Day One at FYE

Great first day at the conference in Orlando. The keynote speaker was the president of a small college in Silicon Valley. He has integrated participation in politics and democracy in every part of the school curriculum to a degree. As the president with support of the board has created a culture where the whole institution has bought into the value of teaching this generation of students how to shape public policy for the challenges they will face in the next generation. He has use that to get away from the conversation about postsecondary as a factory for 21st century workers. He focuses on skills around lobbying influence systemic change and provides space and training for students and staff to have incredibly difficult and risky conversations. This could be an interesting job to fill with upper year students and potentially first year students. NOT the work that CDEC does, but the work around using Sienna staff to facilitate these conversations and to expose students to the type of inequality racial divide oppression that exists within our community. We can use these challenges to create opportunities for students to solve the problem as to not create a culture of despair and powerlessness. More thoughts around how to get large scale by in funding and staff support.