Monthly Archives: May 2021

Posted: May 11, 2021 / 01:58 PM CDT / Updated: May 11, 2021 / 05:40 PM CDT

WACO, Texas Baylor University has announced an innovative partnership with Topgolf Entertainment Group a global sports and entertainment leader as the official education partner ofTopgolfWaco.

The sponsorship agreement is the first between a university andTopgolfnationwide at this partnership level.

After celebrating its grand opening on April 23,TopgolfWaco will onboard Baylor as its first corporate partner with the university taking advantage ofTopgolfs demographics and branding opportunities throughout the popular venue.

Added to the groundbreaking three-year partnership is a first-ever branding venture forTopgolf Digital Field Naming Rights. Baylor Field atTopgolfWaco will be integrated into the digital replays of guest shots traced through the Toptracer technology putting the university brand at the forefront for each of the thousands of guests who pass through the venue.

As a company focused on building communities around the globe, we are excited to be expanding our Waco location with the introduction of Baylor Field to students, faculty and alumni, said JF Prata, chief operating officer ofTopgolfMedia. Through our first-of-its kind partnership with Baylor University, we will continue to bring innovation and top-notch experiences to the Waco community and seek to showcase partnerships of this kind in future markets as well.

This multifaceted partnership allows us to extend the Baylor campus further into the Waco community not only for local residents, but also for people who visit the university from across the country, said Jason D. Cook, Baylors vice president for marketing and communications and chief marketing officer. There is great alignment with the Baylor andTopgolfbrands, and we saw the potential of such a partnership whenTopgolfLive visited McLane Stadium earlier this spring and our Admissions team invited prospective students to such a fun event and special environment.

After the successful pilot program for Undergraduate Admissions counselors to bring prospective students and their families to theTopgolfLive event at McLane Stadium, the new partnership will expand this opportunity. Baylor admissions counselors will be able to bring select prospective students and their families toTopgolfWaco on a daily basis during specified times, aiming to position the venue as an extension of the Baylor campus.

Baylor-branded event activations will be used for student recruitment events such as Premiere, building off of recent successful activations such as the Night at the Drive-In movie events.

Additional benefits for Baylors partnership will include static displays for four permanent Baylor-branded VIP bays, digital advertising, commercial spots on the in-venueTopgolfTV and to-be-determined discount offers for both current and prospective students and employees.

Alongside the exclusive agreement withTopgolfWaco, Baylor will have opportunities to explore additional partnership placements at otherTopgolffacilities across the country which align with key recruiting areas for prospective students.

The ongoing efforts to create an intentional and purposeful connection between the City of Waco and Baylor University will continue, Cook said, as theTopgolfpartnership will encourage members of the Baylor Family to live, work and play in exciting and growing areas throughout the Waco community.

We look forward to continuing to shine a light on all that Baylor and Waco have to offer, Cook said.

TopgolfWaco is a single-level, community-focused venue featuring 30 outdoor hitting bays powered byTopgolfs proprietary Toptracer technology, which is the same ball-tracing technology seen during major golf tournaments on television. The new venue offers Topgolfgames, virtual courses, a chef-driven menu, backyard-style lawn areas with fire pits and a mini golf course. The open-air concept is new toTopgolf, following similar successful designs and layouts launched in Augusta and Chattanooga earlier this year.

Source: Baylor University

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Baylor University announces exclusive education partnership with Topgolf Waco - KWKT - FOX 44

On May 6, the Biden administration unveiled a new, ten-year plan for how it intends to make good onExecutive Order 14008,which called for the conservation of 30 percent of our nations land and water by 2030. This number, which has beenbacked by scientists, is considered the critical amount of conserved natural areas necessary to help slow climate change and preventcatastrophic species loss.

Never before has a president outlined a goal of this kind, and certainly not this early in an administration, said Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, on a press call. Let me be candid: nature in America is in trouble, and Americans across the country are seeing and feeling the impacts.

One of the key pieces of this new initiative will be establishing an interagency working group to create an American Stewardship and Conservation Atlas, a set of guidelines aimed at mapping out better benchmarks for what exactly constitutes conserved land. The administration was careful to use the word conservation when it came to talking about protecting natural spaces, rather than preservation, a linguistic choice that was intentional to highlight the importance of private lands serving in tandem with public lands to hit the target goal. At last Thursdays press conference, the administration placed high priority on the potential for working lands to pitch in as well, whether it be throughconservation easement programs or helping to create wildlife corridors.

Still, parks and recreational lands have a large role to play. According to a report published by the administrations task force, an estimated 100 million Americans do not have a park within a ten-minute walk of their home.Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, intends to change that. In the coming days, the National Park Service will announce a record $150 million in funding for the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program, which helps build parks in underserved communities, said Haaland on the call. We are eager to increase access to public lands and waters for outdoor recreation to stimulate the economy and to inspire the next generation of outdoor stewards.

With outdoor recreation contributing an estimated $460 billion annually to the nations economy, the Department of the Interior is eager to open up more opportunities for wilderness enthusiasts. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to expand hunting and fishing opportunities across 2.1 million acres at 90National Wildlife Refuges. This is the largest expansion in recent history, said Haaland.

The Biden administration is also committed to ensuring that40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant Federal investments flow specifically to disadvantaged communities. And the new ten-year plan, the America the Beautiful Campaign, will further support locally led conservation and park projects in communities that disproportionately lack access to the great outdoors.

Protections for marine environments are getting a boost, too. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just announced the expansion of theFlower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, which nearly triples the size of the protected area that includes 14 reefs and banks that are habitat for recreationally important fish. In Long Island Sound, NOAA is working to designate aNational Estuarine Research Reserve to create a living classroom for research, education, and recreation, making it the 30th estuary reserve in the national system.

While we may not be seeing any massive, newnational parks come out of this initiative, the steps the Biden administration is taking to address inequitable access to the outdoors by creating new parks closer to urban areas are historic, and funding to actually get things done is on the way. The proposal of the 2022 budget really does make investments in collaborative conservation, said Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor, on the call. Congress recently passed the Great American Outdoors Act, which is really a down payment on how we look at conserving our lands and waters.

After a pandemic-ravaged year in which so many of us took refuge in the outdoors, its heartening to see anofficial government report stating that nature is essential to the health, well-being, and prosperity of every family and every community in America and an administration that is setting up the groundwork and investment to protect more land, water, and wildlife within a set timeline.

Perhaps McCarthy put it best: This is an exciting start; its not the end.

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What Biden's New Initiative Means for the Parks | Outside Online - Outside

An online directory for small businesses, Intentionalist, celebrated its third anniversary virtually including an intersectional four-course meal with food from Salare, Frelard Tamales, Terra Plata and Hood Famous Cafe + Bar. The owners of the four local businesses participated in a panel discussion led by Laura Clise, the CEO and founder of Intentionalist. The night ended with an interview between Clise and Seattle University professional in residence at the communication department, Ruchika Tulshyan.

Intentionalist was created when Clise wanted to eat at Black-owned restaurants with her wife during Black History Month, but finding restaurants proved to be challenging. Information regarding the owners of the restaurants in her community was not readily available, which was surprising to Clise.

Clise moved away from Seattle for 20 years and noticed that a lot changed when she came back.

I quickly became aware of an underlying tension between rapid growth, development and change and questions about who still had a physical place and who still felt a sense of belonging, Clise said. As I started to think about that, and then think about what my role and responsibility ought to be, I kept coming back to small businesses and the incredible impact that they have on the social, cultural, and economic fabric.

Tulshyan was excited about interviewing Clise because she felt Clise was more reflective of her.

Its really nice to be in a space where I feel like I can be a lot more vulnerable too. As a younger journalist, and a journalist of color and woman of color, I would sometimes walk into these interviews and be really nervous and feel oh my gosh can I ask the questions I want to? So, Im excited that I get to be more myself, Tulshyan said.

Since growing from a list of small businesses that Clise wanted to support, Intentionalist is now a comprehensive directory of brick-and-mortar businesses owned by women, people of color, indigenous people, members of the LGBTQ+ community, veterans, families and people with disabilities. On Instagram, their community has grown to over 16,000 people.

The number of businesses listed on their website has also grown alongside help for the community, as Haley Witt, the marketing and communications coordinator at Intentionalist, explained.

A lot of the way our database has grown is via social media and by the site itself from user-submitted businesses of people in their communities that theyre really excited about. Particularly, outside the greater Seattle area, we have a lot of awesome users who have submitted businesses in their own cities and communities which really helps us to grow, Witt said.

Witt emphasized that Intentionalist does more than act as a directory. The Intentionalist has a gift certificate marketplace where businesses who usually only sell physical gift certificates can sell online. They also have a blog that helps provide other resources to people looking to be intentional with their spending.

These resources include gift guides and blogs for different heritage months. Witt put together a guide of businesses around Seattle U including the owners names for each business listed and if they are women-owned, Black-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, etc.

With an abundance of growth happening, Clise shared her vision for the future of Intentionalist. She talked about the possibility of a national and then global directory that allows a user to pay on the same platform.

What I envision is a world where I have a resource at my fingertips, wherever it is that I am, that allows me to be intentional about who benefits from where I choose to spend my money, Clise said.

Clise added encouragement to shift a bit of personal monthly spending to small businesses.

A lot of a little is a lot. What that means is, the power to shift our consumer culture doesnt take a lot of dollars from any one individual. If you think about the 100 (plus) million people who participated in Small Business Saturday last year, if we can help just those people shift $10 a month in their spending to diverse, local businesses, the aggregate impact is tens of billions of dollars, Clise said.

While the third anniversary has passed by, Intentionalist continues to move forward with both consistent growth and strong hopes for the future.

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Intentionalist Celebrates Three Years of Spending Like it Matters - The Spectator

Many progressives have been pleasantly surprised by President Joe Bidens sweeping proposals to repair the United States failing infrastructure, expand health care coverage and address the climate crisis. Some have suggested that one way to pay for such things would be to cut the military budget, especially since Biden has announced that he is ending U.S. involvement in the Afghan war.

Were dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Dont increase defense spending. Cut it and invest that money into our communities.

But hopes for a peace dividend were dashed when Biden came out in April with a proposed military budget of $753 billion a $13 billion increase to Trumps already gargantuan sum and one that includes more than $30 billion for new nuclear weapons.

Congressional progressives have long complained about runaway military spending. In 2020, 93 members in the House and 23 in the Senate voted to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% and invest those funds in critical human needs. A House Spending Reduction Caucus, co-chaired by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), emerged with 22 members on board, including all four members of the Squad but also more moderate or mainstream Democrats.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of the largest caucuses in Congress with almost 100 members, also want reductions in the military budget.

Were in the midst of a crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent and bills, Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told The Nation magazine. But at the same time, were dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Dont increase defense spending. Cut it and invest that money into our communities.

Bidens military and non-military budget resolution, a package deal, is expected to hit the floor in June or July. If Republicans refuse to support it, the president would need every Democrat in the Senate and almost all Democrats in the House to win approval.

In the House, Biden needs at least 212 of the 218 Democratic seats (allowing for current vacancies in both parties. But what if at least seven members of the House voted no or even just threatened to put their foot down because the budget calls for increased military spending and a plan to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons and maintain 800 overseas bases?

Now is the time for congressional progressives like the Squad Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.) to unite with Jayapal, Lee, Pocan and others in the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, to stand as a block against a bloated military budget.

During a pandemic, it makes no sense to approve a military budget that is 95 times the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The billions saved from right-sizing the Pentagon could also provide critical funds for addressing the climate crisis.

And it would be applauded by the Democrats base. Polls show that 70% of Democrats favor not just cutting nuclear weapons, but actually eliminating them. This is in line with the newly passed U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, as well as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires nuclear states to pursue disarmament to avoid a catastrophic accident or intentional nuclear holocaust.

Will progressives in Congress play hardball to threaten Bidens entire budget by insisting he reduce military spending and scrap plans for a new nuclear arsenal? Will they have the courage to unite behind such a noble cause as saving the planet from an existential nuclear threat?

Odds will improve if their constituents flood them with messages insisting that now is the time to finally put an end to the cycle of exponential military spending and invest, instead, in the needs of the people.

This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America is a coordinator for CODEPINKCONGRESS, where she spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize votes for peace.

May 10, 2021

9:32 AM

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Let's Unite to Cut Military Spending - Progressive.org - Progressive.org - Progressive.org

ByHub staff report

Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg Philanthropies today announced the launch of a $150 million effort to directly address historic underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and math fields, and to prepare a new, more diverse generation of researchers and scholars to assume leading roles in tackling some of the world's greatest challenges.

The Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative at Johns Hopkinsnamed for one of the institution's most celebrated figures, a Black surgical laboratory supervisor best known for his work to develop a lifesaving cardiac surgical techniquewill create new pathways for students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions to pursue and earn PhDs in STEM fields.

"STEM fields play an increasingly important role in developing innovative solutions to a wide range of pressing challenges, yet STEM PhD programs don't reflect the broad diversity of our country," said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, 108th mayor of New York City, and a Johns Hopkins alumnus. "So creating more equitable opportunities for more students is critical to our country's future in so many ways.

"By supporting JHU's world-class STEM program, and by partnering with historically Black and minority-serving schools that have a strong record of educating students who go on to get STEM PhDs, we will help increase diversity in industries that will pioneer advances we have not yet even imagined, and shape the lives of generations to come."

Multiple studies dating to the late 1990s have shown that STEM PhD programs do not reflect the broad diversity of talent and perspectives that other fields of study have cultivated, nor have they effectively recruited scholars from diverse undergraduate institutions. National Science Foundation data show that in 2019, there were more than 30 fields of scienceincluding multiple disciplines in biology, chemistry, physics, math, and engineeringin which fewer than five PhDs were awarded to Black or Latinx students in the U.S. While Black Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population and Latinx people 18%, in 2019 they received just 3% and 7%, respectively, of new engineering, math, physical sciences, and computer science PhDs, according to the NSF. The deficits in STEM diversity extend beyond Black and Latinx students; the percentage of science or engineering PhDs awarded to Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander students has been stagnant at about a third of their share of the population for a decade.

Ronald J. Daniels

President, Johns Hopkins University

"Scientific discovery that continually advances human flourishing and creates a healthier, safer world must be fueled by the expertise and insights of people of differing perspectives and ideas," Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels said. "Yet decades of data and our own experience show the persistent truth that PhD programs, particularly in the STEM fields, do not reflect the full spectrum of available talent. We cannot hope to produce the best science nor ensure that our faculties are truly representative until we increase the diversity of our PhD programs. Through the Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative, Johns Hopkins now has the opportunity and imperative to invest ambitiously, think ambitiously, and act ambitiously to begin correcting the longstanding inequity in PhD education."

Johns Hopkins has made significant strides in increasing the percentage of undergraduate students from underrepresented minority backgrounds, and a number of programs throughout the university have made important advances on the graduate level. Still, historically underrepresented minorities make up just 11% of students in Johns Hopkins' STEM PhD programsslightly higher than the average of 9% reported by JHU's private research university peers but still far from representative of the overall population.

Students recruited to the university through the new program announced today will be known as Vivien Thomas Scholars, in recognition of the man who developed and refined a corrective cardiac surgical technique to treat "blue baby syndrome" at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1940s. Despite conducting years of lab work to demonstrate that the procedure could be performed safely on a human patient, Thomas did not receive due credit for the lifesaving advanceknown as the Blalock-Taussig shuntfor decades.

Image caption: Portrait of Dr. Vivien Thomas

Image credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Thomas grew up in the Jim Crow South and enrolled as a premedical student at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College, a historically Black college in Nashville, but was forced to drop out due to the Great Depression and was never able to enroll in medical school. Despite his lack of an advanced degree, Thomas spent his career as a pioneering research and surgical assistant who trained generations of surgeons at Johns Hopkins. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Johns Hopkins University in 1976 and named instructor of surgery in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine until his retirement in 1979. Thomas died in 1985, at age 75, of pancreatic cancer.

The $150 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies will provide permanent funding to add a sustained cohort of approximately 100 new positions for diverse PhD students in JHU's more than 30 STEM programs, representing disciplines ranging from neuroscience to physics to engineering. The initiative will engage in active outreach to applicants from HBCU and MSI institutions, a group that encompasses more than 450 four-year colleges and universities nationwide. Each scholar will receive up to six years of full tuition support, a stipend, health insurance and travel funding, along with significant mentorship, research, and professional development opportunities. Initial pathway programs will begin this summer, with the first cohort of Vivien Thomas Scholars entering Johns Hopkins PhD programs in the fall of 2022.

"Capturing diverse talent in STEM is critical to maximizing the creativity, excellence, and innovation necessary to create the best science and to apply that science to improve the human condition for all," said Damani Arnold Piggott, assistant dean for graduate biomedical education and graduate student diversity at JHU, who has been tapped to lead the institution's new effort as the inaugural associate vice provost for graduate diversity and partnerships. "We believe there is a wealth of untapped talent out there, and that through sustained outreach and support, we can encourage more students from diverse backgrounds to seek PhDs in these fields and become the next generation of transformational leaders in STEM. We are going to be privileged to have this cohort of scholars spend time with us on their journeys, and to be able to contribute in some small way to the amazing things they are going to do for the betterment of our society."

More than $15 million in funding will be dedicated to strengthening pathways for talented undergraduates to pursue STEM PhDs at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere. Those efforts will begin with direct funding of programs at an initial cohort of six partner HBCUs and MSIs with an exceptional record of accomplishment in graduating students who advance to STEM PhD careersHoward University; Morehouse College; Morgan State University; Prairie View A&M; Spelman College; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

"Spelman is eager to develop the partnership with Johns Hopkins, one of the world's great research universities," said Mary Schmidt Campbell, PhD, president of Spelman College. "The goals of the Vivien Thomas Scholars initiative align completely with our own and that is to continue to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who earn PhDs in STEM fields. With Spelman graduating more black women who obtain doctorates in STEM than any other college or university in the country, per the National Science Foundation, we believe that our faculty have a great deal to contribute in terms of recognizing the assets that our students bring and, with effective pedagogical strategies, building effectively on their strengths."

Damani Arnold Piggott

Assistant dean for graduate biomedical education and graduate student diversity, Johns Hopkins University

Each partner institution will receive flexible funding to support its effort to attract and prepare undergraduate students for STEM graduate training and STEM careers. Inaugural partners will be critical in advising the Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative as a whole, engaging additional MSIs, and identifying the optimal programming for scholars participating in the initiative.

"I commend Mayor Bloomberg and President Daniels for making this commitment to diversity in STEM graduate education," said Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We know that transformational philanthropy can produce more STEM researchers from underrepresented groups. The Meyerhoff Scholars Program, established with a visionary gift from Baltimore philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff in 1988, has resulted in UMBC becoming the top U.S. producer of African American graduates going on to earn MD/PhD degrees, including STEM professionals and researchers around the country."

The funding will also support the creation of new and expanded undergraduate summer and post-baccalaureate experiences for talented, diverse undergraduates to build connections with Johns Hopkins faculty and students, and provide exposure to the university's research and scholarship, building on the success of existing pathways programs at Hopkins. All summer pathways programming will be fully funded, including housing and stipends for participants.

"Over the past decade, and through the enduring support of Mike Bloomberg's philanthropy, Johns Hopkins has been intentional about building one of the most diverse and academically talented undergraduate student bodies in the country," Daniels said. "We must take a similarly expansive approach to moving the needle in PhD education. We need such diverse leadership in all spheres of endeavor, and especially in our universities where bold ideas take shape and are brought to bear on the world's great challenges. We are truly grateful for Mike Bloomberg's vision and commitment in pushing us to new heights."

Bloomberg has long focused on increasing equitable access and opportunity across higher education and last year launched the Greenwood Initiative at Bloomberg Philanthropies, an effort to accelerate the pace of Black wealth accumulation in the U.S. and address decades of systemic underinvestment in Black communities. The Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative is the third investment made by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative since its launch in September 2020. The first investment was a $100 million partnership with the nation's four historically Black medical schools to help ease the debt burden of approximately 800 Black medical students. The second investment was more than $6 million to those four schools to increase their mobile unit COVID-19 vaccination efforts and help ensure equitable access to vaccines within Black communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Since Bloomberg's historic $1.8 billion gift for undergraduate financial aid at Johns Hopkins in 2018, the university has seen meaningful increases in the diversity and excellence of its undergraduate programs. With 32.5% self-identifying as a member of a racial or ethnic group that is historically underrepresented at the institution, Hopkins' most recent entering class is the most diverse in the university's history and also among the highest achieving in the nation in terms of grade point averages and standardized test scores.

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Johns Hopkins, Bloomberg Philanthropies announce $150M effort to fuel diversity in STEM fields - The Hub at Johns Hopkins