 Welcome to OEG Live. We had that little peppy song there. I can see my colleagues in the studio doing a little bit of head bob. I'm Alan Levine and I'm really excited to have a group of folks and I'm just going to bring everybody on stage and we have more people maybe coming in. But this is our OEG Live show that we've been doing here at OEG Global and it's unstructured conversations about interesting things in open education and what can be more interesting than Arlo? And so we want to be able to share this fantastic program that OEG Global has been running and I'm not going to try to describe it because we have the experts in the room here but I'm going to flip it over maybe to Karen Kangliosi to maybe introduce the show and our guest here or do whatever you want to say. What the heck is Arlo Karen? Come on. What the heck is Arlo? You know it's funny like that acronym is always the thing that we go by and we love it and sometimes we kind of forget what it stands for and we even redefined it right? Esperanza might remember that but we call you know it's technically the regional leaders of open education and one of the things that we've done with Arlo is to sort of reimagine leadership like what does it even mean to be a leader? Your typical leaders may not be what we were thinking of when we formed the Arlo network and so maybe Esperanza can help me. It was radical something. It's been a minute Karen since I kind of rebranded us. Just being me and my brain and the way it worked but you know I'll add to what Karen said that you know definitely when I joined this group I didn't see myself as like a real leader in this open ed movement right? I mean I know about open education. I even use open resources in my courses but as far as the real leadership aspect of it but you know this group embraced me and they helped me to find my voice and help me to develop and grow the leadership qualities that were in me that I didn't know about as it pertains to open education. I'm more used to that top down kind of leadership style right? But they helped me to find my voice and see that those people in the middle have something valuable to contribute and you know I look I look at this whole process and even in my day to day operations differently now because the idea that everybody's voice is something to be treasured and respected and everybody can contribute. That's what I've come to love and appreciate about Arlo and I want to say thanks for the opportunity. That's fantastic. I we completely bypassed the intros thing so and and Carlos just popped in the room and maybe he says he just showed up I'll put him on the spot and just let us know who you are you know and what you do and what your connection is with this Arlo thing that we're hearing about. Welcome Carlos. Thank you. Well to have Karen and Robin and Esperanza took a risk bringing a troublemaker into the Arlo group and I've I've really found found a home with some fantastic people that I want to learn about open and want to learn about sharing and being transparent and and have lots of knowledge so I've really enjoyed being able to learn from so many participants in Arlo and learn about the leadership in the process and where were you located Carlos? Good question. North Carolina State in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ah okay. Basketball country if I used to watch ACC basketball as a kid but this is about me so next up. Karen you should say hello because you're Carlos. Yeah and I wanted to say Carlos is also a biologist and Esperanza is we have another like she teaches physics so we have not we're a little STEM dominated today but not entirely so anyway yeah so I was the program director for Arlo and located in Northampton, Massachusetts and doing all kinds of things right now but currently um as of a little while ago anyway membership director for OE Global and one of the things that I'll say since we're live is that I recently took a position with the every learner everywhere network which is um based with the WCET the witchy cooperative for educational technologies so I'm seeing all kinds of synergies in open education the every learner network Arlo um Arlo I have great visions for having some kind of a new incarnation in the future and and I saw that one of the one of the folks in the in the in the room in the YouTube room is Paul Stacey and we're really appreciative of Paul's support for us coming to the Boston conference really working to support Arlo there too so and and maybe we could let Esperanza introduce herself as well since she said lovely things but she went right to the heart that's what we like about that is Esperanza thank you thank you so much for that um I'm Esperanza Xenon uh as Karen mentioned I teach physics and physical science at River Parishes Community College and Parishes ought to be a dead giveaway that uh I'm um nestled in Louisiana right between New Orleans and Baton Rouge fantastic and now I think we want to say hello to Robin who's been politely waiting in the wings and smiling hello Robin welcome to the show thank you yeah I'm Robin Taylor I have a different role with the Arlo network I came in as an external evaluator um I I own my own business archers consulting research evaluation and statistical consulting and I I came in originally to help support the Arlo network and being able to present findings back to the funding network but thankfully Karen and the others take a very collaborative approach and was able to collaborate with them throughout the whole process of what information would be useful for them as they continue to develop the the network and understand what was needed and what the impacts were so it was a great program that I really loved being a part of that's fantastic I can't even tell you how much we benefited from having Robin's input along the way you know and I know definitely following all the rules of external evaluation for sure but also giving us um really good pointers and advice when we needed it and just having an incredible input we've been really really lucky to have uh Robin as part part of the team and one of the co-authors on our upcoming publication which we'll hope is going to be coming out pretty soon in the in the journal of uh OERHE and um it's in review so I'm saying that optimistically well we're um there's so much excitement in the room about Arlo but I think for people who don't know what it is can can you give the the high level or the what the heck did it do and and what was the purpose and structure and then I want to hear stories about what it it did because I know there's a lot of stories there okay yeah so again the regional leaders of open education was it was a project um sort of under the umbrella of the CCC OER and OER global more broadly because the the institutions that were part of Arlo were not just limited to community colleges even though we had a lot of community colleges because Unidale and the CCC OER really helped build our participant network and so really what the point of the Arlo network was was to bring in leaders and potential leaders and help them develop strategic plans for open education at their institutions like so how do we bring folks together how we get them thinking about what can open education do for you and your community and your college or your university and to develop a way of thinking about plans that may have to do with um the introduction of uh or replacement of commercial textbooks with OER or for introducing open pedagogy practices and because we were really focused around wanting our open education work to particularly serve the needs of uh underrepresented underserved students BIPOC students, LGBT students, students in poverty, incarcerated students all of those categories that we sometimes just make this assumption like oh well if we if we just do some open ad we're going to be like helping all those folks and so we with Arlo really tried to be intentional all about not just assuming there's some passive way in which marginalized people will benefit from open ad but how do we intentionally build strategic plans so that we're zeroing in on things like open educational practices or open pedagogies that actually help marginalized students find their voices and perfect timing that Rebecca just showed up because really talk so articulately about like what I was just saying so maybe we can let Rebecca introduce herself and just put her on the spot she's on a screen screen and people are talking so welcome Rebecca I'm Alan I'm just the person pushing buttons here but this is just our open discussion and we're already hearing so many great things about Arlo so let us know where you are or what you do and what your Arlo connection is. Thank you so much Alan and I apologize for being late I got stuck with technical issues and I'm having to now use my phone but it just in the spirit of Arlo really teamwork right so I'm texting all my Arlo people saying help me in you know so my name is Rebecca Vasquez Ortiz and I am a multicultural psychologist by training I also like to dabble in qualitative analysis so when I joined this team I had those strengths to offer and I also was able to build on so many other strengths working together and I just wanted to mention that it was such a privilege privilege to work with Robin in terms of the data crunching and looking at everything that we did and like Esperanza I echo our interest in developing leadership through leading from the middle and that is just for me it's been something with Arlo that really has been different than my other experiences as a First Nation person in higher education and so what I found was because we all had this path then to work towards student success and empowering really those of us who have been marginalized in higher education you know it was just a synergy coming together strength-based approach and then the scaffolding of those who came in as participants so I just wanted to say that working in this space not only taught me about networking but it also learned led to the learning of my conference in multiple spaces and that really I think is only achieved through this breaking down of hierarchical processes where we value the cultural wealth of not just the participants and each other but our students in terms of reaching successful outcomes in terms of learning so thank you again and while I'm still here I'll try to log in through my computer so I can get better access as well oh you're fine and a nice t-shirt by the way where'd you get that well let me tell you I know now that I everybody knows here when you give Rebecca the microphone she takes it for a bit so we had this amazing opportunity and you know I want to remind everybody that Arlo took form during the height of the pandemic and so everything we were doing was either asynchronous or via zoom and because of the incredible energy that we built in our and our you know aspirations to reach you know for for success we organized and had a Boston summit you know where we were still wearing masks in some spaces but we you know we got the t-shirt and I wear it proudly wherever I can and so it was just this energy of coming together leading being culturally responsive and doing it during a really difficult time and so I always saw the spaces brave because it allowed us to not only explore brave space ideas but we were actually brave as we came together and said we're gonna we're gonna do this and we're gonna step out of our comfort zones and we all met in Boston or most of us were able to meet at Boston and and and we had scholarships for our some of our recipients who would never have been able to attend um this type of work and then lastly students students were at the helm from the beginning to the conference and and we continue to guide our processes through student perspectives yeah if you don't mind um Rebecca and I are kind of like a tag team so when she gives up the mic I usually take it um so that that whole idea of in of engaging students and involving students and valuing their voice and their perspective I think one of the most powerful pieces of learning and information that I got to be part of happened in Boston and there was a comment made by one of the students during their presentation and it was the value of open education in the space that he was operating in um allowed him to challenge his instructors and his institution to help them understand how important it was for him to have a space where his dreams and aspirations were valued and if that doesn't encompass the heart and spirit of Arlo there probably isn't anything else in my mind that does um this idea of valuing people's aspirations and dreams and what they bring um to to this uh community in this space I love that you brought that up as far as because uh that was Asiola heard that said that Asi is one of her wonderful students incredible one of the things we did is we had our students be the keynote speakers for the Arlo conference where it's like none of this student panel thing the students are going to keynote and lead out the event and they wrote it they put it together I didn't we didn't we didn't like pre-read it or like we're going to like give me a draft we're going to like vet it for you we just said go up there and do a thing and they did and it was incredible and when when Asi said that thing about you know I want my education to be something that allows me to dream you know and to to be able to put my dreams forward I'm like yeah that's what we should be doing in higher ed that's what we've tried to do with the Arlo network um I wanted to also just mention that along with this amazing leader team there's a couple people that aren't here right now um uh Deidre Tyler uh who may not be able to come and Kim Brewer who said she wasn't going to be able to come uh the other part of the main team we also had nine collaborators um including some folks in open ed that you've probably heard of before like Matthew Bloom, Alexis Clifton, Aruzh Nizami, Wade Oshiro, Allegria Rindunera, Mari Sakiyama, Christina Trunnel, Suzanne Joaquin and Quill West so those are nine fabulous amazing people we were really lucky to have as what we call collaborators that did a lot of one-on-one mentoring with some of our participants as part of the program too and I wanted to make sure I gave a shout out to to those folks as well uh looks like we lost Rebecca for a moment I know like the technical issues hopefully she'll find her way back I think she's switching devices can can you give us like a little uh like buffet tour of some of the participant institutions and um like were they some some of them places that had like nothing in terms of OER and had to really develop that and what did they achieve that's like see Robin Naughty why don't you go ahead and talk about that Robin yeah no I would say that you know the evaluation was to collect data one thing I want to clarify is Rebecca and I did collaborate on a qualitative study and this was data that all the participants were able to produce a slide to talk about what they were doing after participating in the Arlo network and so we did qualitative data coding to understand the different things that each institution was involved with and so I'll pull probably more examples from there but you know you had participants who came in who were learning about open education for the first time and you had participants who had open education initiatives already on their campus they were very much advanced and and then you had all those who could be in the middle and so the Arlo network really worked at meeting everyone where they were at and allowing them to collaborate across with each other and learn different ways to enter and so some examples that I can think of um you know for adjunct faculty who maybe don't have the same stake in an institution as other faculty that they came in they were involved they were learning what types of groups to meet on campus how to get conversations starting to other faculty who knew a little bit more they wanted to create positions and being able to understand like what kind of credentials you might look for in having a champion of OE to to really just diving into making sure then that the open pedagogy was was focused on making sure that all voices were represented check check we're all good I think Karen went silent okay sorry I must have had a little technical issue there with my microphone too but I was I was looking at um maybe this could be a good time to put a link to the showcase uh document that we had and we're thinking about which institutions were doing what and um we had um I think we had over a hundred participants as part of the arlo network 112 something like that maybe rather remind me of the exact number representing about 66 institutions because we had more than one person from many of the institutions um and so you know we had a we had a lot not not every single one of them produced a lot of work but every single one of them at least had somebody that got something out of the network and at least 47 of the 66 produced enough work that they put some accomplishments on the showcase slides and you can look at a range you know we have arranged from uh you know two-year mini community colleges all the way to UC Irvine we've had representations from folks from MIT that were part of the network even though they didn't do a project particularly within our network so having um you know two-year colleges four-year colleges private institutions public institutions universities people at square one people and yet this group was able to really feel like everybody found their place in inside of the different conversations that we were having and the kind of work and using folks that knew more to help mentor the ones that didn't know so much and yet they also got ideas from each other about how how to advance so Rebecca's back that's okay any like like memorable stories that jump out that sort of like little snippets into what our participants were able to do boy is my mic on yes oh sorry I have all these technical issues today I wanted to say that one incredible experience that I had was starting collaborative work with people again as we mentioned who were at different spaces in terms of their leadership and skill within open pedagogy and open education and so um after you know I worked with particular fellows I was uh invited to be a part of this collaboration between three community colleges across the southwest that were all Hispanic serving institutions and together we honed in on some strategic plans and then we submitted some grants and so uh you know I'll tie it back into what I was saying earlier which was that Arlo became this space where we had leaders at different abilities and different experiences throughout North America including Canada and and we were able to build these strategic networks that then began to work on other of course related to Arlo's mission but other opportunities within our own institutions and you know we would have never met we I was working with these two particular institutions in Texas and so it was the synchronous and asynchronous spaces that allowed us to meet people and work really in a time when a lot of us were feeling very isolated because of kind of the um situation that the pandemic brought to higher education so that was an incredible opportunity and then I might just add one last piece which is working with those who were just kind of getting their feet wet in terms of open education and not having to go through the usual you know hard work of convincing people but inviting them in and then having them just run with either strategic plans or particular assignments or the adoption of open pedagogy within an entire course so it was amazing to see that type of growth happening with those who had never really been given the opportunity to be in a space like this so I'll kind of share a collaborative opportunity that I had as a result of working with Arlo. Karen mentioned Susan Joaquin as one of the collaborators well Susan also worked on a on the idea framework that was one of the projects that he was engaged with though was you know reviewing and revamping the idea framework and I was fortunate to be invited to participate in that process and and that wouldn't have happened if I had not you know engaged with her during some of the breakout sessions that she and I led together so you know I made contacts throughout Rebecca being one of the ones that I you know I have developed a unique fondness for because you know I don't know it seems something like we share a similar mindset about things and you know these types of connections are pervasive throughout the Arlo network of folk that we've had the opportunity to engage with it is something very special about having you know a group of people all working together because they believe passionately and and valuing you know the perspective that everybody brings to the table you know I think I've learned something from everyone who has participated in Arlo yeah I'll be honest I the level of respect for people's ideas and their background and their culture um you know I didn't I didn't know about things like something as simple as a land acknowledgement I had never seen that done before I participated in Arlo and um and and it's the genuineness in that respect that I've grown to deeply appreciate now I almost expect it um and when I attend conferences especially if their focus is open education if they don't open with the land acknowledgement I'm thinking something something's missing here right but um I learned a great deal about um you know valuing other people's ways of knowing and and perspectives as a result of participating in Arlo I just love learning about the student perspectives we the student also student voices in in Arlo were really impactful they were present in every cohort most every session and they really uh highlighted how open practices go beyond open textbooks it's other ways of supporting and other ways of being aware of of challenges and the barriers that we often create without without the need to create um and having these discussions with this fantastic group that really opened my perspectives to what does it mean to be flexible and and how does that support and how does uh sharing openly uh fit in with uh a teaching philosophy where where we are awarding grades and we often take for granted how those grades are awarded and how that's taken from the student perspective so just the really great conversations we had thanks for that Carlos I think we were just challenging all the traditional ideas of everything like ungrading and where are the embedded hierarchies where are the ways in which the system is actually working against our students and we're asking our students to be part of these systems that we don't want to replicate inequities right we want to try to transcend past them and and I should say that the way we incorporated students into Arlo was to use them as mentors like we talked about nobody in our program was a mentor unless they were a student mentors to faculty and and staff and other professionals not the other way around so when we asked students to come in and talk about their experiences talk about what they have gone through and what advice and information do they think faculty need to know and what kinds of very we would ask them very specifically what do you think faculty should do here not just tell us about how it was hard to come up with the money to buy a textbook which I've seen on a thousand oh we are panels which are nice but I think like really trying to move more deeply into what is it that we need to learn from our students I would say Carlos I really appreciated you getting in trouble for us on so many occasions he said he was a troublemaker in the group he didn't get us into trouble per se but he got in trouble a lot back in his institution and I think that's because so much good stuff was being you know was rubbing off on him you know from this space to where he actually had to operate right and and to some degree I think as you know if not now at some point we'll be getting all of us will get into some type of trouble I'll be honest with you I'm kind of I have kind of become the dissenting voice at my institution against um what is this uh inclusive access that they kind of are contemplating moving to and I just keep fighting and fighting and saying I cannot agree with that because I know you know based on the the the interactions with the students who participated in Arlo I understand why that is just like the the most terrible move to make right but you know if I am not really come and heard from those students why openness is so important to them and how they benefited from it uh not just from the financial aspect as Karen said you know but but they they have had opportunities to create and create um curriculum and learning resources that will live beyond um their stay at an institution and they feel valued and and are respected because of that you know and and this notion of you know treating students as real collaborators and paying them um you know what um for contributing to projects um you know I am just speaking out at every turn when I have a chance now at my institution because I I know more than just well you know we don't want them to have to pay for books right I have other things to say about why open is valuable and um so Carlos um we're gonna get our t-shirts made we're we're all we're from Arlo and we're here to make trouble exactly I mean that was the whole point and I think that's that we really like inspired that in our participants too because if you're you know if you're not making trouble and we also recognize not everybody's in the position like people are in precarious positions but but ways in which you can leverage whatever little privileges you do have to make the kind of trouble that's necessary to to to cause change um and so I love that you're like I'm just speaking out all over the place now because like I I always am saying higher ed is in big big trouble and it needs to change and so those of us willing to speak out against all the things that need to shift I think it's awesome you know I would I'll go ahead I was about to say I think our voices are much needed now uh in the current climate in many in many spaces in in this country and elsewhere uh in you know this perspective of valuing people valuing their ideas of you know valuing their culture and you know in many ways owning up to our responsibility for the current situations that many um peoples and cultures find themselves in right um but you know if we just um you know let this let what we've learned here um you know in our stay with Arlo go by the wayside then we will have wasted a valuable opportunity to be voices for in this um you know in this is just terrible some of the moves we're making we we seem to be running from our responsibilities and we can we we owe it to Arlo to not um let that happen without speaking up yeah I wanted to chime in on on that about you know speaking up and and you know the causing of trouble or what I consider the challenging of status quo um and and challenging status quo is it's not easy especially for those of us who come from marginalized communities and Arlo for me was always the space where we could come back together and I remember this in particular with Carlos where we could come back together as we had taken you know some steps towards challenging status quo and and then we came back and and we we kind of recovered you know in in group group setting and created belonging and and supported and and I have never had that experience before you know for me I the the battles I faced I pretty much faced them alone and I would process alone and Arlo created these spaces where we didn't have to process alone and by the way that led me to working with um uh another group here both in California and the Southwest where I was invited to speak um uh with the community college consortium and there um I went in with one of the you know main points that we had with Arlo which is that we weren't just looking to save students money we were looking to empower cultural wealth so students could successfully navigate higher education and after I I went in and spoke with them they invited me back and they said what what do you mean by this and people wanted to talk more about ungrading and and bringing in these ideas about cultural wealth and and looking beyond how much are we saving students but how much are we actually leading to student success and then also the success of those who who go on to become part of the fabric of higher education and so I wanted to mention that work um because it's not easy right it's not easy to push status quo and then face it face it alone and it led to that added benefit where I was able to speak to you know dozens of people about the idea that we're not necessarily supposed to be gatekeeping our students but inviting them in to co collaborate and and can you imagine right develop their own assessments and so some of that work was so exciting because I saw people kind of opening their eyes to that idea of kind of stepping away from the um stage on the stage and saying oh I have something to learn from my students and my students have something to learn from me and um that's not easy it's not easy work um especially for those of us who are trying to lead through the middle of it because we go back and we face resistance um and by the way before I hand up the mic I want to say that I'm in California so sometimes we were meeting at five six in the morning because you know we had different time zones but we came at these different time zones and Dieter's not here today but she would come super early and we would all work together and it was never work it was passion it was commitment to community and so you don't mind getting up at five in the morning you know to have a meeting and and crutch numbers because when you leave you know that it feeds your spirit and it also helps you become a better educator and colleague and so um that couldn't have happened unless we had been doing this partnership work and ultimately it led to ideas around the unpacking of systemic racism even within assessment and grading I love that Rebecca and yeah you reminded me that you were at meetings at like six a.m. all the time which means getting up at least at five and you know caring for your children before coming on to the meeting and and Esperanto like showing up even when things are hard at home and saying that this was the space that you felt fed within and nothing maybe feel more happy than to hear that like I loved coming to those meetings every single week with you all and and also I think again the reminder that we did this entirely in a remote space you know like we really built a community with each other and worked week after week and really got to know each other that when we did finally see each other in Boston I remember looking at Rebecca for the first time in real life going oh my god it's you almost two years and to be able to hug you it was just really really powerful really incredible and same for Esperanza as well you know I had I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member they were freaking out you know that the big talk now is the AI and there's a chat of GPT yes and and I was basically you know saying to them well you know maybe if you if you're worried about a student is not being authentic in their work but maybe if you ask them for their authentic ideas about the work you wouldn't have that to worry about right because you know if you frame things in a way that there's no possible way that this AI could could do that for them then you know and you make them part of the process they feel like they have a stake in it right and I wouldn't have been thinking that way if I had not engaged with Arlo so you know the work that we did here is even you know finding spaces in this current climate where everybody's panicking about AI and I'm just sitting back going like that means you're probably doing something that's not uh engaging to the students if they can do it that that easily such a great point it's such a great point I think if anything we could we don't want to take the rest of time talking about AI but definitely it's really pushing us to look in the mirror as educators and say what is it that's really important what are we trying to do how are we valuing our students and not just trying to evaluate them in some kind of testing schemes okay Arlo people I have to ask us okay I'm listening I'm hearing this this deep engagement you guys have fun you're doing like you feel like empowered like what's in the Arlo water how this come to be because I mean we see lots of programs people design they have goals and they have a series of activities but I don't always see this happening in terms of the way people work together so I know this not really an easy answer but what what really worked to create this whole atmosphere I think the the the authentic valuing of each other um the the opportunity to just be ourselves and have our ideas valued um whatever whatever it is we we could contribute was was appreciated um we there was never a time when we weren't given the space to share our ideas with each other um you know we we each can say that we had a part in framing whatever Arlo was is and hopefully will be and that's an incredible feeling right when you feel valued and you know I I can't say how much that means to me uh to know that something that I had to say or contribute actually appreciated when in so many spaces that yeah I would just say you know my being involved a little bit on the outside but being brought in is the the idea of listening and valuing and it wasn't an agenda that you were trying to get buy in from everybody but you were trying to get everybody to think through what an agenda would be would be great for the community and and then allowing the community to also provide their own voice uh you know I wanted to um say from my perspective it was really about having just a working community and um working community meant that we were right doing the work um because I I brought that up early that you know Dolores Huerta told us that leadership is about doing the work and I also wanted to mention that this was not easy right but we were committed and we knew that our passion was around students and so we had disagreements right um but they weren't personal disagreements they were ideological and we explored them um sometimes you know for example Esperanza and I would have never met if we hadn't come into these spaces and I remember her saying uh I something about a parish and I thought was that a church you know and so then she taught me about what it meant to speak of parishes in Louisiana I had no experience with that and I could have easily offended her by by saying what what a you church you know teaching for a religious institution but she embraced my um uh you know lack of experience with that and she said here's the info Rebecca and then I learned something new and there were some things also as a first-nation person where I felt like oh you know we need to step into these spaces of discomfort and we did but we still maintained our humanity and our need to care for each other so when there were moments when you know one of my children was sick or one of Esperanza's grandchildren needed her we we all came together um and you know Robin has her her voice as well and so all you know all of us were we saw the ebb and flow of the needs of us as humans and we valued the the background we brought to it and we learned I know I have learned so much about different people just around the country and then of course up into Canada and we have these plans of going down into Mexico which is super exciting and something Carlos and I are very passionate about and I before I give up the mic again I wanted to say that something that I think drove us all and also we continue to look at is sustainability um and that is you know that some of the most um important work uh the workers right the contributors are spending all of this time and energy on just trying to get the right funding and and of course grants are great but institutionalizing the funding and so that that passion I think helps us realize that the work you know has still to we still have to do it and we still have to come back so that you know those that come after us um don't have to kind of be at the you know forefront of just saying students deserve culturally inclusive education at at what they can afford as opposed to acquiring you know tens of thousands of dollars of debt because we're selling them outdated textbooks you know you you asked a very powerful question um um Alan you know what was in the Arlo water and and and I'll you know take it and put it in a bottle and say for me it was just pure love there's no other way to express this the environment that I experienced with Arlo other than to say it was was love we we have a genuine love and respect for one another and that makes all the difference I'm really happy to see Kathy Germano in the uh in the chat there because one of our amazing participants and I'm I'm glad that participants were feeling it trickle down and it you know it makes me happy to hear what everyone's saying and it's a great question Alan like what do you put in you know because you look at our website we have programming we have stuff for the readings but like what is that ingredient you know what is the secret ingredient that your grandmother puts in the cookies or whatever to make them taste so good and I don't know that there's an easy answer to that question I know for me as a director and it was about like being silent a lot of time and letting other people talk and like bringing in other brilliant people to to to teach me and to think of all of ourselves as learners and participants first and not as guides and that's why we were really careful with our language to talk about collaborators and and that sort of thing and I know it's not as simple as a formula and and yeah but you know I just feel fortunate to be close to this and and see this happening and and I can like Arlo the the program it has like hit its mark but I don't see anything stopping and and nothing will stop this group so I applaud everybody I think that's a great idea we're not we're not going to stop now now we have to take this moment because we're going to make Karen uncomfortable but we have to say some nice things about her because like what a lot of this I think she is her presence as director in this is is some of the the essence on on the water and and I can't help we Karen I have this joke we found out after being colleagues that we went to competing high schools so look Karen like Milford Mill was the best but I just love I loved hearing people talk about that it it wasn't the program and the and the money and the resources and the stuff and and Esperanza it was love and and it sounds genuine I can see it in action but let's let's give attributes to Karen here because a lot of this has to do with her leadership thank you I appreciate that and I know Alan and I are always in a love best to each other too like it's like everything that everything that's awesome about it we go home and so thank you Alan and yeah we were like in high school like 15 minutes away from each other and you're looking at that for years later so that's really cool but yeah thank you so what's what's next what's next I have to I have to chime in on that before we we move on because um Karen uh I know Karen doesn't like to feel like she's the leader because we really did work on this collaborative process but I wanted to just acknowledge it because um you know not all of my allies um have this leadership ability and model and so uh whenever there was something going on I would say Karen this let's make an executive decision and Karen's like well you know let's you know and so and there were so many spaces where you know I thought well Karen it's the expert here she she should speak and she would say oh no no we're all here and and so I just I want to right you know speak from from my heart to thank her um in particular for being the type of person that allowed somebody like me um to grow in terms of my leadership and you know I used to run around the edges of the reservation um and uh who would have thought right that I would be in a space like this and it really is only through um the uh the leadership opportunities that you know colleagues like Karen um um not you know it's not about her you know um doing the work for us or it and it's it isn't even really scaffolding it really is just true partnership that centers equity and you don't see that all the time and so I want to give her a huge shout out um not as the top leader right but as the person who has planted seeds of generativity amongst those of us who are usually not receiving this type of interaction I don't even don't even know what to say to that thank you I know I mean I I want to follow Rebecca and echo everything she just said but but Karen's a real champion where she does she wants everyone's voices to be done but I think that sometimes we miss how much in the background she does to make sure things get done and and I've had the privilege of working with her on other projects and she is a go-getter and um she wants to make sure that things succeed but but that she does it with the community in mind thank you that's enough about me I think no no I'm done I I I could go on asking people to make you uncomfortable but I know how you are Karen um but but maybe if anybody wants to add like what's what's next for for some of your folks what's what's what's what are you looking at like over the next horizon of of um things you want to disrupt and change and and continue on this path Arlo wants to go to any protest marches I'm there with you that's friend you should tell your story about the copy machine the copy machine remember when uh this was a story way back when when you had uh had a whole bunch of people just Xerox many many copies of some book because oh oh oh this is my story oh that copy machine oh did you really try to get me in trouble so when I was a graduate student well I you know I tell everybody uh you know the fact that I made it to graduate school was is a miracle because um a lot of you you guys might not even know it I had my first child at 17 and so by the time I got to graduate school I had two kids um you know I'm living in campus housing money's like extremely tight I couldn't afford books that was just out of the question for me so I came up with the scheme I would go to the bookstore buy the book and then bring it to these guys down on the next block that own the copy machine they like pull their money together you know spend several thousand dollars on the Xerox machine and um they charge you like 25 cents a page maybe not that much you know whatever it was it was real real cheap and so a book that was like 200 dollars would come up to be like 45 50 bucks right and so what I would do is to take it down to them you know they they knew the deadlines you have this many days to bring the book back to the bookstore get your money back right so I got um a copy of the book um you know three hole punch it put it in one of those nice little covers and there you got the whole textbook right uh and then I go take the book back to the bookstore and get the money back right so um you know it was a way to survive that whole scheme now um I I hope nobody's like really trying to be punitive because it was a high label right but it was it was what I could do and you know if you listen to students you really listen to them it's more than just buying an outdated used copy of the book they're they're having they're having to come up with all types of creative schemes to be successful in school and you know what a lot of them are doing it the best that they the best way that they can right I'm sure there's some students who are way more creative in their solutions than I am but you know I gotta say you know if you're going on a scale of one to ten on a scheme to to you know to not have to buy a book or because you can't afford it that will probably rank in the top five I gotta say I mean you know I feel like a lot of our open ed work is like that it's like what how are we creating schemes to sort of subvert the systems that we're in where are those backdoor entrances that we're looking for what are the workarounds and how do we actually bring that to the front and how does the diversity of folks that are in this space and their multitude of perspectives bring us to the ability to do this I I think about Rebecca's words earlier like empowering cultural wealth like how we're empowering this wealth of ideology of ideation and of thinking differently to really move things in a transformative way to me that's what Arlo was about well I think I have to do this I hate to do this but what a great show and and thank you so much everybody for being here like I've known a little bit of Arlo but I just am scraping the surface so congratulations to everybody thank you for joining us on oeg live stay connected stay keep doing the work you do fight the status quo get in trouble Carlos and everybody else I think that's such a valuable message and thanks everybody for tuning in to oeg live we'll be doing a lot more of these in the next couple weeks and I'm gonna step off stage and just fade out with a little bit of open licensed music so thank you everybody