injury that kind of took me out for ever but I play I play golf there so doesn't use my height necessarily no it's probably hard for tall people to be golfers like I'm not quite as tall as you but I I'm up there too and it's one way down to that golf ball so yeah but they have athletics at both Johnson and Linden and I mentioned that earlier but you know they play in a conference so if people are thinking about G Northern Vermont University maybe it's you know like kind of like minimizing the opportunities for athletics that's not the case no and what about clubs and you know intramurals and stuff like that um there there's a lot of small intramurals like there's intramural basketball that anybody can participate in one of our biggest sports at the school though is actually a club sport rugby it's um our teams are well known in the region as the best teams every year men's and women's and is that right yeah they they do very well that's great that's a tough game yeah it's like you know it looks like I've never played it myself yeah and you play other colleges within the state college system or within the state college system and outside up not sure the exact place but in Maine and Massachusetts it's different nice yeah well if you had an opportunity to tell students you know why they should think about going to northern Vermont University Johnson which is your direct experience you know what would you what would you say to them Jesse well the biggest thing for me the thing I actually have told a lot of people new students is to really take advantage of every opportunity that you get because at a small college like this there are a lot more opportunities that will come to you than at a larger college um and if you take advantage of it then one thing can lead to another and you can really further your education and help you out in the future so if you take take advantage of those yeah that sounds good it's great and getting to know people I'm just curious I mean before you were on the board of trustees have you ever met the president of of uh Johnson no never yeah never and now you have a student trust yeah okay yeah well that's good yeah and you know when when you went to Johnson did you have any connections there I mean did you know I mean not really my mom had gone there um at one point in her college career um but other than that I did not have any connections and it's crazy to see just two and a half years later all the connections that you can build in that short amount of time right okay I feel like I'm really entrenched in it now well good you're a good ambassador for us that's for sure you know hopefully and I'm I'm thinking that you know what we want to try to do is make sure that whether it's Northern Vermont University or Castleton or Community College of Vermont Technical College that we are serving uh the needs of the state of Vermont and you know if you sort of look at all of our colleges together you would find not only folks like you that may be future legislators or lawyers or what have you public servants but you know if I were to go to you know get some procedure in a in a hospital I'd probably have a nurse that was educated at either Castleton or Vermont Technical College you know we have uh I mean there are hundreds of uh graduates of the Vermont State Colleges that work at what was IBM and is now Global Foundries uh you know the CEO of PC Construction went to Vermont Technical College the president of Union Bank went to Johnson State College and now Northern Vermont University so you know our role uh is actually not just to improve the prospects of individual students but also to serve the needs of the state of Vermont and you know with our demographic situation out there right now where there are just fewer young people it's important that you know that the state colleges provide the kind of education that will allow allow our our young people in Vermont to contribute to the state and to their own future definitely and you know I mean some people Jesse uh wonder about the value of a college education uh and you know the experts would say that uh fully two-thirds of the jobs that are going to be available in the next 10 years require a bachelor's degree and it doesn't mean everybody needs to get a bachelor's degree uh but uh you know people shouldn't minimize the value and I'm glad that you're taking advantage of of those yes and I look forward to find out what you're going to do with your future me too all right well don't don't forget us all right absolutely and I think you know in the in the couple minutes we have left I'd really like to find out um you know one more time what you would say to students that are thinking gee you know I want to go out of state or I want to go to a big university what's the value of a Northern Vermont University Johnson or Lyndon or Castleton or Vermont Tech yeah um I mean it's for those who are having a hard time with staying close to home or not or they really want to go out and experience life outside um it's not you're not getting less of the college experience going to one of the Vermont State colleges it's a smaller community but you can still pursue any interest that you have and affordability is is huge for a lot of people uh whether you need you can only go because it's more affordable or whether it just helps out in the future yeah because it's more affordable it's okay yeah well that sounds good yeah and you know did you have you been a residential student the whole time or did you meet some of the time I have been that's a great opportunity although we have both right so we have plenty of students that do commute absolutely I was surprised when I went to the convocation which is sort of the gathering of the first year students when the semester begins and one of the professors asked the whole group of new students how many of you are working while you're going to school and it seems like it was like 90 percent of the hands went off so there are a lot of our students that are actually pursuing their academics and still trying to you know help with the affordability by maintaining a part time job while they're going yes you've probably seen that with some of the students too right oh definitely okay and those are some of the best students because they're just driven working hard outside of class and then getting their homework done just stay on track and have you met any students from from other states at Johnson a few a lot of the a lot in the region like massachusetts road island my roommates from road island but um also a lot of in-state too because that's a good experience too that i mean we have you know we it's not like not only vermonters there are students from around the region and you know around the world i'm amazed at a place like castlem they have like 36 countries or something like that where students are coming from so and community college is very diverse and so i think jesse we are i hate to say it out of time and so i want to thank you for being a guest today on higher education matters i want to thank our viewers for giving us their time thanks so thanks to worker for hosting i'm jeb spaulding chancellor of the vermont state college system and we hope to see you again


On 1st of September, we have lakhs of people around the country in all the major cities and towns. They will come out, just hold this little blue patch called Rally for Rivers and stand somewhere in the city, where people can see you, not in large groups because that will amount to a protest. Each individual should just stand. As a citizen, you must stand, not with ten people, just you. So, minimum of fifty feet space should be there between one person and the other person, but across the city, we want this display because we want everybody to participate on that day. All the other people who are using the streets, they must all see this because on that day, the media, on the media, we are doing a major campaign, everybody would have seen it on the media and now it's on the street, that should be sufficient propelling force for them to make that call and also in some way within themselves, they commit. If they want more active roles, they can come on the, there is a Rally for Rivers app and the website, they can register and see in what way they can participate in each town and in Bangalore, we are here on 9th of September, in the palace grounds and people can come and participate in that event in large numbers.