Okay. Uh but we're working now on on the
concept of distressed cities and this really comes about the
the fact that fellows program that we have in the
School of Public policy and International Affairs, as you
know, as part of the College of Architecture.
And so we're involved in this project on distressed cities
and we're looking at uh huh places like Chattanooga Tennessee
, if you look back several years ago, it
was considered to be one of the dirtiest cities.
And mm today, it's considered to be one of
the leading cities, small cities in the country and
they're at the present time, leading an effort to
put in a high quality fibre optic system that would
provide one gigabyte connectivity to homes, the businesses and
it's called a smart city. Mhm. And that's
, I think what we're trying to do here in
this region, were working too with the city of
roanoke and leadership in the city of roanoke and with
New river valley to see how we truly build a
vibrant system that connects to homes, businesses and positions
us for um economic development. But I think more
importantly, and perhaps how this ties in with the
school, public policy and international affairs and the urban
affairs part of that is how do you feel communities
, how do you strengthen communities? How do you
open up communities for participation in our democratic process and
why you can today look and follow public hearings and
things on tv? How do you build the connectivity
so that I can set in my home and take
the agenda and share way before the meeting starts input
into that agenda. And even during the meeting,
have an open session where people can, so how
do you open up the system? I see that's
very much part of of how a school that's focused
on urban design, urban planning, community building,
economic growth and development of communities and all that's part
of this College of Architecture and I think fits very
nicely. So when being Burchard and charlie steiger and
others who have been leaders of that college, I
think they were wise and seeing the link between traditional
architectural programs and the link with urban affairs and now
, even with public policy and most certainly with the
public policy related to international affairs as well, that
fits in very nicely too. I think, positioning
the college in position to school to be part of
a university that's striving to be recognized as an international
university and I think we're getting there very quickly.
So you think going forward, there's more of that
with the art is more of a movement with the
architecture program towards more of those urban questions. I
would hope there would be, I'm not certain because
I'm not directly involved with Jack and those kind of
discussions, but I would most certainly hope there would
be the opportunity for that. And I think it's
obvious with the program we have in reverse and metallic
and the longstanding history, we've had a program being
extended to europe, the uh the offices in Switzerland
, we've been creating this international, suppose er,
for our school students of architecture, but what I
like is school architecture is also reached out and involved
other colleges within the university in that program. So
the College of Architecture and Design has really expanded that
. We're now today, business students and students and
human resources and liberal arts are actively involved, and
I think that's showing a leadership role in the part
of the college as well to help bring that about
. I know charlie steiger, it was very,
very um involved in helping to create that presence,
and I'm glad I could play a little piece in
that decision. But, you know, the other
major thing that were involved in it, I think
, um is helping to position the university is this
Center for the Arts. And what I'm very pleased
is that the architecture program, not only again,
is focused on architecture and urban affairs, but also
has the School of Visual Arts and Design. And
they are, and as we build this program,
they've been very center for the Arts, have been
very instrumental in helping us think that do and we
will have two principal galleries in that center and we've
done it in a fashion that we're not competing with
the thomas Museum. And grown up, we're trying
to work out how to build the collaboration, and
the head of the School of Visual Arts and Design
is it's working to help build that relationship. So
the college is much broader than just thinking about it
from the standpoint of architecture, and I'm very pleased
with that. Yeah, I mean, I think
for for students in that program and now that art
is part of architecture again, um, just to
have access to a facility like that, you know
, exhibits and concerts and things that will come in
, it is really a wonderful thing. It's again
, it's helping to build communities. I mean,
many of these facilities, the whole focus is how
do you bring communities together? How do you,
how do you enrich the life's of individuals through culture
and how do you build in communities around those?
And I see what we're striving to do through the
Center for the Arts? Would be very much that
the Center for the Arts, the theme behind it
is how do we increase the presence and the practice
of the arts on campus for the benefit of all
students, not just students majoring in the arts,
but all students, and use it as a means
to bring to this campus international experiences that many,
many of our students would never have the opportunity to
experience because they will not have the opportunity to be
involved in study abroad programs. But we can bring
to this campus through the Center for the Arts,
an international presence for those students and international experience.
And that becomes, in terms of, as we
think long term, having the kind of the right
kind of communication links to the world is very important
. That's where this effort we're thinking about in terms
of building the network within the local region, to
the national network and then to the international network with
the fiber optic system that really, I think all
that fits in very nicely to the long term planning
. And we'll get the arts out of Blacksburg.
But they're coming from Blacksburg about this and also how
we bring arts into Blacksburg through that uh means of
having the communication system in place. And I love
it too, because there's such a there's such an
interesting um it's Virginia tech people. So like the
fiber optic, that's exactly what Virginia tech, right
? But the integration with the arts uh is not
something I mean, I I encounter that when I'm
talking to people about the architecture program outside of here
and they're just not aware of, you know,
especially after Bertrand came in. It seems like there
was a move to where this became one of the
top architecture schools, but really that creative thinking and
that approach and it's Virginia Tech and it's not expected
. And I just think that, well, I
agree, I think that's that's the strength of this
program from a lay person who looks at the program
is it is a program that really has a vision
, it's looking forward and it's creative and innovative and
what it's doing. And I think that's exciting to
be part of. And I especially like this link
between the fields of public policy and urban studies over
designed all that being part of this because I think
if it's in so nicely and uh in many respects
, I see a lot of us about building communities
and building presence throughout the world and linking and getting
engaged and I think having the opportunity to take things
out of the university and be involved and that becomes
very, very important. It's a thing for me
because I grew up in Morgantown west Virginia WV.
You is and my dad is a professor at W
View. And I remember when he took me down
here, you know when I was 18 he was
just blown away. He's just like now this is
a college campus. Yeah this is, you know
, I think in some ways the two communities are
similar but it's so much more successful here. The
integration of the school with the community. And I
think as an example for other communities, you know
what you're talking about because you have an urban condition
but you also have a very rural condition and you
know what you're talking about about the fiber optic network
trying to make that all work I think could be
a wonderful example. You brought up west Virginia and
but I was at a point of making a decision
of changing career and leaving. I was at the
University of Tennessee in Knoxville with the U. T
. System and uh had an offer to go to
West Virginia. And at the same time opportunity come
and visit here. And I must say there was
no real decision there in terms of difficulty. I
mean it was automatically made as to where I should
end up. And I'm very pleased we've been here
for Almost 38 years and um but I'm excited about
the future of the university and the whole focus we
now have in the biomedical health sciences area. And
what's encouraging is this within the center of the arts
. We have an institute program that we've developed that
is called Ichat Institute creativity Hearts and Technology. And
it's looking at ways that art and technology can come
together whether it's the work in in the medical field
, whether it's the work at P. K.
Through 12 school systems and helping to use the arts
to bring people to a point where they are studying
math, science, social studies, how they influence
creative and critical thinking skills and Children how to enhance
that. And also a major focus of it is
to create new learning, a new learning environment on
college campuses and in the broader community. And I'm
pleased that's all part of this, the Center for
the Arts and that colleges involved in that. And
because Jack sets on the steering committee for it and
all the policy board now and was very instrumental in
helping to lead. So the college was helping us
to think that the position that is a major area
of focus with the university and the school of it
charged with Truman. Capone. Truman was really at
the center of helping us think about this. We
originally called at the Center for Creative Technologies and then
it's now left it all way up because of the
importance of it to be an institute, one of
the, the institutes for the university. And Truman
played a major role in that coming out of the
college. So I was very, I think helpful
to us. How do you see with these new
institution, these new programs? How do you see
the integration with programs like, like architecture, to
where the students are really aware of it and can
get involved, I think, especially through the Center
for the Arts and this Ichat, there's tremendous opportunity
for students from across the campus to come together and
work in a laboratory experience and that's what the II
CAT is to be a major series of studios.
They like to in some sense, using the same
terminology, finding architecture, having studios for people who
come to gather and one of them is referred to
as so the sandbox just come in and start working
with that and what comes out of it in terms
of your learning experiences, creative projects that emerged from
it, and as you know, many of these
have designed to them and that is coming right out
of the College of Architecture and Urban Design. So
I think that's incredible now, just to tie it
in with that for the sake of the project,
um how do you, can you, can you
make more of a like, I think just terminology
, but also that studio model, like what do
you see coming out of the architecture program that's that
has been successful, that's been applied um to the
other, other disciplines with these other ideas. But
one of the things I and you know this better
than I because as a student, you find that
tremendous amount of independence that you have and always when
I'd leave my office and various hall at 10,
11 o'clock at night after having a long struggling day
, I'd see the lights over in Koga hall still
burning, students still coming and you walk across campus
at that hour, get into your car and still
see things going. And I think that's the same
thing we're doing here in terms of this uh I
CAD program is creating that environment. We have lots
of flexibility, creativity on the part of the students
. And I think in some sense that's kind of
modeled after what occurs in architecture, uh independence that
think independence to work and be guided by a factor
member and allow you to bring out your own creativity
with some gadgets, mentoring, assume that's the way
we're working in architecture, right? Yeah. It's
, I mean I think that's wonderful because one of
the things that brought me back was, you know
, when I got into film, I sort of
was I had this unfortunately, or unfortunately I had
sort of immediate little successes that kept me going or
I would have gone back to architecture sooner. But
what I realized was it was because I was still
thinking like an architect. And as soon as I
started thinking like a filmmaker, things didn't go as
well. And I always felt like this was the
best education and the best model for thinking about everything
that had ever encountered. And now that I'm back
and going through this and finishing it, I really
think that that's right. This is not directly in
architecture and with the students and architecture, but in
some sense, I've used the same model. When
I was asked to lead the effort for the Center
for the Arts, I agreed to do that only
because everybody referred to it as building a performing arts
center. And my response to that was I'll be
glad to lead the effort if we can have the
freedom to think creatively and to come forward with not
necessarily a center for Performing Arts center for the Arts
as a whole that would fit into the technology focus
of the university as well. And it would benefit
the student body as a whole. Well, I
couldn't do that. I have a graduate assistants all
out of the school and out of the college and
I went to them and said, think openly and
creatively about how we would build and design a center
that would fit into the fabric of this institution,
the history and tradition ist institutions, the technology focus
, that would have a major presence of the arts
and what we're building today. A lot of people
don't wanna accept this, but it's absolutely fact because
some perceived and build on by a group of graduate
students given the independence to work with little mentoring and
little guidance and direction from me and from the steering
committee coming together. But they went out into the
research analysis and looked at things and came back with
us while we were doing the collaborative in the arts
, which was a good way to sort of think
through how do you take that to another level.
They are the ones who came up with the concept
with the Center for Creativity. Uh, and then
from that, we've now ended up with this Institute
for creativity, Arts and Technology. So graduate students
played a critical role in the conceptualizing and helping us
to bring this about. And that's the motto,
I think that the school of the college is known
for is engaging that students given the freedom and independence
, think and work and being guided, directed and
mentored. And I like to refer to it and
encouraged to be creatively thinking about things. Yeah.
Great. Uhh, honestly, so distinct and,
and perfect. I I don't really know what else
. I hope it's helpful. Okay, extremely good
. I'm glad we had a chance to do this
and get you and mike anything else you want to
add? No, I'm just