Democracy Initiative Podcast

Show Notes

• What takes up a lot of space in your brain these days?
• Why does it feel urgent now for the Democracy Initiative to ask questions about knowledge as a public good and rights and 21st century citizenship?
• The Constitution has many protections built in to protect the public from government overreach, but lacks the same reach into the private sector. How do you feel about that?
• What does knowledge as a public good mean to you? If and when knowledge is not a public good, what tension is there around that? When does our conversation about knowledge as a public good become less clear?
• How should we be thinking about algorithmical influence?
• Generative AI raises a lot of questions about the creation of knowledge. How do you think about generative AI in relation to knowledge as a public good?
• What does understanding all of this better mean for us as people?
• What do rights and obligations mean to you in an online context? How do you think about the tension that manifests online between rights and obligations either at the individual level, at the community level, or the company level?

Transcript

[00:00:01.55] CARRIE COOPER: Welcome to William & Mary's Democracy Initiative Podcast. Officially launched in 2021, William & Mary's strategic plan, Vision 2026, tackles 21st century imperatives directly, expanding the university's reach in several key areas-- data and computational sciences, water conservation, the history and future of democracy, and career pathways for graduates. My name is Carrie Cooper, dean of university libraries.

[00:00:29.39] GINGER AMBLER: And I am Ginger Ambler, vice president for student affairs. As cochairs of the Democracy Initiative at William & Mary, we are delighted to sponsor this Vision 2026 podcast. It is part of a special series designed to explore issues related to democracy as well as the compelling ways democracy intersects with data, water, and careers. We welcome you and invite you to listen as leading researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners consider the critical pillars of William & Mary's strategic plan. This episode will focus on democracy and technology.

[00:01:10.59] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I'm Emily Tavoulareas, managing chair of the Tech and Society Initiative at Georgetown University. Also, I am a William & Mary alum-- class of 2004. So today I have the pleasure of speaking with three professors at William & Mary who are immersed in questions of democracy and technology and the relationship between those two things. With me today we have Professor Jaime Settle, Professor Elizabeth Losh, and Professor Margaret Hu. And I'd love to just kick things off by letting you all introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what takes up a lot of space in your brain these days.

[00:01:54.12] JAIME SETTLE: Hi. I'm Dr. Jamie Settle. I'm an associate professor here at William & Mary appointed in the government department and in data science. My background is in political communication and political psychology, and I'm really interested in how people talk to each other about politics day in and day out, whether that's on some sort of computer-mediated communication like social media or face to face in person.

[00:02:19.26] I have two books. My first book came out in 2018 and is entitled Frenemies, How Social Media Polarizes America, and is a dive into the psychological processes that facilitate people in becoming more polarized when they interact with each other on social media sites like Facebook.

[00:02:37.35] And my more recent book just came out in 2022 called What Goes Without Saying, Navigating Political Discussion in America. And the best part of this book, in my opinion, is that it's cowritten with an alum of William & Mary, Taylor Carlson, who's now an assistant professor herself at Wash U in Saint Louis. And we started this project when she was an undergrad here at William & Mary, and we look at the social and psychological processes that affect how people make decisions in face to face communication.

[00:03:07.36] What I'm thinking about most right now is how the backsliding and erosion that we're seeing in the quality of our democracy in America is affecting the processes of how people talk with one another. And I'm really excited to be here today and talk about how technology may be helping or hurting those sorts of processes.

[00:03:26.65] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Liz.

[00:03:29.90] ELIZABETH LOSH: So I'm Elizabeth Losh. I'm a professor of English and American studies at William & Mary. And I've written six books about the politics of digital media. My most recent book is a book called Selfie Democracy, The New Digital Politics of Disruption and Insurrection. And it's a book that looks at the relationship between White House-- the White House and big tech under both the Obama and the Trump administrations.

[00:03:59.89] And I'm arguing that, in some ways, Obama and Trump rose as political outsiders with a promise of using technology to get rid of the middle man essentially that might separate a leader from his or her constituents and this sort of promise of direct digital democracy, I'm arguing, in some ways actually undermines representative democracy. It undermines our faith in intermediaries. And I also-- I interviewed a ton of White House insiders and I even interviewed the man who taught Donald Trump how to tweet.

[00:04:42.13] And one of the other threads that I'm following in the book is how technology often reflects anxieties about race, gender, class, and ability and the ways that some times what seems to be about a technological issue is actually about other issues that involve categories of difference that divide us.

[00:05:06.70] And what I'm thinking about most right now is this question of trust. And we're living in a time-- like Jaime, I'm very concerned about the state of democracy today in which people lack trust in the government and they also lack trust in technology. And so often, when the government wants to use technology to improve democracy, there's actually a lot of mistrust of that.

[00:05:34.63] And you see that around digital voting systems. You see that around 5G. You even see it around questions of COVID digital certificates. You know, all of this anxiety about digital systems that are complex that maybe we can't entirely understand and consequently we can't trust.

[00:05:54.44] And so my next book is tentatively going to be called Start Up Nation. It's looking-- I was a Fulbright scholar last year living in Estonia and sort of looks at this very forward-thinking country in some ways. There are other ways that you actually see a kind of dark side of technological innovation when you're looking at countries that maybe are trying to move very rapidly in the digital space.

[00:06:20.21] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Absolutely. Thank you. And Margaret.

[00:06:23.47] MARGARET HU: It's such a privilege to be here. I'm Margaret Hu. I'm a professor at the law school, and I just joined in August. And it's so wonderful to be a part of this Democracy Initiative and to be here at William & Mary, a university uniquely positioned, I think, to have a role at the national level to engage in this conversation about democracy and especially democracy and technology.

[00:06:47.02] So my first book was an edited volume titled Pandemic Surveillance, Privacy, Security, and Data Ethics. It was published last year. And I have a book under contract, and it's tentatively titled Big Data Constitution. And what I try to look at in this book is the way in which our constitutional structure and rights were forged in a small data world. And we were looking at small data power and threats and the types of limitations that you needed to place on the government in light of those types of abuses as imagined by our founders.

[00:07:23.42] But you fast forward to the present day and you see threats looking very different in this current landscape. And what type of new reconceptualization do we need to embrace in order to make sure that our core first principles and our foundational commitments to rights and liberties and limited governmental power can remain and sustain in light of the types of technological advances that we see with predictive policing, for example, with AI-driven voter microtargeting, with misinformation, disinformation campaigns, with the ability to merge big tech with governmental power.

[00:08:10.28] It's a merger of power that, I think, rivals the fear our founders had of the merger between church and state. And I think that in order for us to really tackle things like mass surveillance and cyber surveillance and the weaponization of information in the digital age and our new information, society, and economy, we really need to look very carefully at our Bill of Rights, I think, in particular and the way in which we divide power.

[00:08:40.68] And so there's been a great deal of conversation recently about the need for an AI Bill of Rights, and this is something that I think we need to take very seriously at this moment of democratic crisis. I think that we really need to understand exactly what are the legal tools available to us in order to navigate, I think, what we see as a real inflection point for our democracy, especially in light of the insurrection on January 6th.

[00:09:13.60] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I'd like to focus on that a little bit because one of the questions I had coming into this conversation was, why does this feel urgent now, right? Like for the Democracy Initiative, it has articulated very clearly that it's focused on knowledge as a public good, rights and obligations of 21st century citizenship. And I just wanted to start with a question about urgency, right? You've all touched on this in different ways. Why does this feel urgent to you now? And whoever wants to, please jump in.

[00:09:51.30] ELIZABETH LOSH: Well, in my first book about politics and digital media when I was looking at the White House, I was really talking about desktop computing, and I was looking at the question of what happens when digital files reach unintended audiences and get used for unanticipated purposes? And a lot of what I was looking at was really about issues around intellectual property.

[00:10:13.93] But now these devices are not confined to the realm of a workstation. These are intimate devices that know how many steps you've taken. They know where you've been. And I think ubiquitous computing combined with large-scale data-harvesting is really a paradigm shift. And then when you put AI into that soup, you get a particularly dangerous stew for democracy.

[00:10:48.40] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah. And Margaret, you touched on a similar point here. I wanted to toss it over to you for a minute. What does that raise for you?

[00:10:59.55] MARGARET HU: Yeah, absolutely. I think that what we see with these new tools, with the massive aggregation, storage, and analysis of billions of pieces of data by both governmental entities and private corporations, that we have an unprecedented ability to engage in mass manipulation, I think cognitive shaping, and cyber propaganda.

[00:11:24.08] So it is, I think, such a deep threat to democracy right now where unless we find a way in order to try to maintain a sense of autonomy and individual, I think, intellectual capacity without that type of manipulation, that we are going to continue to see mass information, misinformation, disinformation campaigns of a scale that we have never seen before.

[00:11:52.23] And I think that January 6th is one of the symptoms. I think that foreign interference of US elections that we saw in 2016 moving forward is going to worsen. And one of these pillars and bedrock principles of democracy-- free and fair elections-- I think is truly under threat. And so when you said what is the urgency here, I think if we are not able to sustain faith and hope in free and fair elections and if we are unable to execute that pillar of democracy, all of democracy, I think, is under threat.

[00:12:30.84] JAIME SETTLE: Building off of that. I mean, I completely agree with that point. I think from the perspective of those of us who study American politics, we've always thought of elections as focal points and we've thought about how people interact with each other about politics in the context of a campaign. But one of the consequences of polarization is the campaign is essentially permanent.

[00:12:51.75] The salience of politics is always present. And so this is not just something that we think about in election cycles. This is day in and day out. The effects of what we've seen in terms of all of these malicious forces and what we've done to ourselves as a country in terms of how we've come to communicate with one another is not something that just flares up every two or four years. And so I don't think we can wait any longer. We have to be tackling it now, not waiting for something to come just in advance of a presidential election.

[00:13:24.37] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: What does doing something now look like to your minds? Is that-- do you have a sense of what that looks like, or are we still really in an exploratory stage where we're trying to understand what the options are?

[00:13:39.42] JAIME SETTLE: I think both. From my perspective, we have so much to understand about the root causes of what's driving all of these forces. We don't understand the problems fully, and it doesn't make sense to work on solutions until you have a good handle on the problem. At the same time, if you take that logic to its extreme, we will never start working on solutions.

[00:14:02.33] And so getting started now to me means effective partnerships between scholars who are taking a deep dive in understanding the why, working with practitioners who are much more focused on the solutions to make sure that they are implementing based on the most up-to-date understanding we have of the problems.

[00:14:23.66] ELIZABETH LOSH: And I think we're at an interesting moment where there is consensus among people both on the right and the left that something needs to be done. And what those regulatory forces might be-- I think legislation isn't the only answer. I think Supreme Court decisions aren't the only answer to these questions.

[00:14:45.82] But you know, it's a time that we could actually come together because I think that there is widespread agreement that our society has a problem. And yet to see the political dysfunction around actually moving forward with anything because of some of the issues that Jaime writes about is really discouraging sometimes.

[00:15:11.11] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah. You mentioned the Supreme Court and I couldn't-- I can't help but touch on the Gonzalez v. Google case, which, of course, we heard the opening-- the opening arguments for last week. And for those who are listening, the case essentially is-- without going in into the details too much, has implications for content moderation and how information flows on the internet on these platforms.

[00:15:43.17] And were the court to make a decision that platforms would be liable for the content on them, one of the potential scenarios that experts point to is that companies would be incentivized to either undercensor or overcensor, which I think touches on a lot of what you all have been talking about, which would essentially lead to a mass surveillance system at scale.

[00:16:07.36] And what this leads me to is a question about protections that are currently built into our system. The Constitution has many protections built in to protect the public from government overreach but doesn't have the same reach into the private sector. And I wanted to know how you all think about that, particularly with these cases in front of the court and probably more to come.

[00:16:39.92] MARGARET HU: Yeah, I think that what's really fascinating is that we have this First Amendment that is intended to protect us, our freedom of speech, our freedom of expression, communication, and the free flow of information, especially with our press and our commitment to journalism and that we had Section 30 adopted at a time when we wanted to make sure that we had incentivization for big tech to be able to flourish and serve as a platform of communication and mass media and not be held liable for the speech of others in order to be that conduit.

[00:17:20.69] But I think what you see in that Google case is that technology has changed and that platforms have changed, and now with the algorithms that they develop in order to drive traffic and what we saw with the Facebook papers and Frances Haugens revelations is that there is a very concerted manipulation of the data and of exploiting user preferences in order to increase tensions and exacerbate, I think, the type of sowing of discord that pairs unfortunately very nicely with those foreign adversaries that are intending to do us harm.

[00:18:00.16] And so you suddenly have foreign threats merging with domestic threats. And I think there is something very distinct about the technology that is algorithmically-driven because it is not simply serving as a platform that is a conduit of information. It is taking the data and doing something with it that I think other nations, especially the EU, they are looking very carefully about what type of regulatory regimes you need once you do something with other users' data.

[00:18:34.92] And at that point, I would invite us in the United States to look at things like the proposed AI Act in the EU where it is a risk-based approach to emerging technologies. And so they look at the most dangerous technologies and they say, these pose an unacceptable risk.

[00:18:55.63] And so the types of technologies that do lead to cognitive manipulation or subliminal messaging, the types of AI-driven voter microtargeting, for example, that focuses on certain classifications of individuals, especially protected individuals, those are classified as very high risk technologies and posing unacceptable risks. And so I do think when you were saying, what can we do right now, I think that we can take very seriously a very close look at what type of regulatory models are out there that we might need to adopt.

[00:19:31.57] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Excellent.

[00:19:32.92] JAIME SETTLE: I always think about this when we're talking about complex issues that experts struggle to understand-- what do we think people understand about them? So I always remind myself, most Americans do not understand what the First Amendment actually protects. And so making this distinction between what the government is allowed to do and what the private sector is allowed to do, people blur that in their mind anyway.

[00:19:56.74] And historically, Americans have had a fair amount of trust in corporate America, and that's beginning to change as well, right? I mean, I think the shifts you've seen in the past few years in terms of how Americans evaluate the level of trust in these big tech companies-- and Liz is right, this is happening on both sides-- Democrats and Republicans-- for different reasons, but that decline of trust.

[00:20:21.40] Another way I think about this is, what does the average person understand about an algorithm, right? And if you think about folk theories of algorithms, how do people think-- what's going on? And they sort of get it, but they don't really get it. And we shouldn't be surprised because people who work at these companies also fully don't understand exactly why the algorithms produce what they do. So I don't think we can have this conversation without being realistic about how everyday people understand the nature of the problems themselves.

[00:20:53.23] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Absolutely. And there's so much about products and the algorithms that power them that we cannot really fully predict until they're out in the world, right? Until actual humans are using them in the environment that they live in. One of the things we've been circling around is knowledge and information. And I know that this was explicitly-- it's one of the things that the Democracy Initiative here at William & Mary explicitly points to as focusing on knowledge as a public good, which is latent with tension for me, right?

[00:21:29.68] It's like, who defines what's good, and what is the public, and what even is knowledge? So what I wanted to get your thoughts on this a bit-- I'd love, one, to know what knowledge as a public good means to you? And if and when knowledge is not a public good, right, or what tension is in there, right, when does our conversation around knowledge as a public good become complicated and less clear? So what is-- let's start with what does that mean to you and what does that raise for you?

[00:22:18.96] ELIZABETH LOSH: So the French philosopher Jacques Ranciere has this great saying where he says that politics is the distribution of the sensible. And I think that question of what rises to visibility and awareness in public conversations is something that I'm really interested in and the ways that that visibility is now being manipulated by technology.

[00:22:44.73] And particularly when we think about what people are aware of, what they're sensible of, they're often issues that have these high emotional investments, sometimes about things that, in retrospect, might seem relatively minor. But there's this sense of anxiety about profound losses that are often exploited in these messages, so a sense of there's an emergency that you've become aware of.

[00:23:19.95] Wendy Chen has this great formulation where she talks about status plus crisis equals update, and so this need to kind of constantly both be in a state of crisis where you have to kind of constantly update yourself and yet you also become really desensitized to this assault of new information.

[00:23:45.82] And I think-- when I think about William & Mary, there are a lot of people who've been part of the William & Mary community who've tried to grapple with the complexities of what's not visible, and so how do we think about things like lobbying? How do we understand things like regulation? How do we understand things like complex technical systems? And who gets particular kinds of resources? And how do we understand the material infrastructure of the internet and how it operates?

[00:24:21.49] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Absolutely. And Liz, I know-- Jaime, you live and breathe this question, I know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:24:29.14] JAIME SETTLE: Sure, sure. So I tend to think of the production of information in terms of news and thinking about what is political news? What is political fact? And political scientists have thought about news as an information good. It has distinct properties. It's produced by market forces.

[00:24:51.43] And as you've seen, the market for news changed dramatically in the last 30 to 40 years. The expectations we have for what information should get produced is just radically different. In a previous era, the production of news was a public good in a sense that was managed by a much smaller set of people who were making editorial decisions.

[00:25:15.19] We've seen the democratization of the production of news, but that's led to a very polluted information environment. And when you fold in all the ways that algorithms are built on top of human psychology, the kinds of information that's circulating most readily is not necessarily-- we don't expect it to be the most credible. But the very fact that it is circulating so widely is often giving it more credibility than it deserves.

[00:25:44.63] So when I think about the challenges of citizenship in the 21st century as it relates to becoming informed, the challenge is no longer accessing the information. It is parsing through the deluge of information you encounter everywhere you go. And so if we're thinking about information as a public good, we need to be thinking about our individual contributions but also how, historically, have we managed things that are collective action problems? How have we incentivized each other to not pollute a common pool resource and to make sure that we're not acting in our individual interest in a way that undermines the collective benefit?

[00:26:27.18] ELIZABETH LOSH: Often my students don't believe that there was a time that you would go a whole day without consuming news, that you would read the newspaper in the morning and then you'd watch the evening news at night before going to bed and that there was no news between those time slots.

[00:26:44.61] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah. Oh, well, I don't want to make this about the Google v-- the Gonzalez v. Google case. However, we did-- we're talking about editorial decisions and I cannot help but think about algorithms here. And I raise the Gonzalez v. Google case because this is sort of part of the case in raising the question about editorial decisions, right?

[00:27:10.55] Like are algorithms making editorial decisions by the sheer act of surfacing information for you to consume, essentially deciding what people should see, what should rise, what should not? It's a piece of software that's doing it, not a human. Is that different? How should we be thinking about that?

[00:27:40.58] JAIME SETTLE: That's a tough one. I tend to think about this-- there is no algorithm with a capital A at any of these companies. And every user's experience is different in a way that reflects the choices that they have made. So for me, one key distinction is this is not-- there's not uniformity, right?

[00:28:03.76] These companies are not making editorial decisions that are the same for everyone. Nor are people themselves totally removed from the factors that end up influencing what they see. And so those two things to me really raise a lot of questions that this is not editorial decision-making as we think of it in a classic sense.

[00:28:27.52] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I want to double click on that because I think this is something that gets tangled up quite a lot in conversation. And correct me if I'm misrepresenting this, but essentially what you're saying is that the algorithm is, on the one hand, programmed by humans to do a particular thing.

[00:28:45.75] And part of the thing that it does is it understands your behavior and your interests and it serves you up something that is based on what it's learning about you. So it's not the algorithm making an editorial decision the way an editor might, which is separate from consumer behavior, but directly tied to the behavior of the user. Does that sound right?

[00:29:12.53] JAIME SETTLE: It does. I mean, I would argue editors have always made decisions based on what they expect the market to want. But in this case, they have much better data. The algorithm has much better data on what people actually want to consume and that the value that's being maximized is engagement on most of these sites, whereas the traditional model of editorial control was balancing across a number of different values, not just increasing market share.

[00:29:45.31] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: So I want to come to AI real quick on this because generative AI, of course, raises a lot of questions about knowledge and the creation of knowledge. And I'd love to know how you think about generative AI in relation to knowledge as a public good.

[00:30:06.26] MARGARET HU: Yeah, I wanted to circle back because I think that that is such a critical question about what is knowledge in this era of AI and generative AI. But I think that it's important to think about these very deep ontological questions about what we think we even know.

[00:30:23.48] I think Jaron Lanier was the one who said that AI basically or big data, these types of technologies, it's like virtual reality, that it is so compelling because you might have more data available than you've ever had before to generate conclusions or correlations that appear to be so statistically accurate but that, at the core, we need to remember we're not looking at curated knowledge the way that we once understood knowledge that we once were able to verify or we had human-based judgment integrated into some type of verified conclusion or conclusion that a community of experts could agree upon as that being knowledge in and of itself.

[00:31:17.78] So when we are considering what is knowledge for the public good, I think that it's important for us to step back and understand that knowledge in an AI sense or a generative AI sense is simply not knowledge as we once understood it as a human-driven project.

[00:31:36.65] ELIZABETH LOSH: And I think the other hard piece of these personalization technologies is that they're convenient for many people. Many people prefer just getting the kind of news that they would like to consume. And so that's another factor that can inhibit genuine reform.

[00:32:00.97] But going back now to this question of generative AI-- because I think there are a lot of headlines around it and for good reason, although there have been text generators around for decades and composing in different genres, and so some of this anxiety about ChatGPT or LaMDA or Bard or some of these other systems might--

[00:32:29.32] In the historical stretch of things, there have always been assistive writing technologies of different kinds and that might be involved in certain kinds of I wouldn't say impersonation but this sort of sense of that divide between the human and the nonhuman has always been a kind of slippery one when it comes to these technologies.

[00:32:55.48] But I do think-- and now I'm putting on my hat as the cochair of the Modern Language Association's task force on this, and they're trying to figure out things like should you cite the AI tools that you use in your writing? I do think that these kinds of technologies are really powerful and they do have the capacity to disrupt.

[00:33:22.33] And here at William & Mary, it can affect everything from the kind of writing assignments that might be given to students. And remember, writing is a powerful mode of learning, so having students not necessarily write their own essays can have certain consequences. And things like translation, learning languages, like all of these things can really be profoundly disrupted. And so I think that, going back to this question of what is knowledge, if we outsource a lot of the hard work of becoming educated individuals in a community to a technology, there are going to be consequences from that as well.

[00:34:08.60] JAIME SETTLE: I've been thinking about this a lot in the sense that I teach a course, The Ethics of Data Science, for our degree program here. And the big news about ChatGPT came out right before the final exam. And you know, I should have incorporated it earlier into the syllabus, but I was caught a little off guard by the announcement, and I just-- I radically changed my final exam structure not because I was worried about the students doing unethical things but because I thought, how can I send these students off having taken a class in the ethics of data science if we didn't encounter this topic at all?

[00:34:45.68] And to me, that's the trick, right? Yes, these are disruptive. Yes, these have the potential to be really negative forces and we have to work through that. But they also have the potential to be helpful in a way to push students to think better. And so I think the task in front of us now as educators is to think, how do we want our students to understand the benefits of these, right?

[00:35:12.81] If we are sending them out as college-educated individuals, and not any college, William & Mary educated individuals, how should they be thinking differently about these tools, and how can they incorporate them in ethical, responsible ways to do even better, right? To reach more people, to be more efficient in their work, to be more inclusive in their work.

[00:35:33.12] And you know, we've just started scratching the surface. I mean, this will be something that I think will consume us for years to come. But I'm optimistic. I really believe in our students on this that we're going to find positive ways forward to make their education stronger than it could have been.

[00:35:51.28] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's great. It really-- it draws me to the rights and obligations side of the-- part of the equation we've been talking about here that the illumination of the rights and obligations of 21st century citizenship as a pathway to securing democratic ideals is one of the parts of this initiative that's really explicitly stated there.

[00:36:17.06] And part of what I hear you all pointing to is what understanding all of this better means for what we do as people and how we engage with each other and with institutions, et cetera. So I'd love to hear a little bit from you both what do rights and obligations mean to you in an online context and how you think about the tension that manifests online between rights and obligations either at the individual level, communities, companies, whatever direction you want to take that. And I know, Jaime, you think a lot about how people engage with each other and interact. How do you-- how do you respond to this?

[00:37:10.67] JAIME SETTLE: Yeah, I was hoping you were going to throw that to Margaret, but I can take a stab. So I wish people had a better understanding that the choices they make online have the repercussions that they do. And so I think most people understand that if they post something or they share something, that has implications. But even your choice to dwell on a piece of information or clicking on it in any way, you're generating data that is contributing to the problem.

[00:37:47.03] So in the Frenemies book, I talk a bit at the end about what would it take to change these individual-level behaviors to incentivize people to act in a more responsible way as consumers and generators of political information? And I don't think I have any really good answers there. I mean, I know it's going-- we're not going to get a solution from the government. We're not going to get a solution from the companies. And it's too big a collective action problem for individuals to solve without some sort of coordination.

[00:38:19.50] But I think those individual level choices do matter. So that's the responsibility, right? Sort of stepping up to think about how your actions, even your subtle ones, may be influential. The tension there is, I'm not sure we're having our rights met in order to expect us to step up with the responsibilities. I don't know what rights we really have in this space.

[00:38:48.11] But whatever they are, I don't think they're being as fulfilled and protected as they could be. And so I think-- thinking about this almost as a new form of social contract, what should we expect when we engage online but with that expectation of what we are entitled to, what are we obligated to? And I don't know that I have a good answer on that.

[00:39:11.60] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Margaret, you mentioned the AI Bill of Rights, and I know you spent a lot of time thinking about this. What does this-- what does this raise for you?

[00:39:18.89] MARGARET HU: Yeah, I think what this raises for me is a real, I think, need for us to think about the ways in which we are not able to operate under the same governance philosophies that we once did because we simply don't have the type of even playing fields that we once had. I think that there's too many problems of asymmetric power and asymmetries of information, including algorithms and who controls them and how and how it impacts our lives.

[00:39:51.63] And the way that one tech exec explained it to me, and I think that this puts it very well, is it's almost like we're pre-Magna Carta right now, that the power flows so deeply one way that it's created almost an impossibility for individual citizens to try to gauge and assert their rights.

[00:40:15.84] And it's hard even for, I think, the government to fulfill their obligations to enforce those rights because we can't even imagine the way that surveillance capitalism, for example Shoshana Zuboff's theorization about the exploitation of all of the datafication that we create because of the structure of our digital economy.

[00:40:39.28] And so unless we grapple with the superstructure that we now find ourselves living in in a way that we cannot separate ourselves from, that we cannot separate ourselves from that superstructure of surveillance capitalism, then I think that we are going to have a real hard time understanding what the First Amendment means, what the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause means, what due process under the law means with algorithmic decision-making and automated decision-making, what even the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, which are the amendments of our Bill of Rights that protect criminal procedures.

[00:41:23.80] So in a recent piece that I wrote about biometric data and the AI Bill of Rights, I look at facial recognition technology. The fact that you present your face and that data can be captured by governmental and private corporations alike, what does that mean for search and seizure? What's unreasonable search and seizure when somebody can capture your data? What does it mean to have a right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment? What does it mean to be able to confront your witnesses under the Sixth Amendment?

[00:41:54.57] If you don't have access to the algorithms that are being used, then suddenly you find yourself swept into a criminal justice system and you're being told that there's definitive evidence placing you at the scene of a crime. And suddenly, I think, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments just don't operate the way that it used to.

[00:42:17.10] ELIZABETH LOSH: And I think one thing I'm deeply concerned about is the ways that digital rights have been defined by their exclusions in many ways so that if you look at legislation, it's often about, say, excluding children from certain kinds of digital participation. So we have schools and libraries that have nanny software on them that prevents young people from getting certain kinds of information, that we have exclusions around sexual minorities, that we have exclusions around noncitizens, and that we're often shaping our discourse about digital rights around--

[00:43:00.46] I mean, the Google case is interesting because the terrorist and the child molester have often been the figures that we focus on when it comes to these questions of regulation. And by starting our discussion of rights with who should be excluded from having rights is a fundamental problem.

[00:43:22.31] And I love that you brought up the issue of responsibilities as well. You know, I wrote a book about hashtags and looked at four different countries and talked to activists and policy makers about the ways that curating data is actually an act of citizenship now. And so people talk a lot about slacktivism and clicktivism and sort of the laziness of slapping a hashtag onto something.

[00:43:50.51] But in some ways, especially with the rise of these sort of AI aggregation and sorting technologies, that human curation of information is actually an important responsibility that we have as citizens in order to really think about how we make information available to each other, how we make it findable, how we make it searchable, how helping people find common political conversations online where they can really talk about issues of concern where they might feel otherwise these issues are not getting surfaced. So I think that there are actually a lot of opportunities around those responsibilities that I think I have some hope around.

[00:44:34.55] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's great. I wish we could keep talking about-- I could keep talking about this for hours with you all, but I know you have things to get to today. So this has been such a rich and insightful conversation. Jaime Settle, Liz Losh, and Margaret Hu, thank you so much for joining me and for sharing your time and experience and perspective with us today. Thank you.

[00:44:59.75] ELIZABETH LOSH: Thank you.

[00:45:02.83] DREA GEORGE: This episode of the Democracy Initiative Podcast was produced in the Reader Media Center at William & Mary libraries. I'm Drea George. I'm the producer and editor of this podcast. Thank you for listening.

[00:45:14.91] [MUSIC PLAYING]

Show Notes

• How do you all view this current moment in American Democracy—especially as it relates to the participation of young people?
• Why is the participation of young people in democracy urgent now?
• There is a lot of catastrophizing language surrounding democracy right now, sometimes even saying that "Democracy is dead." Is this narrative of an existential crisis for democracy accurate? How does this narrative appear in your work?
• What is the role of education in young people's participation and engagement? How does education play into how they understand citizenship? Are there things that we need more of? Less of?
• What can students do about all of this? How can they get involved? What would you recommend?
• Are there jobs available for law students working in the democracy space?
• A lot of law students want to go into corporate law or antitrust or bankruptcy law or other subjects that have nothing to do with the law of democracy. Why do you think it's important that they nevertheless learn about it in law school?

Transcript

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:01.82] CARRIE COOPER: Officially launched in 2021, William & Mary's strategic plan Vision 2026 tackles 21st century imperatives directly, expanding the University's reach in several key areas-- data and computational sciences, water conservation, the history and future of democracy, and career pathways for graduates. My name is Carrie Cooper, Dean of University Libraries.

[00:00:25.37] GINGER AMBLER: And I am Ginger Ambler, Vice President for Student Affairs. As co-chairs of the Democracy Initiative at William & Mary, we are delighted to sponsor this Vision 2026 podcast. It is part of a special series designed to explore issues related to democracy, as well as the compelling ways democracy intersects with data, water, and careers. We welcome you and invite you to listen as leading researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners consider the critical pillars of William & Mary's strategic plan. This episode will focus on democracy and elections.

[00:01:05.98] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I'm Emily Tavoulareas, Managing Chair of the Tech and Society Initiative at Georgetown University. Also, I am a William & Mary alum, class of 2004. Today, I'm thrilled to be speaking with three people who have spent much of their professional lives focused on one of the most critical characteristics of a healthy democracy-- participation and engagement, specifically of youth.

[00:01:32.86] We are joined by Rebecca Green, Associate Professor of Law at William & Mary-- she's also the co-director of the election law program-- Esther June Kim, Assistant Professor at William & Mary in the School of Education, and Adam Gismondi, an alum from '05 who is the Director of Impact at the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University Tisch College of Civic Life. Welcome.

[00:02:02.41] Let's start with Rebecca here. I know you do so much on campus that is tied to the administration and implementation of elections and you run the election law program here at William & Mary. How do you view the problem, the challenge with this moment in American democracy, especially as it relates to the participation of young people?

[00:02:27.42] REBECCA GREEN: Yeah, so one of the most challenging aspects of this moment we find ourselves in is that people, especially young people, will look around and decide that our democratic system is beyond repair. And it seems like many Americans don't see political opponents. They see political enemies. And I think we're, as a result, witnessing a huge trust deficit that's infecting our politics and even our system of elections. I think instead of assuming good faith of fellow Americans, we're assuming bad faith.

[00:03:03.45] And I feel like a huge concern is that young people will be turned off by this level of division. When it comes to elections and voting, though, it feels like the realization is dawning among young people that voting really matters. And I think a good example of that was during the 2020 election when young people stepped up and volunteered to serve as poll workers at a time when the pandemic made traditional reliance on elderly poll workers impossible. So I think young people are seeing not only the power of the vote, but that they can play a real part in the democratic process at a very basic level.

[00:03:45.60] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Have we seen that enthusiasm and an engagement from 2020 continue since then? How does that look in the years that have followed?

[00:03:55.23] REBECCA GREEN: Yeah, I mean, you know, I run a program where we have sort of incoming law students every year. And I can kind of gauge the level of interest by how many reach out to get involved with the election law program. And I can tell you that it's been consistently strong for many years now. And it certainly didn't hasn't died off this year in any meaningful way. So, in fact, it's been even sort of more present. So I don't think there's any waning at all since 2020, at least from my perspective.

[00:04:26.16] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Is there something that you think is fueling that? If you had to unpack that a bit, do you do you feel like you have a sense of what's driving that interest?

[00:04:36.70] REBECCA GREEN: I think that it's the case that democracy is in the headlines much more. We can talk about why that might be. I think the election of President Trump in 2020 was certainly part of the fuel. I think that drove a lot of interest in how our democracy works. And both Republicans and Democrats have this steady drumbeat of headlines about our election process. And I think that that's been then sort of fueling interest in figuring out what's going on.

[00:05:18.72] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thank you. Adam, your work bridges theory and practice. And I'd love to hear your perspective on this. You know, it seems like so much of what the organization you work with does is take scholarship and research and turn it into actionable and implementable assets. How do you how do you see all of this surface in the work that you all are doing?

[00:05:44.69] ADAM GISMONDI: Thanks for having me here today. So our office, the flagship project of our office is the National Study of Learning Voting and Engagement or NSLVE, which is the largest study of student voting in the country. And so what we use is we use that as kind of a pivot point for thinking about practice and thinking about who is participating in the political process and who is not and thinking about equity gaps on campus and how to close those. But downstream from the data-- we try to start with the data and inform our practices using that-- we do dig into all of those issues around student engagement, thinking about motivations, and thinking about barriers-- not just structural barriers, but motivational barriers.

[00:06:32.00] And I would agree with everything that's been said actually so far that the Trump presidency, whether someone was a superfan of his or vehemently opposed to his administration, it became a national civics lesson. And I think for the youngest generation, there was a level of engagement that, for us, folks that speak with students all the time and with administrators and faculty, what we heard was we have students on this campus that were campaigning and helping engage other fellow students around local judicial elections because of what they're watching happen in the Supreme Court. And they were thinking about the judicial pipeline for the first time. Or they were thinking about, who is the Secretary of Education? And they knew all of these folks by name. Whereas maybe if their peers had been polled years earlier, they might not know who the vice president was or something.

[00:07:34.95] And that's not to say that students weren't engaged for a period before that. But I think that there was certainly a period of heightened attention. And I think that politics essentially crossed over into pop culture. And it became a different style of issue.

[00:07:51.13] So I think that that earlier question that you raised about, is the engagement level continuing? I think that inevitably like some of it's going to continue for a while. But you do want to battle against that notion of complacency or wondering about, does democracy not even work? Because I think that that is a danger that we face.

[00:08:15.28] But, yeah, so what-- to get back to your earlier question, what we do is we take the millions of data points that we have around student engagement and elections. And rather than just kind of put it up on a digital or physical bookshelf never to be read again, is we try to take that and break it down into demographics and thinking in different quadrants about how this might play out. And then we work with practitioners to think about, what does it mean for my students to be politically engaged? What does it mean for civic action to take place on campus? And by informing it with some real quantitative data, I think that it changes the look of what practice is.

[00:09:05.87] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Have you gotten a sense of what you are seeing in your research and your data, how that compares to the broader public?

[00:09:18.68] ADAM GISMONDI: So, historically, the youth vote and the college student vote specifically has lagged behind the national vote. 2020 was remarkable. So in our office, we have leading up to each election and then through the time when we report out on the election, which takes months and months to do. We have a board on our office where all of our staff guests with the student voting rate would be. And we generally like, you'll see who the optimists are in the office and who the pessimists are.

[00:09:52.50] But in 2020, it was-- even the optimists were-- had lost out to reality. Actually, the student vote finally caught up with the national vote. About 2/3 of all students voted in the 2020 election, which was higher than any recorded year that we had. And there are some years where it's abysmally low. So in 2014, in the midterms-- which midterms are different than presidential elections-- but in that midterm year, students voted around 19%. And 18 to 21-year-olds voted at closer to 13% or 14%. And so when we reported that out to campuses-- that was the first time we had reported that data out-- there were shocked reactions.

[00:10:40.46] I mean, they were, like our campus is engaged. We have students that care. They have issues that they care about. And we were like, here are the numbers.

[00:10:50.26] And I think that that was a real wake-up call. And we had, in our study, we have around 1,100-- or well over 1,200 campuses now actually. And over half of all students in the country are in the study. So many of the campuses that there are the ones that you're like, oh, that's who I think of when I think of social activism. But then when you get the actual assessment data, it changes things. And but the good news is that over the last half decade or so the numbers have steadily increased.

[00:11:23.45] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's so interesting. And it also is a perfect segue to Esther's area of focus. Because I know, Esther, you are focused more explicitly on the role of civic education. And I see these two things colliding here. Can you share with us a bit about how the problem and the risk with this moment in American democracy shows up in your work? What are you seeing?

[00:11:51.34] ESTHER JUNE KIM: So in my work, there are two themes by which I would approach this. And it would be K through 12 education and then also with teaching and teacher education. So if I start with K through 12, I would say that much of the-- what we might call official curriculum actually perpetuates a lot of the conditions that breed the distrust that Rebecca talked about before, for example, in the form of mythologizing historical figures like the founding fathers as saints without any faults or this type of belief that we need to erase US imperialism and the histories of entire communities, especially communities that have historically and presently been targeted. So, in this moment, we see a silencing of Indigenous sovereignty, of Black Latine, Asian American histories. We see laws that ban and target LGBTQ narratives in schools.

[00:13:08.86] So what we end up with in K through 12 is this sanitized and literally a whitewashed version of the US that doesn't allow students to really grapple with how the US historically and currently fails to live up to an actual democracy, both within its borders and globally. And they don't get to see and really understand what has been done and what can be done to work towards those hopes and those ideals. So an example that I can think of is how voter suppression is not new. Racialized citizenship is not new.

[00:13:58.13] They've been a part of the US since its inception. And we continue to see this happening now. For example, Black voters continue to be targeted. And while this happens at these more macro levels, education scholars like LaGarrett King would say, the violence is in the streets, but the ideas begin in the classroom. So that's how I kind of would see it with K through 12 education.

[00:14:27.61] I think the second way that I see this in my work is with teaching and teacher education. And what we see at this moment is that we have really good teachers who are knowledgeable. They're experts in their field. And they're currently under attack by various groups who tend to be in the minority of thought, but are the loudest. And they're being attacked for caring for all their students and all the communities and for really trying to teach students how we might live together in a really diverse community.

[00:15:09.41] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: How do you see those two, those two factors playing into people's engagement in an election and in actually showing up either to vote or to volunteer and actually participate in the process in some form?

[00:15:27.24] ESTHER JUNE KIM: So I think a part of the way that education or kind of the lack of education plays into participation, part of that has to do, I think, with what Adam brought up, the different processes, like-- I think you called it something about the judicial process, right? And if students or if people in general don't actually understand or know how that works or the fact that their vote in this way can impact, not just like these big positions like president, vice president, but even mean something like the Supreme Court, which I don't know that people really thought through in the last elections. So without that knowledge of actual processes, how those processes sometimes fall short, and why, I think that's one way that we see a lack of civic education that is complete and that's honest really affects how people engage.

[00:16:36.73] And I think the other part is that there are a lot of communities, particularly marginalized communities, who learn these narratives at school that inherently they know, this is not right. And all these institutions and systems are not in place for me. And, instead, they're in place to disenfranchise me, to continue to marginalize me. And if we're never really taught how people have fought so hard to ensure that these rights are something that everybody actually gets to have, I think a lot of communities will think, what's the point of participating?

[00:17:24.34] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah, sort of this throwing up of the hands, right? Like what's the point? Why would I even show up? It doesn't actually matter. This brings me to a question that I've been toying with for a while now around the narrative that's circulating around democracy.

[00:17:44.30] And I think anywhere you, anywhere you look, no matter what news you consume, what you're reading, there's a lot of conversation around what feel like a stream of warnings, right, about this perilous moment that we're in and why this is a dangerous moment and that even in extreme, extreme forms, this narrative of, quote, "democracy" is dead. And feeding into what you're talking about Esther, right, what's the point? If it's dead, if it's dysfunctional, if it's not working, what's the point of even showing up?

[00:18:19.54] And I'm curious how you all think about this. Is this narrative of democracy in either an existential crisis moment or as just completely dead in the water, is it accurate? I mean, you have front row seats to these issues. You've been studying them for so long. How does how does that narrative play out in your view?

[00:18:44.92] REBECCA GREEN: So I worry a lot about catastrophizing the present moment, so this idea that democracy is doomed. And, to me, it often feels like it's sort of a fundraising pitch designed to get people to open their wallets more than anything, which I think is really dangerous. At the same time, it's also galvanizing. You saw real backlash to some of the laws that came out, for example, requiring strict photo identification at the polls.

[00:19:15.99] You saw a lot of organizing among particularly minority communities to push back against that. And I think that drove, in a lot of places, higher turnout just because people were angry and felt targeted and they fought back. So I think-- I think catastrophizing does have that function. And, unfortunately, I think it motivates political parties to kind of dig their heels in deeper to try to galvanize their base.

[00:19:44.80] But I thought I'd share an experience that I had in 2022 where I went to Georgia to observe elections in Fulton County as part of a Carter Center delegation. And at the time, sort of in the weeks leading up to that election, many thought that there would be violence or sort of disruptions or protests or it would be sort of chaotic in Fulton County because there was this sort of national narrative that democracy wasn't functioning in that jurisdiction. So I spent the day with others in the delegation touring polling places and vote counting centers. And I felt really proud of what I saw.

[00:20:31.08] There were election workers at every polling place, you know, and counting location who were professional and prepared and eager in their work. Far from chaos and destruction that you see and read about in the headlines, it was calm, orderly, and, frankly, pretty dull. And it made me realize how different the echo chamber of vitriol on the internet can be from what happens in real life. And so I think the catastrophizing plays out in some different and interesting ways.

[00:21:08.34] ESTHER JUNE KIM: I think this idea of catastrophizing is so interesting. Because during the time when President Trump was rising to power, I was working with high school students thinking about, what is citizenship? And there were several students, particularly students of color, who were looking around and saying, this is nothing new. These are things that have always been present. They're just being exposed now. And I do wonder if there are more students who really understand that, and so then would agree very much with this idea of catastrophizing.

[00:21:52.78] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Now it's interesting, it seems to it seems to cut in a number of directions where at the same time, you have sort of the surfacing of issues that have long existed with this acceleration, and maybe amplification, of the implications of that for democracy as a system writ large. Do you think that or do you see that this has led to a change in behavior and engagement or is this still sort of in the-- is it still percolating is it still something that people are absorbing and talking about and thinking about? Or is it changing behavior?

[00:22:41.50] ADAM GISMONDI: The first thing I just wanted to add and I think it's a little bit implied in some of what's been said, but there have been anti-democratic behaviors and actions that have taken place, especially in recent years. And so, you know, I think there is a danger of being alarmist about it. But I think also there's a danger in not calling out what's happening. So I think that there's-- it downplays it to say that there's value in it, which is what my instinct is. There's value in it. But it actually goes beyond that. I think it's necessary actually for a functioning democracy to call out anti-democratic behaviors.

[00:23:24.43] So with that in mind, I think what I've observed in the students and the youth that we've engaged with is actually that, in some ways, how it manifests itself is students have more complicated complex political identities than what I think is sometimes commonly assumed. So there's like left-right or maybe like a horseshoe theory or even something simple like, are you a Democrat or a Republican or independent, you know, that sort of thing. I actually think that a lot of the youngest generation right now have view themselves in ways that completely defy what we think of as conventional political barriers.

[00:24:12.40] And so sometimes that makes for strange allies on certain issues. And sometimes it makes for pretty extreme views. But I think that what it does put in danger, in a sense-- and you can argue whether this is good or bad-- is traditional structures and institutions, including one of the biggest of all, which is US democracy, to the extent that it is a system that exists.

[00:24:41.46] And, actually, it brings to mind a book by a fellow William & Mary alum, Nicco Mele, The End Of Big, which I think about a lot, that book in this moment. Because what he talks about is that our digital systems have, in a sense, democratized engagement. But what it's actually done is eaten away at some of those large institutions. And it brings us back to that issue of trust. So why should I trust a big bank? Why should I trust a big business? Why should I trust big government?

[00:25:14.77] And so I think that when you start attacking issues from all these different angles, what can happen is that the system looks different and the people within the system look different in terms of how they are engaging with it. So I think we, in some ways, need to just rethink how we organize and understand political identities if this trend continues. So that's one thing I've definitely observed with some of the young students we've worked with.

[00:25:48.54] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: So well put. Esther, I see you emphatically nodding your head. Did you have anything that you wanted to add here?

[00:25:56.08] ESTHER JUNE KIM: I completely agree with Adam that the young people these days think really are pushing the boundaries that are constructed. And they're thinking about things in new ways that maybe we never considered possible before. And I think that does bring a lot of hope to older folks like me. And I think it's something that I hope will be nourished and encouraged in education.

[00:26:27.59] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: So there's so much, so much that you all are pointing to really implies the complexity of the moment that we're in, right, this double-edged sword that is, on the one hand, sort of yielding and surfacing real issues, real problems, real challenges, a real crisis moment, a real moment to reflect. And at the same time, that is creating a surge of interest and momentum in engagement. And I want to dig into what that surge of engagement looks like.

[00:27:13.72] There's a lot of exciting and innovative work underway to increase engagement and participation, not only at the moment of elections, but in the entire process. And there's a lot to dig into here. But before we get to the tangible and really visible field work, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the role of education.

[00:27:38.39] And Esther, you've started talking a bit about this already. You live and breathe this question, right? So I'd love to hear from you. Tell us more about what you see as the role of education in participation and engagement in the political process, and even more fundamentally maybe, in how they understand and how youth understand citizenship itself.

[00:28:06.18] ESTHER JUNE KIM: So think in a larger way of looking at this, public education-- particularly public education-- is incredibly important in any democracy. Because, in theory, right, when people have the power to shape government, to shape policies, to shape laws, we need to know and understand how things work, why they work that way. And we need to practice analyzing, who benefits from these laws and policies? Who is harmed and why?

[00:28:37.79] Now, in theory, that is taught and learned in schools. And, in theory, these schools are accessible and equitable for everyone. But we know that's actually not the case. So I would actually look at how students are being taught citizenship and then maybe how they're actually understanding and enacting it.

[00:29:00.28] So what we see in education, particularly within social studies, which is where civic education tends to live, is that there's these standardized high-stakes tests that prioritize just rote memorization, very little critical thinking skills. And we know that research shows that these policies actually tend to really narrow curriculum so that teachers end up having to teach to a test, rather than to, really authentic ways that students might engage with the world. And what we see also is that because of this emphasis on testing and accountability, social studies at elementary levels is actually disappearing across the US.

[00:29:44.67] But when it does show up and what we see, what are students being taught, what is citizenship, is that good citizenship is unwavering patriotism. A good citizen will follow rules. They'll obey authority.

[00:30:00.16] And what's so frustrating about this is that young people, and especially young children, have a real deep understanding of and grasp of what is fair and what is just. And, yet, they're not allowed to actually think through any of that in a safe school environment. For example, they don't get to think which rules that I'm being forced to follow are fair and just? And which ones might need to be changed?

[00:30:26.21] And so I think when you actually look at young people, they know and they understand that citizenship can and is much more complicated than that. But in the space where they're supposed to be allowed to think through that, to practice through that, they're really not allowed to because they have to memorize dates and figures for a very specific test. And a part of what also gets frustrated in civic education is that a lot of young people are viewed not as citizens right now, but as future citizens because they can't vote. But the truth is, young people who can't vote yet are still doing amazing things at the grassroots level, working in their communities in those really local levels.

[00:31:21.40] But you have a lot of young people working at the national level also. Because what we see these days is there's a real threat to their physical safety. And that's really brought out a lot of student activists. And so we know that we know that students understand what robust citizenship really does mean. But it's not really happening or being encouraged in school spaces.

[00:31:50.01] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Wow, you're pointing-- what I hear you pointing to is the muscles sort of needed to actually engage critically with questions, issues, and to think through, think through challenges in a real and a constructive way. Is it correct to say that what you're seeing happen, what you're seeing happening in K through 12 is that the ability to essentially build those muscles is eroding because they're not being given the opportunity to essentially practice that in a-- in an education setting--

[00:32:36.99] ESTHER JUNE KIM: Right.

[00:32:37.15] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: --because of the memorization? Is that right?

[00:32:39.22] ESTHER JUNE KIM: Right. The narrowing of curriculum doesn't really allow them to practice that. And what we also see is because schools are racially and socioeconomically segregated at levels that are actually higher than the 10 years after Brown v. Board, the ability for students to do this in schools and in places that are diverse and that actually reflect the US demographic is also disappearing.

[00:33:13.68] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Adam, the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts where you are really bridges theory and practice. Tell us a bit about the Institute and how it intersects with engagement and participation and, more specifically, what you see working in terms of supporting and boosting these types of activities.

[00:33:40.75] ADAM GISMONDI: Sure, so in our office, we do have a bit of a broad mandate in how we look at these things. Folks ask what we do and we're like, it's-- imagine everything that intersects between democracy and higher education and we've tried to tackle at least some of it. What we want to do in our office, I think, is, as I said earlier, inform practice using data, but use that in strategic ways to think about-- so, for instance, some of the people that are really engaged in this work are in student affairs on college campuses. And there's also great nonprofits that are out there in the space that support students and young people and faculty, of course, as we see here, that work in the space.

[00:34:35.64] But sometimes drawing the connections between those areas can be difficult. And so what we do is we try to help students and student affairs build connections using informed practice to work with faculty and other folks that really try to ground their work in known realities and in kind of data-backed methods. So that's kind of one of the ways that we do it. But we also try to think about, what is the broad scope?

[00:35:06.57] What are the threats to democracy? What does an aspirational democracy look like? And higher ed, which I think, in some ways, rightfully has come under criticism for, does it perpetuate inequities? Does it help advance some of these causes? I think those are all open questions.

[00:35:24.12] But what we ask is, how can US colleges and universities be part of the solution and working towards a point on the horizon at which we feel like we do have a functioning democracy and students are engaging at levels that are encouraging? And that it's not just looked at as the sort of top line numbers, but thinking, as I said earlier, about political equity and about closing some of those gaps, so that we have a government and representatives that look like the society that we have in the United States, which has not historically been the case.

[00:36:00.54] So one of the projects that we've undertaken is this report series called Election Imperatives. And in that, it actually derives from a need in the field. It's from colleges and universities asking us, what do we do? How do we make this work on our campus? And so those reports are recommendations actually for practice that are based on our findings and our research.

[00:36:25.97] And what we find are we find some pretty large themes that just jump off the page when you're reading through interviews and focus groups and some of the work that we've done to dig in on this. One of them is that on campuses that were participation exceeds what you might expect going in, political discourse is everywhere on campus. So it's not just in the political science classroom that you'd expect, but we have a math faculty member here even at Tufts who studies gerrymandering and thinks about using math to that end to think about fairness and equity and representativeness.

[00:37:09.55] In the civil engineering department, what it looks like is, what cities have wonderful infrastructure and which ones don't? And what does that say about power? And what does that say about the public implications of these topics that students are studying, where they may not always draw those connections between public relevance and what it is that they're studying on a day to day level? So that's one theme that we definitely see on campuses.

[00:37:34.24] We also see things including diversity as part of realized practice, that it's not just about checking boxes, but actually thinking about, well, the diverse perspectives and lived experiences that we have on this campus is what makes us excellent. It's not an add on to the work that we do. The campuses that are successful in this tend to make the big, quote, unquote, "political moments" exciting and active, that they do those things that make it feel a little bit celebratory. I realize on elections the past few cycles maybe, it hasn't always felt like a celebratory period for a variety of reasons.

[00:38:18.93] So some of the students we talked more about dread leading into an election. But I think that's something we could get back to. But that's what we've seen over the years is that you feel an increased amount of energy leading up to an election season.

[00:38:33.36] Students have a shared sense of ownership over their campus, meaning some of the administrators that we talked to say things like, we don't replace a set of chairs or the carpet and the student union without having student input on it every committee on campus has students involved in it. And so there's a hugely integrated sense of peer-to-peer student support and student voice and that decisions aren't always top down from a college or university. And that may seem a little bit afield from what we're talking about. But, actually, it really plays into the sense of political efficacy and for students to think about their own political agency to say, I have power. I can do this. I want to be part of this.

[00:39:16.85] And I think that that's so emblematic to me of why higher ed is important. Because there are these many publics in every corner of the United States that reach into every community. And there's very open access institutions. And those are the predominant type of institution around the country, not the ones that tend to get talked about in the media. And so I think that there's real opportunity there for students to learn, to grow, to engage, and to think about making decisions on that local community level and to understand that they do, in fact, have a political voice.

[00:39:58.84] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I mean, that's-- I can't think of a more-- a more tangible way to build those muscles, right? What you're describing is essentially sort of a microcosm in the space that they physically occupy, in the space that they live day-to-day, in the environments that they interact with and engage with in day-to-day. So I think there's a really, there's a really interesting and direct line there. The question that it brings me to is actually back to something Esther said earlier about the absence of opportunities to build those muscles and to, essentially, demonstrate to students that they have agency and what that looks like at the K through 12 level. Esther, is there anything you see happening at K through 12, even if they're in small pockets, that does create that sense of agency that might be worth leaning into or replicating somewhere?

[00:41:02.25] ESTHER JUNE KIM: Yeah, I think that it happens, it really does happen everywhere. And it just doesn't always make the news. But you see it in you see it in school spaces when teachers have a little bit more freedom and a little bit more autonomy to really implement what they know is best practices, research-based, to what they know that the communities that they serve really care about. So you have, for example, a classroom in Richmond really thinking about, it's really hot here sometimes. There's a lot of asphalt everywhere.

[00:41:42.27] Why isn't there more green? Why aren't there more trees? Would that make a difference? And kind of bringing together like social studies and science and math and these really-- kind of like what Adam was alluding to-- these really transdisciplinary ways of solving a problem. And a lot of times, these problems we know are based on issues of equity and justice or inequity and injustice. And it's these approaches that where teachers can bring all these different subjects together, all these different concerns together are absolutely happening.

[00:42:17.08] And we see it kind of tangential to school where, for example, there are some youth in Texas and Georgia who have been advocating for Asian American studies. Because these students will go and testify in front of legislators in front of school boards and talk about how they have never seen a representation of themselves in school curriculum. And they're advocating for that change. They're finding teachers who are willing to teach it.

[00:42:42.84] They're working across state lines to figure out, what are you doing here? What are you doing there? And what's working?

[00:42:48.60] And teaching each other, this is what works for me. And this is how you do it. Here's how you can help draft or propose a bill. And so you see a lot of this happening sometimes with the encouragement of teachers and schools, sometimes in direct opposition to teachers and schools. But we definitely see it happening in pockets throughout the country.

[00:43:14.22] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Adam, did you want to add something here?

[00:43:17.67] ADAM GISMONDI: I just wanted to give a quick shout out to a class at William & Mary. So I'm William & Mary '05. There's experiences all across campus that I think speak to some of the things that we've talked about today. But I took a class-- they had started an environmental studies, I think, minor when I was in undergrad. And one of the best classes I've ever taken in my life was one of the pilot classes that they had.

[00:43:49.23] And it was sort of Intro to Environmental Science. And there was a lead professor who was an environmental scientist himself. But each day-- there were about five core faculty. So there would be a topic that we would talk about. And you would get, here's the environmental science perspective.

[00:44:07.61] But then a philosopher would come in from the philosophy department. Then a professor from the biology department and then an economist would come in. And it was, like you looked around the room and you watched the cognitive dissonance wash over the classroom. Because it would say, well, here's the perspective of this person. And here's the perspective of this person.

[00:44:30.75] And I think that's another class think back to as, this is the type of creative work that can happen in educational environments that isn't always possible just kind of in like day-to-day life otherwise. It has to be thought out. It has to be kind of an intentionally built space for students.

[00:44:53.63] And so, yeah, I just want to say that. Because that is a class I think about a lot of, OK, so you start heading down a path of here's my view on this topic. Here's what I think about it. Here's what I know about it. And then someone comes in and really challenges you to question your own beliefs. And actually what I think develops is this depth of understanding of more of a closer to a 360-degree view of an issue. Yeah, I wanted to commend my alma mater for that one.

[00:45:25.68] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thanks, Adam. So much on so many campuses. And there's more to dig into there, I'm sure. Rebecca, you're involved in several organizations that relate to the implementation and administration, oversight, and even crisis response of elections. What are some of the things you're seeing make an impact?

[00:45:53.32] REBECCA GREEN: So I guess I'll highlight a few student efforts at the law school that I think are really exciting and promising and in terms of impact on democratic functioning. The first is called the Alliance of Students at the Polls, which is ASAP for short. And William & Mary Law students started it in 2020, in the summer of 2020 to address the problem of the poll worker shortage that everyone feared would cripple the 2020 elections.

[00:46:27.90] And the premise was that just like medical students ran to hospitals to volunteer their skills during COVID, ASAP saw a law-- a role for law students during the pandemic and the idea that law students could organize nationally to recruit a new generation of poll workers to step up and help. And since then, the project has evolved to address the problem of tanking public confidence in election outcomes. We have a system where there are so many guardrails in place in the law to protect the integrity of the vote in every state. And, unfortunately, those don't translate to the general public.

[00:47:18.47] Most people don't understand how elections are run and how there are many sort of checks and balances to ensure that the outcomes are correct. And so ASAP decided that there's a role for law students in translating what those protections are for the general public. So students are currently recruiting law students from law schools around the country to get involved in this effort. The group received a grant over the summer, which students think will really help them amplify their efforts. And the idea is that students are going to be creating kind of roadmaps in each state that help people in those states understand how their elections are run and why they can-- why they should trust them.

[00:48:07.80] Also, importantly, ASAP is working to build a pipeline between law schools and election administration offices, which are seeing a very alarming number of resignations. And so ASAP also feels like by building those connections, we might be able to encourage law students to go into the field or become involved as-- with election administration as part of their careers. So that's one project that I'm really excited about.

[00:48:37.80] Another I thought I'd mention is Revive My Vote. This is a project that I started with a Republican student back in 2013 when there was a Republican governor. And in Virginia, the governor sets the policy for rights restoration of people who have felony conviction histories. And so Revive My Vote was formed to help any eligible Virginian regain the right to vote.

[00:49:04.90] And the work has been incredibly meaningful. We have a hotline where people can call in and ask for help. And as the policies have changed from governor to governor, it's been easier or harder depending on the governor's choices. But I remember back in the beginning when we started this work, we were getting just unbelievable calls on the hotline from, for example, people in nursing homes who were saying things like, I haven't been able to vote for 50 years, but I'm determined to get my right to vote back before I die, I mean, like that intense.

[00:49:41.29] And the project has evolved as different administrations have held different policies. Currently, the current governor has obfuscated the process. And so we're not quite sure what the rules are at the moment. So it's an increasingly challenging environment to be trying to help people.

[00:50:06.16] But the students have been amazing. They've sort of organized around the state. They've been in touch with lots of organizations doing this work to figure out what best practices are and how to approach the moment that we're in. And I've been really proud to watch as they sort of organize and reflect and think about how they can have an impact. So I think those are two examples of ways, really kind of practical and concrete ways that William & Mary Law students have jumped in.

[00:50:39.15] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I want to lean into the student engagement side of this. Because there's a lot of energy right now and a lot of interest. And if I were a student listening to this, my question would be, so what can I do, right? Or a parent of a student or a young person. So with so much underway, what can students do? Esther, Adam, whoever wants to jump in here, you know, Rebecca just mentioned a couple of specific organizations. Are there any organizations you would point for students or young people more broadly to look at, to dig into, to reach out to even?

[00:51:23.13] ADAM GISMONDI: So I would say that number one is to start figuring out what it is that you care about. What we see continuously is that we talked about the evolution of political identity. And I think what we see in the youngest generation right now is this movement towards issue-based activism and issue-based political identities. So campuses are a wonderful resource. And in many k-12 institutions and in higher ed, there are almost always places you can find folks where you can engage on those issues with. So I think that's a wonderful place to start and to think about, how do I begin to affect change in my community?

[00:52:08.76] In terms of more established resources that are out there, once you-- I think once you have your bearings or as you like you're starting to develop your center of thinking about what it is that moves you, that will help answer that question for you. But I think just know that there are folks on your campus in pretty much every campus in the country who are there to help you navigate those spaces and to think about this. So try to find your people. Try to find the people that you connect with.

[00:52:45.37] And sometimes that would be a faculty member. And sometimes that would be an administrator or student affairs, student activities. People like that can help you sort through. Because sometimes it can be overwhelming.

[00:52:59.78] I worked at Florida State University. And we had, I think, like 500 or 600 student organizations. And that didn't even count offices of student government. So there's no end to that space. And so it's kind of about finding your peer students and the people on campus who are those connectors who will help you find the places that you want to go. And then I think that will lead you to a lot of the national groups that are out there as well.

[00:53:32.54] ESTHER JUNE KIM: I would echo what Adam was talking about just in terms of starting locally, for example. I think for students, you can start with just schools. What do you want to change about your school, about your class? And right now, there's so much tension and controversy, for example, at school board meetings, at school division and school district meetings. And, again, there are communities and teachers being attacked.

[00:53:59.27] And so families, it would be great if more and more families showed up to support the folks who are under attack. And it may seem like such a small thing, but that really is, things have been shifting in schools because there's a vocal person or a vocal group moving between different school boards trying to enact certain changes that they think is appropriate. So even something as basic as just, I am a voice from my school, from my class, from my classmates and showing up in something as seemingly simple as a school board meeting.

[00:54:39.36] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Rebecca, I want to bring it back to you for a moment. You're at a law school specifically. And I know that there's a lot of interest among law students and some tangible ways to get involved in terms of implementation. Are there jobs available for law students who are interested in working in the democracy space?

[00:55:03.20] REBECCA GREEN: Yeah, so I have often heard the refrain, especially from election law professors at other schools, that election law is really interesting, but there's no real way to do it for a living. And you have to do work on the side for free if you want to get involved in this space. And I always cringe when I hear people say that. Because I think there are just a huge number of roles for lawyers in the democratic space. And, of course, we have lots of alums to prove it.

[00:55:35.12] So our students go and work in the federal government at places like the Federal Election Commission or the Election Assistance Commission. We have students who are working in the private sector at law firms, where most law firms, most big law firms now have political law practice areas. We have students who work at the legislative level, both at the state and federal level on the Hill or in state capitals working on election-related matters.

[00:56:08.50] We have lots of students who work at nonprofits at places like the Brennan Center and the Campaign Legal Center and others that are sort of working in the democracy space on various issues like campaign finance and voting rights and even just straight out election administration. And then as I mentioned earlier, I think another place where students who are interested in democracy work can get involved is at the state administrative level. In this country, elections are administered by the states. There's a very small federal role, if any, for actual sort of boots on the ground election administration. And so there is a real need for, I think, people with a law degree to step into those spaces and help make sure that elections are fair and accessible and are safeguarded. So I think there are just a huge number of ways that people with a law degree can make real impact in this space.

[00:57:09.64] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thank you. Do any of you have any advice for students coming out of K through 12 who are going into the university setting? So a lot of what we've been talking about so far are our options and opportunities on college campuses. What can seniors or rising seniors in high school do as they prepare for their transition to a university setting?

[00:57:38.39] ESTHER JUNE KIM: The advice I would give to seniors and rising seniors-- or rising seniors-- would be as they're thinking about colleges as they're about to enter college to really be open to ideas, to ways of thinking that maybe are completely different from their own, to really kind of enjoy the different perspectives they'll learn about, and to take those risks. A lot of people might come into a university and think I'm this major, I'm this. I know exactly, I have my life planned out. And I think a lot of William & Mary students come in with a 20-year plan already in place. But then you miss out on classes like Adam was talking about. And I think to really open yourself up to new experiences and new ideas, that would be the advice that I would give.

[00:58:30.82] ADAM GISMONDI: Yeah, I would agree with Esther's advice. I think that allowing yourself to be surprised is a really important part of-- of that experience of transitioning into college and being willing to show up. That came up earlier. I think that is, in terms of affecting change, I think that is so underrated.

[00:58:58.88] I think that that's how change happens is you just show up and be persistent. And I think in terms of the college experience, to the extent that you're able-- and I realize that there's certainly, in some cases, privilege involved and how much time do I have for this or that-- I think that trying to take advantage of things if you have required core classes, like trying to reach a little bit outside of your comfort zone and to learn new things, engage with others. And if you have the time, to engage in some of the involvement opportunities.

[00:59:38.03] I also would note on one of the earlier questions was about advice for gaining experience and how do you do this in practical ways in the field. Once you've learned how to do it in a professional way, feel free to reach out to people that you admire or that you want to talk to and learn from. William & Mary has a great network. Pretty much every school that you go to there will be people that are out in the world that have forged a path that you might find interesting.

[01:00:08.02] So learn how to of do some outreach. And I know that's a little bit scary sometimes for students. But I think most people are pretty receptive to that and willing to help others. And if not, if you come across someone who's rude, it's a moment to take that lesson and be like, I'm not going to be that person in my life, you know?

[01:00:33.60] But I think that for the most part that it's worth doing. Because sometimes those service road, off-ramps, whatever analogy you want to use, some of those things are where your real path lies. You know, that's how you end up going where you were meant to be. So, yeah, that openness and willingness to try new things is really important.

[01:00:57.14] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I love that you mentioned reaching out, Adam. Because I think this is such a-- it's an under-discussed both skill set, but also sort of area of confidence, right? It's like a muscle you need to-- you need to build as you enter the working world that you might be surprised by how many people will respond to you if you reach out just cold on LinkedIn or somewhere else online or via email. And it's worth it. It's worth just reaching out and seeing if you get a response.

[01:01:34.75] You might not. But that's probably more a reflection of what their inbox looks like than you. And I'll just say that from personal, from my own personal experience. But in terms of reaching out, there is also, on campuses, you all have you have pointed to faculty a couple of times. And I want to, since we have some faculty here, I want to ask, what's an effective way for students to reach faculty on campus who they are not taking classes with?

[01:02:06.33] I know everyone is just inundated. Inboxes are overflowing constantly. But how can students reach out to faculty and get engaged outside of their core area of study?

[01:02:21.81] REBECCA GREEN: I can describe at William & Mary Law School, how this works from my perspective. And this is a constant refrain of mine. So I've got it pretty well down. But really the best way I think is to get involved in student groups that matter to you. And there are so, there's an overwhelming amount of ways to get involved at William & Mary and, really, at any school.

[01:02:46.65] And find an issue that you're passionate about. Get involved in a student group, which is maybe less scary than going to meet a professor in their office hours. And I think you'll find, as you get engaged in student groups that are planning speakers or symposia or activism or whatever it is, you'll find that faculty at the school are drawn to working with students in those groups. And it's a great way to get to know faculty outside the classroom. So I think just getting involved is sort of half the battle.

[01:03:21.83] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's the showing up that Adam was pointing to, right, just show up and don't hesitate to talk to people, to reach out. One thing I'll just add here from my own perspective as well is that the word networking tends to be a really sort of loaded word for people, kind of feels a little icky for students sometimes. You feel like, oh, this is really transactional.

[01:03:46.61] And I'd encourage folks to think about networking more as relationship building. Because those are the most constructive, those are the most constructive relationships, right, when where it's not transactional, where you're just, you're meeting people where they are. You're engaging with them on things that you genuinely care about. And if you start thinking about events you're showing up to, the places that you show up, and the people that you talk to as an investment in relationships, those tend to pay off over time in many different arenas. Does anyone else have anything they want to add in terms of student engagement?

[01:04:25.76] REBECCA GREEN: I would like to say just a little bit about the moment that we're in. We're approaching a presidential election year. And I think it's an understatement to say that anxieties are heightened and the political climate is hot. And I think there are lots of ways, regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, to be a force for good as we approach 2024.

[01:05:00.17] And so I really encourage everyone listening, whether you're a student or an alum, I really encourage people to think about ways that they can productively and constructively contribute to a functioning democracy. And one of the best ways to do that is to get involved as a poll worker. You know, anybody can do it. I think there's even some jurisdictions where even if you're not 18, you can get involved, you know, I think for high school students, for example. But stepping forward and really thinking about how you can help your community ensure that polling places are accessible and that there are enough people to help administer the election in your community I just think is a really easy and obvious way to maybe calm some of your fears about how everything is going to go, just sort of step forward and get involved.

[01:06:00.92] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thanks, Rebecca. All right, well, I'm sure we could keep talking about this for several more hours. I have so many more questions I wish we had time to get to. But I want to be respectful of your time. I know several of you mentioned books, organizations, and other resources. We will link to those in the show notes and on the Democracy Initiative website at WM.edu.

[01:06:28.58] But thank you so much for joining us. Rebecca Green, Esther June Kim, and Adam Gismondi, thank you so much for sharing your time and perspective with us.

[01:06:39.63] REBECCA GREEN: Thank you.

[01:06:40.26] ADAM GISMONDI: Thanks for having us.

[01:06:41.04] ESTHER JUNE KIM: Thank you.

[01:06:44.36] DREA GEORGE: This episode of the Democracy Initiative Podcast was produced in the Reader Media Center at William & Mary Libraries. I'm Drea George. I'm the producer and editor of this podcast. Thank you for listening.

[01:06:56.41] [MUSIC PLAYING]

Show Notes

• What does W&M offer and how are students prepared for strong careers?
• What are the distinct skills that students gain at W&M that separate them from others in the workforce? Why are those skills important?
• How does applied learning experience translate into student careers?
• What is the role of the Washington Center for students, and how does the program prepare students for the workforce?
• How does the Business School prepare students for the workforce? What is unique about career planning at a business school?
• What is the student experience like right now, and what offerings stick out as especially valuable? What would you recommend to incoming students?
• How do each of you define "experiential learning," and how does it manifest at William & Mary?
• How does a liberal arts education prepare students for the future?

Transcript

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:01.67] CARRIE COOPER: Officially launched in 2021, William & Mary's strategic plan, Vision 2026, tackles 21st century imperatives directly, expanding the university's reach in several key areas, data and computational sciences, water conservation, the history and future of democracy, and career pathways for graduates. My name is Carrie Cooper, Dean of University Libraries.

[00:00:25.37] GINGER AMBLER: And I am Ginger Ambler, Vice President for Student Affairs. As co-chairs of the Democracy Initiative at William & Mary, we are delighted to sponsor this Vision 2026 podcast. It is part of a special series designed to explore issues related to democracy, as well as the compelling ways democracy intersects with data, water, and careers.

[00:00:48.00] We welcome you and invite you to listen as leading researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners consider the critical pillars of William & Mary's strategic plan. This episode will focus on democracy and careers.

[00:01:04.89] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Hi, I'm Emily Tavoulareas, Managing Chair of the Technology and Society Initiative at Georgetown University, also William & Mary alum class of '04.

[00:01:14.74] Welcome to our third iteration of the Democracy Initiative podcast. In past episodes, we've covered democracy and technology, democracy and elections, and civic engagement. Today we're going to be talking about democracy and careers. Why? What do careers have to do with democracy? Well, as it turns out, the values of democracy show up in our workforce, in our daily lives, and how we think and engage with others in the world.

[00:01:39.32] So, today, I'm thrilled to be speaking with Roxane Adler Hickey, Director of William & Mary's Washington Center, Mike Ryan, who leads Employment and Alumni Career Engagement for the business school, working mostly with graduate students. And Ally Swindell, a third-year student at William & Mary studying International Relations and currently interning at the Department of State.

[00:02:03.63] I want to kick things off with a landscape here of what's offered at William & Mary in the arena of careers. Roxane, you run William & Mary's Washington Center here in Washington DC and have been there in various roles as the center has evolved over the past 20-plus years. The center does an incredible job creating access to unique opportunities for students and exposing them to a global community.

[00:02:29.20] Can you tell us a bit about your role and how the center prepares students for the workforce?

[00:02:34.45] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: Thank you so much. Working at the William & Mary Washington Center for almost two decades now, I can say easily that the beauty of the Washington Center is the connections that we are able to provide. We're a place where students can come together with faculty and a staff, our small team of the Washington Center, and most importantly, the huge alumni base that we have in DC.

[00:03:04.36] And, together, all of these groups are able to give students a chance to practice what they are learning in the classroom, to take the theory and turn it into opportunities to experience, how that's going to translate to their careers and their lives beyond William & Mary. And taking your learning outside of the classroom is not easy. It can be really eye opening and potentially challenging.

[00:03:32.03] And so the team of the Washington Center is here to support students on that journey, which we're able to do in a really personalized, individualized way. So when students decide that they want to spend a semester here, we have one of our team members who's able to help them think about the type of internship that might be right for them to find the right avenues to apply for those internships.

[00:03:57.07] Some students have a really clear path. And others are very open to what they want to do and need help to hone in on what that looks like.

[00:04:05.17] And then, throughout the journey, from applying to starting in that internship and then, even when challenges arise, being able to reflect on and think about those together in a cohort and with faculty and dedicated staff to help them do that, they are hopefully able to really think about how to translate that to after graduation, which is oftentimes a really big question mark.

[00:04:32.47] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's incredible. There's so much happening here. And I have noticed that around DC, there's an increasing presence of universities from outside of the region setting up offices in DC. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about the importance of being in DC. And then, what sets William & Mary apart from other universities with a footprint here?

[00:04:58.00] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: It's a great question. And in 2001, when William & Mary opened our first door in DC, we knew we needed a presence here because of all of the institutions, and the people, and alumni who were here. This is where decisions are being made. This is where the heart of our nation is beating and where we needed to be. But we didn't even have a plan yet of what that would look like. And so that's evolved over the course of my time here.

[00:05:25.60] But I think what makes it important that we're here, again, are the people and the places, so that we're not just talking about them, we're bringing it to life for our students. It's really important to learn from faculty, who are really incredible at what they do. But it's also equally as important to try it out, to see it in practice, to learn from the people who are doing what you're learning about in your textbooks.

[00:05:49.45] And William & Mary has invested in this center. And we work closely with many of the other schools who have DC programs and DC offices. And William & Mary continues to be an example, a model for other institutions because of the way the university has invested in this place. We have this beautiful new physical presence, which is a place of belonging, of community, so people can interact, so we can have events where alumni and students and faculty are coming together.

[00:06:19.47] But it's also important because, then, students are able to network. And that's a big part of your career journey, whether it's specifically to work on the Hill, or if it's in law, or the arts. No matter what, you need a community. You need to be able to network with people so that when it is time to apply for jobs, each of your jobs along the way, you have a network of people to go back to.

[00:06:43.38] And William & Mary said, we're going to have faculty who teach. But we're also going to have a team of dedicated staff who live here and work here to be building those relationships and connections. And then we work really closely with the rest of the institution, as well. And those relationships are key to everything.

[00:06:59.76] And anyone who's had a career in Washington knows that that's how things happen, is through who and how you build those relationships. So William & Mary cares quite a lot about that. And we're a living example of our students being able to meet people, connect, build the relationship, and turn it into careers in a really personalized way.

[00:07:19.90] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: You said the word community to describe that. And I really want to pull that up, that so much of the advice students get is around networking and the building of those relationships. But it feels very transactional, often. And there's something about having a place that feels like a home base that is really powerful because then it's not a transactional relationship. It's a relationship rooted in something else. And that's really special.

[00:07:51.31] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: I completely agree. And as a matter of fact, Ally and I just had a conversation on Wednesday night with a few of her classmates about that very thing, that the word networking can sound very cold, and forced, and not at all authentic.

[00:08:07.74] But when you think about it as relationship building-- and it can become that. And it is a natural part of your community here with people who help you do it. You're not just on your own, introducing yourselves blindly, but being able to have someone make the introduction because they know you. They're a part of this community really rings true.

[00:08:25.43] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think back on my career. It's 20-plus years at this point. And the people-- my first stop when I have a question, when I need to run something by someone, when I need advice, it's people who I've been in the proverbial trenches with who I know I can lean on for an honest answer, as well. And that also comes from how you walk through your career and how you show up in a space.

[00:08:56.22] And I think so much of what we're talking about here today is connected to that, how we live, the Democratic values and principles that we're talking about and how we carry them with us.

[00:09:08.63] Mike, I have the same question for you. You lead Employer and Alumni Engagement and Careers at the business school, working mostly with graduate students. I know there are countless programs available to students. Tell us a bit about your role, your work, and how the business school prepares students for the workforce.

[00:09:28.11] MIKE RYAN: Great, well thanks, Emily, for having me today. Yeah, well, I have the honor to connect with so many of our amazing corporate partners, employer partners, and alumni in support of our students. But when you think about that question, I think it really starts with President Roe and our leadership's commitment to William & Mary's Vision 2026, as it really sets the foundation for everything we do.

[00:09:49.68] And if you look at goal two, it's educate for impact. And one of those is create meaningful pathways for career success and ensure lifelong success. And that's really what it's all about in the Career Center. And it starts with our four cornerstones. And one of them is career. When you think about data, water, democracy, career, we've said at the highest level at William & Mary that careers matter to us and to our students. So we believe that in the Career Center.

[00:10:17.39] So, in particular, in the Mason School, our Graduate Career Management Center, as well as our Office of Career Development Professional Engagement, we are one team. We believe in one William & Mary. We all have programs, technology, events, and networks that support our students. And we truly believe in a high-touch approach. I think that's what sets us apart.

[00:10:37.68] For us in the Mason School and the Graduate Career Management Center, some of our distinct programs is our Summer Start Up. So we connect with students right when they come on board with resume prep, interview prep, discovery. We also have an executive partner program which is a true differentiator for us in the business school. And these are retired executives that live in Williamsburg that are there as mentors to support our business school students. So we're very proud of that.

[00:11:02.17] And then, finally, our MBA career course is called Charting Your MBA Career. I think that's a true differentiator for us because we've aligned career with the curriculum, which I think is very important in everything we do. And when you think about technology, I talked a little bit about technology earlier.

[00:11:17.46] One Network was just rolled out. William & Mary's One Network was really a gateway for students and alumni to connect. And it's been so valuable. Think LinkedIn for William & Mary.

[00:11:29.50] Finally, one theme that resonates with us is "own your career path." And our Associate Dean, Ken White, always talks about, own it. And we really believe in everyone needs to own their career path. We're there to support you from a Career Center standpoint. It's a team sport. But we believe in communication, appearance, substance, initiative, and the details all are all part of taking ownership of your career path. And we really value that theme in everything we do.

[00:11:59.39] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thank you. Ally, you are a third-year student here at William & Mary and currently at the Washington Center. I understand you arrived at William & Mary sight unseen, which I absolutely love.

[00:12:13.06] And, today, as I've gotten to know you, it's clear that you have found your groove. You've found a path here. And I'd love to hear about your experience here at William & Mary. How did you get to where you are today? And are there any specific programs or offerings at William & Mary that you have found especially valuable in this journey?

[00:12:34.93] ALLY SWINDELL: Absolutely, so I'm originally from Bentonville, Arkansas. I was not at all familiar with William & Mary. I applied in December of my senior year, still not knowing very much about it, got accepted, thanks to the Monroe Scholar Program. I found out a bit earlier I got some extra day for admitted student sessions because this was 2021 when I graduated. So everything was virtual.

[00:12:58.91] And after many, many Zoom calls, of watching, for example, Professor Kaplow do an example lecture on the Iran nuclear deal or learning about research opportunities at the Global Research Institute and other opportunities there, as well as the Washington Center, of course, I decided that William & Mary was the fit.

[00:13:17.39] My parents turned to me and they said, we can go visit before you decide. And I said, I feel good. I think we're good. And everyone thought I was crazy because I am very organized. And even my friends, knowing me a year in at William & Mary, turned to me and said, I can't believe you did that. I cannot believe you did not come, knowing me better at that point.

[00:13:38.25] But, yeah. I showed up two days before orientation on campus and hoped for the best, terrified. But I moved into Monroe Hall and went random roommate. And she was lovely. And it worked out great. I immediately met people and felt a sense of community that was different. And I think that's what I sensed on those initial Zoom calls, was that sense of warmth, as well as opportunity available, the sense of wanting to get to know each other if the people on the call were not already familiar with each other. That was unique.

[00:14:10.07] So I came and I decided that if my parents were going to send me this far-- most people in my family don't leave the state-- it was my turn to take the reins. And they trusted me fully, even though we didn't know what international relations would exactly mean. But I hoped it would be everything that Model United Nations taught me it was.

[00:14:30.22] But, yeah, I initially joined. I did Model United Nations. I met a lot of upperclassmen who helped show me the path and show me potential opportunities. I didn't know that there were internships at the State Department I had watched Madam Secretary but that was about it-- and just like many of the other state interns, loved that show.

[00:14:47.29] But I think that being able to meet my peers helped me guide to the path where I started working at the Global Research Institute, working at AidData in January of my freshman year, which I continued there until May of my sophomore year. I rose up the ranks to Management Research Assistant, worked on tons of data, learned a lot, presented the research to some of my peers. It was a great opportunity.

[00:15:09.87] And then, moving on, I worked at the Army War College remotely that next summer and got the opportunity to go back to the summer camp back in Arkansas with Model United Nations kids and be a counselor at the camp that gave me my start, at the University of Central Arkansas, which was an amazing opportunity to close that book on where I began. But, yeah. So I did that.

00:15:32.07] And then last semester, I got to take advantage of William & Mary's Study Abroad opportunities. I studied at Oxford University at Hartford College with our semester program there. Lovely people and I learned a lot about how to be an academic and how to be worldly, considering I had next to no international experience. My only international experience was three days in Montreal prior with the Model United Nations team at William & Mary.

[00:15:54.62] So considering that, I was able to then come and apply to the State Department, it was actually my third application, persistence pays off, as my coworkers have also agreed. And now I'm in my eighth week of ten. And I have learned a lot and gotten a lot of support from the Washington Center along the way, and Roxane, and Sarah DeVellis, and all the rest of the team. And so I'm grateful to be here and excited to see what comes next.

[00:16:22.80] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Ally, that's incredible. I'm especially intrigued by the fact that you came in knowing what you wanted to do. And I'm so curious, having had some experience in high school with international relations through the Model UN, coming in with that clarity of direction and purpose, what did you find on campus was valuable to helping you get to this internship that you're in? And how if and how it prepared you for your time there.

[00:16:51.64] ALLY SWINDELL: Yeah, I think that goes back to that community piece. A lot of the people that were instrumental in getting me to this point were fellow students, looking up to upperclassmen and asking them questions.

[00:17:02.28] And they sat me down and said, these are the things to keep in mind if you want to pursue a career in this field. And they helped connect me with people. And I know, even watching sometimes their LinkedIns and hearing about their experiences and knowing, oh, you worked at this research lab.

[00:17:17.82] And I took it one step at a time. I had an ultimate end goal of hoping and a dream to intern at State, eventually. But I knew that could very well not happen. So it was very much just taking the next right step. And so taking student's advice and, for example, AidData, it was also my second application. So learning more about the research lab, being ready to apply again, and then once I did it, I learned how valuable it was and took advice from some of my peers.

[00:17:43.63] In addition, then, first applications for State, I went to the Career Center. I had them look over my resume. I asked them questions about the internships. I scheduled a meeting.

[00:17:52.24] And I said, when is the window for this open? How do I do that? What is the best way to go about it? How do I do a federal resume for this? And asked the pointed questions, as well as going on the website and filling out the interest form for my diplomat in residence for the Central South was very useful because then they had Zoom calls, instructional things. The State Department has a lot of resources for that that I would like to plug here.

[00:18:15.95] But, in addition, having them look over my resume, and I also had a fellow student look at my application. The first time it didn't work. But it did give me an opportunity to see techniques and strategies to improve it for the future. So then, when I did finally apply the successful time, I took back what he had told me and some of my other fellow students and because he had worked at an embassy. And he had understood how that worked.

[00:18:40.88] So I think that community piece where it's a very supportive environment where people want to see each other succeed was crucial.

[00:18:46.81] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah, and having those people that you can reach out to bounce ideas off of to soundboard things with, I love that.

[00:18:54.05] Is there anything in particular any of you would recommend to current or incoming students based on your experiences from where you are that you think, coming onto campus, students should just really make an effort to either engage with or look into?

[00:19:09.85] MIKE RYAN: Yeah, I can take that. William & Mary was for me a transformational experience. And I'm sure you heard from Ally, it's certainly that for her, as well. I think she mentioned it. I think you want to be able to be prepared to take advantage of your resources that are available to you.

[00:19:27.44] One is the Career Center. We talked about careers earlier. We have a wonderful career staff that are there to support our students. And I think that's critical to make sure you're leveraging those resources, your faculty.

[00:19:40.43] And then the network, tapping in and building that network is going to take time. But it is all about relationship building. Roxane, you mentioned that, as well.

[00:19:48.28] You don't necessarily want to build your network when you need it. You want to start building the relationship and getting to know someone in a two-way situation. So then, eventually, when you may need that connection to get in the door of an organization you're interested in, people know you and they advocate for you and can be a champion for your career.

[00:20:05.96] So I would say, definitely leverage your resources. It's an incredible place. It's very unique. And there's so many people, faculty, programs that are there to support you. So definitely jump in.

[00:20:20.57] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Thank you. So I want to build on this point on resources here because there's so much happening at William & Mary. And a lot of what William & Mary excels in and really stands out with is its experiential and applied learning. And as I think everyone can agree, learning by doing is really powerful. And that's especially true in times of massive change like the time that we're living through right now.

[00:20:49.49] Universities everywhere exploring ways to provide their students with opportunities to really get their hands dirty. So I want to talk a little bit more about what's happening here at William & Mary because it is really a lot. Ally, I want to start with you here.

[00:21:06.30] While immersive and experiential learning are really all the rage these days, it seems like William & Mary has really been walking the walk in a different way. You touched on this with the experience that you shared with us. Can you tell us a little bit more about your experience with applied learning here and how that experience has prepared you for the workforce?

[00:21:34.06] ALLY SWINDELL: Yeah, I think this internship, in particular, I have learned a lot of the unspoken things-- and maybe not topic-related things that, because I'm not exactly sure what region I want to focus on, if I will in the future.

[00:21:47.31] But I think a lot of the ways that the department works, understanding the hierarchy, understanding how papers are formatted because it is very specific, working with other interns, learning from them and their opportunities that they're pursuing. I think that there have been so many little things that have really made the difference in how I will pursue my future, as well as learning from my coworkers, getting coffee, getting lunch, asking them about their paths, and learning about, talking about options for graduate school, talking about options for next steps.

[00:22:19.94] How to best apply, when to consider joining certain options, I think that these are all important things. And I think that you don't necessarily get that unless you make your way into the building.

[00:22:31.13] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Are there any resources or opportunities you wish you had known about earlier?

[00:22:36.08] ALLY SWINDELL: I think for me, I wish someone had, day one, said join the email lists, all of them on campus. I think, obviously, not all but there are so many relevant ways to find out information. There's so many internships listed in these listservs. There are so many opportunities hidden in there. And you need to check your email and read all of them.

[00:22:56.39] I was pretty diligent freshman year. But I still think there could have been more progress, made even joining the Global Research Institute's email list is invaluable for opportunities because you never know when things come up. And it's good to know as soon as you can.

[00:23:09.99] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: You've mentioned the Global Research Institute a few times. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

[00:23:14.96] ALLY SWINDELL: Absolutely, so the Global Research Institute at William & Mary is led by Professor Mike Tierney. And it is a group of student and faculty led research labs that has tons of different focuses.

[00:23:26.84] I, in particular, used to work at AidData, in particular the Chinese development finance team otherwise known as TUFF, which tracks funds from Chinese government sources abroad and gives valuable data to open source so other governments, our government, and the public, so that we have a better understanding of what's going on. And they also do so for other countries, as well. And they have been expanding their work greatly.

[00:23:54.87] Other research labs focus on all kinds of issues. But it's a great opportunity for students to get in on the ground level and get that expertise. I know for me, it has proven useful in my work, even just having the context of knowing what's going on in the region.

[00:24:08.85] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's incredible. Roxane, you wrote your dissertation on experiential learning. And I'd love for you to just indulge me for a moment. How do you define experiential learning? And then I'd love to hear more about your dissertation. What was it? What was it about?

[00:24:26.30] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: So we've touched on it pretty much in everything that we've spoken about so far. And whether you're calling it applied learning or active learning, even authentic learning, or a high impact practice, the idea of experiential learning is just as you said, learning by doing. And the idea goes back, certainly, more than 100 years.

[00:24:47.60] But where you're taking learning beyond the classroom and applying it, so theory into practice. And in my dissertation, I used Kolb's four-stage learning cycle, which is more details than you need to know. But the idea is that you have this concrete experience, in this case, the internship or in Ally's case, specifically, the State Department.

[00:25:12.80] And then you pause to reflect on it. And this is where having connected academic curriculum, faculty, and staff who connect with students is really, really important because that's where you begin to really think about, as you said, some of the mistakes that you might make or why the third time around your application worked and not the others, so a really structured opportunity to reflect on that experience.

[00:25:35.69] And then you make connections. You draw some conclusions. You make a plan of attack to experiment and try it again. And you go through that cycle over and over and over during the course of a semester or a summer internship.

[00:25:49.77] So when I decided to write my dissertation on experiential learning, I used one of the Washington Center programs, specifically, our DC Summer Institute, which is just like Ally's semester program, a little bit shorter in the summer. But it has academics. It has internships. It has the faculty piece. It has alumni relationships and networking. And it's a cohort model, so intentionally bringing in community.

[00:26:15.87] And so I studied 10 years of Summer Institute students. And I basically want to ask them how their participation in that program helps them achieve career readiness.

[00:26:27.65] Career readiness is another term we use a lot at William & Mary or in higher education right now. And we work really closely with the National Association of Colleges and Employers Definition and their framework for career readiness, which is basically the foundation that says, based on what employers are telling us, these are the competencies you need to be able to show a potential employer that you are ready to succeed in the workplace.

[00:26:55.46] And these competencies, Ally, you just mentioned one. You said those unspoken things that you learned, well, that's professionalism. That's one of the eight competencies. And it can be really hard. Some people call them soft skills. But the idea is those unspoken soft skills, those professionalisms that you really can't think about or consider until you're in there doing it, so I use those competencies as my framework.

[00:27:21.77] But, basically, what I heard from students at the end is overall, yes, students are experiencing increased career readiness as a result of their participation. And there's some specific nuances and groups within that where students were especially able to develop that.

[00:27:39.04] But the number one competency they developed was professionalism, followed by communication. And of all the pieces of the program, it was the internship, followed by opportunities for reflection, that allowed students to do that. So this isn't complicated or hard to do. But it's a matter of being intentional, of carving out the time, and, again, individualized approach.

[00:28:03.60] One thing I didn't ask was about the cohort model. And it came up over and over and over, that sense of community.

[00:28:11.82] The informal reflections were also one of the biggest pieces that students found so valuable, that not only are you reflecting with your faculty about your experiences, talking about the hard things, making those connections, and trying again, but on your way home from work on the metro, or back in your student apartments when you're making dinner, or taking a break, that those informal conversations where you can talk about the things that are hard and you're experiencing really are able to come together.

[00:28:39.19] So the Washington Center and my dissertation will always be very closely linked. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been able to speak with so many students who did some surveys. But I had 30 different interviews. And the information that those students shared with me was just so valuable. And I'm grateful to all of them for giving us the data we needed to figure out if what we hoped was happening really, in fact, was happening.

[00:29:04.77] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: And when was that? When was that research done?

[00:29:09.57] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: Only two years ago.

[00:29:11.91] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's amazing. So I'm especially intrigued by this because that corresponded with the pandemic--

[00:29:18.15] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: Mhm.

[00:29:18.78] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: -- a bit, sort of coming out of the pandemic. Can you share a bit about if you have any observations about pre pandemic and post pandemic relationships to this?

[00:29:33.81] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: What I will say is less a result of my research and more anecdotal from our interactions with students here is that coming out of pandemic, a lot of internships stayed remote and virtual. And I'm saying this with air quotes that you can't see.

[00:29:51.03] But a virtual experience is really hard to wrap your brain around because, how do you see what those soft skills are that you need? You can't. You can't see them from the other side of the computer. How do you build authentic relationships and listen to people's stories at the coffee break when you don't have that? And so, for those first few moments of pandemic, we didn't have it at all. And then some places started coming back in person.

[00:30:21.69] But still there are places that are either hybrid or totally remote. And if that's where you want to work, you're going to take that internship, whether you prefer to be remote or in person. But it's really hard to develop the skills in the same way. And it's unfortunate that that's where we've landed, I think, for these students.

[00:30:39.69] On the other hand, it is where we are now. And so a student should get the opportunity to figure out if that's the type of job they want. And if it's not, well, that's really good information to have on anything you experience in an internship.

[00:30:53.83] All of those hard things have support. You don't have to go through them that long. You can make the mistakes because we're here as your backup. So if you take a remote internship or a hybrid internship and you say, well, that part of it was absolutely terrible and I can't do that. Well, great, because now you're not going to apply for a job that's remote. You've learned that piece of information. And the same goes for anything that you're testing out in the workplace.

[00:31:16.76] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Yeah, it echoes some conversations I've been having recently with people in the field of law who are observing that the more junior-level lawyers in their firms are not able to absorb information in the same way and build skills in the same way when they are not in the office.

[00:31:40.04] So the hybrid environment, I think a lot of different workplaces are struggling with a very similar thing, where people at the mid and senior levels are benefiting from the hybrid environment while junior-level people coming in are, number one, not absorbing information.

[00:32:00.74] And number two, those organizations are probably going to find down the road that the people who are rising in the ranks and progressing in their careers have not absorbed either the culture, or the skills, or the norms, or whatever is important to them to be able to be effective, to be effective in that environment.

[00:32:19.13] And it's really, it's less of a point and more of an observation that I have now heard this on the business side. I've heard it on the law side. And I'm curious, Mike, what you're seeing in that space? I know business schools are fundamentally shaped quite differently. So, one, does this hybrid tension show up in the business school? And how? And how does the business school think about all of this?

[00:32:49.16] MIKE RYAN: Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. In 2020, the landscape completely changed. We call it the virtual career shift. And students were searching for internships in a different way. And companies were looking for talent in a different way, not only the interview process but how they were working on a daily basis, too.

[00:33:09.15] When I think about applied learning, experiential learning, I truly believe it's all about direct experience, active engagement, and the most important thing is reflection. Former Dean Pulley, Larry Pulley of the business school, talked a lot about bringing business to the business school. And I truly believe that is really what experiential learning means to us.

[00:33:29.43] I love the quote. And I can't remember who it is. I want to say it's Ben Franklin. But it's tell me and I may forget. Teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. And that's really the essence of applied learning and experiential learning. We use those terms interchangeably. But when people think experiential learning-- and Ally talked about it-- is research, study abroad, internships, and externships.

[00:33:53.44] But our approach is a little different in the business school where we, as I mentioned before, want to bring business into the business school, a lot of ways we do that. And it's not only on the grad side. But it's on the undergrad side, too.

[00:34:04.75] It's through programs like capstones and field consultancies, where companies will come and bring a problem to the classroom. A group of students, whether it be undergrads or grads, will work on that problem in partnership with a faculty member and then brief that back out to senior leadership of an organization. So we do that in the MBA side through field consultancies, through our masters in Business Analytics program, through capstones. And the undergrad programs do that a lot, as well.

[00:34:31.25] Another thing we're proud of, too, on the MBA side is our Sprint Week, where we really shut down classes. There's no class. And we bring a problem and a project to a group of MBA students, might be something on the lines of maybe crisis management. And they're posed with a problem. And they have to solve that problem together in a group of five to seven students and then present that problem back out to an executive might be visiting for that week. So we do that twice a year in the fall end of semester. And it's been a big differentiator for us, as well.

[00:35:02.01] We also do global immersions. And then on the undergrad side, they do a great job on the Wall Street treks. They actually have a Charlotte trek coming up here in May. So I really believe we do it better than anyone.

[00:35:12.32] I mentioned internships. I think we'd be remiss if we did not mention that we are Princeton Review's number one in internships in the nation for two years in a row. I mean, that's an incredible accolade. We're also--

[00:35:26.33] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Mike, that is that the business school alone? Or is that all of William & Mary?

[00:35:30.08] MIKE RYAN: That's all William & Mary.

[00:35:30.88] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: That's amazing.

[00:35:31.65] MIKE RYAN: Yeah, I mean, so you can say that we-- and when you look at William & Mary Vision 2026, that we care about careers. But we walk in the walk with that, as well. That shows that our students are finding opportunities.

[00:35:44.19] And I want to mention, as well, I mentioned the Office of Career Development Professional Engagement. We're talking about investing in the resources that students should take advantage of. We have an Applied Learning and Internship team within the Office of Career Development Professional Engagement. And their job is focused just on that, supporting students finding internships from all different industries, functions.

[00:36:08.29] We actually also have the Fuse program, which is our fund for unpaid and underfunded student experiences. So if you're any student and want to go and work in any capacity and it happens to be unpaid, we have funding that's available to you so you can always have a paid opportunity at William & Mary. So if you seek that out, you will find it.

[00:36:27.48] And at the end of the semester, students have the opportunity to present, as part of this symposium, that talk about their internship experience. And the Cohen Center and the Office of Career Development Professional Engagement put that on, too.

[00:36:42.26] I really believe that we do it better than anyone. And when you talk about learning, as well, it's unique, too, in the business school in particular. We're number one in learning. So I talked about the different ways of learning. Experiential learning is part of that.

[00:36:56.06] It's not only the wonderful faculty we have but Bloomberg Businessweek for two years in a row, we're number one in learning in the business schools. What does that say? That says the students experience, and the faculty and everything, how they're teaching has been a strong success. And others, outward organizations, are noticing it, as well.

[00:37:16.77] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Now what really stands out to me here is that I think it's very easy for institutions to say the words, much harder to invest and do the work and to empower the people in your institution to really move the bar on these issues that everyone cares about. But the question is, how does it show up? How does it show up on the campus?

[00:37:40.76] So much of career paths from my observation has really started to shift towards tech. A lot of my own students are very interested in how their careers can evolve either alongside or in the tech industry. And STEM fields, overall, have gained momentum across the board. As that's been happening, it seems a bit like the value of Liberal Arts education is lost in all of that.

[00:38:17.07] And I think the importance of Liberal Arts education is something that I really want to pull into the conversation here. John Henry Newman, a 19th-century theologian, wrote, "If then a practical end must be assigned to a university course, I say it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art of social life. And its end is fitness for the world." How does a liberal arts education prepare students for the future?

[00:38:49.19] MIKE RYAN: I'll jump in. I think from a business school perspective. And just William & Mary, in general, we talk a lot about this. Our Dean, Todd Mooradian, talks about the power of the Renaissance education and how we are developing T-shaped leaders.

[00:39:06.07] And what we talk about a lot is the ability to have the depth and breadth of many different backgrounds and subject-matter expertise, but also be able to dive deep in a certain skill set. And I believe we do that better than anyone and that one of those skill sets is the analytic piece. So we're rolling out programs that are tech focused.

[00:39:26.08] People, traditionally, many years ago, didn't think of William & Mary for technology. Well, that has changed. If you think about back to the cornerstones I talked about earlier, data is one of our four cornerstones. So we're investing in programs and new programs that are focused on tech. So I definitely think the power of the Renaissance education, the liberal-arts background, combined with this T-shaped leader approach, is really a differentiator in the marketplace right now.

[00:39:53.10] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: I will add from a perspective at the Washington Center that so many of our students are deciding to go into democracy-related careers. But even those who aren't are finding a need for those democratic values in the workplace that we started this whole conversation, that they need to be able to engage in civil discourse. They need to be able to disagree, have hard conversations.

[00:40:20.70] And you do that, obviously, through relationships. We've talked about that a little bit. But being able to listen and going back to our career-readiness competencies, communicate with people and have those really hard conversations requires you to be thoughtful. It requires you to have a wealth of information from a lot of subjects.

[00:40:43.11] But it requires you to have really been pushed and challenged along the way in a lot of topics that you may not have been an expert in and may never be but be able to listen and have those conversations. And I think that's something that William & Mary students are taught exceedingly well, maybe drilled over and over in a variety of different interdisciplinary ways.

[00:41:05.14] And that's why the liberal arts, that's why higher education matters so much. And even as this landscape is changing, technology also a competency. Those things go hand in hand. We can no longer have one without the other. Communication and technology are one and the same now. And so our students know that. And liberal arts students are given an opportunity to think about things that they've never thought about in ways that they've never thought about. And that matters in the workplace.

[00:41:34.11] ALLY SWINDELL: I would say there is a reason that, as a tour guide for the undergraduate admissions office, that one of my favorite stops is the academic stop, where we get to talk about the COLL curriculum that William & Mary provides. I think the way that we have it set up gives students the opportunity to explore different avenues while still staying true to their own interests.

[00:41:53.14] I know for me that has included pursuing courses in classics, art history, examining those different topics. And I think even at Oxford, I took a tutorial on Early Modern European Court Culture and Art because as the daughter of an etiquette teacher and someone who has worked in an art museum and loves that side of things, it allowed me to explore that while also taking tutorials on so-called relevant topics for my major.

[00:42:21.30] I think that being able to explore those different avenues while pursuing a path, one allows students to find the path if they are not quite sure of what they want to pursue. And, two, for those who do, allows them to pursue other avenues that will still make them a more well-rounded individual and will better prepare them for the workforce because work is not just the topics that you're focused on. It is a whole range of things that come up. And you never know when your specific expertise or interests will come in handy.

[00:42:48.44] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: So well said. Do any of you have advice for incoming or current students that you want to add here?

[00:42:56.23] ALLY SWINDELL: I think my advice-- and I say this on tours-- is to dive right in. When you arrive, you are guided along through orientation by enthusiastic orientation aids. You hopefully are surrounded by a supportive community in your hall. It is very easy to start building those connections.

[00:43:14.24] And, I think, also start asking upperclassmen questions. People are always willing to talk about what they're interested in. I know I've personally served to connect some of my younger friends with peers who are in the subjects that they're interested in who've taken classes on topics such as like geospatial analysis or worked at other labs in the Global Research Institute that I can't speak to as well. And even that builds those networks for people to begin finding opportunities that suit them.

[00:43:39.25] So ask questions, engage with upperclassmen because the value of William & Mary is the people that it brings.

[00:43:45.88] MIKE RYAN: I touched on a little earlier. And I'll keep it succinct. I mean, I really believe to Ally's point, leverage the resources. We mentioned that over and over but start early, jump in early, right when you get there. Make those connections. Seek out your career advisor. Seek out the resources at the Career Center. They're so valuable.

[00:44:04.03] I always talk to students. And if I hear a student that hasn't stopped by and visited the team over there, I'm like, wow, you've got to take advantage of that. They're there for you. And they're incredible at what they do. So leverage your resources.

[00:44:17.69] And then we mentioned it, as well, start to build your network right when you get there. And it starts with your classmates. Your classmates stay with you forever. They become part of your strongest network. I mean, we talk about that with MBA students, as well, when they're in these cohort, tackling problems for our corporate partners.

[00:44:33.91] And then they're out there in the real world, some of their best networks to the next job is through classmates, but also through alumni and faculty and all the wonderful resources that are available to you at William & Mary.

[00:44:46.46] ROXANE ADLER HICKEY: And I will only add that, at William & Mary, inclusivity and belonging are really important values to us, and finding ways to create access to all of these opportunities in an equitable way is really, really important.

[00:45:06.72] So for those of us who do have the information of being intentional and sharing that with all of our communities, of finding ways to help bring the voices of our fellow classmates to the table whenever we can about sharing those opportunities with them, that we're going to work really hard at William & Mary, again, that personalized approach to find resources so that every student can access all of these amazing things that we're talking about.

[00:45:35.13] But if we have the information, we need to share the information. And that's how we continue to have a community that really cares about one another in this place of belonging.

[00:45:45.86] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: Belonging, community, connection, engagement, these are words that have come up consistently throughout our conversation. And I think it just is so beautifully sums up what makes William & Mary really special, not just on this topic but on everything. And as an alum, I am just so thrilled that so many years later, that is still the case.

[00:46:09.50] I'm sure we could keep talking about all of this for several more hours. But I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you so much for joining us, Roxane, Mike, Ally, I really appreciate your time and your perspective.

[00:46:21.63] MIKE RYAN: Thank you.

[00:46:22.34] ALLY SWINDELL: Thank you.

[00:46:22.98] MIKE RYAN: Enjoyed it.

[00:46:23.90] [MUSIC PLAYING]

Show Notes

• What are the connections each of you see between water and democracy?
• What changes are you noticing and how are they impacting communities?
• How is democracy relevant to water as a system that can address and adapt?
• Tell us about the Nepal Water Initiative.
• How does the interdisciplinary nature of water show up in your work? What kind of approach is necessary to understand them and innovate solutions? What does it look like to effectively work across disciplines? How can organizations enable this?
• How can data be applied to enable decision-making for water issues? How do you manage situations in which data available is limited?
• Tell us what you see in the new Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences.
• How is an economic lens useful when looking at water issues?
• How can regular people be brought into the science and encouraged to get involved? What are the methods to accomplish this? Why is this valuable, and what does that look like in practice?
• Why is right now the critical moment to get engaged with water issues?

Transcript

[00:00:01.52] CARRIE COOPER: Officially launched in 2021. William & Mary's strategic plan, Vision 2026, tackles 21st century imperatives directly, expanding the university's reach in several key areas-- data and computational sciences, water conservation, the history and future of democracy, and career pathways for graduates. My name is Carrie Cooper, Dean of University Libraries.

[00:00:25.44] GINGER AMBLER: And I am Ginger Ambler, Vice President for Student Affairs. As co-chairs of the Democracy Initiative at William & Mary, we are delighted to sponsor this Vision 2026 Podcast.

[00:00:36.62] It is part of a special series designed to explore issues related to democracy, as well as the compelling ways democracy intersects with data, water, and careers. We welcome you and invite you to listen. As leading researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners, consider the critical pillars of William & Mary's strategic plan.

[00:01:00.54] EMILY TAVOULAREAS: I'm Emily Tavoulareas, Managing Chair of the Tech Society Initiative at Georgetown University. Also, I am a William & Mary alum, class of 2004.

[00:01:12.78] INTERVIEWER: Welcome to our fourth and final episode of the first season of the Democracy Initiative Podcast. In past episodes, we've covered democracy and technology, democracy and elections, democracy and careers, and today we are going to turn our attention to water. Why? What does water have to do with democracy?

[00:01:31.26] Throughout human history, clean water has been more than just a necessity. It's been foundational to human civilization, a source of sustenance, connection, energy, food. Water is a lifeline. As water becomes both more scarce and abundant, democracy is becoming all the more relevant as a system that can address and adapt.

[00:01:53.61] I am thrilled to have with me today, Molly Mitchell, assistant professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Nara Sritharan, visiting assistant research professor of Economics and AidData, and Stephanie Letourneau, second year master of Arts, student in William & Mary's Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

[00:02:18.91] I want to start us off with a grounding in how you each see the connection between water and democracy. Molly, you study the science of how the sea is changing and work closely with states on developing resilience efforts. What changes are you focused on and how are they impacting communities that you work with?

[00:02:39.16] MOLLY MITCHELL: Yeah, so a lot of what I look at is how flooding is changing across the landscape. So sea level is coming up, and then as that happens, we get increases in flooding. And I look at how that flooding changes the response of both the ecosystem, but also the communities and how they can cope with that and adapt to that.

[00:03:03.67] And a large portion of that is really just ensuring that the right data is in the right hands for making decision. So whether that is in the hands of policymakers who need to make decisions, or if it's the hands of individuals who are house hunting or who want to upgrade their house to be more flood proof or something like that. It's just making sure that information gets into their hands.

[00:03:29.65] INTERVIEWER: How do people respond to that data, whether they're on the policy side or on the community side of the equation? What have you seen people do with this kind of data?

[00:03:41.54] MOLLY MITCHELL: Yeah, so there's everything from really temporary reactions. So we have a lot of people who check the tides on a regular basis and they say, well, maybe I need to leave for work a little earlier today so I don't get stuck in a flooded road or my driveway doesn't get flooded. So we have that sort of temporary kind of reaction.

[00:04:04.96] And then we have people who are changing the way that they live along the coastline. So you see a lot of elevated houses, things like that. And then there's this sort of bigger reaction, so how do we change the policies and the regulations that we use that affect our coastal areas? And they're not necessarily specifically about water, but they're more about how we use the coastline.

[00:04:31.59] INTERVIEWER: Super interesting. I mean, it touches a bunch of different-- it touches a bunch of different things there, ranging from housing-- I'm hearing you talk about housing, flooding, risk prevention, the economics of the local community, the ecosystem around it.

[00:04:46.78] Nara, as an economist working on very similar issues but largely related to hydropower, international development, geopolitics, your vantage point is quite different than Molly's. How do you see the connection between water and democracy?

[00:05:02.07] NARA SRITHARAN: I think it's not that different than what Molly was explaining. it is getting the information out to the people who make the decisions related to water, and whether that's international or, in Molly's case, where she's looking at it domestically, I think it's very similar in terms of getting the information to the right people so they can make a well-informed evidence-based decision.

[00:05:34.56] INTERVIEWER: What does it look like to take these large amounts of data and information and package them and communicate them in a way that people can do something with.

[00:05:46.14] NARA SRITHARAN: It's a great question. I'm actually really curious to hear what Molly has to say about this, and I'm also very curious to hear if Molly's data is publicly available to people because I often don't want to drive into flooding. And if that's something that regular people can't get access to, that would be-- if that's out there, I would love to see it.

[00:06:08.29] In my situation, what we usually end up doing is decipher it down into policy briefs or short policy analysis that's easily digestible for policymakers because they don't have a lot of time and their bandwidth are short, so they need short, crispy visuals and short text that really gets to the main points of what is this data actually showing.

[00:06:36.43] INTERVIEWER: Molly, how about you?

[00:06:37.46] MOLLY MITCHELL: Yeah, so distilling complicated data down for a variety of different people to use is an interesting challenge. And one of the ways we've done it is we have a website called ADAPTVA. And so this is an online portal, and pretty much all the information that we developed through our research, we put onto this portal.

[00:07:00.34] And some of the stuff on the portal is aimed at decision makers. So helping a regulatory agency understand how the resources they manage are going to change over time. And some of the resources are aimed more at individuals. So we have a 36-hour water forecast that shows the tide coming in and out for the next 36 hours. It will show you what roads will be underwater.

[00:07:27.79] So we have a lot of different information, and different stakeholders, but pretty much everything we have is on that website. And that gets back to that point I was trying to make about wanting to get into the right hands.

[00:07:42.58] So we started ADAPTVA a number of years ago specifically because some of the wealthier localities are hiring consultants to come in and do a lot of planning for them. And we said, well, that's great for those localities, and we're glad to see they're being proactive. But there are a lot of localities, which have big flooding issues, but cannot afford to hire big consulting firms to come in and make plans for them.

[00:08:06.57] However, we can produce the information on a statewide scale at fairly reasonable prices and then just make it available to all those localities. So that was really the genesis of it was to allow everyone access to the information, even if they didn't really have the resources to go out and look for it themselves.

[00:08:28.14] INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I mean, so much of what you're both saying is about making inherently complex data more understandable and accessible to people. And want to shift over to Stephanie for a moment who-- most of your work is focused on bringing people into the science and engaging them in the process.

[00:08:47.19] So we were just talking about what do people do with the results of research, with the outcomes of research? And so much of what you do is focused on the earlier part, the actual research itself. Can you tell us a bit about why bringing people into the science and engaging them into the process is valuable both to understanding the problem, but also to taking effective action?

[00:09:12.76] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: Yeah, so it's extremely important to have people as part of the process of understanding what's going on and doing the actual scientific process. For people-- society interacts with water in so many different ways and facets of their life, but if they don't really have any buy in to care or any experiences that have made them want to care or understand it, they're probably not going to go out of their way to do it.

[00:09:42.33] And so when you're providing people the opportunity to be able to get hands on and actually monitor their local waterway themselves, or to monitor the water that comes out of their tap and send it in for testing, then they're going to be starting to create these authentic experiences where they can say, hey, I have a data point, and hey, I think I know what this means, and start to realize what other research is going on around them and start to amplify that.

[00:10:09.26] And then when it comes to taking action, they then have these first person experiences where they can bring these to the table at local municipality meetings and say, this is what I'm finding with my data. Here's another-- here's more research that is happening that could help address our issues, really amplifying the issues from the ground up.

[00:10:35.20] NARA SRITHARAN: That's fascinating.

[00:10:37.69] MOLLY MITCHELL: So community engagement can also be a really important feedback with research. So one of the programs we have at VIMS in collaboration with Wetlands Watch down in Norfolk is called Catch the King. And this is when we have really high tide events in the fall, which-- they typically occur in the fall.

[00:10:56.89] We have a app where you can go out and map the high tide, but you can also see when that's going to be the normal tide. So you're mapping something high, but you're getting a little glimpse into the future.

[00:11:08.15] But then at VIMS we actually take that data and we use it to validate our models. So every time we get data in, we're actually making our models a little bit better. So we have citizens and community members who are feeding into the data, and then we're taking those improved models and feeding them back out.

[00:11:28.54] NARA SRITHARAN: That's so cool. I love that.

[00:11:31.19] INTERVIEWER: And I love that example because it truly is bringing the community in to help address an issue in their own community. So they're not going somewhere else and doing research on somebody else's land or community. They are addressing an issue and helping researchers address an issue and know more about an issue in their everyday place.

[00:11:53.51] NARA SRITHARAN: Exactly. I think that's exactly the key. And that's also how it fits in with my research, where a lot of my research is not domestic and international, and I do try the best that I can to involve local stakeholders in my research, make sure that they're either included as key informant interviews. So most of my research is mixed methods.

[00:12:16.41] So there will be hard data, rigorous analysis, all of this fun stuff, and then also have the interviews that can show what is actually happening on the ground because data is limited, and exactly as the two ladies are explaining, you need more data to feed into your models to make sure that the models are valid and always showing the right patterns.

[00:12:43.05] And for me, unfortunately, I can't reach out to people to get that data always, but the way that I can do it is then to make sure that I'm interviewing people in country surrounding the issue that I'm looking at and get their input. So the data is reflecting what is happening on the ground or the other way around. Or if there are two different stories, then why are we getting two different stories?

[00:13:07.66] INTERVIEWER: It illuminates that disconnect. And then you know you have to play around in there and figure out what's going on. I mean, so much of what you all are describing really highlights how inherently interdisciplinary this issue is, both to understand and to manage and adapt to.

[00:13:27.15] You all operate across disciplines in a variety of ways, and I'd like to understand how you think about that in practice, Nara, you were just talking about the mixed methods that you bring into the work that you do. Can you share a little bit more about how the interdisciplinary nature of water itself shows up in your work?

[00:13:48.83] NARA SRITHARAN: Yeah, the best example I have is the Nepal Water Initiative. That's a large multidisciplinary initiative which is the global Research Institute, where AidData is one research lab within it. And we have the IIC folks in it as well, that's Institute for Integrated Conservation, I believe. And we have a religious studies-- a professor from religious studies is also part of this project. And, of course, our marine scientists from VIMS.

[00:14:29.02] So this is a really big project that has been running as far as I know since 2019, and in 2022, it became a larger multidisciplinary. It started at VIMS, and then included all these other disciplines because they realized that there were a lot of things that they couldn't fully understand.

[00:14:52.40] They were doing fish surveys, but they couldn't necessarily understand how the community was engaging with water, and they couldn't necessarily understand the political economy of hydropower development, which is a big thing in Nepal. So they needed other people and other disciplines to come in on that. And, yeah, for me, that is probably the best example I have of interdisciplinary work on water.

[00:15:19.14] INTERVIEWER: The work that you're describing is about enabling decision makers to make well-informed decisions about something. Can you tell us a little bit about how the data you all collect and share out enables decision-making, or enables more effective decision-making.

[00:15:37.70] NARA SRITHARAN: Yeah, so this project is not just at the high level for decision makers like in government folks, it's also for the local communities and for them to understand their own practices of water and water preservation. So we do it at both levels, and try to attempt it at both levels. We haven't reached a stage where we can share data yet with the communities or with policymakers.

[00:16:08.12] As far as we've gotten is one policy brief that's on the hydropower development and the geopolitical issues that are related to hydropower, and also some of Nepal's own hurdles within the country for developing hydropower and also some of the-- and my ladies here, they would know way better about the environmental impacts of hydropower development, which is not so great.

[00:16:38.37] INTERVIEWER: Can be substantial, yeah.

[00:16:39.81] NARA SRITHARAN: Yeah.

[00:16:40.83] INTERVIEWER: Molly, your work is specifically focused on sea level rise and the trends and changes that come along with that. How does your work connect to other disciplines?

[00:16:49.92] MOLLY MITCHELL: It's an interesting question. So flooding affects everybody, and it affects every piece of our lives really. So I work with engineers and architects and economists and social scientists, health professionals, I mean, pretty much you name it, there's some element of it involved. And so I'll give you just an example of how this all connects together.

[00:17:16.53] So I've been working with the Virginia Department of Health for several years now to look at the impacts of sea level rise on septic systems. So as sea level rises, groundwater levels also rise. And as groundwater comes up, this causes coastal septic systems to fail.

[00:17:37.34] So when they fail, this is bad for the people in the house, but it also means that untreated sewage leaks out into adjacent creeks. And then if you have aquaculture happening in that creek, so you have environmental impacts. If you have aquaculture happening in that creek, then you have health concerns because that can cause diseases.

[00:17:59.59] And then you have economic concerns if people can't sell the shellfish that they've been growing. So you have this kind of cascading set of impacts from the septic systems failing. And so then when you get into the solution space, there are solutions.

[00:18:19.61] They tend to be very expensive. I mean, $70,000-plus per household, and so now you get into equity issues. Which communities can afford these solutions, and which communities cannot afford these solutions? And what do we do if people can't afford the solution? And so now you have much more of a social, broad perspective of what's happening.

[00:18:42.46] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: Piggy backing on to the idea of interdisciplinary work from a student perspective, part of the reason why I chose to come back to school after working for nearly three years was because I did notice that interdisciplinary work was necessary for us to tackle the issues that we have in our world.

[00:19:01.00] I came from a background of studying environmental science in my undergrad, and then I worked in the world of leading volunteers doing volunteer water quality monitoring, which is where a lot of my passion for bringing the community into science comes from. But I was noticing that I needed more than just that scientific background. I needed to know how to engage people effectively, how to talk to different decision makers and get them to care, and also how to actually make the data useful for the end users.

[00:19:33.78] And, to me, I could have gone back and done a more straight science focused degree, but I chose the program I did at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the Master of Arts program, because I was able to hone in on my direct interests, which right now my capstone project is doing more of a program evaluation of a project that involves volunteers in monitoring submerged aquatic vegetation around the Chesapeake Bay.

[00:20:01.86] And so I'm able to learn more about the Marine Science, but learn more about those mixed methods that Nara was talking about and getting human perspectives into water issues, how they're learning and how monitoring is affecting them.

[00:20:15.62] INTERVIEWER: I mean, it's always easy to talk about interdisciplinary work. It's less easy to actually do it. What does it look like to effectively work across disciplines and pulling in all of the different sort of pieces of the puzzle that you all have been talking about for the last bit?

[00:20:36.87] MOLLY MITCHELL: Well, so I'll say one of the more challenging things is it's actually easier for me to work with interdisciplinary projects that are not across academia. Academia throws up some interesting challenges because although there is starting to be funding for interdisciplinary work, a lot of funding is really very subject-specific, and so it's hard to get funding for these interdisciplinary initiatives. I don't know if you've had similar concerns.

[00:21:12.79] NARA SRITHARAN: Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. Exactly the same. I would say for more non-academic work, it's a little bit more straightforward. There are less competing interests and competing goals, whereas in academia there are competing interests and getting the grants for interdisciplinary work.

[00:21:34.85] Exactly as Molly was saying is challenging because there's just not as many-- people don't necessarily think of academic work as being interdisciplinary because each field has very specific-- you're supposed to publish in certain journals with certain rankings, and if you're on a tenure track, you have your own-- you have to solo publish. You can't publish with other people, depending on your field and all of this stuff. So in the academic setting, I do think it gets a little bit more complicated.

[00:22:09.59] INTERVIEWER: That's interesting because there's-- I mean, the distinction between the two that you're laying out is really one is focused on solving a problem in the real world, and that involves all of the stakeholders who are going to be part of that process. This touches on what you were saying too Stephanie. You mentioned you're in a master's program here. Can you share a little bit about what that has looked like for you in the program and how that's playing out?

[00:22:36.17] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: Yeah, it's been really great because the way that the program is developed is that you can really dive into different areas through different parts of your work. So the first year has been a lot-- was a lot of courses, so I'm taking the same courses as the master of science and the PhD students, and I'm getting that technical background into our academic work.

[00:22:57.43] I've taken statistics, the same stats classes as everyone else. So I've been learning all of those scientific methods. And then I've also been able to dabble into courses like Molly and Andrew. So they teach a marine and coastal policy course. So I've been able to go to DC and interact with VIMS alum.

[00:23:15.49] And then on the flip side of things, I've also been able to dive into my own interests. So I took an environmental pollution course, which the professor, Robert Hale, he talks a lot about the people, and he talks a lot about thinking about the sources of pollution. So that was my first year.

[00:23:31.59] And then I got to do an internship, and the internship you got to choose where you go. I went to Acadia National Park, and I worked with the Schoodic Institute on their participatory science work and got to create my own programs and work with the worm harvester. That's a whole other story.

[00:23:50.48] But also built into the Ma program is you can do an assistantship on campus. And so my current assistantship is I work with the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Virginia. It's a center on the VIMS campus.

[00:24:03.90] And I work with our coastal training program coordinator. And that's another way that I get to keep using some of the professional skills that I had before coming into this grad program and grow them further, is I'm helping my supervisor with community engagement pieces, newsletters, and putting on different kinds of workshops for coastal decision makers.

[00:24:24.51] And then, currently, I get to work on my capstone project and really have people on my advisory team that are helping me move that forward. So right now I have our education coordinator at the Chesapeake Bay national estuarine research reserve in Virginia as part of my advisory team with my other advisor for my capstone, because she just finished her PhD in education at William & Mary, and she had done-- she had done qualitative work and was able to help mentor me in building surveys and how to do semi-structured interviews.

[00:24:58.84] And so I feel like that's a really great example of how I've brought together all these pieces. Carl Friedrichs, my other advisor, his interest really is in water and estuary and processes. And so bringing in all of these different people, I've created my own interdisciplinary project.

[00:25:16.30] INTERVIEWER: So we're talking a lot about this, what sounds like an incredible degree program. And I marvel at your enthusiasm and pulling all these pieces together because that doesn't just happen by accident.

[00:25:28.27] But I have to ask. So William & Mary recently received a $100 million gift for the new Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences, the largest for any marine science program. So, I mean, that's huge. Congratulations. And do you all have a sense of the vision for the future for this?

[00:25:49.63] MOLLY MITCHELL: Yeah, so I think a lot of what this gift is going to do is to expand the things that Stephanie was just talking about. So VIMS has a long history of advisory work. We were actually originally started as an advisory agency to the state. So for us always, the research has been important, but then what is done with the research has always been equally important.

[00:26:13.90] And so there's a real interest in expanding our ability to reach communities and to reach people who may not be as familiar with marine science and educate them about the issues and concerns.

[00:26:30.28] And the other thing that it's really going to help with is we have had at William & Mary for a long time, a minor in marine science, but we are expanding that into a major. So this will give the undergraduate program an opportunity to engage with films also.

[00:26:46.18] INTERVIEWER: That's really exciting. It's really exciting. So all of you have this practical bent to your work. Each of you, in different ways, have talked about either how you have to engage local populations or how you take the research and communicate it in a manner that is actionable by any number of end users.

[00:27:10.30] That, of course, requires connecting with people, understanding them, understanding their needs, meeting them where they are, communicating effectively, and critically ensuring research is grounded in realities, not assumptions about communities.

[00:27:25.80] Stephanie, your work is focused on engaging people in the science. Tell us about how you approach this. What are your go to methods? And if you have any examples of it, that would be great as well.

[00:27:37.53] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: Yeah, so when I think of engaging people into the science, I think of a field broadly called participatory sciences, and that is engaging somebody or society into the scientific method.

[00:27:51.24] So anything from creating hypotheses, determining where the study sites should be, collecting data, or even synthesizing and communicating out the information that was found in the study. So my favorite part of that, it takes many different models, and I could go on and on about models, but if somebody is interested, let me know.

[00:28:12.74] But there's different models of engagement, and my favorite model of engagement is having people involved in the data collection portion because it really has people put on their scientist hat and have their own experience. They're having their own learned experience that they're able to create their own questions, their own observations, and not just hear the result from a scientist. They are being the scientist.

[00:28:37.39] And many projects, the best way that they are built is having a way for the person who or the participant who's collecting the data, make a twist that is more personal for them. So one example is I've talked about, I worked in volunteer water quality monitoring before this-- before my graduate program.

[00:28:58.78] And we had priority locations of streams of where we did need more data from volunteers to inform decision making, but we also wanted to make sure volunteers were monitoring at a site that was accessible and interesting for them, because they don't want to drive 30 minutes to a site that means nothing to them. That doesn't feed to that motivation of wanting to have that sense of place.

[00:29:24.47] And so we would work together with them to make sure that we were both filling the data gaps in a methodical way, while also giving them that sense of place that they're looking for, potentially, in their community.

[00:29:38.68] MOLLY MITCHELL: And I'd just like to call out Stephanie's Democratic use of the word scientist. I think we think too much that scientists are people who've gone through a lot of schooling and maybe are not super in touch with the real world, but anyone who's observing things and seeking to understand change in the world is actually a scientist. They're engaging in that process, and I think that's really important.

[00:30:05.27] We like to always remind people that when you're on someone's property, the property owner is the expert. They may not understand what's driving a change, or they may not understand the trajectory, but they're the ones who have the lived experience.

[00:30:20.70] INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they've been observing the changes that you are trying to understand through your research. They've been living it every day.

[00:30:27.42] MOLLY MITCHELL: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:30:29.01] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: And that's what I really liked hearing about your work, Nara, is that you do talk to the people that are there because you're acknowledging that they are the local experts. They're the eyes-- we say in volunteer monitoring, the eyes and the ears on the ground. But that is true for other disciplines and other areas. Where people live and interact, they're going to have the best information that you might not be seeing because you're not there living there.

[00:30:50.64] NARA SRITHARAN: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:30:52.25] INTERVIEWER: Yeah, and you're coming in at a moment in time like as a researcher in that place.

[00:30:57.68] NARA SRITHARAN: And you don't understand the culture or the history or local dynamics that doesn't translate into numbers. Those things you can't observe from afar.

[00:31:09.17] INTERVIEWER: Right.

[00:31:12.72] NARA SRITHARAN: I don't know if it's worth bringing up, but a different way of engaging with communities dissemination, and I'm starting to experiment with other ways to feed findings into the communities so they can-- whoever participated is still getting something in return from it and still learning from it. So it's not a-- they're just feeding into my research, but we're giving them something back based off of the research.

[00:31:40.89] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: I like to call that the scientific two-way street.

[00:31:43.62] NARA SRITHARAN: There you go. I don't know these words, but Stephanie does.

[00:31:48.68] INTERVIEWER: Wait. Say more about that.

[00:31:51.35] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: So the scientific two-way street. When we're thinking about any community engagement, you want to make sure that, yes, you're getting the data, the research, the information that you need, but you don't want to be leaving the community with nothing. They need to be getting something out of it, too.

[00:32:07.35] So whenever people are telling me that they want to work with the community, they want to do something with the community, I remind them they need to make sure that there's a scientific two-way street going on, that each partner, because it is a partnership, is getting something out of it.

[00:32:21.94] NARA SRITHARAN: That's cool.

[00:32:23.07] INTERVIEWER: I love the two-way street thing, and I think that's what I'm hearing right now is we have on the one hand, the researchers are collecting information of various understand it, and then feeding it back into the community for any number of reasons. And I want to hear more about that from the work that you're doing, Nara.

[00:32:44.61] And on the other side of the equation, we have-- there's all of this information out there and what can people do with it? How do they access it? And I'd love for-- let's start with Nara. Nara, can you share a little bit more about how you approach this? And then, Stephanie, tell us about how this surfaces in your mind?

[00:33:12.63] NARA SRITHARAN: Yeah, OK. I can start. Well, so I'm trying to play around or trying to figure out ways in which we can disseminate the research findings back to the communities that were involved or engaged with the research to begin with. And the two avenues I'm playing around with at the moment, we'll see if funding is an issue always for these things. But if it gets funded, then there might be something cool coming out of it.

[00:33:44.90] So one is with the theater department trying to disseminate the research findings and turn it into a performance, which I know nothing about. But luckily my partner in theater knows everything about that. So that would be both for an academic crowd to amplify the findings in a more digestible way, and then also a more tailored performance not put on by us for Indigenous communities, but participatory type of performances. Also, to get at the root of some of the findings that we get out of the research. So that's one.

[00:34:27.47] And the other one I'm playing around with is on a migration project where, of course, the interviewees are telling their stories, their old stories, they get recorded. And my partner in Hispanic studies and School of Education, the goal is for them to put this together into children's books, and then it gets disseminated in schools for children to understand more about migration processes and all the different type of identities that crosses into the US.

[00:35:02.26] INTERVIEWER: That is so cool. That is very cool.

[00:35:05.23] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: One of my favorite parts about volunteer monitoring is the fact that through the Clean Water Act, the states are required to evaluate what's called all existing and readily available information. And that opens the door actually for the inclusion of data from universities, but also local watershed groups that are doing water quality monitoring.

[00:35:28.86] So if they have what's considered a standard operating plan or documentation of their methods and what they're doing to ensure quality, even if they don't, but having that is helpful. The states have to use that data to evaluate waterways for impairments.

[00:35:46.64] INTERVIEWER: This is all incredible. I feel like I'm coming out of this conversation with 1,000 more questions than I had going in, but what really strikes me here is that each of you are describing work that I think to people outside of this field, seems like a black box, and you're each working to open that black box as much as possible.

[00:36:12.81] These are issues that I personally know very little about, but am finding it very heartening to hear just how engaged the research is in those local communities, and that for anyone who wants to learn more and wants to engage more, that it sounds like there are a lot of different pathways to doing so.

[00:36:35.43] And it makes me wonder if you all have any recommendations for people, so if people want to engage more in the process of science in their own local communities, what would you recommend they do to run with that?

[00:36:54.99] MOLLY MITCHELL: Well, I think one thing to do is to look for both volunteer opportunities. So we do have volunteers who work at VIMS, but also we have these bigger citizen science. So, usually, the way you find out about that is maybe being on a newsletter list or something like that. So you see what kind of products are coming out of the different centers. So I think looking for things like that is really important.

[00:37:21.26] And then I liked earlier what Stephanie mentioned about taking information and what you've learned and going to your local counsel, and then turning that into action.

[00:37:38.32] NARA SRITHARAN: I like that.

[00:37:40.00] STEPHANIE LETOURNEAU: Yeah, keep your ear to the ground to opportunity. Don't be afraid to dive into the different data platforms that are available to you. A lot of researchers do want people to look at their data, so like ADAPTVA, we want people to go and look at these things and understand the issues.

[00:37:59.05] And then also being willing to stand up in your local community and take those leadership positions because you can be surprised how much actually is affected at the local level, and how much you can do at the local level. Not everything is controlled at the state level, and people are usually very surprised by that.

[00:38:19.45] INTERVIEWER: We've been talking about different ways to engage citizens and people and communities. Why is now the moment to get engaged?

[00:38:30.73] MOLLY MITCHELL: So from a sea level rise perspective, the sea level in Virginia has come up about 8 inches since the 1970s. It will come up three times as quickly by 2050. So we are looking at a problem that's already causing flooding, is going to become a much, much bigger problem.

[00:38:51.73] So why is that important? Well, it's not-- although we talked about providing information for individuals to make decisions, this is not a problem an individual can solve completely for themselves. And so it really does take a bigger sense of how we use our landscape and how we're going to make decisions in order to make the right decisions so that in 30 years from now when the water has come up a foot and a half, we don't find ourselves in a crisis position. We've made some good decisions and we find ourselves in a better place.

[00:39:30.77] NARA SRITHARAN: That is a brilliant answer.

[00:39:31.95] [LAUGHTER]

[00:39:34.94] INTERVIEWER: OK. I could keep asking questions for hours, but I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you all so much for joining us. Stephanie, Nara, Molly, Thank you.

[00:39:45.78] ALL: Thank you.

[00:39:46.62] UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.

[00:39:49.67] DREA GEORGE: This episode of the Democracy Initiative Podcast was produced in the Reader Media Center at William & Mary Libraries. I'm Drea George, I'm the producer and editor of this podcast. Thank you for listening.