 Thank you so much for coming to our first in a series of speaker events sponsored by the Rhode Island chapter of the American Society for Public Administration and supported in large part by Roger Williams University's School of Justice Studies, the NPA, and MS Leadership programs in particular. Before we get started, I just want to acknowledge a few people in the audience. So when I call your name, please stand. First we have with us the Dean of the School of Justice Studies, Eric Bronson, Dr. Michael Hall, who many of you know quite well, could not be with us this evening. He sends his regrets, he's in Albany, he had an appointment that he was unable to get out of. He really, really wanted to be here. So we're just going to send him some well wishes and some love and I think he might even be joining us at some point online if he can. I'd also like to acknowledge the person who helps put all of our events together, Lee Koo. It's also the secretary treasurer of our Rhode Island chapter of ASPA. So if you are currently not a member and are interested in becoming a member of ASPA or if you would like some general information, Lee is the person to see. I'd also now like to just, I'm going to say a few words about him and Link, but I do want to acknowledge our guest speaker for the evening, Dr. Ty Palermo, Taino, but I call him Ty. We all call him Ty in the, well it was the former, formerly the school of continuing studies, but it's now Roger Williams University, University College. So I'll say a little bit more about Ty in a moment. So to begin our evening, I just want to tell you a little bit about our plans for the year with RIAASPA. So as I mentioned, this is the first of our series. We always start in the fall with a reception for the members of ASPA to come together and our MPA students, leadership students, students in now University College and faculty, friends, community partners and students at Roger Williams University in general in Bristol. So this is probably the largest gathering I think we have to date for this particular event. We like to start with a mixer and it also gives us an opportunity to acknowledge our top students in the MPA program and MS leadership program from the previous academic year. So I'm going to, at this time, ask her where did she go? Oh, there, okay. I would like to have Karina Rantslet short join me. So Karina was our top MS leadership student for academic year 2017-2018. And I think she finished the program with a 4.0, if I remember correctly. Hard to talk. And of course, we wanted her to keep coming back and be with us. So instead of giving you your award at the end of the academic year, we decided we have to do it now. So I want to present you with your award, but I also like, I'd like Dean Erick Rantslet to join us. We're going to take a picture. I would also like, oh, he's not here yet, I was going to say Paul Pabus was going to join us. He was a previous winner of this award in the MS leadership program. So you're just going to have to supply us with me and Dean Rantslet. Not awkward at all. No, I was not impatient with him. I thought it was that guy. Anybody else want to take a picture? This one? Yes. That's right. We had to get our signage properly aligned. All right, thanks, Chris. What Karina was actually presented with was the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence in Leadership. The award committee, which consists of members of the Executive Council of diaspora, also members of the NPA and MS leadership, faculty and alums basically got together to look through a variety of nominations and Karina was our award winner. So this award epitomizes all that we hope the leadership program strives for academic commitment, commitment to leadership and outstanding potential in the public but also because it's an MS leadership program in the private or the non-profit sector. So basically all of the sectors combined. So again, congratulations Karina. The next award that I want to present was given in honor of John W. Stout who was responsible for actually starting the NPA program. He had a major hand in starting the NPA program on our campus. So Dr. Stout was the Dean of the Group Continuing Studies beginning in 1991 and continued in that capacity until, I believe it was the spring of 2012. Am I right, Tracy? Somewhere in that? Somewhere in that? So he was actually part of Roger Williams University for 44 years and he was a member of the American Society for Public Administration for 48 years. So basically his entire career in academe, he was associated with the American Society for Public Administration and did a lot of work in that regard. We named this award in his honor because of his commitment to the public service, his efforts to actually get the NPA program started at Roger Williams University. He along with some faculty members in the political science department were instrumental in getting the program off the ground. So it was in 2006 that Dr. Hall dedicated the award in honor of his major factor in bringing the PA curriculum and the PA program to Roger Williams University. And as many of you probably are aware, Dr. Stout passed away this past September. So this is especially meaningful this year to talk about his legacy, particularly as it relates to the public administration program here, the NPA program. And we're honored to have the award named after Dr. Stout. So I'd like Michael O'Brien to come forward, 18 recipient of the John W. Stout Outstanding NPA Student Award. And this award epitomizes all that we achieve, that we strive for in the NPA program, academic achievement, commitment to leadership, and outstanding potential in the public sector. So I'd like to present the award. Oh, of course. I'm sorry, Lee. Falling down on the job. Is there another one? George. Okay. So we also have some past recipients of the award. At least George is here, right? So George, please come forward. There you go. Thank you. Okay, Lee, I did this out of order, but I'm going to do this now. There are a few reminders that I am to give you. The first is if you need to leave early, please leave through the back doors. It just says, okay, use the door behind the room. Back doors. Yes. Also, would you please silence your cell phones, mobile devices, or at least so that they won't disrupt the program. She says, please put them on vibrate. And if you have not actually signed in, we would appreciate that you sign in. There were a couple sheets. If you pre-registered, we have your name, so it's just a matter of checking in. If you didn't register, we still want you to sign in. And those of you who are in PA 512, federalism class, we do have class tonight. So it will be in a previous session, just a little bit of maybe an hour, maybe a little less depending on how long we go tonight. Dean, are you serious? I'll go back and change this letter. So perhaps you'd like a holiday. I think some of you are welcome having your first paper returned. And we don't have a lot to cover this evening. I tried to get it short. However, considering we're on a hybrid format and we only really need seven times in person, I did not want to miss an opportunity to have my in-person experience with all of you. So when we conclude, we'll have a little bit of a break. You'll have a little bit of a break and then find your way to room 232. I don't even know the number. I just know where to go. All right. Any other reminders that you can think of that were on there? Thank you so much. That's, yes it is right there. Well, I'm like flipping back and forth, so I'm not as smooth as I normally would be. But it's okay. It's not, it's me. Okay. Before we started this evening, we had a membership meeting of Ryan Aspa. And I want to acknowledge the members of the Executive Council who the membership voted to be on the Executive Council. So would the Executive Council please stand and then I will acknowledge each one of you. So Christopher Pierce, Sasha Zapata, and George Labonte are here. They are, oh, and Erin Chesky. Yes, of course. They are your four council members. We hold elections. Everybody just changed our by-laws. So it's kind of a rotating thing. So some will rotate off and others will rotate on. But I also wanted to give each one of the council members just a short opportunity to say, I know Chris wanted to talk a little bit about National Aspa, so he has a dual role. So he not only is on the Executive Council for the local chapter, but he is also the student representative at the national level. So Chris, do you want to say a few words? Just come on up. We're going to bring it down, so I should not forget. So hi, my name is Christopher Pierce. I am, like I said, on the Executive Council for the ASPA. And I am currently serving as the elected official for ASPA for the student representative. I just want to speak a little bit about ASPA and who's a member here? Raise your hand if you're a member. We have about 40 active members. Cool, so yeah, I see a lot of familiar faces. So who's not a member? Perfect, perfect, perfect. So a little bit more about myself. I graduated from the MPA program in 2018, so fresh grad. A lot like you guys that was in taking classes, signing the bridges, doing pin-off those, all the wonderful things that we love about the program. So becoming a member of ASPA is really easy. You sign up online. If you're a student, it's $50. It's a one-year, one-time fee. If you're a new professional, it's $60. So it's very affordable. But what you get with it is weight. You get a lot for that. One of our highlight programs that we hold every year is this program called the Founders' Fellow. The Founders' Fellow is a program with 25 selected academics, practitioners, and their assignmenter, and it's one of our headline programs at National ASPA. And we actually have two Founders' Fellows here tonight. Dr. Hall is not here, but if you guys have never been here before, Dr. Hall always says this feel, well, we have our first Founders' Fellow, George Bonte. And then we were shortly followed after George's footsteps. Sasha Zapata, who was Founders' Fellow of last year. So being a member of ASPA gives you this opportunity to be part of this program, to gain professional development, connections, mentors. So many things they can find on the website on National ASPA. Additionally, you get free webinars. So they have webinars on resumes and anything, a lot of things. And it's free for you if you just have to sign up. I'm up here because I am going to the Mid-Year Meeting for ASPA next week regarding my section of the population of ASPA, which is student and new professionals. So they're asking me on feedback on what ASPA is currently doing, what they're doing well, and what they can improve on. So I'd love to talk to any of you later regarding anything that you find in those things I just said. Additionally, we have our National Conference coming up in March. It's in Washington, D.C. So it's a little hop and a skip playing from here, so it's not too bad. It's an invaluable experience, the connections, the presentations, everything. It's a fun conference and very informative. I hope to see you there. Feel free to talk to me about anything that's related and we'll go out and talk to you. Thank you. They are unique in that we're such a small chapter, but we have two Founders Fellows. We actually have a couple of people that have applied, I believe. I won't mention who they are, but so we're hoping to continue the tradition and maybe have another Founders Fellow from Rhode Island to join the national ranks. So congratulations. And we also are the only chapter in the country that has high school students as part of ASPA. And that's very unique, but we work, this chapter works every year with two schools from Patucket. Tolman High School and Shea High School. So we actually developed a curriculum for them to follow throughout the school year. And then at our culminating event in May, they do either posters or presentations about the work that they did. Our thing this year is civic engagement, or I actually prefer community engagement. And so they're going to be talking about how their schools and the work that they do in their communities connects the public sector, the non-profit sector, and the private sector. And the need for sectors to work together to strengthen schools and education. So we're looking forward to our high school students and their presentations. So I mentioned that our theme this year is civic engagement, community engagement. And we couldn't think of a better speaker than our very own Dr. Diana Palermo, who has done such outstanding work in our community to develop policy, to bring community partners together, to partner education and non-profit organizations and the public and the private sector working together to really look at all of the intractable problems that we have. But to look at them in a positive way, to look at them and to say that together we can solve problems as opposed to looking at them and saying they're intractable and there's nothing that can be done. I don't want to steal too much of his thunder because I think what Tai is going to do tonight is basically walk you through his journey and the work that he's done and how he got there and what he aspires to do moving forward. But I do just want to say a little bit in the way of introduction. So it's a lot. So I'm going to kind of just move through it quickly. It's all good, so I really don't want to overlook anything. So I call him Tai. He's my colleague. I'm a program director down in University College and the undergraduate public administration program there. Tai is a program director also for both the community development and the healthy communities programs and he was instrumental in starting a graduate certificate program in community development. And so I'm going to let him talk about some of the things that he's done recently including bringing some resources, some grant money to those programs. But I'll say that Tai earned his doctorate in educational leadership. His work over a number of decades has focused on community and economic development, urban education, and neighborhood revitalization. He has received numerous state and national level awards for his professional accomplishments as well as his role as a community activist. So today he's going to touch upon community engagement and he's going to focus on why it's important to have proximity to the issues that you're advocating for and making decisions about. So whether it's serving on a board of directors, being involved in a group like this, Riaspa leading an organization, or representing constituents in public office, you have proximity to the issues you're making decisions and this is what truly enables us to have impact for the work that we do. So without further ado, I'm going to ask Tai to come forward and talk about the entire ecosystem of critical socio-economic systems and structures, that's a lot, to better inform change through policy and practice. Basically he's going to talk about his journey. So welcome Tai. Thank you Katrina. So first thank you to Riaspa, the NPA program, the leadership program, Dean Bronson's Justice Studies for having me. So when Dr. Hall asked me to speak about civic engagement I kind of had the back and forth like Katrina did between civic and community differentiating the two. And it's interesting to have a pretty interesting relationship with the term as I was even tackling it last night at a committee I sit on which I'll speak about in a second. But what I do know is that whatever you call engagement your effectiveness is tied to proximity. And that concept has become critical for me over the last year actually really resonated with me when I heard Brian Stevenson talk who is the author of Just Mercy which the Rhode Island Council of Humanities hosted in here. And in his speech which is essentially a synopsis of his book and the reason why he gets into, why he got into criminal justice and the defense for the wrongfully accused is because he had proximity to the issues as an attorney in the deep south. And so when you are entrenched in an environment like the deep south and practicing criminal defense law in particular for those who have been wrongfully accused that's a very unique setting to do work in and gives you totally different perspective. So proximity matters. So if you take one thing away today after you ate that food and try to stay awake and some of you are trying to have me extend time so you don't have to go to class after this, proximity matters. Take one thing away from that. And so I just want to talk about how my pathway into the madness that is my world today came about and why proximity has kind of risen to the top for me in terms of how I operate. So essentially my career started out in urban education. I worked from New York City, the Bronx in particular and yes I'm a Yankees fan and yes I'm sour about Boston. But I worked in a public school, P.S. 48 in Washington Heights predominantly Dominican community. The school was 98% Dominican. The teachers were 98% not Dominican. But they were severely engaged in their community. In fact on my first day there the teachers were not from this community told me where was the best place to get mofongo because the students parents worked there. They knew the best place to get this, to get that in the community. And then I realized that the principal had her professional development tied directly to where our kids come from, what they experienced on their walk to and from work was much more important than the pedagogy by which they taught in a classroom or test scores. So that to me was profound in how they practiced their craft. But in that work I realized I tried to deliver everything I came for young people in schools, after school programs working with young people who dropped out. But it's bigger than that. It's their health, it's their living conditions. The stable family, mom or dad, somebody's in jail. It's all of these other social determinants. And so what I was doing in this very narrow focused way that I thought was like the way, my pathway was not enough and I'm not satisfied with not enough. So I went back to school. I got my masters and started a nonprofit to help high school dropouts reintegrate their back into education. As I was doing that I realized it's not enough because to get them back into education is to assume that they have the time to not work. To get them back into education means that they have to take money out of the table, take an income out of the home and I don't have something to supplement that. So it wasn't enough. By this point my wife who was a psychiatrist was accepted to medical school in Syracuse, New York. So I went to Syracuse and worked for Syracuse University doing a community revitalization initiative in the near west side of Syracuse. So now I come knowing education is not enough and we can't just rebuild communities and not think of all these social determinants. Now I'm in the ground. I'm the guy between Syracuse University and the city of Syracuse who had a very, very poor relationship with the university because they were the ivory tower on the hill that never engaged with the community. So you can go to Syracuse University and never step outside of campus. And not know that Syracuse University for capital has the largest population of child poverty in the northeast. Or that Syracuse University has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in New York So you don't know those things if you just go to Syracuse University and you leave, right? So now they're trying to expand into the communities my job to broker that, right? Now I'm not from the inner city of Syracuse or the inner city of Providence but I'm from an inner city, right? So poverty looks the same everywhere. Poor housing looks the same everywhere. Joblessness looks the same everywhere. Trauma looks the same everywhere. It's just a certain different set of variables. So because I came from that I have a different perspective in the work, right? So there's a very foundational level of proximity my lived experience. But now I'm raising my educational level I'm getting a bigger awareness I'm getting more woke, I'm seeing more things I describe where I am now as Neo when he's unplugged from the matrix and sees the world in ones and zeros and like everything is really ugly that's what I feel right now and where I am and I'll explain why that is it's a good and a bad thing it's a blessing and a curse but this pathway led me to realize that what I was doing on the ground to revitalize a community meant I need to have the private businesses on board the health center on board the bank on board the neighbors on board the university on board and what this work taught me was that I'm an amazing ego manager and when you are bringing people together when you are trying to organize a collective effort especially as the organizer you have to have the smallest ego in the room and you'll be surprised how much you'll get done when you're willing to give other people credit and so when you are able to remove yourself from a situation like that then all of a sudden things start coming together and you become less threatening people trust you and they know that well working with them actually makes me look good and so these are things you learn along the way I was now in my doctor program there was not a course on this kind of stuff so these were things I learned in the field I knew in the field that nonprofits fighting for the same funding in a small city with a small pot of money is cutthroat it's interesting though because at the same time as I work with nonprofits I think to myself again I come from the street and I think about drug dealers I remember on my neighborhood if somebody new came into the territory it was a problem and I think about this now I'm at working in nonprofit management director of operations running a grant I ran the YWCA in Syracuse for a couple years before I went to Syracuse University so we had a women's shelter girls Inc. Inc. youth programs team pregnancy prevention stuff and I'm in grant meetings and I'm getting side eyes and things like that oh my gosh this is a cutthroat world so those kinds of learned lessons now yesterday I was on a review committee for Tufts Health Foundation and so we're putting out $10,000 grants into the community and I had to review the proposals as part of a collective team now I'm sitting at the table thinking to myself I know we set up nonprofits to fail nonprofit quarterly sends out a review every year the top 30% nonprofits salvation army boys and girls club rescue missions the largest nonprofits nationally at a minimum have 40% of their budgets from federal and state grants so if those big boys and big girls are not sustainable on their own how can the small college access school tuition program right so now I'm at the table deciding who gets money so now can you envision how I'm processing this versus somebody who has never actually had to repurpose folders had to count staples because we don't know when our next grant money is coming in or had to deal with staff or deliver the message to staff I don't have your paychecks this week right so that's a totally different dynamic when you're sitting at the table reviewing grant applications now having lived at the point where my paycheck I wasn't getting this week and then having to give that message and then now being the source of the pipeline for that money to either cut that check or not that's the reality of our nonprofits at the ground level doing the heavy lifted right so that kind of perspective changes how you operate and things and so as I became as I as my trajectory came here so my wife was a psychiatrist right and the way we ended up here was first of all she came to visit uh uh brown where she did her medical residency um and I had never been this far up 95 before so I have no other lives in Boston but I didn't stop in Providence so I was experiencing Providence and Rhode Island drove the whole state which you can do in an hour which is great but it was beautiful to me the ocean and the country and urban core yet so much diversity had the whole world in one small state and that was beautiful to me but uh like I said my wife and I were both from the Bronx she's half of Salvador and half Dominican both of her parents are immigrants no college degree barely any high school uh and she's a psychiatrist so she had no uh guidance or anything right and so now we come from the world of community based work uh but she's a mental health professional so our world around health has really been around trauma informed care and thinking about uh the impacts of trauma on people in urban communities so we she interviews I'm driving the whole city uh and state I pick her up at the end of the day and I'm like I love it here it feels like a little New York I ended my day driving down Broad Street in Providence and it felt like Ford wrote in the Bronx there were people outside the music was loud it was great Spanish food salons barbershops I felt like I was back in New York I was like this is great I could see us I could see us here and she was like uh I don't think it's gonna work out I was like why she was like well I finished the day with the director and he said uh I don't think you're gonna like it here because you're from New York and we don't have a diverse patient population so I said to myself oh okay so we definitely have to move here because uh I know what I do and what she does in the world of medicine mental health a Latino psychiatrist Spanish speaking um in a state that's gonna be predominantly Latino in less than a decade uh that you can count on one hand with Latino psychiatrist I said you're that gatekeeper you're that bridge and I know I could set up the community side so you tee up the medicine side and we can do some really great stuff so um so that was indicative to me of the world of psychiatry's proximity to the communities of Providence or lack thereof and in a world where we are dealing with mental health and behavioral health from all sides of the coin uh that's a very critical uh bridge that was not there right and so that led me to say okay we need to come here and we move here so we did I started networking everywhere and I was in every space every room I was reading the newspaper who are the community advocates quoted on events where's the crime happening I'm mapping it like a stalker looking on Google Maps to concentrate the communities seeing where development is happening where's the poor housing stock where are anchor institutions located in the state that's what I geek out over so I'm now doing a landscape of who's who what's what where's what and so I thought at this point in the game I know proximal matters I just didn't have it that defined yet so my decision was let me test this out let me see how well I can know an entire ecosystem in a state that I think I could potentially at least try and wrap my arms around and so this is essentially what it looks like and I'm trying to say this without having a panic attack so I chair the health commission for advocacy and equity it's a state legislative commission it's called the Rhode Island Che Commission for Health Advocacy and Equity this commission it's a state commission we meet every month public meetings studies and addresses health disparities in the state of Rhode Island and we made policy recommendations to address those health disparities but also we do is we align with pre-existing legislation right so for example we just had a $15 minimum wage act right that got tabled and the commission for health advocacy and equity knows that if we're going to address health disparities like say infant mortality or low birth rates we know that low birth rates are linked to access to prenatal care we know that people who don't see prenatal care have a certain level of education or certain level of access to prenatal care so if we address potentially education as a strategy we would in turn the ripple effect would be addressing infant mortality rates so or if we knew if we increased income in people's in people's homes then they would have the luxury of buying a bus pass or getting saying I can't go to work today because hourly people you don't work you don't eat so if I don't work I have enough money to take an hour or two off work and go to the doctor right and there is how you turn over those rates so there's the $15 an hour bill let's support it as the health commission we can say as a table of collective experts if you address $15 an hour you will address unintentionally unbeknownst to you infant mortality rates maternity child health disparities things like that so those kinds of connections are not what people necessarily see right but in this commission we have the ability to not only make that announcement but put a stake in the ground and say we're the health experts so if you don't believe us then who right and this makes economic sense it makes financial sense it makes population health sense so that work connects me to an ecosystem of players and people who had no idea existed right so one of those things is something called the sim committee has anybody ever heard of the state innovation model sim so basically this is the state won an award to rethink medicaid essentially this is the table of people with health insurance companies hospital heads healthcare heads in the state who are making the decision on what is covered or not covered under medicaid how to restructure billing cycle what's billable and things like that and I'm sitting at this table thinking to myself wow so these kind of tables are where these decisions are made right and all of these players are around the table and so I could go on and on in this but I'm going to stop there because this is the long list of things I've got to talk about so so that commission gave me insight into this world and I'm going to talk about another piece after I go through this list because it kind of tees up the next part but I also chaired the board for the academy for career exploration charter high school the first charter high school used to be textron chamber charter high school in the west end, my vice chair sitting right here I chaired the private and student union board because my career has been with young people and if there's an entity representing young people especially in a unionized format I'm in so as we started structuring the private and student union in a very formalized sustainable way we chaired that board, it's connected to all of the work I do especially providing voice to young people I sit on the board with some board members here for the west on wood housing development court we are a nonprofit CDC one of our most recent developments which is a 60 million dollar development with a social enterprise a commercial kitchen, a community garden in the west end of Providence it's over 50 affordable units and we're working on a major project right now which we've announced that it will essentially be a college campus housing early childhood center for parents in Rhode Island who are matriculated college students to completely remove barriers to access I want you to worry about nothing but going to college as a parent trying to attain a post-secondary credential so we'll go for that I sit on the board for the YMCA which is a statewide board for all of the chapters and we are in the process of expanding our presence in Providence as the capital city as we should be and that comes with its own rewards if you want to call it that I sit on the board for Grossmart Rhode Island which is essentially the policy and research and practice institute for how to use how to develop cities in a very smart equitable way that makes sense in policy makes sense in the way trends are moving I sit on the Governor's Workforce Board's Education and Employment Advisory Council the Swearer Center at Brown's Advisory Board the New Leaders Council was a board member and served on their curriculum committee because the New Leaders Council runs a semester-long fellowship that kind of mirrors a practical development course and so what we do at Roger Williams University College we do something called Standardized Credit Documentation and we vet programs, training programs and things like that for college credit so they do a community development project they have a capstone, they actually deliver it and so they're a national organization we did an entire audit of their program and awarded credit so once I built that relationship my work with NLC had been served and so I stepped down and made space for somebody else to take a leadership role I sit on the Advisory Council for our reentry campus program that works with men and women who have come home from prison who are seeking a post-secondary degree and what has been most interesting for me again going back to that Health Commission is an appointment to the Governor's Overdose Task Force and this is where proximity hit home for me I mentioned I'm from the Bronx I'm from 169th and Washington Avenue in the South Bronx over to Morris Projects about six huge high-rise buildings I grew up there in the 80s during the height of the crack epidemic okay and so my first day in the Governor's Overdose Task Force I'm sitting there and everybody's introducing themselves and I'm thinking to myself A. with exception to the Director of Health Dr. Alexander Scott the only person of color around this table I'm here by way of the Health Commission that I chair not because of my professional role so everyone else around the table are hospital heads insurance heads and state department heads and so I'm thinking to myself wow this is an Overdose Task Force and people who are dying in my community for decades still are I'm thinking to myself everybody's going around introducing who they are and what they hope to bring to the Overdose Task Force so I reply and I say my turn comes and I say you know my name is Taino Palermo I represent the Health Commission I work at Roger Williams and I'm hoping to provide some perspective to the group I grew up in the Bronx during the 80s and no one cared about addicts I remember public health messages at the bus stop waiting for school that said watch waiting steps so you don't step on a needle and thinking to myself here at this table how much we care about addicts why is that because addicts started dying in droves at different hues at different socioeconomic statuses and as a community guy I'll take attention on community issues, health issues any way I can get it but I would be remiss to be at this table just in my intro I would be remiss to be at this table and not bring light to the fact that things and actions happen when it starts to affect us okay when CEO's kids are dying and not the public housing kids then it's an issue okay and so again I'll take the attention any way I can get it because they all of those lives matter to me but let us be very clear about how and why we move and let's own that so I felt bad for the person that introduced those after me but the point is is proximity I had a platform, I had a table I had a seat at the table if you don't get a seat at the table you're on the menu and so I never had a perspective of what I could potentially I don't know how that resonated with folks I don't know who took that home and said damn, he's true bless you so the point is though is that that was the platform that had to be set so the point is proximity to all of this is that when I grew up we criminalized addicts and now I saw a commercial yesterday there was always commercials for addictions if you need help call this number but I thought wow if you need help call this number and also your health insurance might cover this but if you have private health insurance you are fully covered and I thought to myself wow so now remember the SIM committee now we're talking about what we're covering, what's billable now we're talking about billable substance abuse recovery coaches the ACI was one of the few prison systems that didn't serve methadone so you couldn't detox in the prison and so you literally had zombies you picked up off the street as an addict and dumped them in a prison and they're not giving any method to wean off of this drug and then you reintegrate them into society by which they place them in the ACI to begin with so I think one of the most profound elements in this overdose task force thing for me was that again my wife is a psychiatrist now so she's in her residency program and so one of the first things they tackled was a prescription monitoring system so Rhode Island has a prescription monitoring system every physician who writes prescriptions gets tracked and and monitor at its inception it was an opt in system right so when the task force started they did an analysis and saw that only 20% of the physicians that could write prescriptions in the state were actually opting into this so I thought to myself why would we opt in when the opioid crisis is affecting New England the most and affecting Rhode Island and New England the most per capital so I'm sitting at the table and all of a sudden you say alright Joe it's the next cell committee you do this you do that boom boom boom boom next month we report back came back next month they said okay we're gonna roll out 100% mandate on boom boom boom boom boom the next month I'm cooking dinner and my wife's looking through her email she's like oh man I was like what so I got 30 days to register with this monitoring system otherwise we can't go to our next clinical and I just stopped and I thought to myself wow that's how that happens it's not always running for office it's not always being on the city council being the mayor or the governor or the state rep right it's being active and engaged in all of these things I am not part of all of these things because I love to go to meetings I hate but if I'm not at those tables then my community doesn't have a voice if I'm not at those tables I can't say okay with your with your proposal right now looks like this in action right when we were at our old building 150 Washington street we had some folks from the health department come I think Juan back there you might have been there the health department folks come from diabetes prevention right they're like how do we best get to the community which is you know struggling with diabetes and chronic disease and I'm like well I think we were meeting to potentially pilot like putting monitors and bodegas and salons and barbershops where people congregate to share information there and they're like yeah because you know we just want to get this information look we got this great pamphlet all these words they're like look there's a great fun game on the back and I said do you think that who do you anticipate this who's like where's this going to go whose hand is this going to go into and when they describe the population it became abundantly clear that you will never succeed in what you're trying to do because you don't know where you need to be you know who you need to serve you don't know how to serve them and so those kinds of things are things where we can help inform as you are in your professional settings students and alum my colleagues here we know that what matters is how much we are affected by the decisions we make and I think or at a decision making table in any professional capacity or even personal capacity your immediate rubric, your litmus test should be does this decision affect me and if it doesn't who does it affect and I need to run that decision by them first okay and I said it sounds arduous but I'm telling you if what you are doing is also up by programming it has to be measured and seen as effective and all that if you make a decision in silo if you enact a policy a legislation and initiative without being participatory in nature without being collective in nature acting like you're serving somebody when you're just exoticizing them you will fail at what you do and you are not in the business of community engagement and civic engagement in authentic practice and I'm saying that straight forwardly and if we were at a table together and that happened I would say it to you at that table because I'm that guy and so the point is that if we're going to make decisions about people's lives public administration folks leadership folks you will be at those tables if you're not already there it's about proximity and will you understand the impacts of the decisions you're making part of the problem with what we're working on is that there's so much development in a city like this it's hard to track it, it's hard to mitigate it but what's happening is decisions are being made and people see the repercussions of those decisions in the rear view mirrors as they drive out of the communities that they make decisions for so if I leave you with one thing just don't be those folks and so I'm going to stop there I have time for class not yet I don't know if we're doing questions or anything like that we always like to make sure we have time to give you a voice in our sessions so if you have questions for Ty anything at all that has to do with well anything that he's talked about or anything at all that he feels reasonably comfortable in answering please ask him questions we're colleagues he's used to that don't be shy so you told the story about where you started and your wife, your parents, your mother country and she had the right what's your story about so you heard the blogs and the projects I can't imagine what you saw around you but obviously you probably made a lot probably one of the tools that you came up with what was your motivation for me which I think is just a set of certain circumstances I'm an outlier where I'm from statistically not supposed to be here in front of you guys such as the case with my wife if I knew I'd probably package it and be making a lot of money in the urban community but I'm not even joking it's a series of fortunate circumstances everyone I grew up with is either dead or in jail or we're just Facebook friends like I can't even go hang out in a series and so part of the thing is also though it's a blessing for me though because it allows me to flow through circles I can do this here and speak to all of you but Tuesday I was at the barber shop on Broad Street talking to my wife in a loud barber so that and on the weekends I'm sure I'm tatted up all here and all my arms and everything that ability allows me to flow through those different environments so I can't answer the question about how I got here aside from I was nudged in the right directions by the right people there were pivotal points that I can specifically point to like the first time I tutored a young kid undergrad who didn't think that I was in college and that's the way I looked and I reminded him of his brother who's so dope and so that was profound to me because I was like whoa this person can't even envision I am where I am and I'm going to do my own identity stuff but as a first generation college student but then I was in college and I met the first person of color I was a TRIO student so I was in a student support program of color in a leadership position I'd ever seen before and that was profound to me I wanted to be him and then he empowered me and showed me broke down the false narrative of the communities I grew up in and was indoctrinated to believe and I realized anything is possible and by that point now I was just setting myself up and investigating my interests so I was fortunate and I listened to the signs I can't say that for everybody you know other questions what nationality are you? Puerto Rico so as someone who cannot seamlessly navigate the community that needs more help how would you suggest getting closer to that community that I understand? it's all about ambassadors you don't need to be from my community to be able to help my community I'm not from Providence I'm an integration into Providence if you remember I said I researched who's doing what I can't show up like hey I'm from the hood trust me I can't do that so I need to find the gatekeepers I need to find the ambassadors I need to find the grandma on the block that knows everything and she's the one who says Ty is good Ty is one of us Ty believes us every year I speak to the state police cadets on community police relations and I get that question every year it's like you know I'm trying to do the south side and I want to hop out and play ball with somebody and people are like oh look at them talking to the police what do I do with that? I said so go over there and talk to the people who are like look ahead and talk to the police and you talk to them and so once you start breaking down those barriers of trust anything is possible but you'll set yourself up for failure if you just abrasively enter a community and not go through the proper channels and those channels are social assets those are gatekeepers and ambassadors who will co-sign for you you identify as a systems thinker I guess yeah I mean I kind of see things at the 50,000 foot view but I live at the ground level and so sometimes you know it's frustrating being at the 50,000 foot view table with people who are never at the ground and don't know what this looks like in practice or in implementation but it has become whether I wanted it or not to be a lens by which I view everything as systems as systems approach because of that I usually look at issues with analysis type of mindset it's just a why oh that's why they're not coming to school because there's no housing they're not coming to their doctor's appointment because the RIPTA schedule doesn't work they can't get a second shift job because there's no bus lines that go at night so yes I mean what happens is as I keep saying this isn't enough and I keep getting a bigger and bigger perspective I'm getting a bigger and bigger sense of the ecosystem and once you get to that level of extent of like perspective it's just hard to get out of that mindset because everything is systematized and we don't see it it's hard because I'm not the only one at the table and I'm not the only variable that can move a system and so I can't answer that question with a global response it's nuanced and it's specific and so that's why it becomes frustrating because sometimes I'm at tables where they're like oh I remember we talked about this six years ago and we put together an action plan I'm gonna try to find it so we can so we don't start from scratch as we're starting from scratch and so and then to do what to create another action plan that somebody else will dig up so it's frustrating at the beginning either you or Dr. Bell mentioned that you have a certificate program or some program in community development how do you see that I'd be curious to know how that program is laid out and will it integrate somehow with leadership in public administration at least a course of some sort this is fantastic well we cross list a lot of our courses they teach in our program we teach in theirs so it is already integrated and the nature of the community development courses and programs are taught by practitioners one of which is here with the class and everything is tied to the field is our classroom and so for example we have a student working with I was going to call today with Newport who won a working cities challenge grant by the Boston Fed and they're trying to figure out how all of these community based organizations in Newport who service the same people can have one a user based data sharing system so if you go to Boys and Girls Club and your name is John Doe and then you show up for SNAP benefits I can just look up John Doe and I know your kids go to Boys and Girls Club after school you know this kind of healthcare this healthcare clinic and so all of us as community based organizations serving you surround our database around you as opposed to us having our own data system for you in four different places that's hard to do for community based organizations we don't have the ability to be data analysts data scientists and track data yet we ask for data outcomes that's when we're reviewing their RFPs right and so as I'm on the phone with them I have a graduate student doing research on the utility of data by community based organizations why they do it or why they don't and so this was an opportunity for him to get his hands dirty and actually see it in action test his thesis hypothesis and also provide a benefit to a community so that's kind of the nature of how we do things any advice about time management because it seems like you're pretty busy and how do you not lose the quality with everything that you're doing it's two things one is I understand which I'm glad you asked that because I forgot to mention that I understand everything I said is not realistic it's a very isolated type of situation also because I mentioned my wife was in medical school residency we had no kids I had the luxury of time and feeling that time and it's my passion so I don't see it as work it is absolutely overwhelming at times there was a period where I was a slave to my calendar and I had to start injecting blocks of time to just not be bothered I had to be active about my mental health and well-being it's a lot of secondary trauma to deal with burying teenagers dealing with working in the prisons dealing with criminal defense folks and struggles and seeing people get evicted fighting for them in housing court that's a lot of transferred trauma to somebody who already has their own trauma and is re-triggered in many situations William Parsons was killed in front of PCCA was a trigger for me a good friend of mine was shot six times and died in my arms in a public park on a Saturday so when we have few spaces where our kids can actually feel safe like school and that's taken away from them then it makes me reevaluate those amazing things that I do I didn't protect William right? and he had nothing to do with anything those kinds of things become taxing but it's also understanding that I see this entire ecosystem I'm in the training school with these kids when they get arrested I know their parents because they're in my classes in the ACI or they come here when they get out or I see them in the neighborhood because I'm in the neighborhood too right? so time management wise it became a situation where I had to actually inject vacations into my schedule and you guys said to my colleagues they know I travel heavily because when I'm here I'm in it heavily and I had to force myself to actually remove myself from the environment another critical piece to that of the city because I spent 90% of my time in the city and so I intentionally remove myself from the environment when I lay my head at night so it is about really what makes sense to you I understand not everyone can be as engaged as I am but the point of that obnoxious level of engagement is so that I can understand how all of these elements move and then I can start to remove myself from these tables putting people in those seats to carry that work forward and expanding the seats at the table as well so I don't plan to do this forever because that's not sustainable but now that I'm here who can I create space for are you all in the same class and I'm trying to work I have a question we have some students that have streamed live because they either couldn't be here or we have a lot of remote distance learning students so we do have one from Larry you wrote first thank you for your time tonight my question is what is one thing you can impact on someone who strives to be the best leader they can be so that's from Larry I think if you could do one thing to impact anything as trying to be a leader is to understand that in a leadership position your role and your success is measured by how many people you make successful it matters not your name recognition your letters behind your name Dr. Palermo allowed me to access the tables Taino Palermo would not be at but now that I'm at those tables I know like I said those tables there should be two of me there now right so I guess the one thing if you're going to measure anything about your impact as a leader is how many leaders have you turned have you converted I just wanted to say thank you for coming and sharing your story with us and also my question is are you focused on your work either right now or are you still working to help I I kind of go back and forth with New York Syracuse in particular because I'm very connected to the work we did there when I went to Syracuse being from New York I realized that there were a lot of Latino professionals but we didn't have our own kind of networking thing for Latino professionals so I created the Latino professional network of Syracuse which has over a thousand Latino professionals that created mentoring programs and things like that that has converted non-converted it's evolved it still exists but has since evolved into the upstate minority economic alliance which is central New York upstate New York's first minority chamber of commerce so I see the ripple effects of work that I've done and so I come back to help console help develop from time to time but that's really it most of my work is right here you mentioned how you're able to you know put on your suit jacket and kind of switch roles when you're in your community with your people versus the role that you play as your profession how do you like what do you think when you are able to switch those roles to be able to do certain things based off the people that you are I think it is an innate something that you just have to learn it's not formally taught it is conceptually framed as like code switching being able to turn on and off certain social behaviors in different environments without being a totally different person it's like time is great to me it's mean so I'm still the same person it's just the delivery method of the message you know when I'm in the barber chair my barber doesn't speak English so you know I'm not going to speak to him A in English and A in big words you know and so or at least big English words so I know but I'm not going to be any way any different than I I wouldn't you know than I would in any other setting or whoever I'm talking to so I think part of it is learning like maintaining your identity while switching in these different environments and understanding that um you have to have a contextual awareness of where you are and who you're around and I've been in environments where I've brought those circles together and so it's not like I can you know say hi to Dr. Norvell and then be like do you know Dorca get okay right in the same room but maybe right and that's okay as well and it's also she sees how I am with Dorca Dorca sees how I am with Dr. Norvell and then all of a sudden they're realizing that this is happening around them I actually have a grad student who's doing her research on the the elements of black male success so she's looking at black men in different socioeconomic groups and defining success as socioeconomic status and actually asking them a series of she's working with one of our one of our faculty Dr. Rebello who's a phenomenological expert I would mess that word up but looking at these innate behaviors that certain black men and certain socioeconomic statuses have to maintain right socioeconomic status is usually uh correlating with educational attainment degrees and so there's a level of awareness where with all as you rise up in your degree attainment so what are those elements those social behaviors psychological behaviors conscious or subconsciously that they're navigating the world and then pulling out those elements to try and identify exactly what you're asking so I'll keep you updated on the research any questions? uh yes we have Dahlia online the question is open to chat box right behind you what are some of the difficult decisions you've had to make what is your decision making process so she asked what are the difficult decisions I've had to make and what's the decision making process so so as somebody who grew up as a Trekkie because my father didn't go to college so he loved Star Trek and read science stuff and uh there's a Vulcan thing that says uh stop laughing at me there's a Vulcan thing some of my people on just kidding I probably rap Star Trek there's a Vulcan saying the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and that's essentially how I have to navigate the world right I know I don't I can't grow money so I can't address financial issues I know I don't run a uh my own school so I can't hand out the ingredients and so I know I have to navigate within these systems and uh I know I'm not the sole decision maker at the table so difficult decision um I really it's really hard to point to one I've had to cut programs um I've had to deliver the news you're not getting a paycheck this week um as a director of operations uh I had to do our executive director's dirty work um and so that kind of uh knowing what it is to be hungry knowing what it is to uh go to sleep without a meal I know that those impacts so I guess if I had to deliver a difficult decision it's not delivering it in isolation it's also here's a potential solution if I can't do this here's something else um so I try to think of it holistically that way information sharing between community organizations um I know there are some very strict privacy um requirements in a number of industries health education how do you work around those and still allow for um information between? Yeah so there's a reason there aren't that many models like that um and and that was actually the nature of our phone call today so part of what our approach at that work is going to be uh researching models of of like uh getting over HIPAA and FERPA by uh laws right so there's a the electronic medical record system is a model Rhode Island has a system called current care um where you can opt in and then all your information is funneled into one thing so we have to unpack that see what kind of legal elements had to be addressed um I don't know if HIPAA has ever spoken to FERPA and so medical confidentiality around student confidentiality data so that still remains to be seen luckily we happen to have a really good law school here as well so we have some partners we can you know call and see how we navigate that space but um that remains to be seen and that's uh an interesting and fun challenge um because it is uh going to force people to think differently right so um is Roger Williams spearheading or a member of this um spearheading it quarterbacking it it's it's more um asking for advice in this situation so I'm going to give you a kind of a recent story that you're probably familiar with the group Young Voices by Karen Thelman so um I'm in awe of her work I recently invited her group to an event that I'm setting up um where Dr. Alexander Scott is going to be speaking and I was just so excited and got a grant to pay for it so please come bring all your kids it's free and she said sorry Diana it's just not the time um my students are still grieving over the shooting of one of their classmates on the first day of school so I really appreciate your point about proximity and just thinking about kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how how can they think about traffic safety which is the topic they be listening to when they're just thinking of you know concerned about basic safety getting to school and and surviving that how do you break through you know those real ground level issues and give students opportunities um at a different level um so so the simple answer is you bring it to them that's a simple answer um the hard answer is that uh other the real answer is also that there is uh youth engagement parents engagement these are antiquated um themes and philosophies when your parent population of public schools are uh have their kids in the same public school system when a high school students child is in the same school systems pre-k we've now closed generational gaps so grandma's 40 years old 35 years old right so so parent engagement is in PTO meetings and bake sales anymore in the urban cores at least so uh when you ask public schools how many mailers get returned home how many phone numbers still work right so to your point we're going to worry about their Parsons test scores uh when there's no lights on our home so what we do is we run a youth summit here uh during spring break so we know it's spring break we know the kids aren't doing anything right but um we don't like to adult our way through young people and so uh what we do we had a meeting yesterday we do is uh we poll kids throughout the state the state Department of Ed helps us and we poll kids ask one question if you had to wake up every day doing what you love what would it be and we pull we go through all of that information and identify workshops that they want uh that we host then we identify people who are local professionals uh diverse in all senses of the word and put them in front of these young people and demystify the process so we have about 300 young people who come here uh two days during spring break and we float around downtown from AS 220 the library um and here host workshops give away thousand dollar scholarships iPods, iPads, computer everything um uh we have transportation we pick them up from four sides of town with vans from the YMCA we remove every single barrier all you gotta do is show up right when all you gotta do is show up it changes everything I feed you I do everything except breathe for you right and so we underestimate the barriers right how many of us are working adults uh who are going to school or have gone to school here right you got kids you got life you got job you got traffic right all of those things so we try to meet you where you are in every sense of the word but that's really the nature of this work you know Providence has a working city challenge grant address workforce development their approach is to bring workforce development into the neighborhoods not the one stop right so um it's really about contextualizing it man you gotta bring it to them uh as a um as a white heterosexual male that uh grew up in the suburbs uh you know I have no real proximity to uh the marginalized people that you're talking about uh what is it um exactly that someone who maybe hasn't seen the struggle and doesn't really understand what is it that these people are looking for and someone like me as an ambassador and an advocate for them um like maybe I don't know I'm looking for maybe like a state of mind or some characteristics uh how should I approach a situation where I really have no uh awareness of how it all goes down but would still like to uh better it um the the immediate answer is uh identify the point of entry and so I mean you asked a pretty broad question but if it's nuanced down to an issue or a certain element it goes back to the gatekeeper question who's leading this work you know it'll be that guy who's just like just discovered a problem that's been here right and so you're the only one working on it when there's big coalitions and groups right so so you do your homework at the point of entry and then as somebody to your point which you're describing as uh privileged to that you bring into that environment you have to realize how much space you're either taking up or not taking up um and come in oftentimes and shut up first just and that grows not just for you in the circumstance or what you're talking about into your profile but that just means when you enter a foreign space or a space that you want to integrate into show up and shut up and let and soak in the room you have to because you don't want to be the one who's like oh well you know what and you just got there right and so um people need to know that you're not this ambitious person trying to exoticize a situation exoticize a population um and if there's anything you know that you bring into a situation like privilege then you just you that's a tool for you to figure out how to leverage it right you just introduced your profile to me as everything a community you want to help doesn't have those are the assets you're bringing to them but you need to integrate it in a way that's like not a white saviour complex but authentic support and engagement that's all and it all happens through a gatekeeper and your point of entry I think there's another question on the board Richard Dahlia what are some of the different modes oh I'm sorry okay it looks like another one came up any other questions well thank you thank you, appreciate it all token of our appreciation we don't want to leave you if you can and we do want to get you a patient oh I don't have a nice brain though and um anybody who'd like to join I don't have a question can't just eat I don't know if it could be not all my students know I am a major Trekkie we started talking about that right thank you a couple little just reminder things before we depart and for those of you in PA 512 I think I told you last time PA 815 is what I'd like to see you in the classroom so we're just going to talk for about 45 minutes just a couple things reminders the 10th annual public service and leadership conference which is the culminating event for our Riaspa program year is going to be May 1st it's going to be at the Hilton hotel just a few steps away the theme we're going to expand we're going to be talking about all year around community engagement our keynote speaker is Serena Breeland who is a city manager of Loverville, Texas and also Catherine Curwin as the director of communications at the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence so I'm not quite sure what Serena Breeland is going to talk about specifically except I think she's going to talk about the community and her reason around the engagement that's going on there and from her vantage point as a city manager Catherine is also May 1st will be a brand new public city council excellent and we would hope you can all attend that event again it's going to be anything to get you there so we realize people work but it's actually an all day kind of thing we start about nine o'clock in the morning and we go until about two in the afternoon we do have some of our we have guests from national ASPA that come in in the evening and sometimes we're able to have receptions of things going on earlier but those details will be worked out so we hope you can come and some people actually take the day off work if they can it's a really nice event we have our high school kids from Tolman and Shea and they're going to be presenting their work as well again thank you so much for coming this evening and live long and prosper