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tv   Washington Journal  CSPAN  October 29, 2014 8:00pm-8:44pm EDT

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writers, and looking at the policies and legacies of our nation's commanders in chief, top college professors delving into america's past. cspan 3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. coming up on cspan 3, we'll talk with the -- later former u.s. afghanistan war commander general john allen talks about the legacy of former afghan president hamid karzai, and after that, i'll look at a proposal for a new world war i memorial in washington. be part of cspan's 2014 coverage, follow us on twitter
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and like us on facebook, to get debate schedules, video clips on key moments, debate previews from our politics team. cspan has brought you over 100 house and governor ship debates. you can instantly share what the candidates are saying, stay involved and engage by following us on twitter and facebook. up next a conversation with university illinois urbana-champagne provost, he spoke about some of the challenging facing higher education including student debt and campus safety. this is part of a recent series on cspan's washington journal. # >> last we're here on the american journal, we kicked off a month long series with university presidents as part of
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cspan busses big ten tour. aboard the bus today is the provost. let me begin with what you see as the top changeses for higher education. >> well, good morning. it's nice -- welcome to everybody to our campus. to talk challenges for higher education for where we sit in the middle of the prairie in the united states is the issue of access and affo affordabili affordability, trying to improve themselves in the world. access and accessibility for young people to improve themselves in the world. access and affordability. because the cost of higher education has gone up over the last many years and now we have to figure out as a country, and as individual institutions how to make this affordable and
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accessible to young people, because education is transformational. transformative experiences make a whole individual. that's for citizens of every country, especially in a democratic environment. >> so how are you doing that then? how are you addressing this challenge of affordability and access? the university of illinois at urbana, champagne, tuition for instate is over 15,000, out of state is over 30,000, and room and board can come in at nearly $11,000. >> yes, indeed. we are over the last many years, we are increased our effort in terms of financial aid. we have given over $70 million in financial aid. we have been going out to our friends and alumni trying to college bonds. because the top reason, probably four or five regions, that
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students accept our invitation to join our family is -- the major problem is the decrease in state funding over the last many years for institutions like ours, so it behooves us, the leaders of great institutions like this to really go out and make the case to the country, to the state that education is top priority, especially higher education. when you look at the increase in employment, in economic development, for the country, education, especially higher education is critical to making it a country and bonded in times of human productivity, and the social environment of a country. so a major issue for us is making sure we have financial aid for students so we can bring everybody under the spectrum to
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the university of illinois. >> the annual budget for the university of illinois, $2 billion. endowments you get about $2.8 billion and alumni bringing in over $400,000. what role should the federal government play, do you think, sir, in providing affordable college university access to american students. >> i think a comment that trying presently in times of student loans, most student loans with the lower interest rates, that will be very good for the students, it will be very, very transformational for students to be able to get lower interest on the loan so that when they get out, it is lower than the national median. there is not a lot of debt on
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their head. we're very proud of our campus that we have a low default rate and also the loan on our students when they get out is lower than the national medium. so we're very proud of that, but we believe that there is a role for the federal government to make a big impact on students, their families and the future of the country has a whole to be able to produce and give lower interest rates for students to come to partake of higher education, which is a bedrock, a bedrock of a democratic society. >> at the university of illinois at urbana-champagne, you have 19-1 student to faculty ratio, 150 undergrad majors, 84% six-year graduation rate. so it takes over four years. 84% of students there are taking over three years to graduate. and in 2013, research expenditures over $123 million.
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what is your job placement record for those students who are graduating from the university of illinois? >> very, very high. very, very high, because over -- last year, we had over 8,500 companies visiting our campus. and probably more than 100 of the fortune 500 companies come to our campus, so the placement really is very, very high. we must show the specific number right now, but we are very sure that our talents, the talent that reported from the university of illinois are desirable, they are desired at a very high rate, and we bring
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best to the table what i call the workhorse and the racehorse of talent for this country. my understanding is that cspan is going through the big ten. we have a counter part, which is an official aspect of the big ten. we produce the largest number of talents for this country. what cspan is doing is terrific is exposing and bringing together the country in economic development in our society. >> and our goal here as part of this month-long series of interviews with with university presidents is to talk about the issues of higher education. and this morning our guest is the provost at the university of illinois. we want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. we divided the lines by students, parents, educators and illinois residents. want to get to your concerns, if you're a student dial in at
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202-585-3880. if you're a parent and you've got students heading to college, we want to know what your concerns are. how do you address the curriculum at the university of illinois to make sure that it's aligned with job skills and what companies need in the workforce? >> definitely. the fundamental role of a public university is making sure that we train students for critical thinking and to partake of the society itself. i think just being a job shop is
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not something we wants to do. we want to make the fundamental -- and practice for a student to go out and be productive in society. we know that students will go through many jobs in their lifetime. how do you prepare them for that? funding at a major league level for that, we have a great engineering school, we have a great business school. we have our own unique attributes of educating our students, but have the humanities, social sciences contribute to the aspects of training of students at a fundamental level, that's what university of illinois has been and great institutions like this are doing to make sure that opportunities are not only prepared for one job but are able to translate from job to job over their lifetimes. that's our philosophy and i'm sure it's the philosophy of
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other trade schools, specific schools that prepare students specifically for some type of jobs. but ours is to make sure that we prepare the whole individual to become leaders in society in whatever they choose to do. >> okay, let's get to your calls. tony's up first, a student in rosewood, california. >> caller: hi. i returned to school after not being in for quite some time and i go to a very nice university. and i agree with him that it's very expensive and he's saying that he's looking forward to the federal government doing more. but there's also a limit on a lifetime limit on how much the government would help you because there's a new law in place that you can only get pell grants for so many years, so that's not helping people that went to school earlier, maybe like in the '90s or something and are returning to school now because now i'm on the limb on how much the federal government is going to help me.
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so i would like for you to address that. thanks. >> well, thank you very much for your call. i think as i mentioned previously, the main, the chancellor, myself, we have a foundation and we're working very, very studiously to make sure we raise funds for people like you, we raise funds for scholarships, for grants, so that people can come here to the prairie and actually get a great education. our fundamental issue is being able to raise those moneys and provide grants and scholarships to everybody that is interested in coming to the university of illinois. so as i mentioned previously, the funding over the last 20 years has been a little bit challenging for all of us, to stay the truth.
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but over a long time, you'll find that great institutions have great foundations and are able to raise money to really help, to help and assist students because that is the fundamental thing that university and the fundamental aspirations of this institution itself. >> and on this issue of affordability, the daily illinois the daily newspaper had this headline, less illinois students are attending the university due to cost. dee in chicago, an illinois resident. dee, you're on the air. dee, listen through your phone, please. turn your tv down. go ahead, dee. >> caller: good morning. this is my first time -- >> thank you very much. >> it's been a pleasure. i'm so proud of you.
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and god bless you. >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much. >> caller: we have a lot of students don't have parents or parents do not have good credit line and they're declined for student loans. they have to drop out of college. what provisions do urban that champagne have for those kind of students in place? >> well, in times of -- we do not like students dropping out of our institution, but the main thing is if we are able to connect the students, get to the students beforehand, we're able to look at all the portfolio of funding that are available to the student. so, if you know any student that is in that particular situation, send them to my office, send them to the advisers because one thing that happens is that
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students are not aware of the resources on campus that can help them. so that's assistance we have to give to our students. we have financial literacy, how do you get four-year training or six-year training to the individual to be able to go to the university of illinois without owing too much because we are very, very aware of heavy burden of loan on students when they go out is not something that we want to encourage at all, but we have 76% rate four-year graduation rate and 84% rate at six years. we're very proud of that. and my goal, as the provost, is actually to get that to 90% so that we can, we can really graduate students at a very high rate and really workhorse of this country which is a very great country. >> go ahead there, a parent there in new jersey.
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>> caller: yeah. i think that education loan is up because these people in america are making profit from it. when i went to college, i went to community college and i went to state college. my credit was $45, but now my children and my grandchildren, they are now paying over 200 credit in new jersey. i think -- what i am advising all americans who can vote to go out and vote for the party that will be receptive to the problem of this society. the people we have now, they are not receptive to the poor people. they are receptive to the wealthy people. that would be my advice. >> okay. let's take that point. is the university of illinois
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more -- listening more and more intently to wealthy donors to wealthy people than it is to the minority and poor people who want to attend the school? >> not at all, not at all. we listen to everybody. this is a public land grant university. we're created as such and we believe in that mission passionately because i'm a product of public education. i'm originally from nigeria as you might have inferred from my name, but i'm a product of what you may call -- what land grant universities can do to an individual. so, we listen to everybody and try to reach people who want to donate here, we have to make sure that their volumes and priorities are aligned with the campuses. that's critical for us. because it is not just the money but the principles and the value, the core values that we
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hold deep as a public land grant institution that wants to have a global impact at a state level, local level, state level and globally. that's ambition. that's our vision and that's what we're set to do. >> let's go to john, bloomfield hills, a parent there. go ahead, john. >> caller: yes. good morning. i am a first-time caller. i've listened usually in the mornings. i have two children in college. i think it's important to understand that there's a disconnect from what i believe universities are generally offering in terms of overall education that the guest was talking about and the requirement to get a job that pays. my one daughter at michigan state university chose construction management over veterinary science because she knew she could get a well-paying job and she just did get one.
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another son going to ohio northern university is choosing construction management just because he knew that my daughter got a job doing that. it's so important for people to understand that you just can't go to get a soft degree today. you have to have employability. >> well, we don't have soft degrees at university of illinois. we bring students here what i call raw, young minds and turn them into refined young minds when they leave here. some people are very focussed on the type of job they're going to get when they leave this place, but there are some students who are still trying to explore. their own human being, aspects of themselves and take some time before they actually arrive at where they feel comfortable in life. so, we provide a spectrum of
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education as the chief academy officer of this campus, i believe in that. we give people what we call general education and if you're in engineering, you go out and specialize in your engineering degree, business. so we provide a spectrum of majors, activities, resources for students, study abroad, so we make the whole person, not just the first job, but the whole person for life. that is the function of public land grant universities, in my belief. >> we're talking with the provost at the university of illinois at urbana champagne. we kicked it off last week at the university of minnesota and went through week. and this week as well. yesterday we talked to the president of the university of wisconsin of the wisconsin
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systems there and today we're at the university of illinois and this tour will continue for a month long as we continue talking about higher education issues and that is our topic for all of you out there. what are your questions, your comments, your conditions with higher education? you can keep dialing in now. we have about 20 minutes left here. we'll go to pat next in carbondale, illinois. go ahead, pat. >> caller: yes, hi. i'm calling in several regards. one is in particular the parent-plus loans and how that affects parents and -- i have five children who i got through school. two, one is in college now and one is about to go to college. parent-plus loan is set for parents to pay back. i think that's a tragedy in terms of how that is set up. also for children applying to school, if you're middle income, they assume you have money to pay for college and you don't get all the benefits of financial aid in terms of -- you get loans but that's all your children can get.
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i'm on my last child, hopefully he'll get a full ride somewhere and we are considering your school, but we want to know what is actually out there for middle income people who they say have all this money, we're paying house note, car notes and all that, what do we have that helps us to get our students through school? >> well, we're working very, very hard really. i mean, i'm sure it's not only our institution that is doing this. we're working hard for the lower income and the middle income families to be able to afford college. apart from the federal loan, state loan and the money that we try to supplement without grants and scholarship from the campus, we don't have enough. we don't really have enough. we've been going to what i usually call our grate and grateful alumni to be build up our portfolio to help people like your family to come to the university of illinois. this is something that we are doing.
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we are making sure that the increase in tuition is held at the inflation rate making sure that people can really afford school. it's a pity. i went to school and a four-year college after that. and i i know at that time, the institution rate was very, very low. but with the current state of the economy, the current state of the economy and decrease to a large extent in the state funding has been very, very critical to increase a little bit of the institution to be able to maintain the excellence and teaching capability of our institutions. so, i main focus now is making sure that we raise funds for scholarship, for grants, and making sure that we bring your kids and my kids also to a great institution that prepares them
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for a life-long learning, life-long job and life-long citizenship in a great country. >> provost, here is a tweet from one of our viewers, lauren, who says virtual schools will be one tenth the cost. >> well, virtual schools are great for people who are very interested in that. but i believe sincerely in the residential experience for students. it's not -- i mean, it's not only bringing the students here to study, but bringing students here to socialize, to create networks, to make friends, to meet people from all over the world. if you stay in your bedroom,
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that's very difficult, very, very difficult to produce what i call a whole citizen. we believe we produce online education for people who are desirable of that and we also use those to teach our students on campus so that they can have education any time they want in the day. but, eventually my belief and the belief here is that residential education is extremely important not for only the educational aspects but for the social development of young people to be able to partake of a democratic society. >> and here is another topic for you, that is the issue of free speech on college campuses and civil discourse. here is a headline from "the guardian" a professor at the university of illinois was fired for israeli criticism and urges the university of illinois to reinstate this professor.
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what is the university of illinois's policy civil discourse and free speech? >> look, civil discourse and free speech are the lynch pin in this country's armor, in times of democracy. i think the professor in question was not fired, he was just not hired. and in our classrooms on campus, we go to the campus, you can talk to the students, there's no restriction whatsoever on free speech or academic freedom on our campus. and we are the chancellor and myself, we are talking to faculty on campus, really debating, trying to get everybody to really start discussing, debating free speech and academic freedom in this new age.
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and we've been visiting colleges, we've talked to professors who thinks free speech is done, it's written in the first article and is done. but we talk to law professors who teach free speech for a whole semester and thinks maybe there may be limits, but these are subjects for discussion. and every new generation have to discus so that they can imbibe the lessons of what people fought for for a long time in this country. so free speech and academic freedom are alive and well on our campus and this is something that we're committed to, no police thoughts yet, no trying to limit any speech. our professors can challenge any establishments in the classroom because we have to train our students.
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we just have to train the students so that when they get out of here being respectful of other people, being just engaging, we have a tremendous number of out of states students, foreign students, how do you become a global citizen? free speech and academic freedom is a part -- they are a part of this education. >> what about out of the classroom? are you monitoring your students and your faculty's twitter page, facebook, other social media? >> not at all. if we are doing that, it means that we have nothing to do on this campus. we don't monitor anything that our faculty are doing outside of the classroom. faculty, students, staff, they can do anything they want to do. they can say anything they want to say. that's -- it's a great place to come, it's a destination for people who want to come here to come partake in the largest library collection in the world on any campus.
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so these are things that we take as a given on our campus. academic freedom, free speech are a core value, a core value of this institution as well as of course as of the country. >> then why was this professor not hired? >> well, i think -- the board of trustees and the chancellors have made their decision. i do not want to second guess, but i think we try to move on from that. encouraging our faculty and students to really come together and initiate discussion. there are many university of
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california in berkeley, yale university, these are hot topics right now being discussed and we want to be in the middle of that. in the decisions of academic freedom and free speech. i will say that the board of trustees and the chancellor made the decision to not hire the person in question, but now it is for us to really talk amongst ourselves and nationally this particular issue. >> okay. we'll go to lavella in illinois. go ahead. >> caller: hi. my name is lavella and i'm really happy to be able to get you guys. i've been trying since 2006 or '7. and my question is pertaining to children of military families, active duty and retired. can you hear me? >> we can, lavella. so what is your question? >> caller: okay. my question is, my daughter is active duty military and she has a stepson and also has two younger children. so, does she qualify for any kind of assistance for her stepson? this is their home state of residence because she plans to use her other benefits for her two younger children. can she use the benefits for all
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three? >> well, i don't know the exact what is it called -- i do not know the exact conditions under which they operate, but what i say is that this is a very, very friendly institution to the families of veterans. i'm sure we have programs on campus that cater to veterans and their families. one thing i will like to say, it's a destination for wounded veterans. we are presently building a center for wounded veterans in higher education. that's coming up. education and research issues for us. when you look at the history of the university of illinois, a lot of standouts, all those were invented here or developed here at the university of illinois. so, this is an institution that
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has catered to veterans and their families for a long time. actually since the beginning or end of the second world war. we have been a destination for veterans of false tribes. so i look over at what you've said and maybe you can call our veterans' office to really seek out if you let me know your number, i will talk to our veterans office and i can call you and give you the information on that. so i will be waiting for the call after we leave this place here. >> okay. we'll go on to rob who is an educator in south burlington. go ahead, rob. >> caller: thank you very much. i think one thing that we're not really kind of addressing in this discussion is how broken the model of traditional higher education is. the financial arrangements, which are heavily dependent upon student loans, and also adjunct faculty salaries is just unattenable.
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you can't expect people to pay, 20, 30, $40,000 a year on education and have that education be valued when the first two years are in incredibly large classes, where they're -- the debt that families are having to take are so large and it's really important to recognize that there are a whole bunch of other kinds of businesses and institutions that are kind of stepping in, they can check out a player you can check out courses -- why aren't the university of illinois or most schools accepting the for introductory classes. introductory classes are taught by adjuncts who get paid very little money. >> how many students are in one of those entry-level classes, economics 101 taught by adjunct professors?
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>> well, we take pride in our institution that many of our introductory classes are actually taught by professors in the classroom. that is something we take pride in. we have an on going right now campus conversations on graduate education. we are re-imagining, rethinking how we teach our students. so you can check it out. anybody can check it out that our students and our commitment on our campus is that many of the first-year -- probably all of the first-year education is provided by professors. we may have adjunct we don't call them adjunct here, we call them specialized faculty.
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we want to develop great professional tracts for those individuals if they choose to remain on our campus for a long time. so we are -- i don't know about other schools, but this is something that we are committed to, okay? the model for higher education, the caller said is broken. i don't know whether it's broken, but what i can say is that we are partner of the cosara company. we use them for outsiders and also for our students in terms of free classrooms. students taking those -- listening to those lectures and then coming to class to ask questions. so these are -- we are looking at other model possible to make sure that we can deliver education at the lowest cost
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possibly in this particular economy. >> jim is next in robinson, illinois, parent there. go ahead, jim. >> caller: yeah. my son -- >> may i add one more -- may i add one more thing is that the student/faculty ratio at our campus is 19-1. student/faculty ratio is 19-1. we take pride in that making sure we touch the students who come to our campus. >> let's hear from jim. >> my son is a senior in high school. we're about two hours south of champaign and it's a land grant college for illinois. and our schools it seems like our kids somehow kind of are less of a disadvantage, like they don't push math and science enough so they meet the entrance exams for say a big ten school, university of illinois. for a lot of people down here in
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the farm belt would really like their kids to go because we're like fifth generation farmers down here, and i just wanted to know is there some kind of program that gets kids if their families have lived in illinois all their lives kind of help to get them in there, you know, so many people around here say, well, if you're not from a foreign country or something like that where your math and science is good, you can't go to the university of illinois. >> okay. >> well, we are working with actually teachers from local schools to really start improving the standards, giving them more ammunition in terms of teaching students. and one thing that we're looking at and we're on our way to implementing them is using a mook platform to start partnering with high schools
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that do not have teachers in math or physics or chemistry or things in that area. so that we can start engaging the local families and local schools, preparing the students to be able to partake of the education at this institution. so that's something that we are looking at very, very seriously because in the farmland, we want to make sure that the opportunities is flat, we're provide a flat grant -- we provide a flat environment for students from any area or any financial background or academic strata to be able to come to university of illinois. so that's something you may actually see some of our faculty or college of education come into the area and talking to teachers in high school. >> we're running out of time here. the house of representatives is about to come in for their morning session. so let me go to a tweet, if i could, real fast. this is from one of your viewers who wants to know how large is the international student body, according to the campus paper, they put together this graphic,
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this map that shows there's 658 students from china, 132 from india, 126 from south korea. singapore, 21 students and taiwan, 18 students. why is there this international presence at the university of illinois? >> yes. >> well, the university of illinois over the last 100 years actually we have a reputable history of engaging international students. if you go to china, i've been there, to a university there, actually you find out the campus is modelled after the university of illinois urbana-champaign. we trained the first architects in china at this university. you can find that i was an international student once. i came and i stayed and i believe many international students come and stay in this
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country. because of the opportunities. and we have over 5,000 freshman from the state of illinois. those are first stake holders. we have a lot of students of illinois over the last many years we have grown and we have taken out of state, not only international states but students from california we have a lot of students from california, new jersey and from around the country. so this is an international environment. we always say that our students can do study abroad, illinois students can do study abroad on campus. we are very proud that we have a global reputation. >> and i apologize, mr. adesida. we have to leave it there. on the next washington journal, look at the role that president obama has played in this year's midterm elections.
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then the state of manufacturing in the u.s., we'll talk with american alliance for manufacturing president scott paul. washington journal begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on cspan. >> the 2015 student cam video competition is under way. students can submit a five-minute documentary on -- affected you and your community, there's 200 cash prizes for students and teachers total 200,000. for a list of how to get started, go to student cam.org. >> up next a discussion on how civilians are impacted by war. we'll hear from anti-war activists and scholars hosted by the university of colorado international affairs
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conference. we'll also hear from a woman who was taken hostage in iran in 2009. this is an hour 20 minutes. >> this panel 2467 collateral damage, civilians in war. and the panel date, april 8, 2014, 12:30 to 1:50 is this panel. i want to thank you so much, my name is jenny and i'm absolutely honored to be here today. i work for the american red cross here in colorado. and i'm a former student volunteer for the conference so honored to be back. cspan is filming today, so our panelists aren't able to stand up so they will be out of the frame. let me introduce our esteemed panelingists today. before i do that, if ning could silence any devices or other
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noise makers that you have on you, that would be appreciated. we have bob dreyfuss, i asked bob where is the most intriguing place that he's ever been and bob shared that vietnam and iran. and he said that he was just kind of boggled by both of those places, bob, he is a contributing editor at the nation and we're honored to have him here. next to bob, we have sarah holwinsky. she just came from africa to boulder, that's the most recent intriguing place she has been and the director for civilians in centers in conflict. we also have tammy schultz, she was a ride supervisor at elich gardens, the lead ride supervisor at elich

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