Podcast appearances and mentions of ryan cummings

With Logan Church, Peter Watson, Ryan Cummings, Charles Edel and Kali Mercier

Military-led Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria have welcomed Russian security forces in the war on Islamist extremism. But what impact has the Russian engagement had on the Sahel region? Eddy Micah Jr. talks to security analyst Ryan Cummings and DW correspondent Bram Posthumus in the Sahel region.

Following the arrest of 95 Libyan nationals linked to an illegal military training camp in Mpumalanga Ryan Cummings, director at risk management consultancy Signal Risk did some digging in the Libyan media to find out more about these men, he joins us live to share what he uncovered The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has not ruled out the possibility of more arrests in the case of 95 Libyan nationals linked to an illegal military training camp in Mpumalanga.  Ryan Cummings, director of Signal Risk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're teeing off with Ryan Cummings from Cackalacky Golf, an outstanding guest and a true aficionado of Carolinian golf.Ryan joins us to dive deep into the vibrant world of golf courses in the Carolinas, sharing his personal adventures on iconic greens from Tobacco Road to Caledonia & True Blue. We'll discover Ryan's fascination with Mike Strantz's innovative designs and how they fuel his passion for Cackalacky Golf, a brand that celebrates the rich golfing culture of North and South Carolina through stylish apparel.We'll also get the inside scoop on Ryan's favorite courses in both states, his memorable moments under match-play pressure, and how a conversation at a wedding sparked the idea for his brand. We dig into some humorous golf anecdotes, his preference for low punch hook shots, and Ryan's dream foursome that guarantees an entertaining round.If you love golf in the Carolinas or wish you were here to play many of the amazing courses, you don't want to miss this episode of The Hole Story Podcast. https://cackalackygolf.com/https://www.instagram.com/cackalackygolf/BestBall Links:•https://BestBall.com•https://linktr.ee/BestBallThe Hole Story Podcast Sponsors:•Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club - Two Play Special - https://truebluegolf.com•Western Birch Golf Co. - Enter "BESTBALL" in the shipping cart for a free gift with your order - https://westernbirch.comInterested in becoming a sponsor of The Hole Story Podcast? Email info@bestball.com.

Any information regarding SCP-7396 is to be scrubbed from public record, with the responsible vector investigated and de-legitimized by any means necessary. Cleanup of SCP-7396 phenomena continues to take place through remote incineration. Content Warnings: Large quantities of corpses. Transcript Patrons Cardi, Xornth, Domcha, Esko Evtyukov, Ryan Cummings, and Robert Groom!  Cast & Crew  SCP Archives was created by Pacific S. Obadiah & Jon Grilz SCP-7396 was written by Billith Script by Kevin Whitlock Narrator - Stephen Indrisano Art by Eduardo Valdés-Hevia Video produced by Dakota Miller Theme Song by Matt Roi Berger Original Music Composed by Dana Creasman Sound Designer - Daisy McNamara Showrunner - Daisy McNamara Creative Director - Pacific S. Obadiah Executive Producers - Tom Owen & Brad Miska Presented by Bloody FM www.Bloody-Disgusting.com www.SCParchives.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scp_pod Store: https://store.dftba.com/collections/scp-archives Twitter: https://twitter.com/scp_pod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scppod Discord: https://discord.gg/tJEeNUzeZX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Cummings, director of Signal Risk looks at the increase in terror warnings and the alerts issued by embassies. He also explored whether they are grounded in fact or to make a political statement.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sitting president of the Security Council, Pedro Comissario chatted with PassBlue on Feb. 24, 24 hours after abstaining again on a UN resolution demanding Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine. He said that certain Western countries, including the US and UK, did the same on Resolution 1514, outlawing colonialism, but he denied that historic ties with the Soviet Union have any bearing on Mozambique's foreign policy today. Ryan Cummings at the Center for Strategic and International Studies differs. And as Mozambique battles a cholera outbreak triggered by tropical storm-induced floods, Comissario shares his painful brush with global warming. Enjoy our 25 minutes of consenting and dissenting views on Mozambique's foreign policy in this episode of UN-Scripted. Seton Hull ad: https://www.shu.edu/ Global Connections Television ad:https://www.globalconnectionstelevision.com/

In this episode, fellow Chido Nyaruwata speaks to Awino Okech, an associate professor of political sociology at SOAS, University London where she teaches in the Department of Politics and International Studies. They discuss Gender, Protests, and Political Change in Africa, a book edited by Dr. Okech. Their discussion reveals the multidimensional conditions which drive African feminist movements  and women's human rights defenders to advocate for transformation of social norms, practices, and inclusive state building in different African countries. In the news wrap, Kim and Rachel talk about "shrinkflation" in Africa and across the world, a special report on terrorism rising from Amani Africa, and a new book on the Islamic state in Africa.Books, Links, & ArticlesAwino OkechGender, Protests, and Political Change in Africa by Awino OkechChido Nyaruwata, Non-Resident FellowFeminist AfricaMaybe I Don't Belong Here by David HarewoodReconsidering Reparations by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò"As Food Prices Continue to Rise, a Dietary Staple Shrinks" by Nakisanze SegawaAmani AfricaThe Islamic State in Africa: The Emergence, Evolution, and Future of the Next Jihadist Battlefront by Jason Warner, Ryan O'Farrell, Héni Nsaibia, and Ryan Cummings

  In this episode, Alay and Ryan discuss:  Small law firms are increasingly victims of cybercrime. How ransomware and other … Small Firm Cybercrime with Ryan Cummings Read More »

In this episode, guest host Kari Hanlin talks with Professor Abigail Cloud, editor of the Mid-American Review, and literary and visual artist Paula J. Lambert. They discuss creative processes in the pandemic, writing as an interdisciplinary practice, and the need for greater diversity in publishing practices.  Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Kari :You're listening to Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and The School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.Kari: I am Kari Hanlin, a PhD student in BGSU's rhetoric and writing program, and a graduate assistant for ICS.Kari :Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. Our sound quality may differ as a result.Kari: As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Odawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial.Kari :Today, we are joined by two guests, Professor Abigail Cloud and Paula J. Lambert.Kari :Abby is the editor in chief of the international literary magazine, Mid-American Review, and a teaching professor in the department of English at BGSU. Her poetry has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, the Cincinnati Review, and other literary journals.Kari :Paula J. Lambert is a literary and visual artist who earned her MFA from BGSU. She has authored two full length poetry collections, several chapbooks, and is a recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence awards. Paula is also a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes collage, assembly, book arts, and more.Kari :So what I'll ask you to do is introduce yourself and any of the key themes of your work to our listeners. And I'll ask Abby to kick us off.Abby:Absolutely.Abby:So I tend to write quite a bit about signs. I'm into this thing right now where I'm investigating our relationship to signs and how we interpret the world around us. So I'm always really interested in the natural world, interested in the woman body and woman's spirit, and also in the body generally in space and how it relates to space time in its own environment.Kari :And then Paula, how would you describe your work?Paula :I think I focus a lot on the juxtaposition of opposites, I guess, looking for the epiphanic moment, trying to understand how things fit together. A lot of my visual artwork is mixed media and collage. So collage is always bringing disparate images together into this new whole. It's something that presents something brand new. And I think I do that a lot in the poetry too. I'm very much interested in bringing poetry and science together. There are so many paired opposites everywhere. The world is full of joy and terror, and there's a constant work, all through my life certainly, all through our lives. That's where my focus is, I guess.Paula :I don't think I summarized as succinctly as Abbey did, but there you go.Kari: I think you both did great. That idea of the juxtaposition between joy and terror, I think is such a fitting way of interacting in the world right now.Kari :And it actually kind of brings me to my next question for you, Paula, because in September of 2020, you published, How to See the World, which is a poetry collection that considers the loneliness of the pandemic, but also how to seek opportunities for interconnection during this time. So how did you write a poetry collection during a pandemic, I think is maybe my first question?Paula :Well, what's kind of crazy is that I actually signed two book contracts during this pandemic, and I have another coming out in January, and I'm actually probably two thirds of the way through a completely new collection. So it's crazy. But really it's kind of, for me, again, personally, it's natural the way I sort of blossomed during this time period, because I've dealt my entire life with really difficult things, with illness. I always feel like that's just what life is, that's not just what my life has been, that's what life is.Paula :I think a lot of us are really good at turning away from it, pretending it's not there, or just looking for distractions out of it. And I've always turned into those things. I'm always looking for the lesson in those things. My whole life has been that way. My whole life full of therapy has been about exploring all those sort of dark places in hard times to find your way back to wellness, and health, and happiness, and joy.Paula :So this was a time for me of just hunkering down and doing more of that. It's been a teaching moment for me to understand all of my own... I'm going to use the word neurodiversity. That's something I haven't been talking much about yet or writing about yet, but I have a very difficult time with sound, and light, and movement. And there's so much I've realized, my whole life, I've put up walls and barriers to navigate my way through the world and to have the opportunity, and for me, the personal joy of being in one place, and not have it to navigate all that so difficult in the world. And to just process my own inner being. It's been joyous for me. Of course, I've had the same difficulties, grief, everyone else has. But again, I've spent my lifetime sort of navigating grief.Kari :Yeah. And I felt like, as I was checking in on research and seeing what you were up to, it was like a new thing was happening so often. I was like, "Oh, wow." Something I noticed when I was reading through your collection... Which is absolutely stunning. I highly encourage everyone to go out there and get it... is that we have these moments of just stillness and this intimate attention to detail from like sanitizing the fruits in the sink to saving the celery stalks that we would not have saved before this time. And it's interesting in that we are kind of working through this experience with you, but also in reading your work, we're being invited to reflect and also confront our own experiences of that weird, mess of grief, and joy, and everything that has happened in the past year.Paula: I was also interacting with a lot of other people and a lot of other ideas through social media, which, Abby Cloud and her little critters have inspired a couple of poems that are in the book. Actually, when Abby posted on Facebook that she found a dead possum in her garage, and it turned into a poem for me. And her little mouse, Hector. The social media for me, took on a real different... I've always had a love-hate relationship with it. But people were looking for community through Facebook. People were talking about, "My God, I'm having memories I haven't had in years. I'm thinking about foods I haven't eaten since I was a kid." And it was such a relief to me that I was not the only one going through those things.Paula: And especially the early days and weeks of the pandemic, it was a relief to say, "I'm not the only one experiencing these nightmares, or these cravings, or these memories." It seemed to be something collectively we were going through. As much as it is a very interior collection, it's very much about community too.Kari: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was very excited for the Hector mention. I was reading through it again this morning, I was like, "I know that mouse through Facebook" Abby:I didn't know Hector was in the book. Oh, I didn't see that. I knew about the possum, but yeah, that's funny. Kari :Yeah. Hector gets a shout out.Kari :So Abby, have you been able to write about the pandemic at all, or just found various elements of the social distancing or the isolation kind of affecting your work, whether it's as a poet, an editor, a teacher, et cetera?Abby:So I, habitually now, in order to really get a lot of writing done, I have to leave. So I have a family farm house in Michigan that I go to and I write there. I just write. The need for isolation, the need for quarantining made that a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the middle of the summer. And I had finished a manuscript earlier, I think maybe January of 2020, but after a few months, I wanted to revisit it. So I also wanted to write another sequence of poems to go in. It's a book that touches on a lot of divination, means of divination, some real and some completely made up. And again, it uses a lot of nature, including lepidoptery especially, but then also just other sort of private means of creating meaning.Abby:And so being in the farmhouse really helped me. There are just little signs and signifiers everywhere, like in the basement was a perfect, complete mouse skeleton just out there on the floor. And that really impressed me, it was an image that impressed itself into my brain. That's the type of material that I really needed to use. And being there in the quiet, I'm disconnected, I'm much more in my brain and that's something that I think a lot of people really struggle with, but I do really well with it. So in a way, the quarantine was part of my own artistic process, I guess, being up there. And I've family up there and I only saw them from afar, like from car to porch, because we didn't want to get near each other. And I think there is a lot of silence in these poems that I wrote while I was up there, which is certainly reflective of the time and of the enforced social silence also.Abby:I haven't written anything about the pandemic specifically, but weirdly I do have a few sort of apocalyptic poems that came before the pandemic, that I think will have additional resonance now. I need to kind of revisit them and see if there's anything that I need to add now, since this book will be a significant representation oaf a time period of writing. So I haven't been able to really write at all since then. I haven't been able to get back into that space, but I definitely had at least a chance to really work and deal with the situation that was happening around me, which was important.Paula :I think creatives generally, we're ready for this. I sent an email out, to a wide circle of friends and said, we, by nature, are the ones who can get through these kinds of times. And we, by nature, are the ones who can help translate things for people who are having a far more difficult time. A lot of times, artists, writers, we live in that silence that Abby just described so beautifully there. It's a really wide open space for us that we're sort of used to navigating, and living in, and reveling in. And for a lot of people that kind of silence is really terrifying. It's really scary. So I think, yeah, we were just sort of made for it in a way that a lot of people are just going to have a lot more trouble with. Kari: Yeah. I think that the idea of silence and people who are writers, and artists, and other creators, in general experience, are somehow more able to sit in that and sit in the uncertainty and the confusion, and kind of be like, "Okay, well, now I'll make a thing because it's what I do." And it's certainly something other people on the podcast have actually talked about in our last season was, "Yeah, we went into shutdown in March and I did a bunch of sculpture" was someone else's experience. So I think, yeah, there's a lot of truth there.Paula :And I really think that helps the world all by itself just to sit in the silence with uncertainty. We were able to witness, and sometimes untangle some things even in our own thoughts and minds and memories. And that by itself has value, I think, without even sculpting anything, or writing anything, or building anything. Abby:Yeah, there doesn't need to be a product, even if it's entirely mental, the journey I think is very worthwhile.Kari: Yeah, as I tell my students, "Thinking is writing, thinking is doing that type of work."Kari :So while the pandemic has certainly affected writing processes for both of you, it seems at least, kind of for the better, with all the exciting work that you've already put out or are planning to. It's also significantly impacted the publishing industry.Kari :So, Abby, you're the editor-in-chief for Mid-American Review, or MAR as it's referred to more informally, and MAR is mostly staffed by graduate MFA students and undergraduate interns here at BGSU. So how did the journals operations and processes change due to the pandemic and that kind of quick shift to remote work last March?Abby:It was the most dramatic change you could possibly imagine. I mean, for usual MAR time, we're in the office every day. I'm there. The managing editor is often there. And then our interns, we always have at least two or three interns in, at any given time. And that became absolutely impossible. Our offices are rated for one person, closed door, and no interaction, have to be sterilized. And you cannot do that with the volume of people that we have in and out of that office. And so that in itself was going to be a challenge. And as soon as the university went into the remote capacity, we kind of just set up meetings during the week, like whenever we could meet. We had kind of a regular time for prose and regular time for poetry, which immediately lost us the ability to be together, to have our genres together. And in an MFA program that, that togetherness is really valuable. And we miss out when we can't cross genre lines.Abby: And so in the fall, we had more preparation, but we still were not sure early enough how our class would be, so we had to have split meetings. This semester I've changed it, so that we have a main Zoom meeting each week. We have the introductory stuff that I talk about or teach something and we just have a conversation. And then we split into breakout rooms and that has made it possible for us to do a little bit more together, to have some conversations together. But we're still not in the same room, kind of passing submissions back and forth. And granted, most of our reading is done online anyway through our submissions manager, but we don't have that ability to pause in our reading and have a chat about something.Abby:But, we're not in the office. I get into the office maybe once every three weeks. So we're heavily delayed, but the delay is what hurts me the most, I think. We have our second 40th anniversary issue, which should have gone out last Spring, I have it. It's at the warehouse, but I need to be able to send it safely because we do the mailing ourselves for cost reasons. And I need to be able to do that and get our envelopes printed and everything in a way that's safe.Abby:So dealing with that has been really tricky and it's just struggling with the volume of work and being in front of a screen literally all the time now, it makes it harder to read submissions online. But it's also allowed us some time for planning the ability to sort of look ahead and think about some things that we can do, special projects.Abby:I think looking ahead has been the healthiest, sort of thinking about plans and we're scheduled for in-person in the fall. We'll see how that works, but I'm so excited to get back to that just with people in the same room and being able to collaborate. And then also making the MAR office, it's always been a safe space. It's a safe space. It was for me when I was a grad student too, 20 years ago. I found a home there and I want to make sure that it's a home for other students. And so I need that to come back. I'm ready for that to come back because I know how foundational it was for me. And I think our grad students and our interns both would really benefit from it. Yeah, completely changed our process. Couldn't be different. Couldn't be more different than it is now, but we'll be able to go back. That's the thing. We've improved somethings, but we'll also be able to bring back the things that make us most comfortable. Kari :Yeah.Kari :Okay, so shifting gears a little bit. So, Paula, you're often involved in what seems to be all parts of writing, publishing, and also performing your work. So can you explain a little bit, like why this kind of active engagement and kind of literal embodiment of poetry is important to you, or how you started doing these types Of tasks?Paula: I want to preface what I say by pointing out or reminding people, my MFA is actually in fiction. And so for most of my life, from the time I was a real little kid till about 10 or 12 years ago, prose was just about all that I did. My life was all fiction. I blame George Looney, partly for the fact that I'm a poet today because he kept nagging at me for years and years, "Paula, you're a poet. You're a poet. Will you please put a chapbook together?" And I finally did, and lo and behold, it got taken the first place I sent it.Paula :And then moving to Columbus, well, before I moved here, I taught at Central State University which is an HBCU, but they were very interested in slam, and spoken word, performance poetry. So we had a program there called Rhymes and Beats, Beats and Rhymes, where we had the jazz studies students providing the music backdrop for the poetry and spoken word, that it was just a beautiful program in a beautiful time. And I was co-directing the writing program at the time. We were working on advanced workshops. And Dave Shevon... Who's since passed away, who's also a BGSU alum, who is my dear friend... He helped with designing some of these advanced workshops. And I said, "We have to, have to incorporate performance in here. We have to." Paula: Coming through the MFA program where we still have the readings at Prout Chapel, if you're writing anything at all, poetry or prose, if you're going to be successful at it, if you're going to publish, at some point you're going to go on a book tour. You have to know how to read your work. You just absolutely have to. And it was always really frustrating to me that that was never really taught, not just in our program, but in any program that I knew of at the time. So when we got into these advanced workshops, I said we have to bring in performance when we do this. And we were able to. So I've worked really hard to bring poetry into places and venues that will surprise people, that bring poetry to people who don't normally read poetry.Paula :I started a series that was at an observatory. It was a celebration of The Nice Guy. And the director at the time, Tom Burns, was really receptive to that because he was an English professor and amateur astronomer, and he was really grateful. He said we need people who can articulate. There are people who can sort of diagram the science of it. But we need people who can articulate the wonder of it, and the beauty of it. And things need to be brought together like that. People need to be excited about all of what poetry is, and all of what it can do. And it's not even all that separate from the story writing that I did for so long and I insisted I was a fiction writer, not a poet. I just insisted on that for years. But poetry does tell stories. Of course, it does. It's just another way of sharing stories and experiences. And we all need that. We all need that just desperately. Stories need to be told, man.Kari :Yeah, absolutely.Kari :So with that, we're going to take a quick break. Thank you for listening to Big Ideas podcast.Announcer:If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu.Kari:Hello, and welcome back to the BG Ideas podcast.Kari :Today, I'm talking to Abby Cloud and Paula Lambert about all things poetry during the pandemic.Kari :So as we kind of come back from the break and start turning outward beyond individual practices and experiences, it's worth thinking about how the pandemic has both deepened and exposed issues of racial inequality of the United States. And an ongoing issue in the publishing industry, of course, is the overwhelming whiteness of authors and editorial staff. And the industry, as a whole, was found in 2020 to be about nearly 80% white. Conversations around diversity are happening and need to be happening throughout the industry. So this is a question for both of you, what can or should editors of smaller presses and journals do to make publishing more inclusive for writers as well as with staff?Abby:There are so many presses that I admire are doing. One example is Milkweed that has a fellowship to learn more about the industry. And it's very explicit, like this is open to all, but we have a special interest in authors who would otherwise not have these opportunities to work with the press, which includes BIPOC authors, LGBTQ+ authors, and any disability that is frequently disadvantaged. That's just one really great example of that. I think other presses can follow.Abby:The staff question is really difficult because, typically with journals associated with universities, you have, as your staff pool, the students that your university draws. So then it becomes not so much an issue entirely on the journal, but also the issue of your program. And if your program was not attracting candidates of color, or writers of disabilities, or other areas, then you have some thinking to do. You have to figure out how you can change that perception. Certainly faculty of color, like universities have a really hard time, for some reason, understanding how to attract but also retain faculty of color. I think part of it is stuff gets dumped on them all the time, not just aggressions or microaggressions, but also when they know there are like these specific disabled faculty members, those faculty members are always the ones that are going to fill the quota, so to speak, on a university committee.Abby:So like we have a Diversity and Inclusion Committee, we have one in our department, but there's also university one, and it can't just be the same people all the time who are having to fill all of these roles for a university service that counts toward merit, or annual evaluations, or whatever. So I think looking really carefully at the practices of how committees are filled, how you are working with faculty who may be on the receiving end of these extra burdens, like how are we working with those folks and uplifting them, and pushing their voices forward?Abby:I always look at Mid-American Reviews, the VIDA counts that are done, we kind of do our own. But they've been working on an intersectional survey also in the past couple of years, and I'm really anxious to work on that especially because we do also attract predominantly white writers, I think. We do fairly well, I think, with disability and with LGBTQ+ writers, and with staff in those areas. But we definitely need to work on our racial diversity and that's something I'm thinking about literally all the time, and we can do better, and we have to do better.Paula :I would just say, people need to read as widely as possible and listen to as many voices as possible. And my emphasis might be a little bit more on listening because I attend so many open mic shows and so many featured readings. In Columbus, we're really lucky here that there are almost every night... Well, during normal times... almost every night of the week, there's an open mic show somewhere in town that may have featured readers, that may have slams. I worked hard to go to as many of those as I could. You sort of settle into the ones where you feel most comfortable, but it's really important to hear as many voices, to seek that out.Paula: And I think maybe because of my own experiences, having worked at and taught at an HBCU, and even before that, when I worked in the south, taught in rural community colleges, where I had a majority of African-American students, but I became really, really sensitized to going other places, off-campus, where it began to be shocking to me how many places are so white and have so few people of color in the room. And I've observed that so many places where my mind immediately was saying, "Why aren't people either, A, invited to be here, or why aren't they comfortable coming here?" Because it really makes no sense that for this particular activity, whatever it was, it doesn't make sense that this population is here given the general population of the university, the general population of the community. It doesn't make sense that there are so many white people here. Even though a lot of it, I'm sure, was implicit and unintended, or whatever, but that's a bigger problem.Paula :So when I started organizing myself, for a while, I co-hosted an open mic show here in Columbus. And then later, through the press, started hosting, and organizing, and supporting bigger events. And I was very conscious of that, of making sure that there was a balance of readers and voices there, very, very conscious of that. But it wasn't difficult for me to do either because I've been listening to so many voices, and seeking them out, and loving them. And these were, my friends, my colleagues, the people I hang out with normally, the people I read, the people I listen to. And so I had that sort of community of people to draw from and to invite in. If you're not already listening to them... Just listening to people, and you get a sense of just a wide range of voices, and experiences, and pain, and loss, and grief, and struggle, and beauty, and joy.Paula :And if you're listening to that and looking forward in your own personal day to day life, I think it's going to naturally translate. If you just pay attention, it becomes sort of a natural thing, I think, in my experience.Kari: And I think something maybe like, as we head towards a conclusion of our conversation here, is that idea of intentionality that you both mentioned, whether that's the presses and journals themselves and the university affiliations being able to seriously take a hard look, and understand, and question, and critique themselves for what is and isn't in the room, and what's being privileged. As well as even as individuals, such as myself and people who are listening, are we being intentional in the books we read? Are we being intentional in the experiences that we're choosing to read about?Abby:Yeah. And even just simple things like recommendations. I've read some literature from various BIPOC authors in the last year or two, and that has completely changed what I'm recommending to my students. I love the science fiction and fantasy world, and yet, somehow I never heard about Octavia Butler until much more recently than I'd care to admit. And that kind of shocked me when Idid learn about her and her work. I was like, "Why? Why did this never reach my eyeballs before this?" And I think we can be alert to that in our own choices, as you say, and we can then pass those choices onward and make sure that those things that we missed out on, are not further missed out on. You have to kind of create a cycle that perpetuates itself.Kari :So as a final question, as much as I hate to wrap up our conversation, I think many creative writers, and I'm including myself in this, regardless of genre, have heard that writing and reading is a way of escaping the world. And I think poetry as well as prose, but particularly poetry, has a rich history of being a tool that can critique in destabilizing existing patriarchal and inequitable structures like we've been talking about. So it's a big question, but I would like to conclude today's conversation by asking both of you, how you understand poetry as a means of engaging with the world?Paula :Growing up for me, I think reading... I've always been a voracious reader, and I was terribly introverted as a young person. For me, it was a way to escape the world, but it was also a way of experiencing the world, of experiencing other places, other people, other voices. So in as much as it was escape, I was also learning an awful lot about the world. My husband and I were just discussing this the other day because I was telling him, "Oh, I just finished this poem, and man, it was so great to figure out what it was I was trying to write about." And he started laughing and he said, "That's what it is for you, isn't it?" He said, "The poetry helps you figure things out." Yeah, I think it is the way I experience the world.Paula :When I take things that I can't understand, or I can't figure out, or I don't understand why things are the way they are, or sometimes I just... There's a poem in my book about the spring ants... And it's just, yeah, you can look at them and observe them. But, for me, sometimes there's just these little things that carry a numinous quality. There's something else here, there's something bigger. And just trying to figure that out. I've always worked to figure out the world through writing, and writing is what always brings me my peace of mind. Always. Always. Always. It helps me figure things out. It helps me realize, "Oh, here's how things work. Oh, here's why that moment that seems so ordinary, really was so beautiful."Abby:I mean, I take almost a completely opposite approach, not in the the meaning and the actual sort of result, but writing for me is very painful, and not because of the subject matter. It makes me very restless. I'm a terrible person to be around when I'm writing. It's part of the reason I have to go away. And so writing for me is more about finding ways to speak what it's already in my head, like what I've already discovered into the air, like finding a way then to pin it down. Again, it's very similar to lepidoptery, it's weird how it all kind of tumbles together, but actually pinning down that meaning and pinning down the thought.Abby:And it's been sort of more of a recent thing where even when I'm writing about nature, or about ballet, or whatever, it's still making statements. So, for example, my first book, Sylph, is totally structured around the romantic ballets of the late 1800s. I mean, they're very binary. Almost all of them include some sort of what they call a black act by a man. So, Giselle is betrayed by Albrecht, just for example, or the Sylph is betrayed by James. Like there's always this act of betrayal of a man against a woman, often with deadly consequences. And having written those poems and looking back on them now, I'm just like, yeah, this was me dealing with the patriarchy in a big way, like understanding how these things happened and what those ballets actually say about our relationships. And there's been a lot of effort to sort of queer the ballet world lately, to deal with this heavy patriarchy in that universe.Abby:I feel like if I'm reading poetry, I'm reading someone's conception of the world at that moment. And even if it's just in the undercurrents and not overt. Just listened to Camille T. Dungy speak last night about this, about the need for biodiversity in literature the same way as we have in life, like healthiest environment is a biodiverse one and we need that in literature also. I think it's crucial. I think poetry's engagement with the world is crucial and it's important that we recognize that that's what it is. It's how we meet the world and what we do with it, whether our reactions are similar or not, that relationship is of utmost importance to what we do, which I think is why, going back to what we were talking about earlier, that's why poetry can co-mingle with science, and with math, and with dance, and with all of the other fields. We have to have that cross discipline because, again, that's how we create the biodiversity of literature. And I want to see that continue in a more holistic way.Kari :So thank you so much for joining us today, Abby and Paula. Listeners can keep up with other ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. And please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.Kari :Our producers are Chris Cavera and Krista Vera and Marco Mendoza, with sound editing by Deanna MacKeigan, Ryan Cummings, and Marco Mendoza. This episode was researched and written by Kari Hanlin. Kari :Thank you all for listening.

In this episode, Jolie speaks with Dr. Kei Nomaguchi, professor of sociology, and Dr. Sandra Faulkner, professor in the School of Media and Communication. They talk about their research exploring both the data and personal experiences of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people navigating the demands between their professional jobs and their roles as caretakers.   Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.   Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.   Jolie: Hello, and welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Jolie: Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio but remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.   Jolie: Bowling Green State University and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region, homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations present and past who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties, and we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time and memorial.   Jolie: Today, I'm joined by Dr. Kei Nomaguchi and Dr. Sandra Faulkner. Kei is a professor of sociology and a research affiliate with the Center for Family and Demographic Research and the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at BGSU. Kei's research explores various social and personal dimensions of parenting in the U.S.   Jolie: Sandra is a professor in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. Her research focuses on how individuals navigate gender and sexuality through interpersonal communication and personal narrative. She often uses creative expression and autoethnography to explore her own negotiation of identity as a parent, partner, and professor. Today we're talking about how the pandemic has affected professionals who are also caretakers, but first I'd like to hear a little bit from both of you about your research and how you got into studying care work in particular. Kei, will you start us off?   Kei: Yes. Thank you, Jolie and thank you for the nice introduction. I'm interested in studying parents, parenting, parents, our relationships in the United States today and including work family conflict and parenting stress and the wellbeing of the parents and children. So well,I began my graduate study wanting to study gender inequality in workplace, but then I quickly realized that gender inequality in the workplace is deeply rooted in gender inequality within the family, especially care taking roles. And so, as we all know, the women disproportionally shoulder care taking responsibilities, and that prevents women from putting time and energy in their paid work activities. So that's how I sort of switched our interest in family, rather than workplace.   Jolie: What about for you,Sandra? How, what is your evolution as a scholar on this subject been?   Sandra:Well, initially I was interested in the kind of broad topic of difficult conversations in close relationships. And so I had started studying that in graduate school. I was interested in how partners, women in particular, negotiated sexual activity, sexual pleasure, in essence how they talked about sex and sexuality. And I will say by the way that I studied it kind of traditionally, and by traditionally, I mean, kind of traditional qualitative research. And so I think the evolution of my work moving toward more creative ends and the use of poetry, personal narrative in social science happened with some of the evolution of the topics that I was interested in studying. And really some of this shift happened when I also became a mother and I have an 11-year-old now, and since we're going to be talking about care work and balancing and all of that, I had been re-introduced to poetry when I was doing a post-doc and I started to kind of move in a more critical direction.   Sandra: I was still interested in difficult conversations in close relationships, but then it started to move to examining some personal experiences and then connecting that up to larger structural issues. And so I started studying mother work shortly after my daughter was born. And one thing that I found was that using personal narratives, using poetry were things that fit in between some of those care spaces. So I couldn't do large ethnographic projects where I was out in the field for long periods of time. And so that's really been some of where I was and some of where I was going. And I look forward to talking more about that.   Jolie: I'd like to start maybe with sort of defining some of our terms. So, Kei, when you talk about care work, what does that mean to you and what are you including in that?   Kei: So I tend to define care work as one person's activity, meeting the needs of others who cannot fully care for themselves. So it includes childcare, elderly care, care for people who are ill or injured, or care for people with disabilities, or care for people who need help in learning few new skills or subjects, and many other things. So care work is actually everywhere around us, but in my work and also today's discussion, I focus on care for children, care work for children. And so, but it involves a lot of work that we need to be alive and to be functioning.   Jolie: And what about for you, Sandra? Does your definition differ in any distinctive ways?   Sandra: And the first example in Knit Four, Frog One, it's a poetry collection that I actually introduce as social science, though it's a series of poems about family stories. And I use different poetic forms, such as collage, free verse, dialogue poems, sonnets to show and critique patterns of communication in close relationships. And in particular, this collection is looking at mother daughter relationships, women's work, mothering, writing, and family secrets. And what I do in the collection is try to knit connections between do-it-yourself value.   Sandra: These are some of the themes that I saw in my own family, economics, family culture through the poems. And I use poems and images to talk about four generations of women in my family. My grandmother, my mother, myself, and my daughter. And so I was really calling it memoir and verse, but the poems really play with these tensions of work, family life, and ultimately kind of show that it's through those everyday interactions that we see some of the meaning of the relationships.   Sandra: And I wanted to talk about another project that I just finished because it's relevant to care taking in the pandemic. And it's a project I'm calling buttered nostalgia. In this piece, I use poetry, personal narrative to tell a story of cooking, cleaning, and caring for my elderly parents during last March 2020, when the lockdown first happened. I originally had gone for spring break and then everything's shut down.   Sandra: And so I ended up staying some extra days. My parents are both disabled. And so the piece talks about how I cared for them. And it's organized as a series of daily menus, lyrical reflections, narrative poems about family stories, family values, and the enactment of the supportive behaviors that really show how families deal with political difference, identity negotiation, crisis. Because partly what I was doing when I was there, I was trying to convince my parents that pandemic was actually real. And so the questions that I ask in this project, what does it mean to be a good daughter? And how does one reconcile family differences and political views and hold true to family and personal values? And the third question that I explored in this piece was how does one decide what obligations to focus on during a moment of personal and international crisis? And so I think in this pace, they use of poetic inquiry shows how public cultural discourses influence our private experiences.   Jolie: Kei, since Sandra has brought up the kind of methodological approaches, could you talk a bit about maybe one of your research projects and kind of what are some of the animating research questions and the methods that you're going about it to sort of track some of these changes to care taking and that work family conflict?   Kei: Well, for my research, I use national data, national survey data often collected by U.S. federal agencies like census data, census bureau, or a center for education statistics. So my strength is to analyze those data that are already collected by other researchers and looking into variations by social groups and especially the socioeconomic status and race, ethnicity, or marital status or other types of family structure. Well, so I looked at the work family conflict and how the work family conflict distributed differently by socioeconomic status.   Kei: So well, okay, so other types of stress tend to be more experienced by those who have fewer resources and in terms of the socioeconomic resources, but in terms of work family conflict, it's actually those who have higher SES, socioeconomic status, also experience high work family conflict. That's because those who have higher socioeconomic status tend to have higher responsibilities in the workplace. So especially when you have responsibilities for other people, supervising, that's actually increases job demands for you. And whenever people who you supervise have questions, even though it's not your work hours, you have to answer those questions, sometimes immediately to deal with some immediate issues. And those work responsibilities tend to spill into your family life. So that is really cause a high work family conflict. So work family conflict is, in that sense, it's a unique type of stressor that affects people who have a higher socioeconomic status.   Jolie: Is it too simplistic to sort of say that what we see at the lower socioeconomic status is that the family life is interfering with work, right? Especially if you think about the pandemic and school closures and things like that. And what we're seeing is more, the other side of it with higher socioeconomic status families where the work life is interfering with the family, because those jobs have been, are still there, but the demands have shifted, or is it more complicated than that?   Kei: Oh, actually that's a great question, a great point. And so it's kind of complicated. So, okay. So those who have lower social economic status, their jobs tend not to allow them to have flexibility. So most times they cannot take their work to home. So, it ended up that work family conflict, it's almost like whether you can keep a job on that and that's actually gets to more difficult situation, economically difficult. And so the highest professional jobs that tend to allow the workers to take their work home.   Kei:And so at the higher SES jobs, they can keep the job, although the amount of work don't decrease and it gets to a higher stress level. But in terms of the family demands, those who have lower social economic or economic status tend to have more illness and injuries among a family members and that increases needs for caretakers at home. So, but when it comes to parenting the complication today, it's that the parenting culture in U.S. increasingly emphasized parents to be involved in their kids' lives. And especially that pressure is high among professionals so that sort of make it complicated in terms of socioeconomic status differences in work family conflict.   Jolie: We're going to take a quick break. Thank you for listening to the big ideas podcast.   Announcer:If you are passionate about big ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us ics@bgsu.edu.   Jolie:Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast today. I'm talking with Kei Nomaguchi and Sandra Faulkner about the pandemic's impact on caretakers. Sandra, throughout your career, as you've demonstrated, you've explored poetry and creative modes as methods of critical inquiry. Can you talk a bit about what poetic inquiry is and how it functions as a scholarly method of analysis?   Sandra:Sure. Pretty simply, poetic inquiry is the use of poetry as research, in research, and for research. Poetry can be used as a tool and a method for presenting research data. It can be used as a source of data and also as a source of data analysis. When I define it for students, I'll say poetic inquiry is the use of poetry that's crafted from our research endeavors either before a project analysis, as a project analysis, and/or poetry that we use that's part of or constitutes an entire research project.   Sandra: Poetry used as qualitative research is a method then that you would turn research interviews that you do, transcripts, observations, personal experience, and reflections into poems or poetic forms. Poetic inquirers use poetry then as a method of inquiry by presenting their research as poetry, by analyzing poetry as qualitative data, using poetry to show the research process and as a means of data analysis. So as you can see, it can come in anywhere in the research process. Also, some researchers, and I would argue this as well, use poetry as a way to ensure rigor in qualitative research and as a means to show reflexivity in the research context. And so I really see poetic inquiry as a feminist methodology because of the focus on ethics. There's also can be a real focus on collaborative work. I do a lot of collaborative poetic inquiry and because poetic inquiry is embodied research practice.   Jolie: And Kei, could you talk a bit about, you're looking at kind of large quantities of data, right? And looking for patterns in that, and given that this moment of the pandemic, we are all hearing about the challenges of caretakers, that this is no longer a kind of submerged narrative, it's one that I think most people are really paying attention to, how are you thinking about your quantitative research as a way of illustrating or complicating the personal experiences? Right? So how are you sort of thinking about the relationship between the sort of anecdotal stories that we might hear on the news and the data that you're studying in the aggregate?   Kei: So the quantitative studies that the purpose or strength is to find the patterns across the U.S. population or among the U.S. parents, and when I interpret our data, I rely on the qualitative studies and how the qualitative studies show what parents actually say, how they describe their difficulties or worries about their kids and how things changed before and after pandemic.   Kei: So I think in both sort of the qualitative research or anecdotal studies and the quantitative studies kind of give us a whole picture. So for example, so there has been a lot of studies started showing whether, even among those who are able to keep their jobs, mothers with children, again, reduce their work hours. And of course those data doesn't tell us why, but from qualitative studies and anecdotal stories, we can guess that this is because these mothers had to attend to their children at home who were...who couldn't attend childcare centers or schools. So that's how I sort of use our quantitative data and the qualitative data that other researchers collected.   Jolie: It's no secret that at ICS we believe in the power of collaboration. Could you each talk about what those collaborations look like for you and how it enriches your work?   Sandra:I really think collaborative work is like a good conversation where you see the back and forth, the give and take. And so a lot of my collaborative work starts with conversations. I've been fortunate to work with both poets and social scientists in fruitful collaborations. And the collaborations always begin with conversations about issues that have been bothering us, occupying our times, our thoughts. Sandra: And I just think of some work that I've done with a poet and essayist, Sheila Squillante. We've done some video work. We've published a feminist womanifesta that was born out of some conversations we were having about feminism and toxic masculinity and rape culture and our mutual love of poetry. And so that just kind of got us started about wanting to do a project. And so when I work with others, I like to think of it as a conversation, but also we work by going with our creative strengths and always honoring the relationship. And so, what this means...I think that that's important for the collaboration, right? Always honor the relationship that you have with the other person, always, secondly, think of it as a conversation, and then thirdly, kind of play with the strengths of each collaborator.   Jolie: And Kei, what does collaboration look like with the kind of work you're doing and what sorts of roles do you play in those collaborations?   Kei:I have to be honest about my personal situation, meaning that I have a daughter who is now 14, so I have to work around my daughter's schedule. So that really sort of make it difficult for me to collaborate with other researchers because sometimes I work after my daughter sleeps. And so sometimes I just cannot have meetings even in the late afternoon. So expanding my collaboration is my hope after my daughter leaves my home. So anyway, so currently my collaboration is more with my graduate students. So in part, it is my responsibility to train graduate students to be independent researchers. So sort of the training and also the collaboration go hand in hand. And so, well, the graduate students bring fresh ideas and new ideas. And so our conversation sometimes creates new research questions. And that is also how I benefited when I was graduate student. I collaborated with academic advisors and the other faculty.   Jolie: This is a question that is perhaps unfair. It's a bit about prognostication, but given what each of you knows from your own research, do you think the shift that we are seeing in the personal and professional lives of so many working caretakers, do you think these shifts will indicate a permanent reversal of some of the gains for gender equity? Do you think we're about to have a national reckoning? Do you have any thoughts about kind of what the last year has revealed about labor and gender in our society?   Kei: So in the media has been emphasizing that there has been an increase in gender inequality, especially in terms of the labor force participation and that it is true in terms of the data showing that the gender gap in labor force participation between mothers and fathers increased by 5%, especially the districts where schools kept closed. And some people say, well, that will have no long-term consequences in prolonged gender inequality, but there are some other data showing that during the pandemic, more fathers got involved in housework and childcare, especially those know who were able to work from home.   Kei: There are some, a good portion of households that both mothers and fathers saying that their share of housework and childcare got a little bit more egalitarian. So that means that there's a positive signs towards gender equity. It may be that this situation that both mothers and fathers kind of stuck in a household and stepping home, and the fathers found a way to get involved in daily routine of children's lives or housework. So now employers know that employees can work from home without reducing productivity. So that's probably a good sign that after this pandemic, maybe more workplaces will provide work family, flexible arrangements to both fathers and mothers. And hopefully that will increase gender equality.   Jolie:What about you, Sandra, any fortune telling, or if not, kind of what you think will happen, what you hope might happen post pandemic?   Sandra: Those are kind of two different questions. Because as I was listening to Kei, I was like, I'm not quite as optimistic. And I don't know if it's because I was on a few Facebook groups with working moms, some of them academics, some of them not. And it seemed to me that it was kind of mixed in terms of expectations and you would hear stories about the childcare falling right back on women during the pandemic. And I do think that, for some workplaces, yes, being able to work at home might be good or if you have some reduced expectations, like maybe you can have another year toward tenure, but I didn't really see a lot of reduced expectations for work. I'm just thinking personally I got less done this year because there were two of us working from home and then it was my daughter was going to school at home and always asking questions about, can you help with this math problem, et cetera.   Sandra: And it, it just seems like there were the expectations for producing were still there. And so, but the hopeful part is, here it is, as someone who studies like personal narratives, et cetera, I did see some news coverage, I think the New York Times had some coverage of all kinds of working mothers, all levels of socioeconomic status, et cetera. And I had a lot of friends who posted stories of like, I'm really not feeling okay. And I'm feeling really overwhelmed about all of this. And so I'm wondering if, if maybe we have some more of these discourses about the importance of caregiving and these conversations and these stories are out in the public, then maybe we can get some policy changes that might actually make our lives better. And so I think that that's what I hope for the future is that we have more of this honest kinds of storytelling. And then that actually shifts into real policy changes that can enact some of the changes I think we need.   Jolie: And Kei, to that score, given your research, what are some of the kinds of policy changes that would make a significant difference in the lives of working caretakers?   Kei: First of all, so those flexible work hours and workplace is very important or necessary for parents or any types of caretakers to keep their jobs while they meet their family responsibilities. So I hope that more workplaces recognize the needs for those work flexibility. And also like Sandra mentioned about expectations. And I think that the change in the culture, so it's not a policy, but it's a changing culture in terms of what we expect. Or maybe I should say that everyone should expect that everyone has family responsibilities. And I think this pandemic really pushed the public discussing this issue. And I think that that's really...That's why I think that I I'm kind of optimistic. So the policies and also the cultural change is important.   Jolie: And Sandra, do you want to add anything? Are there particular kinds of policy changes that you think would make a dramatic difference in the lives?   Sandra:Yeah, I think that we need universal daycare for everyone. I think we need family leave policies and I'm particularly even thinking about those who might wait tables, for instance, if that's their job. I think we need to value workers before profits. I mean, that's yeah. Right? Because in our conversation, I keep hearing a lot of, well, we still have these expectations, but it still seems to be all about producing something. And so what that says is we really need to value care taking, first of all. And I think like, hey, maybe we're starting to see some of that valuing of it. And I think that a lot of this care taking was just invisible. And so maybe people just didn't think about it until they had to think about it. And so that's what I think. We need the policies as well as kind of the cultural value placed on everyone who does care taking.   Musical Intro: What a wonderful experiment.   Jolie: Thank you so much for joining us today, Kei and Sandra. Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @icsbgsu. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. Our producers for this episode are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound editing by Deanna MacKeigan, Ryan Cummings, and Marco Mendoza. Stevie Scheurich researched and wrote interview questions.

In this episode, Jolie interviews Natalie Orslene, a BGSU graduate student and ICS Student Research Award winner, and Dr. Shannon Orr, Professor of Political Science. They discuss factors impacting food pantry access and the social stigma associated with food insecurity. Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.   Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.   Jolie:Hello, and welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the director of ICS. Bowling Green State University and it's campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp in the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other indigenous tribal nations present and past who were forcibly removed to and from the area.Jolie: We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts towards de-colonizing history. And we thank the indigenous individuals and communities who've been living and working on this land from time immemorial. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.   Jolie:Today I'm talking with Natalie Orslene and Dr. Shannon Orr. Natalie is a master's student in the public administration program at BGSU. She's the recipient of an ICS Student Research Award for her project, researching food pantry access, food insecurity, and social stigma. Shannon is a professor of political science, Director of the MPA program and an expert in environmental policy. You may remember her from a previous episode on water quality in the Great Lakes. Shannon serves as faculty advisor on Natalie's project. Thank you both for joining me today.   Jolie:Natalie. I'll have you start, could you tell us about your project and what motivated you to do more research on food insecurity and food pantries at BGSU?   Natalie:Sure. So it started actually over the summer and really before that, when the pandemic began. I became interested through work Dr. Orr was doing on food insecurity and food pantries. And one of the topics that I found particularly interesting was the sort of management of it all because food pantry we talk a lot about the passion and the excitement, but the management and the work that goes behind it is very labor intensive, and also really interesting from a public administration standpoint. And something that I found interesting in that was sort of managing the behind the scenes information. So the volunteers, the organization, all of that. And so my research began in trying to understand if you were going to start a food pantry, if you're going to run a food pantry, how do you best start from the beginning? And how do you best manage volunteers from the beginning?   Natalie:Because it can be easy to start and not have all of that figured out and not kind of lay the groundwork to have a great program and a great volunteer management system. And so what I wanted to do was find out from volunteers themselves and from people who run food pantries themselves, what goes into good management and what goes into being a good volunteer, because it's really important. And it really helps to ensure that the work that you're doing is beneficial to everyone, to the community and to the people who are using the food pantry. Jolie: Can you talk a bit Natalie about the specific need for food pantries and how that particularly works on college campuses like BGSU and how that might be different from what people might be thinking about food pantries in community settings?   Natalie:Sure. So we know that food insecurity is a huge issue nationwide. In 2019, about 34 million people were living in poverty. And before the pandemic, about 35 million people faced hunger in the United States, including 10 million children, that's from Feeding America. And children are more likely to face food insecurity. And that includes young adults who are entering college, maybe entering a time where they're having to feed themselves for the first time, they're having to manage their own funds for the first time. So it's a particularly interesting kind of transitional period of maybe they experienced it at home, or maybe they didn't, but now they're coming to college where they're living on their own for the first time for many of them, and also facing having to manage their own finances. They're having to go to school and manage school and also home life.   Natalie:But it's particularly interesting for college students because the ways in which they have to utilize food pantries are different, right? Because it's on campus, the resources aren't as accessible to them. And they're facing a little bit of that stigma by having to use resources that are surrounded by their fellow students. So it's not just going to a food pantry, you can drive up and kind of leave anonymously. In some cases, they're feeling a little bit like, well I don't want to ask for services on a campus where I know people. I don't want to ask for help when other people that I know aren't asking for help. And also I'm trying to be an adult for the first time. So having to say I'm struggling a little bit, and maybe I don't know how to ask for help and I don't know how to get support is a difficult process. So colleges in particular face kind of a interesting topic of trying to support students who are in that transitional period. Jolie: It reminds me a few years back when division one NCAA athletes started talking about the fact that on Sunday nights, for example, if the dining halls were closed or depending on their intense practice schedules, they would just go hungry. And especially as athletes sort of needing a lot of food to compensate for hours and hours of practice or games that it doesn't look necessarily the way we think it's going to look. And it could be sort of hiding in plain sight right around us.Natalie:Right. And I think also it's hard to have that conversation because in the midst of everything, when we talk about food on campus, the kind of messaging you get is, well, you have dining hall plans and you have options and there's always options around, but those options aren't accessible to everyone financially. And not all students are facing the same traditional student experience. So to kind of say, oh, well, you go to school at 18 and you have your food plan and you have the money to maybe buy food on the weekends. It's not true for everyone, but that's not the conversation we have around food and we have our own college life. So to broach that topic and to say, actually, I'm not experiencing college that way. And it's not like it is in the brochures or on TV for me, I think is a difficult topic to start for people.   Jolie: Shannon, could you talk a bit about what qualities Natalie brings to this project and make her such a good fit for leading this and in doing both research and kind of outreach.   Shannon:So it's been such a pleasure working with Natalie for the last two years. She's been my graduate assistant and we went through COVID together as a research team. And what we had started doing for our research in Fall of 2019, we suddenly switched when both of us started to get really interested in the topic of food insecurity in the Spring of 2020 and with the started COVID. And that went through the summer. So together, Natalie and I launched a national survey of university and college food pantries.   Shannon:And so Natalie brings this enthusiasm for the topic and a willingness to do anything. To try new things, to take big risks. We've learned so much together. We both started this food insecurity journey together. So it's been really fun. And we've been debating and talking about ideas and trying to unpack particularly around the administration and management side of running food pantries and getting them started together. We wrote a grant for a local food pantry that was successful, they've been able to spin off into a few other grants and her project management skills and time management skills are fantastic. And she keeps me on my toes and really pushing forward. And knowing that we have been able to do this as a team has really, I think, meant that we've been able to do a lot more things than we would've normally done given a pandemic. Jolie: And that leads into my follow-up question, which is, tell us about the process for the project. So what were the questions you began with? How have you gone about gathering data? And who are you talking to to learn more about this problem and to find solutions? So, Natalie, do you want to start that off?   Natalie:Sure. So I think one of our first questions is kind of... It was very broad. It was very basic, but it was, how do you do this? How do you start? Because I think like most services, most non-profit work, you kind of see the end result, but the beginning and the process, you don't get the background of, especially if you're using the services, you kind of walk in and if you walk into a food pantry, you don't necessarily see all the behind the scenes work. You don't see all of that goes into it. And so our first question was, how does this work? But especially from a management side, how do you work sustainably? So how do you make sure it's not just kind of a great beginning and then peter's off after that? How do you make sure that the work that you're doing is sustainable? Natalie: How do you make sure that you're actually meeting your goals? We talk a lot about what are our actual goals? Because your goal could be to hand out food and that's great. And it's a useful goal, but is your goal bigger than that? Is it talking about working to end hunger on campus? Is it supporting students in more than just one way more than just food? Is it helping them find other services? So kind of what should our goals be? And through that, we've talked to a lot of people like Dr. Orr said, we sent out a nationwide survey where we talked to universities or food pantries at universities across the country and the people who run them and ask them what are your best practices? What do you do best? But also what do you struggle with?   Natalie:What's hard? Because we wanted to find out kind of where those common issues were and how we can meet that from day one. And then we've also been talking to volunteers at college campuses, volunteers at food pantries and asking them what's it like to be a volunteer? Is it what you thought it was going to be when you walked into this, do you know something different now than as you volunteered? As a student who could also be facing food insecurity and a volunteer, where does that kind of overlap lie? And how do you feel about using services, but also providing services and kind of creating a comfortable space on campus for students to get support with along your fellow peers, because they're peers, as well as being volunteers.   Jolie: And Shannon, could you talk a bit about how this project brings together a qualitative and quantitative research? Because that's obviously something that we care a lot about at ICS, not just sort of doing the research, but how do we talk about that research? How do we communicate and collaborate with others?   Shannon:So for our research project, the bigger project that we started with, which was this national survey of campus food pantries, a lot of that was quantitative data. So we were asking food pantries to tell us how many clients do you serve a semester? How much food do you give out? How much does each client receive per visit? How many visits a semester can a client receive? So lots of quantitative data that we pulled as a result of that survey. But then as Natalie started in particular, started to get interested in the idea of the stigma and research into volunteers. One of the things that we realized that was missing from our survey, although we did ask some open-ended questions, but was the stories and the lived experiences of these volunteers. And so Natalie's work is focus groups. And so she's engaging in conversations specifically with volunteers at campus food pantries and to talk to them about their experiences. So we have a really mixed methods approach for our kind of bigger research project on food insecurity.   Jolie: Natalie has this project, where you are taking together both quantitative and qualitative methods, how has that shaped your understanding of the issue from where you started to where you right now?   Natalie:It's been really interesting because with the quantitative, you do get that number and you can kind of see the staggering results in some cases, and the sort of similarities between programs to how much they give and how they support. But the stories I think have been particularly poignant and interesting because everyone who volunteers has their own reason for volunteering, everyone who's involved in this has their own reason for doing so. And I think it's really impactful to hear why they started, how the conversations have affected them. And also what they're passionate about about helping their fellow students, helping their community and the sort of drive that happens. It's very inspiring to hear those stories and know that there are people who care about this, because when you look at the numbers, it can feel almost like it's insurmountable that you can't get over it.   Natalie:It's a hard process to face and a hard issue to face, and that maybe there's not a solution. And then you hear stories from people who are working on the solution and how much they care about it. And also that they understand the struggle, but they also want to continue on, I think has been really impactful. And it kind of it lessens those numbers, the impact of those numbers a little bit and makes you think I'm not the only person who cares about this and we're all working on it together.   Jolie:Shannon, how do you see your background as a researcher on climate policy and competing interests amongst stakeholders coming into play as the mentor for this project?   Shannon:So as the mentor for this research project, I'm bringing that background in mixed methodology. So my work on climate policy in particular at United Nations climate change negotiations in always involved, large scale international surveys of interest groups, nonprofits, organizations, businesses who are participating in the climate change negotiations. As part of my work, I was always able to attend these climate change negotiations and do field observations and lots and lots of interviews. So, being able to use the results of an international survey to get the data about why organizations are participating in United Nations treaty negotiations, are they there to influence policy? Are they there to network? Are they there to learn? Are they there to make their own organization look better? So I can get that from an international survey. I can get that kind of data, but being able to be there and watch it all play out and observe the activists doing their engaging in street theater and doing protests.   Shannon:But then at the same time, seeing other organizations really engaged in attempts to do policy analysis and to dive deeper into the issues and to look at the science of climate change and then being able to do interviews and having people tell me their stories about why they participate and what it means to them. And what do they think about climate change and how much of a priority is it for their organization, how does it drive the work that their organizations do, whether it's an oil company or an environmental activist organization?   Shannon:So that work that I've done on climate change has really been mixed methods from the very beginning. So combining the international surveys with field observations and interviews. And so it's pretty exciting then to be able to work with Natalie and do kind of those same mixed methodology approaches, but looking at more local experiences and particularly to be able to do this during the pandemic. And for us to be able to really dive into it, but at the same time trying to do work that will make a difference. So the results of the national survey, we packaged them up into a report and we've shared them with campus food pantries, and people have been really interested in looking at different models of operations and that of stuff that we discovered from our survey. So I guess we've been able to add in this really practical and applied piece and kind of us trying to do our best to help other organizations through this pandemic and beyond, and to our new normal post COVID.   Jolie: With that in mind, thinking about not just sort of your process, but also kind of how you're sharing your results, Natalie, would you talk about how you think about collaboration as a result of this project?   Natalie:Sure. I think the collaboration part it's been really interesting because like Dr. Orr said, we don't want this just to be kind of a report that we finish and we package up and it goes out and it has no use to the world. We really want what we're finding, what we're talking about, to be shared. And I think food pantries in particular already they're very good at that. And it's a big part of their work is sharing tools and resources and collaboration. So I think we've been really talking to with other universities because they all have their own experiences. And they're all so different. You would think that running a food pantry would be kind of the same at every university. It's absolutely not. And they have been sharing, particularly with the volunteers that I've been talking to have been sharing such different experiences and viewpoints that have kind of shaped each other's understanding of what's happening.   Natalie:In focus groups, you get that added benefit of hearing other stories and hearing the experiences of universities. And so talking to a university that's in New York is really different than talking to someone who's volunteering in upstate Washington. And it's very different than talking to someone who is working in Bowling Green. And so understanding kind of the experiences that we can share in saying oh, we do that too. We have that issue too. We face that as well, but also I've never heard of that before. And I would love to bring that back to my supervisor and my team and say, we should be doing this. Another school is doing this, and it's really beneficial. And then the idea of, I think stakeholder engagement is a big part of that too, because running a food pantry isn't just done by one group and especially on campus, it's not done just by one department or one kind of person.Natalie:And so kind of understanding the work that's done at the university and how you can utilize the services and the people that already exist here and already have the passion. Talking to people at volunteers out of the universities who are social work majors and saying we get our internship hours from doing this volunteer work. So not only am I involving my degree in my department, but also I'm being able to help the food pantry and I'm able to provide more services than just packing a bag of food. I can talk to them about, do you know about this service? Do you know about these things that are happening? And I think that's been really important and certainly something that has impacted how we're asking questions, because once you realize what other people are doing and how other people are helping you kind of ask, well, how do we do that? How do we take that further? How do we make sure that's included in all the work that we do?   Jolie: Natalie, what are some of the specific stigmas that food pantry users endure and how do those negative stereotypes impact people's access to food pantries and to quality food?   Natalie:One of the biggest stigmas they face is that it is really difficult for anyone to ask for help. I think, especially in America, we have a very... Everyone wants to do the work themselves and it's kind of an individualist society. So when we talk about asking for help, that's a hard thing for people to do. And it's especially hard when it comes to food, because that's seen as something that you're supposed to be able to provide yourself and your family and particularly for families. And so I think that's part of it, but also the stigma of continued use. It's easy to say, okay, maybe I need help one or two times, but having continued support can be difficult to ask for and can be difficult to manage because it's not a simple process. And food security also is not a binary experience.   Natalie:You're not food insecure or not food insecure. You experience it on different levels. And so I think there's that stigma of saying, well I can provide some food for my family, but I can't provide a lot. And so that stigma of saying, do I actually need the help? Do I need as much as I say I do, or as much as other people do is a big stigma to face. And also particularly on college campuses that stigma of, I know people here and when I walk to classes and I walk to the food pantry, am I going to see someone I know? And I think that can be a difficult hurdle to jump because you don't want anyone to recognize what you're experiencing. And you also don't really want to recognize other people experiencing that because it kind of breaks down the community aspect we have of everyone's kind of living the same experience and we all have the same resources here, which aren't true, but you don't want to kind of experienced that firsthand.   Natalie:So it's difficult to get people to ask for help because it's not easy. And also it's difficult then to having them continue coming for help because after that first experience, they may think, well, I've had my one bout of help, I don't need anymore. And for them to see the pantry is for continued use and it's for continued support and it can provide more than just one instance of help I think is really important.   Jolie:So what are some of the ways that you you're learning you can reduce that stigma and make it easier for people to access those resources and to do so in ways that aren't re-stigmatizing?   Natalie:I think the biggest one is just the conversations you have about the food pantry on campus. When I talked to students is that word of mouth is the biggest way to sella food pantry. You can ensure that students have a positive experience for the 10 or 15 minutes they're in your pantry a week, but for the rest of the time, that's kind of the problem of the campus. And so you need to make sure the conversations that are being had on campus, whether that's through your own volunteers or people who used the pantry, but also through advertising and the way the administration talks about it and the way that university employees or faculty talk about the pantry has to be positive as well, because it has to be a continued process of talking about why it's important and why it's vital, but also kind of talking about it less as something that you need help with and something that you're struggling with.   Natalie:The word struggle is a big one because you don't want to talk by people are, it's a negative thing to face food insecurity or that you're doing something wrong if you're facing food insecurity, because in the reality it's so much more common and so much more complex than just it's a problem. It's bigger than that. So I think talking particularly about the way you talk about people who come and use your food pantry, they're not people in need, they're clients. They're people getting a service. And that if the food's there, if the food exists, it should be helping people. So I'm talking about an abundance of food, talking about it's there people to help and that you're not wrong or bad or failing for needing that help. You're just someone who is going through an experience that millions of people face. And if the services are there, you might as well use them.   Jolie:We're going to take a quick break. You're listening to the Big Ideas podcast.   Announcer:If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program to have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us ics@bgsu.edu.   Jolie:Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast. I'm talking to Dr. Shannon Orr and Natalie Orslene about food insecurity and food pantries on college campuses. This is a question that sort of more about process. And either of you can take this up. What are some of the obstacles that you've faced with this project and how have you had to adapt your methodology or your approach based on some of those challenges?   Natalie:I think in particular one of the hardest things is getting people to talk about this topic in a both positive and negative light, because we talked about the passion people face with it. And sometimes for them to say that a food pantry has struggled or they themselves as volunteers have found something difficult to manage or difficult to talk about can be hard because you want to talk about food insecurity in the work in a very positive, reflective light, because it's supposed to be a good service and beneficial. So getting people to say actually I think our food pantry could be doing this better, or actually we're facing this issue with our community or with getting people to visit or any kind of management issue. That can be really difficult, especially when pantries or volunteers are kind of in the middle of all of it, because when you're working and you're doing your services and you're helping and providing, it can be difficult to look at the bigger picture and say, what could we be doing better?   Natalie:Right now we're in the throes of it. Right now, we're doing all this work and it seems like it's going well, but could we be doing something better? And I think that can be difficult for people to kind of take a step back and self critique and critique the work they're doing. And particularly in the middle of COVID, because everyone's kind of been in all hands on deck panic situation and food pantries are getting more requests than ever, they're having to adapt a lot of their systems. So having to ask them is this a symptom of COVID or is it a symptom of a larger program issue, is this a symptom of a management issue? And how do you reflect on that and decide how to fix it in the long run?   Shannon:With our national survey of campus food pantries, one of the things that we discovered... So we sent it out, we put together an email list of 200 campus food pantries across the United States at universities and community colleges and a number of them we got automated responses saying that due to COVID, the food pantry had been shut down and the email wasn't being monitored. So from a research standpoint, that's frustrating because those are responses that we're not able to get, but from a services perspective, it was heartbreaking to see that because students were facing escalating need with residences being shut down with job losses, wages being cut, all of those that the need for students has never been higher, but for many of these campus food pantries, they had to shut down their operations. So from a research perspective, it was somewhat frustrating, but just when you think about the impact on the students, that matters far more.   Jolie:Shannon, could you talk about what impacts you see this study having potentially at BGSU?   Shannon:Yeah, so there's a really strong community of people at BGSU who are engaged in work around food insecurity. And so we really hope that the work that's happening here and Natalie's, particularly with these focus groups of being able to better understand how to meet the need for food insecurity on campus, the different options that exist out there, the different services that can be provided. So, it's pretty consistent. The studies that have been done of BGSU students at food insecure about 30% of the students say that they have experienced some form of food insecurity.   Shannon:And so that might be anything from the day before my paycheck I don't have any food. Anything much more significant from there. But that's a pretty high number. And so being part of this conversation and being able to understand... I think particularly one of the things that we've really focused on has been best practices and trying to understand what are the best ways to meet the needs for students related to food insecurity, because if we can do that and the quality of life of the students gets better. So a campus food pantry doesn't just provide emergency food. It provides the support for many students to finish a semester and to persist to graduation.   Jolie:This project looks at food insecurity at BGSU, but as you've alluded to, we know that this is a much larger national and even international issue. And it's become particularly clear over the last year with COVID that hunger and food insecurity have really disproportionately impacted black, indigenous, and POC communities. Food pantries address the symptom of a problem, but what are some of the larger roots of the problem and how can we begin to address it, especially to reduce some of those racial disparities?   Shannon:Yeah, so the roots of food insecurity are rooted in poverty. And so looking at food insecurity from this much bigger picture and looking at things like the provision of food stamps, looking at wages, looking at employment availability. The pandemic has amplified all of the challenges that we face as a society. Looking at food deserts is another one. So particularly in low-income and Black neighborhoods, where there tends to be fewer numbers of grocery stores. And so then people are forced to rely on things like convenience stores and dollar stores for their food. And so that means you don't have access to healthy nutritional food, basic produce even. And so thinking about food insecurity is part of this much, much bigger issue of poverty in the United States.   Jolie:One of the phrases that really rings in my head that have come out over the last several years and trying to understand the root causes of poverty and food deserts and these things is that idea that it's expensive to be poor, that if you are forced to purchase food within walking distance at a convenience store, you're going to pay two or three times as much for every item. I can go to Costco and get a big thing of toilet paper and spend very little per roll, but I have to have a membership. I have to be able to have the resources to buy in bulk, if you are living day to day, or week to week, paycheck to paycheck, everything costs more. And so it seems like that's one of the key things you're talking about here is that sustainable model that these are not things that one bag of groceries often isn't enough because it's a cycle that will continue.   Shannon:Yeah. So, one of the things that we talk about food pantries as being part of the emergency food system. And so the idea is supposed to be that these are short-term kind of solutions. I need food now, but the reality is that more and more people are relying on them for long-term use. And so we have some big issues that we really have to deal with and governments have to engage with and try and figure out how can we better support people?   Jolie: Anything you want to add to that question, Natalie?   Natalie:No, I think like Dr. Orr said this idea that it's an emergency situation I think is one of the reasons why people don't want to utilize food pantries and there's sort of a stigma against using them because you feel like you have to be in an emergency situation to utilize a service like this. And people are... They say, well I can, I guess, afford to go to these expensive stores and shop week to week and buy things that aren't necessarily cost-effective or healthy or nutritious to providing myself and my family the best options. And so people say, I don't need that service, or they think I can only use it every so often.Natalie:And so we want to provide services for people who need the long-term help, but also having a conversation around what are those root causes of the need for long-term help and how can we meet them at the beginning rather than the end, because food pantries often we're helping the symptoms of those causes, but we're not talking about the root of those causes. So saying, where can we go and help? How can we ensure that people are getting support from the beginning so we can address these issues head on.   Jolie: As we've been talking about COVID has just revealed and increased the disparities and the need, especially around food. What are some lessons that you hope we will take away from this pandemic? What can we learn from this past year to do better or differently in the future?   Shannon:I think there's been a lot of really good conversations that have come out of the pandemic, particularly around the recognition of how financially unstable many families were. And I've been involved with the Natalie:And that help may just be being better in conversation about it, being more mindful about how you're talking about food, how you're talking about resources, the services that campus' provide and how you're talking about the issue itself in the greater context of the world, because you never know what someone's going through, especially with the stigma students face, you never know what they're hiding from you. What they're trying to seem as normal as we expect students to seem. And so the kind of kindness you can provide a student by talking about this issue in a positive light or talking about it in a more normal light can go a long way to students and people actually getting the services they need and not being so afraid to say, I need help and it's not a bad thing.   Jolie:Thank you both so much for joining me today. Listeners can keep up with ICS by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. Research assistance for this episode was provided by Ryan Cummings and Stevie Scheurich. Sound editing was by Ryan Cummings and Marco Mendoza.

Ryan Cummings - See God Face to Face Ryan Cummings' second lesson Saturday morning

Ryan Cummings - Where You are Known by God Ryan Cummings' first lesson Saturday morning

Ryan Cummings - God Knows Your Name Friday night lesson

“Every society is three meals away from chaos” - Vladimir Lenin In this episode of The Small Print, Bronwyn is joined by Ryan Cummings of Signal Risk to unpack the facts and the fallacies behind the July 2021 riots. What should we be worried about? And what is just noise and distraction? --- Bronwyn Williams is a futurist, economist, trend analyst and host of The Small Print. Her day job as a partner at Flux Trends involves helping business leaders to use foresight to design the future they want to live and work in. You may have seen her talking about Transhumanism or Tikok on Carte Blanche, or heard her talking about trends on 702 or CNBC Africa where she is a regular expert commentator. When she's not talking to brands and businesses about the future, you will probably find her curled up somewhere with a (preferably paperback) book. She tweets at @bronwynwilliams. Twitter: https://twitter.com/bronwynwilliams Flux Trends: https://www.fluxtrends.com/future-flux/futurist-in-residence/ Website: https://whatthefuturenow.com/ --- Ryan Cummings is the director for Africa-focused political and security risk management consultancy, Signal Risk. He is also a founding member of the Nigerian Security Network and an independent consultant to various think tanks, international media houses and both the private and public sector. Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pol_Sec_Analyst Signal Risk: https://www.signalrisk.com/ ---   Follow us on Social Media: YouTube: https://bit.ly/2u46Mdy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/discourse-za Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/discourseza/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/discourseza  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/discourseza/   Subscribe to the Discourse ZA Podcast: iTunes: https://apple.co/2V5ckEM Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2UILooX Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2vlBwaG RSS feed: https://bit.ly/2VwsTsy   Intro Animation by Cath Theo - https://www.instagram.com/Cuz_Im_Cath/

What is the gospel? How do the Biblical authors use the language of good news? On today's episode of the Devotional Doctors podcast, Ryan Cummings rejoins us to look at Isaiah's use of gospel in Isaiah 52-53. Together we consider the ramifications of the good news of the Lord's Kingdom, and how that contributes to a thorough understanding of the healing and redemption that God provides. The true gospel message is not solely one of individualistic salvation, but rather the fundamentally different good news of the Kingdom of God, and the restorative healing work of God in and through the people of God. Get ready to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in a new and enlightening way.Ryan is one of the hosts of "The Gospel According To" podcast. We'd recommend you subscribe to their series on the kingship of Jesus seen in Revelation.For more about us, visit www.facebook.com/devotionaldoctors or www.devotionaldoctors.com. You can reach us by email at devotionaldoctors@gmail.com.Our theme music is "Honey Bee" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com).License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

In this segment of listeners choice, Ryan Cummings, director at Signal Risk tries to explain the ongoing Nigerian kidnappings and domestic terrorism. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So how good are you at communication? I'm not sure we think about that question a lot...but we definitely hear a lot about its importance.This week I talk to one of my old students, Ryan Cummings, about the importance of communication for Christians. He covers the importance of productive conflict, working together, and how communication forms an important part of our relationship with God.Ryan's podcast with co-host Mike Sullivan is called "The Gospel According to." You can subscribe here.Ryan works with the Manslick Road church of Christ.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/balancingthechristianlife)

We have our Sound from Around here & we talk to Ryan Cummings, OL for the LA Wildcats in the XFL to get an in depth look at all the new things the XFL will be trying out in its debut this weekend.

Be present. Be patient. Be content with where you are today. That might not sound like the typical frame of mind for a startup founder, but that mindset has allowed Ryan Cummings to create and grow a very specific niche that perfectly solves his customer's problem. After adopting his dog Rigsby and trying everything he could to bring him back to health after months in a shelter, Ryan took a look at the food available for Rigsby and decided if processed food isn't good for humans, it can't be good for dogs either. After building Rigsby's health with a whole new diet, Ryan slowly started building his company, The Bones & Co. through word of mouth. He's gone from delivering hand-packed foam containers of his raw, ketogenic dog food to caring pet parents all over Austin, to now having his products carried in over 30 states across the US. Join us for this conversation where we discuss the power of slow growth, why selling in the farmer's market might be the most valuable thing you do for your growing brand, and keeping your mental health as an entrepreneur. Complete transcript and show notes at https://barcodestartup.com/podcast

We continue our conversation on communication this week with Ryan Cummings. In our last episode, we established the importance of understanding a person as whole and connected. In this week's episode, we look at how the connected whole individual relates with others in both speaking and hearing. Ryan focuses on two character traits from Scriptures which should shape both sides of our communication: wisdom and humility. With these skills at the forefront, we can authentically connect with others in Christlike communication.Our theme music is "Honey Bee" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com).License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Ryan Cummings joins us this week to discuss some fundamental ideas in the area of healthy communication. We see in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 that God is one; if people are created in God's image, then we are intended to be one as well, in mind, body, and spirit. Ryan explains some of the ways that our oneness has been shattered in both true divisions and artificial divisions. And we close in looking at Christ's work in reconciling our oneness.Our theme music is "Honey Bee" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com).License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Ryan Cummings is a security and risk analyst, and Director of the Cape Town based risk management consultancy Signal Risk. A graduate in International Relations from the University of Cape Town, Ryan has established a reputation as an international expert on Islamic Groups operating across northern Africa. We spoke about his growing up in a single-parent home, his path to security studies, the damaging combination of oppressive democracies and violent non-state players across the region, and the state of the South African intelligence services, among other things "South African security services do seem to be complacent and one gets the impression that during this transition period our intelligence resources have been absorbed in domestic politics which makes me wonder how many resources are given to following outside threats."

On a supersized addition, Marisol & Marcus discuss mean girls and the effects this phenomenon has on their gender. They listen to Cheer Infinity, coach and gym owner, Billy Dunlap as he tells the most romantic cheerleading story ever. And the main event is our interview with 2x Summit Championship, Bronze Worlds Medalist, & 2x Triple Crown Champion and Nfinity Girl, Ryan Cummings!!! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cheerbomb/support

Welcome to episode 173, this week it’s just me (no interview) and I want to talk about the controversial but also very important topic of plagiarism.   But before we get to that I need to catch up on some things I wasn’t able to cover last week plus some other articles I saw this week… Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week Hackers catfish tech execs on LinkedIn Putin passes law that will ban VPNs in Russia HOW RUSSIA IS USING LINKEDIN AS A TOOL OF WAR AGAINST ITS U.S. ENEMIES Why LinkedIn will Never Tell You When to Post on LinkedIn You can hear my interview with Janet Murray on the Soulful PR podcast here LinkedIn Updates Think twice before you reply to an InMail with a shortcut ‘No Thanks’! This is very sneaky and I’m not sure it’s been properly thought through by LinkedIn. When you receive an iMail from someone you have the opportunity to reply with 3 shortcut phrases   On the face of it this looks like a time saving convenience feature similar to those inBot responses you see in normal messaging. Beware, it’s not what you think! When your ‘no thanks’ reply is received the other end the sender sees this message So they can’t continue the thread….that makes perfect sense to me but what happens if they try to subsequently send you a new InMail? So you have inadvertently ‘blocked’ this person from ever InMailing you again which could be disastrous for jobseekers and others who don’t wish to cut off communication altogether, it seems absurd to me that LinkedIn don’t make it clear what you are doing!   Long text posts are ‘killing it’ on LinkedIn   I have reported on this before but since then I have tested this further and it is clear that the algorithm that decides how many of your followers will see your post is massively favouring posts with a lot of text and really penalising any posts that include a link (unless it’s a LinkedIn article).   Here is a post I did last week about a news item regarding Sports Direct. As you can see below, this story was widely covered on LinkedIn by individuals and companies but everyone else made the mistake of including a link to the online article. Knowing what I know, I simply took a screenshot of the letter and posted it as an image accompanied with some long text (triggering the ‘see more’. As you can see, the results speak for themselves! As I typed the above post I paused as I wondered if what I was doing was in some way a form of plagiarism. In the end I decided it was OK as the story had been widely covered by many sources in the national press….but that got me thinking about the main subject of this weeks episode! LinkedIn Plagiarism - Is copy & pasting posts OK? This seems to have become an increasing trend on LinkedIn, especially as text only posts have become more popular and successful. Here is a classic example of what I’m talking about. This text only post from Ryan Cummings was phenomenally successful with nearly 40,000 likes and approaching 3000 comments. Those are great numbers but could have been so much more because others decided to copy and paste his post and re-post it on their own feed. I actually found 27 posts like this. This is the most blatant example and is classic plagiarism The majority were like this, I even found someone who had made it into his own LinkedIn Article! And someone who tried to be clever by changing the copy, ever so slightly! And another who just copy & pasted a section Some fool even had the cheek to add their product picture to the copied post! It’s hard to defend these people. They clearly have extremely low ethical standards and will never find success by operating that way……..These losers are annoying but not the ones I’m most concerned about. I also saw plenty of examples like this; Whilst Ryan’s name is shown, it is not a link back to his profile. There were other examples where Ryan is mentioned and linked (@mention) Whilst this is an improvement, is still wrong in my opinion for this simple reason; They are stealing views, Likes and Comments from Ryan! and I think that is totally unacceptable! Every post offers us the opportunity to Like, Comment or Share - using these is quicker and ensures that all credit, views and further engagement belong to the rightful owner. Not everyone however would agree, look at this post from a CIO claiming that this practice is ‘standard behaviour’ across all social media - really? If this is common practice then that would suggest to me that it’s ‘common practice’ to behave unethically, surely that isn’t true for most social media users - is it? Admittedly Bill also makes a good point about unwarranted blocking but his original comment is ludicrous! This topic was also covered  and extensively commented on in a recent post by Simon Chan I agree wholeheartedly with Simon’s comments but who cares what we think. How does it feel to be copied in this way? Well I reached out to Ryan Cummings and asked him for his thoughts and this is what he had to say; “When I first noticed that some people were copy and pasting my post, I was a bit flattered. However, when one particular post began accruing several thousand likes and gained momentum, I then had people commenting on my post saying that they think the story was made up or that I was the one who copied it. LinkedIn can easily determine who the original author was, and I believe they should step in and take down posts/suspend users who do not give proper attribution when posting others' content. So to directly answer your questions: 1. I don't like it, they should cite their sources. Those who don't will be exposed and look like clowns anyway.

The team talks to Ranjeni Munusamy about the South African Communist Party's scathing remarks about the ANC. Security expert Ryan Cummings gives us his view on South Africa's exposure to terrorism, and looks back at one year of Nigeria's President Buhari.

Ryan has bounced around to several stations in a relatively short period of time, having literally been handed his walking papers from one of those stations .

Ryan Cummings is an accomplished classical guitarist and music teacher from Georgia.  Although he is unquestionably skilled at what he does, his talent goes beyond just playing complex notes.  Ryan’s passion for music is infectious, and his execution of each song is truly enchanting.  Listen in as Ryan talks about his life and how he discovered his love for classical guitar, and plays some beautiful pieces live in the STL studio.   http://soundingthelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/STL-Ryan-Cummings.mp3 The post STL #35 – Ryan Cummings appeared first on Sounding The Light.

Series: N/AService: Sun PMType: SermonSpeaker: Ryan CummingsOur Sunday PM sermon preached by Ryan Cummings on 3/15/15.

Adam Wylie tells about performing in Adventures in Odyssey and Last Chance Detectives. He also answers what it's like working in Kidsboro, basketball, and the challenges of voice acting.