Tal Stanley, Professor Emory & Henry College

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Summary

In a deeply moving and insightful talk, Professor Tal Stanley of Emory & Henry College discusses the intertwined complexities of community, history, and individual roles in shaping a sense of belonging and place. Through vivid storytelling and personal anecdotes, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing every individual's potential to contribute to their community's growth and resilience. Drawing on historical contexts and present-day challenges, particularly in Appalachian regions, Stanley urges a broadened perspective on community engagement that transcends conventional boundaries and celebrates a shared humanity.

Highlights

Professor Tal Stanley captures the essence of community through powerful storytelling and personal family histories 📖.
The Great Road and the subsequent developments in Appalachian regions serve as metaphors for community evolution and resilience 🌄.
Communities need a creativity that acknowledges and utilizes their unique cultural and historical layers 🌿.
Tal discusses the dynamic relationship between insiders and outsiders and the potential for unity against shared challenges 🤗.
Encouragement to think beyond political boundaries and embrace a shared civic responsibility 🌐.
A call to action for redefining and nurturing community ties beyond traditional norms 🔧.
Emory & Henry College's place-based educational model is highlighted for its effectiveness in community engagement and service 🌟.
The pressing need for new narratives and civic creativity to address modern challenges is emphasized 🚀.

Key Takeaways

Embrace the blurred lines between individual stories and community history as they are fundamentally interconnected 🌱.
Every person, regardless of their background, has the potential to impact their community positively 🌟.
Communities are formed through complex layers of history, stories, and conflicts requiring civic honesty and creativity 🌍.
Political boundaries are arbitrary; true community connection transcends these limitations 💪.
The Appalachian region's history of resilience amid adversity serves as a profound lesson in community solidarity 🏞.
Educational institutions can play pivotal roles in fostering civic engagement and community development 📚.
Shared challenges and opportunities can unite insiders and outsiders in a community for common causes 🤝.
Erasing the 'us vs. them' mentality strengthens community bonds and fosters collaboration 🔄.

Overview

In his poignant address, Professor Tal Stanley of Emory & Henry College eloquently presents the concept of a 'citizenship of place,' where individual and community narratives intertwine to form a rich tapestry of shared history and purpose. Through captivating stories and historical anecdotes, he explores how communities are shaped by both their triumphs and struggles, urging a collective embrace of every person’s potential to contribute to communal wellbeing and growth.

Stanley places particular emphasis on the story of Appalachia, a region marked by its resilience through challenging socio-economic transitions, historically grounded in coal mining and deeply rooted in cultural ties. By delving into past hardships and communal efforts, he paints a vivid picture of the ongoing need for collaboration and innovative thinking to ensure future prosperity and social justice in these areas.

Highlighting educational initiatives, Stanley illustrates the role of institutions like Emory & Henry in bridging gaps between academic theory and real-world community engagement. By fostering student involvement in local issues and partnerships, he demonstrates the potential for academic environments to become incubators of change and progress, advocating for a broad, inclusive vision of community that transcends traditional boundaries.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction This chapter, titled 'Introduction', starts with the speaker expressing their gratitude for being invited and being present at the event. The speaker conveys a deep appreciation for the honor and thanks the audience for their gracious presence.
00:30 - 07:00: Historical Background This chapter discusses the concept of sharing life stories and experiences, likening the intertwining of personal histories to layers of blue-gray limestone. Each person's story is distinct yet becomes indistinguishable and interconnected when shared, much like the layers form a cohesive stone.
07:00 - 13:30: The Experience in Keystone The chapter 'The Experience in Keystone' describes a historical journey through Pennsylvania down the Valley of Virginia. It focuses on the migration of hundreds of people following the Great Road after crossing the New River at Ingles Ferry. The narrative details the challenging terrain, particularly an eight-mile ascent west of the river crossing, where teams of horses and oxen exerted great effort to climb a long ridge.
13:30 - 19:00: Meadowview and Community Efforts In this chapter, we follow the journey along a road that stretches between major stops, Wytheville and Christiansburg. The focus is on New Bern, the only town along this 60-mile stretch during the time, which owes its early growth and sustainability to the commerce generated by the Great Road taverns. The chapter describes the physical effort required to traverse this area and highlights the community and commercial activities that thrived along these routes.
19:00 - 23:00: Big Creek People in Action The chapter discusses the various artisans and craftsmen who operated in New Bern, including harness makers, saddlers, wagon makers and repair shops, liveries, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and cobblers. It highlights the bustling business activities along this road and the diverse array of people and cultures that traversed through New Bern. It touches on the contradictions and complexities of American society, with a particular focus on immigrants who viewed this journey as an opportunity to stake a claim in a new land full of promise.
23:00 - 27:00: Challenges and Opportunities in Rural America The chapter delves into the socio-economic dynamics and personal narratives influencing migration to and within rural America. It highlights the contrasting reasons that motivated or compelled different groups of people to move - some seeking greater prosperity, some due to determinations made by the male heads of their families, and others as slaves forced into relocation. The particular historical context of early 19th century Virginia's role as a major exporter of slaves to the Deep South plantations is also emphasized.
27:00 - 33:00: Lessons from Limestone and Citizenship The chapter "Lessons from Limestone and Citizenship" describes a journey along the Great Road where groups of men, women, and children, who have been torn from their families, are forcibly taken south. These individuals are bound together in chains, illustrating a scene of immense suffering and despair. In 1834, an Englishman observes approximately 300 enslaved individuals being driven across the New River at Ingles Ferry, emphasizing the brutal realities faced by those enslaved.
33:00 - 43:00: The Story and Role of Emory & Henry The chapter titled 'The Story and Role of Emory & Henry' discusses a historical path, presumably connecting various regions including Tennessee and New Bern. Along this route, referred to as the 'Great Road,' towns had holding areas characterized by inadequate shelter and poor conditions. These places were notorious for their lack of basic sanitation and dignity, serving as temporary confinement for individuals who were restrained and given just enough freedom to prepare their meals and rest before continuing their journey.

Tal Stanley, Professor Emory & Henry College Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 thank you well thank you all for having me and thank you for being here I'm deeply appreciative of this honor and grateful for the the gracious
00:30 - 01:00 welcome that you have shared with me and I I'm humbled press down and press together so that the story and life of one is part of the story and life of the other indistinguishable and flowing together yet each distinct and knowable as the layers of the blue gray Limestone
01:00 - 01:30 that underpin Us in this place they came by the scores of hundreds through Pennsylvania down the Valley of Virginia following the Great Road after crossing the New River at Ingles Ferry the road climbed steadily eight miles west of the river crossing approaching the summit of A long ridge the teams of horses and oxen would have strained in their harness and Yokes
01:30 - 02:00 against the backward pull of the climb and those afoot would have learned would have leaned into the effort reaching the crest the road descended through the towns spread along the road then the only town in the 60 miles between Wytheville and Christiansburg major stops on the road West New Bern derived its initial life from the Commerce associated with the Great Road taverns
02:00 - 02:30 harness makers saddleries wagon makers and repair shops liveries wheel rights blacksmiths cobblers and a host of other craft Artisans did business in New Bern along this road through this place journeyed all of the contradictions and complications of American society through Newbern came members of the first wave of waves of immigrants to America for many these were Journeys to take us take to stake a claim in a new promised
02:30 - 03:00 land to have more than they had had in their earlier lives in their former places others wives and daughters mostly had no choice and made their way from homes and neighbors uprooting families because of the head of the household had determined it so still others came along this road as chattel in the first Decades of the 19th century Virginia was the leading exporter of slaves to the plantations of the Deep
03:00 - 03:30 South along the Great Road these men children women young and old torn from family and friends came in groups Chained manacled and bound together walking and stumbling weeping they're white drivers riding in wagons and on horseback in 1834 an Englishman noted a couple of 300 slaves waiting faltering and dragged across the New River at Ingles Ferry on
03:30 - 04:00 its way to Tennessee somewhere in New Bern as in every town along the Great Road there was a pin Without Shelter From the weather stinking of human excrement and misery where these people were Chained and kept allowed only enough movement to fix their meal and to bed for the night before pushing on
04:00 - 04:30 he was 16 years old when he stepped from the Train into the soot and cold dust of Keystone in McDowell County West Virginia it was 1926 and he was there for the same reason that hundreds of thousands of others had arrived in McDowell County to lay claim to the American dream there were farmers from the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee African-Americans fleeing the oppression
04:30 - 05:00 and violence of the Jim Crow South there were the Italians the hungarians the poles the lithuanians the checks and the Slavs there were the Eastern European Jews and the Irish Catholics by 1945 there were nearly 100 000 people living in McDowell County and the coal and Coke the Steam and steel and byproducts they had produced were the bones and sinews the lifeblood
05:00 - 05:30 of the American industrial engine able to provide for his family in ways that he could have only dreamed about as a boy this 35 year old man claimed the one thing that he knew would Define it that he had reached what every American knew what it meant to be an American he bought a home here in Keystone
05:30 - 06:00 McDowell County West Virginia was all that America stood for they stand along the railroad that in the 1850s had replaced the Great Road and they stand in the community that within the lifetimes of some persons in that crowd that day was relocated from that Old Road to sit along the railroad in the days after the Civil War just as with the towns along the Great
06:00 - 06:30 Road meadowview's life and purpose was inextricably linked with the railroad what it brought and what it took away a place of several dozen stores two doctors a Creamery craft Artisans and restaurants Meadowview was the commercial and shipping center for the rich agricultural Valley of the Middle Fork of the Holston River though defined in its contradictions
06:30 - 07:00 like every other community in America they were there were they were a people divided by class and race and gender their civic lives too often shaped and misshapen defined by the accidents of birth but this rural community would be remembered as a neighborly welcoming place through the generations from a distance
07:00 - 07:30 it is possible to see where the one layer becomes the one above it joined to the ones below from a distance it is possible to see where the Deep fathoms of stone and story blue gray with the water and sky and mud thin and then thick with the rise and fall of Inland Sea from a distance it is able we are able to see where at once they meet again soil and trees and air and sky
07:30 - 08:00 where the layering Civic work continues story memory and place they left Keystone in November 1948. sensing the changes that were coming fearful of losing their stake in the American dream the man had come as a 16 year old and then 22 years later he and his family moved
08:00 - 08:30 to New Bern brokenhearted at the loss of friends and connection he was unable to make that adjustment that new alignment four years later on the morning of July the 4th 1952 at the age of 42 he died of a massive heart attack at Christmas 1953 she was 44 and had been a widow for 17 months
08:30 - 09:00 the man in the photograph was the new chief for the Pulaski County life-saving crew the first ambulance service in that county the Widow is handing the chief for the life-saving crew a check representing the money she and her fellow members of the newborn Community Improvement Club had raised going door to door for months the club had collected nickels dimes quarters from their neighbors so that at
09:00 - 09:30 that Christmas party they could present the newly formed organization with enough money to purchase its first ambulance on the morning that her husband had been stricken there was not an ambulance to transport him to hospital at that time in that place the funeral homes hearse doubled as the community's ambulance and she so she called Stevens Funeral Home her husband died in the hearse as it
09:30 - 10:00 took him to hospital that same morning she tried to find a doctor to get some help but the town's one doctor could not come this woman and the other members of the Community Club determined that no one else should have to face such a thing again and in the months since they had worked to recruit a doctor to come to Newbury the club appointed this recent Widow as the chair of the recruitment committee for two years
10:00 - 10:30 she wrote and telephoned every medical school on the East Coast asking if there was a new graduate who would be willing to come to a little town in Southwest Virginia in 1953 in 1954 there were a few graduates of medical school willing to come to places like New Bern Virginia and there were even fewer graduates of medical school who were women at this Widow found one recruited her and the new doctor set up practice in
10:30 - 11:00 New Bern in 1954 the spring following the photograph the doctor would practice medicine in New Bern for almost 45 years in McDowell County the population peaked in 1948 at a hundred thousand people except for one in every decade since the county has lost 25 percent of its population so that by 2010 there were
11:00 - 11:30 fewer than 24 000 people living in McDowell what once was considered the Billion Dollar Coal Field the Pocahontas Billion Dollar Coal Field is now one of the poorest counties in the United States and while the whole country County suffers the section of Mcdowell that suffers most in all of this is the Big Creek District just over the mountain from Keystone in 1991
11:30 - 12:00 in protest over the lack of Clean Water appropriate wastewater treatment the lack of child care and a host of other symptoms of the abandonment of their Community seven women in Coretta formed Big Creek people in action the mission of which is to foster a community in which people learn play and grow together and prepare themselves for success in the 21st century Big Creek people in action has a vision of the people of Mcdowell as empowered
12:00 - 12:30 self-efficient self-sufficient and living in communities that are economically vibrant Democratic and socially just by 2002 Big Creek people in action had brought legal action that resulted in McDowell County's first public water system had established the County's first child care center with a sliding scale fee had established programs in adult literacy and youth leadership development and were vocal vocal
12:30 - 13:00 advocates for the reform of the public schools on the afternoon of May the second 2002 a massive thunderstorm broke over McDowell and for the second time in 10 months the county suffered a hundred year flood 85 percent of all homes either sustained damage or completely destroyed seven people died
13:00 - 13:30 the people of McDowell County were quite clear the exacerbating factor in all of this is the practice of mountaintop removal with nothing left on the mountains to hold back the rain on the afternoon of that may Thursday the water mud logs and debris poured from the sides of what was left of the mountains destroying everything in its path
13:30 - 14:00 the Coretta Community Center once the water had dried out of the ground floor became an emergency response Center from this building Big Creek people in action distributed 17 397 meals and several tons of supplies now no one knows much about this the war on terror
14:00 - 14:30 and the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction filled all the headlines that may taking a break between preparing the noon meal and the Supper meal Marsha Timpson a member of the staff of Big Creek people in action looked at me exhausted worried fearful and angry and said I reckon America would just rather not have to deal with us
14:30 - 15:00 no one thought that a place such as Meadowview could accomplish it after all the story of Meadowview is the story of every rural American place since 1945 lost decline people going to places more fashionable the collapse of the Agricultural infrastructure what began as an effort to hold to the traditions of neighborliness became the desire to have a building where the community could gather and share a meal with time and work
15:00 - 15:30 with an honest grappling with who we are we began to think what a different future for our children and our grandchildren might be like and Meadowview we learned that more than 75 percent of our people did not have access to health care clearly if meadowview's Legacy of neighborliness was to shape the place that was to come that reality would have to change we worked we listened we heard no dozens of times we dealt with indifference and
15:30 - 16:00 disbelief and through it all we refuse to back down or walk away in June 2006 many of you was awarded seven hundred thousand dollars in federal block grant money to build a sliding scale medical clinic and Community Center the only stipulation was that the total cost of construction along with two years operational cost would need to be raised and committed before the 700 000 would be released and
16:00 - 16:30 construction could begin we were given six months to raise the money between June and December the people of Meadowview raised over eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars largely in small donations of 25 50 and 100 dollars we are finding that as difficult as that work was it was only the first step in a very very long road and the next work
16:30 - 17:00 the next things will require more of us than anything before and frankly we are beginning to wonder if we are equal to the work if we will fail our place if the pressures against us are too great our future is not assured to these American places lay out his Limestone teach us
17:00 - 17:30 what does this layered Limestone teach us about our citizenship from these layers of stories and memories service and citizenship we know that our places are complexly formed from the ongoing and enduring interaction of the natural environment the built environment in human culture and history we know from these layers that endemic to every social interaction is the reality of conflict some of this conflict is sharp and hot
17:30 - 18:00 some of it burning low long and slow but all of it real if human relationships human culture and history are part of what makes our places are part of that layered limestone than every place is shaped in and is the product of Long human conflict
18:00 - 18:30 and all of it all of this many layered reality is grounded in and built from the foundations of the Earth the complexity of our places accepting and living the conflicts that shape them teaches us that are that there are conflicts questions and issues in every place and from place to place that are so complex so intractable that there are no single right answers
18:30 - 19:00 our places require of us not the one right answer but the honest response the right answers are often brought to us we have found by the experts and planners and they usually lack a resonant honesty they're not part of the layers of the place our place is demand of us a citizenship of honesty born of our heartache and
19:00 - 19:30 loss our grief our miserable mistakes and our utter failures but also an honesty born of Our Hope rooted in our place and these places teach us demand from us a radical expansive creativity that is rooted in and grows from the three defining realities of every place a creativity that understands political boundaries are arbitrary and relatively
19:30 - 20:00 recent and that all places like the layers of limestone are deeply and forever joined every place is two places one of those places is the place of time a public policy of the present economic and political realities with which we contend the other reality the other place is that of The rhythms and cadences the whisper and hum of the sun burning off
20:00 - 20:30 the Morning Mist the time that cannot be measured by clock or schedule but resonates with the Deep layers of the place and it is from this second reality the long reality of Earth and sky of land and water story and memory that must give rise to a new Civic creativity one that will not take the policy makers no or The Economist assessments but seize the place as vital alive and worthy of
20:30 - 21:00 all our best efforts this is the creativity we need this is the creativity that is all but lost under the Welter and Into The Crucible of globalization not far from here Rising above the New River holding in at the memory of Inland Sea
21:00 - 21:30 rivers and rains sky and mud and drought and the generations of people who have worked out their lives in this American place are god-beast Cliffs two miles north to the north and west of the cliffs is the old town of newborn just a few miles Downstream is Ingalls Ferry where the Great Road crossed the new and nearby is the railroad Trestle that replaced that great Road over which the
21:30 - 22:00 coals shipped from Keystone and the produce from Meadowview and close at hand is the I-81 Bridge today carrying its many thousands more few who spend time on Claytor Lake would know that the cliffs that the cliffs we see today extend nearly a hundred feet below the surface of the water and then deeper still into the
22:00 - 22:30 foundations of the Earth the layers of that Limestone Cliff bearing them lives and stories and memories that are now lost to us the lake covering farms and lives and struggles and questions about which we can only guess we you and I are a part of those layers of limestone and story history and Truth and a citizenship of place carries in at the layers of this place
22:30 - 23:00 we are it and it is us and there at the top of that Cliff where soil and rain and woods and the human community continue the long hard work of layering the question for us then becomes if they of that layered Limestone are the we of this place and the we of this place are in those struggles now silent and forgotten as Rocks Under a lake
23:00 - 23:30 what does that mean for our honesty for our creativity for our service for our American citizenship thank you
23:30 - 24:00 um thank you Tao for helping us to understand and share and share your sense of new citizenship of place that has really the potential of reshaping our public life we are looking forward to continue learning with you and applying Lessons Learned this evening to our life to our communities to our work I'm Sarah Lyon Hill I'm a doctoral
24:00 - 24:30 student in the planning governance and globalization program and I'm a member of Community Voices Tao we greatly appreciate your leadership and vision of community and again we just like to thank you for coming here tonight and sharing your vision with us uh tal your talk has helped to frame the next part of this evening an interview between you our very own uh Community Voices John catherwood Ginn and of
24:30 - 25:00 course all the lovely people here tonight basically John will engage you with some questions that will help us look more closely at community and citizenship John thanks Sarah I'll Echo her thoughts thank you once again for coming that was wonderful thank you um as Sarah just said my name is John catherwood Ginn I'm a graduate student in directing and public dialogue in the department of theater and Cinema here at Tech and in this dialogue we're going to have an opportunity to talk a little bit about your sense of community this notion of this being a citizenship or
25:00 - 25:30 the citizenship of place as well as some of your ideas and suggestions about how to improve our own sense of community and public life I have a series of questions sort of kick things off but after we have a dialogue for a while I'd invite you to please share the questions you might have for Tau or comments you have about what he had to share so in order in in terms of starting things one thing I found really distinctive about what you just shared was just the power of story and the presence of story would you really want to talk a bit about what you feel the value the presence of story is in this notion of citizenship of place
25:30 - 26:00 well a good story well told is the best teacher and uh and I grew up listening to good stories not long kinds of stories but the stories that we're told to illustrate a point or to drive home you know a truth and that's the kind of teaching that I try to do but I also know that until we begin to
26:00 - 26:30 hear the stories of a place we haven't really understood that place and those stories like the Limestone itself are deep and they and the more we listen uh the more complex those stories are and the more connected they are um I have found you know for one reason or another I've got one of those catalog Minds that kind of keep stories in it and
26:30 - 27:00 um like in Meadowview I have heard you know my neighbors tell me one or two stories of the same event when I heard the first one I thought well that's pretty interesting when I heard the second one and the third one and the fourth one and the fifth one I began to realize this is really pretty significant and um and it seems to me that that there was no other way to get at that and to find the appreciation of that
27:00 - 27:30 without keeping my mouth shut and listening to some stories and now interestingly enough I can tell those stories some of them not all of them and that seems to me to be um a profound honor so where's your story in this relating of some of your family members for instance in Newburgh and I'd be fascinated to hear where you where you position yourself in that
27:30 - 28:00 um that's a good question um I think that I like to think that um I'm using those stories to to teach my children what it means to be in service in a place and to honor a place that may not be
28:00 - 28:30 honored in much of American culture and to create for them the kinds of opportunities and the kinds of values that I see lived out in these stories from my family with all of their mistakes and all of their failures and all of that there are people in this room right now that I've been listening to from stories all of my life now all of them are kin to me either I mean there are a couple of folks right here on the close on the third row that I remember my father was
28:30 - 29:00 a veterinarian and and I love to go on calls and a couple of these guys I spent more than one afternoon sitting on a truck bumper listening to them talk they didn't know I was listening um but I learned and um I can't really tell you where one thing stops and the other starts in terms of other stories in your story and in terms of my citizenship and in terms of what I
29:00 - 29:30 believe and in terms of what I try to do in my work on my best days it's a seamless garment well that notion of a citizenship of place just by invoking the word citizen a question that comes to mind for me is one of boundaries if one aspires to be a citizen of place what are the boundaries they might set would you in terms of where does my sense of citizenship end
29:30 - 30:00 is it of McDowell County for instance or is it of my state is it my nation would you be willing to talk a little bit about what made you see as the boundaries for a person who would consider themselves a citizen of place and the tensions that might exist locally or globally well you know I think that's a really important question because I think it pushes us Beyond understanding our places only in terms of political boundaries and I
30:00 - 30:30 I sort of alluded to this in the talk but um you know that there is a boundary between McDowell County and Tazewell County and another one between Tazewell County and Smith County and another one between Smith County and Washington county is nothing but the the capricious whim of a legislative body somewhere and we're connected and what happens in McDowell County
30:30 - 31:00 is directly related to the things that I have to deal with in Washington County and what happens in Pulaski county is directly related to what to decisions that get made in Blacksburg or Montgomery County and and what happens in the eastern United States are connected in some way you know to all that happens in the Western United States and so what I want folks to understand that all of our places are deeply and and forever joined
31:00 - 31:30 and that I might this might be the place that I derive my most meaning that gives me the substance in the direction of my life but it's not Us and Them we're not them and us it's all of us and just like a place is constituted out of all of the people all of those places constitute the place
31:30 - 32:00 real way and I know that sort of whatever but still um I think that's what keeps it from being real narrow but that question of since you set up that binary of the US and them that we hear so often particularly in political discourse it brings to mind the notion of The Insider and The Outsider it was we were speaking earlier today you talked about a common reality unfortunately is that between those that would consider
32:00 - 32:30 themselves Outsiders and those that would consider themselves or considered by others as Outsiders there's quite often an abrasiveness which the term you had used would you talk a bit about what's a remedy for that abrasiveness or some considerations that a person needs to get into and doing community engaged work about that embraciveness well I think that comes from understanding that our places are constituted by issues and questions that are so complex there isn't any one right answer and that what is required is a is a is a
32:30 - 33:00 Civic honesty and an acceptance of other people's ideas it's a lot easier said than done but I think I think that's one thing I also think that uh just an awareness of the fact that of the other person's story whether they whether they're from here or not whether they've been they'd have Deep Roots here or not then awareness of that story and an appreciation for it
33:00 - 33:30 and a willingness to listen to it and that sort of I think that's the way that we begin to move beyond that it's a it's it's you got it takes commitment you gotta want to do it and it's hard but yeah and a lot of people criticize my work and the idea because of that very thing because they said well you just just degenerate into an Insider an outsider kind of thing I don't believe so not if you take seriously the complexity of our places and that
33:30 - 34:00 all places are forever joined thank you well this time I'd love to be able to pass the ball to audience members that might have questions or comments they'd like to share with Tau if you do I'd ask that since we're recording tonight's talk I might ask that if you have a question to please just raise your hand and I can indicate that you can speak and we have some folks down here that would be happy to run the mic to you so we can get a chance to hear your voice out to the full group so is anybody out
34:00 - 34:30 here who might have a question or comment for Tal so earlier when we were talking um I'm from the candy Rock beside Washington County wrestle Canyon back home as you know we've had so many layoffs and coal mines you know buck one closing just a couple weeks ago and you know hundreds of minors losing their jobs I'm wondering how you think that
34:30 - 35:00 will affect the layers within the community yeah and that's tough um I talked a lot about this I was at a meeting yesterday of the Federated Appalachian housing Enterprises it's a group a collective of housing organizations throughout the Appalachian region and what we were talking about there was that um
35:00 - 35:30 for a lot of way and for a lot of different reasons in South in in Southwest Virginia that is very clearly connected to coal in southern West Virginia and and we can talk about this probably not in this context but but we have come to understand that there is no alternative to coal and that we've come to believe that it's
35:30 - 36:00 coal or nothing and for those of us that are in it every day and and you know what I'm talking about right now in that part of the world there is a civil war going on and it's fault sometimes by violence but more often by words and hurt feelings and umbrage and silence and innuendo and they are and people are dividing themselves between friends of coal and
36:00 - 36:30 not friends of coal and I would suggest that it's not so much a war on coal but it's war on each other and we are fighting each other because for whatever reason we don't have any other Alternatives our backs are against the wall and anybody that's honest about it would have to say it's just it's killing us
36:30 - 37:00 it's tearing the shreds of our common life into dust and I I have to think that that what is required of us now desperately required of us is to learn the kind of of radical expansive creativity that helps us understand our places in
37:00 - 37:30 different ways and helps us to begin to retool our places for an entirely different life we talked at the fahi meeting about what would it be like if if the if there was in Southwest Virginia or if in those counties in Southwest Virginia where we are most hard-pressed by the issue of coal if we could become sort of the national capital for Green Building
37:30 - 38:00 and we could learn and teach you know with a network of community colleges and vocational schools and public high schools if we could begin to to retool ourselves to be experts to ship that knowledge out to the world about what it's like to build green buildings and that people would come there not only to learn it but to hire our people to teach others
38:00 - 38:30 that's just one idea but it's an idea that I think is rooted in in that sort of that second reality of police that police the the whisper in the home of the place the cadences and rhythms but for a lot of different reasons right now we don't think there are any alternatives and I think most places that have been through similar kinds of things and I would remind people you know Pittsburgh
38:30 - 39:00 went through the similar kind of thing um that that we we make those Alternatives we create it through a creativity a Civic creativity of police I know exactly what you're talking about the day doesn't go by a day does not go by those of us down in that end of Virginia
39:00 - 39:30 will grapple with it I'd like to go back to the issue of insiders and Outsiders that you have both raised in my experience and in a good bit of writing that I've done I have been really interested in that I lived in Giles County in a beautiful Valley for 10 years and I was a newcomer I come here an outsider
39:30 - 40:00 what and there are multiple terms for that I'm sure and there were people there who were fifth sixth even seventh generation families who were farmers and and mountain people two very different cultures some people would talk about people like me as PhD polluters because we had moved into that Valley but my experience is that insiders and Outsiders there came together in a powerful way over a
40:00 - 40:30 threat to the community Appalachian Power AEP wanted to put a huge power line through the valley or the hollow an organization fought that for four or five years newcomers and Natives and one and then my experience for insiders and Outsiders they came together for an opportunity and that opportunity was another four or five year project of people getting
40:30 - 41:00 together and creating the Greater Newport rural historic district which is on both the state and National registers and that particularly gave people a sense of identity a sense that folks Beyond Newport and clover Hollow were paying attention to them that's a that's a really good observation I think and I think I said in the round table at lunch this afternoon
41:00 - 41:30 um you know if I live to be 112 I will still be in Meadowview I won't be from around there and you know I know that and I you know that's just the way it is but building that Community Center with the understanding that every single person has the gifts and the talents the The Graces to make a difference in the
41:30 - 42:00 life of that place and if you honor it in others they honor it in you generally and even though I ain't from around there and I it's just the way it's going to be we're able to get some pretty good things done and uh I'm proud of that other questions or comments hi Charles good I was wondering if you
42:00 - 42:30 could do us the great favor of relating just a little bit of what you said uh earlier today regarding the work of your students and many students at Emory and Henry who are so integrated into the community well do that and in fact I I'm very proud to do that at Ameren Henry we
42:30 - 43:00 we practice what I describe and what we are known for now as a place to face model of education and service and we give our students um opportunities in connection with their classes in connection with their extracurricular activities in connection with um you know in just if they want to do anything is to be involved in the community to be involved in the places
43:00 - 43:30 where we are partnered a place-based model of Education as I articulated means that our Partnerships aren't with agencies and organizations but our Partnerships are with places so that we can see the systemic issues and we can see you know long years down the road we're going to try to work on the issue of poverty or health care we're going to try to find some solutions to it in this place this place connected to others our work is grounded on two defining
43:30 - 44:00 principles the first of which is that every person I don't care where you've been or where you haven't been I don't care what you've done or what you haven't done I don't care how much education you had or haven't had I don't care anything about that every single person has the gifts and the talents the vision and the passion to make a difference in the lives of somebody else and in the life of their place and on this screen there were dozens people
44:00 - 44:30 and the second principle is like unto it and that is that every place whether it's fashionable or not whether it's blessed with consumer goods or not whether you can get good coffee in here live music or not every single place has the potential to be a safe and a healthy and a good place for all of its people and my job at Emory and Henry the work that consumes me day and night
44:30 - 45:00 is to give students hundreds of opportunities to learn that about themselves to prove it to each other teach it to the world and right now I think I said in class 98.7 percent of our students last year the last Academic Year 98.7 percent of our students were engaged in community service of some kind throughout the Academic Year
45:00 - 45:30 on that last topic because that statistic is incredible yeah I'm surprised at it too it really is because I'm there when I asked you about that earlier today you'd mentioned that you felt that it was a result of the ethos of the institution yeah could you talk a bit about that how was that fostered Emory and Henry and what could other institutions learn from that if they want to develop the same kind of community engagement among their student body okay well I think part of it is
45:30 - 46:00 rooted in the fact of how Emory Henry was founded it was developed by people that came along that great Road and settled in that part of Virginia in the late 1700s and they believed that there needed to be an institution that was going to equip a new citizenry for the American Republic
46:00 - 46:30 and keep in mind that in in England there were only two universities Oxford and Cambridge and in Ireland there was only one Trinity and it was only for the Protestants and what they visioned was an institution that opened its doors to anybody that wanted to come and it gave them the skills
46:30 - 47:00 and the talents and the abilities to go out and to build strong communities on the American frontier and ever since then Emery Henry has been putting out Public School teachers preachers and lawyers and doctors members of town councils and mayors men and women that that never hold a public office and and do good work quotidian work every single day
47:00 - 47:30 and that's what we built on and then you know Scott was there when we were working on this we we began to realize that there was a moat around Emory it's an invisible moat but it was there nonetheless and we tried to create on our campus it's not as big as Tech but we tried to create on our campus spaces opportunities for for people from the community come in after school
47:30 - 48:00 programs special kinds of parties for kids training events for Community leaders that we just tried to reopen those doors and and to define the education is for the public good and um we don't have it all figured out yet and we've made some mistakes but
48:00 - 48:30 there's a there's a I don't know whether it's a need or whether it's just the desire to hear it but it it strikes according our students and and people in the community and in our faculty and staff and I really do believe that that with their help we have maybe not remade but reconfirmed what we started out to be
48:30 - 49:00 all right then at this time I want to say thank you so much for joining us tonight Tao thank you as well thank you it's a pleasure thank you