Conversation to Transformation

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We can systemize this whole thing. No one, no one is better.

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I guess maybe it was the intensity of fear and uncertainty that somehow simultaneously and magically magnified the intensity of compassion and innovation.

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Welcome to Conversation to Transformation. I am Magdalena Martinez, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the College of Urban Affairs. And I'm also the Director of Education Policy at the Lindsay Institute. This podcast is with the support from the Lindsay Institute, which is a public policy think tank focused on health, education, economic development, governance, nonprofits and social services in Southern Nevada. I'm joined today by my esteemed colleagues who are working with me on a research project on the Nevada COVID experience. However, before I have them introduce themselves, a little bit about our project. As America recovers from the COVID experience, we are interested through this project in hearing about the greatest challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from key policy makers and heads of organizations around the state. We know that COVID health and economic crisis has affected everyone, but we also know that some groups have been disproportionately affected. So, since early 2022, my colleagues and I have been talking to individuals on the front lines of delivering social services and policymaking to really understand what creative approaches and opportunities were born from the COVID crisis and what lessons we've learned in order to position public policy for a more shared recovery in the state of Nevada. So for instance, we've spoken to heads of organizations, school districts, elected officials, business and commerce leaders, and local government officials. And I have to tell you that we are inspired every day we speak to them by these individuals who are on the front lines of delivering services for our communities, and we really have a new appreciation for what it means to be a public servant. So while we also consider descriptive metrics to understand where we are as a community, the primary focus of this project is on gathering qualitative stories and narratives of the different ways that the COVID experience have shaped individuals' lives and to ask the questions, how do we think about equity, compassion, and creativity as we move forward as a community, as we think about this COVID experience and as we think about future crises. So before we get into what it means, what we mean by equity, compassion, creativity, I'd like to have my colleagues introduce themselves. And I want to start by asking them what led you to this project, this research project, and how does it connect to your areas of interest? I'm going to

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start with my colleague Kellyanne Beavers. My name is Kellyanne Beavers and and I'm a research associate at the Lindsay Institute. I came to this project after graduating from my doctorate in December of 2021 and having experienced the gravity of the pandemic, was still experiencing the gravity of pandemic as we all are. And I came to public policy itself by way of urban planning. That is my background and studying city and metropolitan scale issues. And then to think about those from the standpoint of public policy as opposed to as an urban planner has been heartening for me and helped me to realize how much work we have to do in just listening to the people who are in our community. And so I appreciate this project so much and I'm participating in it for that opportunity to listen and learn.

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All right, thanks so much, Kellyanne. Let's go next to Carmen.

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OK, hi, everyone. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Elia del Carmen Solano-Patricio. Most people call me Carmen. I'm an urban studies major. I wish I could say that I was a public policy major, but the title officially is urban studies bachelor's, and I have a minor in criminal justice now, and I'm finishing off the Brookings Public Policy minor program, which is the best thing I've ever done for myself. It's really a program that I like to tell anybody about, everyone and anybody who will listen to me. I study urban affairs, but I focus on criminal justice policy is because of my own personal origin story, if you will. I was 18 years old when my dad, my best friend, my compadre just, when somebody told me that he'd been arrested for drug trafficking. to jail. My dad had a psychiatric condition and in the facility had a psychiatric episode which resulted in an escalation to violence and he died that day. So it was a long journey after that. I went to hospitals, courts, I worked in the courts, I worked for lawyers, I filed a lawsuit, took it all the way up to the Ninth Circuit and more than all of that stuff that happened to my family to myself I Thought about what it was going to mean for the community, right? So the Ninth Circuit ruling affected everybody in the Ninth Circuit jurisdiction so if anybody ever suffers from police brutality and the future this case can be cited and While none of it did anything for my family per se, it did impact the community. And so what I took away from that experience was one, life is short. And two, I need to create impact. And I did that at a young age going through this. And so I thought, well, I need to keep going. So what brought me to UNLV and this project now that everything has happened since the pandemic is really the opportunity to look at all those issues that I knew before the pandemic and how they've amplified. So that's why I'm on this project and that's my story. Thanks so much

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Carmen and I really am sorry for the loss of your father. I do want to draw a connection in that that it was a traumatic experience for you. And in many ways, we have been collectively also experiencing a traumatic experience with COVID, the health crisis and the economic crisis. And so that's going to be a theme throughout these podcasts. And this is the inaugural podcast for the future podcast to come, where we actually will be interviewing and talking to some of our folks that we have interviewed through this project. Okay, Taylor, can you introduce yourself?

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Hi, my name is Taylor Cummings. I'm a second year PhD student here at UNLV. I'm a graduate research assistant on this project with the Lindsay Institute. And I study motivation. I'm a motivation researcher out of the educational psychology department and I do that from a complex systems perspective. So I really like to look at the interconnectedness of the systems that we find ourselves occupied in. I'd like to look at the human being as a complex system in and of ourselves, but also our environment and the society in which we're trying to navigate. And so looking at those complexities and those nuances is really important to me. And this project really allows me the space to get in it and really see how people have been experiencing and affected by what we've been calling a pandemic, the COVID-19 virus.

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All right. Well, I have to tell you that I appreciate every single one of you. You've made such a meaningful contribution to this project and to my own experience, right, in understanding the COVID experience, understanding how we interface, how we talk, how we think about data with the individuals that we've been, who have graciously volunteered their time to talk to us about their COVID experience, before coming to a graduate school, undergraduate here at UNLV. And this really is what makes this project so unique, right? From your own lived experiences to your interest in complex systems to Kellyanne's background in public policy. So I'm really excited to have this conversation today. Specifically, when we got together, we started thinking about, you know, what is different about this project, right? Because we know that there's a lot of data gathering around the COVID experience. And we also know that the divide has widened as a result of this experience. And so we started to think about and talk about, you know, what is a recovery? And I know some of us have reservations about that word, because recovery assumes that we're returning to status quo and how we were. And our orientation here is, no, we can't return to how things were. Let's think differently and let's talk to people to see how they're thinking differently. Everything from county commissioners to heads of local municipalities, whether they're the crisis manager or individuals in social services, school superintendents, right? And we're asking the question, what does it look like when we center equity, opportunity, compassion, and creativity as it relates to public policy. So let's talk about these ideas, right? And we got together, we've been getting together and talking about this to really help inform and frame our conversations with individuals. So who would like to talk about how we approach equity on this project? What does equity mean to you? What does equity mean to us as a project here, as researchers, as we talk to individuals?

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I think I would like to view equity as an opportunity to place a mirror in front of yourself because if you look at everybody around you as a mirror, it really starts with yourself, right? We can talk about equity in a broad perspective, like everybody has the same opportunities or because they don't have the same opportunities, we need to level the playing field, right? We need to have the same type of reach and understand that looking at the group versus looking at the individual means that everybody has a collective experience. Like we all suffered from COVID. This is a non-discriminate issue, right? But our experiences are differential. The impact, the effects are differential and that applies everywhere right in school teachers learn about how to teach students kind of across the board But then they also learn that they need to take a holistic Examination of that student same in institutions prisons per se right there is maybe a status quo tool that is used for everybody but now research and theories have shown that in fact everybody needs to be looked at differently and Holistically right there's a differential effect, and the key word here is differential.

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Yeah, okay, Carmen, thanks. And I want to pull on that thread. Equity is unlimited opportunity. And I think, Taylor, you have previously talked about this idea about, like, it requires removing limitations and barriers. Can you think of an example, or can you think of a conversation that you've had through this project that maybe exemplifies that, or maybe, you know, you thought, hey, this is interesting. This sounds like equity or just overall, what are your thoughts around this construct, this idea of equity as an as

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unlimited opportunity? Okay, so I do want to address something you said, and I think it does connect to this. You said, what's different about this project? And what comes to my mind is, I think we're trying to answer this question of what are we going to do about it? Like we've been collecting all this data. We know how COVID or what COVID has done to people, how it's affected people, who it's affected disproportionately. We have a lot of data. We, you can look on TikTok and figure out how it's been affecting people, right? So we know what's happening, right? And we know how it's been happening and what sort of caused it. And we're trying to figure out how to get ourselves up out of it. And so when we're trying to answer this question of what are we going to do about it? And we're thinking about equity and opportunity and what that really looks like. This motivation research I'm doing, it really is looking at this question of what does it mean to be self-determined? And that's another big question that's really being asked in this political landscape and I think has a lot to do with freedom and justice and equity and opportunity and what that really means. And so when we're talking about removing limitations and removing barriers from people, it's this idea of resources and control and power and who has it and who doesn't have it and why they get to have it and why these people don't and why I have to come to you to get what I need, right? So we're talking about basic living, like living, not even surviving, right? And we understand survival as this fight and I don't really know why it gotta be a fight with when our earth provides us everything that we need. We're fighting to survive here, it's kinda crazy. But when we're thinking about what it really means to live unlimited, I think that's a scary thing for people because people think that you're going to get out of control and things are going to go crazy and wild when we have unlimited food or unlimited water, unlimited air, right? We're not paying for air. Air. What does that really look like and what does that really mean? And so I think it's time to really get serious about what these things mean to us and the philosopher in me really wants to get to the essence and the truth of our experience and what's really real because that's what's going to help us navigate this thing.

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And I love that, Taylor. You really are the philosopher in the group, and you always challenge us to think beyond what's in front of us, right? Because many of us were trained to really understand public policy from this very kind of myopic perspective, right? And you're saying, look, like public policy is a manifestation of values. And so what do we value, right? And that's the philosopher in our group. And I love that. Callie-Anne, what are your thoughts around what's been shared by Carmen and Taylor?

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Well, if I may, based on what you just said about the values aspect of this thought process, I'll connect it to the theme of compassion that you mentioned. And I do think that what happened to everyone collectively has, at least based on my observation and the great amount of listening that we've done, developed a level of compassion within so many people that I don't know if we were aware of before, and that may have begun from compassion for ourselves as we all realized how vulnerable we were. And then that extended out to the emergency of how vulnerable everyone was and many people there are countless stories of folks who stepped in to their power and helped others who during this time were suffering as we all are encountering now, which is how do we hold on to that compassion? Because we haven't forgotten it, but there is a possibility to fall back into the pattern of how we operated before this great strife that we've all experienced and many people are still experiencing strife from. So I think that value of compassion does connect very much to some of the philosophical questions and thoughts that Taylor was articulating, because I think that keeping compassion at the forefront of public policy and of each of our own individual ways in which we relate with the world can have immense ripples outward.

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Yeah, and I think that our working definition, I have it in front of me here when we started talking about compassion, because there's so many ways to understand it, right? And so where we landed was compassion is valuing the knowledge and experiences of others. It is a pathway for solution-oriented strategies. And we have heard a lot of compassion from our interviewees, right? Everything from the mayor who was dealing with mental health issues, and Kellyanne, I think you spoke to her in the state of Nevada, and then she made the decision to provide mental health services for much broader constituents, basically, right, during this crisis. And I think that's a manifestation, right, an example of the type of compassion that we're seeing through this project. And certainly we're also reading the latest reports on, you know, what percentage of people really are at a crossroad and need some sort of mental health. We know all of that, but this project is focused more on less on the metrics and more on hearing the stories and narratives and what it looks like for many of these individuals on the front lines, right? We also heard compassion from state superintendents, or rather our state superintendent and our school district superintendents around the state, right? Particularly Carmen, I know we had a conversation. I think every superintendent we've spoken to really focuses on a pivotal point and that one pivotal point is when they lose their, when they lost their first student to suicide. And it's just absolutely heartbreaking. I get chills just thinking about that and talking about it. But again, you know, how is that going to inform the way we move forward, right? What are we learning from this experience? And compassion, I think, is a key idea that we're hoping we can think about with the collection of this data and hopefully draw that out in terms of examples of how individuals, key leaders in our community, have been able to manifest that in different ways. Any other ideas around compassion? Taylor, Carmen?

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I wanted to tie it into the next term, creativity, actually. Because of all this compassion that's going around and that we're recognizing in ourselves, we have a really unique opportunity to be creative about solutions, right? There was a journalist that I learned about in one of my Brookings courses. It was a journalism course in this college, actually, where we learned about Marshall McLuhan and his message, or his point was that the medium is the message right we live in an age of technology Those were common threads in these conversations and these interviews around accessibility to technology creativity and learning right creativity and working together and removing red tape and collaboration And really delivering products that are tangible for people right that reach the masses so through this podcast through documentaries through social media through deliverables that are engaging with everybody around us. And that is, that's just the start of something,

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something revolutionary, I think. Yeah, that's exciting. And so again, we've given this idea of creativity, some thought how we define it. And where we landed was embracing original thought. It is the genesis of social change and innovation. Any thoughts around

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that? Yeah, I mean, I think it relates, I was going to go in on the compassion, but it does have a lot to do with that. Because I think when you understand that your story matters, right, because I was going to even say that these people that we speak of who have done these amazing things or have been showing leadership qualities in their communities, I bet you they have crazy powerful stories of their own. And because they have those stories, they're able to recognize that in others and they want to do something to highlight that and to do something to change that. And so when you know that your own story matters, that you're able to recognize that in other people, and that allows you to recognize what other people know and how they know what they know, and that allows you to appreciate that the thoughts that they have and the experiences that they have, which really are their ideas, right? And that's going to lead us to innovation. But what we have in our education system, what we have in a lot of our systems is this very cookie cutter way of thinking and doing and being. And it doesn't allow for originality, doesn't allow for original thought, doesn't allow for free thinking, that doesn't allow for solutions, right? There's no way that we're living the lives that we're living without the safety. I just watched a video actually, roofers, they now have shorts where roofers can get on the roof and not be afraid of sliding off. We should have been had that.

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You know what I'm saying?

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There's no reason why in 2022 a roof is still falling off the roof. Like that's crazy. So it's just like the level of thinking. I think it could be higher, you know, if we were really doing what we should be doing here on this earth, because we're still digging up old ancient civilizations trying to figure out what they were doing there. But we think we're more brilliant or more intelligent than they once were. But they had technology that we have to create and replicate that we already have in our own bodies. So it's like, what are we really dealing with? And so the more we start to understand ourselves, I think we'll start to understand the world around us and really be able to do something with what we have.

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And I just wanna highlight something that you said, and that was that these individuals that we've been interviewing have compelling stories of their own and narratives of their own that even go beyond their current positional title, right? Whether it's a mayor or an elected official, a state senator, or an assembly person, or a superintendent. And that's what we're trying to capture in these podcasts, right, moving forward is, how are these leaders shaped? And how did they respond at one of the most critical points in our history, quite frankly, right? And so I just wanted to underscore that, that that's part of this exciting process. Opportunity. So we've talked about it, but I haven't shared what our working definition is. Our working definition is opportunity is unlimited access. It requires necessary resources. And so we've talked a lot about this through this project because the one thing that these individuals that we've been interviewing have talked about is that, yes, of course money matters. And yes, it was helpful to get the federal intervention resources, right? But that's not good enough. You need the creativity. You need the compassion. And you need the equity, right? Orientation in order to make the best use of opportunity, right? Kellyanne, any thoughts around that? Any stories you'd like to share based on the data that we've collected, or just your thoughts around what we've just shared?

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Yes, I think that in addition to the ways in which we've described how this experience has changed us and changed the folks whom we have been listening to, this project has allowed me to develop a new level of compassion for the leaders themselves. In addition to my community and myself, I haven't had an opportunity to listen to leaders like this ever. And to hear them speak openly and transparently about what they've been through has given me an understanding of their humanity, of their humanness, and that's impactful and I hope something that resonates outward from this project.

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I've been really blown away too though by the work that's just being done. Like it's in Nevada, like I was like whoa, but it also makes you feel the gravity and the severity of the problems that we're dealing with because it's like we don't really feel those billions and millions of dollars that are going to feed the poor and to clothe the backs of people. We don't feel that. That's how much more we need. We still have a lot more work to do.

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Yeah, that was cool.

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That was cool.

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And this is just, again, the inaugural podcast for a series of podcasts that will be rolling out after this one. And we're focusing on leadership under uncertain times, right? Leadership during uncertain times. And we're going to continue to highlight and keep coming back to these ideas of equity, opportunity, compassion, and creativity. And we encourage you also to visit the Lindsay Institute at UNLV, where you can really see the full range of work that we do around public policy, and it really does span quite a bit of areas and domains. Just search the Lindsay Institute at UNLV and you can really see the type of activities that we're engaged in. And so this is one piece of it, right? And it's a different type of project and that again, it's much more qualitative, really trying to capture the stories and narratives of our community. And our long-term goal is that once we finish all these interviews, which will hopefully be by the end of 2022, we will also share this with the library and have it as part of our archives, right? Our COVID archives, so that we don't lose sight of what we've experienced, and what we can learn from this. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really look forward to continuing this conversation. And I really appreciate all you here today, Carmen, Kellyanne, and Taylor.

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Thank you for tuning into this episode of Conversation to Transformation, Opportunities Born from the Pandemic. This podcast is made possible through the Lindsay Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. For more information, please follow us on social media and visit our website at www.unlv.edu more information, please follow us on social media and visit our website at www.unlv.edu slash lindsayinstitute.