In this episode Mike Desparrois, Teresa Vineyard, and Dr. Gary Morris from St. Edward University in Austin, TX discuss the relationship between the two institutes, how the university has helped students through these tough times, and the development of the Podcast Listening Group…think book club.
Dr. Morris teaches physics, astronomy, meteorology & earth science. He held a Dept. of Energy Global Change Graduate Fellowship and a National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship at NASA studying the ozone layer before becoming a research faculty member at UMBC. He began studying ozone pollution while a Weiss Instructor of Physics at Rice (2000 – 2004), where he started his weather balloon project, then taught at Valparaiso U. from 2004 – 2010 before becoming Associate Dean there. During 2008 and 2009 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan studying the influence of Chinese pollution before, during, and after the Olympics. Dr. Morris became Dean of Natural Sciences at SEU in July 2014.
Plus, Adam thinks he sounds a little bit like Mr. Rogers. 🙂
AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Our Community Listens Podcast, where we strengthen relationships and build stronger communities through listening, leadership, care and service. Learn and partner with us as we imagine a society in which people cared about each other first, explore more at ourcommunitylistens.org.
Adam Salgat:
Hi everyone. I’m Adam Salgat and today’s episode is a conversation between Mike Desparrois, Teresa Vineyard, and Dr. Gary Morris from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. The relationship between St Edward’s University and Our Community Listens is an interesting one. As you listened to the podcast, you’ll learn more about the university and what makes them unique when it comes to communication curriculum. You’ll also learn how they have dealt with students during these difficult times and how they are using this very podcast to continue connection and increase the importance of listening.
Mike Desparrois:
Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it. Excited to be back today. Today, we have an exciting guest for Teresa and I to talk with. He is Dr. Gary Morris from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Gary, how are you today?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Doing great. The weather is wonderful outside. I enjoyed a nice walk to my office so I can have a quiet space to chat with you all today.
Mike Desparrois:
I love how you live close enough to your office in Austin, Texas. I can just imagine what it’s like down there with the weather and the leaves changing, and you get to walk over there. So, Teresa, I’m going to ask you since you’re in St. Louis, how are you? And how’s the weather up there?
Teresa Vineyard:
Well, the weather here is great this week. Yesterday, it was only the high of 70 to 75, and it’s a little breezy out, at one breeze. So it’s beautiful. Love it.
Mike Desparrois:
Oh, man, it sounds like everybody’s having a good early November day. So let’s go ahead and get started on our conversation. Gary, We’re so excited to have you here today. Can you give us a little background on St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas? What the college kind of looks like and what are some of your goals for the college?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah, so St Edward’s University was founded in the late 1800s by Father Sorin. So who is the same priest who founded Notre Dame, which is a school many listeners probably know. So we are a Holy Cross school, which means that’s an order of the Catholic church that has certain values that it promotes. And in the education area, that means meeting students where they are educating the whole person, not sacrificing the heart at the expense of the mind, creating a community that’s welcoming to all, and the courage to take measured risks. So it’s a great place for students to come and learn from all over the world. It’s a very diverse campus. We’re over 50% students from underrepresented populations and we’re also economically diverse. So more than 40% of our students are Pell-eligible, which means they come from economically the most needy families in the United States. So it’s a great diverse environment for learning.
We’ve got about 3000 undergraduate students here, and we primarily focus on the liberal arts, but we’ve got great STEM programs and business programs, and it’s just a wonderful place to teach and learn.
Mike Desparrois:
And one of my favorite things about St Edward’s Gary, you had me out there as a guest about a year ago was the fact of where you sit in Austin and the School Mascot. The Hilltoppers because you overlook the city of Austin is just absolutely beautiful. Not just in the day, but at night as well, too. So not only an amazing campus to be at for the physical scenes, but a really cool place to get an education as well.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. I think we’ve got the greatest view of downtown Austin skyline anywhere in the city. We’re on some high ground. So my hike up the hill to the office is a 100 Feet uphill and in a flat area, that is East Texas, we’re right at the edge of the Hill Country. So we start getting some hills in the area. We’re on the top of the highest hill in South Austin. So we’ve got a great view of downtown. And another institution of higher education that sits on the other side of the river that people may know a little a bit, their Mascots, the Longhorns, ours are the Hilltoppers, which is a goat.
Mike Desparrois:
Very well described as well too. So Gary talk about the beginning of how OCL, Our Community Listens, and St Edward’s, it’s a fascinating story got to start not just for a connection, but that led to a national partnership with you all?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah, thanks for that question, Mike. I was attending a conference called Texas Digit Con at Austin Community College, which is a large community college system here in the Austin area. And the keynote speaker at that conference was John Gardner who founded and runs the Gardner Institute, which is a nonprofit that has been looking at and studying ways to improve student retention and success in higher education for a number of years. And John finished his keynote, which was very inspirational. He talked about his own experience in college and his tough start but how he recovered and graduated and went on to a very successful career. And his reflection on how not all the students get the kind of support that he got, and that really helped shape his career going forward. And he finished that talk and then it was time for dinner. And I happened to be at one of the front tables and he sat down next to me and he saw my name badge, and my name badge had St Edward’s University on it.
And he had been on our campus and he knew of our campus and he said, “St. Edward’s university.” He said, “You’re one of only a half a dozen or so institutions of higher education that teach listening as a college course.” And so he was very interested in our campus because we teach listening skills as part of our curriculum. And he said, “I just met this leader from an organization that you all need to be in touch with.” So it was Rebecca Buell and he had just met her. And she had just assumed the leadership at Our Community Listens. He said, “You all need to talk.” And he put us in touch with one another and we started talking, this is December 2018. Rebecca and I went back and forth a few times, brainstorming some ideas. And finally, in October 2019, I got to take the three-day communication skills training class in St. Louis. And wow, that was so impactful. It just blew me away.
Teresa Vineyard:
What was impactful about it to you based on how you were thinking to apply it to your job?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Well, I think we all recognize that communication is a challenge from personal life to professional life. It’s probably the most commonly named organizational challenge by employees, everyone feels like they’re in the dark sometimes. And how can we improve communication? And we certainly had our challenges on our own campus with issues that were of concern to our faculty and our students and our administration. And we live in a very diverse community in Austin where there’s a lot of political issues that are in the air as the State Capitol. We have a lot of politics always going on in the community and attention between local and state-level politics. And so just sort of observing what was going on our campus, in our community, in our nation. It really inspired me to want to learn more about listening and how we could improve relationships and the function of our organizations and the wellbeing of our families. That’s what hit me about that three-day courses as I walked away. And I think everyone walks away realizing I wasn’t as good of a listener as I thought I was.
Teresa Vineyard:
That’s true Dr. Morris.
Mike Desparrois:
Gary, I think about the first time Rebecca called me, I just started working at OCL in the education department and she told me about you. And she said, “He’s from St Edward’s University.” I had no idea during our conversation, I was making a big jump on assumption that you didn’t work in the communication department. So when I found out that you were a Professor of Environmental Science and Physics, I was just like, “Whoa, this is really, really cool because here’s a guy who is a professor at a university teaching all the cool sciences that I always struggled in, but finding ways to better communicate, not only in his teaching style but to reach kids.” And when I got to come out there last December to do a bit of a listening session, a pre-session with your folks out there, I was so amazed at your stories of connections with your actual students besides just what you have learned with OCL, but then also to take those skill sets to work with your kids.
Can you talk a little bit about that with your students that you have, the student body at St. Edwards and the importance, not just at that point in time in December, but knowing that we hit a really big pandemic in March and the world kind of just went a little bit crazy. How have you used those skills to support your kiddos virtually, sometimes on the phone, sometimes in person because that’s an important part as them being young adults, right?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. We’re very fortunate and blessed here at St. Edwards to have an amazing student population. And I think to a person on this campus, all of us who have the privilege of interacting with and teaching these students recognize what a blessing it is. They are dedicated, they are hardworking, they care, they’re passionate, they’re engaged. And they have a depth of understanding of the world around them and a sense for how to engage with that world that is truly inspiring. I think probably not a day goes by where we don’t learn from them. And as the pandemic arrived in March, everyone on this campus sort of rallied and reoriented their approach to teaching and learning. We went completely online after spring break in the middle of March. So before spring break, we were meeting in person and then after spring break, nobody came back to campus.
And so transitioning from the in-person highly engaged in the same room kind of connection with our students to this new mode where we’re looking at folks in Zoom boxes and trying to stay engaged and connected and to listen to one another, I think we all had to pick up a whole new set of skills, but I would say based on my experience that listening at the forefront of that, being able to hear the feedback from the students, being able to hear their stories and how they were adjusting to very difficult circumstances. I can only imagine what that experience must be like for a student in college trying to learn the second half of a class entirely online.
Mike Desparrois:
So Gary, talk to us a little bit about, you went through facilitator training, you applied to become a national partner, and then the pandemic hit. And we haven’t been able to have classes at St. Edward’s for in-person because of all the restrictions in Austin and just trying to get people together. What have you done in the interim to continue growing skillsets at St Ed’s? Because I think it’s a very unique tool that you’ve kind of developed that we can share with others, but also to keep it going until we can actually have some classes there?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. So last spring, right as the pandemic was hitting, knowing how impactful the materials that Our Community Listens at put together were, I reached out to our local expert, Dr. Terry Varner, who was an Associate Professor of Communication. She’s the one who teaches the listening skills class on our campus. And without her, John Gardner doesn’t know who we are, and without John Gardner, I don’t know Our Community Listens. So Dr. Varner is a key figure in this whole evolution of our relationship with Our Community Listens. You referenced me being a professor of environmental science and physics. I have to say working with Dr. Varner is a real honor and privilege for me. And I feel like a bit of a pretender when I’m trying to teach about listening because she’s the real expert on this campus.
But we applied to be a partner last April. And I work with Dr. Varner and our Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Lisa Kirkpatrick on a proposal that would allow us to bring that three-day workshop to our campus so that we could offer it to students, faculty, staff, alumni, neighbors, and friends of St Edward’s University. And our proposal was accepted. And we were kind of in the planning stages last spring. And we realized that as the summer went on and the cases of COVID weren’t going down it was not going to be possible for us to offer the in-person three-day workshop during the fall semester, but we wanted to do something. And Dr. Varner is also a member of the International Listening Association. And I joined after Dr. Varner and I were connected and they each September celebrate an International Day of Listening.
Teresa Vineyard:
Oh, wow! Wonderful.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. And that made for the perfect day, the September 17th. It was the perfect day for us to try to kick off something related to listening. And we were brainstorming, trying to think, what do we want to do? And I got this idea to try to reproduce a book club model, but to use the fabulous podcast that Our Community Listens has produced. And that Adam has done the interviews for four years. I’ve listened to them. They’re amazing, great reflections on the content, a real fun way to either learn it for the first time, to be inspired by it, or to reflect back and review the stuff that you took in the workshop. And I thought, “Let’s go look at all these podcasts and we’ll organize them by topic.” And I decided that that first one on September 17th would be about empathy and listening.
And so we took that subject matter. We got three of the podcasts, we used Welcome To The OCL Podcast so that people knew what this was all about. And then, Want To Help Someone? Listen To Them. And then the third one we used was Empathy is Empowering. And we had the participants listen to those. We had about 60 people register. We had about 30 people actually attend the event. So pretty good turnout. And we spent the hour together reflecting on the content and use the great Zoom breakout room feature to distribute folks into groups of three, to talk about listening and to listen to one another. And it was a powerful experience for everyone who participated.
Mike Desparrois:
That’s a cool event. Go ahead, Teresa.
Teresa Vineyard:
Oh, I’m sorry. Excuse me. How many people on campus have taken the three-day course and excuse my ignorance? I just don’t have your background. So is it just you at this point?
Dr. Gary Morris:
I think I’m the only one on campus who’s taken the three-day workshop at this point.
Teresa Vineyard:
Do you have plans?
Mike Desparrois:
And we had everything planned, and then the pandemic hit.
Teresa Vineyard:
Got you.
Mike Desparrois:
And it has continually stalled, but one of the great things that Gary has done was calling us up and say, “Hey, I have this idea. Is it okay if”, and we’re like, “Yeah.” What’s needed is this Friday, this week, he’ll be meeting with our partners in OCL and not all of them are educational partners. We got folks in the military, cities, different organizations, different nonprofits to talk about how they can take his idea built around what Adam’s developed. Adam didn’t even know this was taking place with where he started with the podcasts and say, “Hey, you could be totally doing this in your community and I’ll help.”
So it’s kind of taking the idea of the nonprofit world and how can we share and build and support each other, and Gary’s kind of paying it forward, not just with OCL, but with organizations that we work with as well too, because imagine if another group takes this and then they come up with the next best idea and the next best idea. And that’s really what we’re about, right? That’s what I love about everything that you’ve done and kind of focused on that as well, too.
So we’ll get them to the three-day class, but right now they’re still getting some tools and some structures, the three-day classes, and they’re be all right, but working through this right now is such an important piece through that. Gary also has played an important role as we’re developing and working on an online CST class. Gary was a member of what we called our alpha group to really kind of review material, talk about how it’s not really an asynchronistic but how do we still build human connection and conversation with that? Gary, you want to talk a little bit about that experience?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah, thank you. Like many organizations that provide educational content, OCL was faced with the challenge of not being able to deliver the in-person experience with the three-day workshop as well. And so we’re all trying to leverage technology to stay connected at some level. And we recognize that it’s not the same as being in-person, but thank heavens for the technology. I can only imagine where we would have been during this pandemic if this video conferencing technology didn’t exist or the FaceTime or these tools that we’ve used to stay connected at some level with one another have been absolutely critical. So one of the things that I think is important going into the development of educational materials, and it was clear as part of the review of the first version of Our Community Listens class as well. We’re not trying to recreate the in-person experience via Zoom or an online format.
My analogy was, look at this as your second child, your first child was that three-day workshop in-person experience. And your second child is still part of the same family and has the same values. But they have very different personalities and behaviors and you shouldn’t try to make it the same as your first child. It has different objectives, different goals, different talents, different strengths, and different challenges. And so I think if we all sort of embrace that this is going to be a different kind of experience for the folks who partake of it, but still meaningful and impactful, that it can complement what goes on in the in-person workshop not replace it. It’s going to be amazing. And on the pod really positive side, people from all over the world could be in your class. There’s no geographic limitations. Somebody may be on the Zoom at 2:00 in the morning because they’re on the other side of the class. How cool is that?
So I think there’s opportunity here to have a kind of learning that actually is impossible in the in-person experience. That will be really neat. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen until we do it, but I think it’s going to be really positive experience for everyone.
Mike Desparrois:
I really wanted to ask you that question, Gary, because you are such an inspiration to the group because sometimes the group gets locked down, and I don’t know if we can and this can be really hard. And Gary kept saying, “Hey, this may be different, but how do we know this part won’t be better?” “Oh, let’s rethink this?” And he was just that positive inspiration to keep the group and the class going. And I’m really excited where the beta classes for the first time. And I know Gary, you are a big part of that as well. So thank you.
I got kind of a big-ticket question for you, Gary. So we talked about students, we talked about saying adds, the tools you’ve learned along with doing your listening podcasts or your listening club podcasts. How do you support the faculty and staff that is struggling as well to support not just the kids, but keeping the campus going and understanding they may have their own kids at home that they’re trying to teach and just all the weight that they feel, how are you supporting and helping them?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. I mean, this is a very difficult moment for everyone. And I think folks need a lot of empathy, a lot of space and grace, we need to understand and this was a realization I had last spring and I shared with my colleagues as we were just starting to understand more about the pandemic at the end of March and through April, as we were closing this semester. Our classes are probably not the most important thing on our students’ minds right now. And our students are going to remember a lot more about the way they felt they were treated than they are about the content that you’re trying to provide.
And I think that’s still the case. Hey, we all have our moments and I will tell you after seven months of being in a 1500 square foot house, which I’m grateful for, close to work, but with two small boys and a small yard and no social interaction. I mean, we’re feeling it, we’re tired and we’re stressed and I’ll lose my cool and it’s not fun. And I recognize, “Hey, that wasn’t right and daddy needs a reset.” I need to listen better and I need to have empathy. And I’ve told my nine-year-old son, Charlie, a number of times, “I can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like? How I would have felt at nine, not being able to see my friends.” When I was nine, we were out playing Wiffle ball in the yard and HotBox and Basketball and Nerf football. We were outside playing with the neighbor kids every single day.
And for me as Charlie’s dad is say, “Hey, we can’t be playing with the other kids right now because there’s this disease.” That’s tough. So I got to have a lot of empathy, a lot of grace and space for Charlie, he’s processing and dealing in his own way, our students are processing and dealing in their own way. Our faculty I’m sure are facing challenges that we don’t know about, whether it’s family members or friends or social challenges, we’re all disconnected and fragmented in a way we’ve not been before. So we have to listen even better and more attentively than ever because people have stuff to say about their experience and they’re desperate to have someone listen.
Teresa Vineyard:
Right. So, Gary, I’m just interested. If you can answer this question, help me understand, how do you imagine incorporating the OCL skills with your students on campus down the road? Is that going to be within your listening class or something extra?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Dr. Varner, I know has referenced the podcast materials already to students she’s teaching this fall. And we hope to be running the three-day workshop on our campus, that we will invite Our Community to attend whether they be students or faculty, staff, alumni, friends, eventually community members because we really do want this to be an experience that impacts eventually all of Austin. And I think personally, I take the skills from this class and try to remember when I’m in class when I’m working with students to listen to their stories, to listen to their concerns. One of the great challenges as a faculty member, we love to teach, which means we love to talk. And one of the key steps and one of the hardest steps in the reflective listening is silence and being okay to let some time pass to give people a chance to process and think about it and formulate a response and then listen, you got to get to that uncomfortable moment and then keep your mouth shut so that you can hear them.
Teresa Vineyard:
Exactly. Right.
Mike Desparrois:
Yeah. We’re really good as teachers to answer our own questions before anyone gets to respond, right?
Teresa Vineyard:
Right.
Mike Desparrois:
Then we find that even in the research that really peers learn best from their peers. So if we can listen, they’re going to make connections with each other that sometimes we struggle to make those connections with. And I think that’s such a powerful teaching lesson as instructors and facilitators and professors and whatever other titles we may have hold in the field of education, Teresa and I have talked before, we come from the special education background, and how quick we were often to answer questions because we felt like we had to get through material rather than really just focus on the learning piece that needed to take place at that moment in time and allow the kids really to digest the information to be able to bring it out as well.
Teresa Vineyard:
To struggle with it and really understand it and then to be able to apply it takes time.
Mike Desparrois:
Yeah. And that’s that deep learning, and that’s the depth of knowledge. That’s the Bloom’s taxonomy, that’s everything we’ve learned to become educators that sometimes the listening piece is the most important piece, just like recording class.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah. Educators certainly faced the tension of, “I’ve got this much material that I have to cover, and I’m supposed to be at this point on this day and on this point on the next day.” And we know from experience, including our own experiences, that learning doesn’t happen like that. Learning is a struggle, you go through it multiple times and then you hope at some point you have an “aha moment”, but that doesn’t happen on anybody’s clock. It happens for each individual on their own time. So allowing that space in time and figuring out how to weigh that against the need to cover a certain amount of material. I think that’s a challenge for all of us as educators.
I would also say that as an educator, and I was fortunate to get to go to a Jesuit high school in St. Louis. I grew up in St. Louis. So Teresa cheers to my old peeps back there in [crosstalk 00:31:03]-
Teresa Vineyard:
Sure. And did you go to SLUH High?
Dr. Gary Morris:
I did go to SLUH High that’s right.
Teresa Vineyard:
Oh, wonderful. You have wonderful guys.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Yeah, I rode the King’s Highway bus, lived at Kings Highway in [gravel 00:31:14], took the King’s Highway bus up to St. Louis U High. And one of the things their motto was to be a person for others and to be an example for the world. And I think it’s a great lesson for educators and we see this over and over again too, especially if you’ve got little kids. They watch what you do, not what you say. And so if we’re not modeling this, if we’re not showing them that we live it, they’re not going to learn it. And I think that’s true for our college students and our colleagues as well that we have to live the way we want them to learn. So I take a great responsibility in struggling with this material and it is a struggle to try to keep it in front of my mind that when I’m interacting with people, listening has to be my primary objective. And I feel-
Teresa Vineyard:
I bet it’s so hard. Excuse me. [crosstalk 00:32:16] I bet it’s so hard for you at home with those two boys like you were mentioning earlier, it’s always a learning environment for you to utilize these skills.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Well, and there’s always something to listen to. So until we’re both asleep, the house is just screaming and yelling. That’s why I’m at the office to record this because I wouldn’t have any quiet.
Mike Desparrois:
You needed a break from listening so you could talk on our podcast. I love that. It’s kind of funny when we really think about how difficult just the concept of listens is, is because as educators, we don’t teach listening skills in school, but however, that’s one of the primary things teachers want to complain about is, “Oh, little Joey, doesn’t listen.” [inaudible 00:33:08] doesn’t listen. And it’s interesting in the pedagogy and everything that you learn, we don’t just take time to teach it as a really, really hard skill. And if we did and we modeled it well, like Gary is saying, because the model [inaudible 00:33:22] from the adults, what would it look like? How much better with learning be? But then that empathy piece and all those human skills, those people skills, the life skills we need to have would probably change drastically as well. So yeah, we have a lot of work to do-
Teresa Vineyard:
Change the world.
Mike Desparrois:
… But we’ll get there. Teresa is going to lead the way.
Teresa Vineyard:
Oh, good. Okay.
Dr. Gary Morris:
On that point, Mike, I’ll say that every time our podcast listening club meets, I put up a slide. One of the slides from the three-day workshop, it’s the quote by Rogers. “The most helpful thing a person can do is to listen to others.” And I show that slide at the beginning before we have our first breakout. And I say, introduce yourselves to one another in your breakout room, but then reflect on that quote, what would the world look like if the most important thing everyone did for one another was to listen to them?
Teresa Vineyard:
Listen. Mm-hmm (affirmative). The world would be different.
Dr. Gary Morris:
Absolutely, the world would look like a totally different place. We get to the end of our podcast listening club session, and I say sort of reflect on how you felt today, knowing that someone else was listening to you. And I have a word cloud that forms on the side. So people send in their answers to that question. And we watch as the word cloud fills with feedback from the folks who are participating. And the words that come up on that word cloud are connected, grounded, vulnerable, relatable, appreciated, not alone, honest. And then I closed the meeting by going back to that Rogers quote and saying, “Do we have a sense of what that world would look like now? And wouldn’t it be cool if we could spread that around?”
Speaker 1:
Listeners, I want to let you know that there is a upcoming interactive webinar that you can join others across the whole country and world. It’s called, What Is Really Bugging Me? Where we work on identifying specific behaviors and avoiding judgment and learn why that is crucial if we want to create connection and understanding. These webinars will always take place on the second Thursday, third Tuesday, and fourth Saturday of each month. Be sure to look for more information on our website at ourcommunitylessons.org.
Mike Desparrois:
It’s been such a great discussion today, Dr. Morris and Teresa. I want to thank you. I wish we could just continue on with this because I’m really enjoying this. However, we do need to bring it to a close. So let’s wrap up with some key takeaways that each of us have from today. Teresa, I’ll start with you and then if you don’t mind, Dr. Morris all handed off to you after Teresa goes. Teresa?
Teresa Vineyard:
All right. Thank you, Mike. I have two key takeaways and one Dr. Morris just mentioned how the three-day class is just not the end all be all, that we need to continue utilizing the skills, practicing the skills, applying the skills, teaching the skills of our communication classes. So I like that he understands that and he’s going to spread our word further. And then my second key takeaway would be that there’s actually a listening association. Thank you for that, Dr. Morris, I’m going to look into that and try to learn more about that association.
Mike Desparrois:
Very good. Teresa. Gary, what are your thoughts? What are your key takeaways, big ideas?
Dr. Gary Morris:
Well, certainly we’re living through times that people haven’t faced in a 100 years. And as we’re super fragmented and separated from one another physically, it’s more important than ever to be good listeners. To those who are near us, who we’re still in touch with, our families, and those in our little bubbles, but to a stranger or to a person in a Zoom meeting to try to use that silence and listen.
The other thing I would say is as difficult as the times are, it’s an opportunity and an invitation to rethink some things. The technology is allowing us to do things that were impossible 20 years ago. How can we leverage this time, these tools to create a new kind of experience that honors the mission and intention of the Our Community Listens materials and gets the word out to more and more people around the world. And I hope that with the initiative that Mike you described earlier with the online version of the communication class for folks who are interested in this podcast model, it’s a great time to try some new things and we’ll do our best. And I bet there’ll be a whole bunch of people grateful that we tried.
Mike Desparrois:
I agree. My key takeaway, Gary is on a word that you said a couple of times and I wrote it down. It’s desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And you brought up how people really are desperate to be listened to and they need someone to be empathetic. And I really like the word desperate because it kind of takes it away from that negative connotation. The negative idea and says, “This is what people just need. If we can give them this gift and it truly is a gift, we can really do a lot of value to another individual rather than the harm that we see happening over and over and over. And it’s really the key. It’s the gateway. It’s the arts, whatever you want to call it, to empathy with that listening.
So I really appreciate you bringing that up. And so I’m going to start using that word. I’m going to borrow that from you if you don’t mind to kind of continue my journey with not just the people around me in OCL, but my teenage daughters as well as we continue to go forward.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you both. It’s just been a fascinating hour in discussion with each of you. I know you both are very, very in tune to what we’re trying to do and the focus not just in education, but the world. So thank you for your time today.
Teresa Vineyard:
Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Dr. Morris.
Dr. Gary Morris:
You’re welcome. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1:
If you have any suggestions about subjects for our podcast, feel free to reach out through our Facebook page. And if you’re interested in taking a class, visit ourcommunitylistens.org. Thank you again for listening to our podcast and don’t forget each word, each action, each silent moment of listening sends a message. Therefore, you are the message.