KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everyone! I’m Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily, and you’re tuning into In The Know, the podcast that brings you all the latest on the University of Minnesota.

This episode we will be talking about artificial intelligence or AI for short. AI is a vast field that brings together computer science and data to create systems that can perform tasks and solve problems that typically require human intelligence. One of those AI’s readily available to the public is ChatGPT, which is a language model. This specific AI is designed to understand and generate human-like text responses. Here to discuss ChatGPT and AI with me is Maria Gini, a professor in the department of computer science and engineering. 

MARIA GINI: So ChatGPT has been designed as a system you can talk with. It would be like a person in a sense you talk to and you know, you can ask questions, any kind of questions, and get some answers.

It’s also designed really for conversation, not just, not just like a query, you know, like, like when you search something on the web, you say, you know, you write the sentence, whatever you’re searching for, and then you get the answers. Then you have to go through and click all the links and figure out which is the right things that you want. With ChatGPT, you can talk. It’s more like a person.

SIROVY: Of course, AI is a rapidly evolving field, and ChatGPT is just one example. However, with the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning, its influence on education becomes even more significant. 

GINI: Now, for education, first the main things that, you know, immediately as soon as ChatGPT came out, immediately started seeing messages saying, oh, we have to detect if the student has used ChatGPT to write a paper. So we punish them, right because they shouldn’t. We say you cannot use, punish them. 

And to me, when I started seeing this approach I say, many, many years ago when the calculator started getting into, you know, academic, people used to do, you know, all the computations by hand. Then you have this pocket calculator and there was, for a period of time in academia, they were forbidden. Now, you couldn’t have a calculator in your exams because it’s cheating, right? It didn’t last long because, of course, it’s kind of stupid things and I think, again, in some sense the same idea here.

SIROVY: The conversation is far from straightforward, as each educator holds their own unique viewpoint on leveraging AI to enhance student learning. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how teachers can utilize AI effectively in the classroom.

Moreover, the question of what aspects of AI to embrace and what to restrict poses a significant challenge. AI’s influence can be both a boon and a bane, depending on how it is wielded. Stevie Chancellor, an assistant professor also in the computer science and engineering department, aptly points out that the matter is complex and calls for thoughtful consideration.

STEVIE CHANCELLOR: I think a lot of professors need to really sit down and think about how their courses and assessments are structured so that we can truly assess that students are learning what they should be learning. But also acknowledge the role that these tools can play in helping us, because I think blanket bans on them disregard their ability to help people who may think or speak or organize their ideas differently for lots of different reasons.

SIROVY: In her own classroom, Chancellor finds that AI, particularly ChatGPT, can serve as an aid for students. It can assist them in generating original ideas, refining essays, and clarifying complex ideas. While Chancellor acknowledges the potential of AI tools, she also highlights the need for thoughtful and balanced implementation since using ChatGPT to write entire essays is not helpful to a student’s learning experience. She suggests that AI should complement, rather than replace, traditional learning methods. 

CHANCELLOR: Do I mind when my graduate students use ChatGPT to help edit their essays and clarify, you know, shorten their content by 10%? Not really, to be honest. Editing and refining your own ideas is, it’s a skill you need to develop and you kind of learn that by seeing other people do it. Do I mind that in a freshman writing seminar where the goal is for you to develop your own capacity to write and edit yourself? I mind that more. 

By replacing ChatGPT, or replacing your learning with ChatGPT and these other systems, I think it kind of shoots yourself in the foot in some ways by preventing your own intellectual growth. And so having a blanket policy in this case may not actually accomplish the educational goals of different disciplines or, you know, levels of the student.

SIROVY: How should institutions, such as schools and universities, approach the regulation of AI?

GINI: How to control is a complicated part. The U. S. has a lot of discussion, lots of documents from the government, and so trying to figure out how to regulate it. Regulations are complex because if you over regulate, you prevent the development of the technology. But if you under regulate, then you have bad, bad uses. So again, there’s an issue of figuring out what’s the proper balance.

SIROVY: The European Union has taken initial steps towards proposing regulations for AI technology, though these measures are currently under review and not yet approved. However in 2021, UNESCO had successfully approved a document that discusses the ethical concerns associated with AI and emphasizes the need for their proper handling. While it may not offer a definitive solution, it raises awareness about the potential disruptive nature of AI compared to past technologies and its potential to cause harm to individuals.

CHANCELLOR: So one of the things I love to tell people is don’t buy into the AI hype. Hype prevents us from critically reflecting on our own opinions about new technology, whether that be AI, 3d printing, CRISPR, or other innovations or policy developments that make it really hard for us to assess how we actually feel and what we want this technology to do. 

And with that comes, unfortunately, some social consequences we may have to face such as displacing jobs, taking away people’s agency and making decisions. If we overbuy into AI hype, we can risk not thinking about the world we want to live in and what AI provides us in that world. And so my opinion is very driven by critically thinking about what we want our world to look like with AI.

SIROVY: The growing awareness surrounding the complexities of AI is undoubtedly a positive development because those sci-fi movies about robots taking over the world may be fiction, but those fears about AI are still there.

Acknowledging its capacity to be transformative yet potentially damaging underscores the importance of cautious and well-informed decision-making in shaping AI policies. 

GINI: I think, you know, AI is kind of complex, the more we talk about, right, the more people understand, the better we are, because there are a lot of people very afraid of AI, right? I mean, they think about the, you know, they call the artificial general intelligence, we’re going to build machines that’s smarter than us. I mean, all those fears are coming out. I don’t think they’re justified, but at the same time, it’s a serious question. If we invent something that is smarter than humans, can it take over the world? It’s possible, right? I think it’s very far away, but that’s something good to think about. And the more we think about and discuss, you know, knowledge and information is always a solution for a lot of problems.

SIROVY: Numerous AI systems exist and operate in the background of our lives, impacting our everyday experiences. A prime illustration of this is credit card fraud detection, a familiar encounter for many of us. 

CHANCELLOR: When your bank, you know, calls when you’re accidentally, like, trying to make a charge in a foreign country, or in a place that you’ve never been before, and your bank says, ooh, we don’t know if that’s you. That’s actually a form of artificial intelligence that’s been around for a really long time. Now that one seems less mundane, but there also are very mundane things that you interact with every day. Like how TikTok organizes and sorts and ranks the videos it shows you and infers what you might like. Content moderation systems that automatically detect when you’ve used, you know, a certain kind of language.

SIROVY: Although the focus of this episode mostly revolved around education, it is vital to recognize that AI’s influence reaches far beyond. Its integration into various industries, including healthcare, automotive, security, agriculture, and even sports, is happening at a rapid pace. Gini explains that half of the workforce may need to be retrained to account for the uptick of programs like ChatGPT.

GINI: Because ChatGPT now is going to affect the white collar jobs, not only the blue collar jobs, right? And so there are lots of jobs that are going to be affected, lots of jobs that will get lost and people will have to get retrained. So that’s inevitable. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but there’s not much that can be done.

So AI is big and it’s in everything. So I think the difference, you know, some years ago, yeah, it was really for the, for the experts, you know, very specialized topics. Now, I think everybody needs to know something about AI because it is going to affect everything.

SIROVY: This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we really appreciate you listening in. Feel free to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, I’m Kaylie Sirovy, and welcome to In the Know, the podcast brought to you by the Minnesota Daily. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing an exciting photo showcase titled “Going Out, Coming In” at the Mill City Museum. This exhibit takes us on a captivating journey through LGBTQ spaces in downtown Minneapolis, spanning from the 1940s all the way to the 2000’s through the lens of a camera.

Joining me today is Noah Barth, the lead exhibit developer who played a vital role in assembling this display. Noah’s involvement encompassed research, including photo analysis and gathering historical information, as well as writing part of the text on display.

NOAH BARTH: We really wanted to highlight the formation of a community in downtown Minneapolis through these locations, but we wanted to tell a story more than just about, you know, buildings or structures, but really what was happening on the inside and what was happening is people were finding community. They were finding themselves. They were politically mobilizing. They were finding romantic love. They were finding friendships and so we really wanted to tell the story of all of these different aspects of queer identity formation but through the lens of locations.

SIROVY: Within this exhibition, you can discover a diverse array of venues, including bars, warehouses and bathhouses, that served as havens for the LGBTQ community. However, these spaces were unlike the clubs we know today, as they existed in the shadows of secrecy. In a time when acceptance was scarce, these venues provided a sanctuary for individuals to express their identities, form connections, and celebrate their shared experiences.

BARTH: And so we definitely wanted this exhibit to be for queer people, first and foremost. Part of that is we want folks to be able to walk through their city and see themselves reflected in the landscape of the city, in the fabric of the city and know that they belong, not just because they’re here now, but because we’ve been here for a very long time.

SIROVY: The beginning of the exhibit can be traced back to the launch of digital maps from Twin Cities Pride LGBTQ+ history tours last year in 2022. These maps meticulously documented approximately 55 distinct locations spanning the Twin Cities, encompassing neighborhoods such as Powderhorn, Northeast, the University area, and extending all the way to St. Paul.

BARTH: So because many of these places are torn down it was really important for us to include, like, the location of these spaces. That way when you’re walking to your work downtown or walking to your favorite bar, you can recognize, ‘oh, this piece of history happened at this location’ and you can really feel yourselves embodied in the city and your history embodied in the city. 

SIROVY: Allow me to introduce Lizzie Ehrenhalt, who collaborated with Barth as a co-writer for both the digital maps project and the present undertaking at Mill City. Ehrenhalt also serves as the editor of Minopedia at the Minnesota Historical Society.

LIZZIE EHRENHALT: That’s why this was so important because we wanted to document it now while they were still some living memory of it. But then in addition to talking about all of those sites, we have panels that address broader topics in the history of this area. We talk about how queer and trans people found each other, particularly before gay liberation. So we talk about how you would signal to other queer people that you were there in such a way that you would get the attention of the people you wanted while avoiding the unsafe attention of people you didn’t.

So that had to do a lot with visual coding. The kind of dress that you wore, the colors that you wore. In one of our panels, we talk about how the color green was used to signal a queer identity, possibly building off of the symbol of the green carnation that Oscar Wilde started in the 1890s and then eventually the hanky code, which was a sometimes very specific way to flag what you were seeking.

SIROVY: The exhibit also delves into the profound impact of urban renewal on downtown Minneapolis between 1958 and 1965, a period that brought about immense changes to the community. Regrettably, this process not only displaced but completely eradicated the vibrant neighborhood known as the Gateway. Within this neighborhood, affordable hotels, bustling bars, and a thriving queer population coexisted with working-class individuals who sought its affordability. However, city planners deemed the neighborhood undesirable and as a result, approximately 10 square blocks in the old gateway district were physically demolished, leading to the loss of numerous queer and trans spaces. 

EHRENHALT: I think, too, it was the commitment of the exhibit team to documenting hidden history or at least history that’s more dormant. Sometimes it’s in people, but we want to bring it out and bring out their memories and so that was what I would call the soul of the exhibit.

SIROVY: Going further into this hidden history, the exhibit sheds light on the issue of exclusion within these spaces, specifically with women and people of color. There were few, if any, bars in Minneapolis prior to 2000 that were inclusive of queer women, leaving them to create their own spaces and communities. Many of the bars the photo panels address not only turned away women but also demonstrated a lack of welcome towards people of color, often displaying outright hostility towards them.

BARTH: I have been saying that, you know, Minneapolis or Minnesota just declared itself a trans refuge state. And, you know, as a duty to our community, it is our responsibility to make sure that our spaces actually reflect that. And not just on a state level, but in a micro level in our actual community spaces.

SIROVY: As stated on Mill City’s website, they want people to, “leave with an understanding of the importance of community spaces, a sense of empathy or solidarity with LGBTQIA+ people, and a sense of belonging and empowerment in seeing queer history embedded into the landscape of the city.” Do you think that was accomplished?

BARTH: From what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, people are really excited about this exhibit. They are thrilled that the Minnesota Historical Society has done an exhibit for LGBTQ plus people. I believe it’s the first one that MNHS has done. 

And I think folks want more of it. And so I hope we get more of it. I hope we see more exhibits like this that are not just panel exhibits, but include 3D objects and that we can expand the story beyond just downtown Minneapolis, but Minnesota at large.

EHRENHALT: It was really rewarding because I could see people lingering in front of different panels and pointing at certain things and obviously telling personal stories about when they would go to a place or some kind of connection to a site, even if the building is torn down.

So there has been a really personal response and there’s been a really positive response because this is really personal history and people have a lot of different relationships to downtown Minneapolis, but a lot of us have a relationship of some kind and this exhibit is drawing on that. 

SIROVY: Going Out, Coming In will be on display in the Mill City lobby until October 8 of this year and Twin Cities Pride will continue to provide the LGBTQI+ History Tours mentioned earlier if you want to learn more. 

This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. For questions, comments, or concerns, make sure to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com. Thank you for listening. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everyone! I’m Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily, and you’re tuning into In The Know, the podcast that brings you all the latest on the University of Minnesota. 

For this episode, I have a special guest joining me. Please welcome Colin Bracewell, an indie-pop singer/songwriter who has been creating a buzz in the local music scene. Bracewell is pursuing a dual major in Business-Marketing and Vocal Performance here at the U. Alongside his academic endeavors, he has also received training in the world of opera. Today, we’ll dive into his journey, exploring his passion for music.  

COLIN BRACEWELL: I started off on the violin when I was four. I did that all throughout high school. I played the saxophone in high school, too. Did a lot of musical theater growing up, and then once I got to the University of Minnesota, I started playing like my own music. And so I used to be a DJ at Radio K, actually, and that kind of connected me with a lot of people that do music at the U. And that was my freshman year and that’s when we did our first gigs. 

SIROVY: In addition to Bracewell’s singing, he is surrounded by a group of musicians who form a cohesive band. Let’s meet the other members:

Joe Sikora takes charge of the drums, providing the rhythmic backbone. Cole Grundhoefer showcases his versatility as he handles both the bass and guitar duties, and completing the lineup is Nate Loesch, a master of the trumpet.

BRACEWELL: I think there’s like this – the classic four piece group that me and most other bands have. It is cool that we have a trumpet player, so people really gravitate towards that. And also, like I said, I really think that people really gravitate towards my, like, vocal performance. And I know that I’m not a great guitarist, so I really rely on that, too, and my songs are also like based on that, too. So I think that’s where we stand out.

SIROVY: Bracewell’s music has resonated with listeners on esteemed platforms such as The Current, Cities 97.1, and Radio K. According to the Current, his instrumentation sets him apart from other singer-songwriters of the same genre, often adding gentle synths, a killer trumpet solo or a moody saxophone riff to bring a jazzier feel that offsets lyrics of heartbreak (or amplifies them, depending on the listener). But juggling the demands of pursuing a higher education while growing a music career can undoubtedly pose unique challenges. 

So being both a musician and a student, how do you kind of balance that life?  

BRACEWELL: Well, I don’t. I don’t know. So far I’ve been able to do both pretty smoothly. I know that this past semester with the opera and finals, that was very overwhelming. And so luckily, the U of M has a lot of really great student resources just for like mental health. And so I utilize those and just being open and being, you know, communicative to teachers has really helped me. And also they know that like, you know, I mean, and so my teachers are like, ‘Oh my God, I heard your name on the Current. Like, that’s crazy that you do that.’ So most people don’t even know. I mean, I think people are slowly figuring out like, ‘Oh yeah, he also makes his own music,’ but I’m really grateful with how I’ve been able to do both so far and how my teachers have been not only like accepting that but like really embracing it. 

SIROVY: Bracewell and his band have played the stages of renowned venues in Minneapolis, leaving his mark on the local scene from the esteemed Turf Club and Fine Line to the iconic 7th Street Entry and Varsity Theater. Additionally, he had the privilege of being one of the first artists to perform at the Green Room, a fresh addition to the music scene in Uptown Minneapolis. The Green Room, a venue that has only been open for about five months, is working to become an integral part of the city’s musical landscape.

To gain further insight into the significance of local music and the community it fosters, I sat down with Tanner Montague, the owner of the Green Room. In our conversation, Montague shared his thoughts on promoting local artists, the vision behind the Green Room, and the role it plays in cultivating a vibrant music scene in Minneapolis.

TANNER MONTAGUE: Green Room helps offer a place for local artists to grow their audience, to try stuff out, to make money, and to go to the next step. I think prior to Green Room, there weren’t many venues independently owned that offered that. There are a lot of great dive bars with a small stage and you can have a show and ten people show up and it’s awesome. 20 people show up? Packed kind of thing. But that doesn’t really lend itself to much, like you don’t really grow much from that. 

SIROVY: Before his concerts at the Green Room, Bracewell met Montague at a previous show.

MONTAGUE: I used to manage a venue in Saint Paul and that’s where I first met Colin. It was before he got all over the Current, and I think before the song Making Me Crazy came out and we got the full band to do a show at this venue and it was super fun. But like as a musician, I was so stoked on the music that was being played, the bands like artistry, the musicianship, the music was like good and fun for them to play, but also totally relatable and easy for an audience member to enjoy. And that has only grown since.  

SIROVY: Back in May, you headlined at the Green Room, which was sponsored by the Current. But I also noticed that you dropped a new song on Spotify that same day. Could you share the story behind the song’s creation?

BRACEWELL: Oh yeah. So it’s Falling For You. It came out May 11 and that was a part of the Green Room release show and it was for that song and this was the first song that I produced all on my own. So I was just in my bedroom in my house in Dinky, and I just worked on it for the whole semester and I tracked drums in my basement. Yeah, and now it’s out. I don’t know. I mean, it was cool, but it was also really scary because I couldn’t rely on anyone else. Like normally when I, you know, when I record or do something, I go to a studio and there’s someone engineering and stuff. But this was just like all of me. 

It’s crazy. I worked on it on a weekend and probably the most progress that I made on it was on that first two day period. And then just the rest of the month or the rest of the semester, I was just obsessing over it, you know, because there’s always like one little thing or like I probably I think I redid the whole entire song like probably six times just because I was like, okay, like, I know I just got to try different things and then I end up just going with the original thing.

SIROVY: While your website mentions that your production resonates with the sound of Bon Iver and Jeff Buckley, I’m curious to know who or what have been your primary musical influences?

BRACEWELL: It definitely comes in waves. I think every couple of months I have like a neo-soul moment, but I haven’t put out anything that really reflects that. Well, obviously Hippocampus is like a big inspiration, but even just like indie pop thing. I also really rely on, like, my vocals just because, like, I am primarily a vocalist. So I definitely just that’s the center focus when I do make music. 

SIROVY: As you continue to evolve and make your mark in the music industry, what are the upcoming milestones on your journey? What are your next steps as an artist?

BRACEWELL: Yeah, keep on releasing singles. I’d love to eventually put out an album or like I want to put out vinyl so bad, but it’s just got to be the right moment. Like, I don’t want to put out vinyl and have it at shows like it’d be cool to have it like distributed to like the Electric Fetus and like, do pop up shows. I think that would be so cool.

MONTAGUE: The music scene here is so special and different. All the musicians, all the fans, everyone is so incredibly supportive of everyone. I’m a musician first and foremost. I’ve played a lot of gigs. I’ve come up in the scene. I went to school here and so it’s been really cool to be on the other side of it, booking the shows and bringing these people in to play on our stage and get them to feel like rock stars. 

SIROVY: For additional information about Bracewell and his music, you can check out colinbracewell.com. If you’re eager to experience his performances firsthand, mark your calendar for his upcoming shows on July 29 at the Green Room and August 18 at 7th St Entry, among others.

This episode was written and produced by me, Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we really appreciate you listening in. Feel free to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hey there, everybody! You’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. I’m your friendly neighborhood host, Kaylie Sirovy. Get ready with me to dive into the world of sustainability.

In this segment, I will be exploring the recently established, sustainably-centered club called Seedlings, which has made significant strides since its inception in winter. This chapter of the club is part of a growing movement on college campuses across the country, as numerous branches are taking root. Joining me today is Catherine Thompson, the former partnership lead of Seedlings. Catherine’s role entailed event coordination and collaborating with local businesses to enhance the group’s visibility and impact.

CATHERINE THOMPSON: Seedlings is completely what we make of it, which I really loved about that prospect. We wanted to go at least for this first year or semester, the route of events, just trying to get in front of students, talk about sustainability at a college level and how you can make sustainable choices as a college student.

SIROVY: The organization’s objective is to establish its presence in every college, serving as a catalyst for building a more sustainable future. Seedlings’ founder, Matt Sandy, once worked as a journalist in the Amazon rainforest. His experiences inspired him to establish the organization, aiming to educate and empower individuals on the actions they can take to make a positive difference.

THOMPSON: I think that he recognized that a large force in future climate policy and climate action is young people. So trying to get us excited about it and communicating to our peers rather than older people, trying desperately to get us to pay attention. It’s – okay, find a group of young people who are really passionate and have them spread the word and that’s the kind of the idea.

SIROVY: Callie Stevermer, the former leader and campus initiator, said they “are doing something that is actionable and that can get more people involved with this important issue here at UMN.” Among the various initiatives, one notable action involved a collaboration between M Food Co. and UMN Seedlings. Together, they organized a sustainable lunch event on April 20 to promote their partnership and raise awareness about environmentally conscious dining options. Heidi Link, the Marketing and Sustainability Manager at M Food Co., played a pivotal role in coordinating the event’s planning and execution.

HEIDI LINK: UMN seedlings picked out the menu and it was a takeover at our rooted station. So, our rooted station is always vegetarian, almost always vegan and they combed through the library recipe of the good, better, best icons from HowGood and they pitched jerk tofu steak with mango salsa, roasted beets, and lemon couscous.

THOMPSON: Of course they had their other options. We didn’t wanna force it down their throats or anything, like all the other stations were still there and Pure Eats and everything where the allergens are being avoided.

But yes, the food was really good and we did have people come up and be like “Good choice, that was good.” We’ve never had something like this before, like that type of feedback, which made me very happy, too. 

SIROVY: Chartwells is the recently introduced dining hall vendor on campus, which replaced Aramark last year. However, you might be wondering about HowGood. So Heidi, what exactly is HowGood?

LINK: HowGood is an independent research company with the world’s largest database on product sustainability. This past summer, HowGood analyzed recipes from Chartwell’s menu and labeled them as good, better, best, and climate friendly.

The menu items that were labeled as good, was better than 75% of other food. Great is better than 85% of other food. Best is better than 95% of other food and then recipes that received the climate friendly icon, those have greenhouse gas emissions lower than 70% of other products assessed. 

SIROVY: Link explains that students have the opportunity to view sustainability icons displayed on menu cards, which accompany each ingredient. Additionally, these icons can be found on the digital menu screens at Pioneer Dining Hall, as well as on the Dine On Campus website where menus are readily available.

LINK: So students can kind of shape their day around eating sustainable if that’s how they want to do it as well. M Food Co. is happy to share this with students so they can make more environmentally and socially conscious choices in their dining, especially something that they don’t typically have that much control over.

SIROVY: What did you hope to accomplish with this event?

LINK: We had two goals. One of the main goals was to highlight our M Food Co. partnership with HowGood, again, because of this partnership that we have, students are able to be more informed and make more conscious decisions about the food they put in their body while they’re in our dining halls.

The second goal was to not only aid in UMN Seedlings to get more visibility, but also to show other student organizations that we’re eager to work with them.

THOMPSON: That’s what I think too is a lot of people would love to make these more sustainable decisions, but they have no idea how, or it’s not being taught to them and having that be something that’s just in the hall and doesn’t have to be something that’s covered in class, also makes it much more approachable for someone who wants to know but doesn’t know where to start.

If nothing else, I hope that the event was able to teach students what those symbols mean so that in the future when they want to make those specific sustainable choices, they can see, “oh, this one has the one leaf that I know it’s a good rating. Oh, this one has two. That’s even better. Let me put that on my plate,” you know.

SIROVY: What are your aspirations for the future of Seedlings? Where do you envision the organization heading?

THOMPSON: I hope that they go wild with it. Honestly, I want to see crazy things.

SIROVY: To learn more about Seedlings, you can go to their website seedlings.media/minnesota.

This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we really appreciate you listening in. Feel free to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hey everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

Shepherd Laboratories, located on East Bank, is one of the many buildings on campus, but inside contains something unique — Car 15 — a vehicle fueled by the sun instead of gasoline, built by University of Minnesota students.

AMBER ZIERDEN: So we are a student group that is entirely self-funded, that designs, builds, and then races solar electric vehicles. It’s a really great opportunity to get hands-on experience with engineering as well as business skills.

SIROVY: That was Amber Zierden, the director of engineering and co-president at the Solar Vehicle Project. She oversees the engineering side of the team, which is gearing up for the upcoming Bridgestone World Solar Challenge all the way in Australia. Clubs and high schools from all over the world are set to compete.

ZIERDEN: The Bridgestone World [Solar] Challenge is one of the largest and most prestigious solar racing events in the world. It’s really where we put our engineering skills to the test and where we’re able to see, um, like the highest levels of innovation and really compete on the world stage.

SIROVY: The club has competed in prior races and in Australia as recently as 2019 but has never successfully finished the Australian race. According to Zierden, in 2019, the solar vehicle did not finish entirely on its own, needing to be pulled by a trailer for some portion of the race. Lucas Nelson is the new member coordinator and the leader of the photovoltaic array team, which is in charge of putting the solar panels onto the car.

LUCAS NELSON: As far as the outcome, I expect us to finish the race, which might not sound like a super big deal, but it is. Finishing such a long race, like 3,000 kilometers in the harshest conditions is really difficult, and very few teams actually do complete the race completely.

SIROVY: 3,000 kilometers is a little less than the distance from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, a 29-hour nonstop drive. The race is set to take place Oct. 22 to 29 in the Australian Outback from the north side of the country all the way down to the south coast. The Solar Power Vehicle team plans to have a race crew of around 23 people.

NELSON: We have a really solid team. We have a really like reliable team. If anything goes wrong, we will be able to fix it. I can’t say we’re going to get first, because there are other teams that do this to such a crazy degree. But I am confident to say, we’ll finish the race and we’ll be like one of the better competitors in the entire group.

SIROVY: So, how does the Car 15 work? Zierden says that the car does not run purely off of energy from the sun. It’s more of a team effort from a combination of things.

ZIERDEN: Yeah, so the car uses solar energy from the sun, um, to power a battery pack, and the battery pack then drives our motors, powers things like our lights and anything else that might require energy.
SIROVY: Matt Rajala, the team’s safety manager and one of the firmware developers, explains further.

MATT RAJALA: So our car is fully electric, so no, no gas in this car, no engine.

SIROVY: No backup generator?

RAJALA: So it’s yeah, uh, fully electric car. Um, we do have solar panels on top, which allow us to, um, supplement the car’s energy while we’re driving. And then we can also charge from just a standard electrical vehicle charging port.
ZIERDEN: We’ve been designing this car, Car 15, uh, for about three years now. We started the design process in 2020, um, with the intent of having its first race originally actually be last summer. Um, but after racing our 14th car, Freya, in the American Solar Challenge in 2021, we felt that we really didn’t show everyone what Freya’s full potential was, so we decided to put the, um, racing of the car that we’re currently working on on hold to race Freya once more, so this will be G1’s first race.

SIROVY: The American Solar Challenge is a similar race to the Bridgestone World. Last year the solar vehicle project won the race, which was from Missouri to Idaho, around 1,400 miles. A big accomplishment, but the team won’t stop there.

RAJALA: It’s just like something that’s so outrageous, saying that you raced a solar car across the Australian Outback. I think it’s an objectively hard thing to do. Like what we say around here is reliability wins. So if we can, we’re planning to get test driving with our newest car very soon. We can iron out a lot of those bugs. I think we have a good shot.

SIROVY: Zane Johnson is the other co-president and the director of operations. Anything on the team that isn’t engineering falls under his jurisdiction.

ZANE JOHNSON: Classes, like, classes it’s a lot of looking at a whiteboard, pen and paper. Whereas here it’s like, you’re actually using it and you’re actually like kind of applying what you’ve learned in classes, but also vice versa. Sometimes you’re applying what you learned in solar vehicle to do better in your classes as well.

SIROVY: Applying class material is a big part of the club itself. Students have been given the information in their classes, but that knowledge is put to the test in the garage. To be able to watch what students have built with their own hands is really incredible to see. Nelson, being a team leader himself, explains what he has gained from being a part of the club.

NELSON: Yeah, I think focusing on the skills part of it, it’s just been insane how much I’ve learned that I never would have learned or could have learned in a classroom. There’s so much just hands on work and like just getting down to it, not having to sit in a lecture kind of stuff that is really hard to learn in school. This solar vehicle project has been a great job to just like do it in a real situation. Well, also being under the safety net of like, hey, we’re still a University club. We’re still getting money from here and here; it’s not like you have to make your own business startup.

10 SIROVY: The solar vehicle project includes a wide range of majors that aren’t solely STEM either. Johnson is a communications major, and leads a team from graphic design to finance majors.

JOHNSON: Um, a lot of the like race work we have to do, you don’t really have to know too much about the engineering side of the car. There’s things we need operations members for too, like there’s, um, like a media car for taking pictures, things like that, but a lot of the work can be done without knowing the intricacies of the car, although the engineers are also extremely important on race crew.
It’s been a learning process, but I’d say, I mean, anyone can join. I mean, we’ll definitely set people up with whatever they’re comfortable with.
SIROVY: Zierden, Nelson, Rajala, and Johnson will all be heading to Australia at the end of September with their team to begin preparations for the race.

JOHNSON: I’m super excited to be there, but I think we’re gonna do great as well. We’ve had a lot of obstacles, we’ve overcome this, um, build cycle and I think the car’s gonna turn out wonderfully and I think we’re gonna do great.
SIROVY: You can learn more about the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge at worldsolarchallenge.org and the Solar Vehicle Project on their website, umnsvp.org.

This episode was written by Kaylie Sirovy and produced by Abbey Machtig and Alberto Gomez. As always, we really appreciate you guys tuning in. Feel free to email us with comments or questions at podcasting@mndaily.com. I’m Kaylie Sirovy, and this is In the Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello everyone and welcome back to In The Know. You might be wondering who I am. My name is Kaylie Sirovy and I am a new reporter to this podcast. Super excited to share this with all of you.

March is Women’s History month, a month meant to empower women of all ages.

To understand a part of its history, I met with Zornitsa Keremidchieva, a professor in communication studies. She studies the experiences of immigrant women, of women in politics, and the organization of women here in the United States. According to her, Women’s History Day, and in turn Month, originates outside the United States.

ZORNITSA KEREMIDCHIEVA: The history is, well, well documented. We know that the proposal came from a socialist, German socialist, Clara Zetkin in 1910, and then it was picked up by Russian women in 1917, which started the Bolshevik Revolution. So it actually has a foreign origin. It did not originate in the United States; it originated with the idea of International Women’s Day.

SIROVY: According to Keremidchieva, Women’s Day was originally on Feb. 27, but moved to March 8 to coincide with Russia’s conversion to the Gregorian calendar the world uses today.
Keremidchieva explains that domestically, the U.S. wanted to also celebrate Women’s Day, but had some difficulty.

KEREMIDCHIEVA: There was some kind of discussion about how to both import the idea, but at the same time to distance ourselves from what was considered to be a tricky legacy of the socialist and communist movements from around the world. So during the Cold War, it was not easy to promote International Women’s Day. And so what, uh, women here proposed instead was international, uh, week and then month. And so Jimmy Carter in 1980 was the first president to announce the idea of Women’s History Month in the United States. And seven years later, congress made that a federal holiday, or a federal commemoration, not necessarily a holiday, but commemoration. And so it took off from there.

SIROVY: Today, schools, universities, and companies across the country take this time to recognize and remember the contributions of women. The University of Minnesota takes this opportunity to bring in speakers and hold events to keep the conversation going.

KEREMIDCHIEVA: It is a world in miniature. And so when students come to us from all walks of life, from all kinds of circumstances, each of them brings something that is a spark, something that is interesting, something that is valuable, and the sooner they recognize that is true of everybody around them, the more they can really, really, uh, grow with the wealth that is around them.

SIROVY: But what about right here in Minneapolis? What do people on campus have to say about this opportunity for women’s equality? And what do they say now?

TRACEY DEUTSCH: The University of Minnesota actually, interestingly, also has an important place in this. Um, we were one of the first universities to hire a full tenured faculty member in women’s history. We did that in the early 1970s. And also, actually one of the first places to create a women’s studies program, and we are still one of the only gender and women’s studies programs in the country to grant a Ph.D., to have a graduate program. Many of them don’t.

These programs are often seen as marginal and precarious, and, and yet they’re at the heart of our ability to do things like celebrate Women’s History Month. Gender, women and sexuality studies remains a really celebrated department, but also a very small department. We have to continue to claim them and support them and really acknowledge the importance of these spaces for, um, critical perspectives on women, gender and sexuality.

SIROVY: That was Tracey Deutsch, a history professor on campus who teaches, researches and writes about issues around gender, sexuality and women’s history, particularly, the woman’s relationship to the economy and capitalism.

DEUTSCH: So, I think that March is a significant month for Women’s History Month because it coincides with International Women’s Day, um, which is a very long standing holiday all around the world, celebrating women and the work that has traditionally been assigned to people who identify as female.

So, March makes a lot of sense for Women’s History Month, and one thing I appreciate about Women’s History Month is how it, um, aligns struggles in the U.S. to bring visibility to women with international struggles. It really helps us to kind of situate ourselves in the world. Um, and I feel like there are, I feel like Women’s History Month has been overall a really productive site from which to think and publicize and make visible women’s history.

SIROVY: According to Professor Deutsch, it is not perfect, but it opens up topics previously left undiscussed.

DEUTSCH: There’s always the risk that when you assign a particular month to a particular group, that that’s gonna restrict the conversation, right. So, when it’s April, does that mean we don’t have to talk about women’s history? My experience is that that hasn’t happened because Women’s History Month, I wanna say like, um, Black History Month in February and many other months that have been designated to lift up different marginalized groups, it has the effect of raising larger questions and making visible larger stories that then stick with people all throughout the year.

SIROVY: Both Deutsch and Keremidchieva agree that students are essential for uplifting movements. Izzy Laderman, a second-year history major, explains what it means for her to recognize women’s history.

IZZY LADERMAN: I think learning women’s history and just history in general and looking at it through an intersectional lens is so important no matter what subject you are going into because no matter what subject, even if it’s something like crazy sciencey, like astrophysics, has still been impacted by history. And history has influenced and changed the way that subject is treated, the way that it’s taught, the way that the person who is learning it experiences that subject, no matter what history is impacting that. And learning history and women’s history and Black history and all of that can help you understand your subject at a much deeper level.

SIROVY: Do you feel the University is doing enough to recognize women’s accomplishments and give them enough support?

LADERMAN: So, I definitely think that it’s a mix of both good and bad, just because the University is both a system and made up of individuals, and there are certainly amazing individuals doing amazing work to uplift women. But the system as a whole is still part of a system of education that is not made for people who don’t hold dominant societal positions.

SIROVY: According to Keremidchieva and Deutsch, even the University of Minnesota has some room for improvement.

KEREMIDCHIEVA: One can say that we can always do more of it, but in some sense what we also want to do is make sure that it’s an organic, uh, process. That it is a process that invites participation from different, uh, groups on campus that students, uh, have their ways of pitching in. So, can archivists, so can librarians, so can, uh, faculty members, so can advisors. So can anybody who, in one way or another, has a part of this community and making this community be of the kind of public service and public mission that we have as a University.

DEUTSCH: I think we should hire a dozen women’s historians. Um, no, I do think that there, um, can be a lot of work in integrating students and their interests around gender and sexuality into University initiatives and University programming and also into curriculum. That’s something I’m really struck by when I teach.

And also when I talk to faculty from across the country, students often have very, um, clear needs to know things around gender and sexual discrimination and also the possibilities for equality. But there’s not always a way for them to influence curriculum or programming in a direct way, and that’s one way I think that universities could really, um, expand and embed the significance of these initiatives and programs is to really create and support the ability of students to get knowledge and information that they need around gender and sexuality.

SIROVY: As enrollment of female-identifying students rises at the U, Keremidchieva says that more programs should seek to include them and support them.

KEREMIDCHIEVA: The idea of making that institution habitable and meaningful to them and giving some perspective on what their education, um, can do for them is really important. So there’s lots of reasons to keep this tradition going.

If you want to learn more about these conversations and their histories, Professor Deutsch is teaching a class next spring in 2024 about modern women’s history.

This episode was written by Kaylie Sirovy and produced by Abbey Machtig and Alberto Gomez. As always, we really appreciate you listening in. Feel free to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Kaylie Sirovy, and this is In the Know.