 Good afternoon and welcome to On the Waterfront. My name is Melinda Moulton and I am your host. Today I am so excited to have as my guest, Elizabeth Frescua. Elizabeth is the newly appointed executive director for the Governor's Institutes of Vermont. And this organization empowers Vermont high school students with intensive hands-on learning experiences in topics ranging from engineering to global issues. So Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me today. Well, it's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. You have an incredibly rich bio. Well, you do. And I've done some research on you. You're a jazz musician. You are a professional vocalist and trombonist. You have played and sang with artists like Adele and Michael Bolton and Ice Cube. You studied at Harvard Neuroscience. And you also worked, doing community building work with several New York City technology startup companies. And then you've landed here. I'm sure there's more to your bio, which we're going to get into. But you're a native Vermont, aren't you? That's right. Yeah, I grew up in Woodstock, Vermont, and went to Woodstock schools. And actually now I'm back there. So it's really exciting to land back here with my family and have my kids going through the same, living the same place and getting to experience that incredible sense of community that Vermont can bring. Was it, was it this job that brought you to, to up back to Vermont, or had you been here? It's a mixture of a story. Like everyone, I think everyone has a COVID 20 year story. You know, thankfully, I can say that we've been healthy. So I just am so grateful for that. But it has been a year of a lot of change. We've been in New York City for many years, and thought we would be ending up back in Vermont. We were looking forward to that. My partner is also from Vermont, and we wanted to be here and raise our family here. And the opportunity sort of presented itself a little bit quicker, thanks to COVID. And we came up last year than the job at Governor's Institutes of Vermont, came open. Kailme Taylor Mitchell has been running this organization for about 11 years and just done a fantastic job. And I'm very honored to have the baton passed from her. And just the timing worked out that we were here and I was available and so excited to take on this new challenge. So let's talk a little bit about your childhood. I understand that both your parents were musicians and you were raised in a musical environment. Talk to me a little bit about growing up in Woodstock and what that was like and what inspired you to move in the directions that you did? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, what is our origin, right? Where are we bringing these inspirations? My dad is a professional musician. He's a bass player and a trombone player. So I get that very honestly. My mother is a loves to sing, but isn't a professional singer, but she was always a big supporter and always had, we always had music in the house and in the car. And so I was listening to Motown and I was listening to jazz and had all these incredible musical influences coming through, you know, from Max Roche to Stevie Wonder, to Ella Fitzgerald. So all these sounds were in my brain and I grew up playing the piano and started to play the trombone and got involved with the jazz band. And when I was in eighth grade, I guess I was 13 or so, I was invited to participate with the high school jazz band, which was an honor. Then you did an extra trombone player and invited me to be part of that. And as part of that, we went to the Berkeley College of Music High School Jazz Festival. And I remember it was February 22, 1992. And we went to Boston and my mind just was blown that there were more students out there who loved jazz. And it just opened my mind that I could sort of think about that separately from my family, that that could be part of my identity as a person, not as just like I'm this musical family. So as I went through high school, I ended up getting aware, becoming aware of the Governor's Institutes of Vermont through a friend of a friend. And my mom said, do you think you should apply for this? And I'm so glad that I did because my life really has changed. And growing up in Woodstock was a very supportive place for the arts. Certainly there's access to art and Pentangle is a wonderful organization that's still thriving and brought a lot of artists into my school. So I was seeing it at the home and I was also seeing some other ways to engage with the arts. And you had talent, obviously you had talent. And so you you you left your hometown of Woodstock after high school. And is that when you went to Harvard and studied neuroscience? Talk a little bit about that that you trombone and your jazz compositions and your fabulous voice. And you went to Harvard and studied neuroscience. Very sparkly dress and I went to Harvard. And I you know that was a shock in a way because coming from a small town and you know as you can imagine to get into Harvard you have to be a pretty good student. So I was a good student at Woodstock. And I got into there and there was just a different kind of pool of people who were also the best students you know or you know in that had had that experience and being sort of you know top of the class or whatnot. And and having all those folks together and you're saying oh well that's not my identity anymore. It's not my identity to be top of the class. What is it? What is it that I want to do? What do I want to say? Experience in my life. So I also really loved science and math. And I should say that I went to the Math Institute at GIV when I was in high school too. So I was kind of had my mind open. I thought I would be a marine biologist. At that point I was deciding between Berkeley College of Music going to a I think it's College of the Atlantic up in Maine is for marine biology and Harvard. And my mentor basically said yes go to Harvard because you could have all these options. And I'm so glad I did because I met incredible wonderful folks. I'm so curious about your experience working at Harvard back in the day. With Dr. Watson but we'll talk about that at some other time. So you were going to neuroscience because you were a science and math student and you were top of your class and so how long did you study neuroscience at Harvard? Well the whole time. And I focused on biology and then psychology kind of shifted between. There was a nice program called cognitive neuroscience that was allowed. It was called mind, brain, and behavior. And you could come at it from a psychology perspective or a biology perspective or even a history of science perspective. And it was a wonderful program where you could really see the connections between disciplines. So I worked in a lab studying tamarine monkeys. Little one-pound cotton top tamarines and they made choices and we observed them making choices and you know I wasn't the leader in these experiments but as an undergrad I was helping these graduate students answer questions about like what is food? What how does a cotton top tamarine know what food is? Or how do they develop an understanding of parsing the language in a sentence? So it was a fascinating time and I was doing that alongside doing the jazz band at Harvard and starting to play music out in the community in Boston and basically having wonderful virgining adult life. Wonderful life. A wonderful life. I just started reading the book The Genius of Dogs. Well I'm happy through it but anyway it's just I mean you know studying the science of animals is so remarkable because it's so close to our own behavior and you realize how truly evolved and incredible they are. So after Harvard you took your trombone and your beautiful voice and your jazz compositions and your neuroscience background and you went to New York City to live and you got a job working doing community organizing for for high tech groups. Tell me tell me what is community organizing for first tech startups? Yeah I should I should rephrase this lately it's really about building community within an organization or within a community a space. For example I worked with a company more recently but named Roly and that company makes musical instruments hardware and software and so looking at how you connect the musical community with the technology community and you know sometimes those are separate but how do you find those places where they intersect and so I was very interested in partnerships with schools and colleges and how to get I mean this is a through line for me but you know how to get young people excited about not only oh that's cool technology but like what can it do what can it express because for me communication is part of that and I think that really comes back to growing up in Vermont and knowing what it feels like to be part of a community with lots of different threads intersecting so I yeah moving to New York was a lot about music to be honest but I found this other wonderful way to serve and be part of communities that were doing exciting new fresh things and had brilliant minds and ideas kind of working at the forefront of what was happening you know at the first dot com boom was a very exciting time and I kind of rode the tail end of that and New York of course is a vibrant place to be so a lot of different ideas mixing together. So talk a little bit about you're you're you are a professional vocalist and trombonist and that you have played with artists like Adele Michael Bolton and Ice Cube so you are you know you're kind of a celebrity in your own right when it comes to your music how exciting is that tell us a little bit about those experiences. It really has been an exciting journey through music and I guess I like to you know some folks you know younger folks will ask me well how did you get started or how did you you know what advice would you give me and it really comes down to people because I love meeting new people and getting to experience new perspectives so music was kind of my ticket to doing that I love music and one of the things I love about music is that communicative aspect but then once you're doing that then you get you know at a certain level if you stick at it and you're working well with folks you get invited to do things like go to Russia or go to South America and get to see these other cultures and be a cultural ambassador yourself while playing music and having fun so yeah I mean I got the chance I left those early dot com jobs for grad school so I could really focus on my music and that just gave me the space to again like figure out what it was that I wanted to express myself I started making my own records my own albums and forming my own bands and then those opportunities led to joining other folks bands I've always been a freelancer primarily in the jazz arena and the pop music arena so when I when I got invited to be part of Michael Bolton's band that was a huge thing and I toured for about two years all over the world and got a taste of that professional music life so it's been a really amazing experience. So as a member of his band were you playing the trombone or were you what were you a vocalist? Well both both I was I was hired as a trombonist but everyone sings backup and dances in fact I have to tell you the first show I did I had two hours of rehearsal that day I flew to California was desperately learning the music you know on the airplane and got there and had two hours of rehearsal for dance the dance moves you know which is like everyone's doing the same dance moves together you got to know what you're doing and I just I remember spending that show with my eyeballs so wide open trying to make sure I'm paying attention to what everyone's doing and it was on you know kind of on the by the seat of my pants but it went off fine and I didn't get fired so I got to you know the opportunity to continue doing that and I just I learned so much from that band about what it means to be a professional you know because touring is not just about the music it's about showing up on time and working as a team and those are big lessons that you know carry through to other parts of my life. So would you be willing to share your website right now to my viewers to share so they could listen to your music and look at your website and see what you've done because I looked at it and I love listening to your music so would you be willing to share with my viewers? Of course so my website is elizabethjazz.com elizabethjazz.com elizabethjazz.com yeah and you can find my music in all the places that you might look for it but that's a great spot to come and learn and I love I love sharing my music well it's wonderful music um are your parents excited about the direction you you went with the music? Yeah they are they love it and in fact I get to perform with my dad still so that is a wonderful thing we play together so hopefully this summer when things are a little a little more open we'll be outside with some local venues and performing again. Well we have a fabulous black box theater at Main Street Landing so if ever you want to perform when we open the theater it's a beautiful venue for music and we'd love to have your father come and have you have have you sing you have a beautiful voice. Well thank you for sharing your story it's it's a wonderful story now we're going to move into your present day where since January you've been the executive director of the governor's institutes of Vermont now I'm assuming some of our viewers don't know what the governor's institutes of Vermont is and I want you to talk a little bit about the history of the organization and how long it's been around and a little bit about about what it is and what it offers. Sure well let me start with what it offers because I think that's a really exciting part so we we offer transformational experiences for high school students in Vermont we're a program that you can spend a week or up to two weeks with a cohort of other young Vermonters the same age your peers and learn and take a deep dive into a topic like the arts or engineering as you mentioned earlier mathematics global issues technology and design we have eight programs this year but it varies from year to year and we're always looking for topics that are really interesting for our young folks and I think one of the hallmarks of this is that we want it to be student-centered that the student takes ownership of their journey through their educational life and what that might look like beyond high school that you know what do they want to do what is it that they want to use their voice for what kind of change do they want to make in the world that's something that's inspired me about your story Mwenda you know that you've thought about how you want to make that change and you've taken those opportunities and we offer incredible sort of awareness that other opportunities are there just because you live in a small town in Vermont you might not have a certain opportunity in your own high school but we want to offer that to you we want to let you learn how to carve stone we want to let you um access you know the labs at UVM we want to give you those things and the tools and the mentors to get there so going back to the history um we're we were founded in 1982 as a collaboration between the Vermont Arts Arts Council and the commissioner of education um and a wonderful talented group of folks including Christine Graham and Ellen Lovell kicked it off and it has been a really incredible journey throughout that time we're part of a network of governor schools around the country but I think that what Vermont's program is so unique because we are looking for students who don't necessarily have all of those accomplishments under their belts it's not an auditioned program it's not based on your GPA it's saying are you passionate about something are you motivated to learn do you want to spend some time with your peers growing and kind of leveling up your knowledge and expanding your horizons so that's been a really incredible I mean I will just say it this way like a gift to these students and it's something that I'm so proud to be part of going forward you know we're we're 38 39 years old now and looking forward to the next chapter of that length you know and hopefully beyond because we know that this generation of young folks in Vermont is so talented and has so much to say and we want to help them do that Governor Snelling I believe was the governor who yes started this um so for my viewers out there for a for a parent he said well how how did how does my child get involved in this program sounds like it would be perfect for my child how how do we uh get our child involved could you share a little bit about that with our viewers yeah absolutely I'd be glad to thank you so we run um as I said uh summer programs in in 2021 they're online though they may have some hybrid in-person aspects as things open up you're definitely keeping an eye on that um no in a normal year they're residential on college campuses around the state so a student really gets to experience having a roommate and eating in the dining hall and making choices about their time and and getting ready to live that more independent life after high school so to apply it's a very simple application that talks about your passions you know what is it that you're interested in and you just go to giv.org to fill out an application if you happen to be seeing this program at a time when we're not accepting applications that was out of the season please just send us an email and we can keep you in blue if you sign up for our email list so how many students aren't are participating it's a summer program how many students participate and how many school campuses are involved so we have over 500 students each summer participating with us um and uh we have up to nine college partners college and university partners around the state um from our vermont stage college system um you know we use castleton linden sometimes we have used johnson in the past vermont technical college uvm shamplain college landmark college i'm oh norwich university um i'm probably forgetting one or two um but we we have a lot of wonderful partners and then of course we partner with our schools because high school students can actually earn college credit for two of our programs for our environmental science program and for our entrepreneurship program there's a possibility to earn college credit but for any of our programs there's a possibility to earn high school credit because we are considered an extended learning opportunity program um for proficiency based grading so if your student is going through that and you need to show proficiency in something giv could be a wonderful hands-on way for them to do that so um so what does a day look like um for a student who in the summertime is attending the governor's institute what would a day what would a day look like for them because they're spending the night they're if this is if it's on on campus it's a college experience so they're spending the night they're living there uh so give me an idea of what of what a day would look like for a student oh it's a very packed day i'll tell you that um there's there's something going on from you know morning till very late at night with all of our institutes and if not that you can't take a break or rest because in fact we really try to build in reflection time so that students can synthesize what they're taking in and of course you know work socially with each other and develop those quote unquote soft skills you know those you know how to how to be with other people um that's a big part of what we do so it you know they'll go to a class um they'll have a lunch break they'll take a workshop they'll go to another class they'll do a hands-on activity there might be a field trip there might be a guest speaker or a performer um all these things are going going going there's some social time and games um sports event you know like we we want to develop the whole person and it's a very full day we run from one to two weeks depending on the program um and then even for our online programs this summer you know you might be surprised how could you do a hands-on experiential learning program online but we actually mail students a box so you get this box in the mail and it's got all the things you need you know it might have connectors and wires to build a solar panel or it might have the brushes and and paint and and canvas that you need to take your your class at the arts institute so we have these these moments where there really is that give and take and mentorship um for the students even when it's in an online format well i want to go i want i want to go to the governor's institute i think you should have one for for um for old adults now to my viewers this is so fascinating i could talk to you all day um for my viewers there there is this is a nonprofit um how how is the organization supported because i know that you do accept uh donations for this program uh so anyone out there who is who's listening to this program who would like to make a donation uh to the governor's institute it's uh giv.org give.org how appropriate and you can go online hit the donate button and make a donation no donation is too small um is most of your money come from where does most of the funding come from is it and by the way is this a free program or do the students do the families have to pay for it and what is the cost of that so we um we do charge a tuition but this summer for 2021 it's pay what you can we have a suggested tuition amount but families can can pay any amount that works for them yeah and in any year we have a sliding scale um so we want to make sure that this opportunity is affordable for any family no matter what their financial situation is um and so i just encourage anyone thinking about it and saying oh what does it cost money don't let that be a barrier because we have um the support for you and we want you to be there um we do take donations so yeah a portion of our funding comes from individual donations and it's so important and it's so key and it's just a gift that you're giving to these students to be able to support that and again yes like Linda said no donation is too small you know like we want you to be involved um we also have some grant funding we have a wonderful relationship long time relationship with the state of vermont and the agency of education who appropriates some money for us to do these programs and allows us to do those things like offering pay what you can you know that support allows us to have the flexibility to support students thank you elizabeth now the other thing i wanted to ask before we close here we have about three more minutes um for the viewers out there who feel like they might have something to share with these students these curious and and wonderful human beings who want to better their their careers and their education and they feel like they have something they want to share how's the best way to do that if they have expertise and they want to share with the high school students what they have what their knowledge is in their experience what's the best way to go about that yeah well we love to hear from everyone you know we really know that there are so many incredible folks out there in vermont and we may not know each other yet but we'd love to meet you and we'd love to see if there's a way for you to get involved so maybe as a speaker or you have something to donate or you know we we'd love to chat um so just going to giv.org and reaching out there through our contact form would be the best way um and i did want to mention one other thing melinda because i know you were a guest um and you offered your time and thank you for that for our leadership program which is running through our academic year this year and and showing our young folks what it means to step up and make a difference in your community so thank you for that um okay elizabeth so i'm going to ask you i think the last thing that i want to talk about um is uh what's one thing that you would love to tell someone who a student a high school student who's thinking of applying what would you want to tell them um to inspire them to apply to attend the governor's institutes well you know we we did a study a few years back about our alumni our alumni are now up to about 55 years old and they look back up to 30 years later and say that giv was one of the most important things that they did when they were in high school and so i just would encourage you not to miss that opportunity take that opportunity it's affordable it's fun and we'd love to have you thank you that's beautiful um so i want to thank you for uh for all that you've done and all that you're doing to inspire our young people and i want you to uh i i want i want i want you to keep going with your music you're incredibly talented i want to see you around town at the clubs and um i and i and i encourage anyone who is interested in the governor's institutes of remont to visit their website it's giv.org and get involved you can either um nominate or have your high school student go online and fill out an application uh and you can also make a donation if you want to support this work of supporting our young high school students in vermont who want to who want to really pursue their careers and learn more about other careers because i know that you can learn about so many things through the institute right like you did i mean who would have thought neuroscience would have been where you would go at harvard and yet you did and i'm assuming that you were a student at this institute correct yeah i was a student at the arts institute as a 15 year old right so so who knows i mean a high school student could be moving in a direction and go to the institute and say you know what i think neuroscience might be might be my thing and um so uh and then the other way is for if somebody out there one of our viewers has a has a has a career that they want to share something expertise to reach out to the to the governor's institute do you have a staff i wanted to ask you do you have a staff of of folks we do we have a small staff wonderful folks and we're based in winewski so i'm in woodstock but the staff is based in winewski and um you know we're so glad to be in that area well elizabeth fresco i am telling you that i am blown away by you um i was when i listened to david goodman's interview of you and couldn't wait to talk to you and see you in person and i hope to see you again my friend thank you for your time and to my viewers out there um uh thank you for bearing with us on zoom i want you all to stay well stay happy look at the sun is shining spring is here in vermont and everyone get out there and get vaccinated okay um thank you so much i appreciate it thank you