Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find out
with Pete and the Poet Cold. I'm Petere on It
and I'm the poet Gold, and we're on the air
this morning with four students from Vassar College oral community
activists who have been in our community for the entire summer.
(00:23):
And that is so Soda, Taylor, Jeffrey and Bridget. And
before we guys think these four students who are going
to go right to the poblic Cold for her weekly
poem pray incantation on Gold, please get a roll.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you, Peter. I'm going to do out of my
new book that's coming out in actually a couple of weeks.
It's the Countdown. I'm going to do the Fear We
Deny from the book be the poem living Beyond our Fears.
The most powerless fear is the one we deny. The feared.
We do not grow through the fear that festers and
consumes us, the fear that turns into resentment and hate,
(00:55):
destroying us from within, the fear that makes us, unrecognized
even to.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ourselves, unrecognizable to ourselves. That's where the first acts of
courage is finding who the heck you really are? The uh.
Let me be a little slower, and Jeffrey, maybe we'll
start on on the left, my left, which is my
favorite direction. The uh. And if you tell us you
(01:21):
know your full name, where you're from, UH, where you're
uh family is from? Where, what major you have in
fat faster, and what year you're in. That's a lot
of information, but you can remember it all.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So my name is Jeffrey Portio. I'm originally from Missouri,
where I was born and raised, and my parents are
from El Salvador. And right now I'm currently undecided, but
I'm thinking of a major between political science or mathematics
and maybe both.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And what year are you in?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I just completed my first year, so I'm a rising sophomore.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Okay, that that phrase, I'm arising this. That's she's twenty
years every similar and it's but it's such an optimistic term,
you know.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's like when someone says, you know, we just six
talked to a six year old and they go, you know,
how old are you? I'm six and a half I'm
gonna be seven next week.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
You know that's great.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I'm going to use that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I don't know what year I'm going to put it into.
I'm rising.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I can't resist bridge before. Have you introduced yourself? I
have a niece who had it was three years old
her birthday and I said, I hear you had a birthday?
How old are you? And she said, I'm almost four.
You know, this is the kid who is a natural
not teller of the truth. You know, but that's not
(02:46):
relevant to your name and your situation. Faster.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
My name is bridget Nally and I'm going into my
senior year at Vassar. I'm originally from North Carolina, and
I'm an anthropology major with a correlate in air, language
and Culture.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
There's a lot of combined majors of Faster, every one
of the surprisings, Uh, what bet you?
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Hi?
Speaker 6 (03:09):
So I'm Taylor Frasier. I'm originally from Virginia. I am
in I'm a rising senior as well. I'm an International
studies major with like a focus on political science and history,
and then I also have a minor in history.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And where do you bet you? Dakota?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (03:28):
I'm s Toota blomb Quist. I'm originally from Ethiopia, but
I was adopted and now my family lives in Chicago, Chicago.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Area, Western suburb.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
I have a geography major with a French minor.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
And yeah, is that it.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
She's also going into her senior year with rising.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Rising.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So Tota tell our listeners what setta me means?
Speaker 7 (04:02):
Setota It means gift from God. It's Amharic, which is
the language they speak in Ethiopia. And yeah, I think
my mom. I met my mom once and she said
that I was born on a Sunday, so I think
religion is really important to her. So that was Yeah,
(04:23):
that's my name.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I'm glad they kept it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And how old were you when you were adopted?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I was five years old turning six, So.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You really know something about you really grew up to
some extent in Ethiopian culture. Yeah, so you probably don't
speak Ethiopian now, but but you probably could understand some
of it.
Speaker 7 (04:44):
I actually have basically completely lost it.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, it's quite sad, but.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
I definitely did know, like when I was like when
I first moved to the US, and like, yeah, I
took a while to get to know English, but it
definitely went faster than most people, I think, because.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, you're not forgetting your name, so you know, we're
all learning that. And even the national language of vv OP.
I never heard the name of it. If you could
tell us that again, I appreciate it. How do you
spell that.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
A M H A R.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I s okay, that sounds like it has an h
at the at the beginning of it, you know the
way the way it's pronounced.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Uh, Learning how to spell it didn't help me.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So so all of these sort of classify yourself a
little bit as community activists, you know, at at Vassar.
Let's do one at a time. What jeff Jeffrey right,
what what placed you on this road, this journey when
you came to school. Did you already know Was this
already a part of your life? Oh, it was something
(06:00):
that you stepped into once you got into Vassar and campus.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I would definitely say it was a little bit of both.
I had no idea about this program or much about
the Bickkeepsie community when I was coming into Vassar, and
I say around my first year, I noticed like a
strong disconnect between me and basically everything that surrounded me,
and I think that's what led me to the OSAL
Office and basically wanting to know more about my surroundings,
(06:27):
just that feeling of disconnect, and that's where I learned
about community fellows and where I've gotten more involved with
these wonderful people as community activists.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Bember did not everyone knows what the oh Sale Office is?
Can you when you guys explain that.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
The Osale Office is the Office of Community Engaged Learning,
and both Pete or well Pete started the office, but
both Satota and Jeffrey are community fellows and they can
speak to that experience. But it's been really cool to
watch them take on those roles this summer.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
When I worked at VASA, which was for thirty years,
but I retired ten years ago, we used to call
the what's now called the Office of Community Engaged Learning,
which is sort of a mouthful, but you sort of
know what they're talking about. When I was there, it
was called the field Work Office, which sounded to me
very much as if I did something special at second
base at Yankee Stadium. I mean, it just doesn't explain anything.
(07:28):
And I did not start the field Work Office, but
because that was started like before, I was born in
nineteen forty five forty six, which is really progressive on
vastest parts to have something, you know, for seventy five
years that I said, our students are going to get
(07:48):
great stuff in the classroom. But that's not enough. I
mean that we have to have more direct experience, which
came to be called experiential learning. And but you might
want to explain what projects you've been on this year.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
I've been doing. Yeah, this summer, I've had a couple
of things through the o CELL. I have been doing
a community engaged learning project with Prisoner's brain Trust, which
has been really amazing. My bosses, Alicia and Paris have
both been so influential, and I think the whole experience
has both been fulfilling and really illuminating, building off of
(08:29):
a lot of things that I've been thinking about this
past year.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'm sorry, can you explain what Prison's brain Trust is?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
Sure, Prisoner's brain Trust is a prisoner's rights organization locally
in the Hudson Valley, but we work on the state
level advocating for prisoner's rights, the rights of the incarcerated
and formerly incarcerated. And what I'm working on is the
faces of the Felony Murder Law Campaign, which is a
campaign to get a repeal bill passed through the New
York State legislature which would repeal the felony murder law
(08:59):
subsecution of the New York State Penal Code, which under
which a person can be charged a second degree murder
even if they did not cause the death of another.
And there are some really insane cases the different folks
that we have on the campaign who are sort of
speaking about their stories who are currently incarcerated. You know,
a situations such as a person being asleep and lending
(09:24):
their car to one of their friends during which their
car was used in a situation where a person died
and that person who lent their car and was asleep
at the time is now in prison for twenty five
to life. So that work isn't really amazing. And then
also I've had the pleasure of working with Pete and
Poet Gold this summer.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Then we need it, Jeffrey, would bet you would project
you want.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I'm currently with ENGINE, which stands for a New Gym
co Action Network and it's like a small grassroots organization
that started in the Pikeepsie community around twenty eleven and
we kind of focus on institutionalized racism and ending mass incarceration,
and we also lobby a bit. We've gone up to
Albany and spoke with some of our legislatures about passing
(10:13):
more legislation like the Right to Know Act, which recently
we were able to pass in the town of the
city of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
My bad.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And it just forces officers to identify themselves as a
de escalation tactic. And we're making sure and we're meeting
with lots of people like the chief of police, ensuring
that this is actually being enforced.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, for those of you who are just tuning in,
were listening to finding out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold, and we're here with a
group of students from Vassar, a couple of community fellows,
as well as activists of Vassar activists community activists such
as Satota Taylor, Jeffrey and Bridget Taylor. I want to
talk to you for a minute and tell us about
(10:52):
the projects that you're and I also know that you're
a community fellow, and perhaps you can speak to what
a community fellow is as well as the project that
you're engaged in.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Yeah, I will leave the community fellow conversation to Setota.
She's community fellow right now. I am a CAD scholar,
which stands for Creative Arts Across Disciplines, which basically means
I was I applied to any opportunity through the Office
of Community Engaged Learning to be in Poughkeepsie this summer.
(11:21):
I've been working at Pikeepsi High School since I was
a freshman, and I really have grown to feel very
passionate about the community, and so I wanted to stay
and be around this summer. And through all of those applications,
Professor Tanisha Means of Political Science, she just kept seeing
my name and so she offered me a job as
a CAD scholar where I am helping as a teaching
(11:45):
assistant in a theater arts program for at risk and
justice involved youth in Dutchess County. And so it's the
first time we're running the program. It's based off of
Shakespeare in Company's Fall Festival and Shakespeare in the Courts
programs up in the Burkshire, and it's been a really
amazing opportunity. We've got eleven great students from across the County,
(12:06):
and we do a bunch of theater with our lead
teaching artists who's like a real, like professionally trained New
York City actor, and a lot of also like life
skills workshops where we kind of show these students that
Vassar College campus is accessible to them and it welcomes
them and they deserve to be on this space. It's
a lot of deconstructing some of the divides between the
(12:28):
college and the community. And then I'm also supporting Jeffrey
with all of the amazing engine work that he's been
doing as well.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Bringing down those walls absolutely between vast and community is
so important, you know, this is it's been a history
of perception, absolutely, and so that's that's really important. And
I did have in my note that Setota, you are
the community fellow. I have it right here. I have
a nice star, you know, and totally just surpassed me.
But a Satota tell us what the community Fellows is exactly,
(12:59):
and some project you're engaging as well?
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Yeah, sorry, Community Fellows is basically well for me, it's
a support system. I think when we first had our meetings,
we could we decided like what each of the meetings
would be about and each week all of the people
who are community fellows come in on Wednesdays and we
(13:23):
have a dinner and we talk about what.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
They prepared for us for that for that day.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
But like last week or a few weeks ago, we
were talking about like the history of Poughkeepsie because we've
all like learned it in our class or at least
I have geography classes. But it was much more in
like an academic sense, and a lot of us noted
that we wanted a deeper understanding and like just an
(13:52):
understanding of Poughkeepsie, not related to anything else, just Poughkeepsie.
So that's been really great. And I'm working through Mass
Design and and yeah, mass has been amazing. I've been
getting a lot of community event work to do and
(14:16):
and yeah, that's been really great.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
A Mass Design is a you know, international organization of
an architecture firmass. Yeah, and it's also something that really
believes that architecture is self a human service, healing thing.
And the founder of Mass Design, who no longer is
with it, was Mike Murphy. He grew up in Poughkeepsie
(14:42):
and his father was actually a city manager in Poughkeepsie
and have you. You probably haven't met me.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
I haven't met him. I think he's not in like
in New York anymore, right.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And he's international. But this guy is like the Elvis
of human service, I mean really charismatic kind of person
who has worked in building hospitals and not Ethiopia, Tanzania
or Kenya Rwanda is what it was. So you would
(15:17):
have more of a handle on that than I would.
But it's a great organization that has surprising values around
your environment is part of your your healing or your abuse.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now I noticed that there's a common thread amongst you
in wanting to know Pokeepsie a little bit more, and
all of you're doing really great work through agencies. Have
you figured out a way to actually connect or have
you connected actually with the citizens and the people who
are not necessarily associated with one of the organizations that
(15:51):
you would Let me say, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
An unfair question. I mean you and I haven't figured
out association with when.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It comes to the MIC, so stand back a little speak.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
No, I think. Yeah, something that Jeffrey and I have
both done as part of our work with Engine specifically
has been tabling at events. So we were at Pickkeepsie
Pride and as well we were at the Juneteenth event,
and so that I would say was a really amazing
opportunity for us to engage just with Pickpsy citizens in
a way that was not like, yes, we were there
(16:29):
as representatives of Engine, but like we weren't in a bubble.
We weren't in a space that would only attract people
from the Vasser Institution or from any specific organization, and
so we got to talk to a lot of amazing people,
sometimes about Engine, sometimes about the food, trucks and the music,
and so that was I would say, one of the
most amazing ways because that was really early on in
(16:51):
the internship as well, and so that was a great
way to engage with the community. And I think for
us we actually kind of directed some of the work
that we've been doing for Engine based on those interactions
with community members. I don't know if you want to
add on, Jeffrey.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Well, I think you covered it very well. I think,
just at least for me, this was my first time
going into the Poughkeepsie community and seeing how vibrant it
was and really interacting and just basically just starting small
talk with strangers that I haven't met was really nice.
And I also got a bigger sense of community. Not
only did we table at Juneteenth, but as well as Pride.
As Taylor mentioned, but I kept seeing like familiar faces.
(17:28):
So it was really nice not only a vibrant community,
but the same people that come together to really celebrate community.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And I know that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You know, sometimes those of us who work in different organizations,
we do get in a bubble and it becomes action
in a sort of to the choir, and our perspective
can be skewed based upon the bubble that we're in.
So I think also sometimes just generally connecting with the
people on the streets, the people walking by somehow becomes
really important about creating a larger voice.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
I do think that, like being in Poughkeepsie over this
or we've really taken the opportunity where, yes, we hear
about different things through our different organization. We may be
attending things with in affiliation with our organizations, but also
at least I think the approach I've taken is with
my free time. If there's a meeting I hear about
through Taylor or through Satota or through someone else, I'm going.
(18:18):
If it's open to the public, I'm there and I'm
really not going as a as a representative of my organization.
I'm going as a representative of me, myself and I.
But we've we've gone to a lot of protests. We've
gone to a really amazing ENAACP meeting with the district
attorney which was really informative. And then through I mean,
(18:39):
as Jeffrey I think you said, really well, through all
these different events and meeting all these different people, you
start to see a lot of familiar faces and not
in of itself, I think is so fulfilling. And through
one protest we met Judy Nichols, which was really awesome,
and we actually went to her house before another protest
to sort of make materiels and signs and pins for
(19:03):
this upcoming event. And then going to that protest, Jeffrey
and I saw you there, Golden and Pete, and it
was so satisfying to walk around and see all these
people who I do not yet know, but wearing the
pins that we had sat down and made for so long.
There was something really special about that. So I think, yeah,
(19:24):
the approach that we've taken this summer is just diving
in fully with any chance an opportunity that.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
We get and I can I could attest this. I
think I commented one time when I bumped into you
someplace and I was like, my gosh, you are.
Speaker 8 (19:34):
Everywhere and h it depins, by the way, are really
pretty butterfly pins, you know, symbolized you know, the monerl butterfly.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Because New Mexico and the United States and nobody's against
the monol butterfly. Some people are against the other.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
And that's all Judy. That was her idea and her creation.
I just sat there with the glue gun.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
The glug gun is very important once again to be
just tuning in. You're listening to finding out with Pete
and the poet Gold. I'm Peter and I'm the poet Gold.
And we're here with a vast community activist and fellows Uh, Satota, Taylor,
Jeffrey and Bridget having a wonderful conversation about community.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
How do you think your family's back home would react to, Uh?
Would you react to you being in Poughkeepsie because I
mean familiar. If you're from Missouri and you could go
to Poughkeepsie, you want to see them? Uh in the summer?
So how did how did how was your family responding
to this, So cor do you want to take you there? Sure?
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I think my mom was definitely disappointed that I would
not be home, especially like this is like the last
summer before the real world.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I suppose after senior year.
Speaker 7 (20:51):
But I've definitely been sending her updates on everything that
I've been doing and weekly calls at least, so she's
I think, really of how close I'm getting with the community,
and I think my feelings towards the community and my
passion for it. I think she loves hearing about that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And when you say your hometown.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's the Chicago area, Chicago.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And tell what about you and how's your family taking you?
Being kidnapped bypsie.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I would say very similarly to Seatota's situation. I remember
when I was telling my mom that I was applying
to a bunch of different opportunities in Poughkeepsy way back
when in like February.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
She kind of looked at.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
Me for a second and she was like, I just
I have a feeling that you are going to be
in Poughkeepsie this summer.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I was like really, and she was like.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Yeah, I really do, And she said it with such
like honesty and like thoughtfulness, and so then I remember
months down the line, when I did end up choosing
to stay in Poughkeepsie and everything worked out, she was like, see,
I told you it would all work out, and so
it was. It was nice to have support there.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Your mother's used to seeing you get things you try for.
I know what she means, what about you.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Yeah, I think it's a it's a similar sentiment where
my parents would definitely prefer to have me home, just
hanging out on the couch where I usually am when
I'm there. But I think they understand, like how much
I care about what I'm doing here and the ways
that it's fulfilling, and it's sort of expanding my mind
and my understandings of both this place and the world
(22:31):
at large. But there is you know, so Tota sort
of touched on, like the fear of after graduation. I
remember a phone call with my dad sort of earlier
on in the spring semester. I was telling about, you know,
all these different things I was applying to in Poughkeepsie
but also New York City and Chicago and Boston, and
he went and you know, my dad, you know, he's
(22:52):
sort of out of the loop as dads are sometimes
and he was like, wait, what do you mean you're
not You're not coming home right right?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
And I went no, and my mom was she he.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Was sort of in the background. She goes, no, Steve,
and he was like, you're not coming home? No, Wow,
I guess my daughter's never coming home again, you know.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And that sort of tears your heart out.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
But I think they understand and they know that there
will always be periods of time where I'm sitting back
on that couch with them.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, Steve's gonna get used to it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, much like everyone mentioned before, when I told my mother,
she was a bit shocked, and I think that comes
from a lot of unknowing since she's never been to
Bassa or New York. But at the end, she was happy.
I call her like at least once a week, and
she's always happy. She's excited to hear what I'm doing.
And most importantly, I think she's happy for me, knowing
that I enjoy.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
What I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And where are you from? It's a really small town
and the southernmost part of Missouri, almost in Arkansas. It's
a small town named Carthage where I live on a
farm with cattle and.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
That brings me to geography, and I have, you know,
no idea where that is. But I'm curious, geography major,
How did that come about?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't run into a lot of geography majors, and
so I'm just I'm just, you know, curious.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
No.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm very actually proud to be a geography major
because so many people are not right right.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But actually I came.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Into Vassar wanting to do international studies, and it quite
literally is pretty similar. Geography has to do with people
and the land and the relationship between people and the
land and between lands, I guess. But I just really
(24:44):
loved how how small of a department it was, and
how many professors were available to me, like I could
just go to office hours and I would get to
know them. But also Professor Nevins got me into it.
Joseph Evans. I had my first class with him, Global
(25:05):
Geography freshman year.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
He hooked me on and he's my advisor and I
love him so much. He really makes me think about
the world in a different way, in a in a
way that like I never thought before, Like spatially, I
don't know. That was just so new to me, and
I simply latched onto that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So when you were speaking about the relationship between land
and people, I sort of got a hint of sociology
in that as well.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
In that relationship it's very close.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
And yeah, and it's very interdisciplinary itself. Like I take
a lot of classes in different departments and they still
count for geography major, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
When I was running up geography mental mountains in the
rivers and there was it's much more like a it's
a it's a relationship. You say, that's a good word,
but it's more of a social science than a hard science,
for sure. One of the things I wanted to point
(26:12):
out about the Vasiti you were all of you were
so good to saying, Man, I really like Poughkeepsie. And
one of the things that I'm expecting none of you
came to Vasa because it was in Poughkeepsie, h And
Vasa College did not tell you, hey, man, you got
(26:33):
to come here because we're in Poughkeepsie. Like Poughkeepsie is
really something. And my experience is that Pickkeepsie is an
ideal place for a student to come because it's small
enough that you can actually get to know people and
you run into people, you go to the protests, you
know somebody who was that you were at the county
(26:55):
legislative events. So you get to know people, you can
be known, you can get to know the leaders. Whereas
if you go to New York City where I grew up,
and you get an internship or any kind of thing
you get, you know, yeah, go go over in the
corner and crunch the data. So Poughkeepsie is a great place,
(27:17):
an ideal sized city with vibrant people. In my sense
is you're lucky to be in Poughkeepsie. And Vasa never
learned that they should be saying, hey man, it's Poughkeepsie,
get in here.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I know, even movies they drop the name Poughkeepsie. You
ever watch a film and all of a sudden they're
talking and making some joke about Poughkeepsie. Right, So, what,
if anything, what do you hope your footprint is.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Oh, that's a good question. I would hope that my
footprint is definitely someone who brought more people together. I understand,
like now especially there's like a lot of uncertainty in
the air, and so I hope my footprint as a
representative is just someone who made more awareness with a
lot of the information that we have and just simply
(28:06):
brought people together almost let's.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Just go down the road.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Brittany, Yeah, I think that that's a bridge. I'm sorry,
put really well, Jeffrey and I would say something similar,
both in terms of the footprint that I wish to
have this summer, and then also just like largely in
life is being a connector. I hope that my footprint
this summer is part of a larger footprint that is
left that builds a bridge between Vassar and the community,
(28:35):
and that it's not just every summer there are a
small handful of students that get to have this wonderful
epiphany of oh wait, this is a really awesome place
to be. And I think the ocell is doing an
amazing job of this, of over time building a really
strong bridge between the two. And then yeah, I just
hope to carry the same thing out into the world,
(28:56):
whether that's in Pickeepsie or wherever I end up, just
being a connector between people.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Yeah, I think I'm basically gonna mirror what Bridget and
Jeffrey said. You know, the connections that we've had the
privilege of building with the community and with organizations and
with people this summer, those don't end when we go
back to school, and so I'm really excited to continue
those connections and to expand them out and share you know,
the people I've met and the things that I've learned,
(29:24):
uh with other people at Vassar. And Yeah, I think
being a connector, as like uh a general aspiration is
is a really beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 7 (29:34):
Yeah, I think very similarly. Love the word connector gonna
use it. I Yeah, I definitely don't want to be
like a stranger to put kipsie too when I leave,
I want I want to be a connector in the
way that like I'm talking about it too, outside of
Vassar and outside of New York, Like, wherever I go,
(29:57):
I'm going to be spreading that that love that I
know that is in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And the other insight, no matter where you go, you
know how to fit into a new situation, and no
matter where you go, there are really great, dynamic people.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
And so we're out of time. We're out of time.
What a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for being
with us today. It Setota Taylor, Jeffrey Bridget keep doing
the great work that you're doing. You know the city
needs it. We appreciate your presence and to the listeners,
we appreciate your presence as well in listening every week
with us on finding out a Pete and the poet go,
thank you and stay lifted
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find out
with Pete and the Poet Cold. I'm Petere on It
and I'm the poet Gold, and we're on the air
this morning with four students from Vassar College oral community
activists who have been in our community for the entire summer.
(00:23):
And that is so Soda, Taylor, Jeffrey and Bridget. And
before we guys think these four students who are going
to go right to the poblic Cold for her weekly
poem pray incantation on Gold, please get a roll.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you, Peter. I'm going to do out of my
new book that's coming out in actually a couple of weeks.
It's the Countdown. I'm going to do the Fear We
Deny from the book be the poem living Beyond our Fears.
The most powerless fear is the one we deny. The feared.
We do not grow through the fear that festers and
consumes us, the fear that turns into resentment and hate,
(00:55):
destroying us from within, the fear that makes us, unrecognized
even to.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ourselves, unrecognizable to ourselves. That's where the first acts of
courage is finding who the heck you really are? The uh.
Let me be a little slower, and Jeffrey, maybe we'll
start on on the left, my left, which is my
favorite direction. The uh. And if you tell us you
(01:21):
know your full name, where you're from, UH, where you're
uh family is from? Where, what major you have in
fat faster, and what year you're in. That's a lot
of information, but you can remember it all.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So my name is Jeffrey Portio. I'm originally from Missouri,
where I was born and raised, and my parents are
from El Salvador. And right now I'm currently undecided, but
I'm thinking of a major between political science or mathematics
and maybe both.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And what year are you in?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I just completed my first year, so I'm a rising sophomore.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Okay, that that phrase, I'm arising this. That's she's twenty
years every similar and it's but it's such an optimistic term,
you know.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's like when someone says, you know, we just six
talked to a six year old and they go, you know,
how old are you? I'm six and a half I'm
gonna be seven next week.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
You know that's great.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I'm going to use that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I don't know what year I'm going to put it into.
I'm rising.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I can't resist bridge before. Have you introduced yourself? I
have a niece who had it was three years old
her birthday and I said, I hear you had a birthday?
How old are you? And she said, I'm almost four.
You know, this is the kid who is a natural
not teller of the truth. You know, but that's not
(02:46):
relevant to your name and your situation. Faster.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
My name is bridget Nally and I'm going into my
senior year at Vassar. I'm originally from North Carolina, and
I'm an anthropology major with a correlate in air, language
and Culture.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
There's a lot of combined majors of Faster, every one
of the surprisings, Uh, what bet you?
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Hi?
Speaker 6 (03:09):
So I'm Taylor Frasier. I'm originally from Virginia. I am
in I'm a rising senior as well. I'm an International
studies major with like a focus on political science and history,
and then I also have a minor in history.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And where do you bet you? Dakota?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (03:28):
I'm s Toota blomb Quist. I'm originally from Ethiopia, but
I was adopted and now my family lives in Chicago, Chicago.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Area, Western suburb.
Speaker 7 (03:41):
I have a geography major with a French minor.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
And yeah, is that it.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
She's also going into her senior year with rising.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Rising.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So Tota tell our listeners what setta me means?
Speaker 7 (04:02):
Setota It means gift from God. It's Amharic, which is
the language they speak in Ethiopia. And yeah, I think
my mom. I met my mom once and she said
that I was born on a Sunday, so I think
religion is really important to her. So that was Yeah,
(04:23):
that's my name.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I'm glad they kept it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And how old were you when you were adopted?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I was five years old turning six, So.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You really know something about you really grew up to
some extent in Ethiopian culture. Yeah, so you probably don't
speak Ethiopian now, but but you probably could understand some
of it.
Speaker 7 (04:44):
I actually have basically completely lost it.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, it's quite sad, but.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
I definitely did know, like when I was like when
I first moved to the US, and like, yeah, I
took a while to get to know English, but it
definitely went faster than most people, I think, because.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, you're not forgetting your name, so you know, we're
all learning that. And even the national language of vv OP.
I never heard the name of it. If you could
tell us that again, I appreciate it. How do you
spell that.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
A M H A R.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I s okay, that sounds like it has an h
at the at the beginning of it, you know the
way the way it's pronounced.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Uh, Learning how to spell it didn't help me.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So so all of these sort of classify yourself a
little bit as community activists, you know, at at Vassar.
Let's do one at a time. What jeff Jeffrey right,
what what placed you on this road, this journey when
you came to school. Did you already know Was this
already a part of your life? Oh, it was something
(06:00):
that you stepped into once you got into Vassar and campus.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I would definitely say it was a little bit of both.
I had no idea about this program or much about
the Bickkeepsie community when I was coming into Vassar, and
I say around my first year, I noticed like a
strong disconnect between me and basically everything that surrounded me,
and I think that's what led me to the OSAL
Office and basically wanting to know more about my surroundings,
(06:27):
just that feeling of disconnect, and that's where I learned
about community fellows and where I've gotten more involved with
these wonderful people as community activists.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Bember did not everyone knows what the oh Sale Office is?
Can you when you guys explain that.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
The Osale Office is the Office of Community Engaged Learning,
and both Pete or well Pete started the office, but
both Satota and Jeffrey are community fellows and they can
speak to that experience. But it's been really cool to
watch them take on those roles this summer.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
When I worked at VASA, which was for thirty years,
but I retired ten years ago, we used to call
the what's now called the Office of Community Engaged Learning,
which is sort of a mouthful, but you sort of
know what they're talking about. When I was there, it
was called the field Work Office, which sounded to me
very much as if I did something special at second
base at Yankee Stadium. I mean, it just doesn't explain anything.
(07:28):
And I did not start the field Work Office, but
because that was started like before, I was born in
nineteen forty five forty six, which is really progressive on
vastest parts to have something, you know, for seventy five
years that I said, our students are going to get
(07:48):
great stuff in the classroom. But that's not enough. I
mean that we have to have more direct experience, which
came to be called experiential learning. And but you might
want to explain what projects you've been on this year.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
I've been doing. Yeah, this summer, I've had a couple
of things through the o CELL. I have been doing
a community engaged learning project with Prisoner's brain Trust, which
has been really amazing. My bosses, Alicia and Paris have
both been so influential, and I think the whole experience
has both been fulfilling and really illuminating, building off of
(08:29):
a lot of things that I've been thinking about this
past year.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'm sorry, can you explain what Prison's brain Trust is?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
Sure, Prisoner's brain Trust is a prisoner's rights organization locally
in the Hudson Valley, but we work on the state
level advocating for prisoner's rights, the rights of the incarcerated
and formerly incarcerated. And what I'm working on is the
faces of the Felony Murder Law Campaign, which is a
campaign to get a repeal bill passed through the New
York State legislature which would repeal the felony murder law
(08:59):
subsecution of the New York State Penal Code, which under
which a person can be charged a second degree murder
even if they did not cause the death of another.
And there are some really insane cases the different folks
that we have on the campaign who are sort of
speaking about their stories who are currently incarcerated. You know,
a situations such as a person being asleep and lending
(09:24):
their car to one of their friends during which their
car was used in a situation where a person died
and that person who lent their car and was asleep
at the time is now in prison for twenty five
to life. So that work isn't really amazing. And then
also I've had the pleasure of working with Pete and
Poet Gold this summer.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Then we need it, Jeffrey, would bet you would project
you want.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I'm currently with ENGINE, which stands for a New Gym
co Action Network and it's like a small grassroots organization
that started in the Pikeepsie community around twenty eleven and
we kind of focus on institutionalized racism and ending mass incarceration,
and we also lobby a bit. We've gone up to
Albany and spoke with some of our legislatures about passing
(10:13):
more legislation like the Right to Know Act, which recently
we were able to pass in the town of the
city of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
My bad.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And it just forces officers to identify themselves as a
de escalation tactic. And we're making sure and we're meeting
with lots of people like the chief of police, ensuring
that this is actually being enforced.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, for those of you who are just tuning in,
were listening to finding out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold, and we're here with a
group of students from Vassar, a couple of community fellows,
as well as activists of Vassar activists community activists such
as Satota Taylor, Jeffrey and Bridget Taylor. I want to
talk to you for a minute and tell us about
(10:52):
the projects that you're and I also know that you're
a community fellow, and perhaps you can speak to what
a community fellow is as well as the project that
you're engaged in.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Yeah, I will leave the community fellow conversation to Setota.
She's community fellow right now. I am a CAD scholar,
which stands for Creative Arts Across Disciplines, which basically means
I was I applied to any opportunity through the Office
of Community Engaged Learning to be in Poughkeepsie this summer.
(11:21):
I've been working at Pikeepsi High School since I was
a freshman, and I really have grown to feel very
passionate about the community, and so I wanted to stay
and be around this summer. And through all of those applications,
Professor Tanisha Means of Political Science, she just kept seeing
my name and so she offered me a job as
a CAD scholar where I am helping as a teaching
(11:45):
assistant in a theater arts program for at risk and
justice involved youth in Dutchess County. And so it's the
first time we're running the program. It's based off of
Shakespeare in Company's Fall Festival and Shakespeare in the Courts
programs up in the Burkshire, and it's been a really
amazing opportunity. We've got eleven great students from across the County,
(12:06):
and we do a bunch of theater with our lead
teaching artists who's like a real, like professionally trained New
York City actor, and a lot of also like life
skills workshops where we kind of show these students that
Vassar College campus is accessible to them and it welcomes
them and they deserve to be on this space. It's
a lot of deconstructing some of the divides between the
(12:28):
college and the community. And then I'm also supporting Jeffrey
with all of the amazing engine work that he's been
doing as well.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Bringing down those walls absolutely between vast and community is
so important, you know, this is it's been a history
of perception, absolutely, and so that's that's really important. And
I did have in my note that Setota, you are
the community fellow. I have it right here. I have
a nice star, you know, and totally just surpassed me.
But a Satota tell us what the community Fellows is exactly,
(12:59):
and some project you're engaging as well?
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Yeah, sorry, Community Fellows is basically well for me, it's
a support system. I think when we first had our meetings,
we could we decided like what each of the meetings
would be about and each week all of the people
who are community fellows come in on Wednesdays and we
(13:23):
have a dinner and we talk about what.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
They prepared for us for that for that day.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
But like last week or a few weeks ago, we
were talking about like the history of Poughkeepsie because we've
all like learned it in our class or at least
I have geography classes. But it was much more in
like an academic sense, and a lot of us noted
that we wanted a deeper understanding and like just an
(13:52):
understanding of Poughkeepsie, not related to anything else, just Poughkeepsie.
So that's been really great. And I'm working through Mass
Design and and yeah, mass has been amazing. I've been
getting a lot of community event work to do and
(14:16):
and yeah, that's been really great.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
A Mass Design is a you know, international organization of
an architecture firmass. Yeah, and it's also something that really
believes that architecture is self a human service, healing thing.
And the founder of Mass Design, who no longer is
with it, was Mike Murphy. He grew up in Poughkeepsie
(14:42):
and his father was actually a city manager in Poughkeepsie
and have you. You probably haven't met me.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
I haven't met him. I think he's not in like
in New York anymore, right.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And he's international. But this guy is like the Elvis
of human service, I mean really charismatic kind of person
who has worked in building hospitals and not Ethiopia, Tanzania
or Kenya Rwanda is what it was. So you would
(15:17):
have more of a handle on that than I would.
But it's a great organization that has surprising values around
your environment is part of your your healing or your abuse.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Now I noticed that there's a common thread amongst you
in wanting to know Pokeepsie a little bit more, and
all of you're doing really great work through agencies. Have
you figured out a way to actually connect or have
you connected actually with the citizens and the people who
are not necessarily associated with one of the organizations that
(15:51):
you would Let me say, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
An unfair question. I mean you and I haven't figured
out association with when.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It comes to the MIC, so stand back a little speak.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
No, I think. Yeah, something that Jeffrey and I have
both done as part of our work with Engine specifically
has been tabling at events. So we were at Pickkeepsie
Pride and as well we were at the Juneteenth event,
and so that I would say was a really amazing
opportunity for us to engage just with Pickpsy citizens in
a way that was not like, yes, we were there
(16:29):
as representatives of Engine, but like we weren't in a bubble.
We weren't in a space that would only attract people
from the Vasser Institution or from any specific organization, and
so we got to talk to a lot of amazing people,
sometimes about Engine, sometimes about the food, trucks and the music,
and so that was I would say, one of the
most amazing ways because that was really early on in
(16:51):
the internship as well, and so that was a great
way to engage with the community. And I think for
us we actually kind of directed some of the work
that we've been doing for Engine based on those interactions
with community members. I don't know if you want to
add on, Jeffrey.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Well, I think you covered it very well. I think,
just at least for me, this was my first time
going into the Poughkeepsie community and seeing how vibrant it
was and really interacting and just basically just starting small
talk with strangers that I haven't met was really nice.
And I also got a bigger sense of community. Not
only did we table at Juneteenth, but as well as Pride.
As Taylor mentioned, but I kept seeing like familiar faces.
(17:28):
So it was really nice not only a vibrant community,
but the same people that come together to really celebrate community.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And I know that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You know, sometimes those of us who work in different organizations,
we do get in a bubble and it becomes action
in a sort of to the choir, and our perspective
can be skewed based upon the bubble that we're in.
So I think also sometimes just generally connecting with the
people on the streets, the people walking by somehow becomes
really important about creating a larger voice.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
I do think that, like being in Poughkeepsie over this
or we've really taken the opportunity where, yes, we hear
about different things through our different organization. We may be
attending things with in affiliation with our organizations, but also
at least I think the approach I've taken is with
my free time. If there's a meeting I hear about
through Taylor or through Satota or through someone else, I'm going.
(18:18):
If it's open to the public, I'm there and I'm
really not going as a as a representative of my organization.
I'm going as a representative of me, myself and I.
But we've we've gone to a lot of protests. We've
gone to a really amazing ENAACP meeting with the district
attorney which was really informative. And then through I mean,
(18:39):
as Jeffrey I think you said, really well, through all
these different events and meeting all these different people, you
start to see a lot of familiar faces and not
in of itself, I think is so fulfilling. And through
one protest we met Judy Nichols, which was really awesome,
and we actually went to her house before another protest
to sort of make materiels and signs and pins for
(19:03):
this upcoming event. And then going to that protest, Jeffrey
and I saw you there, Golden and Pete, and it
was so satisfying to walk around and see all these
people who I do not yet know, but wearing the
pins that we had sat down and made for so long.
There was something really special about that. So I think, yeah,
(19:24):
the approach that we've taken this summer is just diving
in fully with any chance an opportunity that.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
We get and I can I could attest this. I
think I commented one time when I bumped into you
someplace and I was like, my gosh, you are.
Speaker 8 (19:34):
Everywhere and h it depins, by the way, are really
pretty butterfly pins, you know, symbolized you know, the monerl butterfly.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Because New Mexico and the United States and nobody's against
the monol butterfly. Some people are against the other.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
And that's all Judy. That was her idea and her creation.
I just sat there with the glue gun.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
The glug gun is very important once again to be
just tuning in. You're listening to finding out with Pete
and the poet Gold. I'm Peter and I'm the poet Gold.
And we're here with a vast community activist and fellows Uh, Satota, Taylor,
Jeffrey and Bridget having a wonderful conversation about community.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
How do you think your family's back home would react to, Uh?
Would you react to you being in Poughkeepsie because I
mean familiar. If you're from Missouri and you could go
to Poughkeepsie, you want to see them? Uh in the summer?
So how did how did how was your family responding
to this, So cor do you want to take you there? Sure?
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I think my mom was definitely disappointed that I would
not be home, especially like this is like the last
summer before the real world.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I suppose after senior year.
Speaker 7 (20:51):
But I've definitely been sending her updates on everything that
I've been doing and weekly calls at least, so she's
I think, really of how close I'm getting with the community,
and I think my feelings towards the community and my
passion for it. I think she loves hearing about that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And when you say your hometown.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's the Chicago area, Chicago.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And tell what about you and how's your family taking you?
Being kidnapped bypsie.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I would say very similarly to Seatota's situation. I remember
when I was telling my mom that I was applying
to a bunch of different opportunities in Poughkeepsy way back
when in like February.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
She kind of looked at.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
Me for a second and she was like, I just
I have a feeling that you are going to be
in Poughkeepsie this summer.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I was like really, and she was like.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Yeah, I really do, And she said it with such
like honesty and like thoughtfulness, and so then I remember
months down the line, when I did end up choosing
to stay in Poughkeepsie and everything worked out, she was like, see,
I told you it would all work out, and so
it was. It was nice to have support there.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Your mother's used to seeing you get things you try for.
I know what she means, what about you.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Yeah, I think it's a it's a similar sentiment where
my parents would definitely prefer to have me home, just
hanging out on the couch where I usually am when
I'm there. But I think they understand, like how much
I care about what I'm doing here and the ways
that it's fulfilling, and it's sort of expanding my mind
and my understandings of both this place and the world
(22:31):
at large. But there is you know, so Tota sort
of touched on, like the fear of after graduation. I
remember a phone call with my dad sort of earlier
on in the spring semester. I was telling about, you know,
all these different things I was applying to in Poughkeepsie
but also New York City and Chicago and Boston, and
he went and you know, my dad, you know, he's
(22:52):
sort of out of the loop as dads are sometimes
and he was like, wait, what do you mean you're
not You're not coming home right right?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
And I went no, and my mom was she he.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Was sort of in the background. She goes, no, Steve,
and he was like, you're not coming home? No, Wow,
I guess my daughter's never coming home again, you know.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
And that sort of tears your heart out.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
But I think they understand and they know that there
will always be periods of time where I'm sitting back
on that couch with them.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, Steve's gonna get used to it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, much like everyone mentioned before, when I told my mother,
she was a bit shocked, and I think that comes
from a lot of unknowing since she's never been to
Bassa or New York. But at the end, she was happy.
I call her like at least once a week, and
she's always happy. She's excited to hear what I'm doing.
And most importantly, I think she's happy for me, knowing
that I enjoy.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
What I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And where are you from? It's a really small town
and the southernmost part of Missouri, almost in Arkansas. It's
a small town named Carthage where I live on a
farm with cattle and.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
That brings me to geography, and I have, you know,
no idea where that is. But I'm curious, geography major,
How did that come about?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't run into a lot of geography majors, and
so I'm just I'm just, you know, curious.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
No.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm very actually proud to be a geography major
because so many people are not right right.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But actually I came.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Into Vassar wanting to do international studies, and it quite
literally is pretty similar. Geography has to do with people
and the land and the relationship between people and the
land and between lands, I guess. But I just really
(24:44):
loved how how small of a department it was, and
how many professors were available to me, like I could
just go to office hours and I would get to
know them. But also Professor Nevins got me into it.
Joseph Evans. I had my first class with him, Global
(25:05):
Geography freshman year.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
He hooked me on and he's my advisor and I
love him so much. He really makes me think about
the world in a different way, in a in a
way that like I never thought before, Like spatially, I
don't know. That was just so new to me, and
I simply latched onto that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So when you were speaking about the relationship between land
and people, I sort of got a hint of sociology
in that as well.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
In that relationship it's very close.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
And yeah, and it's very interdisciplinary itself. Like I take
a lot of classes in different departments and they still
count for geography major, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
When I was running up geography mental mountains in the
rivers and there was it's much more like a it's
a it's a relationship. You say, that's a good word,
but it's more of a social science than a hard science,
for sure. One of the things I wanted to point
(26:12):
out about the Vasiti you were all of you were
so good to saying, Man, I really like Poughkeepsie. And
one of the things that I'm expecting none of you
came to Vasa because it was in Poughkeepsie, h And
Vasa College did not tell you, hey, man, you got
(26:33):
to come here because we're in Poughkeepsie. Like Poughkeepsie is
really something. And my experience is that Pickkeepsie is an
ideal place for a student to come because it's small
enough that you can actually get to know people and
you run into people, you go to the protests, you
know somebody who was that you were at the county
(26:55):
legislative events. So you get to know people, you can
be known, you can get to know the leaders. Whereas
if you go to New York City where I grew up,
and you get an internship or any kind of thing
you get, you know, yeah, go go over in the
corner and crunch the data. So Poughkeepsie is a great place,
(27:17):
an ideal sized city with vibrant people. In my sense
is you're lucky to be in Poughkeepsie. And Vasa never
learned that they should be saying, hey man, it's Poughkeepsie,
get in here.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I know, even movies they drop the name Poughkeepsie. You
ever watch a film and all of a sudden they're
talking and making some joke about Poughkeepsie. Right, So, what,
if anything, what do you hope your footprint is.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Oh, that's a good question. I would hope that my
footprint is definitely someone who brought more people together. I understand,
like now especially there's like a lot of uncertainty in
the air, and so I hope my footprint as a
representative is just someone who made more awareness with a
lot of the information that we have and just simply
(28:06):
brought people together almost let's.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Just go down the road.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Brittany, Yeah, I think that that's a bridge. I'm sorry,
put really well, Jeffrey and I would say something similar,
both in terms of the footprint that I wish to
have this summer, and then also just like largely in
life is being a connector. I hope that my footprint
this summer is part of a larger footprint that is
left that builds a bridge between Vassar and the community,
(28:35):
and that it's not just every summer there are a
small handful of students that get to have this wonderful
epiphany of oh wait, this is a really awesome place
to be. And I think the ocell is doing an
amazing job of this, of over time building a really
strong bridge between the two. And then yeah, I just
hope to carry the same thing out into the world,
(28:56):
whether that's in Pickeepsie or wherever I end up, just
being a connector between people.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Yeah, I think I'm basically gonna mirror what Bridget and
Jeffrey said. You know, the connections that we've had the
privilege of building with the community and with organizations and
with people this summer, those don't end when we go
back to school, and so I'm really excited to continue
those connections and to expand them out and share you know,
the people I've met and the things that I've learned,
(29:24):
uh with other people at Vassar. And Yeah, I think
being a connector, as like uh a general aspiration is
is a really beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 7 (29:34):
Yeah, I think very similarly. Love the word connector gonna
use it. I Yeah, I definitely don't want to be
like a stranger to put kipsie too when I leave,
I want I want to be a connector in the
way that like I'm talking about it too, outside of
Vassar and outside of New York, Like, wherever I go,
(29:57):
I'm going to be spreading that that love that I
know that is in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
And the other insight, no matter where you go, you
know how to fit into a new situation, and no
matter where you go, there are really great, dynamic people.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
And so we're out of time. We're out of time.
What a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for being
with us today. It Setota Taylor, Jeffrey Bridget keep doing
the great work that you're doing. You know the city
needs it. We appreciate your presence and to the listeners,
we appreciate your presence as well in listening every week
with us on finding out a Pete and the poet go,
thank you and stay lifted
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