Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NB studios original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education even better than I was the last time. Baby

Leaha Crawford 0:35
we back and we back and we back and we back. You, hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm good. Okay, hi. Good morning. Julian, good morning, man. How are you

Julian Rosado 0:53
pretty good. You saw that crazy. Upset. You saw that crazy.

Leaha Crawford 0:58
I just want to say I didn't talk about it last week, because I had to heal. I had to heal.

Julian Rosado 1:03
They said people went home early, whatever.

Leaha Crawford 1:05
I had to heal. I had to heal. But I don't care what you say, I'm still E, A, G, L, E, S, eagles. I am an Eagles fan, through and through, through and through.

Julian Rosado 1:17
Oh, I'm talking about the chiefs, game chiefs and cowboys.

Leaha Crawford 1:21
I saw that. I did see Yeah, okay, you talking about that? Okay, I forgive you. I forgive you. Cherry Jones, but no, I was talking about the bears and the Eagles. I was sitting, oh, they were home. I was like, and I'm like, little Okay, got it all right, but that's okay, because they play, and this is a hard game for me because it's the commanders and the Eagles. Oh, yeah, you know,

Julian Rosado 1:40
I know that quarterback is out. Yeah, Jayden Daniels out. He's out for the season. Oh, you

Leaha Crawford 1:48
know, I like Gordon back, you know? I like, I like that Jaden day. I like, Yeah, but he's out for the season. By living in DC for the number of years that I lived in DC, it was real hard watching the Eagles and Redskins, you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry the commander, the Eagles and the commanders play. But I am always, I told you eagles, through and through. But you know, I'm a Philly girl. I'm a Philly girl, who, the Eagles, who, yes, here we go. All right, that's all right, though, that's okay. I would say another team, but I didn't wanna go there with you. Not gonna go there with you. I'm just gonna say, okay, Any who, Any who, today, we have some special guests. So have you ever heard of the Student Leadership Conference? No, I have not. You have not heard of the Student Leadership Conference and you went to high school in Vegas? No, oh, yes, I did do go to high school in Vegas, and you went to high school in Vegas in like, what? 2008 2009 Yeah. Ish. Okay. So you should have heard about the Student Leadership Conference. So what that means to me is, y'all we got some work to do, right? Because the high schooler here, you should have known about the student leadership conference because we've been doing it just that long. Wow. Okay, all right. So today I have on the show. I have Mr. Ken Evans, Mr. Rick Austin and Mrs. Valerie Lucas. Good morning. Y'all good morning now. Y'all know this is one of my favorite morning. Okay, this is one of my favorite conferences, and last year was absolutely outstanding with the block party. First I thought Mad City money that, you know, it couldn't get no funnier than that, right? But the block party, and if you guys have never heard of mass city Matt, Matt's Mad City money. It's a way where they assimilate these children being adult and them figuring out how they have to spend their paychecks, and watching their behaviors, right, watching them go by these fancy cars and they can't pay that their monthly bills. So it's a oh yes at the end of it, we would sit here and just giggle, because most of the children

Julian Rosado 3:45
will be bankrupt. Go

Rick Austin 3:47
ahead, it is pure entertainment.

Leaha Crawford 3:49
It's pure watching them get loans because I, because I've always been the loan person. Watch them try to get loans like no, you denied.

Rick Austin 3:56
Oh no, I was the luxuries person. I was trying to pedal those luxuries like crazy and watch them scramble later

Leaha Crawford 4:04
and watch us. But the thing about it is it's a good lesson for them, and learning how financial literacy, it's another way to teach financial literacy, a fun way, absolutely to teach. And they're using their phones, so they're using apps and I mean, and they're doing different it's absolutely amazing. How long is it? The game lasts for about maybe, maybe an hour and a half.

Rick Austin 4:25
It's about an hour and a half. And then we do a recap at the end and kind of rank everyone. And we even come out with winners. So it's and we get scholarships, absolutely,

Leaha Crawford 4:35
and they get scholarships. They get scholarships, all right. So that's I had to start with that. First of all, let's go into it. This is a collaboration. A lot of adults put a lot of time and energy into this event, and it's held annually. So let's talk about it. So Rick Val, can someone want give me the history of the Student Leadership Conference?

Valerie Lucas 4:58
Okay, the student leadership. Conference was started about 27 years ago with Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority Incorporated and with the gentleman of Omega Psi Phi. And the mission of the conference is to educate and empower the youth on financial literacy, continuing education and entrepreneurship, providing a pathway for them to become leaders of tomorrow. I love it. I love it. 27 years ago, this is our 27th Economic Summit.

Leaha Crawford 5:28
27th economic Wow.

Rick Austin 5:31
That is huge. And how that's grown and kind of what it looks like today is pretty much a program that's split in two different two different ways, two different places. The day starts half of the day with sessions. So each student is able to attend about three different session and pick from about 12 different session types, everything from financial literacy to campus life to even HBCU campus life. So we split that off, and then in the second half of the day, you mentioned that block party, we noticed over the over time that we saw some some rates of folks leaving, and attendance rates at the second half. So we had to do something to liven it up. Block Party was the answer to that.

Leaha Crawford 6:17
Oh, the block party was, I had a ball. I was dancing and doing, yeah, yes.

Valerie Lucas 6:24
So the youth really enjoyed the block party. They liked the DJ, they liked the music, they liked the vendors. They liked the interaction. So with the vendors, there were several vendors that were geared towards the youth and things that they like. And so they had cards where they had to go around and talk to each of the vendors get stamps on their cards, and then the ones that had the cards filled were put into a bowl for raffles, and some received scholarships. Then also we had the youth participate in contests, like a dance contest. And so there were three winners, and they were each awarded $250 for their groups.

Leaha Crawford 7:04
They got $250 if they just did, if they just did the work Absolutely. All they did was do the work, absolutely. So walk around and get stamps from the people. So talk to everybody.

Rick Austin 7:14
And in Val I think a lot of that. And sometimes with these types of programs, we tend to lean on what the students have been liking. But I will tell you, from a from a quantitative standpoint, we've seen 20% more students over the last three times we've done this event at each event. So it's the buzz is growing. Julian, I'm sorry you missed it, man, but the buzz is growing, and we're seeing more students come out from the Las Vegas Valley, so we're happy to see that more.

Leaha Crawford 7:43
So how many? So let's talk about it. So how does a student sign up?

Rick Austin 7:47
Absolutely, they can go to Student Summit lv.com that's Student Summit lv.com

Leaha Crawford 7:58
and sign up to register. Sign up to register. Okay, so it's okay. So okay, during the day. So what time does the event start?

Rick Austin 8:06
Yeah, so the event will start with a welcome around 8am right? Sessions do not start until 915 so we want we were anticipating again, I told you that 20% year over year growth. So we're anticipating more students and more parents. It's important to mention, lots of parents come out to this as well. So we also incorporated some workshop for the parents this year. So if you're a parent and you were here last year, you just like, kind of hanging out with your student that you brought, you can also get jump into some parent workshops as well. This year is for for everybody.

Leaha Crawford 8:40
We want to benefit. Okay, so what's the date? I'm sorry we didn't go over. Didn't go over the date. What's the date? That is December 13. December 13. Here on UNLV campus, here on unlvs campus, right here in the Student Union, in the Student Union. Okay, all right. So workshops in the student HBCU life. There's campus campus life, HBCU campus life. What other workshops are there

Valerie Lucas 9:02
so we have vibes and thrive, your guard, your guide to mental wellness. Paying for college, what parents need to know about the FAFSA and financial aid. They also will be taken on a the students and parents will be taken on a tour of the campus. Own your mind on your life, navigate your future. Investing is for everyone, scholarship and application essays, scholarship plus an intro course in Black Creek life and sports and entertainment careers, just to name a few. Wow.

Leaha Crawford 9:34
So a power pack day, and you've just picked three. You just picked three. Okay, so you are listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and today we have two. I mean, we have the org. I mean, organizers from the Student Leadership Conference in here talking to us about it and educating us on the I mean, just what it is now. Why should someone attend? Or how old should I be? When I start attending

Valerie Lucas 10:01
the youth, middle school through high school, we have programs for each of them, workshops for each of them, as well as the parents, as we've stated. So everyone is welcome to come out and attend. Last year, we saw both families. We saw the parents, the youth in middle school to high school, their younger siblings, they all had a great time. So we would love to have everyone come out and enjoy the summit.

Leaha Crawford 10:24
So let me ask you this. You guys are all college educated, right? For you, would this have been a good thing for you to be exposed to prior to going to college?

Rick Austin 10:35
Absolutely, like, I really want to go back to the why you asked? Because you asked why a little bit earlier, right? And I, and I think that for what we see in youth, like just across the board, this event, it demystifies this college experience quite a bit, which doing that helps them to have a little more confidence in their future and help them, helps them to see where college can fit in, where because we bring out employment opportunity and for them to see and engage with the police force, fire departments, all the all the armed forces, right? So we we bring out, we bring up those opportunities, and it kind of tears down some of the fear that they may have as it, as it in regards to their future, and tearing down that fear and replacing with confidence, I think, just helps our students and getting them at that middle school stage and to instill that confidence. Then, man, to answer your last question would have been integral for me. Just speaking personally, I leaned on football, so I, you know, I just knew I was gonna do something. And I have my I have that's a whole nother story. I have my my thing going on. But several students, you know, may not identify with sports, right? They may not identify with those things, but they can, everybody can identify with how I'm going to be an adult, how I'm going to fit in this world, right, where I want to go place four years of my life in college. So I think this event kind of links them to that. It's about instilling an engagement, instilling engagement, yeah, getting confidence, right? So I think that's how it does it.

Leaha Crawford 12:21
And I like the fact that you're bringing families, because sometimes the fear is from the family, because the costs are it's expensive, and it's just getting more expensive. It's just getting more expensive, right? I mean, yeah, it's, I mean, I know when I was a child, some students didn't go because the parents just said we couldn't

Valerie Lucas 12:38
afford it. But now at least there's more opportunities, scholarship, opportunities, grants and things like that, to assist.

Ken Evans 12:44
And that's where I'll chime in. You asked the question, would it have been helpful? I can definitely tell you, coming out of a single parent household, my mother basically told I have a twin brother and a younger brother, four years younger. And my mom basically told my twin and i Hey, look, Ken and Rob. I don't know how, and I can't afford to pay for it, but I do expect you to go to college. So what I appreciate is the fact that several of the workshops, they talk about the FAFSA, how to demystify that. And then, in addition to that. They also talk about financial literacy, which is important, because what I can tell you right now is, you get in the college environment, and if you've never budgeted before, you learn back in the Yeah, back in the day we had checkbooks. You know, things a little different now, but the bottom line is, you can still bounce a digital check, I guess so. What I would say is, on the front end, the FAFSA information, the financial aid information, definitely would have been helpful. And then obviously the financial literacy, you know, I heard you mention investments is one of the seminars you can never start too early. Investing and learning again, demystify it, so we're not afraid to do it.

Rick Austin 14:07
And this work starts. This work starts. This planning and curation starts in February for a December event. And so if you're listening and you're in the Las Vegas Valley area, two foundations, the uplift foundation of Nevada and 20 pearls. We We've collaborated for months to bring you a curated event for your student to make sure that they're prepared for the next step.

Leaha Crawford 14:34
I know. I get it, and that's the thing about it is, is that more a student summit.com,

Rick Austin 14:39
Student Summit,

Leaha Crawford 14:41
LV, lv.com, Student Summit LV, December 13. December 13, 8am, 8am

Rick Austin 14:48
student, student Summit, parents. Lv.com,

Leaha Crawford 14:52
let's go see you there. Oh, are you feeding them?

Rick Austin 14:56
We are feeding them. So now, what the interesting part about that? A. Um, through UNLV, we've been able to provide a commons experience for our students so they eat and they're eating right alongside UNLV college students during their eating period.

Julian Rosado 15:14
So would anybody need anything before they come like any sort of

Rick Austin 15:18
No, only their time and attention, man, yep.

Leaha Crawford 15:22
So let me ask you this, though, again, 27th year we've we're seeing some growth. What challenges are you seeing that families are facing outside of the financial burden to go to come to the summit, no, just to go to college, go to college, just go to college.

Valerie Lucas 15:37
I think a lot of it is the financial impact in society these days. You know you have to look at parents getting laid off, not having the jobs that we used to have the stability, and so they're afraid to outlay some of their money that they would have had to allow their children to go to school, to make sure that they have enough for their households. And so I think it's very important that the word gets out about the economic summit, because there are so many different ideas, workshops, programs that are available to the parents and to the students, so this that way they can plan adequately for their future.

Ken Evans 16:15
Okay? And you asked the question, what other than finances, is an issue. I'm going to mention two things. The first one being helping students understand that there are multiple opportunities for employment, and in addition to that, maybe even consider being an entrepreneur. So what I'm getting at there is one of the challenges is just getting students to focus and not be afraid to get out in the world, whether it's in terms of employment or entrepreneurism, pursue something or have a goal, even if you end up changing. And then the second thing that I would say is kind of a challenge right now is artificial intelligence and people wondering, okay, how is AI going to impact my ability to get a job, or, you know, stay in the workplace? Am I going to be displaced? Or, for example, if I'm a student that wants to do a particular career field, will that career field still be around? So I think those are the types of things that I would anticipate will be talked about.

Leaha Crawford 17:24
Yeah, I love it. You also talked about mental health and wanted a workshop. Is this the first time you're bringing something like that into the economic summit to talk, to talk about mental health?

Rick Austin 17:35
Now, I would say no, it's not the first time we make it a part of every economic some summit since about four summits ago, for sure, okay?

Leaha Crawford 17:44
And why was that? Why was that an important component to bring in?

Rick Austin 17:48
I think, as we've like across the country, have acknowledged that mental health is a huge part. A lot of companies have shifted to allowing, like, more mental health coverage within health, health plans and things of that nature, that we have to look at the Youth Mental Health and start there and get good habits established as early as possible. Early intervention is always going to be the best thing for any type of health, including mental health. I think we we've probably not given that it's due in years past, but for the last three to four generations of of the economic summit, definitely been an inclusion. I love it.

Ken Evans 18:33
Go ahead, and I would have to say that part of the impetus for that happening was the fact that covid occurred. And when covid happened, one of the things I know it was a big issue here in the Clark County School District and just in general in the valley, is the sense of isolation that the students felt. It was unhealthy. And there was, there was an effort made to try to get them to cope with it as best possible. But long story short, I just think that when covid happened, a lot of emphasis went into mental health and the importance of making sure that our students know that there are services out there. So we're glad that we're incorporating that into the economic summit and Student Leadership Conference.

Leaha Crawford 19:19
The interesting thing is that those children are just graduating from college. Graduating from college. They're just graduating Yep, those 20, those 2020s 2021, children are just, you know, this their four years. They're getting ready to go into the workforce. All right, so you're listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, this is Julian Rosado, and I want to say this is actually one of my most this is one of my favorite events of the year, just to see the engagement with the youth here in the Valley. This the Student Leadership Conference is on December 13, 8am on UNLV campus, and is Student Summit lv.com, student s t u d, e n t, Summit S u m, m. I T, T, L, v.com, or sum, it is 1t or two. Yeah, right. Okay. 1t okay, I must have I got it carried away. 1t 1t Google Correct. Google will correct you. So when you Google it, or just say it and Google, I love Google, but talking about ai, ai is a concern on so many levels. But do you fear it, or do you embrace it? Because it's not going anywhere?

Valerie Lucas 20:23
I think the youth are embracing it, okay, it's the older people that are

Leaha Crawford 20:27
fearing it. Okay. Got it, okay? All right. So do you have some things on there about how to use AI in a healthy way? Have we No, okay, no worries. But that's something to think about. Just put it in your pen, because AI is coming. I mean, it's, it's here, and you need to got, you got to embrace

Julian Rosado 20:43
it. I say you're supposed to challenge it.

Leaha Crawford 20:46
Really. You can challenge Okay, well, let's talk about

Julian Rosado 20:49
a lot of it. You may go ahead and interrupt prompting and may read it, but there is faults in it,

Leaha Crawford 20:57
but it's false in everything. Yeah, exactly.

Julian Rosado 20:59
So you always have to. So you can't always assume that. Well, AI did it. So you always have to follow up. And so that's when actual knowledge, that's when actual talent actually comes into place.

Leaha Crawford 21:11
AI is there for to me. Okay, so this is just my interpretation. AI is the AI is there to make you more efficient. It just makes you more efficient. Makes processes more efficient. Yes, not that it's always right, because you still have to read it right? So some fundamental skills, like, you got to learn how to read, yeah, you got to learn how to do certain things. But I think it assists you just to be a little bit more efficient.

Julian Rosado 21:33
It's to save time. So is, I, like, really all it

Valerie Lucas 21:39
is, well, yeah, it can help you save time. But a word of caution. I'm old school, and I think several of us sitting here remember the Dewey Decimal System and having to go to the library and actually look things up. And I guess my word of caution fees, well, just my point is this, I think it's important for people to develop the skill to do research exactly and come up with the secondary or tertiary source, preferably an original, credible source for the information.

Leaha Crawford 22:15
So okay, well, full disclosure, because, you know, I'm a PhD student, right? And we do have to go to the library, but the library is digital, right? Because it's a digital University. So I'm not on, you know, I'm not on land. I go to a digital library where I have to learn how to use this library to find all of these articles. Now, I have a wealth of information in my hand, but sometimes I got to go to the chat, okay, can you show me what journal I need to go to? Because it's over 1000s of journals, right? And it's like it's so much information. So it's not the Dewey Decimal System, but it is a system where you have to go through and pull the information.

Rick Austin 22:55
If I could put a punctuation on Ken's thought that just came, really came to me all these machine learning tools that we have out there that are AI, they are very much driven off of the input that you, that you place into there, and so therefore we can get operator error just from putting the wrong input. So when you don't understand the inputs exactly, you will get an output that is horrible.

Leaha Crawford 23:24
And I and I'm not holding but I totally agree. I don't think that it takes away from what you should know, because I still think you need to know something. But okay, but then let's look at Google, and let's look at all the other all the other things, all the web browsers. When you I mean even the directions that you use to go someplace, right? Sometimes you have to use common sense, but it is more efficient if you don't know something to put an address in and hit the button. That's AI,

Valerie Lucas 23:49
absolutely, you know, when I was previous life, I was at the chamber, and I used to talk to people about technology, even before AI, there was automation, and my big thing was, embrace technology, don't fight it, especially in communities of color. We need to make sure that we embrace the technology. Learn about it, but don't fight it, because it's coming.

Leaha Crawford 24:16
It's coming, and I think in break now, don't get me wrong, I still think you need to learn. You need to have a bait like for me with the county, I have to have a basic knowledge of the county. But sometimes, instead of going to the IRS site, I can look here. Can you tell me what code this is for this so I can have stuff to back it up. Now, I do look up the code on to make sure that that's the right

Valerie Lucas 24:34
code, right. You have to follow through. I do follow through.

Leaha Crawford 24:38
I do follow through. And if it's not, no, you know you got the wrong one. So you need to go ahead looking for that again. Oh, and it'll say, oops, you're right. Vlad, thank you for checking right. But I don't think that we should fear it. And I think that the fear of something is what gets people stuck, because the fear that my job is not going to be here instead of what is creatively going to be here. In the next 510, 1520, years, and then how do I because somebody got to program all that stuff, right?

Rick Austin 25:06
And you really also put a very nice punctuation on our conversation, because this is the purpose of the economic summit, to remove that fear, like I was talking about earlier, and replace that with confidence in students, that at the at their earliest stage, that can know, oh, wow, I was exposed to police officer so and so, and I really like what he had to say or she had to say, and that's what I that's the direction I want to go in. Knowing that at a middle school age brings a lot more confidence into our students, which I think can also be measured with statistics. Later on, we'll get to that, but it's something that is invaluable, and this is why this exists,

Leaha Crawford 25:55
because when we talk about technology, let me ask you guys a question, because we all around the same, did you ever think that you could hold a computer in your hand back in the 80s when they were talking about computer science? No, the computers. Did you even think it was possible? I mean, no, seriously, I remember, because the computer was this big, gigantic thing that looked so far away, and we were using typewriter, I know I was using a typewriter.

Valerie Lucas 26:17
Yeah, that's yeah. I learned to type on a Smith Corona typewriter, manual with the ribbon and

Leaha Crawford 26:24
with the ribbon. Remember, because if the ribbon went out, you had to go buy another ribbon. He had to learn how to ink up the ribbon, and it was jump. And if you were real good, it made a rhythm, right?

Julian Rosado 26:34
I remember typing on, keeping your fingers on home row, yes. And I remember that I was like, why we have to do this? And but right? I'm the only, I think I'm the only person, whenever I go somewhere, I'm the only person that could really do that. Like, really.

Leaha Crawford 26:46
Well, not true. Not everybody. No, that's just in your age group, our age group, we know how to we know how to use the keys and what keys, right? We had take typing classes. Oh, yeah. All right. So you're listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford. This is

Julian Rosado 27:03
Julian Rosado, and I have one question, okay, you got a few minutes, what is the follow up? So, after I attended the summit, so what, what would be, what is the next follow up?

Rick Austin 27:16
No, that's a great question. Um, so the the economic summit, in and of itself, is is a standalone event. The follow ups really come a lot for our high school seniors, because they're it's the most they're the most pressing as they're moving into their next phase of life. So in essence, we do have tons of high school seniors that are able to take advantage of scholarship opportunities in which we'll go through a lot of their essays and present them with those opportunities, we've been able to afford, through the uplift Foundation, we've been able to afford about $5,000 in scholarships annually, and to adding on to that, if I could just put a little feather in our cap. Our cap as well. We do scholarship luncheon in June as a follow up, award those 5000 and award an additional 37 to 52,000 to other scholarship seniors that are out there. So that's kind of been the follow up. Even after that, we have a committee that follows those seniors into college and provides secondary, tertiary, in some cases, help and assistance financially in a very real way to ensure that they can complete their mission of being great graduates.

Leaha Crawford 28:43
Yeah, well, I'm gonna say something different. I think I look at it differently. The follow up is not necessarily on us. We've exposed you to the information. Now it's time for you to do the work. So we've exposed you to all the things that are out there. So the follow up is then on you as a participant. What do you want to do, and you have to build your plan. Because, guess what? You have to do the work we're exposing you to the information. But with that, I have to say thank you, because the show is, oh, you know, coming to the end of the show so, so fun. No, Ken is always thank you. Know what me and you go way, way, way, way back. It's pleasure being here. I appreciate that, Rick, you know, thank you for coming back and Val, you know, we spend a lot of time together. So I want to thank you for accepting our invitation. Thank you for having us. Yeah, that brings us to the end of the show. So I'm watching the Eagles and commanders. What are you doing? Here we go. I want to hear we're gonna end it. We're gonna whatever Here we go. All right, I didn't bring them names up. Y'all have an amazing weekend. And don't forget Student Leadership Conference next Saturday, UNLV campus, 8am December 13. December 13. Have an amazing, amazing day. Bye. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai