Workforce Preparedness

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Pulse of the Region, brought to you by
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(00:48):
dot org. Now here's your host for Pulse of the Region,
Kate Ballman.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hello, and welcome to Pulse of the Region, the show
where we get to highlight all of the wonderful things
happening here throughout the greater Hartford Region. I'm your host,
Kate Bowman, and as always We're thrilled to have you
here with us today. Today we're in the iHeartMedia Studios
in the Candy Cane Building in downtown Hartford, our lovely
capital city, the insurance capital the world, and we have

(01:12):
a wonderful conversation coming up today. Today we are getting
the pulse about the University of Saint Joseph and how
the school is approaching the important mission of preparing their
students to be workforce ready to enter our business community.
I say, week in and week out, we talk so
much about talent and talent growth here in our community
and excited for today because we're going to be touching

(01:34):
on and talking with individuals who are doing just that
and preparing our talent for the workforce to enter into
the business community. So, without further ado, I'd love to
introduce our three guests. Each of them are with the
University of Saint Joseph and first is their president and
she's also a member of the Metro Heartford Alliance Board
of Directors. We welcome doctor Rona free Rono, Welcome to

(01:55):
the show.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Of course, we're thrilled to have you here again with
us today. Gat to be here perfect and our next
guest is she is the provost at the University of
Saint Joseph. It is Michelle Kellis. Michelle, welcome to Pulse
of the Region.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Thank you so much, Kate, my pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of course. And the last, but certainly not least, but
rounding out our table today, she is the Associate vice
President of Athletics and Recreation. It is Amanda Devitt. So, Amanda,
welcome to the show. Thank you for having us, of course,
of course, so first things first, we always like to
do some introductions. I'm sure in this case it'll be
some reintroductions for individuals as certainly University of Saint Joseph

(02:32):
has been a big part of our community, the state
of Connecticut for many years. But Rona, if you don't
mind giving us a little bit of an overview about
the university and where it stands today.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, thank you. So the university was created in nineteen
thirty two, and even back then the focus really was
on meeting workforce needs. It started as an institution to
prepare women, primarily to become teachers, and so that the
mission of the university was to prepare students develop a
whole person to meet the needs of society, and at

(03:04):
the time a lot of that was for teachers. Since then,
the university has evolved into a fully co educational institution,
but still with the same focus on preparing students for
careers that meet society's needs. But those now still include teachers,
but nurses, accountants, social workers, a broad range of disciplines.

(03:28):
So the basic mission is the same, but we really
focus also on this development of the whole person. So
for our undergraduate population, we are a primarily residential campus
where students develop from the age of eighteen about to
about the age of twenty two. They develop their skills,
their career preparation, but they're really also developing in terms

(03:52):
of mind and spirit and body. Big emphasis on athletics,
big emphasis on developing their value use, their ethics, their
community engagement. So we still have the same roots but expanded.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Okay, fantastic, And how long have you been there now, Rona,
So this is my tenth year. Tenth year? Okay, that's
a nice well, congratulations on the on the decade mark,
I guess right, So fantastic. We'll certainly want to dive
more into that that whole you know, kind of spirit
minded body and that you know again kind of preparation
for the workforce. But Michelle and Amanda would love to
hear a little bit from you first and when at Michelle,
if you could talk a little bit about your role

(04:28):
within the university.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
Sure, And I've been at USJA. I'm in my fifteenth year, okay,
and as provosts. So as provost, I'm the chief academic officer,
So I'm responsible for all of the academic programs, the faculty,
and the academic support services. And my primary role is
to make sure that we graduate the best possible students
that we can and that they're trained really well for

(04:51):
the careers that they're going to have. And over the
last five years, we've added eight new undergraduate programs.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
And if we include concentrations within existing or some of
our new degree programs, there's over twenty new options for students.
So a lot of my work has been in supporting
the faculty with their great ideas for new programs.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
That's great, It's no, it's incredible. I know the last
time I was over there for a meeting, it was
wonderful just even seeing some of the new buildings with
are housing these new programs. I mean, there's a ton
of expansion, So thrilled to talk more about that today.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
Absolutely, we're excited.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Fantastic And Amanda, you know, athletics and recreation is certainly
a core of USJA. And if you could talk a
little bit just kind of about your role and how
long you've been with the university.

Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, so I'm going on my six year at the
university and we have grown tremendously in our student athlete
population over time. We're well over three hundred student athletes
and we have sixteen NCA varsity sports. And so our
role too, we take the mission of the university developing

(05:56):
the whole student and we really focus on that in
the athletic piece.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, so concentrating on that too, Okay, nice, very nice.
And you know, rona kind of looking at the overall
educational approach. You know, you're really kind of saying kind
of preparing individuals not only just in their studies, but
really kind of the whole across the board. We'd love
you dive a little bit deeper kind of into this
approach and how you're really looking to kind of implement

(06:21):
it at the university.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah. So I think what we do is really consistent
with some trends in higher education in general now what
students and families are interested in. So the students who
have always come to Saint Jo's have been students who
wanted to develop their basic skills in writing, communication. They
wanted to learn more about the science, the arts, and

(06:43):
just sort of be well educated, but at the same
time be preparing for a job that they would enter
as soon as they got out. So that's been the history,
and now I think that's so in line with what
many students and most families are interested in, especially for
their undergraduates, which is what is the return on this
investment in college. It's a huge investment. We realize that

(07:06):
that's part of what the emphasis that Michelle pointed out.
We want to make sure that we provide a really
excellent education so that students are well prepared, and that
combines skills in their discipline, whether it's social work or accounting,
but also the skills that will make them able to
transition from one career to the next as they go

(07:28):
through life. So there's a lot of emphasis on communication,
on writing, on team building in every program. So I
think what we do is really consistent with that value
that families have now and you know, the other thing
where I think we're seeing that we're in line with
what students and families want now for their undergraduates is

(07:51):
this campus residential experience. During COVID, so many students became
disengaged with their peers, and now they are really seeking
this all encompassing undergraduate residential experience. So we're not the
only campus that's found ourselves with a need to expand
our housing. Of other campuses in the area have done

(08:13):
the same thing, so you know, again, I think we're
consistent with that. And then also the transition to co education,
which has worked really well for us. You know, there
are still campuses that are women's only, and that's just great.
But what we found is that the number of students

(08:35):
who were interested in going to a women's only campus
had diminished, and in large part that was probably because
when women started increasing their participation in college in the
early nineteen hundreds, if they went to most of the colleges,
they would have been a minority. But as time went on,
things changed so that at almost all colleges women are

(08:56):
the majority now, so they didn't need to go to
a women's only college anymore to have a strong cohort
with them to have a feeling that they could move
into leadership positions. So again, I think our timing was
good in terms of making that transition to co education.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Definitely, and that transition happened about five years ago, five
six years ago.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, two eighteen was our first coedear.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Okay, nice and you know, Michelle, if you could talk
a little bit, you know, kind of about that change
is you know, really kind of what led and I
guess kind of sparked. You know, we're going to touch
on it a little bit, but really kind of from
an educational standpoint, really some of the drivers to make
that change.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
So I think the demographics were a large part of it,
which Rona mentioned. We were also looking to add degree
programs that the state needs. Jobs are available in things
like computer science. As a women's only college, we weren't
attracting enough young women that were interested in studying computer science,
so we weren't able to offer the degree. By going

(09:54):
co ed, we were able to offer some of those
degrees that are attracting both men and women. So we're
providing opportunities for both young men and women to study
things like computer science, digital media and communication, and our
most recent addition in engineering science. So it was really
a big advantage to be able to be co ed
and offer these opportunities. And in order to do that,

(10:14):
we provided professional development for faculty and staff, so they
were fully prepared to welcome the new students that we
were attracting and to teach in the new majors that
we created.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Okay, very nice, And what is the overall enrollment at
usja's is about twenty five hundred or am I totally
off on that number?

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Coximately it's probably twenty three hundred.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, okay, nice and has that kind of fluctuated since
the expansion for fully co ed or.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
So if we focus on the undergraduate population, which was
affected by the going co ed, the numbers had dwindled
prior to going co ed in twenty eighteen. In twenty eighteen,
in that first year, we exceeded all of our goals
for both male and female students. Of course, then the
pandemic came in twenty twenty, so our numbers went down
like most institutions, but were now back on track. So

(11:01):
we've achieved the goals that we were looking to. We
have approximately thirty percent of our undergraduate students that are
males I was going to which was our goal. That's
great and we're very happy that we were able to
achieve that.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
That's great. And I mean on the athletics and recreation side,
is that's too open to both males and females as well?

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Correct? Correct?

Speaker 5 (11:17):
So we have seven male teams, nine female teams. Yeah,
and it just increased right opportunities for our female student athletes.
We've increased our facilities, which are beautiful.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
If you have your I would have to be honest,
I'm very jealous of your gym. It's incredible, absolutely incredible.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
Yes, we've been very lucky in the facilities. We've been
able to upgrade.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Since going Nice Nice and a lot of upgrades through it.
I've seen just you know, I need to get to
some of your outdoor sports, I think, so, yeah, I'll
do that this fallen spring.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
Since twenty eighteen, we have an updated turf. We call
it multipurpose, so it's soccer field tacky and lacrosse play
on it.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Nice.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
We updated our tennis. We have men's and women's tennis,
and then softball and baseball are all baseball's brand new
softball was a field there but we just turfed it.
So okay, beautiful facilities, nice, very nice.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
This is all this like motivates me to go back
to college. You guys, I'm jealous. You get to be
there every day, so, which is great. And you know,
kind of going back circling back a little bit to
that whole preparedness of students to be workforce ready. You know,
I know, Rona, you have a lot of great partnerships
with many of our corporations, many of the organizations here.
If you could talk a little bit about those partnerships

(12:33):
and how is that really then kind of coming into
play on a day to day basis for students.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, So the partnerships are important for both our undergraduate
and our graduate populations. In terms of the undergraduates, we
are so happy this semester for the first time that
we have students living in downtown Hartford. Yes. So one
of the things that we have used to sell the
university to undergraduate students for decades was that we are

(13:01):
so close to Hartford and that's important for undergraduates because
they have to have internships and co op experiences and
clinical rotations, student teaching. You know, thirty forty years ago,
students went to college, they attended classes at the college,
they got their degree, and that was it. Then they
went out to look for a job. But now students

(13:21):
really have to be engaged with their pre professional experience
while they're in college, and that's hard if you're in
a really remote location. Right, definitely, we're just in a
prime location being so close to these major corporations and hospitals,
even Bristol with ESPN. We have a lot of sport

(13:41):
management students now, so the yard Goats, Hartford Athletic, you know,
the wolf Pack. All these opportunities are available to our
students because we're so close to Harford. So we've always
sold the university as being benefiting from that location. Now
it's nice to be able to say to students, yeah,

(14:02):
and you can live downtown, enjoy all the culture and
recreation and just the pleasures of being in a city.
But built all of this is really built on having
these partnerships with the corporations and with the hospitals. So
every morning it's it's kind of interesting when you go
past the campus, you'll see student cars leaving early in

(14:25):
the morning. You'll see lots of the bus stop because
they have to leave. A lot of them are leaving
every morning to go to their internships, their rotations, their
student teaching, and so on. But we really have to
have all of these partnerships, and we try to make
sure that they are reciprocal partnerships. So, for example, with
the hospitals and with some of the major corporations, they

(14:47):
take our interns and our student teachers and our nurses
who are preparing for their graduation, and they provide us
a great benefit. But then we make sure that we
provide their employees with discounts. We try to make sure
that we do what we can to be a good
partner so that it works both ways.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Okay, no, that's great, And you don't want to touch
a little bit more on the downtown housing because it's
certainly something not only great for students, but incredible for
downtown and for the city of Hartford. So could you
share a little bit just on about how many students
you know currently are living downtown and you anticipate in
the future.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Yeah, so I will acknowledge. We started the process late
in the academic year in terms of thinking about fall
twenty twenty five. We thought we'd be able to fit
them all on campus. But then as the end of
May came around and JUM we realized, oh, we have
more students who want to live on or near campus

(15:45):
than we can comfortably put on campus.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
A good problem. I was a good problem.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
So we start to talk to developers and landlords and
they were all so helpful. We ended up with this
one solution, which has been terrific, and so we thought
we'd start out with maybe just fifteen students. We're now
up to closer to thirty students by January, we'll probably
add another twenty and they've had a great experience. Again,

(16:13):
the landlord has been terrific. And now there's this new
college kickbacks program.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yes, thank you for mentioning that.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
We're so excited about because you know, we're in West Hartford.
West Hertford Center is wonderful. It's a great place for
students to hang out, but the city Hartford offers different
opportunities for them, and so we wanted to encourage students
to go into Hertford just as much as they go
into West Hartford. And so with College Kickbacks, they get

(16:43):
these discounts that will get them downtown, help revitalize the downtown,
which is again it's great for us in terms of
being able to sell the university to potential students from
around the country. We want Hertford to be thought of
as a college town. There are a lot of students
now who want to go to a place that's thought
of as a college town. And so this has worked

(17:05):
out really well.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, it's great, It's and another reason to go back
to college. I'm looking at some of the discounts for
the college kickback program. I was like, this is pretty good.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Well, you could you just need a college idea.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
We maybe we could chat after the show and I
don't know what strings I need.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
To pull enroll in a graduate program.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
There we go. I like it, very good answer. So
kind of talking about that that experience. So you know,
here's kind of from a living perspective, and you know,
Amanda really athletics and that recreation plays such a big
role in that whole experience. And you know, you highlighted
a bit just the overview of the programs, but if
you can talk a little bit just kind of how
you know, the student athletes kind of approach and why

(17:44):
they look to choose USJA and making their decisions.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, so we have a great coaching staff that really
goes out there and find students that will be successful
both and interested in what we have to offer academically
and athletically. And we've had great success with teams. Our
students do really well in the classroom and we've you know,

(18:08):
we're winning championships, which is great, and we really look
to you know, our motto as a university is developing
the whole person, and that's really comes through in athletics.
So they're obviously developing in their sport, but we're also
helping them develop as for their careers and we do

(18:29):
a focus on that in athletics as well.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Nice. That's great, and it seems to be something your
coaching staffs are really involved in as well. It's kind
of in terms of not only you know, certainly on
the field or on the court, but that's too. Your
coaches are kind of mentoring your student athletes for what's
that next step too.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
Yeah, they are, and they're really working with them on
what that looks like, and they really put our coaches
really put a focus on academics. Our student athlete GPA
last spring was a three point three. Wow, So you
know they value that as a staff and really, you know,
we have a focus on that.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
That's great, fantastic So and you know, Michelle, kind of
we've been touched in the past five years has kind
of made some changes in terms of going you know
fully co ed. Additionally to you, you touched on adding
eight new programs, kind of which is providing even more opportunities.
Can you talk a little bit more about these sure?

Speaker 4 (19:25):
So I would say that our most successful program that
we added was health science. Okay, this program has several tracks,
one of which leads to our Physician Assistant Studies program,
which is a very popular major these days, and that
allows students to move after three and a half years
as an undergraduate into the graduate program. We also have
another track with in that health science program that leads

(19:46):
to our pharmacy program after three years. And then we
have a general track, which is preparing students to go
to graduate school in a variety of fields like physical therapy,
occupational therapy, chiropractic, medicine, et cetera. So that program has
quickly grown. We started it in twenty eighteen to our
second largest major, so very quick, very popular and very

(20:07):
successful degree. But then as I mentioned before, we added
other programs like computer science, and the computer science program
has three different concentrations, one in software engineering, one in
data science, and then the other one is innovative. It's
an interdisciplinary program where a student can study computer science
but combine it with something like education or healthcare or

(20:28):
another area and really be hopefully at the leading edge
of those fields having that computer science knowledge. So we're
able to do things like that and very quickly. It
was a great idea from our faculty to include this,
and today's students want flexibility and they want choice, and
this is a nice opportunity for them. We also added

(20:48):
majors in exercise science, which fits very well with the
student athletes. A lot of those athletes are looking to
continue in a career that's not a professional athlete, but
something in the field, so exercise science has become a
very popular major as well. We added Digital media and communication.
We also added sports management and promotion, as Rona mentioned,
and the interesting thing about that we added it in

(21:10):
twenty eighteen and it's again very popular. But just this
last year, our faculty decided to add a concentration, and
the concentration is in esports management, so they are responding
to what's happening in the world and the growth in
that industry and the interest of students, and so they
were very quickly be able to put something together and
add that. So it's exciting. Because we're small, we're able

(21:31):
to be nimble and move very quickly and respond. And
one other thing I would add from the conversation earlier
about our partnerships, we really work with these local companies
to help us design our majors. So we don't just
draw it up on a piece of paper and say
here it is. We go out to the companies, the
thought leaders and say what do you want in graduates
in this field? And that helps us with the curriculum,

(21:53):
and then it's ongoing. It's not just one and done.
We bring them back, we modify and again it's a
great partnership and it worked both ways definitely.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
And you know, all this expansion of programs opportunities, I
mean this much help your coaching staff kind of from
a recruitment standpoint, but would love your vantage point on
just the you know, what's the impactment on the school?

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Right?

Speaker 5 (22:13):
Yeah, so very important, right, the academic programs that you're
able to go out and recruit to, right, because some
students know right away or you know, health science, they
know that they maybe want that, but I aren't quite sure.
So it's a perfect major to to start in and
exercise science. And now we can give those students opportunities

(22:33):
rate on campus, so before they go out to these
companies and our partnerships, we've had a lot of students
get experience rate on campus as a student worker working
our games or working in the weight room. And that's
for all of our students. But the you know, exercise
science sport management do really appeal to student athletes, and

(22:55):
so we're able to do that. And so and just
the more major when you e sports, the more that
you know are popular and we're going out there, those
are what students are hearing and wanna want to do.
So it does help in the recruiting process.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
I was gonna say, yeah, if I could add our
latest majors engineering science, which nice was also a response
to the workforce needs to say coaches. Also we're saying
we have students who'd love here, love to come to
USJA and play a sport, but they want to be
in engineering and we can't offer that. So it was
again a nice opportunity to collaborate and we worked with

(23:31):
the local community, local employers, and are launching the program
this year. So we're very excited about that because it's
a huge area of interest for students and lots of
career opportunities.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Definitely, and I'll pose this to whoever wants to answer,
but kind of your your student population now, kind of
what percentage of that is kind of from Connecticut or
maybe from you know, outside of Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
So we still have about ninety percent of our students
are from Connecticut. That's graduate and undergraduate, and so a
lot of the undergraduate students who come from out of
state will come to play at sport and that's just terrific.
But we're really also interested in meeting the needs of
graduate students in this area, and they're more likely to

(24:14):
be For the master's students, they're more likely to be
from Connecticut. Our farm pharmacy students, the doctor of Pharmacy,
they are more likely to come from across the country.
But the other master's students are are most likely to
be from Connecticut, and that's important because then they stay here.
Next question, Yeah, so just you know, connecting these back
to the housing and in Hartford, we have a lot

(24:36):
of graduate students are staying in that housing in Hartford
now and they are going to in many cases do
clinical rotations with hospitals in the area, and then when
they finish their program, they'll get jobs with those hospitals
and they can so we work this out with the landlord.
They can their security check, their security deposit, all those

(24:58):
will stay with them, so they can stay that same
building once they get their job, stay in the same
in the Hertford region, keep that same employer. So you know,
we're really hoping that we can meet what the graduate
students themselves want in terms of a program that is
flexible and has the right price, but also that allows
them to put their roots down here start you know,

(25:19):
if they haven't started a family, start their family here,
and then stay here after they're finished.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Okay, which we I mean, that's what we all want
to see, right, Absolutely fantastic, No, that's great, really appreciate that.
And the last, you know, kind of piece want to
touch on is just that community aspect. And you know,
again kind of going back, we've talked on housing, you know,
we've talked on really that employer student of partnerships and
and opportunities there, but kind of really there's I know,

(25:44):
many other ways, Rona that and I think I see
you almost every week at every event that we host
throughout the city here of Hartford, but really kind of
other ways that you're engaging with that community. I'm sure
that there's many kind of other partnerships outside of what
we've discussed.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, So just as another example, there's an organization and
in Hartford called Girls with Technology, which is a program
that prepared helps middle school girls and beyond. And I
think they allow boys into their programs as well, but
the focus is really on getting girls to be involved
with technology and think about careers in STEM. So we
have a partnership with them. We provide special scholarships for

(26:21):
the students who participate in their programs. So that kind
of engagement has always been important because we've always needed
these partnerships in the community, but we've been able to
expand them with the new types of academic programs that
we offer. But you know, the other thing is that
although we are not necessarily a strong university in terms

(26:43):
of students have to be Catholic or you know, only
about a third of our students are Catholic, we still
feel very strongly a sense of commitment to the values
of the Sisters of Mercy, hospitality, meeting the needs of
the most need in society. So a lot of our
programs incorporate a community service engagement, and so they will

(27:07):
be out in the sandwich ministries, at the food pantries,
just any opportunity that the faculty, we have some staff
who this is their job is to find these opportunities
for our students to go out and apply their skills
in the community in ways that meet those the needs
of the most needy mapulations.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Okay, that's great, and I'm sure many student athletes probably
participating in some of those programs.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
Yeah, a lot of our students are very involved in
the community with either their team or as individuals, but
working at those food kitchens, our mensal Cross team just
committed to, you know, helping every Friday. We have youth groups,
and we think it's very important as part of the
institution for students, to our students and our teams to

(27:52):
be involved.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Definitely, definitely. So well, kind of the last question I'll
pose here to you, Michelle, is as we look ahead
and you know a lot of new programs already based
on the trends, anything you're seeing kind of for the
future at us USA based on really the demand from
the workforce.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
I would just circle back for one minute if I
could place one very tangible, I think, practical and wonderful
example of the service our students provided was during the
pandemic when our pharmacy PA and nursing students were vaccinating.
They were volunteering at the vaccination clinics and that was
crucial during that time and we were able to galvanize
very quickly.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
I think in terms of the future, we're going to
really be investing this year in looking at artificial intelligence
and how we can integrate that into our various programs,
particularly our education programs, because our teachers need to know
how to utilize it effectively and the downsides and the
ethics of it when they're in the classroom, but across

(28:47):
all of our programs. It's huge in healthcare these days,
it's huge and almost every industry, so we need to
make sure we're on the cutting edge of that. And
this will take some significant understanding of it among our
faculty and our staff so that we can fully educate
our students and have them prepared to use it appropriately
when they enter the workforce, So that's probably the biggest
thing I would say.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Okay, no, that's great. Well I'm sure we could take
a lot more time here, but we're at the end
of today. So Rona, if you don't mind sharing where
people can get more information about USJA.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yeah, so on the web at just USJ dot edu.
They can find links to our academic programs, athletic programs,
what's going on on campus. We're always really happy to
have the community come to campus.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
And it's so beautiful. So I'm going to plug it
there unpaid plugged. It's just a great environment, experience, and
certainly a great team you've built there.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Thank you, of course, of course.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Well, thank you ladies for joining today. I really appreciate
the conversation and very excited about a lot of the
new things. I'm thrilled to say I learned a lot
of new things today, So thank you for that. Thanks,
thank you for having us, of course, of course, So
for all the details about today's show, you can visit
Pulseoftheregion dot com. A big thank you to our show partner, Okill,
and of course we thank you for listening. I'm Kate Allman,

(29:57):
go out and make today a good day here in Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
MHM.