Cyberology Podcast

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I have three wonderful guests with me today to talk a little bit about the General Beadle Honors Program. So, Tristan, why don't you start us off.

Tristan Stapert:

My name is Tristan Stapert. I'm a senior at Dakota State, and I've been in the Honors Program for three years now. I'm a cyber ops major, and I really enjoy the Honors Program.

Kurt Kemper:

I'm Kurt Kemper. I'm the Director of the General Beadle Honors Program. And I've been running it since its inception, which I think is now 10 years.

Jen Burris:

Awesome.

Andrew Sathoff:

My name is Andrew Sathoff. I'm a biology faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences. I've been at DSU for five years, and this is my second and a half year teaching honors courses.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so why don't we start by just talking a little bit about the general beetle honors program, how it was kind of the inception of the idea, and how you developed and created it from there?

Kurt Kemper:

The program started out as sort of an initiative by the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences to create an opportunity for the really high achieving students to get into an intellectual examination of course content. Then, from there, it spread to a university-wide phenomenon about two years after we started it in the arts and sciences program. And it's an opportunity for students to take most of their Gen Ed's in honors specific classes. It also creates a research opportunity for students in their major to examine some topic of their choosing at a much, much deeper level, almost on the level of graduate school, really. There are also social and extracurricular activities, they do a lot together, they live together. So, it was essentially an opportunity to take a subset of the entire university, who are really interested in colleges and intellectual awakening and an intellectual examination and throw them all together and sort of see what comes out of the mix.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so we're 10 years in. How's it going?

Kurt Kemper:

It's going really well. The program has changed a lot in some regards. In other areas. It's exactly what we created from scratch 10 years ago, but what drives that is the student experience and the feedback we get. And statistically, in terms of when we look at retention rates, you know, our honors students graduate faster, they graduate more, they come out with really intense relationships and friendships, there's a lot of opportunities for them to do things that they wouldn't be able to do elsewhere. They're outside of their major, but they're still part of that college intellectual awakening. So, in that regard, it's going really, really well.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so it kind of sounds like maybe a little bit of an amplified college experience.

Kurt Kemper:

Yeah, what we're seeing on a campus like DSU, which is driven, obviously, by the beacon College, and a lot of demand to drastically respond to this massive felt need in cybersecurity and computer science, is the sort of primary assumption for many is workplace development. And certainly, there's a huge need for that both in the state and outside of the state. But at the same time, we also don't want to forget that college should also be about an intellectual experience beyond just your major. In other words, this is more than a technical school, which is why we offer a bachelor's degree. And so, we want the honors program for students who really want to come to college and just sort of learn about a whole bunch of different stuff, to give them that opportunity, if they want to get beyond simply the credit accumulation process of earning a degree and being plugged directly into the workforce.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. You mentioned a little bit about how it has evolved and changed based on student feedback. What's it like to hear from the students who have graduated from the program?

Kurt Kemper:

It's really validating because it tells us that what we have in mind is working. One of the things that we talked about while the students are on campus is getting them to think about these broader skills, thinking critically, you know, reading and writing. And at the time, students, you know, they'll play along, and they do the assignments, and they don't gripe about it. But I think there's sort of uncertainty as to really how applicable those are going to be in the workplace. And then two or three years later, after they've been out working, and they've really liked and they've discovered, wow, this is really the difference as to whether I'm sort of still an entry-level employee or really moving up. So it's really valuable to hear from students about how things that we're doing ultimately benefit them in the long run.

Jen Burris:

So how did you go about structuring courses to kind of, you know, develop these honors classes? And how do they differ from your everyday class that you would sign up for your generals?

Kurt Kemper:

Well, I'll offer sort of a broad description of it'll let Andrew sort of take a good opportunity to see what he does with his class, the structure of the honors classes in general. And maybe actually, Tristan can speak to some of this too, from the student perspective was, we can operate in assumption because we're talking about students who tend to have upper quartile AC T's 26, if not 28, or higher. Not everyone is in that category, but the vast majority of them are. So, they've come to us already with what we call college-ready skills, we can count on the fact that they're going to do the reading, we can count on the fact that they know how to take notes, they'll ask questions and attend seminar, things like that. So, we can move into more intermediary skills. And then the other thing we do a lot is to try to focus on themes that will really energize and excite them. So, in that regard, you can take, for example, a speech class, a history class, or a comp class, and it's going to have more or less the same outlines as what a regular section would be. But it's going to be a lot more student interaction because there's going to be a lot more seminar conversation and a lot more discussion. And it may get into certain subjects at a much, much, much greater depth. And Tristan can talk about it from the student's perspective. And Andrew talking about the way he organizes his class.

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah. So, from day one on campus at DSU, I heard about the Honors Program. I knew there was an honor science course. It was taught by one of the co-founders, what you call Dr. Michael Gaylor, a co-founder of the Honors Program. And yeah, it had been teaching in that class, and he always talked so positively about it. And it was his favorite class to teach out of all the classes. So, you know, and Dr. Gaylor left for a position in industry, that was my responsibility to teach honor science. And I just wanted to keep up the positive momentum. Some things Kurt was talking about that we do in class are as follows: We get into depth on student-led topics. I teach this really broad science course. And, you know, we can play kind of fast and loose. So, we had a quantum physicist on campus a couple of weeks ago, he came to our honors class, and we had a discussion on quantum computing. And then we went to his seminar later in the week. This year, a lot of students are interested in mushrooms. So, what we're doing in the lab is growing mushrooms, for growing different oyster mushrooms, we're going to extract protein from them, we're also going to eat those oyster mushrooms, and evaluate how they grow in different food sources. And then, you know, in the lecture component of the class, we're going to talk about Last of Us. Now, we're going to talk about Cordyceps. And you know, Is that realistic at all? What's science from yet? What's the science from science fiction?

Jen Burris:

Because there is like, a little bit of validity to that, right?

Andrew Sathoff:

Oh, there is, yeah, it's a real thing. So, Cordyceps, infects ants,

Jen Burris:

And takes over their brain, right?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, takes over their body and makes them go to a really high point and clamp their teeth down, and the spores just fall out. And, in fact, all the ants are below them. So crazy. So, it's just, you know, we can respond to stuff in current culture and current events. Yeah, and get into depth on these topics. The classes are fun to teach because of student engagement. Sometimes when I teach, you know, the bigger broad bio classes, you can't get that one-on-one interaction, it's hard to get discussion going. But when I show a provocative video about dog cloning, for example, and then the students pick up on that and discuss it and we have a 15-minute discussion that's not painfully lead.

Jen Burris:

And does that kind of also expand their horizons for interests, too? Sometimes? Do you see them latching on to certain topics where they're like, oh, I had no idea.

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, I was just talking to Tristan before the podcast, and he remembers the CRISPR lab detail. Yeah, you know, you just pick up these random things, and then you go down that rabbit hole and investigate it more.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so Tristan, from your standpoint, what's it like as a student?

Tristan Stapert:

I think it's one of the best parts of being an honors student. So, I had heard about the Honors Program just before applying to DSU. And when I got accepted into the honors program, that was like, okay, I remember having to meet with Dr. Canberra and discuss like, okay, the honors program only had X number of requirements. To a degree, some of it is Gen Ed's, and then there's a seminar class. And in the end, you produce an honors thesis. So, I was really curious, okay, as I'm a new freshman coming into the SU, what are these honors, Gen Ed's going to look like? Are they just going to weigh me down and take so much time that it's not really going to be worth it. But what I discovered is that what these classes geared me towards was more applied learning.

So instead of kind of your textbook approach, where you come to class, you listen to a professor talk for a while you go home, you read your book for an hour, and then you do your homework for an hour. What I found in these courses was I had this maybe student discussion table where, when we came to class, we'd all read a topic. One of my favorites was the Honors micro econ class, where we discussed how taxes affect the marketplace, supply, and demand. So, we did a little bit of learning in class one of the days before, a little bit of textbook learning. But then, when we came to class, we all picked up whiteboards and made the drawing out the way that the market shifted based on these different graphs and then discussed it as a group. When I was talking with some of my freshman peers when they had economics, they were going home, and they were reading their books for an hour. And then they had a test at the end of the week, we were just going to class and having this fuller experience of actually trying to apply what we learned, right away, do these graphs, see the outcomes. And that model was very effective for me.

I remember in the Honors science, we started with the doctor we gave her. We're doing a little bit more with some studies on space and looking at whether or not life was plausible, various moons in our solar system. And that was really fascinating. And at the end of the year, I got to say that I did this CRISPR editing. As a cyber student, I never dreamed I'd ever have the ability to edit cells and DNA in my life. So, it's been kind of a really well-rounded learning experience.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so you've talked a lot about the hands-on work and kind of really applying what you're learning. Has that translated over into your major classes?

Tristan Stapert:

A little bit? Yes. So even if CRISPR editing isn't something that directly applies to learning how to think about things in a new way or taking the initiative to try something new. Just because it could be fun, it could take you from wherever you’re to that next step ahead, is something that's definitely come from honors courses. It's less about maybe the immediate skills that we got in a moment of a class and more about having the courage to step out of our comfort zone and go try something new. That, I can definitely say, is taking me farther along.

Jen Burris:

Okay. So, what's your favorite honors class that you've taken? So far?

Tristan Stapert:

I really enjoyed the honors seminar course. It's one that you take somewhere around either your sophomore or junior year. Okay, but before you start your thesis, the whole idea is to take a rather large topic. In my junior year, it was the influence of AI on the world. And you're trying to view how AI is impacting various facets. So, it could be the geopolitical stance, the consumer and commercial stance, and how it is going to influence. Like the arts and sciences and society? Does it influence culture? How does it just break down a massive topic is kind of unapproachable. If you just start with AI, how does this influence the world that's too big? We walked through it with a couple of different professors throughout the semester and just broke it down into what the professor's kind of focus on skill set was, their discipline of study, and how we can glean some new insight from taking a look at such a complex topic in that perspective. Towards the end, we did a bit of paper on how these various perspectives brought us to a conclusion on the influence of AI. I know in previous years, it wasn't necessarily AI. Dr. Kemper….

Kurt Kemper:

We’ve actually settled because the AI thing has gotten such a strong response. We've settled on that now. This is the third year we're running it. And as Tristan alluded to, faculty sort of come in and go, but there's not one single faculty member that runs the whole seminar. So, I think there's actually something like six or seven different faculties. And one of them, in fact, is President, you'll say, Dr. Griffiths, who is a sort of leading voice in American academia. And the applications of AI in international contexts. And so, she allows us to tap into her experience. We have faculty, we have a faculty member in the CLI major, for example, who's a, we used to work in the defense sector, and particularly in the contractor is providing us with some otherwise inaccessible, you know, material about how AI is reshaping the battlefield and weaponry. There's a little bit of everything. And it sort of varies depending on which faculty are available any given semester. So, it's never going to be the exact same seminar every time. But AI is something that is ubiquitous, even if you're not a computer science major. And even you know, in the end, students who are getting students turning in papers written by AI guys, they're, the influence is everywhere. So, it's a seminar that's proven to be quite successful across all the majors on campus.

Andrew Sathoff:

And what I see is that two seminars taught in the Science Center are correct. And it's usually an evening course. And when I walk by the seminar, everyone is always having fun and engaging in it. They’re loud and energetic. And I think those are the hallmarks of a great class.

Kurt Kemper:

We always want every honors class to minimize lectures where students are passively engaged. The idea is to get them interacting with content with each other with ideas, getting their hands dirty, whether it's actual lab experiences, trying to write stuff out, or trying to propose things on the whiteboard in econ class, playing around with these great ideas, and see where it takes you. Sometimes, it's going to blow up in your face.

Jen Burris:

So, I had the unique experience of getting to watch one of your classes when we took some photos and videos where you were doing roleplay with the French Revolution. Could you talk a little bit about what it's like to see these kids really get into it?

Kurt Kemper:

It's a trip. So that class in particular uses a pedagogy called reacting to the past, which has been around for about 30 years now, it started in history, but it has applications all throughout the arts and sciences. The point is to get students to examine these historical, foundational ideas, whether it's things like liberalism and an individual will and freedom, like the French Revolution, or whether computing can really free humanity. Any number of these broader ideas are examined through this pedagogy. And it requires students to read intellectual history, for lack of a better phrase. The French Revolution, they're reading, you know, Rousseau, and Locke and Burke. Right now, we're playing a game on the Industrial Revolution in Manchester, England, in 1817. They're reading Thomas Smith and Robert Owen. So, they're wrestling with some complex ideas. And we, you know, predigested a little for them. They're not grad students, obviously. But it allows them to then try to use these arguments to develop their game character. Ultimately, we are why the class sort of gamifies the process, so they have an incentive to want to compete because of the lack of a better phrase. And it just allows them to play with these ideas in ways that are more accessible than perhaps just sort of reading a primary source document and then writing a paper on them. And students really get excited about it. Last year, when we played the front or the Industrial Revolution game, this one student said I had no idea Adam Smith could be this interesting. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't think any undergrad is. So, it's a lot of fun. As Andrew has pointed out, it's tremendously energizing to teach these older students because they come to class, they ask questions, and they really get excited to be there. And then it makes you want to be a better instructor. You know, they're beating a better student. So, you want to bring your A-game, as it were, into the process. And it creates this just sort of intellectual ferment that is a tremendous amount of fun to be around.

Jen Burris:

So, building that kind of trust, can you tell me a little bit about the uniqueness of how kind of integrated you are with your cohort living together on campus and how all that works?

Tristan Stapert:

Sure. Maybe I'll start from where it all began. As a freshman coming in, I was kind of dreading move-in day in this whole unknown of everything about moving states, giving you a dorm situation. And one of the big benefits was when I got into the honors program, I heard that all the other students would be housed together. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. So, at least I know the people all around me are either Like-minded students, or I'm going to share class with you on Monday morning. So that was kind of a peace of mind factory as I first came to DSU. As I've been here, it's been a lot of fun to get to know all my peers. As we all are working through our Gen Ed's together and living on the same floor initially, we have a much better time getting to know one another. Because we see each other more often, we then can come home and be like, hey, you missed class? Do you need the notes for today, or am I struggling to try and think about how this topic works? In whatever course we were in together, do you mind sitting down with me, and let's work on this for just 10 minutes or something? So little periods like that came and went, kind of throughout the year. And it's just such a nice experience to have everybody around you all the time. I know that. Even if I may not have met everybody in my freshman year, immediately, throughout the year, I got to know everybody better. And then, since we're all kind of moving along the program together, we share classes every couple of semesters. Like even though I may have taken my honors seminar class. Last year, I had friends who were taking it this past fall. Now, I'm working on my thesis with some other cohort members. So, it's just as if a wave of us come all together. And we've been doing things kind of outside to intermix different cohorts. So then maybe we throw this honors event one of our big ones, when everybody moves in in the fall, we'd like to do an outdoor kind of yard game, social where everyone from various cohorts can come and intermingle and meet each other. I wish people the Best of luck as we start out with the school year. And then in the fall, we go take a theater trip together, where we're just getting to know one another on a personal level, it's no longer trying to worry about are we going to make this deadline for class? Are we working on a group project together? It's like, hey, what, what interests you? What drew you to the honors program? How are you liking it so far? What are your thoughts on DSU? Type? And that's been a really wholesome experience.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Regarding extracurriculars, there are some trips that students and honors program members need to take. Can we talk a little bit about those? That sounds like a fun part.

Kurt Kemper:

Sure. So, as Tristan said, in the fall, we take students who are interested in Minneapolis to the Guthrie Theater for a live theatrical production. And it's kind of a trip to watch students, you know, sort of their reaction to this because it's usually in about October. So, the freshmen had been on campus, two months, they're just kind of starting to figure some stuff out. And here, we are saying, hey, let's all go overnight with a lot of people you don't know that well yet and go to a play. And a lot of their experience with live theater is maybe from a high school theatrical production, or if they've never seen live theater, they think, oh, yeah, I don't know about this. But inevitably, a lot of them will go because they've heard from the older students how much fun it is, or maybe their roommate signed up for it. And two, things inevitably come out of that trip. One, anytime you travel with somebody, it's a tremendous bonding experience. Usually, it's a good thing because sometimes, maybe not being cooped up in a 12-passenger van with somebody for four and a half hours. But so, the freshmen class, in particular, really gets to know each other really well when they go together. But it's also an opportunity to interact with the older students because the freshmen take the freshman seminar together and then one or two other classes, so their exposure with the older students is still kind of insulated. So, this is their experience, particularly when the faculty around them get sort of unvarnished. But the other thing is, particularly in a campus like DSU, which is so focused on technology and, you know, modernity, this is an opportunity to engage in an aesthetic experience where, you know, we don't have a theater major here, we don't have an art major here, per se, in a classical sense anyway. This is an opportunity for those students whose sort of quantitative side of their brain is, is very well developed to also see the artistic element, which is really important, again, when we think about what the function of the Honors Program is trying to do is to broaden their horizons and make them you know, budding intellectuals, not just technicians. So, the theater and then usually once the students come back and like, oh, wow, that was a lot of fun, or can we go again next year? So, once we strongarm them into going usually, they enjoy it a lot. And then, in the spring, we also take a trip to a regional conference, a river regional association of auditors’ programs that stretches from the Dakotas all the way over to Illinois. And so, the meeting is held in the spring in varying states from year to year. It rotates. And that's an opportunity for students to meet honor students from other campuses. It's an opportunity to give papers on their own research. And it's, again, a bonding experience, but it's a chance to see how you take the stuff you're learning in class oftentimes, then begin to apply them and make connections. So, in that regard, it's another travel. And then each of the honors classes often contains smaller elements, for example, that music appreciation, those students will usually go to a concert, often in Sioux Falls, though sometimes elsewhere. We've taken students one time when we had a Western Civ class that they went all the way down to Kansas City to the World War One museum. So, we tried to do a lot with experiential learning. Some of it is explicitly part of classes. Others, like the theater trip, are just outside of it that are not tied to any class but are designed to broaden their horizons and really get them to understand and think about how all the different elements interact in a, you know, in a world that includes bright people.

Jen Burris:

So, we've talked a lot about the importance of art and the kind of development of that other side of you. What kind of difference do you see in your honors students compared to your regular students?

Kurt Kemper:

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to cyber ology Dakota states podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, my cohost today,

Lillie Albers:

Lillie Albers. Hello, hello.

Jen Burris:

And we are welcoming back a returning guest, Dr. Kevin Smith. Kevin, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Kevin Smith:

All right. Hey, thanks, Jen and Lillie for inviting me to be on the podcast. So, I'm a faculty member in the College of Education here at DSU. This is my 11th year teaching here at DSU. But it's not my 11th year at DSU. I was actually an undergrad student here quite a while ago. So, I've been here for more than the 11 years of just being a faculty member.

Jen Burris:

So, what drew you back?

Kevin Smith:

Good question. I had a really great experience here as an undergrad student. I like the small environment. I like the personal attention. I wasn't, I didn't know that I was interested in technology until I came to DSU. And that seed was planted. And ever since spending, you know, ever since my time here as an undergrad. I've just really embraced technology and learning new things and trying to use technology to do innovative things in education.

Jen Burris:

Excellent.

In addition to your role as a professor, you also are the coordinator for the Master of Science in Education Technology. Is that correct?

Kevin Smith:

Yep.

So, I am the program coordinator for our master's degree in educational technology, we call it M set. That's the acronym for Master of Science and educational technology. Like you said, I'm the program coordinator. This is my sixth year, I think, as the program coordinator. So as a program coordinator, I oversee you know, the entire program, I am involved in recruiting students, I'm involved in thinking about the curriculum and what the courses look like and what we're doing in the courses. So yeah, it's perfectly aligned with my background, I really love it.

Jen Burris:

As you know, one of my responsibilities here at DSU is the MSET program is unique in that it's one of the four plus one programs available on campus, is that correct?

Kevin Smith:

That's correct. So, if for those of you that aren't familiar with four plus one, so four plus one is not unique to DSU. Other universities have four plus one programs, that means that as an undergrad student, in theory, you could get your bachelor's degree in four years. And then by taking some additional classes as an undergrad, you could get a jumpstart on your graduate degree. And then in one additional year gets your master's. So that's where four plus one comes from. And we have a few of those programs at DSU. A few four plus one programs. M set is one of those programs that has that it's a really nice feature for undergrad students, because undergrads can come to DSU work on their bachelor's, and then take in our program, it's eight hours, eight credit hours towards their masters. And so then, shortly after they get their Bachelor's in a year, if they want to do it in a year, they can get their master's degree.

Jen Burris:

And what does Educational Technology entail?

Kevin Smith:

That's a good, that's a really good question, Jen. So, I'll just tell you the overall goal of the program is really to help students get better with integrating technology and across all learning environments. So, most of the students in our program are K-12, teachers, but you wouldn't have to be a K-12 Teacher, anybody that's involved with learning, our program helps you utilize technology in that learning environment to help your students. So in terms of the type of things that you would learn in the M set program, you obviously learn about technology integration and the frameworks used to do technology integration, you learn leadership skills, oftentimes we find that our students, once they gain technology skills, and a school or an organization finds out about that they're kind of put into leadership positions because they can speak the language and utilize the tools that that most organizations and schools want people to be have skills with. Students learned cybersecurity principles in the program. They learned visual design, how to make your learning materials look good and, and be impactful and effective. Our students learn about coding. They learn about instructional design. How do you We go about designing instruction for instruction for a variety of environments. They learn about multimedia production. And they learn about mobile apps. So that's kind of a laundry list of some of the skills that students acquire in the program.

Jen Burris:

But they don't have to be master coders to do this program. Right? (laughter)

Kevin Smith:

That's a really good question. So, a lot of our students are, you know, they maybe they like technology, they're interested in technology, but they don't have a desire to become a hardcore computer programmer. And that's not the intent of the program, we do. We do have a program for a course and the program is called instructional. It's called instructional programming for the K 12 learning environment, I think, is the exact title. And so, they do learn the principles of coding. But we don't, that goal is not to turn them into a hardcore computer programmer. But we do want them to understand kind of how coding works. It helps them understand really how technology works. And a lot of the other things they learn sort of begin with coding. So, when you start to think about cybersecurity principles, a lot of that a foundational skill is understanding coding. So, they do learn a little bit about it. But that's not the primary intent of the program.

Jen Burris:

And with this educational technology, background that our students get, even in the undergrad level, but then also in through this program, the inset program, did you see an influx after COVID? With all of the online learning? Or any kind of did you get feedback from people who had been through the program that were able to utilize those skills then and help out other faculty members on their teams?

Kevin Smith:

That's a good question. I would say, we, we definitely saw a bump in our enrollments after COVID. And I just heard a lot of anecdotal feedback from students in the program, or students considering the program that the skills that we were teaching were really beneficial. You know, so many classrooms, so many teachers had to do things online. And there's many teachers that didn't have any experience using the tools that they were all of the sudden asked to start using. And so, you know, people were interested in what could this program do for me, students that were in the program were appreciative of the things that we're learning, we were able to do in our courses we always try to make, we try to make the courses as applicable as possible. So, we try to give them hands on programs and activities and projects that they can do right in their classroom. And so COVID kind of made some of those projects even more applicable, because we were able to say, all right, well create a, an interactive lesson that you could give to students, and have them do it asynchronously. And all of a sudden, they had a real purpose and a reason to do those kinds of things. That's nice. Applying what you learn to the real world. Yeah, that's, that's good. We really do think about that a lot. How can we take it? How can we teach them things that they can turn around and use right away tomorrow?

Jen Burris:

And so how do you stay up to date with all of the evolving technology all the time?

Lillie Albers:

Yeah, the ever-evolving technology….

Kevin Smith:

That's a good thing? Yeah. So that's a good question. It's always changing, right? I mean, that's the only, the only thing we know for sure about technology is that it's going to change. I feel like that's real. That's one of the things that I talk to potential students about is that our program does a really good job of staying current. We do that through just having faculty that keep their finger on the pulse of tech, you know, we, we are we're on social media following the things that are happening, or at DSU, which is, you know, we're on the, on the cutting edge of technology. So just paying attention to what's happening at DSU. And in, in the cyber world is important. You know, reading articles, listening to podcasts, just like I said, being diligent in learning, and kind and embracing the idea of continually continuously learning is really important. One of the things that we do to make sure we're implementing these new trends in our courses is we utilize different workshops in the summers that our students can take advantage of. So, for example, for the past several summers, we've had Gen cyber teachers camp, and we're able to do some of the latest and greatest things in that course. For the last several years, we've had a DSU teach camp. And again, we think about what sessions are we going to present? And how can we make sure those are the latest and greatest things that are happening? So, for example, I'm already thinking about this teach camp for 2024. We'll definitely be doing sessions on artificial intelligence and how teachers can utilize that in the classroom.

Jen Burris:

And so, as you bring up AI, how, how is that already infiltrating your classes right now?

Kevin Smith:

You know, we're already thinking about AI, you can't, you know, as I pay attention to what's the trends that are happening in edtech? Ai, of course, is all over the place. And I'm really thinking about this as, how do I, how do I prepare teachers to leverage the power of this tool? So, I like to think about AI as a teacher's assistant in many ways, how can they use AI to give them ideas for lessons develop rubrics? So, I feel like it can be utilized in that way as a teaching assistant, but then also thinking about what are the implications for student learning? And how do we have to revise the way we ask questions, so that a student can't just go to AI and enter, you know, enter a question and get a prompt back and utilize that as the evidence that they've learned something. So, we have to think about kind of both things. How can we use it as a teaching assistant? But also, how do we continue to assess student learning, and do it in a way where AI can't do everything for us? So those are, those are just things that are worth thinking about. And in terms of classes, I've already integrated ideas where I'll have students do a project, do research, using standard, you know, kind of some of the typical ways they've always done research, looking at journal articles, doing Google searches, reading things. And then I've said, now use chat, GPT, or AI to compare what you came up with and start to kind of compare and contrast what I find. So, I think there's lots of different ways that we can incorporate AI into our teaching.

Jen Burris:

And so, you'll then bring some of those lessons to these teacher camps that you'll offer as well?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, definitely, like I said, we'll do our DSU teach camp summer 2024. And we'll have sessions on our schedule that are specifically devoted to AI in the classroom.

Jen Burris:

And that's open to all teachers, you don't have to be a part of the M set program. Correct?

Kevin Smith:

Correct. So, our DSU teach camp, just a little background on that it's a one-day workshop for teachers. This last year 2023, we had 400 teachers that were a part of it, you do not have to be in the M SAP program to participate in that. But if you do, participate in it, and earn graduate credit, you can utilize that graduate credit in the end set program. So, it's a really nice, it's a nice way to start the M set program and learn lots of really good things.

Jen Burris:

Have you had teachers start the program through that experience?

Kevin Smith:

we've had quite a few actually, I feel like it is kind of a good feeder program. A lot of teachers are, you know, they attend teach camp, they learn good things. They earn a graduate credit, and it counts as an elective in our master's program. Our master's program is 30 credit hours. And for Teach camp, you can earn one graduate credits, so and you can earn that graduate credit multiple times if you do teach camp multiple times. You could potentially do it two or three times. And those credits would count as electives. So, you could be you know, you could have if you did it three times, if you did teach camp three times, you could you'd have 27 credits left.

Jen Burris:

three credits in three days, right? (laughter)

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, that's right.

Jen Burris:

Yep. Over overtime. Yep. When you're talking to potential students for this program, what are you telling them to get them excited about withdrawal? Technology?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, that's a that's a good question. So, I, so there's, there's just there's a few things that I tell them that make this program that are really is that are really good features with this program. First of all, it's affordable. So oftentimes, when I'm talking to teachers, one of their first questions is How much does this program cost? So, the cost of the program ranges anywhere from $9,000, up to $13,000. And that that's a very affordable master's degree. The reason there's a range is because if you're a certified teacher in South Dakota, you qualify for reduced tuition. And then if you take advantage of some of our workshops in the summer, like the Jen cyber teachers camp that I mentioned, and the DSU teach camp, those credits are offered at a reduced rate. So, if you take advantage of some of those discounted graduate credit hours, you can do this closer to that the lower end of that range. If you do it at the full graduate credit rate, it would be at the higher end, but Either way, that's a very affordable range for a master's degree. So that's one of the first things I tell people is that it's affordable, because that's something they're interested in. Also tell them that it's flexible. Most of the students in our program are K-12, teachers, they're busy. They're busy with their families, busy with busy jobs, busy with coaching, and our degrees really flexible, all the courses are offered online. And you can work on the program at your own pace. So, some, some teachers want to take one course in the fall, some teachers want to take two courses in the spring, and then a bunch in the summer, some teachers need to take a semester off, because maybe they're having a baby, or they just have had job changes, and they need to get their feet under them in their position. So very flexible. And then you we had talked about this; this is another feature of the program that I think is really important. And that is the fact that it's cutting edge, you know, if you're going to do a technology program, you want to make sure you're learning the latest and greatest. And I feel like we really do a good job of that with our program. So those are really three things that I tell people affordable, flexible, and cutting edge. And then a lot of times people will ask, well, why would I do this? What would it do for me as a teacher. And so, I feel like it can create a lot of opportunities for teachers and really for anybody. If you understand pedagogy, which teachers do, and you couple that with strong technology skills, you are going to be very marketable, not just in the K 12 space, but even beyond that. organizations, universities, there's all sorts of people that are looking for people that know how to teach people to do things. So, it might be in an instructional designer role. You might be a learning technologist. But that combination of understanding how people learn the pedagogy, and understanding how to utilize technology, those two things together can make you really marketable and give you lots of opportunities.

Jen Burris:

Do you have some examples of some other jobs that students that have graduated from the program have gone on to take on?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, so we've had, I've had a lot of questions about that, like, what else could I do? And I don't want to encourage K 12 teachers to leave the classroom because we need them now more than ever. But at the same time, you know, I want to let them know that they have opportunities. And that's what you know, advanced degrees do for people, they give them more opportunities to do more things. So, a lot of students will ask, what else can I do that would allow me to stay in education, but maybe take a step away from the classroom. We've had some of our graduates have gone on to become instructional coaches or technology integrationists. So, they're still in a K 12 environment, but they're helping other teachers utilize technology. They provide kind of guidance and support for teachers in the area of technology. So that's something that they went on to do. We've had several that have gone on to become technology directors or technology coordinators in schools. Those would be people that have a desire to get more, get their hands in the technology more deeply, really think about how do I set up a network? And how do I get all these computers set up in a school, but we have students that have done that. We've had people that have left K 12 and went on to do other things. So instructional design is a field that I mentioned, I actually was an Instructional Designer for about 15 years before coming to the SU. And I have had several conversations with people about that. And we've had, we've had a couple that have graduated and went on to become instructional designers. We have one. One, an instructional designer at DSU. Now that was an M sat alone, she was a key she was in the K 12 world before she got her M set degree. She was interested in instructional design, and now she works in our Center for Teaching and Learning as an instructional designer.

Jen Burris:

Oh, that's very cool. Okay, so What haven't we talked about that you think? You know,

Lillie Albers:

What do you need to know?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, I'm thinking about the conversations I have with prospective students. Like I said, they often ask about, you know, what am I going to learn? What kind of opportunities there are and doors can this open for me? How much is this going to cost? And so, I kind of touch on those things. Those are big things for the program. My degrees are in instructional technology or educational technology. I got it from the University of Nebraska. My doctorate is in Instructional Design and Technology. I got that from the University of Memphis, I would say that our program here is similar in terms of what I learned in those programs. But I would say that we do as good a job or better than anyone at making sure that we're teaching current cutting edge technologies. And I think that's a really important part of a program like this.

Jen Burris:

Do you have any examples of some of the various technologies that are like cutting edge right now that you're that are in the program already?

Kevin Smith:

I would say that, you know, of course, they'll be the big one is AI, you know, everyone's talking about AI. But I would just, I would say, other things that sort of are, you know, more current, and maybe not all programs are touching on are areas that are, that we're very well versed at here at DSU. Like cybersecurity, you know, it's important for teachers to have an understanding of cybersecurity as we think about student privacy. And when we're using applications, what, what is what is happening with student data, that we're what that we're gathering. So, I feel like that's a that's an important area, kind of a cutting-edge piece. There's lots of technological tools that can be used in the classroom, that are making, making teachers more efficient and making it easier to, to create interactive and engaging things. So, we try to introduce them to things like that. Multimedia type tools that would allow them that would allow a teacher that doesn't have a background, in creating videos, the ability to create nice interactive videos. So those would be kind of examples of some of the current things that we're, we're focusing on with our students.

Jen Burris:

And you're able to stay in contact with some of the graduates as well, right? They like to update you sometimes.

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, we have a Facebook group for the M set students. And they're really good at kind of staying connected with me. And I like to stay connected with him, I, you know, part of keeping your finger on the pulse of what's going on is talking to teachers in the field and, and paying attention to what they're using and what they feel like they need to learn more about. So yeah, so I think I know, I appreciate staying connected with our graduates, I think they appreciate staying connected with DSU as well.

Jen Burris:

So, people who are interested in the MSET program, where did they go? Who to? How can they reach out to you? What's the best process?

Kevin Smith:

Okay, good. If you go to our website, it's dsu.edu/m set that will take you to the informational page on our website. So that's dsu.edu/m S, E T. And you can do that in all lowercase. So that's a good place to go to get information. People can also email me. I’m happy to answer questions, I'll do a zoom call with them if they want to learn a little bit more about the program and see how it might fit what they're doing. So, they can email me at kevin.smith@dsu.edu Either of those ways are the best place to start.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Anything else that you'd like to add today?

Kevin Smith:

I don't think so. Thanks to both of you for inviting me to talk about MSET. I love talking about it. And I'm always excited to bring new students into the program and, you know, help them get to help them get their master's degree, which is a very, you know, it's a very fulfilling thing for people. It's a challenging endeavor, but it's one that they can accomplish, and they will never regret doing their master's degree and this is one that will open doors for them. So, thanks.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being our guest today. And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Lillie Albers:

I'm Lillie Albers.

Jen Burris:

And today, we have a special guest with us, Dr. Mary Bell. She joined us this year as dean of The Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences. Welcome, Mary.

Mary Bell:

Thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me.

Jen Burris:

And so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Mary Bell:

I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. So, from a state that has a lot of similarities to South Dakota, but maybe not in weather. I was born there and grew up there. And a couple of things in my life that kind of impacted my development. One is we lived out in the country, and I grew up with horses competing from a very early age. I think that's one thing that had a big impact on kind of how we do things and how I see the world. And then, through school, I was very involved in band. So that was another thing, music and discipline with the music and marching band was drum major, the marching band. Yeah, and we were like state champions. So, you know, really big impacts on my life, things like that. So that's a few things. And then, whenever I decided to go to the university, so I went there in Las Cruces, where I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and New Mexico State University. I went for a couple of years, my father and my stepmom actually lived in Germany. I went and lived a couple of years with him in Germany and went to a German school. At the time, I had taken a couple of years of German when I was in high school. And that's another really formative event in my life was having that time in Germany. And I went to, like I said a German High School, German. And from there, I also played and went, I played in a band there. And we toured the high school, I played in a band, and we did different concerts and kind of toured around and played. And so that was, that was really fun and super interesting. And a way to like, apply that and do it in a different way than I had when I was growing up in New Mexico. So that was really awesome. So, from there, whenever I went back to go to university, I went two years, moved to Germany, and then came back. It was the first time I had been around the military. So, when I was in Germany, and based on that my dad had said to me, you know, have you ever thought about joining the military, and frankly, I had not because I just had never been around it. So that's why that exposure in Germany when I was there, around being around the military, had a really big impact on my life. So, I ended up joining ROTC and was commissioned at ROTC into the army. And so that was kind of like, the start of my whole life, my whole career. And that's, that's the background with different leadership aspects from horses to band to living in Germany and having that military exposure.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so did kind of that worldly experience inform your decision-making a little bit to see more of the world and kind of get out there and have these different experiences and leadership opportunities?

Mary Bell:

Yeah, I really think it did. To this day, I'm not a person who has a lot of fancy things, I would much rather invest in experiences. And those experiences usually are through travel. And so, I absolutely think if I hadn't had that time in Germany, I don't know that I would have that same perspective on how important it is to travel and see other cultures experience and then and I just enjoy it, so very much. So yeah, I don't think I'd ever really thought about it. But yes, it really did have a big impact.

Jen Burris:

And so, how did your journey in the military impact your education along the way?

Mary Bell:

I graduated from ROTC, then I graduated from New Mexico State, I was commissioned into Army Aviation. And through that, I started flying into an interesting because my degree of study in at New Mexico State was I have a Bachelor of Business Administration and International Business, so not a technical background. And then it has a language associated with it. And my language was German, as you can imagine. So, I, from there, I didn't really have any, like huge desire to just go and get more and more degrees, but there's always education that's happening and different kinds of training and education as you're in the military. And as I got, you know, advanced more I kind of realized the advantages of getting the next level degrees. I went back, I was a captain in the army, I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, which has since been renamed and I can’t remember the name off the top of my head is Central Texas. And I went to St. Mary's University, which is out of San Antonio, and they had a satellite program there at Fort Hood, and studied then international relations. When I did my undergraduate degree, I always loved all of my classes that had anything to do with international and did not like any of the classes really very much that had anything to do with business (laughter).

 And it turns out there’s a degree that I didn't even know exists called international relations. But I was one of those people who started my study program and you know, by golly, I was going to finish that program, which I wasn't, I didn't ever change courses or anything, I just did started that. So that had a huge impact then, because I really developed and that kind of this sense of different cultures and how other what other nations are doing impacts what happens in our nation really just affected me. So that international relations Master's degree was very helpful. And I will tell you, when I finished it, I did it all. It was a Saturday program. And it was, I think it was 40 or 42 Saturdays a year for two years. So kind of for two years, you give up your whole life. And I just remember, I was so done, because that was just what I mean, it would be from like eight to five. I think I would go to school every Saturday from eight to five

Jen Burris:

Oh wow.

Mary Bell:

I worked for two years, working full-time. I was in a command position during that time. A very, very demanding job. And I mean, I was like, I am done. That's great. Like, all in my mind, I wasn't good.  I was happy. And I really never in a million years would have dreamed that I would go back to school. But you know, it was many, many, many years later…

Jen Burris:

There was enough distance to forget about it? (laughter)

Mary Bell:

That's exactly what it was. And when I was a captain later. So, this was like early captain or mid Captain when I was finishing my master's degree because I had done my master's degree, if you will, on my own. In other words, the army didn't send me for a year or two years to a program where I did just school, which happens, that's a very much something that can happen. But because I did it on my own, you don't have what's called a payback tour. If you do it, and the army pays for it, in this example, I owe them, then you owe them something. Well, I don't didn't owe them anything because I had done it. On my own time. I did take what's called tuition assistance, but I did it on my own time. So, this position came open at the Air Force Academy, which was an Army position. I mean, it isn't for an army officer, but it wasn't considered a payback tour. And I could take it because I had the master's degree, which was a requirement. But I hadn't done it on the Army's time, so I was able to take this position. So that was my first time ever working in federal academia. And I absolutely, loved it, it was such an incredible, great experience. It really had a huge impact on my perspective of education and what it means. So now I'm around a bunch of people who have, of course, a doctorate, some do, some don't there, you can teach there on a master's degree. And so that had a huge impact on kind of my perspective of, maybe I would consider, but I wasn't, I wasn't even close to being ready at that point. But at least I was around it and understood what it could do for you, and what different kinds of doors it could open for you.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so then what helps you kind of take that next step and get your doctorate?

Mary Bell:

I looked into it a couple of times, then, in later years, and I just thought, you know, hey, if I stopped my doctorate now, in, you know, even if I kind of take the slow road, which is maybe six or eight years to do it, six or eight years is going to pass, and I either could have some of this achieved or not. But then I just had so much work that I was doing, and I was deployed a lot. And it really just made it tough. I looked into it, but I was like it just wasn't possible because I was deployed so much. And then my last tour in the army I didn't know was going to be my last tour in the army, but I got stationed at the National Defense University. And while I was teaching there, I was still on active duty. It was a lieutenant colonel at the time. And you could teach again on a master's degree that was allowed. But I started to think about what am I going to do after? And do I want to still be in the military. And I really decided that there was a different way to serve.

And I decided that I would like to stay in academia, but do so as a civilian, I was ready to leave the military. I had a younger child. So, I had a son who was two years old, and it was getting harder and harder. I got orders to go to Korea, which would have been virtually impossible. I think it would have had to, you know, like, give them up to a family member. And I just was like, you know, I've served, I've done my time. I had enough time to retire. I decided to retire.

And then I was still kind of on the fence, like, what am I going to do, and I thought in a good in-between step is I could go to school for a couple of years because I had what's called the GI bill that the military then based on your service you get this paid for. And I thought it'll give me a few years to kind of like figuring out who I am and what I'm going to do in the next version of my life. And it seems like now, so incredibly crazy that you think this would be a good way to do that because it was hard to do. Single mom, you know, had to hire a nanny, because my program that I went into for my doctorate was a night program. So I hired a nanny that would come. And the other interesting thing is, is that the program offered classes four nights a week, but because of my son, I would only be away from him for two nights a week. So instead of kind of like designing a program and taking the classes to get to that program, I just said whatever classes are on this night, and whatever classes that are on that night, that's going to study, and we'll figure out how to, you know, put it together into this puzzle. And it did it worked out. It wasn't the way I thought it was going to go.

So, I ended up in kind of like a different area of study than I originally thought I would be. But you know, I think that all things happened the way they're supposed to, and, and it worked out really well for me, but it was hard. Getting your doctorate is not. I regularly talked to people who've done it and you know, everything if I knew everything that I knew now and would go back to that time. Like, like, no, I would not go. No, I'm thankful. I don't mean to say I'm very, very thankful because, obviously, it completely changes your perspective and your life and health. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't done that. I'm thankful I did it. But if I knew everything, I knew I probably would not have done it. So, it's good. I had a little bit of ignorance in there.

Jen Burris:

We all need just a touch.

Mary Bell:

That's right. That's right. Nobody would have children, and nobody (laughter)

pays a little bit. You're like, I could do that. Do that again. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

You mentioned earlier aviation. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was? Like getting into aviation, since that wasn't maybe a natural interest of yours right away? If I'm understanding correctly?

Mary Bell:

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. A lot of people who go into aviation have thought that there's something they would want to do from a very young age, but I wasn't that way. I didn't even really think about it as a possibility until I was in ROTC. And there were several of my fellow cadets who were very interested in it. And one of our military professors was an aviator. So, he was a major, he was an aviation. And he just kind of explained things. And it's hard. Like, there's a lot of wickets you have to go through because there are a lot of physical things you have to do, as far as, you know, different eye exams. It's a different level of, no kidding, making sure that you're physically fit, but then also just extremely competitive for grades and different activities. And so, you really have to want it to be able to get into Army Aviation. And I don't know what it is like today, but at the time, to be able to go into aviation, it had to be your number one choice. You could not say, well, I think I want to go into aviation, I'm going to put as my number two choice that wasn't allowed. If you wanted, it had to be your number one choice. So, you really had to want it, and you had to be very determined to get it. And I don't think I would have had that had I not had these fellow cadets who were going along that path, and I could just kind of tag along. When they went into this thing. I did it. When they did this other thing. I would go do it and would do this thing. I'm like, Yeah, sounds good. I'll try that too. But I, because I grew up really as an outdoorsy person out in the country with horses. The idea like it really resonated with me that I could do something like that really meant a lot that was helping the nation helping my family, everything, but I could do it and still be outside into outdoorsy types of things. That really resonated with me. And so that was that was what kind of took me down that path. Also, my grandfather was a pilot. My father had his pilot's license as well. But my grandfather flew for the Forestry Service in New Mexico and was kind of known for it. It was a big deal. He designed some different things. And so that was also something that I kind of had a connection with my grandfather on that. But even then, it wasn't until if it wasn't for these fellow cadets, I frankly I would have never done it. So those are the people in this case that really kind of changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. So, how did your role in military positions kind of inform your leadership and your teaching over the years?

Mary Bell:

Yeah. I flew several different platforms. And I say this because it kind of matters and how those different platforms and how you lead are different. So, the first thing that I flew well, when I was in flight school, I flew what's called the UHF one the Huey. But then I transitioned out of flight school into the US 60 Blackhawk, and I say that because the Black Hawk is used, it's a very tactical purpose. So, when you're flying Blackhawks, you're flying people around, it's, you know, kind of the angel mindset when you see, you know, like, hey, go take that hill, like you just do it, you don't stop and ask questions, why would we want to take that hill. And so that's kind of what we mean by tactical, you just like, there's a mission, you do it, you accomplish it. And because it's vital to the next level that whoever is here at this point is doing that type of mission, so, I say that because the leadership style is very different. I learned this because later, I transitioned into fixed-wing aviation and to military intelligence. And that type of mission is very, very different. There’s a lot of thinking involved, it's a lot of like, strategic impacts on what this intelligence is being used for. And when I transitioned out of the tactical, which is very much, hey, go do this, go do that. It's kind of like in and out. And the leadership in that is very, it's frankly, it's very directive, not that they weren't super smart people like that we would work with, but we were just it was more like, go do this. Yes, ma'am. You know, kind of a, whereas in military intelligence, it is not that way.

And I have a drawn-out process and thinking and considering aspects like that it is and the leadership is different, instead of saying, hey, go do that, like these are, it's just different. It's not that they're any smarter. It's just a different type of environment. But I will tell you, a lot of my enlisted people did have master's degrees, for example. So, there's a lot more education, so saying, hey, we're going to go do this, like, we really would need to talk about it. And I wouldn't like to explain to them, like, why we were going to maybe change this process or change it, rather than just say, just do it, which is where I had come from. And so I, you know, probably, you know, had some stumbles along the way, as I transitioned my leadership styles, but I say that because you develop, and I think that's natural, even if, like any organization you go into, if you start in at the lower level, you know, how you develop and then as you raise up, of course, your leadership styles are going to change in that as well. So, I don't know that it's just because it was tactical to, you know, the type of thing, I just think it's natural, that the higher you get up, the more people around you who are also higher, and it's just a different way of communicating. So, at that first level, you know, I definitely had to do some transitioning. And I say that because then in the educational environment, it's, it's very different. So, there's training, right, and that's the, hey, I can take my weapon apart, and I can put it back together, that's training, that's not education, I'm not educating you on how to take your weapon apart. I'm training you how to take your weapon apart. But then there are parts of it that education and you know, in what we're doing, it's all education. And so there might be some aspects a little bit here or there, where you're training to, I don't know, pull the switch out and pull that put that switch in there. Sure. But really, it's the education of the impact of what's going to happen when you do that consequence, the consequence, and the impact, and how do you think about it on a broader scale? So, you know, over the years in the military, as that leadership style developed, it really helped me as I transitioned into education because it is more than that kind of strategic level thinking and thinking about impacts and how this connects to that. And what's going to happen? If you do that? If you do that over here? What's the impact going to be?

Jen Burris:

Okay, that kind of leads to my next question, which is, why is intelligence important? And how does it impact industries outside of the government? Because it's not solely? I mean, that's largely what we think of when we think about intelligence. But how does that kind of branch out?

Mary Bell:

Yeah, thank you.

Whether you realize it or not, you know, intelligence is part of everything we do. So, we do try to distinguish the difference between information and intelligence. And intelligence information can just be data sets. But the intelligence is, what does that data set have to do with what I'm trying to do? And so even if it's a decision about, you know, hey, am I going to get out on those roads today to drive to the grocery store? There's a level of intelligence involved in that. So, when you think about intelligence in the government, I think it's natural. A lot of people think about that, but it's very true.

Also, in industry, it's no different, and maybe sometimes it might be called something different. And the processes might not be labeled intelligence processes because we do associate that term specifically with certain, especially defense. But I think that it's really involved in anything they do, whether it's collecting information on a competitor. And I mean, that's intelligence. Right? And it is. And it's part of really everything. And it's part of our lives, and every step of the way, it's just a matter of how we think about it. But if you really start to think about it and kind of break it down, you'll realize I could see how that would be considered intelligence. So, if it's something, it's a data set, but then you think about what it means, what's the impact? That's intelligence.

Jen Burris:

Implications and how it relates to everything else?

Mary Bell:

That's right. That's right. So, it's really a part of everything we do. Frankly, there's very. I can't even think of any business that could survive if they didn't have some type of process. I'm sure they'll call it something else that has that's doing that type of analysis, and what does it mean? And what's the impact?

Jen Burris:

And so, what kind of have you enjoyed about this transition from the military into education, and what's kind of kept you on that journey?

Mary Bell:

When I was a lot younger, and I was flying, still flying, Blackhawks, we would do, one of the things we would do is static displays. So, an air show, they would, you'd go, and you fly in, and you stand by your Blackhawk, you know, during the day, and people come and go, and a lot of times, it can certainly be adults, but a lot of times it can be kids, and it's just, you know, they would ask questions. And to me, that was always really fun to be able to share some of its some experiences and talk about whether it's just the helicopter in general or maybe talk about some different missions. And I think people really enjoy that it's something different than what they're used to doing. And so, there's something really enjoyable about hearing about these kinds of experiences that they're just not used to. There's part of that. And then, when I was, I was stationed in El Paso, Texas, to a fourth Military Intelligence Battalion, they asked me for elementary school if I would be judged for a spelling bee. So that was super. I mean, I say this because it's all in a way, it's all related, because it's part of this education. And whenever you think about, you know, that education and what it means, and whenever you see people kind of light up. And like that light, it's, it's inspiring. And when you can inspire somebody else to become something or dream of becoming something that maybe they didn't realize was possible. It's so inspiring to them. But it's also inspiring to the person who's doing that. So, it's like this feedback loop.

Jen Burris:

That positive reinforcement for both.

Mary Bell:

It really does. Another super incredibly informative experience for me was I was in Haiti for called Operation uphold democracy. And we were there. I was there for three months flying around. And everywhere we would land, there would be so many people just absolutely fascinated. And if we were on the ground for two hours, or four hours or six hours, there would be hundreds of people that would just come and stand and just like watch because they've never seen anything like this. And you know, there'll be a lot of times the kids, of course, are a little bolder, and so they would come up and maybe try to talk to you, or they didn't speak the same language. But there was one time, especially, there was a little girl who came up, and she just held my hand. And you know, when you think about what education means and what it means to inspire somebody, you know, I just those kinds of moments like that just mean absolutely everything. Yeah, just the mere presence. It is it is and then my job before I came here, I was teaching in a program called the joint events warfighting School, which is a senior service college for the military. And my students are very advanced there. They've been in the military anywhere from like 15 to 25 years and just are absolutely the best of the best. And I loved being in the room with them. And again, you know, I got as much inspiration from them or more perhaps than I gave them, but again, I think it's that's one of the biggest things about education is you give, but I find that know how to matter how much you give, you always get more back if you're doing it well. And if you're doing it right, and I think to me, that's why, you know, that's so incredibly important in that connection.

Jen Burris:

Those relationships that you form and build and get to enjoy.

Mary Bell:

It really is, and the nice thing with the adults, whenever you know I'm in the adult education, is I get to see them. A lot of them. I still have contact with a lot of my former students, whether it was from the Air Force Academy or not, who are now retiring, which is crazy. Some of them like now retired, like I don't know how that's possible.

Jen Burris:

You're still young-ins. (laughter)

Mary Bell:

And then other ones, you know, getting promoted to general or admiral and just seeing the amazing things they're doing and whether or not you know, really, you know, maybe had the tiniest small piece of that. But you know, I love that. And I love staying in contact with a lot of my former students, and they're just absolutely wonderful people. And I love that it's. So, it never ends. This guesses when I'm saying that that feedback and you know, they inspire me way more than I ever inspired them.

Jen Burris:

And it must be cool to see them kind of advance throughout the years and develop their own careers.

Mary Bell:

It's the best. It is such an incredible feeling. And I don't, I don't like I don't want to say I take pride in it, like I had a piece of it, it's more just the joy of knowing a little bit about that person, a little bit about their life, and then seeing the amazing things that they're accomplishing. Just, you know, to kind of be able to be a touch a small part of that and a witness to it is really, really awesome. Yeah, amazing.

Jen Burris:

What kind of drew you to DSU? What made DSU the right fit for you? On this next journey?

Mary Bell:

Two questions: I'll start with the What drew you to DSU question. And, as I was kind of searching, I felt like I had kind of reached the pinnacle of where I was, of where I that I could grow, to where at where I was. And so, it was time for me to start looking. Based on the fact that I have a son and based on his age in school, I am trying to figure out when would be a good time to move and when would be a bad time to move. I started looking, I guess. I guess about a year ago is when I started looking. And really, just as I looked at the programs and the connections with government, so they have, you know, these incredible, technologically advanced programs, the connections, because through military intelligence, so I've had a lot of connections with both the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We don't have a connection here at DSU with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, but we do with the National Security Agency, and I just, I could see those lines and how, you know, the possibility of what I had could come here and be something that would be useful. Really, for me, I felt like I had so much more to give. And I think that's what it came down to me. It wasn't just that, you know, I loved what I did. I loved what I taught. I think I could have. Frankly, I could have stayed there forever. But I did feel like I just had more to give, and I had room to grow. And so, I was looking for a place where maybe I could grow a little bit more in that. And that's where, you know, the programs here and those connections are what really drew me to DSU. So, I applied, and I'm super thankful for the team who, you know, saw that connection and me and asked me to come here. What I would say is that I love it. And what made me decide, yes, absolutely. It's worth the move. It's worth all of that goes with it. All of us know, all of us know, I have only been to South Dakota once ever in my life before, and I was at Ellsworth Air Force Base for a mission that went, Oh, wow. Yeah. It was when I flew as part of a treaty. It's just a little bit of a tangent. I flew part of a treaty called the Open Skies Treaty. And I flew with the Russians, so I spent three years in and out of Russia, and the Russians spent three years in and out of here. And whenever the Russians were on their plane flying here, there's certain their designated open skies base that the treaty is not being used anymore. But Ellsworth is one of the open skies and Air Force bases. So, I was there actually with the suites. So, we had come. So that was the only time, but I was there like two days. We flew in, and we flew out. So, I don't know, I think we were here. I feel like it was spring. It was a wonderful experience. I remember having like I remember wearing a jacket, but I don't think there was any snow. In fact, I just came across the picture of the whole group sitting in front of Mount Rushmore. So, it was it was very mild, for sure.

It was those connections, but then, when I came here, I got to talk to a lot of people. And I will tell you, it's just I'm just so incredibly impressed with the people after I accepted the job and moved here. It's even more impressive than I thought originally. I think that as part of the Department offense, we think we kind of have the most people who are just super passionate about defense. And it's really not about the money because you're not in defense if it's anything to do with the money. And so, you just kind of have these impressions of academia, and you hear a lot of bad stories about, you know, people trying to crawl over other people to hold them down so that they can advance. There's absolutely none of that here. It's just such an incredibly great environment. And from, you know, the President down to, like, the cleaning staff to, like, you name it, I just find that everybody is kind and seems happy, which I don't think is true in a lot of places. But just the incredible exceptional amount of talent here, I never ceased to be amazed at how much talent and how much passion and how much people here really, really care about education. And it just shows in everything we're doing. And as DSU is growing, I see these programs are exploding in a good way, just absolutely growing and growing. And it's so exciting when it's not happening in a lot of other places. And I just think that, you know, the environment here, it's just, it's absolutely amazing what has been created and how everybody works together and really just cares so much about student education.

Jen Burris:

And what are you looking forward to most in this new position?

Mary Bell:

Still, I think it just always comes back to the people. And I think the most exciting thing here is that the possibilities really feel endless. There's, it's, it's if you have an idea, you know, figure out how to resource it or, you know, go to leadership, get resource for it, like that, you know, great go run with that. And it just feels like in. And I don't want it to sound bad because I loved my time in defense, but there's so much regulation. And you know, what we're doing is very specific. And that's a good thing. When you know what you're doing, you know you can also educate in a very specific way because you know what the intention is here. But here, it's like, the possibilities are so endless as I think about things. We're adding the master screen and artificial intelligence. I know you just talked to Dr. O'Brien about that. And just, you know, that's exciting. The things that are happening. We’re talking about quantum computing; it's so incredibly exciting and things that are in the future, and we're in that space, and we're living in that space, and we're owning that space. And we're just expanding into that space. It's so exciting. And I love being a part of a place that has such an attitude. entrepreneurial innovation thinking, so forward thinking, it's really fun. It's just every day is fun and exciting.

Jen Burris:

There's always something new.

Mary Bell:

I love it, I love it. People have ideas. I'm like, that’s another great idea. Let's do it write down today, like what about this and like, absolutely think about let's do that or, or if I have an idea, and I take it to leadership like a great idea, let's figure out how to get that done. And it just really feels absolutely limitless. That's super exciting.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, I think there's also a good collaborative vibe on campus as well.

Mary Bell:

So collaborative. And that's, you know, I guess I didn't say it because I talked about passion and that desire for student education and working together on ways to improve that from, you know, I just the governor Cyber Academy what is happening there is so insanely exciting and expanding into you know, the high schools and all throughout the state that is growing just leaps and bounds exceeded, you know, the presidents and the deans' expectations on what was going to happen there and just across the space as you name it front to the side of her to the middle school girls to what's happening in the high schools. It's just so exciting in the collaboration across all the colleges, we, you know, we're looking at adding more and more degrees where we're cross-college collaboration, and that disciplinary is, it's so I just it's super exciting. And I love the team of fellow deans that I get to work with and the provost and Fred; there's just it's so much fun seeing things just growing and growing and growing. I think really our only limit, frankly, is time. Because there's only really truly, at least so far, they're still only 24 hours in a day. And that's one of our biggest limitations time they will figure it out right. So, it's going to happen right here at DSU for sure.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, I've been hogging all the questions. Do you have anything?

Lillie Albers:

You've been taking my questions. I've had some of the same questions, and I can't think of any new ones.

Jen Burris:

Well, if people needed to know one thing about you, what should they know?

Mary Bell:

Oh, my goodness.

Lillie Albers:

That sounds like an icebreaker. Like, Tell me about yourself. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

We’ll start the next episode with that.

Mary Bell:

Yeah, right. Right. Even now that's that one might be worse because to start. Although maybe if you'd asked the question at the beginning by the end, maybe I haven't. I don't know. I care. I, I, I work. I work really, really hard, and I'm willing to do that work. Gladly, well, without even a second thought, because I really do, I really do care about I'm, that's why I'm here. I'm here for students to get an education. We do a lot of things around that. But ultimately, it all comes back to that. And how do we want just to make sure that we're always improving student education, improving the number of students that we're educating? That's really what it comes down to. And so, I'm willing, I'm hard working. I'm not saying I'm dumb by any means. But you know, whenever I stand in a meeting or in a meeting with all of the faculty at Beacom, I am not the smartest person in that room. I don't pretend to be the smartest person in the room. But I am hardworking. And I hope that you know I can provide some good leadership skills. So, I don't know. That's not really a good answer, though. I'm going to like the 30 minutes for now. I'm going to come with this. Like, what's the one thing you should know about me? I love my family.

Jen Burris:

We'll just make a text note for the episode.

Lillie Albers:

what she really meant to say. And she came back later and said (laughter).

Mary Bell:

I think with a military background, different groups become your family. And you know, I'm just really happy to be part of this DSU family. And I don't know; I would be curious to see how somebody else would answer that question about me. If you were to say one thing about her, what would you pick out?

Lillie Albers:

 It’s a hard question. It’s hard for anybody. Yeah. Even if it's not about yourself or if I had to pick one thing to say about my best friend. I don't know what I would say. Right? It is. That's tough.

Mary Bell:

It is a tough one.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Well, if you had to say…

Mary Bell and Lillie Albers:

Oh no, it’s a hard question now.

Jen Burris:

Give us your Beacom College pitch. Why should people check out the leader in cyber sciences? Okay, if they haven't already? Yeah,

yeah.

Mary Bell:

I have had the opportunity to kind of do this pitch a fair amount. Perfect. She's prepared, prepped, ready to go. It depends a little bit on the environment, as you know, how I started what I say. But, you know, just really talk about the amazing programs. I always will come back to one of the most important things you need to know that we hold all three of the NSA, it's the Cybersecurity Center of Academic Excellence, designation CIA's right. So that's a huge one. There are only 10 universities in the entire nation that hold all three designations. We're one of 10, which is one of the top 10 nations in the world in this space. So, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. That's exciting. When I think about students, this is one of the things that I think is really important for people to understand is whenever you take the incoming students as a freshman class here at DSU, I would argue, and not to put in any way in Pune, any group of people, it's not any different than a group of students starting at any other university. It's a cross-section; there are different people, some are stronger academically than others, you have, you know, some who are more athletically inclined, some who are more introverted, that kind of cross-section isn't any different. What I can see is that what happens for, let's just say, for the undergraduate for the four years, they're here, ish, the four years-ish, that they're here, what then you get as a graduate out of DSU, is dramatically different than what you're getting at other universities, like the graduate here is something that has been just I think it's what the faculty pour into them, that they come out, very, very different. And we have 100% employment, right? So, every graduate out of DSU gets a job, and not just in become gets a job within their field. And we're at 99.7%. So, when we say 100, we really mean that the demand for DSU graduates is so high, different companies that come to me all the time contacting me, like how do we get DSU grads, I'm like, well, you and everybody else needs to do as you have read. I think that there's something so incredibly special about that process of the educational process here. Again, I don't think we start with a different level of student body. We start with that same kind of cross-section, but that molding that faculty pours into them makes us a super special place. We're in the process of doing a lot of interviews and hiring new faculty. And what I hear repeatedly as the faculty come to campus, they're like the energy here is different. It's so positive Whether you're walking across campus and, you know, Rosa Bryan has taken him on tour and she's high-fiving people and, you know, talking to people and you don't see that type of energy and a lot of other places where we're, we really are kind of one big family. And I think that there's something incredibly special about what happens here. And then I go to, like, the US cyber team. And I think about the fact that there are 30 students on the US Cyber Team, ages 15 to 25. And when you look at the number of DSU students who are on the US cyber team, there's four from DSU, the next highest university they have only has two students. So, there's not a there's some several universities with the

Jen Burris:

It’s the second year that we've had four, I believe.

Mary Bell:

it's for sure it's the second year and defer....

Jen Burris:

The year before I think it was three, and that....

Mary Bell:

And so, and this is the third year, third year.

Jen Burris:

Oh, so yeah, I think every year we've had three or more, okay, representing DSU on the team, which is just fabulous.

Mary Bell:

It is. Absolutely. I mean, we're this relatively small school, and yet had that have an at this. I mean, we're talking Olympic level, right for Cyber Games. And to have this small school have four students on that team. Just again, I just don't think you can speak enough. And it's what happens here while they're here. The development, the possibilities, the hands-on learning, we don't just do theory. We teach them how to do it. And it's a really exciting place, and I credit the faculty and the leadership, but it's the whole environment without the administration. Without the admissions department, the registrar, like they all are, just infuses joy, and people are kind, and it's a really special place. This is a really, really special place.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, we want to let you go in time to get to your next appointment. But if anybody has any questions for you or wants to reach out, how should they go about contacting you? Danger, dangerous question.

Mary Bell:

I know, so it's just the website, right? So, if you go to dsu.edu, you can see my phone number and email address. So, I actually really don't want to say it because I'd rather them go to the website because when they go, Yeah, right. They're going to see all the other things are cool things that are happening.

Our first student who just got his SFSC, which is Space for Specialty Code. Yes. sfsc going to space for us. I'm going to be a space operator. Like, that's exciting. That's on the front page of the website, you know, things like that. So yeah, dsu.edu, go there. Check it out. You can find me, you can find my email. You can find my address and get a hold of me that way.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming in.

Mary Bell:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jen Burris:

And thank you for watching or listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State’s podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm your host, Jen Burris. And we have a very special episode in store for you for a few reasons. This will be our first-ever video recording, as you can see. And more importantly, I have two really amazing DSU faculty members as our cohosts today and a very distinguished guest. So, I'm happy to welcome Kanthi Narukonda as a cohost today, Kanthi is an assistant professor in the Beacom College and director of the CybHER Institute where she manages undergraduate students who serve as cyber leaders. With a passion for cybersecurity, she's earned degrees in cyber defense and embedded systems engineering and is currently pursuing her PhD in cyber defense. Thank you so much for being here.

Kanthi Narukonda:

I'm very, very excited to be here.

Jen Burris:

Do you want to tell us a little bit about cybHER and yourself?

Kanthi Narukonda:

Yes. So cybHER was founded in 2013. So, we're celebrating 10 years of being able to do a lot of outreach with young women and young girls as well to bring awareness about cybersecurity because we want them to understand cybersecurity is more than the dark basement and the hoodie and the clacking away at the keyboard. And to this effect, we do a lot of outreach with K through 12 students so they understand what cyber security is. And when they're adults, they can pursue the field. So, to date, we've impacted about 45,000 students.

Jen Burris:

Very impressive. Okay. And our other cohost for today is Jason Jenkins, who is also a faculty member in the Beacom College, Jason has over 20 years of IT related experience. Amazing. And some of that includes network administration, hardware and software support, software and web development, and more. Jack of all trades. Yeah, pretty much. So, he's earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and Math and a master’s in information assurance and is currently completing his PhD in cyber defense as well. Excellent. So, thank you for joining us. Jason, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jason Jenkins:

Well, I think most of you know, students are listening, you know, a lot of folks on campus to know me for teaching software engineering, object-oriented design, sometimes web development or software security. But, you know, just kind of looking forward to, I guess, kind of my research agenda, or I'm trying to kind of tackle some of our cybersecurity problems from the software developer standpoint, and how I can, you know, solve that if it's tools, an education process, not entirely sure yet, but that's kind of where I'm at in my academic journey. Sure.

Jen Burris:

We'll have to have you come in and talk about your research. Sometimes too.

Jason Jenkins:

Okay.

Jen Burris:

I'm thrilled to introduce our distinguished guest today, Major General David Gaedecke, who has an extensive and illustrious career in cybersecurity. So, you recently retired from the US Air Force, Correct?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Correct.

Jen Burris:

And you served as vice commander of the Sixteenth Air Force, Air Forces Cyber, at the Joint Base in San Antonio Lackland, in Texas, where it looks like you were preparing a lot of employees for all sorts of cyber concerns. So, we're really impressed with that. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you've been doing for all these years?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Sure. Absolutely. So yes, I did. As you mentioned, I just retired officially on the first of September. So, just so now, I'm a Mr. and enjoying life. 2.0. after 18 assignments and 30 years of service, I am really excited to be here talking to the Dakota State University audience, an opportunity to talk to them about what we're doing here. I think, you know, as you alluded to, for most of your students looking at different opportunities within the IT space or within cyberspace, lots opportunity in my last organization as a 16 Air Force in Air Force and cyber. At the same time, we also had a direct relationship with the National Security Agency enrolled there. And I know that that's something else. It's important to many of your students in the roles that they'll do or potential employers in the future. So, I look forward to the opportunity to talk about any of that as well.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. So, I am going to hand it over to Kanthi and Jason for questions. So, take it away.

Kanthi Narukonda:

So, we have this lovely list of questions for you. As Jen mentioned, and as you mentioned,  you've had a distinguished career in the Air Force with a strong emphasis on cyber and information warfare. Can you share your perspective on how the role of cybersecurity has evolved within the military over the years? And how it has become increasingly critical to national security?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's been a tremendous evolution as we look at technology and how it's evolved as well. And if I look back to the beginning of when I started my service, and in the initial 90s to where we've come today, just so many of the concepts, concepts have changed. If you think about things as simple as air gap used to be when it was closed networks, the only way into a network was if you're physically plugged into it, because it was this system. And you could have multiple enclaves all over the place and be relatively safe just by the physical barriers that did or didn't exist. Today, that's changed considerably. When you think about everybody is on WiFi, I would suspect there's four phones in the room. And, we're all connected through potentially different services as well. And so those create the vulnerable space that's out there. And so, we've had to be able to defend all of that. I think one of the other things, philosophically, that we're looking at is the difference between the old castle moat kind of design, right, you build a castle, you put a moat around it, and then you try to defend it. That's a significant challenge in this day and age. And that's where ideas like zero trust principles have come forward: how do you protect your data? Versus how do you protect your network, and I think people are responding and there's opportunity there. And with the rise of data and data science, lots of opportunity, and I know from your students as well, that are probably studying many of those different things.

Jason Jenkins:

Alright. So, getting into the student side of things a little more, how do you think our students can have an impact on protecting the critical infrastructure of our country?

Major General David Gaedecke:

That's a great question. I think one of the things that's really important that you do acknowledge in that question is, is that critical infrastructure across our nation, because it is more than, you know, the Department of Defense that I grew up in, and there's a lot more to it, it's really important to us. And it’s important to everybody, not just people that live in the state of South Dakota, but across our nation, that critical infrastructure also is vulnerable. And we wouldn't want to have an adversary that tries to disrupt our services for our public or, and, you know, in my case, when I was in uniform with our military or defense as well. But when you look at the students, how can they do this?

We need those innovative thinkers, we need people to think about it differently, the ones that are studying new ideas that have those opportunities to do it. And understanding the creative minds that you see, I've heard of recent wins with members of DSU students who have been on teams that have won national awards. Those are the type of people we need. And it doesn't matter if it's an industry, it doesn't matter if it's studying in a research institution, whether it's serving in the government, whether in the military, or as a civilian civil service. We need those people; we need those sharp folks. And we need them to help us to advance to stay ahead of both, you know, adversaries at the national level, but also that we've seen a rise in cyber criminals, and the things that they're doing and holding people, I'll say hostage with air quotes, but we need to be able to do that with the ransomware. We need people out there to do that. And the relevant studies that are being done here are exactly what we need.

Jason Jenkins:

Thank you.

Kanthi Narukonda:

Some of the students that you mentioned on the teams have had the privilege of working with them with Sitecore. And I taught them, and I can say they're super, super smart. I bet they're so smart. Sometimes it scares me.

Jen Burris:

That's a good problem to have, though.

Kanthi Narukonda:

A very good problem to have. I have a question that's more related to your work experience with the Air Force. So, in your role as the vice commander of the 16th Air Force, you were responsible for cybersecurity and the defense of the Air Force's portion of the DoD global network. Can you discuss your role at the Sixteenth Air Force in ensuring the readiness of Air Force personnel and their responsibility for cybersecurity? And can you also talk a little bit about what the key priorities and initiatives are within this command?

Major General David Gaedecke:

So, I left when I when I left working at Sixteenth Air Force, the commander of the organization at the time had very distinct priorities that he published, you know, its tentative leadership is so everybody understands what the commander's priorities are in support of all of those different missions that you talked about.

So, as a vice, you know, executing his intent and meeting because of his vision. Interestingly, that kind of back to your question is he had five priorities and the number one priority for him was to grow readiness. And so, we looked at him, and he talked about growing readiness, strengthening resilience, personal resilience and professional resilience, and maturing information warfare. We talked; we had mentioned driving modernization. And then last but not least, in creating our combat effectiveness, because we are a, you know, a military organization, mode, you talk about readiness, that's incredibly important. And it's so that when called upon to do whatever the nation asks of us, those members are ready to perform their duties and responsibility. And under his command was more than just cyber, he had many other responsibilities. He had the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance enterprise under his him as well, as well as some of our electromagnetic warfare capabilities, too. But when you think about that readiness, it's absolutely critical so that they're doing that.

And when we talk about it in relation to cybersecurity, it's the personal readiness of the airmen and the guardians and anyone in our command to accomplish the mission. But the other part is that infrastructure that we already alluded to, the critical infrastructure, is it ready for what it might have to encounter. And so that's a continual relationship. And as we know, in tech, that cycle of advancements is just rapid. We talked about Moore's law, but I think Moore's Law sometimes I wonder, okay, that was that was good at a time. And the principles are sound, but things are happening awful quick, when we come to the cyberspace and the innovations, it's out there both good and bad.

Kanthi Narukonda:

So again, more about your work experience. The Pentagon is at the heart of the US Defense operations. And how did your previous role as the director of cyberspace operations in warfighter integration at the Pentagon contribute to ensuring the resilience and security of critical defense networks and systems? And as follow up, what were some of the key objectives there and some key responsibilities there that you undertook to enhance the DoD cyberspace capabilities?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Absolutely. So when you when you think about the Pentagon, it's the highest levels of our military and the Department of Defense, all the service chiefs are located there, as well as the Secretary of Defense, when you have this, this huge enterprise, it's a corporate level. So my roles and responsibilities in there were largely for those, you know, policy guidance, and the kind of the governance and advocating for funding for different things that were important to do is trying to, you know, focus on different resources we needed for different efforts, some of the things that I was really proud of what we accomplished back in my time during that, that is still holding true today. And that was our drive to complete the creation of the cyber mission force, the CMF.

And so, the way that US Cyber Command did it at that time was they said, Okay, we're going to have us the each of the services are going to responsible for producing a certain number of teams. And that will make up the cyber mission force that the US Cyber Command can use. And some of those were those teams that the Cyber Command would say, Okay, we're going to put them out on this mission. And then as well as some of those teams would still focus on the Air Force and Air Force capabilities. But the creation of that to become fully operational capability for fully operational capable at that time was a big drive and something that I was pretty proud of. And then the other one is the continued advocacy, for funding. And to explain to people the importance of the foundation of our IT networks, and that it is actually an operational, it's a command-and-control imperative. If you want to be able to talk to your forces anywhere in the field, whether it be with data, and email, and or voice, you have to connect in this world. And that is all completely based on a strong and resilient, and secure network. And to be able to apply for the funding and explain why this is important.

And why is this more important than that was, it was an exciting and interesting three years to operate it that kind of corporate level. And it wasn't just with the service. Oftentimes, it was also with the joint community, the other services as well as the Department of Defense. And so, for students leaving here that if they find themselves whether it's civil service, or whether in a military organization, a tremendous opportunity to make a difference, to be able to help to be able to shape that to really lots of different ways to do that with some of the big programs that they were doing.  

Jason Jenkins:

I have a bit of a broader question for you, but I think you'll have a great answer to it. What lessons from military tactics can cyber defense professionals apply to their work?

Major General David Gaedecke:

There's so many, and when you think of about what some of the principles of warfare are things that we've studied, but its terrain, the cyber is terrain, and whether that is through the, through the spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum. Again, we talked about WiFi devices or satellite communications, and all of that technology, it's all terrain. And if you're in the cybersecurity business, you have to make sure that the things that are passing through it are what you want it to be, whether that's through, you know, conventional cable, whether that's through fiber, or whether it's through the air.

But some of those things that you find are some of those basic principles, such as surprise, or defense in depth, or even defending forward. And the partnerships, international relationships that you create, are, are critical to be able to say, because if you're one of my closest allies, and I'm going to be networked with you, then we want to make sure if you're able to pass me information that that's secure and safe. Or, in times of crisis, if I just want to communicate with you, how am I going to be able to compute sensitive information on a bilateral level where I can communicate with you to say, hey, what's going on? Or this is happening? And how do we establish that communication network in that architecture? So that we know at the national level, these are leaders of countries, leaders of institutions, that they're able to have those communication capability? There's a role for the things that everything, all the types of studies and the programs that are in here that aren't directly related to that.

Jason Jenkins:

Thank you very much.

Kanthi Narukonda:

So, this is, I want to say, somewhat of a broad kind of question. Like you'd mentioned, you know, the cyber threat landscape is ever evolving, ever-changing? Can you share an example of a significant cyber incident or a threat that you encountered during your career, and how your team or what steps your team took to mitigate that threat or that event?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Sure, it's difficult to go into some of the specifics, just for different reasons. But I think that some that your audience would understand, and they're really good case studies, to look at what's happening right now, are some of the significant things we sound. So, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll say, two and a half. One would be the solar winds. So, we saw the crisis with solar winds, we happen, and we realized that vulnerability and it's also to see how that is communicated. Right. So, which version is vulnerable versus it isn't just any SolarWinds? But some of the different things make sure you understood that. Then the other one, I think, was it was a significant event, but seemed it happened. And then it went away. It was a Colonial Pipeline attack that we saw, as well, and how that what that did with our economy, what that did to the buck, we seem to have we went right past it really quick. But significant events, and, and then the other one that we often encounter that often is probably not appropriate, but that we have encountered in recent times is intellectual property theft, and how adversaries or criminals are trying to gain and take that information. And so, when you look at those and say, how would we respond?

The Department of Defense is not a law enforcement agency. By law, it's not allowed to be a law enforcement agency. And at the same time, the Department of Defense isn't able to come to the defense of private industry. And so that's an interesting dynamic, but our civilian leadership in our country will ask the military experts, they might ask Cyber Command, hey, we had an incident in cyber, what are we going to do about it? And some of those, are there special relationships that we have with other agencies, whether it be law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, or whether it be on an international level with partners to say, Hey, are you seeing this, but all of those things, the first thing you're going to do, it's almost a view, sometimes I use the analogy of the house, that whether it's your house broken into, or it's your neighbor's house that got broken into, but you get on the phone and say, how did they get into your house? And they said, hey, they figured it out and opened the screen door in the back? Like, oh, my gosh, I have to screen doors in the back. And so you go, okay, are they secure? We would recommend you do the following. And it's being able to take the team that you're leading to look at what are those vulnerabilities that exist.

And then, once you've identified, oh my gosh, we have the vulnerability, or thank goodness, we don't have the vulnerability, then you go about solving that problem as rapidly as you can. And that's sometimes tough, because then it turns around, and it's the same thing. Hey, and now I need more resources, or I need more funding because what I need is that hardware is that software, what's the fix? And how long does it take to implement? We have lots of priorities on that list, and lots of CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) cyber vulnerabilities that are out there. And it's a bit of triaging, you know. What am I going to fix first? Is there just a cut on my screen? And I'm okay because I've got a camera on it to make sure no one comes in? Or is it a leaky roof that the whole house is about to come down? And you know, every one of those has a different response.

And then you have that tiered level. Right? Is it okay? How bad of a threat is it? But we've seen it in the commercial sector, there's too many cases to look out for ransomware criminal activity. And then, as I alluded to the intellectual property theft, because sometimes you would think, and this is important, too, for small businesses that you partner with air for the institution, or as your students go out and work is clear defense contractors, right, small companies that are out there working with the government, and are they vulnerable, how secure is their network, maybe an adversary doesn't look at the big department of defense, but instead says, hey, we'll just go after one of the contractors, it's building something for us. So, we've got to help everybody and part of that network to be secure.

Kanthi Narukonda:

So, the house analogy, great example, because that helps people understand how you are a house Exactly. Then, the weighted scale of assessing your priorities or, even rating your threats of this is most likely to occur. This has the most potential to have the most impact on, you know, our company. That's a great example. And what you'd mentioned with the preparing and communicating, I think one of the problems that we normally see is that organizations or any type of organizations that are kind of reluctant to share, that they have been under attack, that brings down their market value that brings down the confidence in the public in their company. And I wish there were an easier way, or I wish people would move past that mentality to say, oh, are...

Jen Burris:

Feel more comfortable in helping other people out to avoid the same scenarios?

Kanthi Narukonda:

Exactly. Because this is how it is going to be going forward is everything's going to be online. And we need to be able to share data, protect ourselves, and lend resources so others can protect themselves.

Major General Daivd Gaedecke:

I think so. And I think that even on that note that it's we are always we're only limited by our creativity, which is why I know the next generation of students coming out can help us with that. And I think you've touched on many reasons why you'll find corporations are hesitant to share that. But there's also ways that they can do that safely through building a team and sharing and I think some of those venues exist, it's just not necessarily in the public space for further reasons, not just because of the reasons if they don't want to lose confidence and credibility in their business model. It's understandable. Yeah.

Jason Jenkins:

And I think that topic, you know, one of the things you mentioned is why we talk so much about things like vendor management and cyber defense. It's so important, and it's if you look at a lot of the big data breaches, that's where, really, the problem and where some of them came from, kind of gets into, you know, one of your teaching interests, Conte, you know, cyber law, you know, maybe data breach laws need to be tightened up a bit. So, there isn't, so much of that is almost there, almost companies are kind of being allowed to be hesitant, you know, in some ways. So, anyway, not to go into that full-on.

Kanthi Narukonda:

It brings forward a good point to third party management is as important as securing your own network, you need to have good relations with third parties or those vendors who have good security posture themselves. And then, to bring in the law portion of it. I think cyber law is still evolving. There still needs to be more done in the field. And I think we will see a lot more adjustments or advancements in that field stone. Great. You've held positions in various locations around the world, including South Korea, Germany and Qatar, how did these international assignments shape your perspective on global military operations and collaboration with these international partners?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Absolutely, it did in a number of different ways. It shaped my views, early in my career. As an example, you mentioned living in Germany, and I was part of a NATO organization, a flying organization. And we had at that time, 13 NATO nations working together to accomplish a similar mission. Those partnerships are amazing to be able to do that. And people work together and at that human level to realize, hey, we do have a shared set of values, a shared set of what we think how do we do this together? And it's it is really important, and we've in the context of cybersecurity and the IT business, it's equally important for us to be able to have the ability to share just like we talked about with industry, and you know, even somewhat proprietary information or networks and companies would share that with one another. It's the same thing with other with other governments, that we need to be able to share technology or to advise one another on adversary tactics so that you can say, What have you seen, and what have I seen, I think a great example of that, that's very successful that you can that your audience could read about, is the initiative that US Cyber Command has with hunt forward operations. And this is where those partnerships with other nations have said, An America Hey, US Cyber Command, we would welcome you coming to our nation, and getting on some of our networks, and helping to see if there's any malicious actors that are on here. And you can read about those instances and those things that I've done. And then for them to be able to take things that maybe we find and be able to update that with the with the with the larger community about techniques, or different viruses or malware that we find out there. Lots of opportunities to build confidence with one another. And then also to get, you know, to get the bad guy out. And it is in some of it is some of its on network, which is one thing, and then some of its basic education, depending on the nature of this, but we have, the United States has so many friends and allies that are out there, and to build that relationship and in those in that domain of cyberspace is really, really important. And something I was brought up to see that we were able to, and some of those relationships are sensitive with different countries, of course, but you can see the example tangible examples open are available out there in the open press.

Jen Burris:

That’s very cool that you can just go out there and find all this information.

Major General David Gaedecke:

Yeah. And you know that the other part of that when you know, we talk about and we've talked about cybersecurity, but to the other part of this when you think about the mission set and the different things that that you do in cyberspace, there is, as we know, there are offensive cyber operations. And then there are defensive cyber operations, so that that difference in defensive cyber operations from the traditional cybersecurity of a network or, or device, but the defensive operations to go out there that I would consider the hunt for IT operations to be where you're out there, and it goes back to the military principle of defending forward, you go forward into that space that's outside and say, Hey, we're going to defend here, because it just increases kind of our defense. And oh, by the way, helps them at the same time, it's a really good mutually beneficial relationship between the partners that invite us in to help them.

Jason Jenkins:

Well, I'll admit, I was kind of inspired to include this question because of some of the research some of our cyber defense PhDs are working on. But one of the significant issues facing cyber defense is the staffing of cyber security positions. And, you know, just in your opinion, what do you think can or should be done to help with this? And, you know, what did you kind of do to help out in this area when you were working in the military?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Well, I think at the national level, I'm impressed that it's recognized the criticality of this of these skill sets of these graduates of these experts that are out there. And so, we as a nation need them to work both in for whether it be in government service or even with industry partners that are working within the department or across any of our federal agencies. But interestingly, if you do if some of the resources out there, Congress has given in the case of the DOD, they've given Services Authority to do many things, to aid in both recruitment and retention. And it's really, really hard. So, we talked about priorities, and the beginning of my boss, and he talked about growing ready, readiness, part of that readiness was keeping the skilled workforce that you have if you train a bunch of people, and they leave to go work for a high paying institution that the federal government cannot compete with, or a public university has a gentleman's competing good. You know, it's how do you retain those people. But Congress has given us ideas of everything from direct commissioning programs to rapidly commissioned people to bringing someone from the outside in as an officer in the military. That's more commensurate with this. We do this in the medical community. We'll go out and get specialists like an Adonis or oral surgeon, and we'll bring them in and give them higher rank, not supervisory responsibilities, necessarily, but the higher rank for pay. There are different means to give bonuses, selective bonuses that can go into that. There are even promotions written in there because the military officers from motions are confirmed by the Senate. But they still gave special provisions in there to say, hey, you can promote people based on their position. Now, there's a process the services have to go through to do that. But it's there. And then the other one is the rapid hiring. So, they've given a lot of authorities for hiring government civilians directly into positions that don't have to go through all the competitive stages that you would with a normal government civilian position. And so, we dabbled in all of these things. But the United States Air Force, not counting the broader Department of the Air Force with the Space Force, we've talked about the United States Air Force, you know, roughly 330,000 people, it's a big institution, it's a big corporation and to make some of these moves, you know, the second and third order impacts that they have to think that's some of the challenges. So, my frustration would be to do it faster. Having been in the Pentagon, I understand why sometimes that's hard. But we'll talk about that we can talk about in my discussion this afternoon of go fast. It's what we've got to do, but it's out there. And, there's internships and ability for people if this is what you want to do, even if you don't have to do it in uniform, which is really important for people. But if you want to come in as a civil servant, there's those programs where you could rapidly move up. And then if you want to do that for a career, great. And if not, then if you want to go out into the industry with that knowledge, there's lots of opportunity. Great, relevant question.

Jason Jenkins:

Thank you, and thanks for the answer. So, I'm going to kind of combine these next two bits. What I want to ask you about, so you originally had a degree in English, but obviously went into the Air Force for a number of years. How has that English background impacted your strategy for effectively communicating complex cybersecurity issues to senior military and civilian leaders? Any methods or approaches that you've noticed that are particularly effective?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Well, thanks for thanks for that question, as well. Thanks for looking at my bio, and understanding where I grew up, and what I did. And I was just talking to your provost about that, and today about kind of that evolution of education, and higher education and some of the different focuses, because clearly, you know, Dakota State University is very much focused on many of the technological fields of study that are out there, but more specifically answer your question. So, there's a trick in there somewhere for you that I guess I'll reveal here. So, actually, I started with a math focus. And so, this is what happens when you're a 19- or 20-year-old, and you're allowed to make your own decisions because your parents trust you with your own education. And so, I won't mention the class, I'll think about entering the class. But anyway, I had a particular math class that frustrated me to no end in one day. And so I switched to English. So, I have a math minor that's going to have that background. But I really enjoyed English. And I was never a talented writer. But what studying literature did for me was I realized that critical thinking and analytical thinking that goes into what someone is trying to impart to you and communication in the written word. And to do some of those things is just to be critical of what you're reading or watching. And one of my favorite classes with film is narrative, to look at movies and go, Okay, that's not a movie. That's a story. Who wrote the story? What's it about? And what are they telling you, and then to have to write about that and then defend a position, those skill sets are really good. But then the other part of how I have leveraged that, in my career in the military, I found myself becoming a translator. So, I grew up in aviation flying in large frame aircrafts, like the three AWACS, or the E-8 J-stars, different aircraft that our US Air Force operates. And so, I grew up in that aviation community. When you look at the senior leadership of our United States Air Force, many of them are aviators, for good reason. And so, I found myself in that role as the translator. So, as someone who grew up in that community as I became a general officer, and I moved into cyberspace and it and ISR and EW, and all those acronyms, I apologize to your audience for but when you think about cyber information technology, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electromagnetic spectrum operations, when you think of all of that what I found myself doing is I have now the advocate for saying, let me explain to you why this is important. And I do an analogy like the house, or I do a football analogy, or whatever I think speaks to that person, or I'll do a warfighting analogy. As simple as hey, you have the greatest aircraft in the world, and you wonder to bring it to bear against your adversaries. Well, what if someone could do something that would deny that aircraft dude they'll need to take off. And you know it, they don't even have to touch the aircraft. After all, nothing, air gap doesn't matter anymore. So, there's that. So, let's think about that. And then let's even think about petroleum or electricity; it takes lots of different vulnerabilities. Do you care about their boss? So, I think that's what it did. It made me a good translator, even though I don't have an aptitude for foreign languages. Thanks.

Jen Burris:

So, in the interest of keeping track of your time and your schedule for the day, we'll wrap it up with one more question.

Major General David Gaedecke:

Okay. Over to both of you.

This is more of a you looking into the future kind of question? How, like, over your career, you've seen the landscape of cybersecurity change a little bit and warfare evolve as well. What do you see in the future as challenges?

Major General David Gaedecke:

So, the one thing that I think is unique about the environment, and probably something I'll talk about this afternoon, as well with some of the students and faculty, is the change in the information environment, and it has changed dramatically when you look at this. And I don't just mean the news media, although there's a part of that. But what we found with, with our networks with the internet, and with cyber, in general, its ability to connect people across the globe, we're all connected. But with that comes great responsibility. Because what I find most uniquely different is the ability for any one of us in the room can actually reach out and touch another nation's population. You could post something and reach a huge audience that you could never reach before. And so that is powerful, for good. And that can be, unfortunately, powerful or bad. And then, when you also combine that with the ideas of both misinformation and disinformation, it's a very complex landscape. And so that landscape has clearly evolved in my time. And there is goodness, and to be able to help people understand it to help those that require help. But there is great risk when you have people who are putting things out into the environment that start true. And we could, we could all probably come up with a good example of seeing something that goes well, that's not real. I know, it's not real. Does anybody else know that? That's not real; that is that's like, that's just not, that's fake? not fact. Even the use of words, you know, a bomb versus an explosion, which is fact, if you if you make a headline that says a bomb went off and go, Okay, or did an explosion go off? Those…

Jen Burris:

Goes back to those critical thinking and analytical skills?

Major General David Gaedecke:

Absolutely. Yep. So, it is different. But those are the challenges, right, we're going to figure out how to navigate that, quite frankly, I think that my generation is better than my parents’ generation to think through that. And I think that the younger generation and the students that you have here at Dakota State University are more equipped to do that than than I am. And so, I look forward to the innovation and the ideas that our discerning, intelligent next generation will bring for all of us.

Kanthi Narukonda:

Thank you for answering all of your questions.

Jason Jenkins:

Thank you very much.

Jen Burris:

Yes, this was excellent. Very informative and interesting. And I think a lot to digest for everyone. And thank you to Major General Gaedecke.

Major General David Gaedecke:

Thanks. It's great. I'm excited to have had the opportunity to talk to both faculty members, who clearly are experts in this domain as well. Proud of what you're doing to educate them because you two are making a difference, both in their lives. But then when you look at, you know, do something bigger, be a part of something that's bigger than yourself. I think both of you are doing that when you look at what you're doing for the institution and for, quite frankly, for our way of life and our ideals and beliefs and what we think, so you guys are doing great. I was proud, to be honest with you. And thanks so much.

Jen Burris:

And thank you, Jason Jenkins. And thank you for watching our very first video episode. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe.

Cyberology with International Programs

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris. And today, we have a couple of guests, Director of International Programs Nicole Claussen, and International Admissions Specialist Holly Macfarlane. Welcome, ladies. How are you today?

Holly Macfarlane:

Good. Thank you. It's really nice to be here.

Nicole Claussen:

Thank you very much.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so why don't you start by just telling us a little bit about your backgrounds?

Nicole Claussen:

My name is Nicole Claussen. And I'm currently the Director of International Programs here at Dakota State. I've been working in this field for about 20 years. Prior to that, I was a middle school teacher. So, I have always been in the field of education. I definitely enjoy working with international students and sending our domestic students abroad.

Jen Burris:

What led you to the transition from middle school teacher to international programs?

Nicole Claussen:

It was an easy transition, still working with students who were just a little bit older. I'm still having a lot of interactions.

Jen Burris:

Sure. Excellent. What about you, Holly?

Holly Macfarlane:

 Well, I am an international admissions specialist here at DSU. I got into the field of international education through teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. So that's what I did my undergraduate degree in; following that I taught English in Kyrgyzstan in the Peace Corps for a year until COVID, kind of put a stop to all things international travel. So, I came back. I'm from Michigan and got my master's in international education. And so this was my first job after getting that degree.

Jen Burris:

Okay, excellent.

Well, we're happy to have you here.

Holly Macfarlane:

Happy to be here.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so why don't you tell me a little bit about both of your roles in international programming and what you kind of do?

Nicole Claussen:

So, our entire office works through the entire application process. So, it starts when they possibly inquire and want information, and then throughout the application process and all of their documents. And then, once they've been accepted, we send them their immigration paperwork. So, Holly and I work together on that process. And then once they get here, we do a lot with them. We want to make them feel welcome. We want to ensure they have a successful experience while here. And then, even when they graduate, they continue to be our f1 students while they go out and work for 123 years. So that entire process is serviced by the International Programs Office where Holly and I are. And then I think I'll let Holly talk a little bit about the study abroad side of our office.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely.

Holly Macfarlane:

Yeah. So, I do lots of the admission processing, like Nicole said, international credential evaluation, admissions decisions, I also work with the Study Abroad side of things. So, I think we'll probably discuss it a little later, but I advise students on what programs might fit them to study abroad for semester or summer programs, or even faculty-led week-long programs. Okay, that's another aspect of what I do here.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. It's probably something that people don't always think of immediately when they hear international programming.

Holly Macfarlane:

Yes, yes. I think that it's, I think it's lots of people are surprised, I think when they hear the International Programs doesn't just do incoming students, but also sends us students to I think we have over 20 countries we can send students to.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. Can you name a few of those countries?

Holly Macfarlane:

Sure.

Thailand. Pretty much all of the UK, Italy, and Kenya. I'd love to get a student to go to Kenya. That was my goal. 

Nicole Claussen:

Spain. Most of Europe, of course. We have Japan, Thailand,  Australia, Austria, Germany, and most of Europe.

Jen Burris:

Quite a variety.

Nicole Claussen:

Yeah, we have a lot of variety, and many students think that that is out of reach for them. They don't think oh, I can't afford it. I can't do it. The programs that we work with are very affordable, they still pay their tuition to DSU. It's just the housing, and depending on the country, they pick the housing maybe the same as Madison, South Dakota, so we're trying to get the word out and let the students know that it isn't. There aren't financial barriers to some of those locations. And then, of course, Holly always, you know, really expands on what it can do for their resume, their potential for making new contacts for possible jobs when they graduate. There's just so much out there. And just the global perspective they're gaining and what that can bring to the table once they get a job.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So, what is it like working with students from all over the world?

Nicole Claussen:

I think it's amazing. You know, as I said, I started as a middle school teacher and didn't really know a lot about international education. It's amazing, you learn so much about their country, you learn the cultures, you know, if you haven't traveled outside the US, you just think everybody acts like an American, everybody lives the same way, basically. And you just learned to appreciate all the perspectives they bring you appreciate the cultural things that they share with the domestic students and the community of Madison. It really has taught me that Americans really could take some lessons from some other countries on a lot of things. And I know that sounds horrible, but the way of life that these students come from is so different than here. And it's amazing. And I, people that work get to know these international students really learn a lot from them, I think.

Holly Macfarlane:

Yeah, every day in our office is really different. I mean, I think we interact with students from over 25 different countries. So really, it's a good lesson in intercultural competency for sure, and those communication skills are huge. But as Nicole said, I mean, they share so many interesting aspects of living in different cultures, like sharing our international club, we'll do holiday and cultural celebrations from different countries, I think we've done like Diwali, and Chinese New Year and things like that. And I love that we can kind of help bring that to campus and expose other students to that because I definitely agree. Like it's important to travel, it's important to go to different cultures, because especially when students are 1819 20, maybe it's the first time they're away from home. And they're starting to think about things like, who do I want to be? What do I want my identity to be? Like? What are some of the values that I want to hold? when you're exposed to people from different cultures, you start to realize, oh, there are choices here. There are other ways I can exist and live in other values I can hold. And I think that that's incredibly valuable for international students coming here, and especially for us students going abroad,

Jen Burris:

It is definitely like a life-learning experience. And probably an educational one for everyone. You get to know the customs and practices of different cultures.

Nicole Claussen:

Life altering. For a lot of our students, when they come back, even from a three-week faculty lead or a semester or a yearlong. It is life-altering. It really is in a lot of ways.

Jen Burris:

And if you can do that when you're in college and still getting credits and accessing new resources, I mean, you can't go wrong.

Nicole Claussen:

Yeah, we work really hard. So, it doesn't delay their graduation, Holly spends a lot of time with the students picking out the classes. Some of them think, oh, I want to graduate. You can still graduate on time and fit this into your schedule. So that's why we work really hard on that before they leave.

Holly Macfarlane:

And no matter what their major, we have a program that can fit their major in their program requirements. So yeah, it's definitely possible for all of the majors on campus,

Jen Burris:

Beacom to arts and sciences and everything in between, go it. So, how do you deal with some of the barriers? I mean, international students, you have different time zones, and people are up at all hours in the night because it's daytime for them. How do you deal with those scenarios?

Nicole Claussen:

I do have a lot of meetings that I get up and do from home in my pajamas. If I have to meet with someone, you can always expect them to be up at four in the morning. So yeah, I mean, it is a juggling act. When our students come here, it's a huge adjustment for them. And, you know, as we travel and recruit, we have to be very aware of these cultural difference differences that exist and, and make sure that we don't insult them or in our students when they come, we have a lot of conversations about what are you experiencing that is culturally different. How can we help you? As I said, our office is really the student services for all the internationals too.

Jen Burris:

And do you have any advice for people interacting with international students and how they can help make them feel more comfortable or welcome?

Holly Macfarlane:

I think an open-minded and curious attitude is the most critical thing. If you come to those conversations with respect and curiosity, then hopefully you can learn, and they can share with you the best way to have those interactions. And I mean, you're going to make mistakes. I think when you're the first time that you're talking across cultural barriers, I think that's inevitable. But if you come at it, if both parties come at it with an attitude of respect, and hopefully, there can be a lot of learning and actual communication that occurs, that is what I would say.

Nicole Claussen:

Right, and these students love to share, they love to talk about home, they're homesick, and they like to share with the domestic students, things about their culture, they have pride, and it just, it just exudes from them. And and they want to share and expose these students to what their day-to-day is like.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. So, Nicole, you've been in international programming for about 20 years. How has technology impacted things as it's advanced?

Nicole Claussen:

Well, there are little things you know, we didn't have virtual visits 20 years ago. So now these students sometimes would come and all they would have seen is a picture of the campus or a picture of a snowy field in the middle of South Dakota. Now we do virtual visits, we have a lot better video of our campuses, so that has really helped. The virtual visits have really increased partially due to COVID. But they still really have kept growing since COVID. Also, that would probably be the biggest technological advance, sending everything through email instead of using a courier and paying $100 to send them their paperwork.

Jen Burris:

Oh, wow.

So, cost-saving measures.

Nicole Claussen:

A lot of cost-saving measures, just sending everything via email, or, I mean, that's, that's, yeah, that was another COVID thing, but it's stuck.

Jen Burris:

Nice for the budget.

Nicole Claussen:

Very nice addition to my budget, $1000s.

Jen Burris:

Oh, wow, that's crazy. So approximately, how many different countries do our students come from?

Nicole Claussen:

Well, I think last year, we were at 27. And looking at our list of new students coming in this fall, I think we get to add a few more to that.

Jen Burris:

Oh, that's exciting.

Nicole Claussen:

A couple of exciting new countries that we will get to add to our list. The new ones this year would be Latvia,

Holly Macfarlane:

Azerbaijan.

Nicole Claussen:

And last year, we added…

Jen Burris:

And where is Azerbaijan?

Holly Macfarlane:

Azerbaijan is in the Caucasus region. So, it's like further East than Eastern Europe. I'm pretty sure.

Nicole Claussen:

Yeah, yeah. Last year, we added Uzbekistan. Yeah. And every year, we add a few new countries. And it's, you know, one or two students. But it's still fun to get to know a new area of the world.

Holly Macfarlane:

So, we're seeing increases in Ghana, especially Ghana, and even Nigeria. So yeah.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. So why is it important to have an international population on campus?

Nicole Claussen:

I'll start with that and then let Holly add to it. We've touched on it a bit already. But some of our domestic students haven't left the country. Some of them haven't left the Midwest. So, I think for them to be able to communicate with some of these students in the classroom. And then what these students can add to classroom discussions they add a whole new perspective. And it's a global perspective. And as these students then graduate and go out to work for these companies that are global, they've at least been exposed to a little bit of that. I think that's one of the bigger reasons and that our students need to realize that when they go to work for these companies, they need to know how to appreciate these cultural differences. And having been exposed to them…

Jen Burris:

It makes it a much easier, faster transition, I'm sure.

Holly Macfarlane:

Especially with a lot of the majors on the DSU campus, like with the technology focus, lots of the technology sector is very globalized. So, I mean, it's important across all majors, but I mean, the skills will suit you in every field. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so Holly, why don't you tell us a little bit more about the study abroad opportunities for DSU students, I think that is something that a lot of people maybe don't know, as much about.

Holly Macfarlane:

Yeah, for sure. So, all of our options for study abroad, or you can find through a DSU Study Abroad page, we partner with two organizations: one is called KEI Abroad, and one is called Magellan. Each of those has different countries that sometimes overlap, but different countries that students can be sent to.  If students want to know more information, they can obviously contact our office come to international programs, but they can also look at that website and really get a very detailed, just very detailed idea of what it would look like cost-wise, what locations they have, what courses are available, all of that is available to students right now through the website.

Jen Burris:

So they can get started on their own even in summer.

Holly Macfarlane:

They can get started on research. I hope they will reach out and go through our office eventually. But yeah, all of that information is there for them.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And so, what would people be surprised to know about international programs?

Holly Macfarlane:

That's a good question.

Nicole Claussen:

Sometimes, people are surprised at the number of countries we have represented on campus; you know, we've got a few larger numbers from, say, India or Ethiopia. So, they think, oh, maybe we have five or six countries represented, but I think we will be closer to 30 for the fall 23 semester. That's surprising.

Oh, that student said there are many rules when the students come; they're on a student visa F1 visa, and they have a lot of rules they have to follow. They can't work off campus. They can't take online classes. Yeah, working off-campus is huge. When they graduate, they can go for three years and work in their field, and they're still an F1 student through DSU.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so what's that like? Do you continue communicating and interacting with some of them?

Nicole Claussen:

Yes, we have about 90 right now all over the country working in their field of study for three years of their STEM. And during that time, they are still our f1 students and have to check in regularly with me. Some alerts pop up in the system in the immigration system, and there are different processes they have to follow throughout that, as well as different paperwork and things they have to submit. So yes, very much we are still serving those students when they're out working after graduation.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and what's it like to see them go out and be successful in their fields?

Nicole Claussen:

It is really fun. These students come out of DSU, very well equipped to take on a variety of jobs, they go out and they of course, earn a lot of money, they do very well, they grow. They change titles frequently because that's something I have to track, too. So, I see this. They represent DSU very well all over the United States.

Jen Burris:

That's exciting. Is there anything else you can think of that we haven't discussed?

Nicole Claussen:

No, I think we've pretty much touched on everything.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so what's the best way for people to contact you if they want to learn more about international programming?

Holly Macfarlane:

Our web page is critical. It’s DSU international admissions. You can contact us at our DSU emails.

Nicole Claussen:

You can stop by our office, and we're located in the learning engagement center. There's a big sign that says International Programs, you can come in there and find any one of us and we would love to have even if they're just interested in learning about the program, may be interested in joining the International Club. It isn't just for international students. We would love to have more domestic students. We also have international students who have started a badminton club and a cricket club; they've really expanded the international clubs. So, if any domestics are interested in joining any of those, we would love them just to stop into our offices and find out what they're interested in learning, whether it's study abroad or joining some of our clubs where they could meet international students.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for both being guests today. Appreciate it. And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Cyberology with Austin O’Brien – AI Season 3 - Episode 3 

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State’s podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, my co-host with me today is Lillie Albers.

Lillie Albers:

Hello, hello.

Jen Burris:

And our special guest is Dr. Austin O'Brien. Austin, I know you've been on the podcast before. But why don't you refresh our memories? Give us a little background…

Austin O’Brien:

Sure. Yeah. So, I'm an associate professor of computer science and also the program coordinator for our master's in computer science program. I've been here since 2015. kind of been working on building our artificial intelligence programs, starting with just kind of a few courses here and there. And then that kind of built into a minor for the computer science program, a specialization for the master's program. And then the undergrads have been growing. And we've added a full-on bachelor's degree Bachelor of Science program. And we're currently in the process of trying to get a Master's in Artificial intelligence, so should be fun.

Jen Burris:

So, keeps you busy. Right?

Austin O’Brien:

Boy howdy. (laughter) Yeah. But in a good way.

Jen Burris:

What has the process been like since you've kind of been here since the inception of these artificial intelligence programs? How have they developed?

Austin O’Brien:

Right? Yeah, so like I say, so starting with those courses, you know, we're just trying to get a feel for you know, how well would those do with students who maybe don't have maybe a lot of background in it but are just interested in it. So that was kind of where we started. From seeing how well they would do, we kind of saw what the gaps in their knowledge were that we needed to fill in order for this program to be successful. So definitely an iterative process, you know, starting at the beginning, and just adding more courses, requiring you know, more prerequisites for whatever those courses were, because I think the interest is always there, but you just don't want to put students in a position where they just can't perform, and then they get frustrated. So, we just added a new iteration just last year of just kind of changing the way the curriculum is going to be. So did that for the undergrad program. And I think it's going to really go very well; I think a lot of students are going to like the changes. Okay.

Jen Burris:

And the base of AI is kind of like computer science. Is that right?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah. I mean, when I think of artificial intelligence, I think of it, kind of as being supported by several different areas, computer science definitely being one of those. And then another one, I think, kind of really traditional statistics that you might see. So, probability and statistics are like that. And then kind of the other one that we're really kind of starting to build it off on is, you know, philosophy and just kind of how does the mind work for people? And how does that translate to trying to get computers, maybe to do something similar? So yeah, technically, for sure. Computer Science. And then there's the data science and statistics side to it. And then also kind of some theory.

Jen Burris:

What do you do in the classroom to stay up to date? Because as we know, this field is constantly changing and evolving, adding new.

Austin O’Brien:

No, absolutely. That's something definitely one of the changes we've made because it was kind of, I would say, a little static when we first started to make the program. And at the lower levels, I think that's fine. Because you're building the foundation, what do you need to know about those math and stats that we were referring to and how to program things of that nature? And then we saw that as the course has got to be towards the junior and senior level and kind of the similarly in the master's program after they get that foundation, you know, we were looking at specific topics. The problem that we were running into was that we were having specific topics that were based on the kind of interest or the skill set of the instructor who could teach at the time, and that kind of pigeonholed our courses a little bit, because if they were busy, or if they left that sort of thing, then we're kind of left holding the bag to a certain degree. And that said, even if you taught something one year, one semester, just kind of like you're mentioning a lot of things change. So, one of the changes that we've implemented is that now we have a course that is just kind of real, really just geared at artificial intelligence tools and different frameworks. And that allows whoever’s teaching the course to really mold it how they want it, so it's rotating instructors every year as well. And so that gives students just a different look at what's going on in artificial intelligence and also gives the instructors to kind of reevaluate even that field, you know because they might not teach it for another two years or so. And so that gives them that opportunity to freshen it up and look at it, see what direction it's going and, and teach that. So, I think it's a really good move. It just helps us stay very agile as far as that goes.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. And can you talk a little bit about how broad the term AI is? Because, you know, we hear the basic news things, we hear chat GTP, and DALL-E 2. But it's a lot more encompassing than that. Correct?

Austin O’Brien:

Yes, yeah. And that's the thing, it is this huge umbrella that lots of different, I would say, algorithms and paradigms fall underneath. And so trying to get someone to define it, you know if you ask different people, you're probably going to get different definitions, you know, me coming from more of a strict computer science background, and then I have a pretty strong stats background myself, you know, I'm thinking about it more programmatically thinking, you know, programming and algorithms, things along those lines. You know, if you talk to someone in the business office, you know, they have artificial intelligence for the organization. So, they're looking at more of an applied way of helping them make good business decisions, using data to help determine, you know, the best courses of action and things along those lines. And, you know, even in those disciplines, you could break down a lot. And then, you know, when I thought of artificial intelligence myself growing up, I always was big into video games, things along those lines. So, when I thought about artificial intelligence, I was just thinking how well the computer can play against me as a person, and so now, it's just exploded, and what it can mean what it can do. So now, you know, a computer being able to visualize and recognize either people, or if you're talking about agriculture, recognizing, you know, disease on plants, or, or different, you know, bugs or, you know, things along those lines, and then also self-driving cars, you know, being able to make good decisions in real-time and things along those lines. So, there's just so much when you just say artificial intelligence, you really can pick a sub-genre and spend your whole life just trying to study that in further that type of topic. And that's actually something that we tried to incorporate into our artificial intelligence program. We're actually requiring a minor and it can be from anywhere. And so that way, if someone comes from, you know, music, or you know, is solid and math, there's those two different directions that they might be able to take it or apply it, that sort of thing. So, I think that's something we wanted to do from the beginning. And we're looking at more ways to get more people incorporated into artificial intelligence, not so much from a technical side, but more from how can people use it in their discipline, even their everyday lives. And I think that's something, you know, me coming from a technical background. It's almost a challenge to say, okay, how can we, you know, put this in a different put a different spin on it, so that someone can use it? And I think even then, there's a lot of research in tool building and making AI usable for many people. So, so a lot of the art that you've you, I think you referenced at one point, you know, trying to make those tools for artists and things like that, you know, I think there's, I think there's a lot of work at trying to make the connection with the technical folks and the artists, what do they want? What did they not want, you know, that sort of thing? And there's a whole other aspect to it the societal aspect that we got to always try and keep in mind, and so it's always it's always moving, it's a moving target, we get excited about something and then realize, well, maybe that's not the best way to move forward. And so, there's always there's always things to think about.

Jen Burris:

It’s been probably almost two years since we've talked last on Cyberology, so what have been some of those changes that you've dealt with over the last couple of years?

Austin O’Brien:

Absolutely. So. So the thing that we are kind of seeing is a little bit a little bit what I was talking about making sure they had a solid enough foundation so that if they wanted to apply artificial intelligence to what they were doing, they had to know a certain amount of a certain amount, excuse me of like that statistics and math. At the same time, we don't want to get them so deep into that, that it alienates other people who don't have, you know, the background to go into that or something like that. So really trying to find that balance has been the big thing right now. And right now, we are leaning on having people take more of that math, and kind of separating that and I think we're going to add a new track where we're allowing people who don't have that background to kind of get into more of this applied toolset, you know, what have you. So that's something we're kind of in the mix of right now. So really kind of trying to get a feel for what students liked and what they didn't like about the program. I think that’s what we've been doing, trying to collect data so that we can make good decisions moving forward.

Jen Burris:

And that kind of offers a customizable ability to…

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, yeah, to a certain degree, right? Absolutely. So, it's, you know, talking with other faculty on campus, there's this idea of, you know, artificial intelligence doesn't have to be I have Beacom thing, you know, we really like it to be for all the different colleges on campus. And so, we've been in talks with them, like adding AI tracks to different degrees, whether that be education, you know, the different sports science programs that they have up there. There's just lots of avenues for that. So formalizing it in a way that works for students who are going into those, and not just like, say, taking the artificial intelligence, you know, major, and then trying to apply it to this other field, but actually being in their field, and then trying to get these AI tools, understanding how they work, how to use them, how to interpret the results and use the results. That's kind of the direction that we're trying to take.

Jen Burris:

Integration kind of versus a takeover?

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. make it usable for people that's important.

Jen Burris:

And why is it so important to kind of include all these other fields and perspectives and kind of keep that wide breadth of people involved?

Austin O’Brien:

Right, yeah. And I think it's just, you know, like you say, artificial intelligence, like you said earlier, just so you pick you at as ubiquitous Siri. In recent years, especially with Chat GPT and DALL-E and various other things. A lot of people who have, you know, just heard about the art of artificial intelligence as a side thing, are really now becoming gross of a part of their lives, you know, the vehicles, you drive, the writing tools that you use in school, for doing English, math, art, music, it's in everything anymore. So, helping people understand how they work, and letting them then build off that, I think is incredibly important. To actually make things better, you have to know how it works in the first place. So, trying to incorporate that in all areas, I think is incredibly important. And then from there, you know, like I say, I think there is sometimes a disconnect between people making algorithms and then seeing how it's actually being applied for whatever, for good or bad. And so, trying to get other people involved helps bridge that communication gap. And by doing that, you might have technical people retool how the algorithms work, maybe, to a turbine to a certain degree, excuse me, perhaps, and so that just really makes everything better, overall. So, we're trying to look at society as a whole, you know, that's a big target to shoot at. But then also, you know, trying to help the people, I think we're building the algorithms, and then in turn, also helping the folks who are using them trying to incorporate this big picture. Okay.

Jen Burris:

And so how do you deal with like, the negative connotations associated with Sure?

Austin O’Brien:

Well, yeah, I think the important part is to not just, you know, just say that everything is great. I think it's important to acknowledge that because you can't make something better if you don't acknowledge something's wrong. So I think seeing that, you know, like, with, with the art, you know, a lot of the data that was used to train those algorithms was found to be from folks who weren't, yeah, the creative people who weren't, I guess, credited with that, or, you know, paid or so that opens this whole new avenue of, well, you know, what are the ethics of using data? Where did you get it from? And, you know, do you have the right to that, and that opens this whole new can of worms. And that's, you know, that's just one aspect of it. There's also there's, there are definitely a lot of things that need to be addressed. I think, you know, how does the workforce look like, in the future, you know, AI is meant to be something that automates tasks quickly, you know, so a lot of it, you know, primarily is supposed to be kind of the, you know, it doesn't maybe take a lot of brainpower but can automate that. But now we're seeing that with chat GPT people are using it to automate something that would require a lot of thought process and things like that. But we also see that that's kind of getting folks in trouble a little bit. You know, there are different stories of where a lawyer tried to use it, and just what Chat GPT put out just was not correct. And so found themselves in a little bit of hot water. So, I think, I think that we're kind of getting to a phase where the initial shock of what GPT can do has started to rest a little bit, and we're seeing that there are faults to it. And we have to think about that when we're using it. I still think it's a good thing to use, you know, as a computer science instructor, you know, we do a lot of coding and programming. Well, you can ask Chat GPT to write code for you, and it will just do that. And so that's something that we have to think about. It's like, okay, now how much of it? Do we want to let students use it as a tool because it is a tool? It’s something that they could use, but at the same time, you know, if they're not learning that material if someone asks them to make something new.

Jen Burris:

And they are not capable.

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. Chat GPT won't be able to do it for them. They won't know how to do that. And then that looks bad for them at work and that looks bad. had for DSU because it came from us. And so, there's that whole domino effect that we have to think about. And that's not just for coders. That's for writers as well.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. I think it's one of those things where you learn it's a great brainstorming tool or, like, maybe helping revise some ideas and things like that. But you still must do the work yourself.

Austin O’Brien:

Absolutely. Yeah, I always tell my students to use it for inspiration, you know, if we're maybe they give you some direction, and then go from there. And even got to be careful with the sources. Because they it'll, it'll tell you that it cited it from this, and then you find that book or webpage does not exist. So, it's kind of interesting. So, verify everything that you get from there if you're going to use it, but even then, I just tell my students to use it for inspiration. And I think it's great for that I've actually used it a lot for that sort of thing, just how to write different papers, how to, you know, do things myself, and then I usually kind of use it to help me give direction to something a little more solid, like a, you know, website, or even just, you know, me just writing something down and things like that. So, I think it's a great tool that way, but just, we just got to be careful with that. But oh, go ahead.

Lillie Albers:

How do you go about setting regulations for that kind of thing? Or how do you, more or less, note, okay, you can use it, but only for certain aspects. So, beyond those aspects, how do you realize, okay, maybe this was Chat GPT, or write some other tool?

Jen Burris

How does that impact you in the classroom?

Lillie Albers:

Yeah.  

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. That's the big talk we're all having right now, to be honest, like DSU, as a whole, as of this time does not have a policy for Chat GPT. The Beacom College came out with one on our own and basically said for at least at this time, it's kind of up to the instructor, how they, which is kind of good because it gives you that control in the classroom. And because some instructors are like, great use it as a tool, and kind of like being used as a tool, use it for inspiration. But if you copy and paste, it's not going to work out. And the thing is, is that chat GPT just the way that it's built, it does have a very, I'm not going to say unique, but a very structured way at the way the output comes out. If you ask it certain questions that usually come out and bulleted lists I find for me, are things along those lines?

Jen Burris:

So it kind of has some tells if students were to take that and copy and paste?

Austin O’Brien:  

Yes. If students were to copy-paste, exactly. And sometimes, the code is just how it's structured. It's very odd like you wouldn't see a person do that. Or if you did, you might ask them, like, why did you decide to do this, you know, that sort of thing. And so, there are certain tells that you have, but even then, you know, the tells aren't 100%. So, you have got to be careful with that. I think, as instructors, I think we have to be careful not to just accuse somebody of using Chat GPT just straight off the bat, even if it might look that way. We got to be, you know, cognizant and thinking about those things, but, you know, like I say, we do have tools out there that definitely help. Like I know, on D2L, they built something into it that says, we have we think with this probability that this was written by an AI. And again, it's just a tool, we shouldn't just take that at face value. But there's, there's automated tools that do that. And then like I say, Me, myself, as an instructor, I've kind of seen it, like teaching a course this summer, where it was pretty obvious, you know, somebody was using a tool like that. So, you know, coming back to the original question, I'm trying to remember how you phrased it exactly. I don't know if I answered it right, though. So I'm trying to remember,

Lillie Albers:

I think you think hit the main points. If I try to go back and word it exactly how I did before it won't be the same. But it’s how do you go about setting those regulations? Like they know? Right, they used it for the brainstorming, but then how do you know that they didn't go beyond that and use it?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, I won’t lie to you, you probably can't. I don't want to pretend that we will be able to tell for sure, always, when somebody did. But you know, that's just that I mean, but it's always been that way. I'd like to say, coming from a computer science and coding background, there's a website called Stack Overflow, and its whole thing is, you know, somebody asked, how do I do this in code, somebody puts it out there, and a lot of people copy and paste it and use that so that it's been around for a good long time. And I'm sure that's the same we're writing papers do and other things, you know, it's just another source for that to happen, I suppose. And then but honestly, I think it has a little bit more of a title, like you say. I think it has its own structure to it. So, I think it I don't think it's hardly impossible to tell when somebody's using it. But  I don't think that's a new problem. And you know, it honestly reminds me a lot of when Wikipedia first came like it's Deja vu was like a big deal. Oh, yeah. It's like, well, people are just going to copy and paste from this they're not going to get any original ideas and, and, you know, that's true to a certain degree, but then you know, we learn to use it as a tool. Learn how to know what's acceptable for its use.

Jen Burris:

This is a starting point: are there reputable resources there?

Austin O’Brien:

Anbody can change it at any time. And now it's just with the chat. It's just kind of an automated process. So again, you just have to verify. Honestly, at this point, I think it's less trustworthy and almost more problematic. But it's being updated all the time. So, it's getting better and better and better, which I think is a good thing.

Jen Burris:

To add to that, I'm curious about AI tools like, say, Grammarly. I'm pretty sure I read an article somewhere where a student got accused of using AI to write their paper because they used Grammarly to help them clean up. So where does that fall in things? Because I would say that they're just using a tool to improve upon writing their own words.

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. And that really comes down to, you know, just, you are just my thought, you know, I think that comes down to instructor by instructor. But you know, in the same vein that comes down to somebody using a calculator to do the math, they could do it by hand, but they could just punch the numbers into a calculator, get that answer, and move on. With writing papers, it really kind of depends on what is the purpose of writing the paper. You know, with math, it's a very precise thing. I need this exact number, and I have to run with it. When writing a paper, maybe you're asked to express your thoughts about an idea. And if your thoughts are just some automated computers, thoughts, well, that I don't think that fits the assignment or fits your goals, or what you're trying to do. But I think the idea of cleaning something up is just absolutely okay, in my mind, right, your thoughts are there, you're just trying to make it more presentable. And even then, that can be used as an educational tool because

Jen Burris:

you're picking up grammatical errors you may not have seen.  

Austin O’Brien:

And seeing that fixed in real-time. And I mean, that's very similar to sending it to an editor and having them fix it. But you get that instant feedback, something to learn from, as long as you're using it that way, then I think you're fine.

Jen Burris:

So, what does the future look like?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, it's always moving. Right. So, it's kind of that crystal ball, the smoke is swirling so. I think the big thing is, you know, we're seeing what it's capable of, and we're also seeing it's false. So, being thrust into the limelight, as it has is something that's truly applicable at this point where it really hasn't been available to people before. I think, like you say, the regulation, the tool sets, how do we make tool sets for people? And where do we kind of set this toolset as maybe as educational tools? Or, you know, what are the copyright laws going to look like things along those lines? I think that it's kind of starting to come to the legislature, administrators, and things along those lines that it really hasn't in a long time for the actual tech side of it itself. You know that it's always being improved by methodologies. You know, as you say, seeing chat TBT, where it does fail, and but at the same time, is kind of amazing how fast it's improving, like, I asked it to write some code that would be impossible actually to write, or it just would never work. And it pumped it out when I like when the chat GPT was first made available that pumped it out. And of course, it didn't actually work. I do that now. And it tells me that it's smart enough to say like, hey, you can't write code to do that. That's an impossibility. So, it's definitely getting better and better at a much faster speed than I would have expected, which tends not to which is almost to be expected. increase in speed is something that's always happened, you know, and getting better all the time. So, you know, where does it go? It? Like I say, it's almost going to be up to a legislature, I think sooner rather than later, because there's the big worry about, you know, what are people's jobs? Where is security? Yeah, where do Where does that fit into the whole thing? And I think we really need to get ahead of that instead of trying to play catch up. Or there could be, you know, pretty, rough consequences.

Jen Burris:

So, I think that I think there have been some instances where people have tried to push off something into like, you know, chat GPT messaging, where they've sent out a message that was formulated in there, and it did not go over well. Yeah. Oops, maybe we can't just outsource everything to chat GPT.

Austin O’Brien:

Right. Yes, absolutely. It's definitely growing pains. Right. You know, and that's, and that's part of it. And that's, so it's a natural part of the process. I guess I would say that, so I don't think it's anything to be afraid of. I think it's something though, that we must always be thinking about, and trying to stay ahead of. I think that's kind of the more important part of it. So yeah, I, you know, that's kind of my nutshell.

Jen Burris:

And how do other industries impact AI?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, I mean, so that's like the application, right? You know, they're trying to you know, determine how useful something is so it's, it's You know, being here in South Dakota, then I think the number one economy is agriculture, you know, pretty sure it's way out there. So, you know, using AI for that, you know, it's, at one point, we're trying to optimize yield for crops and cattle and things. But then do we want to make sure we're not, you know, pushing out family farmers, you know, the cost of these tractors is very high.

Jen Burris:

I can't even imagine.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, and then putting AI in them just really increases that, and then also makes it more difficult to fix or repair at home. Yeah, exactly. So, there's a lot of issues there that we have to be thinking about, but it's kind of exciting on one point, but then we just have to make sure we know what we're doing as we're taking these steps. And sometimes you don't, but you have got to, you know, give it a shot. See what happens. So, so that's, you know, just kind of one area, you know.

Jen Burris:

And forming partnerships with those industries to get proper expertise as well?

Austin O’Brien:

Yep, there you go. The creative industry, I think is a huge one. You know, I'm a big fan of animation in general. And so, you know, I think AI really helps increase the speed at which you can do animation, things along those lines, but then you got people that was their job, you know, how does that fit in? Do they become the people who now use the tools and can just do more output? You know, that's, that's kind of something to think about. I just don't know enough about the industry to say there. But I think AI being used in all these industries, I think, is really something that's going to be exciting to see how it all takes off. But I know, like a Screenwriters Guild and just kind of Hollywood in general. You know, there's, that's something that they're going through right now. And I think we're, I know, many people are watching and seeing where that goes. Yeah, AI for automated bots, and factories has been around for a good long time. But it's now just, it's just taken that extra step, you know, what can an automated process do that had to be a human before? So that's another area that we have to think about, you know, where are these people where their jobs are going? Is it something that they could now use as a tool? Or is it something they're going to be replaced with? That's a big concern, and then being able also to get them training maybe, you know, talking about the AI for all, I think that's why I stress that so much because then that helps them find their place in all of this as it moves forward and gets bigger and bigger, bigger, some that we really got to think about.

Jen Burris:

For sure. And I think ironically, back to the Hollywood stuff, the Writers Guild, and the actors, I believe Black Mirror had an episode that was pretty, pretty on point for the use of AI in the creative industry to replace humans altogether.

Austin O’Brien:

Oh wow, I haven't caught up with Black Mirror, yet it's on the list.

Lillie Albers:

I definitely recommend it.

Austin O’Brien:

Awesome. Good. I will find it.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so what haven’t we talked about that we should highlight anything?

Austin O’Brien:

That's a really good question. Um, yeah. I don't know. It's such a big thing. You know, I'm almost interested to hear what other people have to say when, you know, when we're talking about artificial intelligence, you know, I get asked all the time. And, you know, I'm just thinking from more of a technical aspect, you know, that sort of thing. So, I always get curious, what someone who's not just enveloped in it, you know, just in it all the time, you know, what are their initial thoughts? And then that kind of helps me kind of think about those things as well, and maybe answer questions, that sort of thing. So, you know, not to put you on the spot or nothing. But, you know, I've had, I've been to a few invited talks, one of them was in Dane BOD, which is in Minnesota, it was really interesting. The majority of the folks there, I would say, were older than me. I'm 40 right now. So, it's kind of an older crowd. And it was supposed to be, like a 50-minute talk about me just talking, it turned into a discussion for an hour and a half where they had to cut it off, going on forever. But it was really interesting, because they were, you know, they weren't afraid of it. They weren't, you know, trying to shut it or anything, they were more interested in what it can do, what it can do for them for the average person. And then also technology, you know, technologically what's, you know, the neat, cool magic thing coming out of it. So, I think that really showed that it's affecting people in all dynamics in all areas. And so, I'm always interested to hear what other people have to say. So, I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on it or questions? Or you've been asking questions all the time. So I don’t know if that's fair…

Jen Burris:

I think AI is a fascinating topic. I think there are endless uses for it. And I think, exactly as you said, it's just finding how to weave those in, making sure that we're still taking care of the humans of the world, right, and making sure everyone's taken care of in that regard, but I mean, why not utilize tools that can help us do things quicker and faster?

Austin O’Brien:

And there you go. Yeah. And that's been something that's been going on forever.

Jen Burris:

Exactly. We're always looking for the best way to do something. Right. Work smarter, not harder.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah. So, I think it's something that's always been with us. It's just at a much faster pace. I think with that faster pace, we have to be thinking about it. And then, you know, one, one point you asked me, what are the negatives and stuff like that, you know, with there's a lot with cybersecurity, and you could think about military and warfare, I think that's a big thing that we definitely have to be very transparent about and on the ball. Everybody kind of has an idea what's going on is kind of like, you know, like with nuclear warheads with the last generation. I think that's something that has to be weaponized by artificial intelligence, I think, because if it's not transparent man, it's just it just becomes a fear factory. And that's something you have got to be careful of, you know, what is it actually capable of doing? And how does one protect themselves? How does a nation protect themselves? I think that's a big thing that people worry about. And I think that's something that I think governments must take charge of and be at least transparent with what they're using it for and what they're doing with it. There are obviously roadblocks in that. But I think some of that's important.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So, I wanted to touch on one other thing. Am I right that you've been involved in some AI research with Sweden AI?

Austin O’Brien:

yes. Yes. Absolutely. A little bit about that. Yeah. So that started, not this last summer. But the one before our president, Dr. Griffiths, she actually was out there in Europe. And she is on a lot of artificial intelligence boards and advisory committees and things like that. And she got to meet with some of the folks in this AI suite. And it's kind of a semi-nationalized lab. And so, you know, they get a lot of funding from their government. But there's also, to a certain degree industry, a lot of industry partners who are part of it. And so, they wanted to get, you know, talking with Dr. Griffiths say, kind of formed this relationship. And kind of, we had a meeting with a lot of our faculty and asked if we'd want to get students involved. And it's really cool because the students were getting about half from DSU and half from Sweden. And so we ship them all to the Sweden lab. And they work there for the first half of it for about four weeks. And the cool part is, they're working directly with industry partners. So, Volvo is, you know, a car company in Sweden, so they've worked directly with them. Lots of others, Dell and HP, working with those. And then also coming back and working with partners here in the US, agriculture, things along those lines. And so, they get to work directly with people here in these projects. And they do a really great job they're working with, you know, both artificial intelligence, but then also kind of the cybersecurity angle, the things, you know, how can you make the AI mess up? Perhaps things along those lines? And How do you secure it so that someone can't? There you go, and do it themselves? Exactly, yeah. So researching both the offense and the defense kind of gives you that leg up. So it was really cool. And they've done some really great things the last two years, they have a lot of fun. The Swedish students really like visiting Madison, which is cool. And interesting. Our students, obviously like visiting Sweden, a whole new country, and it's spent a lot of fun, and it's been growing. And we really are just adding more and more students to it every year as we go through.

Jen Burris:

So cool. Any other questions you have, Lillie?

Lillie Albers:

I kind of thought of one going back. It's going back a bit to what we discussed earlier and trying to get ahead of AI and start playing catch-up. If you think about AI as something that is exponentially evolving. How do you get in front of something like that?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, that's the thing, right? It's, that is kind of I think one of the bigger worries, both in sci-fi and then even kind of now, is we're seeing like you say things improving so quickly. So, how do you actually do that? I think, you know, when folks who are creating these algorithms, I think they need to be careful in their application. Is that out in the world? I think you need to do a lot of testing in-house, seeing what it's capable of what it's not capable of, you know, that's this kind of new in-house method. But then like you say, legislature, I think they need to be very aggressive about what is what folks think is allowed and what's not allowed. But, you know, the whole idea of what artificial intelligence is doing as it keeps getting better and better is that one day it will surpass, you know, the human intellect, and you know, so what happens after that point, and then that's the whole thing is like, no idea. Yeah, you know, it comes down to motivation. Write, you know, a lot of people worry that, well, if the AI is smarter than us, it'll get rid of us. But why would I do that? What's its motivation? You know, it's going to be completely different for, you know, a computational entity for anything. Yeah, you know, what does it want to do? So, it has to have a goal in the first place that we would have to be in the way of, but then it would think, okay, well, I have to get rid of us, but then even have to have the ability. So, there's a lot of…

Jen Burris:

Extenuating circumstances that would get in the way?

Austin O’Brien:

yeah, so I mean, personally, I'm not losing any sleep at night, you know,

Jen Burris:

That's always good to hear from AI experts. (laughter)

Austin O’Brien:

You know, to a certain degree, it's definitely something I think about, but I think as long as you know, as you say, our administrators, our industry partners, our governments are thinking about this, then I feel a lot better about it. And I think what chat GPT has really threw it into the limelight. And I think that helps a lot with bringing that awareness to it.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. Okay. Well, if people have any questions for you or are interested in further details about AI programs, how can they reach out? What can they do?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, my email address is Austin dot O'Brien at dsu.edu. You can find that, you know, just go into the DSU website, you can search for faculty and staff. So just type in Austin, or O'Brien should be able to find me without any issues. But yeah, or just drop it in the office. I mean, he's tall, so happy to help anyone who wants to come by and talk about it. So, we have lots of cool students doing undergraduate research, just as projects. And the same with graduate students. We have some funding and we have hardware resources because AI is very computationally expensive means it takes a long time to turn out good results or train models and things like that. So, if you have a project in mind, come talk to me. We'll see what we can do.

Jen Burris:

Very well. I'm sure we will be reaching out again for an update later this year.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, awesome.

Jen Burris:

And thank you so much for being our guest today.

Lillie Albers:

Thank you.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, no problem. It's a fun conversation.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Cyberology Season 3 - Episode 2

DSU GenCyber Camps

Jen:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris. My cohost is...

Jena:

Today, Jena Martin.

Thank you.

Jen Burris:

And our special guest is Dr. Kyle Cronin.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. This is the first podcast for me. So Oh, yeah.

Jena Martin:

First one ever? Ever?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Well, we feel special and privileged.

Kyle Cronin:

kind of fun. To do more,

bring you in and find cool topics to talk about or something then Right?

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. You can sub in for Jena when she tells me Yeah, no.

Kyle Cronin:

A color commentary person. Yeah, just talk about nothing. That I don't know about, but I make comments on it. It's like teaching kinda.

Jen Burris:

So that's what it's like in your classroom. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kyle Cronin:

Yes, I've been at the University thing for, I think, like 15 years, I guess I should know that. But I don't have taught all across the board. I'm a DSU graduate as well. So I'm kind of one of those people who like college so much that I just never left. And just kind of been at the university. Since I graduated from high school, actually, I guess I did go a brief stint at a real job. But, but I like DSU. I like like, the people that I work with, and getting to see all the kids and whatnot, all the time. So yeah, over the years, I've taught a lot of classes, in all sorts of different topics and whatnot, and then kind of got into these, like, we should do these outreach to high school kids and whatnot. Because there's, there's a lot of kids out there that especially in South Dakota were so rural, they might be the only student in a school and a whole school system that might be interested in technology. And that whole school system might be a group of like 50 kids. So the this kind of we initially started doing these on our own of just hey, come for this little day trip thing that worked. Okay. But when like some parts of the state or a six-and-a-half hour drive, I wouldn't say we really connected with those people. So this became a really cool program when a former DSU person, actually kind of bar napkin and the idea for these camps at NSA. I believe they're sitting in a hallway, and came up with this idea of like, hey, what if the NSA sponsored these camps to help recruit high school kids and get them exposed to cyber and whatnot? So that was like, I don't know, 12 years ago, and here we are now.

Jen Burris:

That's pretty cool. Yeah, I didn't know that. That was like the origins. Oh, yeah.

Kyle Cronin:

The origin story. Everything starts in a garage, or napkin or something.

Jen Burris:

Right. So have you been involved from the start then?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. After the napkin was typed up on real paper is about when I started becoming involved in this.

Jena Martin:

Then it was legit. Type it up and it’s a deal.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, exactly. There's like contracts and signatures and stuff. And that's kind of how my involvement started. I initially was just a teacher in the camp. And we just had the one camp, we were the pilot sort of camp for the NSA, to see how it went and see how it went. Yeah. And the NSA has been doing this with language immersion camps. Oh, four before that, so they kind of took that idea and, and copied it into, like, if we could do cyber stuff, somehow. So, they had some experience with it. But having never done something like going from language to cybersecurity with all these trinkets that we have to mess with and computers and all that it's a little different. So, we got to be the pilot school for that. It was actually called the Cyber Stars. I think when I first started when I very first started. Yeah, so we were a cyber stars camp. And then it got renamed to GenCyber when it became official official. So that was, that was I believe, 11 years ago, now.

Jena Martin:

How many campers did you have in your first couple of camps? What was your average?

Kyle Cronin:

That was funny, the first camp I believe started, it was like, we'll give you funding for 40. See if you get 40 kids, and then we were like, so we got 40 How about 60? A guy we can get we'll find a few more. I think the first camp had 101 of that ended up as so we didn't exactly go gently into this weeklong have them stay in the dorms and have activities for kids all day. Like we kind of ripped the band-aid off and just went in just jumped right down. Yeah.

Jena Martin:

What are you at now been for capacity at a camp?

Kyle Cronin:

This year? For our coed…We have actually a few camps now. That is the coed camp which is for high school students. We had funding from the NSA and then actually the Rising Two program through the state of South Dakota got us up to 100 and just under 190 students a lot this year. So yeah, our biggest camp ever we did 300.

Jen Burris:

Is that kind of like Max capacity?

Kyle Cronin:

That was too much. That was too many. It actually went pretty well, we actually structured it. So it was like two camps running at the same time. They're just all offset by 45 minutes. Because I mean, knowing DSU, and we're kind of our like, our brand is a small school. We can't feed 300 people at a time. So we end up with little infrastructure problems like that. But yeah, just DSU is not built for. And I'm, it's cool that we're not built for that route. So yeah, we came up with some creative solutions. I don't know that we'd ever do a camp that big again.

Jena Martin:

And this is open to kids from all over the United States, right? I mean, it's not, strictly South Dakota, because I think I saw some from New Mexico even.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, I think we had 16 states this year. So we obviously catch all of the regional Midwestern states. We had, for sure, New Mexico, we had Arizona, I think, in Oregon, trying to think through my list on my spreadsheet. So yeah, it was 16 different states. So we actually have airport runs that we do, that's our thing, is the campus completely free, you just have to get here. And then we'll do the Asterix and we'll pick you up from the airport if you fly in. So over the years, we've probably ticked off all 50 states, for sure ticked off all 50 states. And then actually a lot of overseas military bases, or there's families living and one of the rules since this is federal dollars, can you have to be a US citizen. But their rules are like you have to be in the US and whatnot. And we're like, well, if they're in Japan, at the US base, they're like, and their family members a serving military member, like we're happy to have them. It's just that that's really expensive for you to fly here. And they're like, No, we really want to come to your camp worth the experience. Yeah. So it's been really cool. All the places we've done, we've also done the camp in other locations. So we've done it in Fargo, North Dakota, and we've partnered with NDSU, a couple of different times. And we've also done a set of them in Hawaii.

Jena Martin:

I’ll go to that one.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, can we sign up for that one?

So yeah, for some reason, the list of people wanting to volunteer for that one's way bigger than the one here in town. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

How does that happen?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah.

Jen Burris:

So how did you develop the curriculum for this? And how has it changed over the years as things continue to constantly change in advance?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. So that's one really cool strength that our camp has over a lot of the other ones. The way a lot of the other camps are structured is, that there's someone who will make the curriculum and then find a teacher and give them the curriculum. The really cool thing we have here at DSU is that we've got all these people who are really good at what they already do, who are already faculty here. And they know how to teach, and they have a passion for teaching. And they know how to adapt their stuff to be age-appropriate. Not like naughty things going on. But like, you're not going to jump, as my senior-level wireless class intro drops to a 16-year-old, right? So it's how do I bring this stuff down to a level that's going to be interesting and kind of exciting. And we're going to kind of learn something for high school students coming in. So, we're really good at that with the faculty that we have here at DSU is that we can, we can apply, you know, the right spin on what we're all already good at so that it's fun for younger folks, too. So that's been really cool as everyone just brings their own strength. And me as the camp director, I don't have to worry about like, what's Shawn Zwach going to be teaching in his room? Is it going to be okay? Because he just knows how to do it. Yeah. And, we go into high school so much anyway, so even when we try something new, we still try it. And then we review afterward of like, hey, this part was a bit of a stretch for high school. So, we'll tweak this, we’ll eliminate it, whatnot. We have a lot of chances to test all this stuff out. Before we bring it to camp and have it accessible to 200 kids, but it's the topics are across the board. So, kids can do programming, they can do cybersecurity hacking stuff. Or they can do networking things like learning how all these things around the world communicate with each other. If you look at DSU’s network, we don't just go to Walmart and buy a router.

Jena Martin:

We don’t?! (laughter)

Kyle Cronin:

It's a lot more complicated than that. Right? Yeah, you can't, like at home just unplug your router and plug it back in. And that fixes all of your problems. At DSU, if you're going to unplug our router, it's going to be like two hands because the power cord is really big, and it's going to take a long time to turn back on and stuff. So yeah, we don't just teach it. It’s getting kids exposed to all of that. Actually, how the schedule works is they have this prescribed track in the morning where they'll spend an hour doing some programming, they spend an hour doing some kind of networking, and then an hour in some sort of cybersecurity thing that kind of goes to our whole belief behind teaching cyber is that it's a scaffold, where you have to know some networking you have to know how computers talk and you have to know some programming Once you know those two things, then you can start to learn about cyber.

Jen Burris:

Build upon it.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah.

Jena Martin:

How good is that foundation?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, we have to have those foundations because anything cyber, at least anything technical, cyber, is always going to harken back to one if not both, of those things. So, you have to know the basics and those before you can go up. So that's the morning that the kids all have is building that up, we do kind of capture the flag competition before camp starts, where they can come in and flex their skills a little bit and show off. And then, we use that to break them into groups. So, we know the kids that are really proficient. And then the kids that are just beginners, and that's cool.

Jen Burris:

 Okay, so there are students who can come in with pretty limited knowledge?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, total beginners, that are like, I've heard of this. I like computers, but I’ve never really programmed before. And then we'll have other kids who are like, Yeah, my high school has four programming classes. I've taken them all. And then I'm doing this other, like, side project and whatnot. And we're like, yeah, you're actually ready to go into like college-level programming, you're good to go. Or even like our second level of college programming. So, we have those kids too. So, we kind of get them spread out so that each group of kids gets what works best for them. Because we don't want you know, someone overwhelm Yeah, we don't want to overwhelm beginners, because if you go in and have a bad experience right off the start, then it's not going to be fun. Right. And then once you have that bad taste in your mouth, it's hard to get it out. So, we want the beginners to be with beginners, and we make sure we have all the help that we need in the room so that if somebody is stuck, we can get to them right away.

Jen Burris:

So, do you have an estimate for how many faculty you involve in this camp each year?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, for the high school camp, we have around 40. Okay. Depends on the day and whatnot. So, someone in the morning, we kind of always try to have the same people each morning. So, you'll see the same face every morning at 9 a.m. to kind of get that warm, fuzzy kind of feeling when you're coming through. Because sometimes these kids haven't, maybe haven't spent a long time from home or anything like that. So, they'll see the same folks in the morning. And then in the afternoon, we have electives.

Jen Burris:

So, they can kind of choose their own tracks?

Kyle Cronin:

Build your own adventure. And that's something that works because our camp is so big, we have so many kids, which means we need so many faculty. I bring in a bunch more in the afternoon. And partially it's to give the morning people at least an hour break somewhere in there. But yeah, we bring in all these extra people in the afternoon and just have this buffet of different lessons or activities. We don't call them classes because it's not summer school that they can sign up for and go to, so we have this little registration system where they pick out what they want to do tomorrow afternoon. And that's all over the board, as far as the activities that are there. So, if you really like programming, you can do more. Or if you really, you know, if you really liked the morning stuff, you could go deeper, if you want to go into something completely, completely different. You can do that too. Like artificial intelligence. That's the cool new thing. Nowadays, that's, and it's super relevant. It's the new emerging tech. So, we have some of our DSU faculty who will come and teach AI sessions and like predictive analytics. But then we do it in sort of a cool way. Like how could you use these math AI models? Determine if you'd live on the Titanic or not. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

That’s interesting.

Kyle Cronin:

Right?

Jen Burris:

Do DSU students help out at these camps as well?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, we have a bunch. That's the cool thing about our student helpers, is most of them have been previous campers. So, they've had that experience. Yeah, I can also say it's like, partially me being lazy as a camp director, because then I don't have to teach them how camp works. But really, it's just a better experience for everybody. Because then the kids know, the student, the DSU students that are helping with camp, they know what to expect, as far as how camp is structured, and what we're going to be doing and how things work from one point to another. Because they've done it before. And then they liked camp, they came to DSU they wanted to help with camp, so they've got that good energy to help with it. And you see them making friends. And it's, I think, impactful if you're like a junior in high school to be like, hey, this person there might be a freshman at DSU but like I got to know them and then you know a couple years later when they come to DSU they have a friend here already on because they got to know their camp counselor. So yeah.

Jena Martin:

Do you change the curriculum from summer camp to summer camp?

Kyle Cronin:

It varies a little bit so the advanced stuff will tweak a little bit because if we have some kids return right you can camp for up to three years if you if you do it right. Yeah, so those advanced kids usually what we see is beginners become advanced. So, we track from when they first started, so they kind of automatically get put into a whole different group, but we tweak the advanced stuff. Either way, in case we have an advanced kid come back and want to do more advanced stuff. So, we'll change that up a little bit. And then that's the cool thing about the afternoon is you can choose See, like I did last year, it was really fun. I don’t remember all the ins and outs of how that worked. I'll do it again. Or this is brand new. So, we'll have returning campers be like, Hey, are we going to do us? It's usually lockpicking. Like, are we going to do a lot? Again? Like, yeah, you can sign up for lock picking.

Jena Martin:

You can try my gym locker up at the CCC. (laughter) See if they can break it. It's I can't remember the code. (laughter)

Kyle Cronin:

Did you forget the code to get in?

Jena Martin:

Take the bolt cutters to that.

Jen Burris:

The real question is what's in your locker right now, that has just been languishing.

Kyle Cronin:

It's like a dirty towel.

Jena Martin:

Probably. And gym shoes.

Jen Burris:

So you mentioned that other camps have developed from this as well. Can you speak a little bit about it?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, so when we look at it, there's this whole nationwide problem of getting people in cyber. So, there are stats you can cite of the number of graduates in cyber each year that don't even make up for the increase in demand each year. So, every year we're getting farther and farther and farther behind. And we do a really good job of especially in our region, getting into high schools and connecting with those students. But some kids are making up their minds that computers and cyber are bad, even earlier. And by bad mean, like, this isn't something I like to do.

Jen Burris and Jena Martin:

Yeah.

Kyle Cronin:

And it's usually one of those, like, I didn't have fun on a computer doing something at this younger age. And

Jen Burris:

It soured my whole experience…

Kyle Cronin:

So, it’s just always going to be bad, right? So, Dr. Podhradsky, had the idea, right? We were first getting into the camps of what we should work with first and started as girls, and then she formed into middle school girls. So can we get them involved and engaged and show them that there is a career path in this and that they're surely successful women in the cybersecurity realm, this isn't just a man's thing. So, she's done a really awesome job. They usually have around I think around 100 120 middle school girls every summer as well. And they did again this year, they bring in some really cool names to talk to the girls about where their careers have gone. And then they do a really similar thing of a lot of hands-on activities to get the girls engaged and interested in cyber and having fun with it. Right. So, it doesn't just have to be someone in their cave…

Jen Burris:

Hiding in the dark.

Kyle Cronin:

Hiding in the dark with their hoodie over it.

Jen Burris:

And their two-liter of Mountain Dew sitting next to them.

Kyle Cronin:

Well, at least one two-liter of Mountain Dew. (laughter) And then, to go even further, we offer teacher camps, or we've offered teachers camps in the past. So that's actually, instead of us running the activity in front of a classroom, why don't we take high school teachers from around the area and teach them the activity so they can take it back? And that's actually really worth, like, the reach gets exponential. So we can, you know, work with at the high school camp, for example, 200 kids a year? Well, if we can teach 20 teachers, and they go back and teach 50 Kids, that math…

Jen Burris:

Is much better than 200 students who are probably not going to share all those exact lessons with their peers.

Kyle Cronin:

Much, much better. Yeah.

So that's been a really awesome way to do outreach there too. That kind of ties in with even DSU, the Governors Cyber Academy, Dr. Homan is trying to get go we're getting it started up and running right now. But part of that is to reach out in a more formal way instead of just this weeklong kind of bootcamp. But how can we get teachers taught and have a cyber endorsement and start going through a graduate program for them to have credentials and whatnot to start teaching classes? More formally in cyber. So that's also a shout-out to our Department of Ed folks for having computer science and cyber standards in the state and getting this brushed up for requirements for everybody. But that's something that we're working on, too.

Jen Burris:

What's your favorite part of the Gencyber camps?

Kyle Cronin:

My overall favorite part has got to be Well, part of one of my favorites is when it's done. (laughter) So, but it's when it's done. Last Day, yeah, no, but for real. It's really cool. We have so many kids from so many different backgrounds. And part of the camp we actually talk about, like literally scholarship and funding opportunities. And this is a career and whatnot. And it's seeing some kids go from like, this is just something that I do that I dink around at home with, and my parents told me to get a real job. And then all of a sudden, I came to this camp and realized that my tinkering around could actually turn into a very lucrative career, and we Hana can start to bridge that gap and show kids what's really out there and what they can do. It also helps when someone can see, you know, one of our camp counselors that's only two or three years older than them. They're working through the cyber career, and they can talk to one of our DSU students, and DSU students are like, wow, I'm really excited for my internship I have coming up, but they let me take the week off for camp and start seeing yeah, there's a whole career here. It's not just, it doesn't have to be just someone tinkering around on their computer. It's a real job. So, seeing that change that can happen in mentality for a student of my hobby can be like a job.

Jen Burris:

And I can get paid well.

Kyle Cronin:

And I can get paid really well for that job. So that's the big one is seeing like, literally, like it sounds all that pomp us, but you can actually change people's lives with it, right? So, we change minds and realize, you know, this: I don't have to just work at the grocery store for the rest of my life. I can do this. Nothing against working at the grocery store, we need people working at the grocery store. But folks that thought that that's it.

Jen Burris:

But if you have an interest in a skill level?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, exactly. There are people who have those interests and skill levels, but they didn't think they could apply them to a career. So that's my favorite part of camp. And we have a lot of cool stories where we've worked with kids, the bummer is that throw a young, so we can't share the exact details of their stories and whatnot. But we have a really a lot of cool success stories with that.

Jena Martin:

When kids attend camp, how many of you think turn around and come to DSU? When they graduate high school?

Kyle Cronin:

20%? You didn't think I was just going to have that number off the top of my head?

Jena Martin:

Yeah, I figured you'd say 100% of them do. And I would have said, liar. (laughter)

Kyle Cronin:

We know for sure that at least 20% of the kids who attend our camp end up enrolling at DSU. That's a pretty good number. That's a good number, especially when you consider, you know, not to make fun of my New Mexico kids or something. But…

Jen Burris:

The likelihood of them thinking, ooh, South Dakota for college. (laughter)

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. So, they might have a local school, that that's a good fit for them. So, they came, and granted, there's I don't know how New Mexico got to us in the first place as a high school student, but I don't ask those questions, we just let it happen. But they have their local schools that they go to as well. So, we know that the Gen cyber program nationwide has a rate of 20%. So, when we look at our camp and see that just to DSU, it's 20%. Profit, we know, like, I can't track where you went if you went to your New Mexico School or something afterward. So, we know we're actually a little bit above that national average. So, it's, it's really cool.

Jen Burris:

You can really see the impact that you're making.

Kyle Cronin:

Oh, yeah, for sure. And there's the other side, the negative side, to have someone come to camp and see like, this was neat, but this isn't.

Jen Burris:

This is a tiny college. I want a big college or, yeah, whatever personal…

Kyle Cronin:

Or, this is fun. I enjoy what I do at home. But this isn't the career of students that are like, I'm between doing something cyber-related and something maybe artistic or you know, whatever it is.

Jen Burris:

Maybe I want to keep that as a hobby. And yeah, delve into animation or….

Kyle Cronin:

Exactly. So, I actually count that as a win too, because the camp is free, and they came in and got to actually kind of have a college experience. They had their prescribed morning, and they could sign up for electives in the afternoon. And we saved them 2 or 3 semesters worth of tuition because you hear the stories of people that come in and to school and they change their major because they discover they didn't really like their career path. So, if we can help them discover and explore that before they're paying for tuition, and that was a win to now, I’d really hope that incense the other way, and they get their hooks into it. But I think the students that end up not going into a cyber career field. I think that's a win, too. If they come in, they learn that. So, it's a win all around the board. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

So, how do students sign up for this camp? What's the timeline to, you know, get in on the next cohort?

Kyle Cronin:

So, our next camp we actually on the very last day when we're having our closing out, presentation ceremony, whatever you call it. I got my email from the NSA saying your funding was approved for 2024. So, get started right now. Yeah, get ready. Oh, gosh, that's a little overwhelming right now. So, we'll probably open up registration for our camp actually if you go to our website, which is just GenCyber.Camp, you can just fill out our interest form. And that just puts you on our mailing list. So, once we're ready to start opening up registration, we'll send out a blast message to everyone who's just said Hey, I'm interested, and we also will send it out to previous campers that we know would still maybe be eligible. But we'll send out a message saying, hey, registration is going to open soon. And the same website GenCyber.com, where you can then go instead of, instead of it saying, I'm interested in camp, it'd be like register here. We do registration in a couple of phases. So, you'll do the first phase of registration, and we'll confirm it, saying, Yep, you're we got you on the list. And then everyone's got busy stuff, plans change, and whatnot during the summer. So, we actually will have more students in that first round than we have the capacity for because some will drop off. Yeah, some drop-off. And that's what happens, right? It's also easier to drop off an event that's free than a vacation that mom or dad paid 1000s of dollars for your plane ticket for. You know, that's a little tougher to just ignore.

Jen Burris:

Can I get some parents to take me on a vacation?

Jena Martin:

I was going to say those are different vacations than what I went on as a kid. (chuckles)

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, let’s trade, like, I'll go on the vacation, and you come to campus.

Jen Burris:

I would love a free plane ticket.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. So yeah, we kind of do that in phases so that we keep whittling down the list. And somehow, we ended up with that 180 to 200. Every single year.

Jen Burris:

And that's the nice sweet spot for you guys?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, that’s the sweet spot. Yep. We can. We can get that as the maximum capacity of the TC of the cafeteria here. Which works, right? It's, it's a good, it's a good fit, then we'll have a couple of dorms that we fit nicely into. We separate the girls and the boys, so we'll have plenty of room for everybody with that 200 mark as well. So yeah, that's fun. We're looking forward to next summer.

Jen Burris:

Awesome.

Kyle Cronin:

For sure.

Jen Burris:

So, outside of GenCyber camps, what kind of classes do you teach? What should people know about you?

Kyle Cronin:

Ooo, what do I do? I teach wireless stuff as we sit in this room with all this stuff.

Jena Martin:

Like a cell phone class?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Teach Jena how to use her cell phone.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, like an intro.

Jena Martin:

Here’s my flip phone. (laughter) I don’t have a flip phone.

Kyle Cronin:

So, that's actually the funny thing because I'll get people like, Oh, you do the cell phone thing? Can you help me with my phone? Like, probably not, actually. I don't know. I don't actually mess with this app is broken. Like, I don't know, it's somebody else's problem. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

Good luck.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, good luck. Hope you figure it out. Reboot maybe. Now, what I teach is the actual signal that goes between your phone and the cell phone tower. So how your phone is actually talking out, what information it sends, how, when an incoming phone call comes into you? How do we find you?

Jen Burris:

How detailed can you get on that kind of stuff?

Kyle Cronin:

As far as tracking somebody? I mean, your cell phone network has to find you. So yeah, when you have like my phone numbers, not from Madison.

Jen Burris:

Nor is mine.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, right. And that's normal nowadays. Now that we don't have like roaming in the United States.

Jen Burris:

Oh, I remember roaming charges back in the day.

Kyle Cronin:

And long-distance charges.

Jen Burris:

Nighttime minutes?!

Kyle Cronin:

Oh, yeah, you gotta count your minutes up and everything. Where you had to count text messages.

Jen Burris:

How many characters were in your text?

Kyle Cronin:

Yep, you get 120 characters in an SMS message, right? So yeah, your network has to know where you're at so that it has to find you. So, there are pros and cons to that, right? The probing you can get a call or a text on someone's calling you. The con being maybe malicious people who have access to phone networks can find you as well. And that's kind of a bummer. We talked about how all that stuff works. We'll talk about how all wireless stuff works, like your garage door opener. So, we'll actually look at, like, how can we see the data that it's sending?

Jen Burris:

Yeah, that’s a good question. I never really thought about it.

Jena Martin:

How come mine won't open the neighbors?

Kyle Cronin:

Right. There you go. That's actually what we'll do we go through and they see the signal that comes off yours and why it's different from somebody else. The same with car keys. There are all sorts of you don't think of, like how many wireless devices there are.

Jen Burris:

Even like, like casting to TV now? Oh, yeah. Like, when you pull it up the list, and it's got like your TV and like seven TVs nearby?

Kyle Cronin:

You see them all there. Or the one that nobody ever thinks about, you know, when you walk up to doors, and there's a handicap ATA button to open the door. Most of those are wireless.

Jena Martin:

I didn’t know that.

Jen Burris:

I never really thought about that either.

Jena Martin:

I figured they're all hardwired.

Kyle Cronin:

You think about the buildings where we put this pedestal out in the sidewalk? You know, like, think of here at DSU, the Science Center...

Jen Burris:

I suppose that you would have to kind of be wireless in that aspect without tearing up

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, otherwise, you’d have to dig up the foundation building to run a wire in. So yeah.

Jen Burris:

So, I suppose any time it's added to a building would have to be wireless, for the most part.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, whereas new buildings. It's usually not a problem. Usually, that's built in because that's just a part of building code nowadays is to have ADA accommodations for all of that, but yeah, that's something that's wireless that nobody ever thinks of. And that also is handy for folks with They are mobility impaired. So they can actually get cool little things that just walk up Connect program them to like, here's this door. So they could go up and almost like a garage door opener. Hit the button. It's like if they're in a mobility chair, and it'll open the door for them before.

Jena Martin:

Which is good because if you've ever hit those buttons, those doors opening, they're really slow.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, it's really slow to get to.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, if you could preemptively do it ready for you as you're approaching.

Jena Martin:

Getting closer, you see, hit the button, so it's already opened by the time you get there.

Jen Burris:

And then you don't have to re-navigate close to the door.

Kyle Cronin:

So we talk about that in my classes. We'll talk about just positioning systems, like how does the GPS work? Or, like we can, we are no one's tracking you like when you're on the wireless at DSU. But if you ever lose your phone, and it's connected to the DSU WiFi, we can actually find roughly where it's at.

Jen Burris:

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. It's handy like, you know, no one is stalking you, because we, I mean, Kyle's probably in his office, it's a good assumption, like, I'm not going somewhere sneaky. But if I left my phone somewhere, we can usually get a rough idea of where it's at. And that's just like your cell phone company has. For WiFi, we just have to know where you're at in order for it to work. It's not really a conspiracy. It's just there's no way to not know.

Jen Burris:

Well, and can you imagine if you were actively trying to track everyone on campus?

Kyle Cronin:

Oh yeah.

Jen Burris:

Who has time for that?

Kyle Cronin:

No, exactly. Well, and then, you know, think about it, like I have my calendar that people have access to, and students have their schedules that. So, we don't need crazy networking wireless things to track people; we can assume they're probably in class, or I'm probably in my office or wherever you call Erin. And she knows where I'm at.

Jen Burris:

That's the solution, Jena.

Jena Martin:

Call Erin. Where’s he at?

Kyle Cronin:

Call Erin Every time.

Jen Burris:

Find him now.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, that's the that's the main thing that I teach is how wireless stuff works.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. Yeah. Okay. Well, if people are interested in learning more from you, how can they reach out?

Kyle Cronin:

Yes. So, if you're interested in learning more about the camp, that's just GenCyber dot camp, learning more about me, I do. I'm also the Ph.D. or the coordinator for the Ph.D. in cyber defense, which is a bit of a swing to go from this big high school activity to the THD program. But that's also something that I do here. So, I work with a lot of doctoral students and researchers and whatnot, and all the cool stuff that they're doing that's all across the board, from non-technical stuff to really cool wireless things between the cyber defense and the cyber ops and the computer science Ph.D.

Jen Burris:

Sounds like we’ll have to bring you back to talk about that.

Kyle Cronin:

Oh, yeah, we got all sorts of cool, cool things going on in there. So yeah, otherwise, I have little blurbs all over, I think on the DSU website and the bio and all that you can check out so search my name, and I'd say find my social media, but that's kind of a random, random hodgepodge there.

Jen Burris:

Well, with Twitter these days, who knows?

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah, exactly. It might not even be me.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, thank you so much for being our guest today.

Kyle Cronin:

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Cyberology Season 3 – Episode 1

Campus safety in a digital age

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State’s podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, and I have a co-host with me today…

Jena Martin:

Jena Martin.

Jen Burris:

And we have a special guest, Heath Abraham, our safety resource officer. Welcome, Heath. Thank you. How about you start by just kind of telling us a little bit about yourself?

Heath Abraham:

Yeah, sure. So, my name is Heath Abraham. I'm a police officer with the city of Madison. I've been employed by the city of Madison since July of 2003. I’m coming up on 20 years with them. And in 2017, the city of Madison and Dakota State entered in a partnership to provide a uniformed police officer on campus to serve as their safety and resource officer. So, since that time, I spent nine months out of the year and, you know, periodically throughout the summer, on campus, doing whatever really comes up that university needs me to help with whether it be basic investigations for thefts from bookstores, assaults that might occur on campus traffic violations or traffic complaints, vehicle accidents and parking lots. And then I also do or serve on the risk management team. Here at the University. I think I have a military background that brings a different point of view sometimes to some of those things. So just add another tool or resource to the students here at Dakota state. So happy to be here.

Jen Burris:

Okay, what's your military background?

Heath Abraham:

So I am a combat engineer or an engineer officer. I've been in the military or the South Korean Army National Guard since 1997, December 97. So rolling up on 2526 years of service now I currently serve as the battalion commander for the 153rd Engineer Battalion here in the South Dakota National Guard had an opportunity to deploy and serve in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa now, so….

Jen Burris:

Wow.

Heath Abraham:

 I’ve been all over the world doing military stuff and bringing a lot of those experiences back to help the city of Madison help Dakota State.

Jena Martin:

Well definitely, thank you for your service.

Jen Burris:

Yes, thank you.

Jena Martin:

That’s quite the accomplishment, to pull that stuff off and still come back home with no issues.

Heath Abraham:

The more I travel around the world the happier I am I always come back to the Midwest.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So you mentioned a little bit when you were telling us about yourself, but What all do you do as a safety resource officer on a college campus?

Heath Abraham:

So, I get an opportunity to do it. It's one that I really enjoyed going into classrooms at times and talking a little bit about South Dakota law as it regards typical things that might occur on campus sexual harassment, harassment, via digital media, things like physical assaults, sexual assaults, basic traffic violations, stuff like that things to educate the Dakota State University student body to have a better safer college experience while they're here in Madison. So I get to do that, I really enjoy that. And then I also run the Campus Watch Program, which is five to six students, so through the student labor program, that provides just a security escort and a little bit more physical or building security on campus from 8 p.m. to midnight, now, seven days a week. So if students feel unsafe walking about campus, they can call Campus Watch and get that escort or coordinate for that escort to get them safely from wherever they are on campus back to their car back to their residence hall, to again increase the safety for students here and improve their college experience for him.

Jena Martin:

Visit with us a little bit about digital harassment. I'm interested in learning more about that.

Heath Abraham:

Right. So digital harassment, whether it be on a social media platform, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, whatever media platform they're on, if you can identify the individual that's potentially making harassing or inappropriate comments to somebody or it could be via text message, WhatsApp, Snapchat, some of those are a little harder to use because they're somewhat anonymous. But we can potentially come up with subpoenas and warrants for information from those social media platforms to come back with IE IP addresses or computers. And that might lead us in the right direction to identifying the actual individual submitting that stuff. The South Dakota legislature enacted a law several years ago as far as protects people from digital harassment. And it's not just one comment harassment is now, one statement made that you didn't like. It's repeated and constant harassment, several messages over the course of days and weeks, I would say, several messages a day for several days and weeks would constitute harassment, not just one comment that somebody didn't like, but you don't have to say it face to face anymore. You don't have to pick up the phone and say it anymore. If you're doing it over social media, that can constitute harassment as well. So we have that opportunity to partner with Dakota State in that respect, as far as potentially seizing cell phones and computers, when we have claims that are justified to you know, hack into a computer or a cell phone and look for that nefarious conduct in there to see if they're actually doing what they they've been accused of doing. And that, that digital evidence, something that we hear it said all the time, once you put it on the internet, it never comes out there forever. Yeah, it's there forever. So you might delete your browser history, but that doesn't clear everything off of your computer that you've done. So the Mad Labs building and the Dig Force lab over there have been a great asset not just to the Madison Police Department and the students or universe or the students of Dakota State. But all across the state of South Dakota were able to, we are able to facilitate that relationship through the Dig Force Lab and now get results back in minutes rather than days or weeks. When I first started my law enforcement career, we would send computers to peers to see if they were able to hack into them to see if there was child pornography or something like that. And it would take weeks, if not months to get results back. So once we're able to pursue or keep our investigation going at a more reasonable rate, even those accused have the right to due process in a timely prosecution. So the dig force lab has helped on a lot of different levels, to protect students, protect our community, help law enforcement, and to some extent, provide a better service to even those accused of crimes.

Jen Burris:

I'm curious since you've been in law enforcement for some time, how have you addressed these changes in like, digital harassment was not a thing? I'm guessing when you first as much when you first started?

Heath Abraham:

Absolutely, we have continuing education requirements as law enforcement officers. And there's been a lot of changes in technology and the crimes that we see over the course of the last 20 years.

Jena Martin:

Yeah, I would think the biggest crime was when he was younger, it was called somebody's refrigerator running, you better go get it. That was the harassment.

Heath Abraham:

Prank calls used to be a thing. And so we started, we see less of that because it's a lot easier to identify everybody's cell phone has caller ID on it, or at least a phone number, that we can then turn over to law enforcement. We can figure out who owns that phone number, we can contact their cell phone provider with a real simple subpoena and say, Who owns this cell phone number? We find it you know if it's harassing or it's really lewd or crude in nature, we can address it if it's a simple prank call. We're probably not gonna get involved.

Jen Burris:

Jena has some ideas. (laughter)

Heath Abraham:

I don't think anybody's gonna complain if you call and ask if that refrigerator is running. But as far as technology goes, we've made several changes in the computer programs that we use to securely track and keep our information safe while we generate our reports and do our investigations. When it comes to, say, on-scene investigations. We went from carrying little pocket recorders around to now having axon body cameras that we wear on our person, we have axon systems within our car so that when we activate our emergency lights, our body cameras and our in-car cameras are all wirelessly activated to record everything so it's less cool on our word or our reports and more on just the actual video and audio that we provide. So there's a lot less effort or credit put towards the report and a lot more weight put on our videos in our audio recordings, which is good because there's we can change the wording, you know, we can not say that the suspect said this or that. And when we have video and audio of it, there's no question about who said what. So that's an excellent piece for us as we went from having knowing car cameras to having micro cassette tape and car cameras, little little camcorders that were just bolted to our dash to having got USB card cameras, and now to these integrated wireless cameras that automatically download to our systems when we pull within a certain proximity of our police department. So a lot of changes in the tech world and law enforcement as well.

Jen Burris:

Do you think that adds a level of kind of transparency with the public where they feel a little more comfortable that you have, like the wireless video systems? Or not?

Heath Abraham:

It does and it doesn't. So certain people that you know, there's radical left and right, that that feel that way. So I love it because it does add a level of transparency. You don't have to take my word for it. There are processes for you to go through and get that information if you were involved in an incident, to see exactly what we saw, what was recorded, who said what maybe somebody's intoxicated, says, I didn't say that. Well, in hindsight, when you go back and review the video, yeah, you didn't say that. But now that we have body cameras worn on our person by the cameras integrated into our cars, maybe the city, our city, here in Madison, has license plate readers currently mounted throughout the city, too. And we don't use that in a malicious or nefarious way. We're out there, just trying to protect the public. And we've had great success, recovering stolen vehicles, and potentially catching serial rapists. Violent sex offenders have been out of compliance with their sex offender registration. So a lot of a variety of different things have been added. That's all from the license plates, all from the license plate readers and people, well, I don't want you to read my license plate, well understand that I'm never going to look at it unless I have a reason to. And unless your vehicle matches the description that was given to us by you of the offender, we're still not going to look at your license plate, we're not gonna get your car, and it misses the person driving the car, it only reads the license plate. So you'll get a picture of the front end of the vehicle or the back end of the vehicle. We can't even tell how many occupants that are in the car when it comes through. It's just the license plate to say that that person was here at this time. So it doesn't take a lot of information and you're in the public roadway anyway. So you don't have a choice about what right you really have to privacy when you're traveling down the public roadway, you don't own the ground. It's not like in your own house. We're not spying on your house. So I think it's I think it's reasonable if people put the safety of the community over their own personal opinion of what they think is an invasion of privacy on public roadways that they don't know.

So I want to bring it back full circle and ask you when you're here on campus, do you wear your bodycam, then?

Heath Abraham:

Yes,

Jena Marin:

While you're on campus, all the time, whenever you’re on duty?

Heath Abraham:

I always have my body camera on duty. Anytime I do an interview with the students in regards to anything, I activate my camera and have it go in because, again, it's less about what I say and do. It's precisely about that video audio recording that I have of that interaction with that student. I can't be accused of much other than exactly what you've seen in the video.

Jen Burris:

Well, and sometimes you forget exactly what you said. And it's nice to be able to go back and just be like, Okay, maybe a couple of words changed. But it's the same message, right?

Heath Abraham:

Yeah, the only thing we're lacking right now is something to go back and basically convert that conversation to recognize voices conscription, yep, convert that conversation or transcribe that into a report. That would be fantastic if somebody wants to go ahead and create that, though.

Jen Burris:

I'm guessing it's coming tomorrow. I know, I use Otter AI to transcribe my notes for audio. I don't know if it does video, but might want to look into that.

Heath Abraham:

That'd be cool.

Jen Burris:

So, how do you teach since you go into classrooms? How do you teach students to be safe in this technologically advanced world?

Heath Abraham:

So, we look at what students are really concerned about. And I think a lot of it, it's not so much what law enforcement talks about, but what a lot of organizations have started going towards as far as cybersecurity and information awareness. So protecting your personally identifiable information, keeping your ID secure, locking your car doors or your dorm rooms, and having multi-factor identification for whatever accounts you have, I would encourage that for anything that offers it. That dual-factor or multi-factor identification. We talk about those types of things with them. And then a lot more of it is as far as safety goes. It's physical safety here on campus. So we advocate for increased lighting and increased cameras. As personal safety goes, the South Dakota border regions have allowable amounts of something like pepper spray, and then there are other things that you can wear on your person. You know, plastic hard plastic rings if you had, you know, if you got into a hands-on confrontation with If somebody was looking to assault you that you could use to defend yourself, things that aren't necessarily weapons, but that could be used to defend yourself in a self-defense situation. So,

Jen Burris:

And I was always taught to put your keys in between your knuckles if you're a single girl walking alone.

Heath Abraham:

That can be incredibly violent; do the right thing. But yeah, I always encourage people when I go into these classrooms that when you're in a self-defense situation, somebody's trying to hurt you, trying to assault you. There are no rules. So you kick and scratch and gouge eyes, and anything that you've any place, you've been told to never hit somebody. Those are your first priorities. So you hit, scratch, kick, bite all those things.

Jen Burris:

Because they're attacking you.

Heath Abraham:

Exactly. We're talking potentially life and death. So, if nothing else, a violent encounter that will forever impact your life. So you have a right to self-defense and do whatever you have to do to defend yourself in that scenario.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So you mentioned cameras on campus? How have you seen technology impact safety over the years, I know we've kind of touched on that already. But

Heath Abraham:

Right, so in tech, over the years, has developed quite a bit, I would say, from 1999 to 2003. And when I was at South Dakota State University, we had emergency blue lights established around campus, a half a dozen of them or so were put up around campus, if you were at, if you felt you were at risk, you were being chased or something, you could run to the blue light, obviously, there's a camera there, there's an emergency contact, you'd hit a button, it would open up a line with 911 Dispatch, and you could call for help in that capacity. We don't necessarily have those here on campus but on a much smaller campus. So tech, how has it increased here specifically, at DSU, we've seen a significant increase in the number of security cameras on campus. There's always the opportunity to expand that we certainly could use more in parking lots. And we could use more cameras that face, say, the outer perimeter of campus, right now, they focus on the inner corridors where most people travel. So it's a good start. But there's always room for improvement. We've also seen an increase in the ID card or proxy card access to resident hall buildings, but that has not always been the case. And it's often just the keys or the doors were open. And you were just told to lock your door when you were in your dorm room. So the increase in limited access to technology has certainly been improved. And again, there's room for continued improvement there, I'd like to see limited access to all of our instructional buildings. Right, I don't think that if I should say, I believe that if you don't have a reason to be in the science center, then you shouldn't have access to the Science Center, that keeps the staff and faculty that work in the building safe that keeps the students that go to class in that building safe. And it is once the systems are in place, because we have the systems in some buildings. But we have buildings on campus that date back to the conception of the university to the Dakota State College. Those buildings are harder to update, but with the construction of new buildings, new technologies are put into them. So I think we'll get there the challenge. Of course, like I said, it's the old buildings, the cost is always a challenge, and then selling it is a priority. When in the best-case scenario, if all of our security measures work the way they're supposed to, we'll never have a violent encounter, we'll never have a violent rape occur on campus, we'll never have a murderer or a mass shooting on campus. Because it'll be too hard for that assailant to do what they want to do, so we will have no proof that it worked, except that it hasn't ever happened. Could be because we're lucky. Could be because we're a hardened target. My goal would be to create that hardened target. I don't want to hope that we get lucky and not have something happen while we're here or wherever.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, absolutely. How would you explain the difference between making sure the campus is safe and protecting the campus from the outside? Do you know what I mean?

Heath Abraham:

Yeah, so we can do many different things on campus to make campus safe. The student body can do a lot of things to advocate for increased presence of law enforcement on campus. If you don't do anything wrong, you should not be afraid of us. We're just another person, and we've all got families we want to go home to, so we want to keep the community safe. We want to keep campus safe in that capacity. The student body can have activities that promote awareness and safety and respect and protection of each other and standing up for, you know, against bullying or hazing. So there are lots of things a student body can do on campus to be safe. Now as far as protection, say that more rigid, more physical protection of campus, we don't want to see a campus wall. I don't think that makes the campus look inviting or welcoming to anyone. But having that limited access to our buildings provides that physical barrier that protects us while we're in a class that, in my mind, allows students to focus on what they're here for as far as improving their education, achieving that higher education, and becoming a positively contributing part of our community, and then the nation as a whole. So there's lots of tech efforts that we can pursue protection, physical protection, there's a lot of personal, emotional, and mental efforts, right, non-tangible ways that the student body can pursue to improve safety here on campus. If we don't let our friends go out to their cars late at night by themselves, it doesn't cost the university anything. That's us being, you know, assuming some responsibility for the overall safety of the campus. So that's something students can do.

Jen Burris:

Okay, what would people be surprised to know about your role as a safety resource officer?

Heath Abraham:

I get asked a lot of safety counseling-type questions. People still see a stigma, and pursuing or seeking mental health counseling, a lot of people do not seem to see that same stigma associated with just going and talking to the cat. So I'm able to sit down with kids often, and kind of triage the situation and say, Hey, through our conversation, through that development of a relationship, or a little bit of a rapport with those students, I can talk them into going to the counseling center, and getting more professional help. And sometimes it's as simple as saying, Hey, are you okay? And I've had kids just tell me, they're not. And I'm like, Well, here's the deal. And I get to kind of, maybe use the force of the badge behind it, we're gonna go talk to a counselor now, and I don't really make it sound like there's an option. You've told me that you're not okay, I'm gonna get you help, we're gonna go get you help. So that's, I think that's probably the most surprising thing that I've experienced here is the opportunity, I have to provide some counseling, maybe it's mental health, maybe it's just life counseling. They come and talk to me, and find out my story I grew up around here, I've traveled around the world, and I went to a different university. And now I'm back here in Madison. And there's just a lot of things that kids haven't learned these days that I took for granted, that I was taught as a kid, or that I've learned throughout my experiences. So sharing some of those experiences with kids to help them get over a rough spot is a great, great surprise that I've had a great surprise opportunity that I've had here on Dakota State's campus.

Jen Burris:

I think it's really amazing that kids feel comfortable coming to you.

Jena Martin:

Yeah.

Heath Abraham:

Some do. But it's all about the presence. I walk, I try to be out in the TC, and walk through the dining areas and say hello, and I probably make some kids uncomfortable because I like to have a face-to-face conversation with somebody, shake your hand have eye to eye contact. But when you do that, yes, it's uncomfortable at first. But afterward, you can look somebody in the eye, and it's a character trait that I think people should strive for, to be able to look somebody in the eye and have an honest, frank conversation with them, and strike up a conversation with a stranger. So I go and do their thing to do.

Jena Martin:

That’s my favorite thing to do. (laughter)

Heath Abraham:

I kind of do enjoy it because I do kind of appreciate seeing the Orisha to enjoy seeing a little bit of that uncomfortable Ness that happens with the students when I go and initiate a conversation with them. And by the end of the conversation, like, oh, yeah, hey, I'll stop that and talk to you again sometime. Or we'll visit as we go by, or they'll remember my name. And I'll remember there's so a relationship develops faster when you have eye-to-eye contact and a face-to-face interaction.

Jen Burris:

So absolutely, that's one thing that's technology, you know, we're quick to send an email or text. And there's something different relationship bonding in being in person, looking at each other in the eye, and even having a friendly smile.

Heath Abraham:

Absolutely, you know, honestly, this is one of the things I really enjoy about coming up here. I was a patrol officer for 14 years. I had a lot of negative interactions, a lot of brief negative interactions, people got into fights, people got handcuffed, and people went to jail. Up here, I can go and have a positive interaction with somebody who potentially helps them through a rough spot, and I get to see them move on and succeed in life. Maybe come back and tell me a success story after a few years. Where on the street, the average patrolman doesn't get that. We have the repeat offenders that we constantly deal with and we learn more about their families than about our own. So it's, this has been rewarding enough fresher breath air to be here.

Jena Martin:

All in all, wouldn’t you say our campus is fairly safe? I mean, you probably don't have very many interactions throughout the school year.

Heath Abraham:

Our campus is incredibly safe compared to other campuses in South Dakota. And I would say South Dakota and the upper Midwest is by far the safest place to go to college in the nation right now if you can pick a university in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, a lot of those lower populated rural states have a significantly safer campus environment than the East coasts, the south, and the west. The more populated areas you go to, the more crime you have. So if you can come here, get an outstanding education, focus on your education, and not have to worry about your safety, I think it's a no-brainer to come to the upper Midwest and pursue that college degree. Especially when DSU is ranked in the top 10 in the nation for our cyber programs. And we have fantastic educator programs. Some of the best, I think, in the state of South Dakota come out of Dakota State because they incorporate the technology into the teacher education systems. My wife is a product of Dakota State, and when she goes into a school system, she's been tasked to help educate the other teachers on these different pieces of it that they can use in their classrooms. So there's there's a ton of benefits to being here. Not just its safety but specifically the education you get here.

Jen Burris:

Is there anything you'd like to highlight that we haven't discussed?

Heath Abraham:

You know, I would tell you that, in prepping for this, I went through and found an article from Inside Higher Ed. And I would just throw out there eight areas of apprehension about campus safety that kids have, and their things that the student body and campus should consider. And number one is Security offers without enough presence on campus. We look at some of the school shootings and stuff that have taken place over the years, recently in the recent years. There are multiple buildings or campuses within a school district or a university setting, and there are only a handful of officers assigned. So though, we hope that we never need him to need them. Having an increased security presence is something that students have identified they're concerned about. The second one is the size of the security staff and incident response time. Now, in some situations, we have fantastic response time. At Dakota State, the university's physical campus is fairly small. Our response time here in Madison is going to be fast. But when seconds count, we're a minute away or two minutes away. So it's still incumbent upon the individual to fight for their own safety, to fight for their life if necessary. But now that the police are coming here in the city of Madison, dark pathways on campus are the number three concern for students. And that's something that the university can certainly work on. Adding lights and features like that is not an incredibly expensive cost. When we look at the budgets of universities, even state budgets or state universities, lighting can always be improved at a fairly reasonable rate. But we have to have people advocate for it. Not enough attention is paid to sexual assault. And I know that our counseling center does a great job at this. But the number four point here, when you talk about student safety, is not enough attention to sexual assault. So our counseling center can advocate for it, and we can put out information. But students have to have integrity and respect for others to not commit that type of crime. And that comes back to us as parents raising those kids, right? Students go out and say that this isn't acceptable behavior. A lot of kids are influenced by their peer groups. So if their peers don't, don't advocate for it, don't talk that way. Don't think that it's appropriate and vocalize that that conduct is not acceptable within our social circle. That's a great way that's probably the most impactful way for a university's student body to become more aware and reduce the number of sexual assaults on campus is to have a student body that says it's not acceptable to do that here. The fifth point here is the lack of barriers between campus and the community. And it's pretty low at 7%. I feel that that's the case. So I really think that that point probably is targeting campuses and larger communities where the areas around the communities, which typically statistically is transitional housing are not very safe. It's, I mean, it's reasonable to believe that these are rental properties that are that surround campuses. So transitional housing across the nation, statistically has a higher crime rate than the more permanent housing suburbs and stuff like that. So easy access to buildings. Number six, and that's something we talked about earlier, is I would really like the university to push for restricted access on all buildings. If you don't have a reason to be there. You don't have access to be there. Not enough security cameras. There's there's always comes down to money. We have security cameras, but we don't ever have enough. We don't even without being invasive of people's privacy. We could still increase the number of cameras that we have here on campus to just provide a better service to our students to protect their view. It goes in parking lots from unreported accidents to preventing sexual assaults in parking lots, so I'd like to see that. And I certainly agree with that point there. And the eighth point here is crowded sidewalks and dangerous crosswalks. I don't think our sidewalks are, are crowded. We don't have a crowding issue here at Dakota State. But we do have a couple of hazardous crosswalks. Part of that hazard. To be quite frank is, students not paying attention, though. They're using the crosswalk. But they're also not looking for cars. You have to maybe put your phone down for a moment and just watch while you cross the road. Too many kids are like squirrels. When it comes to dealing with cars, you're going to lose, you are going to lose if you're if you get caught in the roadway with a car, you're gonna lose. So we don't want to see it. We don't want to see anybody injured. We don't want to see your education interrupted. And we don't want that black smear on the university that somebody got hurt here when we maybe could have protected them a little better. So there are ways that we can improve our crosswalk safety. But there are certain things that students need to take upon themselves to protect themselves when they're out and about campus.

Jen Burris:

Sure. So, if people want to get in contact with you during the school year, what's the best way to find you?

Heath Abraham:

The best way to find me is just to come down to my office and look for me on the way, as they can always call me on my university cell phone number 605-270-0055 and leave a message or send an email. I'm in the university directory, excited you'll see me around campus. And they can always call and if they can call Campus Watch. I answered those phones throughout the day. Campus Watch will leave me a message if you call at night. So there are a lot of ways to get ahold of me. But I encourage everybody who has a question just to come and talk to me face to face so we can develop that relationship and make campus safe together.

Jen Burris:

Well, we're certainly lucky to have you here on campus. Thank you. Thanks for coming in to record the episode today. You are welcome. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris

And today, our special guest is Fenecia Homan, the dean of the Governors Cyber Academy. How are you?

Fenecia Homan:

Great. Thanks for having me today.

Jen Burris:

Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Fenecia Homan:

So, I am new to Dakota State and just started at the beginning of January. Before this, I spent 10 years at Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls. And then before that, I spent five years as a seventh through 12th-grade math teacher. So, building a long career in education, but excited to be here and put a lot of those pieces together and figure out how we can make this academy special.

Jen Burris:

Okay, awesome. So, can you tell us a little about what the Governors Cyber Academy is and what it's trying to do?

Fenecia Homan:

So, the big mission of the academy is to promote awareness of cyber career pathways and access to cyber education. We're doing that through a few different components. The first one that we'll be launching here and in the fall is opening up the dual credit pathways for high school students that qualify for dual credit. We've added seven computer science and cyber courses that are now approved to be taken for dual credit. And so, we'll start with a couple of those this fall, and then add a couple more each semester. And so students can take any, they can take one class, they could take the whole slate of them, they could take a couple of them based on what they're interested in, and what their schedule allows, if they do take all of the classes that will serve as the first year of a bachelor's degree in computer science, or artificial intelligence or cyber operations, or even cyber leadership, so but if they don't, they can still great get great experience and figure out what types of the cyber world that they're interested in. The other piece that we're really working on building out is the summer enrichment programming. So, there's the existing slate of Gen cyber camps, which are phenomenal. I'm excited to participate in the summer, but figuring out where there are some gaps or opportunities and adding to that programming, and ideally having some credit-bearing opportunities there. So, some of these dual credit courses could be offered through for credit through these camps. And then a lot of what I'm hearing as I'm starting to visit schools and community partners is this need for K-12 Cyber enrichment. So exposing students early on to what the possibilities are, you know, is that through day camps or camps or after school programming, is it through lessons in the classrooms and much of this our faculty are doing. And so, it's pulling those pieces together and figuring out where there are additional opportunities. A vital part of the academy, though, is this has been piloted in specific locations. We want this to be statewide so that all students, whether they're in public school, private school, one of the tribal schools on the reservations, or their homeschool that they all, have access to this. And so really broadening who can be exposed to, to this past this opportunity.

Jen Burris:

What drew you to this position?

Fenecia Homan:

Yeah. That's a great question. I loved what I was doing. And I saw this. I think it was perhaps a little social media blip or something I don't even know. But I saw this opportunity with this job posting. And it just, I couldn't quit thinking about it. And I was like. There is something about this that I need to investigate more. And I looked at it more closely, thought about it for a while, visited with some mentors, and decided to apply and see what happens. And I think what excites me is when I first started teaching, I was the math teacher in a K-12 building. So, I taught 7-12th grade. I supervised endless student activities. And I just knew that because I was stretched so thin that my students all had to have the same opportunities because that's just what I could provide. So, I really wanted to figure out how, particularly in our rural schools, which are smaller and have fewer resources, how those students can have similar opportunities to students in larger districts or other places. And I think that's what initially really drew me to it. Also, I've been around, taught dual credit, and overseen some of those components in my previous role. And so, really trying to figure it out, it's here. And, rather than focus on that, just get it done, get it out of that way mentality that really, frustrates me. As an educator, I want this to have value and be value-added. And this is a fantastic opportunity to figure out how we can build this model that really is a value-added that adds that exposure and these opportunities, but then opens the doors for students for more possibilities, rather than just, hey, get it done. And, and, you know, move on.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, how does this program that we're doing here in South Dakota? Are there other programs like this? This is brand new to me,

Fenecia Homan:

Some are out there. And that's something that I've been trying to research more and learn about. So, I don't know a lot of the details of those. I haven't had a chance to do other site visits yet. But I believe there is a program in Tennessee that is similar. There's a program connected with Duke University that has pieces of this that we're interested in. But that is something that I'm still really working on identifying. I think over this next year, and I'll have additional opportunities to network and connect with folks from those other existing academies or desisting programs to learn even more from what they're doing.

Jen Burris:

So, you mentioned doing some research. What other kinds of things have you been doing? And what, how does that kind of fit into the pilot program and then transferring that into, you know, a full-blown launch this fall?

Fenecia Homan:

Yeah. The first thing I did was to try to define a mission and what the outcomes would be. So, we know what we are, are building off, and so I’ve been meeting with a lot of folks on campus to understand how Dakota State works, what's available, and what the processes are. So really trying to build some connections on campus. And then meeting off campus with several stakeholders as well. So I've been at, you know, the South Dakota STEM conference. There are these CTE consortiums on each side of the state and joining it on their annual meetings, starting to visit some schools, doing a lot of Zoom calls or teams calls because of the weather this spring, but trying to get get the word out both to promote the pieces that we know about the academy, and this dual credit part of the launch, but also to try to listen carefully to hear where the stakeholders from different parts of the state in different you know, whether it be the schools or industry or community partners, where they're seeing some opportunities to put together more of a comprehensive plan. I'll spend working on the marketing side of things with that team. I haven't been doing that, but making lots of requests to the marketing team to figure out how we can promote the academy and what key pieces are out there. Lots of visiting with the research and development folks to figure out where there's existing funding that's, that's already available or existing programming but also opportunities for additional possibilities. There's a well, so I would say lots of one-on-one, small group meetings and lots of listening and brainstorming, too, so we've got a good solid plan on paper, but there are so many details to fill in.

Gabe Mydland:

What's uh, what's the reaction? What are people saying when you outline the program and how it might make an impact?

Fenecia Homan:

I think there's a lot of excitement. There were also a lot of questions because how is this going to work? Who was going to pull it off? What about the logistics or the details? But one thing stuck in my mind, and it was a teacher I met with on Monday when I was out in Rapid City at one of the CTA consortium meetings. And she had said, I'm just so excited for this because I'm at this; I will say the wrong school if I try to remember which one it was, but it was one of the ones on the state's western side. She said I've got a couple of students every year that are interested in this, but it's not enough for us to have a teacher. And so I think that's instead the real excitement is, I mean, every workforce is begging for employees right now, you know, manufacturing law enforcement, education and, you know, cyber and all of these workforces we need to make our communities go and run, and so I think it's this opportunity to have to keep using that word opportunity but to allow students small groups of students, you know, that access and to be able to explore something that they might otherwise not be able to just because it's not a, the resources aren't available, where they're at.

Jen Burris:

So how does it feel since you were a teacher and saw the need for these opportunities in rural areas? How does it feel to be able to be a part of a plan to bring those opportunities to the students?

Fenecia Homan:

I’m excited about it. And right now, it's fun to talk about it. I'll be even more thrilled next year when we've got students in there. And I can go and visit them at their schools and hear about the impact that it's had on them. Or to track that longitudinally to see, are they coming either to Dakota State or going into another computer science computer or cyber science program somewhere else and into the workforce? And so, I love the students. I don't think I'll ever not consider myself a teacher at heart. I'm excited to get to meet these students and to hear their stories and their impact. And so, right now, it's fun to deliver this message that it's coming, but I think it will sink in once we've got, you know, you're seeing and getting it to interact with these students and hearing that impact.

Gabe Mydland:

I'm curious. What you just talked about is something that I am very interested in: where do these kids go? After they've participated in this? Do you have any ideas of how you will gather that information?

Fenecia Homan:

Yeah, we've got a great team here at Dakota State that just from the registrar side, from the IT side, that we had a great meeting a few weeks ago, and is like, Okay, this is what we need to do. But then everybody rallied around, and they even met after that meeting to figure out, Okay, we're going to put this attribute code on here, and at this point, and, and so we'll be able to follow those students. And additionally, with the support of the dual credit enrollment counselor will be able to interact with the students through Trojan Connect, and, you know, being able to help them as their part of the academy, but then also, that, and that's one of the goals is to track this longitudinally. So we can determine whether this is successful or not? It's a phenomenal idea. But is it making a difference? So, and that, that will be hard to be patient with because that's, you know, likely going to be six, seven years out. And so, we're going to have to be able to build that foundation right now to know that we have to have these back-end processes figured out right now so that we can have those answers a few years from now.

Jen Burris:

So why is this area of cybersecurity important? What do you think? Why is it good to get these students involved in middle and high school?

Fenecia Homan:

I think about this. I mentioned some of those other areas, and I think of my kids. They and I love teachers, right? I want them to be teachers as well. But students are our kids who are exposed to teachers. They're exposed to nurses and doctors. They're exposed to, to some extent, folks in the finance or service industries. But I don't always know that they are exposed to folks in the cyber industry, you know, they don't constantly, it's not something you walk by a storefront and see, or you walk into a place and necessarily see. And I see that in a few industries. And so, I think opening their eyes to this early on is essential. So at least it's rolling in the back of their minds, as that might be something, or as they cultivate their interests a bit, they can see, oh, hey, that's how that connects. And that's something I've been having a lot of fun learning about as I've been immersed here on campus for the past couple of months, and excited to learn more about it. I was asking earlier this morning: What should I connect with, so I can learn more? I want to speak cyber better and know some of the details, so I'm excited to grow and learn as this happens. But I think just building that awareness of, you know, any industry that you go in, cyber is not going anywhere. It's only going to grow. And so, it's not minimizing one or another. It's seeing those connections, and how there's, there are these pairings that will happen all over the place between fields that will involve a cyber component.

Gabe Mydland:

What level of participation Do you anticipate in this first year? Do you have any ideas?

Fenecia Homan:

I don't, but I'm excited for April 1 is when the dual credit enrollment when our opportunity opens for the fall semester, so I'm anxiously anticipating what the interest still be engaging that excited here to get a big kind of push up to our email blast out through a bunch of listservs here by the end of the week so that we can make a little push for this as a student is registering hopeful that we'll have. When I say a cohort, you know, I would love, I don't even know if I should throw numbers out there, but I'm hopeful for, like, 50, you know, and hopefully, that's realistic, and my expectations are far surpassed. But also knowing there are a lot of dual credit initiatives out there, not cyber ones, but in South Dakota, there are lots of initiatives and opportunities. And so, and you often have to prove yourself and so in knowledge, building a really solid experience that then word of mouth and, and stakeholders trust you, you know, parents and teachers and school administrators have heard about this, and they want their kids to be part of it.

Jen Burris:

And so this will be statewide? All South Dakota schools can have students enrolled in the program. Is that accurate?

Fenecia Homan:

Right? Yep. And so all juniors and seniors in South Dakota that qualify based on any of the so the Board of Regents has their dual credit placement or qualifications, the technical colleges have theirs. But any junior or senior that qualifies for a dual credit course through the Board of Regents qualifies for the Academy. And that is only $48.33 of credit. So it's a financial incentive. We're getting many questions about freshmen and sophomores in high school and folks from out of state. They can participate if they meet the entrance requirements. There's not at 4338 right now. So they would pay the non-degree-seeking tuition. So that if they want to get a head start, they shouldn't even say Head Start. But if they're excited to participate, they can get started. It's just that discounted rate through the South Dakota legislature doesn't start until they're a junior.

Jen Burris:

And so, what are some of the benefits that you see in students participating in this academy? Aside from obviously a great financial one? 

Fencia Homan:

Well, building around this, you know, aside from that awareness, and that access, just trying to make this a precious experience for them. Well, there will be dedicated tutors for the Academy students. So I've already worked with the Tutoring Center here on campus, and they're selecting those tutors. And they'll be in place for the fall and building out a supplemental instruction component, especially for that computer science one that CSC 150 class. So there's some extra support. They've also visited with the CX three folks about a mentoring component. And so if students want to participate in that, having small groups of students that meet with a DSU student regularly, and bringing in opportunities for industry to, you know, Zoom talk or our connections that way, so figuring out how there's that mentoring kind of that near-peer mentor piece as well. And then the other thing that we've started right away is that there's an instructional designer building a course shell in and two l that will be used consistently for the Academy courses. And she'll be working with the faculty for each course on getting their content and expert expertise into those shells so that it's a consistent experience as you go in and navigate the portal and don't get lost in every class that you go in. So that will be starting. The instructional designer came on about a month ago, has made a ton of progress, and will start working with those faculty soon. So we'll see that come together as well.

Jen Burris:

So as this launches, how will that transition some of the things you'll be doing once the program is fully up and running?

Fenecia Homan:

Right, I've wondered that myself as I think as we get the dual credit piece off the ground, and just having students that you know, instead of just guessing what might be the issues, having them and being able to respond accordingly from that, I think will then as the dual credit piece gets going pivot into that enrichment, giving some focus and some time to what do those enrichment opportunities look like? How can we scale them across the state and think about the instruct-the-teacher side? Right now? It teachers high school teachers, to teach the dual credit classes themselves, would need to have 18 their master's plus 18 CSE credits on their transcript, and so seeing what we can do to help upskill those interested teachers to expand this out as Well, so I think it will be getting that cohort going and learning how we can, you know, adjust that experience or make that keep making sure that experience is valuable, but then continuing to build out what the Academy can offer and thinking about how we provide broader opportunities and additional supports.

Gabe Mydland:

I'm excited to hear about teachers getting the accreditation, if that's the word. To be able to do this in their districts, that'd be awesome, too.

Fenecia Homan:

And there is a teacher in Sioux Falls right now that is, does have the credentials to do that. And so we'd love to, you know, obviously, for those interested, that provides additional opportunities for students.

Jen Burris:

So how many courses are available through this?

Fenecia Homan:

Only the general education classes are eligible for dual credit right now. But what we've added, and I'll try not to forget one, but the computer science one and computer science two, so the 150 and 250. There's the intro to cyber operations. There's the hardware, virtualization, and data communication class. There'll be networking, Intro to AI. And then there's a for the summer camps. We've at least initially thought about the credit-bearing opportunities. We've got digital forensics, Intro to Health, and Intro to Health informatics which are some opportunities to specialize for those that want to dig into something even more. So those are, I believe that's the full set of the additional courses that have been approved to be offered for dual credit. And as we get going, we'd love to the idea is to expand out some of those pathways and tracks as well.

Jen Burris:

And do you have any thoughts now of where you could see that going in the future? Or is it just kind of open-ended?

Fenecia Homan:

I think, Oh, the other one I did forget was the cyber leadership course. So I thought I had gotten to so many on my fingers. And then I ran out, so I thought we had groups of three classes where they could earn a badge and work on the details of what that badging entails. But so we have computer science, AI, and cyber leadership. And so I see a lot of potentials as DSU grows in the agricultural space to see if we can expand in that direction. Once DSU expands into that programming, we can extend the academy. I think right now, with our funding, we are very much focused on AI, computer science, and cyber operations. But seeing if there are opportunities to expand on the business side, I believe I was in a faculty meeting, uh, I don't know now, a few weeks ago, and, and talking about like cyber entrepreneurship and like some of those connections there, you know, on the, on the education side, what's that look like? And so I think it's all of the programs at DSU that have a cyber flair to them, as we talk about. And so I think there are all opportunities as we get this going and can build out those pathways.

Gabe Mydland:

We've discussed the students who can apply to the academy and educators. I'm wondering about other members of the general public, other adults who maybe have a degree or maybe don't have a degree but are interested in learning more. Are they eligible to participate?

Fenecia Homan:

Not in the academy, in its current form that's focused on the high school, the students for K 12 students, but I think some opportunities will be coming out through DSU soar through my understanding or, you know, to jump into the same classes they could take, but not in this academy format, just through the normal the traditional route.

Jen Burris:

And going back to the educator partnership and potentially having teachers get the credentials to work on this, what's the importance of, you know, creating that partnership with our middle schools and high schools and with our educators that are there preparing our the youth of our future?

Fenecia Homan:

I think DSU does a great job right now through a lot of the grant work they're doing as far as developing curriculum, and you know that the Gen cyber teacher camp in the summer provides opportunities for teachers to learn in really cool ways then. So I think it's continuing to build out that it, build out the opportunities, but at the same time, like, what's that report look like? You know, what's that, that back and forth or that support? I know, like when I was teaching, teachers have so much high school teacher, you know, middle school, high school teachers, all teachers have so much influence on their students. And we often speak to our experience. And so when I was teaching seventh through 12th grade, my undergrad experience was at a liberal arts school, which I loved. But that was my experience. And that's what I could speak to. I had very little understanding of the technical or community colleges I had, and I didn't have a lot of understanding of other opportunities. And so I've always thought back about how I shorted my students because those weren't things they would be perfect opportunities for. So many of the students I had, I didn't know about them or be able to speak to them. So I think building awareness with those teachers so that when they have those, they're in those conversations with their students, or they are working with them, they can share, Hey, have you thought about this? Or have you let's try this or, you know, maybe let's do a site visit or, or invite someone, one of the DSU professors into the classroom? And so I think it's building that awareness that's really kind of sitting in the back of their brain that they can draw on as soon as they need it.

Jen Burris:

And what kind of impact do you see having these dual credit opportunities for students to kind of test the waters and find out, you know, what they're interested in or more about these different topics?

Fenecia Homan:

That's one piece of dual credit that I'm a gen ed teacher at heart, I come from a math background, but I always cringe a little bit when it's like, oh, get your gen Ed's out of the way. I'm like, no, no, you know, like, I think dual credit is an excellent opportunity to try out some different fields if you can. And that's what I love about this, you know, jump into that and see if you like that field. Tuition was at a very, you know, at a cheap, much cheaper rate than you would if you're not in a dual credit setting, and South Dakota. And so, I mean, that's something. My daughter is just a fifth grader. Still, I've encouraged her to try and explore as many things as she can so that you figure out what you're interested in, not interested in so that she can refine that rather than thinking you know what you're interested in and then all of a sudden, you're a year or two in. Then it feels like it's too late to turn around. So I think that's part of that. And with these courses, we've selected, a handful have a prerequisite, or they must take this one before the next one. But most of them can jump in and take it to see if they like it and then continue. If they don't, then try a different route. And I think that the mentality to approach dual credit is not to get it done but an explorer and then open doors to what else.

Jen Burris:

And that can better prepare them for getting to college and knowing what they want to do when they got there.

Fenecia Homan:

And it might, you know, open up an opportunity for, you know, research, which we do a great job of here, or an internship or a study abroad opportunity. I think about how taking some of those not only explores those interests but can allow some flexibility to pursue additional, sometimes credit-bearing or non-credit-bearing opportunities.

Jen Burris:

What would someone that knows nothing about cyber knows nothing about the academy that maybe has a freshman or sophomore child? What should they know about this opportunity?

Fenecia Homan:

I would say give it a try. If they think that, you know, if they're a freshman or a sophomore, have them do one of the Gen cyber camps, give it a week, give it a try for a week. And then as more of these opportunities come out, you know, pay attention to what those are. Maybe it's a day camp. Maybe it's whatever we ended up coming up with. So I think it would just try to figure out what those opportunities look like. And then as they do move into, you know, that junior and senior year, encourage them to try a course. And obviously, you know, complete the course, but no, if they don't like it, try something else. And I think seeing this as something to test the waters and to give it a shot.

Gabe Mydland:

If somebody wants more information, how would they? Who would they call?

Fenecia Homan:

They can always contact me. So it's my first name dot last name right at DSU. We also have a general email address at Cyber Academy at DSU. So that feeds right into my inbox as well. And we are working. We have a webpage out on the DSU website right now. We're working on additional content as we get some things figured out. But there's also an inquiry form on that website, so if you fill that out, I'll have your email, and I can get back to you and share more information with you as things come out.

Gabe Mydland:

So someone would search on Governors Cyber Academy?

Fenecia Homan:

Governors Cyber Academy on the DSU website. And it will get you the high-level information, and then reach out, we can fill in the details.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, anything else that you want to add?

Fenecia Homan:

No, I appreciate this opportunity. I think it's an awesome adventure that we're all on, and I'll be excited to provide an update on what we've learned at some point in the future. Yeah,

Jen Burris:

We'd love to have you back next year to recap and see how things are going. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for being our guest. Thank you, Max Ullman, our podcast editor, for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Gabe Mydland:

Do it now.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today, our guest is Dr. Mark Hawkes, Dean of Graduate Studies at DSU. Mark, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Mark Hawkes:

Thanks, Jen. Great to be here. Great to join my friends for a little conversation. Yeah, I'm Mark. I've, I think we've been in Madison for 25 years. And I came here from Chicago, where I worked in a federal research lab funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. With a federally funded grant, we did a lot of research on educational technology, integrations, and schools. At that time, they were often funded by, telephone companies or other major corporations who were looking to integrate their innovations into the K-12, or higher ed environment. Before that, I was at Syracuse University, got my doctorate, upstate New York, go orange. And I worked there, and the Center for Instructional Development, and I got my undergraduate and master's at Brigham Young University, where I met the girl of my dreams. She's still with me. We're here in Madison enjoying it. I teach. I'm attached to the College of Education. Although I'm a graduate dean, and my research has generally been in computer-mediated communication. And I teach a suite of courses maybe from Ed Tech to educational psychology.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And is that at the grad level, then? Both?

Both, yep. Although unfortunately, I have one course. My dean's job doesn't provide many other opportunities to teach, although I would love to. I do get to keep hanging on to one course, which is good. I feel fortunate.

Jen Burris:

And so, how long have you been dean of grad studies?

Mark Hawkes:

I'm thinking probably six or seven years now. Okay. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

So, what's a day in the life like?

Mark Hawkes?

A day in the life of a dean? Well, it depends on if you ask, and now after, you know, four or five weeks in the semester, and if you'd asked me two weeks ago because it was readmission petitions, it was course substitution forums, it was credit transfer forums, it's all of those kinds of the beginning of the semester things we do to try to settle students into their coursework, but for whom, you know, permission, or barriers pending, and we try to resolve those. So otherwise, the fun part of being a dean is supporting faculty and program growth, and program development, we've got, some new programs in the process of development and working with deans and other talented faculty and bringing those things to life. And, of course, it's working with the students, which is the real I think every faculty would say, you know, helping young men and women reach their career dreams, and then get to see quite a little bit of that stuff just wrote a, they actually did a fun reference for a doctoral student who has yet to finish her dissertation, but she's a candidate for a position at the University of Texas A&M. So, you know, a remarkable institution and an opportunity she has to, to extend her career in academia. And that's fun. It's fun to tell her how great I think she is. Tell them how great I think she is as a potential faculty.

Gabe Mydland:

Can you share with us a little bit more about the programs we offer at the graduate end of things?

Mark Hawkes:

Yeah, again, we're about 24 years into graduate education. And, but we've offered master's degrees, we've offered courses, and we've offered summer development experiences to teachers for decades, but to have a bona fide program, and the first was a Master's of Science and Information Systems, really consistent with our mission. Mom, which started in 1999. And right about the same time, a master’s in educational technology brought me here. And those programs are one of seven master's programs that we offer, including programs in cyber defense, computer science, and for Mission Systems, data analytics, and a master's in health informatics, and Information Sciences. And then for doctoral programs, three in our Beacom College of Computer & Cyber Sciences and an on-campus program in computer science for doctoral students, cyber operations and cyber defense to other doctoral programs who were there accessible from a distance, and then a doctoral program, which is our first doctoral program in information systems. As a College of Business Information Systems, we offer seven certificates, which are, you know, probably three to four classes in a concentrated area, ethical hacking, business finance areas like that. I did forget, sorry, Masters of Business Administration. We do offer an MBA here. So yeah, those are, those are our programs and exploring kind of where we are with new opportunities, which may result in additional programs in a year or two.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and those certificates, can students take them and build toward a degree? 

Mark Hawkes:

Yeah, those courses count. Good question. You're talking about stackable certificates degrees. And yeah, any one of those certificates would be three to four courses toward one of our master's degree programs. And sometimes, a student will say, well, I'm not sure that I want to make that commitment. But I'm interested in a couple of classes to build my skills. We say, hey, a certificate program doesn't require an application and review for admission, once you show what you show evidence that you have a degree and undergraduate degree in and proper area, you can register for a certificate program. You know, those courses are part of our master's degree programs. So, which would apply? Which would require an application and, and admission permission at that point?

Jen Burris:

So what's your favorite thing about being the Dean of Graduate Studies?

Mark Hawkes:

Well, you know, everything, and I think what wouldn't you say, Gabe, most faculty are in it because they love to work with young people. And I'd like to think so. Yes, like, yeah, I loved it. I love to see them meet their career dreams. But I think my role is unique on campus. Because I work with faculty in just about every college. And I work with really outstanding faculty. Those are graduate faculty, they're innovative, and they're committed to their programs. And graduate programs offer the opportunities to deliver pretty cutting-edge instruction on pretty cutting-edge topics. And, if you're well-qualified, and you've been, you know, a computer scientist, and you have nine years of formal training, you want to explore the edges of the field. And you want to bring talented students along to do that with you. And so, I work with those folks, Deans, and talented faculty across every college, and that might be one of my favorite things. That is also unique to my field. Maybe a provost might also work across programs, colleges across disciplines, or something like that, but mine is truly interdisciplinary.

Jen Burris:

And how does research fall into the graduate program?

Mark Hawkes:

Oh, man, you're hitting it all, right? All the big mass so, so the expression of an institution that wants to be regarded as building a knowledge base, in its area of expertise or areas of expertise, is research is what are we doing what is out there to be known? And how do we understand it in a new way? How do we fashion it for a new market, a new audience for a new need? And so, research for the graduate student becomes critical. So, we were doing in Computer and Information Sciences what SDSU, our neighbor up north, is doing for agriculture. How do we make these seeds more productive? How do we do that for crops? More resistant, to bugs and weeds? And you know, we're doing similar things in computer science. How do we make networks more secure from bugs and weeds? How do we support people's data privacy, access to their own data, and exclude it from bad actors? And that's research. And we have several extraordinary researchers in our graduate faculty, and some that even aren't in our graduate faculty who are not attached to graduate programs. And that is the real expression of a university is that we're conducting that kind of research. And Dr. Griffiths has helped us find our role in that and how we can be a university with big aspirations and research in our in our field of expertise, and do it in a way that captures the attention and imagination of policymakers, people around the country. She's painted that picture for us.

Gabe Mydland:

Can you talk more about it? I was curious when you started to talk about some of the examples of the research that's being done by some of our faculty, maybe some of our students. What's going on out there? Where are they reporting on? What are they finding?

Mark Hawkes:

Yeah, so the research would be fairly closely aligned with the programs. So what do we do a significant amount of research in information systems, using data, how the data is used, how that data is secured, how that data can be looked at in large quantities, over 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of records, to see some trends, and how those trends might inform policy, local policy, public policy, institutional policy, how they might use be used for marketing. And that's what our graduates in information systems do, especially in health care. We can understand things about public health and public perceptions, on health, public perceptions, on viruses, by looking at a few records, through social media, other sources, and medical records, and understand how we best support patients and patient care and physician care. And as you know, and computer science across the street in The Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences, we're all about securing information, the right to privacy, and securing resources, which is not only about internet packet routing or encryption but it's also about user behaviors. How do we act as users of technology that suggests we are responsible users have these wide area networks? And so, it's an ethical thing. It's, it's a psychological thing, as well as a technical computer thing.

Jen Burris:

So I'm interested to hear if you have any thoughts on AI being integrated into everything.

Mark Hawkes:

Well, you know, if you think it's a basic form, intelligence, what we know about what kind of bugs we can find in our backyard, I'm on this bugs thing. What am I now; it says a lot about you. Yes. Seeing that, how we understand our environment, that would be intelligence, what we know, how do we, how do networks and systems and technology tools understand that so well, that they can predict some needs. So, we're very invested in that we're very invested in that. And we already offer an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence is already a significant part of our computer science, master's program, machine learning, or article. Artificial intelligence is a significant trend, that we are responding to and will respond to, and it doesn't suggest a threat to our society. But it does suggest some cautions about how we use that. So, there's that there's, there's always that complement to technical, technical, logical innovation. It is, it is ethical to conduct. And I think we try to walk, try to walk this path responsibly, both ways and gave us, you know, as a former, you know, research administrator getting on our campus. You know, there are steps that our students take to make sure that they've met commitments.

Gabe Mydland:

Yep. Research, you throw me a curveball there. But yes, I do recognize what you're talking about. The AI think though, to follow up is really quite fascinating not only in the processing of information but the alternatives and the speed at which you can identify those trends and options and choices. But ultimately, it comes down to what we decide to do with the information or if we think we need more information before making a decision. How? How do we match up, so to speak, against other programs across the country? I'm just curious. We pride ourselves in being a leader. How do you see us stacking up?

Mark Hawkes:

It was 2004 when we were first recognized as the Center for Excellence for cybersecurity education and research. Some remarkable faculty understood the future ahead of us and put together coursework and programs of a research institution that made us a leader. And now, you know, what many colleges are doing, they're looking for faculty to teach cyber in their computer science or even to establish cyber computing programs, minors, and majors. So, you know, we were at wealth elite easily 15 years, in advance of that major push, we were on almost the cutting edge of understanding securities role and the future of our lives. We did that 45 years ago, right in changing the texture of who you are at every level. By becoming a computer and information sciences institution, we left our kind of general education and liberal arts background and really made a commitment during the early Janklow era to Computer Information Sciences. And I think you'll still see some of that today as you see programs that emerge in graduate and undergraduate education, suggesting we see a future here. And that and that future means preparing young men and women to meet the challenges of that future. I would say remarkable leadership and some talented faculty have always put us, you know, on the bleeding edge of what we will claim is our space Computing and Information Sciences, not to mention all the remarkable things that are done outside those. We claim math is probably a big part of our computing because of all the background that those majors must have and even more complex things when we're talking about encryption and other security issues. But in the arts and humanities, some great research and education, some great research matches what we're doing, and some other programs. So yeah, it's just not exclusive to colleges. You can find great examples of where research informs teaching and vice versa. In many places on our campus,

Jen Burris:

You mentioned the ethical side of things. Can you maybe give us an example of maybe software that hasn't been so ethical or a way that that something might impact how it works?

Mark Hawkes:

On our campus, we are bound by a code of conduct. That's built into every research ethics course or module that's required of graduate students. And it's to build that. You learn these tools. You learn these skills to understand the network are how a computer functions. And you can productively use those skills. We call that white hatters. Even red hatters look at vulnerabilities to exploit them, not to exploit them, but to fix them. Or you can be someone who understands those viruses’ vulnerabilities to exploit them. And we'd like to think that we're in the first group, and we were doing that work, and we teach computer science and cybersecurity skills to secure those networks better. And so, when discussing ethical work, it's not just giving lip service. Talk about using our tools and skills to strengthen as well. Such as a teacher would talk about using his or her to schools, tools or skills in child development. We take that pretty seriously.

Jen Burris:

And you mentioned arts and humanities. Our school is unique because we're very technical-focused, but we still have that base of education. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Mark Hawkes:

You know the beauty of a college education is understanding our world and environment in unique ways. So that means understanding arts and literature and humanities and sciences. And I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want anything but that for our computer scientists, teachers, and information, science, and information sciences majors. So we have a very nice structure of general education courses for all of our majors. Some will major in those areas, um, some very good biological sciences majors leave our campus with wonderful research opportunities, so that's the richness of university education. And then that is also part of the creativity in computer and cyber sciences. You can draw on some of what you know about a liberal arts education to solve problems in a very computational scientific way. No, we're down the road. A little bit.

Gabe Mydland:

What about the future? What are you excited about? That's coming down the road?

Mark Hawkes:

I think there are. We will have to think about how we protect and secure data shared on a fiber optic cord. How do you secure pulses of light? How do you know how you do that? Because that's how information is set. Right? We have a significant amount of wireless information, but a lot of it, and some of the most secure, is in photons, pulses of light. And I think there are some opportunities not only to extend the uses of that type of communication and conveyance but how you secure and protect it. And how you do this. I also think there's an evolution in user privacy. We’re on the cusp. How do we protect user rights? How to protect their data and their information? How do we make users stronger consumers of technological tools? What should they know about the use and about the tools accessible on cell phones that give them layers of protection for their private communications, for their private data, for their addresses? So, I think that is a future area that we will explore as graduate programs.

Jen Burris:

Okay, one last question for you. You mentioned earlier being a reference for a student going to Texas A&M. What kind of great things have our grad students gone on to do?

Mark Hawkes:

Boy, yeah, what haven't they done I probably will miss them. And to my chagrin, because they were remarkable. I had a student walk into my office shortly after lunch, and he has been gone. But he's back in town. He works for Goldman Sachs. He got his master's degree in analytics. But he works for Goldman Sachs as a remote faculty. Now he doesn't live in Madison anymore. He lives in Omaha down south, but he was visiting one of his friends in town. And, you know, he's working for an investment company that handles billions of dollars of acquisitions and resources. So, they've done things we have. So, most of our doctoral students are currently holding positions. And they hold some remarkable positions as faculty CIOs and Chief Information Officers in the federal government, private industry, in higher ed, and they are in remarkable positions. They are already in top-tier positions, and I've had dissertations for the federal government that I couldn't even go into because I don't do research, only a committee. There was a nondisclosure because of the risk of sharing information for a private institution, company, state, or government that was presented by having someone other than the employee and his committee. And I think those committee members also had to sign non-disclosure agreements not to share any information. It's that those that's the kind of work that we're doing. We have faculty at. We have former doctoral and master's students at dozens of institutions, including ours. And one young man just interviewed at the University of North Dakota, who I like to give a reference for and seemed to look very positive. It's not uncommon, oh, we had a recent student do a one-year professorship at University in Indiana. And so, to get his dissertation work done, he's behaved at a hotter commodity. But that is the nature of our programs and Computing and Information Sciences that cultivates the interest of institutions, organizations, and corporations, that makes our employment percentage extraordinarily high.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Anything that you'd like to highlight about grad studies that we haven't discussed?

Mark Hawkes:

Oh, just that, a graduate program does not excel without extraordinary leadership. And I think Dr. Griffiths provides that. And I've worked with three or four provosts. In the last several years, our current Provost, Dr. Hoyt very committed to this notion of disciplinary research and supports that, and sometimes you have to have faculty may or may get some funds from the National Science Foundation National Security Administration to do their research. It's left to them and a dean or administrator to find someone to step into classes. And I've not met a dean who has not been super supportive. And so, once faculty know that their leadership supports them and their work is recognized. You find these faculty doing remarkable things. And so, folks in South Dakota, especially maybe Madison, often don't know that that the family living across the street, doing some remarkable research in highly secure but highly technical encryption, that would only a few institutions in the United States are capable of doing. And that's in our community. You know, that's an art. Those are people whom our kids play T-ball with. So, I work with, and they're not just faculty there, lots of other support people, remarkable talent, and people who love rural South Dakota, Madison as I do, and DSU as Gabe and I do, and you who find that we have this wonderful little balance of charm and accessibility. And yes, I drove today in cold weather, but I can easily walk from my nine blocks and access great schools such as Dakota State University, where we're all committed to its success.

Jen Burris:

Any final questions, Gabe?

Gabe Mydland:

No, I'm good.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, thank you so much for being a guest today, Mark.

Mark Hawkes:

Happy to be here. Thank you.

Jen Burris:

I enjoyed the conversation and found it very interesting. Thank you, Gabe, for cohosting. Thank you. Thanks to Our Podcast Producer Max Allmon and thank you for listening.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology on Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today, we have a special guest, Dr. Dorine Bennett, the Dean of the College of Business and Information Systems. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dorine Bennett:

I will tell you about myself and why first, thank you for having me visit with you today and do this episode of Cyberology. Absolutely. As Jen said, I'm the Dean of the College of Business and Information Systems. And a little bit about my background, I've been at the core state for quite some time. I started at Dakota State as an instructor in the Health Information Management area, which is a part of the College of Business and Information Systems, and moved up in the ranks through Assistant Professor and Associate Professor and taught a number of classes. Somewhere along the line, I did make a move to administration and became the director of the program, which meant that I had some teaching responsibilities, but I also had some administrative responsibilities. And I did that for a number of years, supervising some faculty, teaching the students, and doing that. And then, I had the opportunity to move into the position of the Dean of the College of Business and Information Systems. So I've been at Dakota state for over 35 years. But it's been a work in progress.

Jen Burris:

And so, how long have you been dean then?

Dorine Bennett:

I've been dean for about five years.

Jen Burris:

And so, why don't you tell us a little about your transition over the years? What led you toward the path of administration?

Dorine Bennett:

what kind of made me move toward the path of administration is kind of a silly reason, perhaps. But I really liked teaching. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the nine months off. And then I thought, you know, if I change, make a change in my career, and go back into the industry, because I had been working in the health information management field before I came to academia, I'm going to have to go year-round because most of those jobs aren't going to have summers off. So as long as I'm thinking about maybe making a move in my career, what's the next step? And administrators are year-round? So I thought, well if I have to do year-round, I just won't do year-round here. So then, when the opportunity opened up for the director position to open up, I thought, Okay, I'm ready to move into another position. And since it's going to be around, I'll go ahead and do that. So that's how I made the transition. We just had a change. Over those years, I had worked with several directors, probably three, three or four, do those years, and then this came open, and well, I think I'm going to apply for it and see. So that's what I did. And I moved into administration. But at that point, it was partial teaching and partial administration. I had a quarter-time release for each program. So I taught like a quarter time. And so it was kind of a weaning away because now it's the dean, I'm not in the classroom right now. Anyway.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And so, why don't you tell us a little bit about the College of Business and Information Systems? What does that all entail?

Dorine Bennett:

Okay. The College of Business and Information Systems has, like three main areas. Perhaps we have the business area with programs like marketing, marketing accounting, management, finance, business technology, and Professional Accountancy. And so we have our business area. Our second area is information systems, and computer information systems, which have programs in application development, project management, and business analytics, but it's Computer Information Systems artificial intelligence in organizations kind of bridges those two areas. And the third areas are health information informatics area.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And so, in those areas, how do you kind of integrate technology into them? I'm guessing they're pretty tech-heavy.  

Dorine Bennett:

Yes, they are. They really are. I like to tell people that when they say I like to work with computers, they really don't mean they like to work with computers. They like to work with people using computers. And so that's what our programs really do: they do those functions—using computers and technology. You don't do very well. barely any way do you do some of the old accounting on the paper and that type of thing you use technology and spreadsheets and the different software's for that health information management, you know, we all think of maybe as our medical records as those folders that the doctor would look at and file on all these shelves, but now, again, electronic health records. And so technology is just the functions are being done the same as far as what needs to be done, but they're being done using computer technology. So it's infused throughout all of the areas that you can't do those jobs anymore. One of the things also that I like about the College of Business and Information Systems is that when they say they want to work with computers, this is you putting computers into a context and a purpose. It's not necessarily writing that computer program. But it's like, here's how a computer is used to do this. So it's putting that technology into a context and a purpose.

Jen Burris:

Okay, can you elaborate a little bit about some of the different areas of purpose that you guys focus on?

Dorine Bennett:

I'm in the business area we look at managing as one of our programs, where they manage the employees and look at human resources isn't. There another important part of that is entrepreneurship. And starting companies or starting some sort of product or something, but being an entrepreneur, and that's in our business area, mainly also within our health, our Information Systems area. And we also have artificial intelligence in organizations, which is a little bit different from the more technical computer science math, building the algorithms part of artificial intelligence, but how is artificial intelligence used in an organization? How is it impacting the people? How are the jobs changing? If before you had your human resource department maybe did some screening things that now the machine can do? Or that type of thing? So how is it changing? How jobs are being done? And that's what we do in artificial intelligence in organizations major: look at it from the people side. I think probably all of our programs are on the people's side of computing.

Jen Burris:

And bringing that human aspect to technology?

Dorine Bennett:

Yes, it definitely is within our programs, health information management and health informatics really have undergone a big change with electronic health records. And some of you may be, you know, you've seen electronic health records when you go to the doctor now. And they have a computer screen that they're putting things on and that type of thing. And so we've been teaching health information as to the content and what needs to be in a medical record. And what are the important parts that communicate in a medical or health information record that hasn't changed? Doctors still make notes. And nurses still make notes and that type of thing. They're just doing it in a different format. And I think one of the things that we're learning with health information informatics is that it's just the tool. I think the electronic health record, the computer, is going to become just the tool they use, just like they used to use a pen to write their progress notes. They're now putting them on the computer. And so it's the information and the data that's in the Health Information Management, or the health information record, that will be important to our students and graduates. So that's why we've got a big part of informatics in our program because now you have all that data. So how can you use that? How can you make better decisions? Doctors now have a whole database. Instead of using their experience of what they've experienced, they now have a vast amount of information, big data. But how do you manage that? And so that's part of what they do.

Gabe Mydland:

You've been here for quite a while and seen a lot of really exciting changes in the field. I'm kind of curious about what's coming up. And what can you tell us about things that you hear about or maybe preparing for that might be more ubiquitous or more common in, say, five years that we'll be teaching our students about? Or what they'll be doing?

Dorine Bennett:

I think probably that, like, is it, it's just going to be a tool. It's just going to be the computers are just going to be something, so I think our skill set is really going to change into being wise users and being critical thinkers about using that information as they have all those tools out there that they can use Use, it's like, how can I evaluate that? And how so I think we'll see that skill change and become more and more important, the evaluation and their ability to make decisions. Based on that. We'll see less rote, repetitive-type things because those computers will take over doing some of that. So it's going to be the things that need decisions, the things that need a people, people, a person to think about are the things that our students are still going to be doing and the jobs that they're still going to have.

Jen Burris:

So how do you kind of keep up to date with industry standards? Do you have some boards? Is that right?

Dorine Bennett:

We do really focus on staying current with the industry and what's going on out there so that our graduates are prepared. So we have advisory boards for all of our programs that meet at least once a semester, sometimes once or each semester, twice a year, that gives us input onto what they are looking for, for employees. What do they see in new technologies? What are some of the biggest problems that they see facing them? We've talked to them about how life is changing post-COVID. How are employees changing employees expectations? Changing our business program has really looked at what we've talked about. How do we train employers or graduates to be managers or work in a virtual environment? And so we have advisory boards from all the areas of health information from the hospital systems from the payers, and insurance companies are talking to us about what they need and what they see as future needs. Our health information was cyber before cyber was cool because they were starting to talk about electronic health records and voice recognition. And that's been going on in healthcare for quite a while. And so we depend on them to tell us what are you looking for, for graduates? What are some other challenges that you face that we can help you with? And then we also tell them about us and what we are doing. Are we on the right track? Does that curriculum sound right? Is that something that we should be teaching? And then asking them also to help promote our programs and let others know about it and gather information from others to you know, if you're not particular, that isn't something you do? Do you go to a conference? Our faculty are also very active in professional associations related to their professions. Our accountancy teachers are CPAs or certified professional accountants and active members of that professional association. Our project management instructor is credentialed as a project manager. So she's earned professional credentials and attends their meetings. So we stay involved with the industry through professional associations as well.

Jen Burris:

And so how do how does all that influence the curriculum, then in the College of BIS?

Dorine Bennett:

it really has a big impact. Because if we're not teaching them what they're looking for, they're going to quit looking. And so we need to make sure that we are teaching what is happening out there, what is going to be happening, and they give us good ideas, they'll say, here's something that we think would really be cool. For you guys to teach, nobody's teaching it. That's we just asked him about it. Was anybody teaching? Or is any? Do you know of anybody? Or are you getting training in how to deal with virtual employees? How do you supervise them? How do you monitor them? As they just told us at the last Advisory Board meeting? The ones that are productivity-based job functions that you can count? How many emails did they do a day? Or how many of these things did they do a day is easier to monitor virtually than somebody that's maybe in meetings all day and talking? So how do you manage that when it's not productivity-based and something that you can measure and have metrics for? So they're saying we need some training in that? Because, as you know, more people want to stay home, perhaps after COVID changed. And we also looked at how you perform. Or how do you behave in Zoom meetings? And what are appropriate interactions in a virtual setting? And so that's some of the training, they just said, Hey, this is what we're seeing that we don't know how to deal with it now. And so that's something so they tell us what are some of their problems that we can address?

Jen Burris:

And you've introduced some new certificates and programs classes over the past year two. Do you want to talk a little bit about those?

Dorine Bennett:

Sure. That also brings up another point that I would maybe like to make we are really strong in the College of biz in stack programs, or I call them milestones along their academic path. So that there's a certificate in digital accounting, where they get just enough like for courses on accounting, and then software that we use in accounting, but that will stack into them the associate degree. So the students can move into an associate degree without losing any of the value that are the credits that they have earned as a certificate, the associates will build into the baccalaureate. And so that's something that we have quite a most of our programs are stackable, and you can start, you can be out working and maybe say, I don't want, I just need to get the skills in that. And so I'm not going to go back to school. I don't need a full degree, but I need a certificate in something. So we've done that. Our most recent changes or additions were the digital accounting ones. I said we're one of the few schools in this region that requires technology to be in our students have to use software for accounting. And they have to use Excel or the software in accounting. So it is a digital accounting type program. So we've added an associate with that and a certificate for that for those students. We're also looking at. We added business ethics because that was another thing that we heard is that with technology, you always hear, oh, yeah, you go to, I'm not going to, you go to it is or your information technology people and say, I want to do this, can you do that? And they'll say, Yeah, I can make the computer do that. Or I can write a program that will do that. And then you have to stop and think, but should we? So it's not always Can you do something, but should you do something? So the ethics part of technology has become more important. So we added a certificate in business technology, and technology, ethics, are the ethics of technology. It has business ethics in it. It also has technology ethics taught by somebody with a cyber program. So it's an interdisciplinary program, but we thought that the real need that's going on out there is getting the people to think about that. So ethics and technology is a new one. The artificial intelligence in organizations that I mentioned is another new one to give those students and graduates the ability to use those technologies.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and for the business and technology, ethics aspect of things, does that kind of factor into like, maybe the development of software to facial recognition and things like that, where there can be biases that are accidentally contributed into the software?

Dorine Bennett:

Yeah, that's something that we definitely are looking at. And it's like how people use technology and use artificial intelligence such as facial recognition. One of our faculty members is doing some research on the fact the recognition or the computer, facial recognition, or whatever in airports and that type of thing. So she's doing some research on that. And so that is an important part of, are you looking at it.

Jen Burris:

And looking at you using it with the intent versus how someone else could use it. Even if your initial intent may have been different, it could have been a positive one, but is there a negative way to use it?

Dorine Bennett:

And so that's part of the whole ethics of it sounds like a really fascinating topic. And one of our other classes that we've just started on that we're offering this semester, or in the spring, for the first time is one on the technology with blockchain and crypto, currency, and that type of thing. Just, it's an elective at this point, just get everybody, whatever major they're in, might run into that, you know, Blockchain is used in manufacturing, it's used in healthcare. And so whatever industry you're in, you might need to learn a little bit more about that. So we're trying to keep up with some of the new technologies for our students. And so we're offering that course in the spring, being co-taught by three different faculty.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so, for the blockchain course, that covers a variety of different areas. Is that right? The finance, business marketing kind of stuff, and then also the technology aspect.

Dorine Bennett:

Yes, it's going to be we're having somebody from the other colleges talk about some of the technology part of it, the programming, the algorithms, and that type of thing of that, and then our finance one is going to be used is going to be talking about how On crypto, or how blockchain is being used and virtual trades and that type of thing is being done. Our marketing person is really interested in disruptive technologies, whether that's Virtual Reality blockchain. And so she's going to be working, teaching part of the course from the marketing and business aspect.

Jen Burris:

It sounds like it'll be a well-rounded course it will be. So what are some of the unique things in your college that you'd like to highlight?

Dorine Bennett:

I think one of the unique things might be the different programs that we have and that technology's infused through all of them. Our students have great placement rates, and our students are getting jobs are getting good jobs. And so I would like to highlight that because we do listen to our advisory boards, we do have a lot of guest speakers that talk to us about what's going on out there. And our students are prepared. We also have internships, one of our faculty members is an internship coordinator for both the computer science and information systems and business students. And so she coordinates internships for credit, and we encourage internships, to give the students that real-life experience, sometimes our employers, and they're looking for the students, they say, you know, that's like a three-month job interview, because then we get to know whether we want to hire them. And they often get jobs hired afterward, but internships are another important part of the college. It is?

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. And I've even heard from students and talked to them that have received job offers before they've even graduated. So that's very impressive.

Dorine Bennett:

Quite a few of ours do have jobs before they graduate.

Jen Burris:

So Gabe, what other burning questions do you have for Dorine?

Gabe Mydland:

Where do you see the biggest potential for growth? In your college? I always find it fascinating the discussion about technology about how it will save us time and we will be able to do more with less. And it ends up that we get so much information we do more and get less done. But I'm just curious, do you see a demand in any of the fields included in your college that is really going to spring forward?

Dorine Bennett:

I think that the health information informatics area is really going to see some growth as far as because there are more and more places to get electronic health records, and we get more and more connected. And we have telehealth. And the documentation that goes with that, along with the ability for them to work anywhere with electronic health records, the geographic boundaries aren't going to be there. And so I think that's going to end interests a lot of students because they're going to be able to be married to a farmer in the middle of South Dakota and work for a health care facility in New York City. So I think this virtual work environment is going to attract, and health is going that way. Electronic health records are just making it possible. You still have to have your patient caregivers there. But the documentation can be anywhere, and the payment and the processing of the bills can be anywhere. And so I think that that geographic taking those borders away will be big. Also, health information, it's now a kind of health information outside the walls. It's not like a single department. They're working in information technology. They're working in the clinical decision support areas, as support people to the clinicians to understand the data or organize it not necessarily so much as to understand it, but know how to organize it and present it. And so, health informatics and information management, or project management specialization within Computer Information Systems, play a vital role. And I think as more and more projects are going on and more need to be managed, and we can't just companies aren't just wanting to fly by the seat of their pants anymore. They want to plan their projects. They need someone to organize them. So I think that and the business analytics specialization and computer information systems because, as you said, there's so much data, and how do you use it to make good decisions? And so I think the business analytics, just getting those predictive analytics and try to predict what's going to happen and then also the database realization how to make it do the dashboards and how to make it so that the people can read the information or understand it and see it in a form that makes sense to them. So I think those are a couple of areas that are really going to grow.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So what are your hopes or goals for the future of the College of Business and Information Systems?

Dorine Bennett:

Definitely to grow. We could always use more students within that. And I think that one of my hopes and goals will be to increase the awareness and understanding of the technology that's used within the programs that we offer and the fields that cyber is all-encompassing. I tell some, I told somebody, this is Cyberology podcast. So I can say cyber is an adjective for CYBER HEALTH, cybersecurity, and cyber business. So cyber is just using computers to do something. So I think one of my hopes and goals would be to make that well understood that cyber is just an adjective to describe a lot of different things that people are doing,

Jen Burris:

And it's all-encompassing for everything at DSU. Okay, well, anything else we haven't talked about today that you'd want to mention?

Dorine Bennett:

I can't think of anything right offhand.

Jen Burris:

Thank you so much for being our guest today during Thank you. Thank you to Max Allmon, our Podcast Producer, and thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today, our special guest is the Dean of the College of Education. Dr. David De Jong.

David De Jong:

Hi, it's good to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, David?

David De Jong:

I just started here in June, and I love it. So that's kind of a high level of summary. And before this, I was at the University of South Dakota for seven years. For five of those years, I was an assistant professor in school leadership. And then the last two, I was the chair of the division of Educational Leadership. Before that, I spent my entire life in Iowa, where I was a school principal and superintendent for eight years. And before that, I was a third-grade teacher and then a fourth-grade teacher, most of that and Pella, Iowa. And I grew up in northwest Iowa. So, I am only about an hour from Sioux Falls, which is where I grew up in a small Dutch community, which probably tells you a lot about me. If you know anything about those weird places, small towns, I came from a town of 2000 people where my dad owned a Hardware Hank, like a hardware store, and my mom baked cakes for most of the people in town for their celebrations.

Jen Burris:

It sounds like you have a long and storied past.

David De Jong:

Yeah, you owe each stage along the way. You know, he learned stuff. And you know, I'm kind of to the stage of life where I look back and appreciate, you know, my mom and dad teaching me to work hard and serve people. And it's been a fun journey. When are you able to focus on things like that?

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. And going back to the fact that you started out in elementary education, how has that informed your decision-making skills as you've progressed and advanced into more of a leadership role?

David De Jong:

Yeah, well, one thing I appreciate is, you know, the progression and education where, you know, a teacher, principal, superintendent, professor, and then a chair, and now a dean. It's kind of like a lockstep progression. And where I can learn stuff at each stage of the way, and I can appreciate, you know, still being able to have a job where I'm, you know, intensely focused on what are we doing for the students in our K 12? Schools? So that's, that's what I love. And I appreciate, you know, being able to do that on a pretty big scale here at Dakota State.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and why don't you tell us a little bit about the College of Education here at DSU?

David De Jong:

Yeah, great people. They work hard. And we have a bright future. I've enjoyed getting to know all the instructors and the faculty member on our team, I get one right here in the room, Gabe. I mean, who doesn't love working with Gabe, by the way? I could list a few with that.

And, you know, the people are just rock stars really, of who we work with, you know, we have programs, our biggest program is elementary education. The second biggest is elementary ed slash special education. And then, after that, we have a thriving exercise science program. And then we have smaller programs and PE and secondary education. We work with our friends in Arts and Sciences, like biology teachers, business teachers, computer ed teachers, English teachers, and math teachers at the high school level, which are in very high demand right now across South Dakota and the region.

Gabe Mydland:

I'm kind of interested in that high demand. How do you explain why there's such a vacancy, if you will, for people who want to go into education?

David De Jong:

That's a good question. You know, it's, as I think about the teacher shortage that's on TV a lot. What I've realized in just a few short months, it's a deeper, more complex challenge than I even anticipated. And part of the reason that I applied here is I want to do something about the teacher shortage, and this job certainly, you know, gives that opportunity, but, you know, going back to your question of, like, why is there a teacher shortage? It's a combination.

One of the roots of the issue is that fewer prospective teachers are being recruited into the profession. So normally, you would hear a teacher say, you know, my mom always thought that I would be a teacher, or you know that somebody saw that in me, like one of my favorite teachers said, hey, you'd make a good teacher. And that was in the Midwest, the number one recruiting mechanism or system that would get people interested in becoming teachers. What's happened is that parents are not encouraging their kids to become teachers. And even more disturbing, parents who are educators may not be encouraging their children to become teachers. So, I'm a realist, and I actually don't see that coming back anytime soon. So, you know, that makes a pretty big challenge when the number one way that people got interested in the career is now much different than it used to be.

The second reason is South Dakota is in the last couple of rankings on teacher pays salaries across all 50 states. And I think this generation is a little savvier, thinking like, Hey, am I going to come out of college with $50,000 in debt and then go and make $40,000 a year, you know when you do the simple math on that, that's a challenge, that if people, you know, are teetering back and forth, they may not go after that.

You know, the third major challenge that people have going into teacher education is, right now, education is like a political football that's being thrown around. And usually, when that happens, no matter what you agree with or disagree with, people that become damaging to the profession, on to people that are considering getting into education. So that trifecta is happening all at the same time right now, which is causing the teacher shortage. Now, there are other factors that are involved, but from my personal experience and what I've read in the literature, those are the primary three.

Now, on the other hand, I would argue that this is the best time in the history of the world to get into education and become a teacher. And here's why. I mean, we know now what works in education and what doesn't work. We know that today, at this moment, better than any time in history before us in knowing what works and what doesn't. That's exciting because teachers are finding new ways to engage students and get to know them. And right now, you know, a lot of the research studies out there are proving how important relationships are. And you know, it's one of the four. It's one of the pillars of what can change in this world. Education is so important in our society. And if you really feel in your heart that you want to make an impact through people, you know, I just love the opportunities that we have in front of us. So even though there are challenges, I think, also, you can turn that around and say, wow, like what, what a great time to get into it. You know, another thing is with the teacher shortage, some people can pick where they want to teach. So instead, like I literally did when I was applying for a job in Pella, there were 750 applicants for my job. They told me that after I got a job there, but no, there are fewer applicants that were going for jobs if I want to be in a certain location. So I would argue that's a great reason to jump in right now as well.

Jen Burris:

A lot of information

Gabe Mydland:

I liked the fact that you talked about them as challenges rather than barriers or obstacles. You know, this podcast talks a lot about technology, and it certainly changed the environment in the classroom. What do you see as challenges or opportunities regarding using technology in the classroom?

David De Jong:

Yeah. When I think about using technology, the number one overarching goal is how that can enhance learning. So, using technology just to use it? I would argue it'd be a mistake. But when you're intentional and deliberate about using it to help students learn better, then it becomes a powerful tool that engages students and, you know, takes learning to the next level. One of the big things that captured my eye was simulations and training teachers and leaders in education through simulations, which I think has incredible power. And I honestly believe that it's the future of how we train teachers and leaders moving forward. I’m proud to say that Dakota State's been on the leading edge of that with our VALE program. That's our Virtual Avatar Learning Environment. And it's a company called Immersion, where what happens is, you can stand in front of like a really big screen, and you have a live audience of students, like, let's say it's five or six students in your classroom. And then, while you're teaching a lesson, they will misbehave, or they will pull out their phone, or they will act like they're sleeping, and you have to address them as you talk back and forth with them. And what happens is, you know, we pay avatars people to, you know, to see you as the teacher, and talk back to you and create challenges where, in a safe learning environment, you can pick up some real-life experience in that program. So that's, Dakota state's been doing that for years. And it is impressive the work that they were doing, and the students have rave reviews about them.

Now, another simulation company is called School Sims, and I'm much more familiar with them. I started using them as a professor seven years ago. What they do is a narrator gives you three to five minutes of the context of who you are in the scenario. And then you come to a decision point. And at that decision point, like, most often, there are four choices of what you can choose. And then, based on your choice, it goes to another video, and it keeps playing itself out. You experience the consequences of your decision in a safe environment. So, I started using those, and I love them. And I've probably facilitated hundreds of simulations to 1000s of school leaders in all 50 states. In fact, in this company based in Pennsylvania, I had the privilege of training people how to use them. So about once a week, I jumped on Zoom, and I trained people all over the United States on how to facilitate these. And just this, in January, they started using teacher simulations. The last one that they created was a parent-teacher conference where you're a new teacher, and then a parent shows up at the end of the parent-teacher conference. And they're just mean to you. They're just right to your face. And no matter what you say, they're confrontational. And you must make choices on how to, you know, respond to that parent. And I think there's a lot of power in that type of learning because they create natural stopping points. So, if I was in front of 20 teachers, I would make people commit to their answer and have them talk about how they would respond to this angry parent. And then we could talk about it as the instructor saying, hey, you know, let's, let's talk about this decision point and the different options of how you can respond in this environment right now. And I'm excited about the future of that with technology, specifically simulations in our teacher prep program. So now that we're using School Sims and Immersion, we're actually tapping into the top two simulation companies in the world. And I'm assuming we're the only program in the Midwest that's actually using both forms. So, this is brand new, and it's awesome.

Jen Burris:

And that just kind of gives students an extra bit of basically classroom experience without the risk factor, right?

David De Jong:

Yes, there you're, giving them experiences in a safe environment.

Gabe Mydland:

And that certainly leads to enhance confidence and kind of drawing on that experience when you do encounter something that's similar about what worked and why and what doesn't work. And for what reasons? I think it sounds really exciting.

Jen Burris:

It definitely provides a lot of opportunities to kind of learn decision-making skills and reevaluate. Okay, if that didn't work, what would have been a better option? Absolutely. And the School Sims, you can actually go through a simulation multiple times. Is that right?

David De Jong:

Yeah, so I taught a class where I wanted to try it in an online asynchronous setting. And I was the first professor in the world to try that. So, I did it for seven straight spring semesters. And that's actually the research study that I'm, I'm 90% done with. I'm working with Dr. Sarah Dexter out of the University of Virginia. And what we did is we analyzed 826 responses in an online-only setting to a simulation. And we did a content analysis. And we quite literally proved that. Based on their responses, our students went through Kolb's experiential learning cycle, where they're thinking, acting reflecting. We’re giving them an experience when they're all by themselves. And it's a simulation that's repeatable. You can be doing it at one o'clock in the morning if you're, you know, a night owl. And I had people come onto my discussion boards when I was a professor, and they would say, I went through the simulation three or four times just to see what would happen. And that level of engagement, when we're working with time bankrupt, humans that are becoming teachers are becoming school leaders, if they're going through it, just to learn. I'm like, that's, that's why I love technology, and education is to see that level of engagement. Because if we're honest, we are competing with people's time; there's more to do than there ever has been in the history of the world as well. You know, I've seen some charts on the information share, as we can only take in or consume so much information. And to think that technology is allowing us to be a part of that and take a bigger piece of that pie with pre-service teachers is awesome to me. Awesome.

Gabe Mydland:

I think the contrast between the traditional way of learning of attending a lecture or reading a textbook reflecting on that, and then with what you're describing actually making decisions, seeing what the consequences could be because of those decisions, and learning that way from real direct experience. That's a sharp contrast.

David De Jong:

It is a sharp contrast. In fact, you know, I would say that that's one of Dakota State's strengths that was going on long before I arrived. We have a bunch of people that understand how valuable experiences are to the learning process and how to best meet the needs of people in South Dakota and throughout the region. So we were, we were the first teacher preparation program to have an online-only option. And when I arrived here, I said, hey, how's that going? Because we're the only one in the state doing this. And what the instructors and faculty told me is they said it's good. And it's especially good for people that are working in schools eight hours a day, such as paraprofessionals. And I thought to myself, like, hey, there's a niche there, like other states are really targeting paraprofessionals in their schools, and they're coming up with innovative pathways to earn their degree. I'm talking about people that are making $14 An hour and struggling to make ends meet, and how do you and they're, they're in the community. They're in the school. They're already in rural South Dakota. And just, you know, based on how I introduce myself, I said, I'm a rural boy, right, like, I've bailed hay, I've walked beans, like, I love the egg, nature of our state and society. I mean, I have the heart to serve those people and to help meet their needs. We created a paraprofessional-to-teacher pathway that is really raising awareness of our online program. And when we started doing that, we kind of got the attention of the Department of Education. Now I'm on a workgroup that's thinking about teacher apprenticeships and what that actually looks like in South Dakota. So other states are beating us right now. Mainly Tennessee. So, if I encourage anybody listening to this, do a Google search for a teacher apprenticeship program in Tennessee, and you'll come back, you'll be like, wow, what? They're actually in the field working eight hours a day. And we're figuring out which courses we can like infuse into their real experiences or teach them online, online or in the night or in the weekend. And we're helping those people get most, or all of their tuition paid for while they're working. And that's generating hundreds of more teachers in their state per year. So, you know, one of my visions is to learn from the other states what they are doing really well and uniquely that we can take to the state of South Dakota. So, I'm not sure what that would look like. I have a lot of listening and learning to do. But there's a real opportunity to be the first teacher preparation program in the state to figure out what a teacher apprenticeship model could look like. And then normalizing that pathway and getting more paraprofessionals in our school. Now they're coming out of school debt free. They're maybe coming out half a year or a year early into the workforce. They're still getting a 120-credit degree through us. I mean, the future that's why I say the future is bright because we're looking at new ways to be able to serve our state.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, and a true win-win situation when for the individuals who are already in the schools and know what it takes to be an instructor but don't have the credentials, and a win for the university with recognizing or meeting a need. And also lifting, if you will, the whole state.

Jen Burris:

You also factor in those built-in relationships that they already have in their community because they're there. And with students in the school, potentially.

David De Jong:

Not only that, Jen, but there's been a shift from the old way of thinking. If somebody wanted to become a teacher, they would be told, hey, go out into the real world, get experience for two or three years at another district, and then come back to us. And then we will try to fit you in and see if you come back home to us. What it started on the coasts, and now it's in the Midwest, grow your own models, where you're going to now see Starting this spring, you're going to see school districts that are higher doing this, what I'm talking about hiring their people to be paraprofessionals and encouraging them to get their degree through either, you know, a different way than what it's been like in the past. And they're trying to grow their own teachers and saying, Yeah, we have a job waiting for you in our district. So I want to be a part of that game that is being played out as we speak.

Jen Burris:

And I want to take it back into kind of our teacher prep classroom. And you mentioned earlier in the podcast that it's not about using any and all technology that you don't just throw it in there because it's tech. How are we preparing our students to test things out, try them out, and know that they don't have to use the latest and greatest but still be prepared to use updated tech?

David De Jong:

Well, I was curious about Dakota State because, you know, I've had people tell me for a long time saying, oh, David, you're like you're the most tech person we have in in the School of Education or something like that. I've been humbled coming to Dakota state. I'll give you one example with Nearpods. You know, I've seen how our faculty are using those to deliver content. And

Jen Burris:

can you explain a little bit about what Nearpod is?

Gabe Mydland:

I use Nearpod quite a bit. You can take your presentation, and you can put it into this program. And you can also insert, if you will, video content. You can insert what we'd call formative assessments along the way to check student understanding of new information that you're delivering to them. It's also something that the student can have access to them outside the classroom. They can download, they can take notes on the program, and revisit those things that may be a little fuzzy or that they're not completely confident in. It's a tremendous program in a lot of different ways.

David De Jong:

And so not only have I not used that before, but I had also never heard about it, you know, I mean, so Dakota State was doing things that I hadn't even I didn't even know existed before I arrived here. So I mean, I don't know how else to describe it other than our team is crushing it on using the best technology available to enhance the learning of our students because they already know that our goal is to model the way so that way they use that when they are going out and getting jobs and that type of rich environment That was fostered for many years in our College of Ed. That's probably why we have a 100% placement rate with the highest percentage of all the teacher preps in South Dakota of placing students in South Dakota. Right. I mean, people want our teachers, and everybody knows it. So, our people are in high demand. That's very impressive to me.

Gabe Mydland:

And I think too. It's part of the larger Dakota State culture that there are always change changes inevitable. And maybe I've said this before, but you know, people spend a lot of time mastering certain kinds of skills and techniques. And so, change is not something that anybody really looks forward to. They approach having to do something just a little differently with a little bit of resistance. And that's true here at DSU. But the difference here at DSU, I think that David's speaking to is that we know that it's inevitable, we're going to try it, we're going to give it a really good test. And if it's usable, if it adds to what we're doing, we're going to adopt it, but if we find it doesn't really add anything, or it doesn't really make any kind of a difference. We're going to set it aside. And that's a big reason why I'm proud to be here. It is that, no, we don't like change any better than anyone else. But we embrace it, and we recognize it. It's inevitable. There are a lot of opportunities for us with this technology. Tell me a little bit more about the Sims. Are there several different kinds of situations are there? Is it finite? Or how does that work?

David De Jong:

Yeah, so right now, there are about 40 simulations in the library. Started out as principal-focused simulations where you're the principal in the scenario. And then there was demand. So, they expanded the library to include superintendents and then counselors. And then finally, in January, teachers, and so when this position came open at Dakota State, I'm like, and I've been using these simulations, that company is going to be going in all in on teacher simulations. And I knew that, and I was like, this is a perfect time to bring that two Dakota State. I'm excited about the conversations that they're going to foster among our students. You know, for example, let me get my calendar out here one week from today. On the 21st, I will be leading simulations with our level three students. Our level three students, what that means is they're getting close to becoming a student teachers. And when they're coming back for a day, from their field experience that's happening, I have the opportunity to lead a couple of simulations with them. I'm excited to let you know. Bring it, and see where it goes.

Jen Burris:

Have you done a lot of in-person simulations where you get to kind of interact with when you're training people?

David De Jong:

Yep. So, I've done a lot of them in person. And I've done a lot of them via zoom. And I've done them a lot of them online, asynchronous. So just to give you a little scope, I've trained over 200 universities or K-12 schools on how to use them. So, you know, lately, I trained the University of Virginia, I trained Washington, DC public schools, San Diego Public Schools, Long Beach Public Schools, like lots of the bigger K-12 schools, so I get to meet with their leadership development team. And I'll usually meet with them via zoom. It was getting tired of flying around the country and training them. I figured out how to use them via zoom, and then three months later, COVID hit, so Oh, so we were already using them via zoom when COVID hit, and then what happened was the people were looking for, you know, internships, they couldn't go to school for an internship because school was all online during COVID. So, all these people I helped, I helped use simulations as part of their internship and practicum experiences. And the company, you know, it became a tidal wave of people wanting to use them. And I'm, I get to be the person that trains people how to use them.

Jen Burris:

And can you give a couple of examples of, like, what kind of potential issues are presented In the simulations?

David De Jong:

Yeah, so you can go to school sims.com And scroll down and see the library, but it's in teacher preparation. The simulations include, you know, a real-life, our real experience with dealing with angry parents in a parent-teacher conference setting. They include another one about, there's a book a questionable bull book that's in the teacher’s library, and you have to talk to people about that book. There are ones where you're working on a collaborative team. In education, we call those professional learning communities or PLCs. And this one crabby lady just goes off the rails, and you must decide how to work with her. You know, everything from you gets into trickier ones, with race, that is a simulation, talking about creating an equitable budget to serve all the students in your school district managing like different populations moving to town and how that shifts the dynamics of like your school set up and, you know, do you move from having a bunch of K six schools to, you know, now just 1k Three, school and then one, four through sixth-grade level school. So that way, you know, parents aren't moving to one side of town to be at the nice school, right? You know, real issues that teachers and principals face. And the simulations that are used the most are the ones that deal with interpersonal conflict. One time I trained the University USC communications department about how to use the simulations because they were going to do, they were going to analyze it with their communication students. It's not only for educators. They can be used however you want.

Jen Burris:

wide breadth?

David De Jong:

A wide breadth and getting wider.

Gabe Mydland:

You talked about more simulations for the classroom teacher. What are the next things that are in the works for this Sims company? Do you have any ideas?

David De Jong:

Yeah, so I would say that my best guess is 90% of their clients, our leadership preparation programs, where only 10% are teacher preparation programs. They already have a leg into all, like universities, like schools of education, you might say. And so, what's going to happen, I predict very quickly as all these teacher prep programs are going to be, like, hey, our Ed Leadership, friends are using these, we need to use these as well. The second big wave that I see happening right now is there are states that are choosing to lower the standards of what it takes to become a teacher. For example, in Arizona, if you're a veteran, you can now be a teacher. You can teach third grade right away. So, what that creates, is, that creates a scenario where you're putting somebody that may not have as much training as somebody else. And if the school district can now use simulations to simulate some experiences and provide their own professional development to the people that are teaching these classes. I think that's why I believe, you know, simulations are the way of the future, to be honest with real-life instructors, facilitating them.

Jen Burris:

What do you see for the future of the College of Education here at DSU?

David De Jong:

Keep working hard, and keep following open doors. I mean, our vision is to become the best college of education in the Midwest. So, we're going after it, and we have all the right people on the bus. Now. We just need to keep moving things forward.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Well, thank you so much for being a guest today, David.

David De Jong:

Thanks for the invitation. Happy to come back whenever I'm invited again.

Jen Burris:

Thank you, Gabe, for cohosting today.

Gabe Mydland:

Thank you for having me.

Jen Burris:

Thank you to our podcast producers, Hanna Rowe and Max Allmon. And thank you for listening.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Jena Martin:

I'm Jena Martin.

Jen Burris:

And today we have a special guest with us Dean David Kenley of the College of Arts and Sciences. David, would you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

David Kenley:

Sure. Thanks for having me on. It's great to be here. As you pointed out, I'm the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences here at Dakota State and I have been here, I'm in my third year. Prior to that, I was at Elizabethtown college outside of Philadelphia, and my disciplinary background is Chinese history. And so, I have really loved working with my colleagues and faculty here at Dakota State because they keep me on my toes each and every day.

Jena Martin:

I’ve got to hop in here quick. Can you speak Chinese?

David Kenley:

I can. Yeah.

Jena Martin:

Tell us good morning in Chinese.

David Kenley:

Zaoshang hao.

Jena:

 Okay. (laughter.) I'm going to have you start reading my fortune cookies for me then, because the backside of them are all in Chinese. I’ve got an in.

David Kenley:

Give me a call. Sometimes it's a little bit like a parlor trick, but I'm happy to pull it out whenever I can.

Jena Martin:

The beauty of it is I never know if you're right or not (laughter). Sorry. Go ahead, Jen.

Jen Burris:

So why don't you tell us a little bit about the College of Arts and Sciences here at Dakota State?

David Kenley:

Sure. College of Arts and Sciences is the heart and soul of Dakota State University. Obviously, we have a unique mission in terms of cyber-related education. But all students, regardless of their major, all of them end up taking classes in the College of Arts and Sciences, we provide the bulk of the general education. We represent the disciplines that are historically and traditionally seen as the heart and soul of any university experience. So, we are thrilled to support the university in its larger mission of cyber education. But we also feel like we have an important and irreplaceable role to play in the lives of our students.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So, in regard to that, what's it like to get to kind of see the faces of all the students on campus?

David Kenley:

Yeah, it's wonderful. I wish I could say I got to know each and every student as the dean, I don't teach. So sometimes the students I meet, or the students are in need of assistance. Yeah, let's say it that way. But the faculty get to know their students. That's one of the advantages. Obviously, of Dakota state universities, we have small class sizes, caring faculty, they go out of their way to not just know their students’ names, but to understand their individual strengths, their career plans, their interests, and can help them develop and become the best version of themselves that they can be.

Jena Martin:

They're wonderful mentors to have.

David Kenley:

I could go through and name some of our outstanding faculty, but I wouldn't, I would leave some out, and I'd regret doing so. So..

Jena Martin:

And you’d be picking favorites, right?

David Kenley:

That's right. That's right.

Jen Burris:

And Jena, you're a college of arts and sciences grad, right?

Jena Martin:

Yeah, yep. I did graduate from the College of Arts and Science in 2005. And it was a wonderful experience, you know, that every single professor you came across felt like a friend and not like a professor, they're all willing to help. And, you know, even then, we had the, you know, one thing that I love telling people is Arts and Sciences doesn't only focus on the technology, end of things is really good at covering the things of how, how you used to do it. So, you know, I went for graphic design, and we developed stuff in a dark room, you know, that's a great experience for people to have that normally wouldn't have that opportunity. Now I'm sure these kids are like, what is this belongs in a museum somewhere? Well, not really. It wasn't that long ago that that's how we used to produce pictures types of....

David Kenley:

And that's a great example of how we blend the traditional perspectives of arts and sciences with current technology. So, for example, we do have a graphic arts program. And the students start out taking things like painting and figure drawing, and 3D design, and then they will take classes in dark room development. But all of these provide the foundational skills they will need when they eventually get into digital photography and image editing. And you know, they're using All the highest, all the high-tech bells and whistles that you can think of. I invite you to come over to our graphic arts laboratory to see what we do there. But you're right. We want to make sure that all students have a solid foundation so that they can fully exploit the advantages of advanced technology.

Jen Burris:

And you talked a little bit about these different backgrounds. How do you then kind of integrate the technology into that after you've helped them develop that foundation?

David Kenley:

Yeah, that's a great question. Back to the example of graphic arts, we do not have a traditional Fine Arts program. That's not really who we are as Dakota state. But we do have graphic arts. We do have digital sound design, we do have production animation. The very resources we're using right here and the staff that's helping us produce this podcast are students of arts and sciences that know how to use these technologies to their fullest potential. I don't think I answered your question, though. Jen, ask it again. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

Sure. So how do you start to integrate that technology after you've built those foundations? How does technology fall into the world of arts and sciences?

David Kenley:

That's great. All our disciplines are very technology infused. Even in our foundation classes, our first- and second-year level classes, we expect teachers and professors to use technology in their classrooms and with their students in their projects. I'd give you an example, for example, from biology. We have a fairly traditional biology program here, but I would invite anyone to come to take a look at our labs and see the high-tech equipment that we are using for a school of Dakota State size. It's quite remarkable. We're able to do CRISPR gene splicing here at Dakota State. I mean, it's just amazing what our faculty can do. And every discipline has technology infused into it.

Jen Burris:

and you mentioned biology specifically. Can you talk a little bit about the fact that our undergraduate students get to utilize this technology?

David Kenley:

Yeah, in the arts and sciences, we don't have any graduate programs. So, everything we do is for the undergraduates, back to the biology example. Dr. Sathoff has been doing some advanced research on he's a plant pathologist, and he's been doing some advanced research on Route rot in, in alfalfa. All his students are engaged in that research. They're engaged in using the technology to gather data to evaluate that data, and then to share their findings with the larger world. Several of his students have co-authored papers with him. And that is a unique opportunity for an undergraduate student. It's typically not until graduate school that you get those types of opportunities to co-author published research,

Jena Martin:

Because I think they have a lot of field experience too, don't they? Do they pair up with Mustang seeds and several others?

David Kenley:

They do. They spend their summers out digging up alfalfa all around South Dakota.

Jena Martin:

That’s an amazing experience for those kids to have, though.

David Kenley:

I think the next step we need to; we're doing a search right now to hire a geographer who can teach geospatial analysis. And I see that as integrating into many of these disciplines, for example, biology and taking samples of alfalfa from around the state if you could integrate geospatial analysis in that would open additional windows. So, we're always looking for new ways to bring technology into the classroom and help our students be prepared to utilize it in a competitive workplace.

Jena Martin:

Because I think they I can't remember which group it was with arts and sciences, but didn't they just do an extracting DNA exhibit at the library? I think it was at the public library.

David Kenley:

That's right, yeah.

Jena Martin:

I couldn't make it but it seemed interesting.

David Kenley:

That was our students. That was not our faculty, our students that are on their student. Yep.

Jena Martin:

Oh, wow.

Jen Burris:

It was the TriBeta Club.

David Kenley:

Yeah, the TriBeta club, went to the library and St. Thomas's Elementary School and showed the students how to do DNA analysis.

Jen Burris:

I actually went to that event and took some photos.

Jena Martin:

Did they test you? Did they test your DNA?

Jen Burris:

Luckily, I had a camera in front of me the whole time. So, I got to be the spectator. You've talked a little bit about the sciences, a little bit about the arts. How do science and art kind of converge?

David Kenley:

That's a great question. A very good question. I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, we had one of our, again, a biologist and one of our sound design faculty, work together to create a learning project for their students where they were recording and cataloging, and analyzing bird calls from throughout South Dakota. So obviously, our sound design students needed to be engaged and participating, because they have the equipment to record these birds. And this is a high-tech process. They're not just standing out in the field with an iPhone held up there. (laughter)

They're, they're setting up microphones that are left on a site for days and hours at a time. And that can continually record sounds, and then they're listening to hours and hours of bird sounds. And sometimes you can't even decide that is a bird. Or is that something else? And so, would they have to enhance the audio and develop the process? And then, ultimately, you've got to rely on the collaboration of your biology students to help you identify what is this bird sound. And where does it fit in? And what does it tell us about the larger ecosystems of South Dakota? What does it tell us about changing migratory patterns among birds? So yeah, there are all kinds of opportunities for this type of collaboration between the humanities, the traditional fine arts, sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, humanities, I said, humanities, that's okay. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

So, you mentioned a couple of projects now. But are there any like favorite things that you've seen come out of Arts and Sciences in your time here so far?

David Kenley:

Well, again, you're asking me…

Jen Burris:

A loaded question?

David Kenley:

To pick my favorites. And that's not fair. So, I'll share an example with you from something very recent. Last week, we had a kind of one-day event to showcase and highlight some of the work that our game design students are doing. And we invite potential students to come in and play the games our students have developed. And I spent the morning with our game design students, who are infectious. (laugher) They love what they're doing. They're passionate about what they're doing. And you can't help but be excited to see their enthusiasm towards their discipline. And game design is a wonderful example of how we're preparing students for future career opportunities. Game Design represents a significant segment of our national economy. It dwarfs Hollywood. For example, the game design industry is much larger than Hollywood. But it's about more than just developing games, right? Maybe a month ago, I met with a job recruiter from Caterpillar that makes those large construction equipment machines. And they said we need to hire some of your game design people. I said, huh, that's interesting. What would you do with our game design people? And he said when we want to sell our products, when we want to train people how to operate our products when we want to train our mechanics, how to take apart and repair our products. All of that is done virtually, with, like, Oculus headsets. Because these are, you know, these are multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment, we can't just afford to take them offline to perform these training functions. So, we hire game design people to help us gamify the whole process of selling, using, and repairing our equipment. Same thing with doctors, and pilots. There are all kinds of opportunities for our game design students to do some meaningful stuff upon graduating.

Jena Martin:

I am so glad you shared that with us. Because I'm sitting here just thinking of a game. And then you took me outside of my box and showed me something more. So that's, that's awesome.

Jen Burris:

And would you say that a lot of the arts and sciences majors are interdisciplinary, then?

David Kenley:

Yeah, they all are very interdisciplinary. I think that's, that's kind of the nature of the arts and sciences is that it forces us to look at large societal problems and bring a variety of perspectives to bear to solve those anthropogenic global warming. Warming is one example. I mean, we know that the temperatures are rising. How do we solve that? That has not only biological biology aspects, but environmental science aspects, economics, politics, and social relations. We must look at some of these very complex problems from multiple perspectives. And that's where the arts and sciences really, really shine. I think we're not training somebody for a very narrow, specific job. We're training them to apply those skills to Big Hairy problems.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And so, what do you enjoy about being the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences?

David Kenley:

There's a lot I enjoy. The thing that I enjoy the most is associating with our faculty. I am, as I mentioned, I'm a China historian. And whenever I'm with a group of historians or China experts, there's a lot of pressure to seem smart, right? (laughter) There's a lot of pressure to be the best at what you do. When you're Dean. I'm working with artists, social scientists, humanists, natural scientists, and mathematicians, I don't have to be the smartest person in the room. Instead, I get to sit back and learn about the amazing things they're doing and be a cheerleader for them. really highlight the good work they're doing. And I love associating with some very talented, diverse individuals, and helping others appreciate all the great things our faculty are doing.

Jen Burris:

So, I'm going to take it back a little bit to earlier. You mentioned all the students and how everyone gets a foundation in Arts and Sciences, no matter their major. Why is that so important? Why do they need this well-rounded experience? Regardless of whether they go into business or science, or math?

David Kenley:

That's a very good question. And fundamentally, the answer to that is, what is the difference between a technical college and a university, right? They have other options if we were here, just providing them with technical skills. But if we want them to be able to use those technical skills in a wide variety of contexts, to address some very large intractable problems, they need a foundation in the arts and sciences, where we challenge them to think critically, to analyze information from a variety of sources, to compose a cogent argument, persuasive argument, and then to share that argument with a larger audience in ways that help people move forward. If you're a computer scientist, you will work in an environment with people from all over the world. You're going to be working with people from South Asia, from East Asia, Europe, from Latin America. You must have a broad view of the world to get along with your workmates. But then you also have to address real-world problems, right? You don't get hired just to write code. You get hired to write code that accomplishes something that solves a problem, creates efficiencies, and delivers a product. And when you look at that big picture, then, of course, Economics, Psychology, Social Sciences, user design, and the art of user design, all that get brought into the equation. Great question.

Jen Burris:

Well, I know Jenna has some questions percolating in there.

Jena Martin:

I might have a couple. I'm curious to see. Okay, post-graduation. Where are some of your graduates going? Have? Has anybody worked for Disney? Has anybody worked for huge corporations? You'd mentioned caterpillar? So, fill us in on some of those things. When students are leaving here, where are they going? What are they doing?

David Kenley:

Well, the good news is that we do place our students. We have very high placement rates. I'll give you a couple of examples. We have, for example, a cyber leadership and intelligence program, which again, incorporates both technologies, as well as the social sciences. Students are going from that position to work for the military, for government agencies, and for private practices. They're going all over. They're going places like Alabama, North Virginia, and Minnesota, but a lot of them have opportunities to stay here locally too if they choose to do so. For example, we have a production animation program where students are introduced to 2D and 3D animation. They get to choose to specialize in one or the other. They have the opportunity to work for big animation houses like Disney and California. But those skills can also be applied in other ways. Some of them want to work with local marketing agencies. For instance, the big agency in Sioux Falls,

Jen Burris:

Lawrence and Schiller?

David Kenley:

Lawrence and Schiller. You know, they're looking for people who can do graphic design, and I'm video videography and things like that. So, the options are pretty wide open. Another great example is game design. People think about game design and don't know what it entails. But to be to develop a game design, you've got to be good at coding. You've got to be good at art, to be able to draw and create characters, you've got to be a good storyteller, to create a narrative structure with, with climax and characters and you know, denouement, all those things that we think of associated with English literature. And our game design, students must be good at all three of those. So, they develop a set of skills that can be applied in a wide variety of disciplines.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. And speaking of game design, our students are posting complete games up on a website called STEAM, correct?

David Kenley:

Correct. And they get to download those games, and some of those games, there's a charge for them. Not a big charge, maybe $3, $4, or $5. But our students were last year. I think they are up to four or 5000 downloads right now. So, you might want to check me on those numbers. But my point is it may not sound like a lot of money, but it adds up. And our students are getting opportunities to do those things.

Jena Martin:

That's amazing.

Jen Burris:

Do you think that it's a unique aspect of particularly the game design program to be able to put out a finished product while you're still in school?

David Kenley:

That is one of the advantages of our game design program, no doubt. But I would suggest that our other programs provide opportunities for students to share their work with the larger community. I've already mentioned, our biology students are publishing in peer-reviewed journals,

Jen Burris:

Which is a huge deal.

David Kenley:

Which is a huge deal. Our graphic arts students right now are working with the community center here in Madison. They're doing a refurbishing, I guess is the word you'd use to, to the entire complex. And they want to change a lot of the graphic signage and the visuals that you experience when you enter the community center

Jena Martin:

to help encourage me to work out more that's going on? (laughter)

David Kenley:

And our students were involved in that.

Jen Burris:

We could all use a little help with that, Jena. (laughter)

David Kenley:

The work they're doing will be seen by the two of you and hundreds of other people for years to come.

Jen Burris:

That's very exciting. So, what would people be surprised to know?

David Kenley:

There are a lot of surprising things. And I, maybe I've tipped my hand on some of them; I think they'd be surprised to know that we have such a wide variety of disciplines, from Digital Arts and Design, graphics, mathematics, game design, biology, I've mentioned several of these already, we have a lot of diversity, I think people would also be surprised to know that we're the second largest college on campus, we have, I think we have about the same number of faculty as Beacom does, we teach as many credit hours probably close to what Beacom does. So, we play a large role. We're an important part of what goes on here. There are all kinds of surprises. We got some cool telescopes you can come out of, and we have some amazing computer labs that you should take a look at if you want to. Lots of surprises.

Jena Martin:

I think people are surprised how hands-on arts and sciences are, you know; it's what you think of going to take to a lecture or something. And I'm going to sit with a book and not enjoy this for the next hour. And that is the opposite of what happens in most of those classes. You know, you have your book to reference but a lot of these teachers or, excuse me, professors, they let you run wild, they let you be as creative as you want to be, and then see what comes out of that. But then they help guide you along the way which everybody appreciates.

David Kenley:

Yeah. I mean, in our graphic arts program, for example, you think of somebody sitting behind an easel or maybe sitting at a computer pod. No, we are doing drone photography. You can earn your drone, your drone pilot license. I'm trying to remember exactly what it's called not a commercial license, but a drone private pilot license. In our computer graphics program. We're going to introduce you to all kinds of ideas and skills that you wouldn't expect hands-on, you mentioned hands-on activities. If you're in the chemistry lab, you're going to be dealing with

Jena Martin:

Starting fires. (laughter)

David Kenley:

starting control fires. If you're the biology lab, you're going to be in the greenhouse. You know be behind the microscope, lots of hands-on activity stuff.

Jen Burris:

And in speaking to kind of that creativity, how does that How is that so important to the overall scope of life and how it kind of infiltrate into everything we do, because even in sciences, you don't necessarily think of science as a creative field, but there is a lot of creativity in it.

David Kenley:

That's an excellent question. What's the role of creativity in the human experience? I think it's fundamentally what you're asking. Think about how you spend your leisure hours. Think about what you do after work. A lot of it involves games, television, books, movies, apps, art, art, creative design, user experience, storytelling, and even the TV channels you watch. I mean, how many of us spend time watching Science Channel, maybe it's not the most popular channel. But I think the arts and sciences were good at creativity and storytelling and creating compelling stories that people want to hear about. That's how we spend our leisure time. Creativity is an important part of the human experience. And it brings us joy and satisfaction, both in our jobs, but beyond our jobs as well.

Jen Burris:

So, what have we missed? (laughter)

David Kenley:

Well, I have a whole list of our faculty here and our majors here. And I'd love to talk about all of them in great detail. But probably the best thing to do is if you're in southeast South Dakota, if you're coming through the area, stop by, have a chat with our faculty, have a chat with our students, and come see our labs. We welcome you on campus. We want to be good community players, we want to serve, not just our students here at Dakota State, but we want to serve the Madison community, southeast South Dakota, and ultimately, the entire world. Okay, one thing I should mention is that the honors college or the honors program is housed and administered almost entirely in arts and sciences. So, if you're one of the best and brightest students and really want to challenge yourself, you'll have the opportunity to participate in our Honors Program, which includes advanced, challenging versions of all the classes you would otherwise be taking. Come participate with our Honors Program. Take a look at it

Jen Burris:

Sounds intimidating.

Jena Martin:

I won't be there. (laughter)

David Kenley:

No, no, no, no. It's a great way to enhance your educational opportunity.

Jen Burris:

And what are some of the benefits for students that go through that honors program through the Honors Program?

David Kenley:

it's transcripted on your graduation diploma, so it shows to potential employers that this is someone who not only completed a degree but went the extra mile, somebody who wanted to enhance their degree beyond just the bare requirements. Yeah. The other advantages are you get to take classes with some of our we have all great professors. But some are even spectacularly great, right? And those are the ones that teach the honors classes. And the honors classes are typically even. They're smaller, they're even more discussion based. They're even more hands-on, you get to do co-curricular activities. You get to live in the honors housing and the dorms here on campus, there are a lot of advantages to being in the Honors Program.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Okay. Well, if you don't have anything else, we'll wrap it up.

David Kenley:

Well, just thank you for inviting me here. It's been great to be here. I love talking about the wonderful things we're doing in the arts and sciences; I firmly believe that we represent the heart and the soul of what we're doing here at Dakota State. And all our students, regardless of their major, are going to be better citizens, better employers, and better neighbors, because of their exposure to the courses in arts and sciences. So, thank you for having me. Thank you for recognizing us.

Jena Martin:

I have one last question. Sure. Is Beadle Hall really haunted?

David Kenley:

Beadle Hall is really haunted, (laughter) but only between midnight and 4 am during the month of October, so come by. It's safe every other time. Thank you for having me.

Jen Burris:

Yes. Thank you for being our guest. We definitely learned a lot. I know. I feel like I keep pretty up to date about things going on in your area, but I still learn some new stuff.

David Kenley:

Good. And there's a lot more to learn.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. Never-ending.

Okay, well, thank you for listening. Thank you to Our Podcast Producer, Max Allmon. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Jena Martin:

Good morning. And I'm Jena Martin.

Jen Burris:

And today, we're really excited to have a returning guest on the podcast, Dr. Ashley Podhradsky.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Good morning.

Jen Burris:

Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, and refresh our listeners' memories?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Well, yes, absolutely. Thank you. I am Ashley Podhradsky. I am the Vice President of Research and Economic Development at Dakota State University and spent 12 years as faculty in the Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences. And right now, I get to help all of our faculty and staff work on their research.

Jen Burris:

That's very exciting.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the work you've been doing recently?

Ashley Podhradsky:

One of the big things we have going on is a new award through the Small Business Administration. Last February, they came out with a request for proposals. They had seen a big uptick in the number of cyberattacks, targeting small businesses across our country. And there's a really alarming statistic that of all of the small businesses that are hit with a cyber-attack, 60% fail and go out of business within six months of a cyber-attack. And so, when you look at small businesses, they are the heart of our economy. And here in South Dakota, we have over 90,000 small businesses. And you know, they drive our communities, they support all the activities. And if they're hit with a cyber-attack, they shouldn't have to go out of business because they can't respond better. And it's something that we want to do to help them respond to cyber-attacks. So, the RFP came out, and they would support three awards throughout our country. And so, every state in district and region was able to submit a proposal. So, there are 55 proposals submitted, and South Dakota was one of the three that were selected as a recipient.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. And how long did it take you to apply for that and go through that process?

Ashley Podhradsky:

We did it very quick. Our local SBA district sent us a proposal, and they said, You guys need to take a look at this, but it's due in two weeks. And so, going through that process very quickly, we needed to write a response and then get the approval. Dakota State University had to be designated as the sole South Dakota entity that could apply for the award. So, our President worked her political magic to get Dakota State designated as the institution with our governor. And then, we built our partnerships and submitted the proposal. So, it all happened very fast.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so how did it feel when you found out that DSU was selected for this?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, I was actually traveling for work. And I received an email from the SBA that they wanted to have a phone call. So, I was hoping that this was good news. I've been rejected from enough proposals. So now that you don't get a phone call when they want to find you, they told us that we were selected and that we would get the official notice the next week. And I was just. I was very thankful because I was out in Rapid City and presenting at a cybersecurity event. And knowing that all the people in small businesses in that room, we're going to be able to have some resources to help them with cyber-attacks. That was something that just made me incredibly excited. South Dakota is a great place to live and raise our families. And we know that we have a lot going for us in this state. But you know, to be able to do something to give back in this way feels pretty good.

Jena Martin:

If I'm a small business owner, then how do I contact you guys to get help if I need help with something like this?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Great question. So, we have set up a website and an email address. So, you can go to www.dsu.edu/SBAcyber, Small Business Administration cyber, so SBA, cyber, and from there, we have a form that you can fill out where you can request different parts of our program. So, the first part of our program is offensive-based security. So, they can request to have a penetration test or both. ability scanned risk assessment and done against their assets. So that way we can tell them where some of the vulnerabilities are and the type of risk that their technology brings into their organization. And so, they can truly understand the level of risk that they have.

Jen Burris:

Very interesting. And do you have steps for them after you've shown them potential risks that they can implement?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, absolutely. It truly is a comprehensive program. The first part of it is offensive security. We have a lot of very talented research engineers in the applied research lab. And they are the ones that are conducting this along with bringing students in so that way. They can understand the process that they take, you know, that's also why students here get good jobs after school because they have this applied experience. So, they're working directly with full-time professionals, though. The first part is understanding the vulnerabilities and where your risk lies. We're also working on the risk assessment piece with CISA, the cybersecurity infrastructure security agency. So, we have partners. Then the next part about is looking at the intelligence behind your website and the top people in your organization. So, when you have your domain, you know, www.my business.com, you will have email addresses and other things associated with that. And we're going to take a look at your domain on the dark web, and surface web and see what people are posting about it. So perhaps you have people's accounts that have been compromised, and their passwords are posted up on a dark web bin, or someone is selling information about your business out there as well. And that's what we can get from the intelligence piece. We're working with the South Dakota fusion center on that Intel piece. We've had a long relationship with them and have been partners and are working with them through our DigForCE lab. This program supports the relationship that we've had for quite some time. And then, from there, we can help with remediation. And so, this is the part that gets really exciting is that when we have a program, you know, we've been doing security assessments for cities and counties, we've been doing those kinds of things. But we can only tell them where the risk lies. We can't do anything about it. We tell them to work with your managed security provider, managed service provider, go work with this, and, you know, tell them X, Y, and Z. But now we can help pay for that, which is really incredible. We have this is a million-dollar grant. And we put a couple of $100,000 in there for remediation. And we can help support the remediation activities for the small business to get them up where they need to be. And so that's pretty exciting.

Jen Burris:

Amazing. So, this is just getting started. Is that correct?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah. We kicked off on August 31. And it takes some time to get your website live, and then also get your team together. I think one thing that sets our proposal apart from other states is that what we're doing is already operational. It's not aspirational. But it still takes a while to get those formal agreements. And when you're conducting offensive security against businesses and domains you don't own, you need legal permission. So, we also had to get our legal documents from our board office. And making sure that we could do the types of activities that are in this program. But if you like start to finish, they can all have to come in through the website. We also have SBAcyber@dsu.edu, where they can email us and communicate with us there. They can select our different services, offensive security, cyber intelligence, and risk assessments. But one part I didn't mention before, it's very important. It's social engineering. And so, if you think about how most businesses are compromised, it's through social engineering and email. And we put out a request for a proposal for a vendor to provide social engineering services for us. And so, SBS Cybersecurity was selected as that vendor. And so, SBS Cybersecurity will be working with the businesses on a know-before package to test their employees on security awareness.

Jen Burris:

Oh, wow. Yeah. So, do you know anything about their plans and entails?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, so once the organization decides the different things they would like, we work with our partners to provide those services. We already have 25 businesses that have applied to be part of this program, which is awesome. So, we're just getting started, but we're helping many businesses with hundreds of employees across South Dakota. And we still have 10 months to go, which is the exciting part. From there, yes, a business will work directly with SBS cybersecurity, once we make that introduction, and they will enroll them into their know-before tool, and it's a service where they can send out phishing emails to their employees. A lot of businesses have it, but you know, a lot don't. And most of cyber-attacks are kicked off by someone clicking on a link or downloading a file initiated through email. And so being able to help provide training around that area and security awareness through the most popular metric that's used to compromise an environment that's appointed that so we're able to help them understand how communication can be compromised in that regard. But, you know, the thing for people to remember is, it's not just the email, it's if you have a social media account, you have people send in chat messages through Instagram, or Facebook, you know, clicking on those things can have the same implications as well. So, you know, making sure that people are aware of the fundamental risk that you have from accessing information that you don't know what it is, and then from there, how to mitigate it.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. And so, how do you see this kind of progressing throughout the year?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah. Well, a lot more business, support, and help for small businesses. We started doing this for the cities and counties through a grant through Jody Gillespie of consumer protection in the Attorney General's Office. And three years later, we've conducted security assessments for almost all the cities and counties in South Dakota, and municipalities and districts, which is great. And so that program, we had an 18-month backlog at one point. And so, I anticipate that that's going to be the same for this is that, you know, as we go around the state and do training on security awareness, and then share the resources that we have, every time we do something, we see an influx of people. So, you know, we will have marketing and awareness of this program throughout the 12 months. And then right now, we're already doing all the security assessments and performing the other aspects of the program there.

Jena Martin:

I have to ask, well, what is your definition of a small business? Is it based on number of employees? Is it based on whether you have an IT department or don't have an IT department?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, great question. The US Small Business Administration defines small businesses as businesses under 500 employees. So, most of what we have in South Dakota qualifies based on that. We're able to help a lot of businesses in that regard.

Jena Martin:

Very interesting. Yeah. In my head, I'm sitting over here thinking like, oh, five?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Well, that's what people think. Right? You think of a small business. It's the store down the street. Yes, that's true. But it's also under 50 million in revenue. And so that's a lot as well. But yeah, I mean, most of the businesses in our country are small businesses, according to our definitions. And so, we can help many organizations and visit many businesses with their cyber needs.

Jena Martin:

Do you think you'd ever be able to expand this to other states?

Ashley Podhradsky:

That's the hope. So, it's a pilot program. They picked three proposals that they felt were strong. And the idea would be to expand it out across the country in the years coming. Yeah, we just have to do well. And then we should be able to continue going. But, you know, with any pilot program, you go in with no expectation of continuation. And from there,

Jena Martin:

it's hustle and hope for the best.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, yeah. And that's what we've done here at DSU. We have such talented faculty and staff that can look at our existing strengths and apply it to this program, and write a proposal very quickly because it's already happening. You know, that's a good place to be.

Jen Burris:

So, you mentioned earlier that this ties into the city and county work you've done in the past. Can you talk a little bit about how this is building out to help even more people then?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, absolutely. So, project boundary fence is the project that's helping cities and counties throughout the state. And we have been conducting digital forensic investigations and cyber scam investigations analysis work for the last five years through our digital forensics lab. Dr. Erica Kulm is the director of that lab, and she handles over 600 pieces of evidence every year. Which is amazing, and she does everything from evidence to take courtroom testimony. So, while we're doing all of these after-incident investigations and analysis, our prime sponsor, the Attorney General's Office of consumer protection, said, is there anything we can do to help make less need for your efforts? And so that gets to the preventative work. So, he said, Yeah, we could work on a program to, do security awareness, and assess the current security levels of cities and counties or South Dakota. And they said, Okay, well, let's try that. So, we did a two-year program. And at the end of that two years, they said, hey, this is working really well. Here are another three years that continued this work. So, Austin Fritzemeier is our pen tester. And he has students that support him. He's working with faculty as well. Andrew Kramer, and Dr. Tyler Flaagan. They're working on performing those security assessments. It's built on that foundation. And it's great because we're able to show cities and counties some of their weaknesses. But unlike that program, this new program, we can actually help them. And so, when you're doing a program like this, you don't ever want to have the people telling you where your security vulnerabilities are, be the people who also provide the solution to fix them. So that's why we put remediation dollars in there. We wanted them, to be able to work with the people that they have been working with, that they're managed security providers, or managed service providers to conduct remediation for those activities.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And you also, this isn't the only interaction or partnership that you've had with the Small Business Administration. Is that right? Did you recently speak at their Cyber Summit?

Yeah. Last Wednesday, you know, it was Cybersecurity Awareness Month. And so last Wednesday, we had a prerecorded webinar played for their nationwide audience. The funny behind-the-scenes part was that I was in Virginia at a National Science Foundation meeting. And the time that they needed to record this webinar, which worked for the other two states, was an hour before I boarded my plane to come home. I found an empty hallway in the airport, and I found a desk. And I moved the desk to an area of a hallway where not many people could. They couldn't work around me. So, I'm like in the middle of this hallway, facing my back towards the wall, and people are walking in front of me the whole time. And I'm pretending that they don't exist. And I think it turned out pretty well. But it was interesting. But yeah, that was released last Wednesday. They had a lot of big names on that webinar from across the country and the federal government. So, I was able to watch and listen to that last week. And it was fun to see all the federal agencies participating in that.

Jen Burris:

And what kind of information did you share for that portion?

Ashley Podhradsky:

We talked about how you can, South Dakota businesses can find us and get into the program. And then we gave some tips that that small businesses should look at. And really, this is anyone you know. We have some foundational things. Always keep everything updated. You know, when you see that update, updated take the time, restart the phone, restart your computer, and keep it updated. But passwords, we need very long, secure passwords. At origins, cyber camps, we teach middle school girls how to crack passwords. It's not hard. And so, make sure that your password is very long and has special characters. Use a password manager. If you start thinking about all of the different things you need credentials for to log into, on average, it's over 60. You have your work, your personal stuff, your home stuff, and all of these things that you have usernames and passwords for. And use a password manager,

Jen Burris:

because you don't want all those passwords to be the same, right?

Ashley Podhradsky:

You don't. You do not want them all to be the same. But then, you know, take it a step further. And when you get to create your username. Don't use the same one for everything, either. I know I started out with Ashley Podhradsky was always available. A lot of mine, that's it, but you're giving people half of what you need to gain access. And using a password manager like LastPass, KeePass, or 1Password, allows you to set up very secure passwords and usernames for each of your different things. And then it fills it in automatically, so that's what I use. I use the free version. And I always have my passwords secure and long and unique.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. So, any other tips?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah. What did we say? We talked about keeping everything updated using unique passwords. You know, don't hop in on free WiFi. I know it's easy. But when you're in a coffee shop, hotel, or airport, 1000s of other people are connecting and can see your traffic. So, when you log in quickly to access your bank account, someone can see those usernames and passwords, so you know, making sure that you don't do those things. There are some basic things that you can do. And those are three good ones to get started with.

Jena Martin:

How about making your phone a mobile hotspot? Is that pretty safe?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, that's what I do. I have the upgraded plan because making that a hotspot is my preference that I have. So, I travel a little too much right now. And so that's how I get internet and things in my hotel room and connect. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

So, what else should people know about cybersecurity and being safe online?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, what we're doing at Dakota State University is pretty special. We're at a point where there's never been a higher demand for cyber. What we're what our area of expertise at the university is, it's complimentary. It's not competitive with all the other state institutions. So, if you think about agriculture, at SDSU, we have a new initiative on cyber Ag where we can secure the cyber security, we can secure the agricultural components that they have. There are so many different devices or vehicles in the fields. And there, some of them are autonomous, and you have tractors that have a connection back. So being able to secure that is very important. You know, at SDSU engineering, we need security there, medical and a lot of security there. We have an initiative with Sanford Health for our strategic alliances. And what we did this past summer was really fun. We have Dr. Yong Wang and Dr. Bhaskar Rimal. They have a research experience for undergraduate programs through the National Science Foundation, where we bring 10 students to campus annually. And we study and analyze different IoT devices. And last year, we did the internet of medical things. And we looked at the common medical devices in a hospital room to analyze how they're vulnerable to cyber-attacks and some things that we can do to improve them. And that's another area as well.

Jen Burris:

And that program students, not just DSU students, can be involved, right? Other students can apply?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yes, so we limited the number of DSU students. And we had eight students from across the country, and Puerto Rico participating in that event. So, they looked at the mobile phones, the zebra phones that are proprietary to the healthcare industry, and how data on there can be witnessed as it's going across a network. So, as a potential patient, I don't want my medical information, being able to be compromised, or the pump that controls the medicine in and out of my body, which is also an IoT device, I don't want that to be compromised. So you know, taking his MS initiatives and taking these steps are important. In a couple of weeks, there's a DSU contingency traveling to Washington, DC, and we're going to go to NIST and the National Institute of Standards and Technology and take a look at the facility that they have for medical devices. What they're doing to try and secure those through understanding how they're, they can be compromised.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, Jena, any final questions?

Jena Martin:

You've had a tough time looking me in the eyes during this interview,

Ashley Podhradsky:

You know, I was going to bring that up. I wanted to right away. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

I think it's time to tell the audience.

Jena Martin:

I was going to make you suffer for a little while. Today is Halloween, and I am dressed up today as Dr. Ashley Podhradsky. It's like looking into a mirror for her.

Ashely Podhradsky:

A very beautiful mirror. (laughter)

Jena Martin:

I know. Thank you. (laughter)

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yes, that's odd, but it's funny. I like it. She surprised me as I came in, so our awkward start had a reason because I was looking at her. Can I do this? But yeah, we own that. That's yeah,

Jen Burris:

I love it, and I think maybe we can even give our listeners a little picture of that when we post the episode in November.

Jena Martin:

I think that's a really good idea. We are awesome. We could do a who wore it better type of thing, right? 

Ashley Podhradsky:

it's. Actually, it’s Ashlee – A-S-H-L-E-E spelled incorrectly today.

Jena Martin:

Yeah, just because we didn't want to make it 100% official,

Ashley Podhradsky:

I think she's the evil twin. So, I was trying. I was trying to get her to, to go to my meetings that I have the rest of the day and that way could go, you know, do whatever I wanted. But she turned me down.

Jena Martin:

I was hoping that you were teaching a class today because I want to see what they say.

Ashley Podhradsky:

All staff meeting at 10 No, no. I'll tell you what time it is. It'd be great if you showed up.

Jena Martin:

You let me know. Yes. One o'clock. We can make that happen.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with us, Ashley, and thank you to our podcast producers. Thank you for listening Cyberology. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate, and subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris. And today, our guest is Mark Spanier. And he is here to talk about cryptography. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, Mark?

Mark Spanier:

Yeah, sure. So, as you said, my name is Mark, and I'm an associate professor here at DSU. So, I teach a bunch of courses in cryptography, some mathematics, some AI, and computer science. So full range of things that I get super excited about.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. Let's start out with the basics. What is cryptography?

Mark Spanier:

Cryptography is kind of an all-encompassing term that's basically looking into any way that we want to essentially secure information and send that out into the sphere that, you know, I would want to play with possibly later. So, it's going to look into how we can essentially lock things up in a hopefully safe and secure way to then later be retrieved.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of cryptography?

Mark Spanier:

Sure. It's pretty old in some regards. So, I think there are some accounts of it being like 4000 years old, there are some stories that, you know, it goes back to some ancient Egyptians where they weren't using like super sophisticated ciphers, but at least changing up certain symbols. Some of the history on that is a little bit cloudier, just as I know. It's not as well documented, obviously. But it has fully, you know, emerged more recently as kind of as war and other things emerge, there are needs for further security of communication. A lot of times, people, when they first look into some crypto stuff, maybe will, you know, stumble across like a Caesar cipher or something like that, which usually is going to be connected back to Roman times as this way to also secretly send messages. So, you have a population of people that, you know, maybe do know how to read and write. You're going to start like scrambling things up in a way that, you know, somebody else hopefully has the ability to unscramble some of these things. In the last 100 or so years, I guess, kind of, in the, you know, World War I World War II era, those things really emerge just as a how do we actually use this information to then, you know, relay information that we really hope other people aren't reading. So, it's kind of evolved throughout a whole bunch of other things, and you know, constantly is moving and changing and doing all sorts of crazy stuff.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and can you kind of talk about how that's continued to evolve as computers and the internet have become such a prevalent part of our lives?

Mark Spanier:

Yeah. So, if you go back to even like World War II discussion, maybe you've heard of something like an Enigma machine, these cool little boxes that you may have seen at some museum which, in that scenario, was like an actual physical device that did some things, they were actually fairly expensive to create back then. And then, in that scenario, you would send messages out, and if somebody else had another one of these boxes, then they could easily, read what message was actually sent to them. This is often referred to as kind of like a symmetric cipher. So, like you and I were wanting to have one of these discussions, then we would, you know, both be in possession of this secret decoder ring, essentially, so that if I wanted to send you some message, I would take it, push it through my secret decoder, send it to you, and then you would use essentially the same secret decoder. And then you would go ahead and be able to unscramble whatever, like junk, I sent you. You take some phrase, twist it up, and hopefully, make it like absolutely awful, so you can't read it at all. But then, because you know, the secret of how to undo it, you can easily read it. That does take this kind of mutual agreement that you and I, at some point in time, sat down, and we're like, hey, from here on out, if we're ever going to talk, we're going to do it like this, okay.

And as you go into the computer age, obviously, we don't necessarily always have that aspect, we could, you know, still want to communicate, but maybe we don't ever have that opportunity to sit down in an agreed upon scenario of like, hey, we're going to talk like this. Okay, so if you don't have that initial agreement, we're at a loss. It's like so any communication that you and I are going to do is going to be over some open channel and we have no idea what, so then, that's slowly emerged into this world of not trying to do this symmetrically. But trying to do it asymmetrically, sometimes referred to as a public key. So, we're going to try to do some discussion back and forth, all of that totally open to the world. But then the hope is that at the end of the day, maybe we're now in possession of some secret decoder. So, this was really popular back in the 70s. It is kind of when this whole process started, you know, gaining a ton of momentum up until then, it was physical devices, physical ciphers, doing all of these things, these nice symmetric processes. And then in the 70s, it started kind of asking that question of like, well, this other forms of communication is often the rise, and maybe we start needing to do something that we can communicate without ever having an agreed upon, you know, a landing pad. So that is the kind of dawn of this, like public key crypto stuff, which we still use all the time. Now, as you know, you're making that initial handshake with your bank. You're opening this line of communication, and you will send some of those things.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And so, how do you go about teaching cryptography? I know you've said that there's a lot of mathematics in it. Can you kind of speak on that?

Mark Spanier:

Yeah. The math it's always been there. And that's kind of some of these early on ciphers, most of the times on how those ones were actually broken, were some cute use of mathematics in kind of a clever way. Actually, it’s one of the things that ultimately broke the Enigma machine. So, the Enigma machine, if you can envision some like crazy big typewriter in front of you, what ends up happening is you push a button down, and then it goes through a little plug board, there are some little rotors, there are little wheels that are all going to be moving. And then another letter-like highlights. So, if you push the letter A, it's going to essentially be encrypted into the letter W or something like that.

Jen Burris:

Oh, that's interesting.

Mark Spanier:

One of the weird things about that is just the physical machine itself would not allow you to encrypt the same letter with itself. So if you push the letter A, it was impossible to have that get sent as A, yeah, it could never go back to the letter A. And that’s because the wheels wouldn't allow the button you push to also be the button that lights up. So there were physical limitations with this device that it could not be encrypted like that, which actually became one of the like, little tiny slivers that you could start poking at to exploit. A little bit of like, well, if you can't do that, then it leads into a whole snowball effect of a whole bunch of other things, which is really where some of the kind of fun puzzles that exist inside of crypto live are that you have this system, it's all set up, we're going to do it like this. And just kidding, that breaks because something else ends up working. It's kind of similar to if you've done Sunday afternoon little like word jumble things, like those are ciphers. So, you have some phrase that all the letters that have been scrambled up into some other phrase. Well, one of the first things you might end up doing is just like a basic frequency analysis of this random garbled-up thing, the letter, you know, W appears more than any other letter, so then you're like, well, there's a decent chance that that letter W might end up being the letter E, or something like the most frequent letter in the English alphabet. So, you can attack some of those on this, like the frequency analysis side of things. But that also leads us into development because we know those are faults, so we need to further mask some of those things. So, when it comes to garbling up some type of message, just doing basic substitutions and swapping obviously isn't going to be good enough.

So, you'd asked me about like teaching. And that's usually how I started, like, the first couple of days in, you know, crypto class, we'll play with some old ciphers and some of those things. And then run the numbers on paper. It should take you essentially, like, the length of the known universe amount of time to actually decrypt this thing, but because we know XY and Z, we can actually break this thing, like almost immediately. And then that usually snowballs into a discussion of what do we actually need in order to make this possibly secure. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Okay. So, what are some of your students’ reactions when they get to kind of decode things? Because how does that kind of impact them as a student?

Mark Spanier:

That's probably the most fun part of it. I mean, all of us in these courses, usually love puzzles and love the, like exploration side of it. So, then you'll just give them some cipher text that was encrypted in this way and just let them have at it and see what you can get out of it. Again, some of these systems that have known faults are where we usually start from being like, here's the thing, there's actually some issues with this, like trying to leverage that issue. And then it becomes this attempt of trying to play around with different things of if we know this, then we know this, and then maybe we can try this kind of thing. And it's actually been a pretty popular thing in the world of some of these competitions. You may have seen some of our students compete in various cyber competitions or Capture The Flags (CTFs), and things like that. There's usually a fairly large collection of like crypto problems. And all of those crypto problems that exist in these CTFs are all designed like that. They're all some problem or some puzzle. And there's always some little sliver, that something was done wrong. And you have to exploit what somebody did. Yeah. So, it takes knowledge of that whole system and how it all works. Because on the surface, it looks totally fine. Like, it looks like nobody did anything bad. But then, if you pull back the curtains just a little bit, you can see what they did. And this, this was a bad decision, because this happens. And then voila, I can then get that. So students do love playing around with that they're some of the most rewarding homework problems is just to, like, give them something and like, let them just loose to just be like, I made a blunder here, like, figure out what I did wrong last, because then later on that guides the discussion, I'm like, Okay, so like, when it comes to decisions to make these things don't do that thing, or like, we know that there may be limitations. So let's try to avoid those things.

Jen Burris:

Absolutely. So, you mentioned some of the cyber competitions. How does cryptography kind of pair with the cyber background?

Mark Spanier:

Yeah, crypto is in the background of pretty much everything. Sometimes this tool makes you forget that you're using all over the place. I mean, anytime you're trying to do something securely, the hope is that, you're garbling that information up in some way. So, when you access a website and give them your password, you know, ideally, somebody's not just storing your password in plain text, but it has been run through some salting and hashing process to be stored correctly. So that, you know, it's not just living out in the ethers. So anytime you want to communicate these things, there's always going to be a crypto element that's going to land on it, that becomes one of these things that you need to know a little bit about how it works. Sometimes people will just like going out and using it without fully knowing how it functions. So, I sometimes will use the car analogy of, you know, certain days, it's just totally fine. You can just go and drive the car. And you don't really care how a car works because it gets you from point A to point B. So Crypto is sometimes like that. You just put it into this black box. Just take the message and crypt. Cool. It all worked. It's there. And then other times you want to be like, Okay, well I maybe want to open up the hood to see like what happened, like I broke down on the highway, it would be useful to know how this process works. So, when you open the hood and dig around in a little bit, then you at least you know how the process works. And again, that can propel it as you're trying to improve it and see where it's going to go afterward. So, the long answer where it exists in the crypt in the, you know, cyber world, it exists everywhere. I mean, you're hard-pressed to find some aspect that doesn't make use of it, again, how much knowledge a person needs to know. And it varies depending on the implementation, but it's all over the place.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and what kind of future careers do students have with a cryptography degree?

Mark Spanier:

So at DSU, so we obviously have our Cyber Operations degree, which has the NSA stamp of approval. And it was a couple of years ago that we were looking through some of those requirements, which have a cryptography component. And in that, we started developing a few specialty crypto courses. We basically had a bunch of crypto stuff, sprinkled into a bunch of classes, but then decided to, make a couple of standalone crypto courses. So, students who wanted to play around in that field then had a couple of extra courses. And then those courses essentially led to a specialization within our Mathematics degree.

So a student with that will actually end up having a degree in Math with this Crypto Specialization. A lot of our students then ended up having a double major between that and Artificial Intelligence that and Cyber Ops, and computer science. So, where they choose to go with it afterward is pretty much open-ended. I mean, they can leverage that power in any aspect they want to, and a lot of them will end up working for various government agencies just because they like the puzzles. And that's where the puzzles are being developed a lot of times to come up with some of these standardizations and things like that. So, it's, it's pretty open-ended.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. So, where do you see the future going for cryptography?

Mark Spanier:

Oh, that's actually a very on-point question, I guess, right now. In the discussion I had before, in the 70s there was this crazy big issue. Internet is on the horizon; we need to start talking about how we're going to lock some of these things up. So, you may have, you know, heard things like RSA or maybe like when you log into your bank's computer, you know, they may say like this is protected by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, RSA like bit encryption. That process is going to die like it's going not to be secure in the future. You may have heard certain things like quantum computing. It's always this like buzzword that gets floating around. But in the late 80s, and early 90s, there was this realization that if quantum computing becomes a thing, then all of the current cryptosystems that we have, all these public key systems that we have, will all become essentially dead. They're all just not going to work anymore because quantum computing would basically just like break them all immediately. So, it's like taking a really sophisticated computer right now. And going back like 100 to 100 years, and being able to solve any of these older riddles. Basically, now a new thing will just like destroy all of that. So, with that, there's been this big push to develop like the next thing. The thing that in 20 years, when you log into your bank's website, the little like, the lock will then say what is now securing it. So, there's been a few different rounds of, you know, evaluation. So NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, basically put out this big announcement that said, hey, we know this is going to be broken, let's prep. So, let's see what's going to happen. So, it was like, back in 2015, I think the first, you know, a proposal came out that said let's, let's do better. Let's come up with some of those things. So, it's gone through a few different rounds of scrutiny. And then this last summer, so the summer of 22, they made their recommendation. Their official, like standardization, was then announced to the world. So, people can now dig into it, okay, now we know what we're going to be working with. So, let's hone in to see further if there are any of those wiggles of the room that we could like, possibly break into it still. So, it become this world that we now know where we're going. So now we can put all hands on deck to actually go ahead and try to fully understand it, as well as inform other people who are in these spheres of what's going to be emerging, again. There's going to be millions of people who are going to be using these processes, but they're probably not all going to know the intimate, inner workings of it, like that very small part of this car that we have now, we're going to swap out. We want to make sure all of the cars are still working, even though we put a new little park on the inside of it. So that'll, guide us in some of our courses and curriculum and some of the other things, gearing people up for the future.

Jen Burris:

And with quantum computing, is that looking like something in the next 10 years? 15? 20? Is there an idea?

Jen Burris:

I think it depends on who you ask. It's always been 2040, the looming, like, it's going to happen by 2040. And then that needle has, like, moved back, and they're just like, maybe it happens in 2030, Or maybe it happens 2070? So, the, the answer is not fully known. Quantum computing exists in very small abilities right now. So, what they're capable of doing right now is not much, but as with most things in computing and technologies, once they start doing little things, they quickly grow exponentially. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, if you don't catch it early on, like all the sudden, it's just going to be there. So, the thought is, like, it's a, you know, a 20-year-ish thing, but it easily could be much less than that.

Jen Burris;

Okay. And one more question for you. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of cryptography as artificial intelligence advances?

Mark Spanier:

Yeah. So, as you know, DSU now has like a new AI degree, and some of our students in our crypto program actually in that, in both worlds, so the same kind of quests that we've had in crypto of trying to, you know, preserve security and anonymity and all of these things, also exists inside of the AI realm as well. You're passing around ridiculously large amounts of information. So, if you think just like a car, driving down the street, with sensors and cameras, and all of these things, they're taking tons of pictures, and those pictures might have people or other sensitive material. And you may not want all that information to actually go to the central learning process. So rather than send the pictures on their own, what we'll typically do is, you know, you can take those, you can add in certain layers of encryption that may be stripped down, you take the learning models that are going to occur, you can then encrypt those things. Somewhere in that process, you'll end up doing some type of encryption just to kind of mask what that process is looking at or what you're actually seeing so that you're not possibly sending out sensitive information and stuff like that. So, the moment you have the data in, like the AI realm that is positively sensitive, there's always going to be this layer of encryption, that will then end up occurring. So, the thing that's been popular as of late is various hospitals that have like patient data's and all these things. And it would be nice to have all of these hospitals essentially take all of their information and, you know, aggregate it in some way. You can't just send the raw patient data. So, you have to encrypt it, and a bunch of keys will be sent around. So, it is just like cyberspace that exists and has crypto all over the place. AI has that as well. It's just the moment you’re working with anything like that, there's always going to be a need to, you know, lock these things down so that the right people can work with them. But then also, like, bring it back to what it's supposed to be.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Well, anything else you want to share about cryptography today?

Mark Spanier:

No, it's a lot of puzzles. It's sweet. I mean, that's really where I got super interested in these things. And it's where a lot of, like, students get excited about it as well is that you know, you kind of forget something like your little kid toys are just like these little like, oh, I have this little cipher or this little puzzles, and, you know, you're playing around with it for a little while. And then like, once you kind of figure out how it works, then you want like, a harder and more challenging puzzle. And that's, you know, where that world is, you know, always been is that there are always harder, more elaborate puzzles. And that's all we're doing is just trying to make, you know, trickier puzzles that, you know, even the fancy computer is not able to solve so, then the puzzles get extra complicated, but they're a lot of fun. So, I do enjoy them all.

Jen Burris:

So, a combination of cracking these puzzles, but also creating new and more elaborate ones?

Mark Spanier:

Yep, absolutely. So it's, it's a little bit about so some of our times are just, you know, trying to play with somebody else's toy and try to break their toy, but then it's also like, well, I should probably try to make my own that you know, if I'm going to keep on breaking somebody else's, you know, you need to contribute your own so that somebody else can tear your own apart then too.

Jen Burris:

absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being our guest today. Mark. I enjoyed it. I know a lot more about cryptography now, and hopefully, our listeners do too. Thank you for listening to Cyberology. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, and I have a guest cohost back again today, Jena Martin.

Jena Martin:

I must have done well the last time, since I came back.

Jen Burris:

And our expert guest today is Dr. Andrew Sathoff. Andrew, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Andrew Sathoff:

Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for the invite. This is my first-time guesting on a podcast longtime listener. I listen to podcasts about every single day, but the first time being a guest. So about myself. I have always loved science. I went to St. Olaf College and got my BA in biology. In my junior year at St. Olaf. I kind of had a shift in what I wanted to do. I always thought I wanted to be a doctor, my dad's a doctor, and my mom's a nurse. But then, you know, I kind of shifted, I realized it wasn't for me. I guess that's a story for another podcast. But I graduated, took a gap year, and taught English in China, at East China Normal University in Shanghai. And I realized that I really enjoyed teaching. Something just clicked in my head. College was the best time of my life. I like science. I like teaching, I can stay in college forever. So, after China, I came back to the US and got my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and Plant Pathology. I got my Ph.D. in spring 2019. And in fall 2019, I came to DSU to teach science, and I've been here for three years.

Jena Martin:

Excellent. Tell us a little bit about microbiology and biology.

Andrew Sathoff:

Sure, no, that's a trap question. A very broad question. I know, you could get me talking for about 50 minutes on that fall into my professor roots. I'll keep it I'll keep it narrow to just, let's say, plant pathology and microbiology. So, plants get sick some people don't realize that plants get diseases just like us. And they face some of the same microbes that we do. They get sick with viruses, bacterial infections, and especially fungal infections. My job as a plant pathologist is to try to cure these plants. So anyway, I'm a plant nerd and a fungi nerd too. And I love it, it's become a bit more mainstream. So like people are spending time geeking out over their house plants and taking care of them. And that's what I like to do too. fungi have also become a lot more mainstream. Do you see the little red cap mushrooms with the white spots and Mario Mushroom? Yes, yeah, Amanita muscaria that's the scientific name for those the fly agaric mushrooms. So, you grind those is why it's called Fly Agaric. Grind it up and mix it with milk. And it kills flies. It's a fly poison. Yeah. But anyway, if you're interested, my call to action is if you're interested in fungi, watch Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. It's the best time-lapse photography, and you learn a lot about mushrooms.

Jena Martin:

Interesting., I’ll have to check that out. So, do you take your plants for a walk then? Have you gotten a plant stroller, and you cruise up and down?

Andrew Sathoff:

I don't because they like to say inside (laughter). They are indoor plants only just like indoor pets. Don't take your indoor pets outside. I do. I do geek out about like fertilizers and the sunlight, and the number one key for houseplants -  don't overwater them.

Jena Martin:

That's my problem. Yeah, I'm good at killing plants.

Andrew Sathoff:

Don't be a helicopter parent.

Jen Burris:

So, it sounds like you did kind of follow in your parents’ footsteps a little bit because you care for the viruses and all that, and you study all those things, but just in plant life instead of humans, right?

Andrew Sathoff:

That's a great insight, Jen. That's why I tell my students to a lot of my students, I work with our pre-health students, and they're like, why are you messing around with plants? It's the same thing. You're diagnosing diseases, you're figuring out the best treatments for patients, and in this case, your patients are your plants.

Jena Martin:

Yeah. How do you diagnose a disease that a plant might have?

Andrew Sathoff:

Sure. I use technology to do this. So, a lot of my diagnoses are DNA based. So, I try to grow out the microbe from the plant that's making the plant sick. I culture it. And then I extract DNA from that microbe, that fungus, that bacteria, sequence it, figure out all of the base pairs in the DNA of that microbe. And then I can look it up in a database and see what it is. And then it's almost like personalized medicine. Right? And then you can figure out the exact treatment for that disease.

Jena Martin:

That's crazy.

Jen Burris:

How long does a process like that take?

Andrew Sathoff:

That's also another great question. It can take a whole summer to do. So that process is the technical name for that is Koch's postulates. It's been around since the 1850s. Robert Koch discovered this process of trying to isolate a pure culture, that's what it's called of a pathogen from an infected host. And then reinfecting that host and seeing if the same symptoms develop. It's been modified, you know, with technology and some DNA-based techniques I was talking about, but yeah, it can take a whole summer to do that. And that's what my students did during their first summer of research here in 2020, they carried out Koch's postulates for a new disease that we found in South Dakota called the Phantom biases.

Jena Martin:

Tell us how technology has evolved over the years.

Andrew Sathoff:

So, in molecular biology, I'd say there are probably four big advances, recombinant DNA technology, PCR polymerase chain reaction, and the two I'm going to talk about are gene editing and DNA sequencing. So, you may have remembered that the goal of the human genome project in the early 2000s was to sequence the genome. So, like all of the DNA, and one human DNA sequencing has advanced so much since then. In 2001, the cost to sequence one human genome $95 million in 2021, the cost was $454. To sequence, a genome.

Jen Burris:

Seriously? That's wild.

Andrew Sathoff: 

Yeah. Technology is advanced so much. There are multiple generations of DNA sequencing machines. So, the next-generation sequencing machines are massively parallel. That's what's caused those sequencing costs to drop so much because you can run a bunch of reactions at the same time. And now, there are third-generation DNA sequencers, nanopores, and sequencers. That's the next thing I want to buy from my lab at DSU. You can get your own portable DNA sequencing machine for $1,500. And you can sequence your DNA.

Jena Martin:

That seems reasonable.

Andrew Sathoff:

It is extremely reasonable. And you just, it's a tiny little thing about less than an iPhone, the size of these new DNA sequences, and you plug them into your computer's USB port. And you can do like DNA sequencing out in the field if you're a field biologist.

Jen Burris:

And what kind of things can you do with that information you gather after you DNA sequence something?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, well, you can classify it. So, there's like barcode sequences. So, you don't have to rely on morphology how things look, to figure out what they are. You can just look at the barcode DNA sequence, and personalized medicine, right? So, you can check if a person has a mutated allele, and you could predict the likelihood of developing a disease. That technology, though, is still in its infancy. So, we're good for a few simpler diseases, but complex diseases involve multiple genes, and the environment is still hard to predict just from DNA sequence data alone.

Jena Martin:

When you pick a project, how do you go about starting with it, like you're researching a particular group or whatnot? How do you start the research process?

Andrew Sathoff:

It starts with excitement. Research is a lot of work and a lot of time. So, I need to be excited about the project before I started, and I work a lot here with students at DSU. And if I'm not excited about the project, I'm going to have a hard time selling it to my students. So, the first project involved, a lot of soil sampling. I wasn't excited about trying to find a fan of biases, you techies. That's that alfalfa pathogen in South Dakota. For the first time, my students would have hated going out to 40 fields and 16 counties doing soil sampling all summer. But you know, like I tried to build the excitement in them, and they get a taste of research. And research is addictive. It's addictive because you're finding out knowledge that no one else in the world knows. So, it's a big juicy secret that no one else knows. And it makes for a great story, you would know that Jen, (laughter) secret, exclusive information makes great stories. And then, once they get this taste of research, the students often stick around, and they want to keep doing more research and answering more of their questions. So, I've worked with most of my students for two years. One is coming back this summer to research with me just for fun. It's kind of, you know, a volunteer job because he still asked some questions he wants to be answered.

Jen Burris:

How do you kind of go about choosing your topic of research? How do you, you know, look at everything and go, this is what we want to look at? Or is this what we want to start with?

Andrew Sathoff:

That question would have stumped me in graduate school. Yeah, I thought I wasn't very good at asking the right questions. And that just comes with experience, a little of the experience, and trying to fight that impostor syndrome a little bit like do you know this stuff? You're an expert, you know how to ask the right questions. But the projects kind of flow into each other. So, after we found a fan on biases, that pathogen, that alfalfa pathogen all over the place in South Dakota, the next obvious question was, okay, how do we treat this disease? Right? Can we use chemical treatments? Can we use fungicides to defeat a fan of mitosis? Are some individual plants more resistant than others? Can we use genetics? And then after that, we realized that playing around with those fungicides and using them, they're toxic, they're not environmentally friendly, a lot, a lot, a lot of the fungicides that we use. So, is there a greener approach? And that's what we started to investigate this spring with biocontrols. So that's using the pathogens like natural competitors to defeat it. It's like causing microbes to fight each other and compete with each other. Yeah, yeah, it's cool stuff. So that's what we're going to start investigating this summer. And sometimes to answer that question. As I said before, research is a lot of work. So, is there an easier approach? That's some that's one of the questions I like to ask. So, as I said before, we've spent summers doing Koch's postulates. It takes a long time to prove that a microbe causes the disease, and doing these DNA diagnoses, it took a long time for us because we were trying to get the pathogen out of the soil, bait it out and affect plants grown in pure cultures and do all those steps. Well, an idea I had is, we could potentially use technology to make this much more efficient. So, we have a qPCR machine. So that allows us to do like the work that we've done in the summer, in a few days by directly extracting the DNA out of the soil and doing disease diagnosis that way.

Jen Burris:

So that cuts out like a lot of steps, then?

Andrew Sathoff:

It does, it does, and it makes it much more efficient. So, the whole idea I had was we could just go out into the fields, extract DNA from the soil that we collect. And then, based on that DNA evidence, we could advise farmers on the best seeds to plant given their fields, and microbial composition, and they would get the data back within a few days. So, they could actually use it to make informed decisions on what they plant.

Jena Martin:

They meaning the farmer? The farmer gets…

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, the grower. Yep.

Jena Martin:

So, do you just walk up to the farmhouse, knock on the door and say, hey, we would like to work with Dakota State University, like do some research in your field? Is that how you guys approach or?

Andrew Sathoff:

Essentially, that's our approach. We do it over the phone, though. So yeah, so I've worked with Mustang seats, my first two years here, and they've been generous enough to give us a grower list. So, we contact the growers over the phone and explained the project, and we asked if they can sample their fields. And most of the time, the growers are really interested in research, and it's what it doesn't cost them anything. It's free, you know. So, it's been a good approach. And there, we always contact them after the studies are done to share our results.

Jena Martin:

That's interesting. I think it's interesting. Yeah, I wondered how that worked.

Jen Burris:

What's the feedback from growers you've worked on projects with?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yes. So, when we call them back and give them the results, have the students ask them if they want to participate in future projects. And I think we've gotten one no. So yeah, so most people, most people are excited to continue with research. I think people are listening to some of our results and taking them seriously, at least on the local level. My first summer of research here was in 2020. In 2021, we've already seen a shift in the alfalfa seeds that Mustang seeds sell, and the growers are buying to back our research, so more disease-resistant seeds for the diseases in the soil. And in Lake County and eastern South Dakota,

Jena Martin:

if they don't take care of that alfalfa field, will they just not have a crop? Is that what will end up happening? If it is diseased enough?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, yeah. So different diseases, just rot the seed before it even germinates. Yep. So yeah, they'll complete loss alfalfa as a perennial. So, the seed cost lot because it comes back every year, right? Yeah. Perennial. Yeah, so you can get me about five years with an alfalfa field.

Jena Martin:

Before you have to tear it up and then replant?

Andrew Sathoff:

before you rotate.

Jena Martin.

Oh, before you rotate it.

Andrew Sathoff:

Rotate. It puts a lot of nitrogen back into the soil. So, it fertilizes good soil. It's a very good crop to grow. Yeah, good.

Jena Martin:

A good plant to have. Interesting.

Jen Burris:

Doing this research can not only fix problems but also improve yields and things like that. Is that correct?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, that's one of the motivations for my research. Sometimes people ask me, why I research. Well, my answer is always to feed the world. Because populations are skyrocketing, by 2050, there'll be 9.9 billion people in the world. And we need to increase yields and food production by 60% to feed all of those people. So, it's a big challenge ahead for everyone. But little things, like planting the right seed and producing losses to diseases add up like those things make agriculture more efficient, to hopefully reach those lofty goals by 2050.

Jen Burris:

What advice do you give your students as they start working on research projects?

Andrew Sathoff:

I believe it's called the 3% rule. So, try to get 3% better or done each day. So essentially, what that means is trying to get a little bit accomplished each day. And that adds up over time. So, I value persistence, a lot in the lab, coming in every day, trying your hardest for the hours you're in here. And then set it down, so you don't burn out. So just work on the projects a little bit each day, and it adds up over time.

Jen Burris:

What's your favorite thing about biology?

Andrew Sathoff:

I like to use my hands in biology is a very hands-on discipline. That might surprise people, but lab work is a lot of using your hands and technology, the newest technology. So, I was communicating with a student over the summer. She was thinking of coming to DSU to do some research. And the first day she was on campus, I showed her the lab, and she was just taken away by the lab she did the panoramic shot with their cell phone like this is a lab. It's filled with technology. And you get to use that technology at Dakota State University. Another thing too is that when I was teaching English in China, a lot of the students I worked with were graduate students. And these graduate students were botany or plant science graduate students. And the main reason I was in China to teach English was to prepare these students for going to conferences, speaking English at the conferences, and sharing their research results. So, I got to learn a lot about their research projects. And the one thing that was shocking to me at the time was that many of these master's research projects didn't involve using any equipment. So, these students didn't know how to use their hands. They didn't know how to use all the machines in the lab, because they never had a chance to use them. There wasn't enough machine. So, most of their projects were literature based. So, if the students like came to a lab in the US, they'd be totally lost because they don't know how to use their hands at all.

Jena Martin:

I'm glad you brought China up. Do you know Chinese, then?  

Andrew Sathoff:

I don't know Chinese at all.

Jena Martin:

So, you went over there not knowing Chinese, but you were teaching them English?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, it was a totally immersive experience. Right? Crazy.

Jena Martin:

Yeah. I just figured you knew Chinese.

Andrew Sathoff:

No, I don't. I tried to learn I'm decent with languages. So, I speak a little bit of Norwegian I studied abroad in Norway. And that was a language I learned at St. Olaf College. But I couldn't pick up Chinese because it was too tonal. And they had no idea what I was trying to say.

Jen Burris:

How do you function somewhere where you don't speak the language for like a year?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yes, that's another good question. Use translator apps and stuff, translator apps. They were still, so I went there in 2013. And the translator apps weren't as good in 2013. But no, we were in Shanghai. So that's an international city. And we got by relying on some students to translate for us, but we got by it's international enough. It would have been a challenge if it were more of a rural community.

Jena Martin:

Tell me, what kind of future do you see for biology? Where do you see it moving in? In the next 5-10 years?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, I hope it moves in the direction of attracting some more pre-health students here. That's what most of the students said, at least I have in my biology classes, they want to go on to be pas, or dentists or doctors, right? I think biology might move in that pre-health direction, especially with like the new Athletics Complex here, getting closer to exercise science, and making it possible to, you know, to have a biology and Exercise Science, double major. So that's kind of how I kind of envisioned it going into pre-health. A little more in that direction, but still have research opportunities here. We've involved the South Dakota EPSCoR, and you know, I have so much fun researching over the summer, I don't see myself quitting anytime soon with that. So, it's still doing some of the alfalfa, Plant Health Research.

Jen Burris:

Do you have any other areas of interest in research outside of alfalfa? Or is that kind of just like, where you want to stay focused for now?

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, no, I'm not opposed to going in other directions. I was on, unfortunately, an aquaponics project that did not get funded. So that's growing crops, using the fish waste, yeah, that we were going to convert our greenhouse into an aquaponics facility. But yeah, I'm open. You know, I'm a plant pathologist by training. So obviously, some of the research is going to involve microbes and plants. But yeah, I could move away from alfalfa if I saw a really good project that interests me.

Jen Burris:

And you've mentioned a few times technology over the course of this, how do you keep up with all of the advances?

Andrew Sathoff:

I would say reading and conferences. I'm a bookworm. I like to read scientific papers. I like to know what what's trending and what other scientists are doing. And I learned that type of information too, by attending conferences. So, staying connected in the discipline, in the research area, I'm focused on another way to increase tech. And that's not really answering your question. Another way to increase tech in DSU is by just being a willing learner. I like to learn new things. And if I see a machine, like the qPCR machine, that machine is a nice, big, shiny machine. That's, that's in research labs everywhere. And we had an opportunity to purchase one. And I've just kind of thrown myself into learning all of the functions of this machine, so I can share it with my students. And if they take a research position, or they go to graduate school, they know exactly how to use this machine.

Jen Burris:

Well, anything that you want to highlight about your program or your work?

Andrew Sathoff:

one of the things that gets me really excited about the work I do is seeing students using technology in the lab. I had the opportunity to teach a couple of weeks of honors science this semester, and the students had been in the lab yet. They came into my lab to do some CRISPR gene editing. So CRISPR is kind of like molecular scissors. It allows you to switch the basis of DNA, right? So, I'm sitting there in the lab just preparing, and I overhear the student who comes in, and he is super excited for the lab. He comes in. He's obviously rehearsing the line in his head he sits down at his lab group with his lab mates, and he kind of says let's mess with nature. That's not his exact quote, though it's a little less PC than that. But he came in, and he was super excited to do science and use his hands and genetically modify his bacteria, and you know, see if what, see if he could put into action, everything that we've been learning in lecture. So, things like that really motivated me.

Jen Burris:

Well, thank you for being our guest today. I think we've learned a lot. Oh, yeah.

Andrew Sathoff:

Yeah, thanks for having me. Successful, I think, first podcast. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Thank you to Xander Morrison, our Podcast Producer, and thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris. And today we have guest co-host to DeVonté Garcia. He is Assistant Director of Development. Do I have that right?

DeVonté Garcia:

nailed it

Jen Burris:

At the DSU Foundation. And our guest today is Daniel Seman. And he is Assistant Professor of animation. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Daniel

Daniel Seman:

I came to South Dakota because of a job here. I am originally from Ohio, hung out in Tucson got my degrees, and Ohio and San Francisco, because I love cartoons and wanted to do all that fun stuff. But I didn't want to live in LA. So, I came became a teacher. And I can see all the kids come up and do all their fun stuff.

Jen Burris:

So why don't you tell us a little bit about what animation is and how you do it.

Daniel Seman:

When I first came here animation was a part of the graphic design Digital Arts, and it was based more in advertising. And so like, any animation is going to be like animation on like a marquee at a sports thing or some kind of TV commercial here and there. But it was more in line of selling something. My animation. And when I went to school to teach is telling an emotional story about a character any character will do. But it has to be an emotional story. There's a need for both. However, I found that a lot of the students who are coming here were under the impression that they were going to draw cartoons, and not advertisement. So, I worked with everybody and got everything changed to accommodate the students. Manga short, animation and animated story tells an emotional story of a character. And it has three parts, like any other story does.

DeVonté Garcia:

How do you help prepare the students you know, who are maybe skewed in their talent and creating the character themselves? And then helping them complement that with the storytelling aspect of it.

Daniel Seman:

Everyone has their own skill sets, which is fair, and in the lower classes, it's just here's the basics, right? Here's the learning the 12 principles of animation that Disney created to say, hey, if you want to do a life, like realistic animation, follow these steps. And you too can do what we did. And that was a 1923 I think maybe not the old mill. And it was the forerunner to Snow White. So, it was the first multi-plane animation. But they came up with a group of 12 principles so that you can if you do those, and in your animation, you can be just like Disney's maybe not in style, but at least in the way it's been created. And then I go and figure out what they what they like to do what they want to do, right. So, a lot of people think, oh, I want to do character design. Well, everybody wants to do character design. And you're not going to do character. Because there's like three or four people who have 50 years of experience at the studio, you're going to apply to they're going to do character design, you get to do the grunt work, right. So, things have changed that over just the past two years. With COVID came out, everyone's going on streaming, no one's in the studios working. They have all these 2D character cartoon ideas. So like Netflix and Hulu, are saying we'll put your cartoon on, but we want 24 episodes. And so, in order to do that, there's a new technique. It's not new, but it's been developed to make it look better. But it's puppeted animation with rigged 2D characters, and they can look 3D-ish, like they've been hand drawn. And that's the illusion that they want to create. But you can do it fast. And that's how you can get 24 episodes done otherwise, like Spongebob is six months when one episode of SpongeBob is six months.

Jen Burris:

Wow that’s crazy.

DeVonté Garcia:

Are you serious?

Daniel Seman:

Yeah.

DeVonté Garcia:

Wow, no kidding.

Daniel Seman:

Like 30,000 drawings. If they don't reuse any, so if you have the puppet and stuff like Tangled: The Series was puppet, and I can tell you know, you can tell the hand drawn stuff from the puppeted stuff. The ones that you can't tell. Those are the good ones. So, My Little Pony the movie was puppeted, but it looks hand drawn. So that's good. They had time with the budget and everything to do it. And there's ways they can put more character poses and then pose the puppet model to match that makes it more smooth animation. And that's the secret is to make it as smooth as possible. So, I share with the students, that aspect of it. And it can get overwhelming when they see what the rigs look like inside the program of Toon Boom or Harmony where you've got like, say, five or six different colored boxes, a whole bunch of little boxes in there. And they're all kind of in this rectangular box down below, and we call it spaghetti because it looks, it's all laid out. But if you saw that it'd be pretty intimidating. And it takes about 70 to 90 hours to rig a character for turnaround. But once you get that done, then you can actually take that rig and apply it to other characters. So, you just have to rename things to make it apply to whatever.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so it's kind of like a one done and then you can utilize that, like a template.

Daniel Seman:

Correct. So, I say, Okay, I got my I got my Jennifer right here, right. And then I want Devonté. So, I'll go in and tell Toon Boom, because I've got both of you drawn, both of you are pumping it up the preliminary stuff. So, the just the drawings, like you know, hand forearm, arm, chest things, and then I go in, copy it, paste it, it's all highlighted, you can mass rename it, and then automatically attached to the DeVonté model, which is pretty cool.

Jen Burris:

And has it always been like that, or has technology evolved?

Daniel Seman:

Technology evolves, and you have to keep up to it, or you're gonna get passed up. There are all sorts of really cool things going on. Disney is looking to do 2D animation again, for feature films, which was, Okay, that's cool. LAIKA was looking into doing 2D animation, and they did Coraline, and or definitely Frankenweenie or ParaNorman, little models that they use everything. So, there's lots of lots of cool things. And that's what the students who are coming here want to do. And then you know, you got the 3D aspect of it too, which is games, movies, live action movies. That's how you can get Samuel Jackson not being 73 in Captain Marvel. He's like 30 in that Captain Marvel movie, even though he's 73?

DeVonté Garcia:

So, does how does that technique work? Where you can I mean, obviously, it's a live actor. Yet is that makeup? Or is that animation?

Daniel Seman:

That is motion capture. And then ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, will create a model. It's the suits with the dots all over it. That's what he wears. And then they'd be in a room. This is what used to be big room, green everywhere, so that they can just see everything on to it. But now it’s all right now the technology has evolved so much. It would be immediately rendered and the whatever background is going in, the people can see on TV, like right there. And it's pretty cool. This gone from like, the beginnings of Toy Story in the late 90s. And now it's like they can make people realistically, and believably look 40 years younger. Yeah. So, it's cool.

DeVonté Garcia:

I've never stopped to think yeah, Samuel Jackson is that old, but like, just when you watched it. I mean, it looks as if he hasn't aged at all.

Daniel Seman:

And it's like, you've seen him do all this cool stuff on the movie. This one he's not really doing that cool stuff in the movies. He's not because he's old. (laughter)

DeVonté Garcia:

So, is there a stunt double than that fills in for that? Or is that also part of like the animation?

Daniel Seman:

It could be CG. Like so in The Avengers

DeVonté Garcia:

CG stands for?

Daniel Seman:

Computer graphics. Computer generated image CGI. So, in the original Avengers, there was a scene where Hawkeye and the rest of the Avengers on the corner of a building looking at the invaders, right. HawkEye was the only real person there. The rest of them were all CG. So, the more time they spend on it, the more realistic it looks. And then you can combine it with puppetry, like say, Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean, where they have puppets, and then Jurassic Park with the puppets and in the robots, like giant robots and then combining with CG to complete the illusion and make it make it awesome. So awesome. And that would be cool to do here, and it just takes room and then motion capture equipment is not as expensive as it used to be. So, like used to be $50,000 And then my old school back in Columbus, CCAD, was trying to get it, but they were working with Ohio State University. And that one was like, they were excited because it could sense the movements and transfer it to the computer, even if you were wearing costumes.

Jen Burris:

You didn't have to have that suit?

Daniel Seman:

No, no. And that was $50,000. And so now it's even way less than that, like, so everything's immediate. It's really super cool. So, and that's the new thing. And it's being worked into movies and games with, I think Unity is what's being able to do that Unity and Unreal.

Jen Burris:

And what's it been like to see the technology evolve over the years and have the new software and programs and things like that, that kind of amplify the work in the industry?

Daniel Seman:

It's intimidating, because you have to learn something new, right? I mean, you go through, and you think Okay, I'm going to draw all these pictures on paper. And then even when I first learned we drew on paper, and then we sheet-fed scanner into, at the time, it was Toon Boom. And, you know, that's what we would use to do digital animation. And at the time, Disney was still doing, they were doing kind of digital, but more drawing paper than anything else. And then new stuff comes out, you know, Adobe, and After Effects came out, and it was starting to do seven, this new thing, Maya came out. And it's super cool. And well, I don't know, I like I like the drawings better than I like the 3d models and preferences of that. But just everything getting more and more precise and what it can and cannot do, and then come up with programs like ZBrush, the modeling software where you can sculpt whatever and you know, ranging from cartoon to photorealistic. It's like, that's a that's a model. Yeah, that says ZBrush model. So, you just have to keep on you have to keep on it, or you can get left behind.

DeVonté Garcia:

So, with that, think about okay, there's video games. There are movies, there are cartoons talked about with the Avengers, there's the there's the blend of kind of, I guess, maybe a hybrid model? Yeah. With you and your classes. I mean, do you teach on all those various segments? Or do you kind of have a specialization?

Daniel Seman:

What I'm trying to get to is two tracks and animation 2D and 3D.

DeVonté Garcia:

And what's a good example of 2D by the way?

Daniel Seman:

Bugs Bunny,

DeVonté Garcia:

okay, the new the new Looney Tunes?

Daniel Seman:

Yeah, the new looney tunes that are on HBO max. So 3D would be Charlie Brown from Blue Sky that was 3D and then you got the puppeted or there’s stop motion. Which would be Coraline, ParaNorman they don't do that for TV shows

DeVonté Garcia:

You said like A Nightmare Before Christmas right?

Daniel Seman:

That was stop motion as well too. Okay, so

Jen Burris:

And that takes like quite a long time to do, right?

Daniel Seman:

Yes, a super long time to do there's no way to make it go faster.

DeVonté Garcia:

Why is that because you have to move each piece like physically have to move into stuff the computer generating an image as it sees that it would

DeVonté Garcia:

So, it’s kind of like a flipbook in essence?

Daniel Seman:

Yeah. So, like, the hardest scene and Nightmare Before Christmas, was when Jack was at the doors to go into whatever door he went to the Christmas one was all shiny and reflective. That reflection is the puppet reflecting in the doorknob. And they had to get the camera just right so that the camera wouldn't show up. But he would. And that was the hardest thing.

DeVonté Garcia:

The cast has to have a lot of patience.

Daniel Seman:

Yes, you have to.

So, in that's been around for a long time. Ray Harryhausen, he did the stop motion stuff with all the old 50s movies. And then in the 80s he did Clash of the Titans. So, Jason and the Argonauts, The Beasts from 20,000 Fathoms. So, if something like there's a six-legged octopus, not an eight-legged octopus, because it's easier to do six legs and eight legs. You get 2D And then you get the 3D. We want them to be working on one specific thing and not trying to get both of them at the same time. It's too much to do at one time and they'll get the students will get overwhelmed. So, you want to get a 2D you want to 3D Let them decide. And that's when they're going to just zero in on what it is. And even then, like there's just more options within you know, 2D and 3D so you can be a character designer, a layout artist.

DeVonté Garcia:

Layout artist like the actual background?

Daniel Seman:

Yeah, backgrounds, how the scenes going to come up on Earth. Think they're storyboards. There's storyboard revisionist, there's visual development. So, I have a story Okay, my degree is visual development. So, I would take a story and I create it, visually create it so and then in 3D they have modeling, rigging, lighting, texturing.

So, this takes quite the team to assemble to be able to put together a production.

Daniel Seman:

Yes, it takes more 3D people than 2D people. Okay. I could technically do something by myself in 2D. Someone could also technically do something by themselves in 3D, but it's going to take him forever. Yeah, well, not really forever, but a lot more than I would take. So, it just depends on what you like to do. So, and you know, when they graduate and then go and they look for jobs and everything, then they can be more specific, like, say, Pixar wants a rigging artist.

DeVonté Garcia:

I was just gonna bring up Pixar because didn't we that was there an alumna that we had not too long ago who…

Daniel Seman:

she's at DreamWorks, DreamWorks. Yeah, yeah. So very specific things. I was like, you know, I knew I had a previous student somewhere who was texture artist on turtles at Nickelodeon. Right. So different skill sets, different things that you can do with the way 2D is changing, right. Now, you have not just you have layouts, but you also have rigging artists, to rig the puppets. And then you have animators, and those are all here, not overseas. And if you know the software, it's a big, big boost in trying to get a job somewhere because they don't have to train you.

DeVonté Garcia:

So, what's your backstory and how you actually got an animation?

Daniel Seman:

I remember when I was a kid, my mom took me to see Sleeping Beauty. And I liked the way the birds moved. And then just sitting watching cartoons, like it used to be cartoons on Saturday morning, right. Used to be on in the afternoon after school had at school special, which you know, whatever, if you'd like that, but then they had from like four to five, the cool cartoons, GI Joe, transformers, things like that. And then on Saturday, it was always the Bugs Bunny, where we're going to show and then some other things like thunder cancer, he man, she was lasted, it was it was bad. And back in the 80s, it was just bad. And that's and that's, I saw it as like, oh, I want to do this and got around to going to school and learning how to do it.

DeVonté Garcia:

What's been your most fulfilling thing so far through this journey? For you?

Daniel Seman:

I am more independent animations than working in any kind of like a studio or anything. So yes, I had an opportunity to potentially go into Nickelodeon. No, I didn't want to move to LA. So, I did. I just did my own thing. And then what I found out doing was, during my master's degree, I have to, so I did the first one in like 2010, or something like that. But it was taking Native American stories based on coyote anatomy, in the idea was to have a narrated in whatever language that story came from. So, I worked with the Chippewa and did coyote story and finish that put it in, submitted it to film festivals got into 10 of them to international one best animation that one of them in Colorado, which was super cool. That's that's so far as that's so far, is good. Well, I'm working on one now with the Karaca. And it's a whole lot more intense snow effects, and it's at night. I didn't want to make it easy for myself.

DeVonté Garcia:

And this is all this is all just you doing it?

Daniel Seman:

I've got extras, I got helpers. Okay, so because it was the first one was on the fifth year of me doing it before I broke down and hired a couple people to help me out. Oh, and I want to wait that long. So, it'll be it'll be cool. And then get put in festivals. And hopefully everyone will like it.

Jen Burris:

What do you enjoy most about animation?

Daniel Seman:

All the hard working, just sit back and watch it. And then of course figure out every single piece that you could have done better. But it's cool, because you can see it on the computer and then all of a sudden, it's on a movie theater screen. And it's like Oh, so cool. I did that. I mean, yes, you're gonna self-nitpick everything. You're going to self-critique everything. But the people who are seeing it, they're like, oh, that's that was really cool. All the other questions that come up. And it's like, that's, that's cool. That's super cool. Especially people like its people don't like it, then it's not so cool.

Jen Burris:

To see your work come to life.

Daniel Seman:

Yeah. Yeah.

DeVonté Garcia:

I mean, you guys are taking something out of nothing, essentially.

Daniel Seman:

Right? So, with the tip of the coyote story, the Chippewa they use stories to teach the young kids how to speak Chippewa and they were using puppets. Puppets are creepy So cartoons or not. So, you know, that was the that was general how it came to be. The next one is the croc they they're agreeing to work with me and another coyote story. So, but it's a race and getting fire from the yellow jackets, sisters. So, it's exciting.

DeVonté Garcia:

So, one that you had at this symposium, right? Is that the one?

Daniel Seman:

Yes. Yeah, yeah. The three yellow jackets that are so fun.

Jen Burris:

So, earlier, you mentioned animation for like advertising. Are there other areas that animation that you could go into? After you graduate?

Daniel Seman:

You can go into Yes, yes. It doesn't have to be industry, TV, film, and stuff like that. You can do commercials, pharmaceuticals, are a big one, to animate things. You can do it's like instructional design is an infomercial type things, simple animation, but it's still getting complicated point across, like, say geothermal energy, you know, throw a bunch of big words like that around, someone's going to think you're talking about a volcano. So no, no, just taking the heat making electricity out of it. So, animation can help do that. Medical animation, crime scene animation, which is fun.

Jen Burris:

It’s a popular industry these days, isn’t it?

Daniel Seman:

use, you can do that. Years ago, a colleague of mine was asked by a lawyer to recreate a scene in 3D. Let me not be too graphic about it, but just so that they can get a visual of it, right. So, I mean, animation is great for that. Medical where, you know, hey, I'm going to put this object in you. It's better to show them a cartoon, whether it's 3D or 2D of what they're going to actually do. And then, in that aspect, were 3D modeling. There was a young lady who went to Northwestern University to do prosthetics. So, she would design prosthetics in Maya or something, and then they would they printed. So, you can do all sorts of you can build a house and print it. You UCLA did that they're building a house by 3d printing takes a lot of plastic. Anything, anything you can even imagine could have animation. So like car commercials, right? For the big car companies? Do you want to pay for a helicopter and a test pilot? Road? Or do you just want to CG the whole thing? You know, if you notice some of those car commercials, there's no driver in the car? Because they're just all 3D models.

DeVonté Garcia:

Wait a second. That's not a real car I’m seeing?

Daniel Seman:

it's a real car. Well, kinda.

DeVonté Garica:

So, is this like, back to the Avengers thing again?

Daniel Seman:

Yeah. If you see it pulls up, right? It pulls up right there. You'll see anybody in this car,

DeVonté Garcia:

Now that you say it just say that, yeah, right.

Daniel Seman:

Yeah, that's because they're not there. It's, it's just CG. It's easy for them to do that, wow. Cheaper, they don't have to risk the car. They don't have to do insurance in the car. They don't have to fill up the gas car. They don't have to pay a driver for the car or a camera crew. Or, I mean, they got the 3d crew, but it's not really the same thing.

DeVonté Garcia:

Wow. Okay, you’ve blown my mind twice now. Tips and tricks and little secrets are there to the industry that most people wouldn't probably even know or pay attention to.

Daniel Seman:

When I was in New Mexico, the one people had showing of carrier story at the film festival in Las Cruces. And afterwards, there was a film crew from Santa Fe, it's like, oh, we got to go. We gotta get to bed. Because we got to get up at like three or four in the morning. I was like, what four, and they're like, the sun. They wanted to get the sunrise at like, 430 in the morning. And like, I just paint it. (laughter) Me, you know, I don't have to get up at four in the morning. You just Google it. And I mean, if I really wanted to get my version of it, then yeah, but references are always better. Who wants to get up at 430 in the morning, right?

Jen Burris:

Not me.

DeVonté Garcia:

It's a different level of dedication for sure.

Daniel Seman:

Yes. So is like, you know, all sorts of different places that people with that information can go and do. So, this depends on how persistent they are. Because it's very competitive.

DeVonté Garcia:

So really, to be successful. I mean, like I said, there's a myriad of options you can go in to do and yeah, it's just allowing yourself to be open to the possibilities that are just not going to be particularly maybe just this one. Like you said character design.

Daniel Seman:

Maybe you're not Warner Brothers material, but you're in cosmetics. I mean, studios don't exist anymore, but it's smaller. It was a smaller studio like Moonbot Studios was a smaller Studio where you could do 3D and 2D together. But, I mean, those are gone. But now it's like, if you're not good enough to do one, you know, doesn't mean you're not good enough to do something else. Absolutely. So, I mean, I had a student who has this beautiful 3D Train picture perfect. This kid would take the measurements on GE Lighting, from GE’s webpage, do all the math and get it to fit into Maya correctly. And he got mad because Blizzard didn't want him because he didn't do it in Blizzard style. Like for World of Warcraft, right? And they even told him do go to Bethesda they're going to love that. And he was like, no, I want he wanted Blizzard, just blizzard? And it's like, okay, well, you know. And then another example was, there was a copper mine in Arizona, wanting someone to do a 3D model, the entire mine whole walkthrough and everything with the cars and everything. So they can show investors

DeVonté Garcia:

Now what's that process look like going through and creating that 3d design?

Daniel Seman:

it would be they won't, they'd have to get references. So, they go down there

DeVonté Garcia:

Do they just start drawing it out?

Daniel Seman:

No, they would model it out. Okay. And I mean, they have photographs and everything, that's fine. And a lot of the mines people don't go into and they would take those photos and then upload it.

DeVonté Garcia:

I've imagined to the software computer.

No, they Well, they see them but then they can model it. So like they're just looking at the picture and modeling and based on the picture

DeVonté Garcia:

now when you say modeler you're talking about drawing it from them?

Daniel Seman:

No, no, in 3D they're creating.

DeVonté Garcia:

They're actually object, they're actually making the object

Daniel Seman:

It's in Maya Yes. Okay. And then, and then they have this, they get it finished. And it's this, imagine a Dungeons and Dragons map of going into the dungeon, right? So, you've got all these paths and everything that you can go to, except as a compromise. So, it's a little bit more organized. And that's what they wanted to they can go up to an investor and say, hey, look, we think there's turquoise or copper zinc over here. We need to be able to go in this is how we need to get there. But we need to get money, whatever. None of my students wanted to do that. It was they didn't see the connection. And it's like, because you're making a coal Kart, you're making the tracks you're making. Essentially, you're doing a level design, which is what the game designers do. And someone's actually paying you to do this. So, you could take that into a portfolio and say, hey, look, Bethesda, Blizzard, Treyarch and look, what I can do is pretty cool. And but they weren't, they weren't getting it. And it's like, like, Come on, guys. It's a compromise, they got money, right? Well, that's what you got to do. You got to take your talent and play it and yeah, makes money.

Pharmaceuticals, you know, the big bad wolf trying to breathe because you know, he's old and smoked or whatever. And now he can't huff and puff anymore. So, it's a 2d cartoon, people are well compensated for doing this. So, it's not so much just for the money, but you know, you're doing something that you really like to do, you're getting rewarded for it. And you don't have to live in LA.

Jen Burris:

And you mentioned building a portfolio so getting that experience too.

Daniel Seman:

Because again, someone has paid you taking the risk and paid you to do this. And it's essentially the same thing as making a ship title in a game because a company is using this to make money on and the students now with the gamers making a game and putting it on Steam. It's considered a ship title. It may not be triple A but it's still something that they've produced and any of the animation kids who get in on that they now have something that's been shipped so now their leg up on everyone else because they've actually done something so and that helps in a very competitive um,

DeVonté Garcia:

I'm sure there are nuances between like animation when I think animation I think of Pixar, I think of Monsters Inc, toy store, etc. I think game design, okay, I think called duty or, you know, just video games, obviously. You know, how did those two really contrast? were some big differences between Is there is there is or is there any difference really between them?

Daniel Seman:

I don't. I think the game industry has kind of led the way in what the film industry at least with 3d is doing because the game engines that are creating the ability to create something immediately with being in surrounded the virtual reality stuff. That's what the games are doing in the film was catching up with it, and so it makes it easier to do Got film because of the game. So, they're leading it and everyone's following and trying to catch up.

DeVonté Garcia:

Well, as you talked about VR, is there was there a difference about the way in which you go and create those animations in virtual reality as opposed to not virtual reality?

Daniel Seman:

I don't think there's much of a difference in just creating it. And it's how it's purposed and how it's implemented. I don't know.

DeVonté Garcia:

which is behind the scenes of software, all that jazz.

Daniel Seman:

Right, right. So, I mean, it's like a video game. It used to be; you can't have this really super cool 3d character is going to kill your computer. Right? Right. So now they must create it with a low poly and make it so that the computers can actually use it without crashing. Yeah, I mean, now with the computers now, it doesn't matter. But I mean, I'm sure that things like Grand Theft Auto Skyrim there's super hyper realistic ones that they have to do better next time. They gotta improve on that to make more money. So, it's hard to tell something that made billions of dollars. (laugher)

DeVonté Garcia:

Trillions. Yeah.

Daniel Seman:

Eventually it will. Yeah, but it's like an A Grand Theft Auto, the last one made over a billion. So, they have to make that much more better. Yeah. So

DeVonté Garcia:

Tall task for sure.

Jen Burris:

So, what do you kind of see as the future of the animation industry?

Daniel Seman:

More technology to try and make it as easier to do as possible. Without losing the quality? I mean, you still have to, you still have to be an artist to do it. When are you still have to have a design aesthetic in order to create something that's going to be appealing that people want to see. But to save yourself time? Like I don't use paper at all anymore. So, I'm now saving trees, yay. What's going to happen? I mean, now they have integration between Toon Boom, which is a software I use and unity, the game design engine, so you can implement things in the program for cartoons, making it into game cartoon. And there's lots of 2D games now. So, they're, they're pretty cool. And then you get people who are on YouTube, getting a following, creating cartoons, making enough of a following, so that the studio's get a hold of it. And it's like, oh, hey, we want to we want to do this. And it's like, okay, cool. And now what do we do, because I'm not like, you know, rushing it all by myself doing it on YouTube. Now, I've got a big studio doing it. And then you have the producers to, then it that that is, that's an awakening for people too. But, you know, self-creating animations, a lot of people do that on YouTube, and some are really good, has been hotel TV, Ma, but HBO, Max picked it up. So now, the woman that created it, she's, she was successful before, but now, now she's a critically acclaimed success, because she's actually on an established platform. In this case, it's HBO. SO HARD WORK perseverance, that's, you know, being able to do something on your own getting recognized for having it then picked up that, I think, is the trends that could possibly come because a lot of people don't want to live in California, it's expensive.

DeVonté Garcia:

I know, for a lot of our students here from the Midwest, and people who are from the Midwest, there's just, we're just a different culture and don't want to leave. It's

Daniel Seman:

right. And with 2D, that's great. Because you do the puppet and stuff, you don't have to go anywhere to do it, you can actually do it from home or a studio. If you're good enough, though, though, they'll find a way to hire you, especially if they're in Canada, because a lot of them are in Canada. But I mean, there's Southern Utah is a new desert Disney cartoon. I can't remember the name of it, but it's done in Utah, Salt Lake City. So, you know, there's American companies here too. And if you in that regard, if you know, Toon Boom, then chances are you're getting a job as a lot better.

DeVonté Garcia:

Are there trends at all, because kind of COVID kind of helped, you know, increase the need for us to work remotely? To actually do you know, relatively good work remotely where you have your, you know, you have, you know, you have this person on this team that's living in California, one person in New York. Yeah, you know, and then so long as you're in the software, like does it allow for that collaboration?

Daniel Seman:

Oh, yeah. COVID You know, there was a silver lining and COVID Not everyone wanted to come back into the studio. And because you know, I don't know where you've been or where you don't want to be in together and everything in between. They can upload everything to a server or something. But then the companies are like, Oh, hey, we don't have to pay for that building anyway, we can save that money. And you know, not give it to the artists, of course,

DeVonté Garcia:

but I think the animation like what in person contact would necessarily need to happen?

Daniel Seman:

The sessions. Okay, so like the dailies, right? So it used to be okay, so I'm going to make a SpongeBob episode, and I'm going to have all these post it notes, just really quick ideas, right? And this is when, like, visual developers, they can come out and they can actually pretend to be the characters. Okay. And then they're pitching the story I did, right? Or in any of the Disney Feature films, well, they'll come up and say, what do we what have we done so far, this week, I was really good. I liked this direction. No, I don't like that direction, that that sort of stuff kind of works better in person. If you're just if all that stuff is done, and all they need to do is just animate, then they'll give sections of it to people and just like do this and animate it. And as long as you get done, I know one studio that does not like doing it as Warner Brothers, they want everything in house. So, it's just the way it is. But Cartoon Network in Atlanta, they didn't want to come back. In fact, they're actually creating a way so that it didn't have to come back where they did, it would be a big, huge room. Very little technology on the outside, right. So as a lot, a lot of wireless connections, there was like a hard drive where someone can plug into it if they needed to. But everything else was just on the cloud. And they can just do that from anywhere and not necessarily have to meet up in the studio because it just didn't want to so and that opened it up for people to work overseas. Because you know, hey, you can get relocated to the Czech Republic that’s fun, I suggest any student going to Prague, why not? Just City, and someone's going to pay you to do this. They also will help relocate you or you don't have to relocate because you can be home, right? There's a big studio in Sweden that does that. So, they understand, you know, you're saving the company money because they don't have to buy a visa for you now. Right? And that's expensive. So, it's like $20,000, it can't be $20,000 for England is the visa for England for you and your family to go over there. If they aren't held if the company isn't helping, right? So, it can it's expensive. It can get expensive. I mean if you're by yourself, no, it's not going to cost that much. But those opportunities are out there. And because you don't have to go and meet anyone, you can do it. So, if you have a student who doing this 2D puppeting, and they only want to work on whatever, any of the cartoons that are on now. And they find out what studios doing it and it's say atomic dog animations in British Columbia, like, oh, I want to do this. And it's like, okay, well, here's an opening in Ottawa, but you're not Canadian. Or they have an office in LA. There's our hand, right? Because the LA office would hire you and you would just send stuff up to Ottawa. That's how I imagined it would work. If they really wanted to hire somebody. They'd make it work; they find a way to make it work.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, I want to thank you for being our guest today. Daniel. You certainly enlightened us on a lot of things, I think. And thank you DeVonte for being a guest co-host today.

DeVonté Garcia:

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

Daniel Seman:

This was fun.

Jen Burris:

And thank you to Xander Morrison, our Podcast Producer, thank you to our listeners. And if you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Midland.

Jen Burris:

And today our guest is Assistant Director of Admissions Amber Schmidt. Amber, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Amber Schmidt:

Yes. Hello. Amber Schmidt, assistant director of admissions, you nailed it. I am a DSU alum 2008. I took the five year I'm not quite sure what I want to do college track, you know, made it there eventually. And now I have been in the DSU admissions world for almost 12 years. Wow. So, I like to consider myself a pro. Right? Maybe some days.

Gabe Mydland:

We’ll give you the certification. Sure. Good.

Amber Schmidt:

I knew you would Gabe, good.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do in admissions?

Amber Schmidt:

We do admissions, and what does that mean? So, I'll be honest, forever ago, when I first went through this college process, I was 17 years old, I decided to go to college, I pointed on a map, they have education. And I showed up at DSU. And so, when I went through that process, mom and dad had never, they never did the college prep, first-generation student, and they said, Good luck, I'll figure it out. So that's what I was doing at age 17, figuring it out? Well, I did a lot of it very independently, you know, I was taken out financial aid loans on my own. Well, our goal is an admissions team, you know, our admissions folks that are titles, our admissions specialists, but really their admission counselors, their job is to counsel students, through that process of admissions, it's applying to the university, it's visiting the university, it's making sure they have all of their admission forms in so we can get them accepted. It's talking through the financial aid process in truly helping that student feel comfortable going through that whole process, feeling comfortable, and having that person that they can go to, to ask questions, because I remember not knowing anything, and you don't know who to even ask questions to. And we want students and their families to have that person on their side, you know, kind of partner in that process to hopefully become a future Trojan. That's the goal.

Gabe Mydland:

And I think it's awesome what you do, because of the number of first-generation college students being in an environment that is new, and different than where to go, and how to get help and those kinds of things. And so many of them have persisted and get walked across the stage and gotten their degree. So, hats off to you and your team.

Amber Schmidt:

Thank you. And we do, it's surprising how many students, you know, you feel like we've had generations where I know, a lot of my friends are all, you know, they all did that college route, but we still have tons of students coming in as first-generation students, you know, going through that process. Is it scary? You know, it's scary, looking at tuition and fees, numbers and figuring out, will I qualify for scholarships? How can I bring that number down? And even if you've been through that college process, it's changed even since when I was it's changed dramatically. You know, a lot of it is going virtual. Now, you know, you apply through for financial aid, I did a paper and a pencil back in the day you sign it, you send it in, they send it back, everything is online, every process that you're going to do. So yeah, things have changed a lot over the years. And that's why we're here to help them out.

Jen Burris:

So how do you deal with those changes in processes now that it's more technology online based?

Amber Schmidt:

We're lucky that a lot of the high schools are also going that route. You know, our jobs have kind of evolved through time. We still go to college fairs and high school visits. But even the high schools, a lot of them are kind of almost rejecting a lot of like that paper information. They used to have, catalogs of college information at all the schools. But now all the research they're doing is online. And so making sure you know, we are you and our marketing team, always make sure we have you know, information up to date on the website, that's really going to help a lot of people because you know, if any, anything changes with that admissions process, changes with, you know, annually tuition fees, we just had a freeze with tuition, which is awesome. We're really excited about that. Meal Plan numbers went down, and housing numbers went up. So I mean, we stayed pretty well flat. But as soon as we get those numbers, our goal is to get those out of the website as fast as we can to make sure everything is marked the most up-to-date. But if we also have big changes, you know, recently we added in the last couple years, the DSU rising scholarship. Well, we want to get that on the website, but we also you know, send out extra material like emails and mailers and just to make sure all right news is happening and things are happening. We need to make sure you guys know about it right away.

Gabe Mydland:

What's been the biggest challenge? They've talked about recently, that the numbers of available students is declining. Is that the biggest challenge? Is there something else out there that really makes your job fun, exciting, I mean, to meet that kind of a challenge, right?

Amber Schmidt:

I would say that is one of the big challenges all the schools of the nation, you know like we said, senior numbers are going to be trending down. So, we're all going to be fighting for the exact same students. And we all want to increase enrollment, you know, which is an interesting battle that we're all going to have. So I would say that's definitely a challenge is, you know, the quantity of students. I mean, I'll be honest, some people forget about all of the cool majors that we have here. It's easy to be known for technology because that is a high-needs area in the world. We need those people protecting cybercrime and stuff like that. But guess what we were founded as a teaching school. We have amazing education programs, infused with technology. I mean, if you look like what COVID In, in the last kind of, you know, couple of years, the importance of understanding technology in a classroom as a teacher has never been more important, right? So those types of degrees with education, we have some super fun game design degrees, art degrees, business degrees, you look at business and the technology infused into those degrees. I mean, there's a reason every one of those degrees is 100% placement in the College of Business. So, we have a lot of great things. So sometimes, we forget about some of those amazing things, because you know, the local news stations are sharing about the latest cybercrime, and we have some amazing things going on.

Another one of the big challenges, though, is even though we have a tuition freeze, tuition rises, every year, at least that bottom dollar, you know, if housing goes up and stuff like that, and families are finding it harder and harder to take out loans. But the hard part is, is unless the student has done a ton of maybe previous saving, maybe the financial help planning, if they haven't done all the work to do some scholarship prepping, it's almost impossible to go to school without taking out an alternative loan or having a payment plan option. And I've discovered that's been one of the big things I've heard from families as of late is, how are we going to afford school? How is this possible? But, you know, we talked to our team to make sure we're sharing the news, like, we want to remind people a college education is an investment, we want you to make sure you're getting an education that is valuable, that is needed, you know, looking at the industry, is this a degree that you know, I can get a job in, and even if I can get a job, is it going to have kind of a long term salary that's going to help me afford maybe the student loans and I can say a DSU, almost across the board, you're going to find degrees that are high demand, have amazing starting salaries, which makes that considering loans and some are more of that, you know, harder things to take out as a family, kind of make that investment, you know, worthwhile.

It's scary. I remember taking all those loans, and everyone was signing my name and aligning like, golly, here we go. What am I doing now, that can be part of it. But you know, the best part of the job is, when you help those families, we always laugh because, in our office, we have families where it's maybe we need to loosen the reins on her son and daughter a little bit to let them do the college process. We have, you know, the parents that are ready, parents say I'm ready to cut the cord. But the cool part of our job is we help those families through that process. We've had emotional, fun, and exciting moments with families. But when you've done the job as long as I have, you know, we always say we have several favorite days on campus, not just one several, one we love when students visit because they're here they get to see our stuff. And we were very proud of our like discovered DSU days or individual visit days.

Then registration, we're right in the middle of registration season right now. And the best part about that as the students are enrolling, they are getting registered for DSU classes, you know, the future is upon them. They're just for four short months until they're here.

And then our other favorite day, probably I don't know where I am on my list is moving day because some of the students, we've worked with for four plus years freshmen we've had students visit as freshmen in high school. We've worked them their freshman, Junior sophomore, and junior, senior years, they're finally moving in. It's happening. It's so cool to see and I've been here long enough to see these kids graduate, which is pretty darn cool.

Gabe Mydland:
You do sound excited.

Amber Schmidt:

You do because you kind of turn into like a little bit of like a mama bear. You're like, did it I'm so proud of you. Because there are students where you get here and you're like, alright, you know what, you maybe have not been provided a lot of resources in the past. And you know, we need to make sure you find those resources to be successful and they get here, and they find those resources to be successful in the classroom. They find their kind of niche of people. We have such an eclectic campus of students and that's the cool thing about DSU too is there are a lot of students that grew up in small high schools and they're like I was always kind of an outcast. I never really connected with a lot of people on many levels, but you're now coming to a school with a whole lot of other people just like you. And I think that's a cool thing about our college. We're pretty lucky to be where we are in a lot of big things happening. So it makes our jobs pretty easy, at least some days. Some days. It's easy. I don't know about your guys' jobs, but

Jen Burris:

How do you go about preparing for things like individual visits and Discover DSU days and things like that?

Gabe Mydland:

Or what have you learned over the years about what’s now become a success?

Jen Burris:

What makes your DSU Days successful?

Amber Schmidt:

Honestly, it's Customer Service at the end of the day and making people feel important, you know, we always want a student to step on campus and see themselves on campus, we try to relate the clubs and activities that are in we just try to be real with a lot of students and their families. And we really try to give almost the layman's version of processes, we try to make it easy. We try to make the process simple. And on those days, sometimes it can be overwhelming when you start to hear the financial aid, tuition, numbers, scholarship numbers, and we just try to go through it slow enough that hopefully, people can, you know, follow along, but also have had a personal enough connection somehow throughout the day, to open up the door for questions.

You know, our favorite part of Discover DSU is when people ask questions, they're involved, they're engaged. Those always make for really fun too, especially the engagement. We usually try to play kind of like Kahoot all the kiddos these days, students have played Kahoot the last couple of years a ton. But that's one of our, you know, more fun ways to explain some of our student services. We talked about Residence Life and counseling, in different opportunities through the Kahoot game. And you know, they always win a  little prize, but it's thinking outside the box. In order to deliver that information, I could just sit there, and you know, grab a piece of paper and spew through information, or you try to make it engaging and kind of learn at the same time. So, we try to do that. But at some point, throughout each even, you know, discover days, we could have 50 students on campus. I try to make sure I individually welcome each person as they walk in. And our team makes sure that you know even at the end of the day, they get that one-on-one attention in some capacity to make sure they feel comfortable enough to ask questions. Because there's a lot of you know, especially when you have your teenage student there, you can see him like elbowing mom and dad saying please don't ask a question. (laughter) I'm really embarrassed. But if you give them enough opportunities, and if you've just kind of been real enough kind of throughout the day and engaged. You know, there's that comfortability with finally saying, Hey, you said something earlier, can I ask you questions most and it happens every Discover Day. We always get questions towards the end of the day. And that's what we hope we want. We want that engagement.

Jen Burris:

And what's it like, from an admission standpoint, you kind of get to see all the different areas of the college and all the different majors and kind of share that with people? What's that like for you?

Amber Schmidt:

I would honestly say we probably work in the best department sorry, for many of you other ones. But the reason I say that is because we're kind of like a middleman who you know like it is important for me to sell programs to students and be able to talk to them about what we can offer. We truly have to know things about the programs, I cannot, you know, I shouldn't just rattle off things about our business college based off of the website, you know, me having relationships with support staff, to faculty, to the advisors within those programs, learning about the students paying attention to even the news within those colleges, about the latest, you know, students going to Nationals in PBL stuff like that are the things that I can talk to students and those experiences about. So, I always tell my team, that one of the best things you can do is build those relationships network with people across campus, and be engaged even in with those people, whether it's faculty or athletics. So, I find it really important that we get to know everybody so we truly work with just about everybody, you know, we work with the Counseling Center students, you know, we have an autism program on campus, we accept 504 IPs, we have to know our counseling team registration season, we have to know our advising team, the amount of housing meal plans, Student Affairs, you know, we just truly get to know a little bit of everybody so like you two I see you to around, you know, harass you when I can.  

Gabe Mydland:

I was gonna talk to you about that. But I'm just wondering, this is maybe a little off topic and I'm ready and things but what's the one question that always amazes you that a student a prospective student, or maybe their parents that they would ask?

Amber Schmidt:

Do we kind of want some funnies?

Gabe Mydland:

No, no, no, I’m just kind of curious.

Amber Schmidt:

I have 12 years’ worth of worth of funnies there but...

Gabe Mydland:

Go ahead and offer some funnies.

Amber Schmidt:

I’m thinking. Now like the cutting the cord, that is by far one of the funniest things I've ever heard a parent do.

Gabe Mydland:

You’re over 18 years.

Amber Schmidt:

Yeah, it's about time it was, you know, and it was all in that same moment where one student is terrified, parents aren't wanting to leave. You know, we always joke on registration day, we all wear sunglasses, you know, during all the outside activities, because we are an office full of emotions. So, if mama bear starts tearing up, it's just like this uncontrolled, like dominos effect across everybody in our office of just like…

Gabe Mydland:

It’s like a virus.

Amber Schmidt:

Yeah, it is. It's terrible. But I'll never you know, you see those. And then on the flip side, I've you know, because we'll have parents that don't want to leave on moving day, which I get. It's a tough day. So, I always tell students to hug your mom, hug your dad hug your guardian, family, uncle, and grandma those days, because they're very, very proud. And they're so excited. And they are very, very sad at the same time. But I'll never forget, yeah, we turn we see one emotional parent, we turn around, and the mom and dad are saying goodbye to their son. And he's like, wait, you're really leaving, you're leaving. And the mom turned around, she goes, I'm cutting the cord. She makes like the scissors action. (laughter) And I was just like, oh, my, that was probably seven, eight years ago now. And I will always, always remember that. But that was just really awesome.

But trying to think of some of those things that you just hear all the time. And I don't know, we get a little bit of everything. And that's kind of the cool thing about our office too. And Tori and I, we always kind of joke, you know, for as long as we've both worked here, the number of times we still get new situations, you would assume that everything is pretty cut and dry. But it wasn't even like a month ago that she and I were kind of talking over a whole little situation. We're like, well, that's new. And we're like, yeah, that one is new. And it just, it amazes you, you would assume it's all yeah, pretty black and white. But you get some surprises.

Gabe Mydland:

Lots of surprises. That's great. That’s awesome.

Amber Schmidt:

We have silly things like, at college fairs, you'll have a student that walks up and they're like, What is this? And you're like, What do you mean, what it like, like the college fair, what is this? Or like, DSU?

Gabe Mydland:

Is there something on my shirt?

Amber Schmidt:

Like what's happening right now? But no, I mean, I have a lot of stories. Yeah, some, some I probably can't talk about today. But someday, someday.

Gabe Mydland:

In the book, right?

Amber Schmidt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

Would you say that you mentioned customer service, that you're almost kind of a little bit of a salesperson for the college and the programs that we have here?

Amber Schmidt:

100%, as much as you don't want to be considered a salesman, we very much are, we are marketing, the university. We are marketing our programs, where clubs, activities, athletics, you know, we really are kind of a sounding board of all of those things, you got to be able to talk about all of it. And you know, at the end of the day, there's goals and enrollment numbers and stuff like that. So, it is a bit of sales. But I think we really approach it as you know, this isn't a person buying a car, these are students who are trying to figure out their futures, you know, so as much as you know, it's scary to think about the sales part. Because, you know, we understand that enrollment impacts our everyday business as a university that there is a part of that, that comes into play.

But you know, and I tell people all time, at the end of the day, the most important thing we do is benefit the student that that comes in, that is the most important sometimes we forget about the students because you get so tied up in a lot of other things and daily duties and stuff like that. But we really try to put that in first and foremost is that person and I think when you, especially in our office, you get to know people personally, you get to know students personally and try to make those connections, it feels less like sales and more like, you know, customer relations, you really are just one human trying to impact a person's life.

And I was at a conference one time, and it always struck a chord with me and I preach it to my team all the time is a five-minute conversation on this campus could 100% impact the future of a student. When you think about you know, what admissions does if they leave after a five-minute conversation with someone and they're like, that person was rude. They didn't answer any of my questions that you know if they just have a negative experience. They might never look at DSU again after they leave that day. But I've had students that have been debating majors in multiple schools and they go I just came to DSU and it just felt like home. It was comfortable. I saw myself there, but everybody was just nice. And you know that's big for a lot of people they want to make sure they're in a place that they feel comfortable to live. This is their future home they'll never forget you know the first time we said oh, I was at home for the weekend and go I gotta go home, and my mom's like, but you're not going home. This is your home you know, and that's a tough thing as a parent too. But that's you know, an important just remembering that five minutes can impact the future and there was a student, this is a story for you.

I had a student who was visiting. And his mom and him were road tripping through going to the school he thought he was going to, and they go, well, DSU is known for maybe technology, let's just swing in. So they just kind of surprised us one day showed up, which I don't always recommend schedule a visit online, please. So, we can make sure we best give you the best visit popped in and we did whatever we could to make that visit work. And he went to use the restroom and mom goes, he was 100% sold on the school we visited yesterday. You have put a wrench in every single one of our plans. And he ended up coming to DSU. And so, it's important, you know, every single conversation that we have with any student and whether it's us, whether it's faculty talking about their programs, whether it's you know, meeting with different student affairs folks or even coaches, so yeah, every conversation is important.

Jen Burris:

So, you mentioned watching some of these students graduate, would you say that you're able to stay in contact with them after you've gotten them in the door and settled at DSU?

Amber Schmidt:

We have, especially when they're still here. So, one I've seen them even like after they have graduated, you know, the cool thing with when you're here is on the alumni of DSU side, you see them graduate, you see them, like live their lives, get married, have kids, I mean that it's cool to see some of that. And we always joke, you can even come to DSU and fall in love. It's really corny and cheesy. But we've seen it I've seen weddings, I've been invited to different, it's cool, it's really cool. But even when they're here, you know, we almost to a fault, right? We build these relationships. And once students get here, we have to then you know, we're their person for however long and then all of a sudden, they're here and then all of a sudden it's like, alright, we have different resources for you, we have to get you to other people. And that's hard for students sometimes, or they're just comfortable with us and we say, come to us, we'll get you where you need to go. But even as they go through school, I mean, you still have some of those real relationships, and you can check in on them. How are you doing? I've had students come in, you know, that really struggled in high school, you know, we're a little worried about grades coming through. And it's kind of fun when you pop in. And that's the mama bear side of me. It's not always you know; it's too much mama bear sometimes. But I've had days where you see the kiddo and I'll pull them aside. I'm like, how's it going? How are your grades? Are you going to class? And I've had students who are like, well, I'm struggling here or there. And it just kind of turns into kind of like a little mothering session, I'm like, well, let's get you over to counseling, let's get you over to the tutoring center, let's do the things we need to do to make you successful. Sometimes students just need to hear that that's hard when you go to college because you know, you always kind of have that parental figure guiding you through all of that guiding you through it. And then all of a sudden, you're here. And that person's not here anymore. There's no curfew and go,

Jen Burris:

Where do I go? What do I do?

Amber Schmidt:

What do I do, and we ended up being those people sometimes, you know, as like this adult figure that helped them get here and I'm cool with it, I like to check on them. And if you talk to my team, I say it all the time, and they can, it'll be like nice outside and like we can walk outside I go I gotta walk through the TC. And they're like, why I go, I have to check on my students. And I do and I just walk through and make sure you know the ones that you know are doing okay, and there's a football player every time I walk by Hello, Mrs. And every time we see my I know I can expect a wave and stuff like that. And it's fun to check on them. So

Gabe Mydland:

That is really what makes the difference in my opinion is that I don't know that it's unique to DSU. But it is genuine here at DSU that there is a relationship that forms between not only faculty and students, but people who like yourself work in admissions and work in administration and who work in each of the colleges. There is a genuine interest in these students and their welfare, and I think they reciprocate that. And it's why I think we are so successful.

Amber Schmidt:

I think so too. If I were to ask students, why they chose DSU the number one thing I hear all the time is size. But what does that mean when they say size? It's not being number 215 in a classroom and going to class and being Amber and Jen and Gabe. It's knowing that if they need help that they don't have to make these special appointments they can pop in at office hours or I've seen students you know, faculty walk by in the marketplace and a faculty member is willing to stop and answer those you know, and I think that makes the difference to or coming in and asking a question. You know, the last thing we ever want to do is sadly sometimes it does happen but the last thing we want to do is you know if a student has a question we don't want them to hop from office to office to office. No, grab the phone, let's figure out where what who they can be helped with and like we said that's going to be any department on campus, and I think that's the nice thing like you said about there are times and you know, any type of a business or an organization, you feel siloed in communication, but then also at the end of the day, when we all look what we all do, we're all here to help students. You know, whether it's getting into school, whether it's with counseling, whether it's been successful in class, or teaching them or, you know, getting a degree audit them. We're all here doing the same thing. And sometimes we forget about it. But that's why we do what we do. At least I hope that's why you do it. Right?

Gabe Mydland:

No, I’m here for the money (laughter)

Amber Schmidt:

Retirement?

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, right. Exactly. No, it's a great gig except for those students. No.

Amber Schmidt:

That's right. That's right.

Jen Burris:

Any last words, Amber, about admissions that you'd love people to know?

Amber Schmidt:

I want everybody to spread the word about DSU. I want you to tell all of your cousins, uncles, aunts, and everybody to tell all their relatives about DSU. No, I'm just kidding. That's my sales pitch. Get all the people you know, to check us out.

But really, you know, I just want everybody to know that. If you know anybody that is genuinely, you know, looking at schools and don't even know where to start. And I've done this before, I've had conversations with students, If you have questions that aren't even related to DSU, but college in general, and you're not comfortable enough to ask anyone, you can ask me and I've had those people reach out. I mean, I feel like that's the duty of what I almost do, right? And I want people to know that if you have questions about the process, where to start? What are my future opportunities? I want to do this job someday. How do I do it? You know, sometimes we don't even know that answer. I want to become this type of doctor someday. Where, what do I do, right? So, I just think I really want people to know that that's why our team is here like we said, we're called admissions specialists. But truly we're admission counselors. We're here to guide if we're here to counsel through that process, and we're ready to help you want to be helped.

Gabe Mydland:

Awesome.

Jen Burris:

Okay. Well, thank you so much for being a guest today.

Amber Schmidt:

Yes, way less scary than I thought it was going to be. And I appreciate it.

Jen Burris:

We took it easy on you.

Amber Schmidt:

(Chuckle) Good.

Jen Burris:

Thank you to our podcast producer Xander Morrison and thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today I'm really excited to have Xander Morrison, our Podcast Producer here as our guest to talk a little bit about sound design and his experience. So Xander, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, so I'm Xander Morrison, I'm a senior here at Dakota State University graduating in May. So, my time here is limited. But I figured while I was here, I would share a little bit of knowledge about sound design and use some of my previous experience to back that up a bit. I've got a lot of experience writing electronic music, I do recording and editing for podcasts like this and other non-musical audio applications. I do a lot of live sound. I'm the president of a club called DSU live on campus. So, setting up and running sound systems and lights for all kinds of live events, like concerts and that kind of thing.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. So how did you first kind of get interested in this area?

Xander Morrison:

Sure. I've always been in a very musical family. Both my parents are professional musicians with master's degrees and all that.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow.

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, definitely a lot of musical exposure growing up. And once I started, you know, exploring the wide world of music and like middle school or so, you know, looking into stuff independently, something that caught my eye was electronic music because I was a computer nerd as well. And it merged two of my interests. And I was like, okay, well creating music with computers. And it sounds cool. I want to learn a little bit more about that. And I picked a great time to get into it because it was right at like the height of popularity of like when dubstep first started exploding and Skrillex was everywhere. And you know, DeadMau5 (pronounced dead mouse) was performing at the Grammys, and Daft Punk was coming back. And yeah, it was a particularly interesting time in that field of music. So Right Place Right Time, I guess.

Gabe Mydland:

Good for you. So, I don't really know enough about the program here at Dakota State University. How large of a community is it?

Xander Morrison:

Sure. It's a pretty small program. I'd say probably about 25 to 30. Students.

Gabe Mydland:

Oh, that's great!

Xander Morrison:

Yeah. All the older grades and whatnot. It's kind of hard for me personally to tell because my only experiences that I get with underclassmen are whoever shows up to DSU live and Okay, that's pretty much it because I don't have any classes with them. And sound labs, I guess, which is the other sound design-oriented club. But yeah, probably around 25 to 30 is good guests with that we would obviously love to have more. It's the only sound-oriented program in the whole state. That's how I ended up here. And I think capitalizing on that would be a smart decision, because there's obviously a market for it. Right.

Jen Burris:

So you mentioned Skrillex and Daft Punk. Were there certain musicians that like inspired your interest in music creation?

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, so I was and still am really interested in the music of DeadMau5 (Dead Mouse) who was like, primed to become like really popular, and then ditched his record label at like the height of his popularity to go and do his own thing. And I don't know his music ranges from kind of moodier house music to more like almost industrial sounding. He's kind of like, like a Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails type artist in the EDM (Electronic Dance Music) world. He's stuck to his niche very well and has been an artist I've never stopped enjoying. I've also had a lot of fond memories with music from Monstercat who is not an artist but a record label that is a collection of a bunch of artists that all do just a wide range of excellent electronic music from like 2014 or so to about 2018 was when I was like really listening to all of that stuff. And yeah, still to this day pulled a lot of inspiration from that. and listen to a lot of artists that originally, I heard on there. And I've since moved on to do other things.

Off the top of my head, there's a guy named Au5, who does just absolutely insane dubstep music that uses a lot of just new and interesting, like production techniques to kind of differentiate the sound itself, even if like the compositions aren't anything like I don't want to say not anything original. Because it is very ear-catching and interesting. But in electronic music, the artists' goal is twofold. You've got the regular songwriting stuff, where you have to dictate structure and melody and your chord progression or however many of those things that you want to include. But then you also get complete control over every individual sound in your song, which you can go as extreme with as creating it all from scratch with synthesis or pulling samples from sample libraries and doing things that way. And that offers a lot of creative freedom to use certain techniques that you find interesting that other people haven't done before. Because the options are literally limitless. Another artist that I've been really into recently is Grabbitz, who kind of does a combination of like mid-tempo electronic with like older like hip hop and indie rock influence too, it's just kind of blended together into one thing that is uniquely him. Justice is another good example of that, where they just take a couple of genres like sure, why not take like, electro and hard rock and disco and throw it all in a blender? Really? Yeah, yeah.

Gabe Mydland:

You've talked a lot about groups I've never heard from or before. And I'm kind of interested after this to go back and look because I love to hear different music styles and things like that. Off mic. We talked about how you have been working also at the Washington pavilion. Tell us more about what you do. There is a lot like the live DSU kind of thing for concerts and things or?

Xander Morrison:

Eventually, it will be. That's, that's my goal is to go full-time and do sound for productions there. Right now, all I'm doing for them is part-time stagehand work. So anytime there's a show that needs setting up or tearing down, I'm usually there. The Hours suck, but it is a good experience. Sure, yeah. Sometimes they'll be out there until like, two in the morning. Oh, my Yeah, but it is a good way to get my foot in the door because I've been told they hire from within. So eventually, I will get to have more experience with the actual running of sound verb events, I probably still won't be like their primary guy, at least for a while. But sometimes they have multiple shows going on at the same time. And rather than bring in another sound guy from like Omaha, or Minneapolis, or wherever they said, I'm a hot commodity. So, I take that as a compliment.

Gabe Mydland:

You bet you should. I mean, I have always been under the impression that a touring band and things like that that are part of the group, if you will, the ensemble included the sound guy, but you're saying that for the haul? You kind of help them with that.

Xander Morrison:

Yes, sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. It kind of depends on how big the production is. Like, for example, the other weekend, we had Alice Cooper come in, he's got a sound guy, right? Or we'll have like Broadway shows come in, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I'm pretty sure had their own sound guy. But if it's for an event that is not being put on by a group that has a sound guy the venue provides one. And either way, that main sound guy who runs it during the show is not necessarily in charge of all of the setup or teardown that goes into it. He's just kind of the group director because he knows you know, what goes in what bins and then what bins go in the semi-truck when.

Gabe Mydland:

Sure. Regarding these new artists that you talked about, now, there's a lot of work done on the keyboard of a computer, right? Do they, I hate to sound like I'm ignorant, but I am I'm ignorant. Do these bands do vocalizations, too? Or?

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, so it really depends on the artist and what they want to have included. I listen to a lot of instrumental stuff, just because there are a lot of artists that don't feel comfortable putting their voice out there, or maybe it just doesn't fit every song that they write Other artists like Grabbitz I mentioned earlier, he does all his own vocals. And he is just excellent at it. And because of all of the opportunities that he has to go in and edit his vocals, and because it's just him, he can record like 50 takes of one thing and make it sound super polished, harmonize it perfectly. And it just sounds excellent. It really depends on how in-depth you want to go with a particular instrument or sound, you have all the opportunity in the world to make it sound as unique or standard as you would like it to be.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, I'm going to take you back to the 1980s as your Phil Collins, member of the group Genesis, and he did a lot of solo work, he came out with an album face value. And what was really amazing for me at the time was he not only provided the vocals, but he did all the instrumentation laid down on all the tracks. And so that sounds like what you're describing is that they put all the pieces together. One at a time.  And that's extraordinary, I think.

Xander Morrison:

It's definitely overwhelming when you first get into it because having to be responsible for every instrument and every element. It seems like a lot to juggle. But honestly, if you have enough of a frame of reference to think at least kind of like a drummer or kind of like a guitarist, or at least know what guitar is supposed to sound like. With enough practice, you can convincingly get yourself pretty much all the way there. And I think that's like a really interesting opportunity that is not just limited to electronic music now, now that music technology is where it's at, right, you don't have to have like access to an entire orchestra in order to make a film score. Right? It helps if you do and they're probably going to record one anyways for the final take because usually, it sounds better. But like when Hans Zimmer is, you know, scratching stuff out just coming up with ideas, he doesn't need 30 string players in a room

Gabe Mydland:

It begs the question, are you going to form a group? Are you going to put together something?

Xander Morrison:

I do a lot of stuff on my own. I'm not opposed to working with other people or anything, I just haven't found really anyone that I want to do like, you know, a full-on like group project with, you know, like long term. I like doing like a few one-off collaborations here and there. But usually, it's just more so for like the novelty of it, where it's like, I'll bring in someone on campus who does like heavy metal vocals. And I'll be like, Okay, this will be fun to work. With that being said, I don't want those kinds of vocals in every single song I make.

Gabe Mydland:

Sure.

Jen Burris:

Fun. What do you enjoy most about creating music?

Xander Morrison:

I enjoy the feeling of like seeing an idea. Finally sound like what it sounds like in my head, right? Because I've got an idea of what I want things to be, it's just a matter of getting it from my brain to the computer. Sometimes that process goes smoothly, most of the time. It doesn't. But sometimes it sounds cool anyway. And if I can get even just like a segment of a song that I've written, that hits me emotionally the way I want it to, like if it gives me goosebumps even after, you know, having heard each element from it, like 50 times, that means I'm on to something special. And that's not really a feeling I'm ever going to get over.

Gabe Mydland:

Good for you.

Jen Burris:

And how does it feel to share your work with others?

Xander Morrison:

It's interesting, I would like to do more just individual work to push out there because right now, my library's a little limited, but it is always kind of fun to hear a little bit of feedback, even if it's someone who like I don't know in person, right? Like if someone leaves a comment on my YouTube channel and was like, this is awesome. That puts a smile on my face. It's only happened a few times where it's someone I don't know. Usually, it's my incredibly supportive grandpa. But…

Gabe Mydland:

thanks, Mom. (laughter)

Jen Burris:

Hey, my mom leaves comments on my Instagram posts. So… (laughter)

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, and I appreciate that kind of support too. Sure. But yeah, I would absolutely love to be able to do music-related things for a living that's my end goal. Okay. Doesn't have to be like a luxurious living or anything but if it's enough to get by and I can you know still enjoy myself while doing it. Sure. That sounds like heaven to me.

Gabe Mydland:

So, it sounds like you've achieved a lot you've come a long way in your understanding and your knowledge. What's the next thing for you that you really want to be able to master or get under your belt?

Xander Morrison:

I'm interested in a lot of applications of music that are not just sitting down and listening to it, right? If it's music that's involved in like a film. I've done that. Recently with a student film on campus. I added some scores to that. I would like to do music for like a video game. I think that sounds fun. Other than that, kind of pushing my own music into less of a niche audience and like getting myself onto a record label sounds incredible. I've been thinking about doing a series of like live streams or YouTube videos, I haven't really decided yet, but it's basically okay. I make one song a week. And I keep doing that until I get signed to a record label. And eventually, someone's going to notice.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, right. Right. You know, some people live life waiting for luck to strike. And luck does play a role. But you have to put yourself in the position for that luck to happen. I mean, it just doesn't pluck you out of the context of what you want to be successful in, you've got to put yourself in the game.

Xander Morrison:

Yeah. And luckily, now that the internet is a thing, that's easier than ever, with streaming services taking off as they have, you no longer really need a record label in order to get your music out there. It sure helps for promotion’s sake, and to have your name associated with other names of people who do similar stuff to you. That's really cool to grow your audience. But it's not required to get music out there, right, because you don't need physical copies anymore, right. Even before streaming really took off and the Internet was still around, you could kind of do that. But you know, the best you could get was like a 240P YouTube video or a shady Napster download or something like that. But now like there's services and I use them that you upload your music to it. And it will put it out on all of those streaming services for you. And you don't have to worry about, you know, going through and uploading it individually to like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, TIDAL everywhere, a lot of the hard work is taken care of for you. And even if you do want to go the traditional label route, kind of like I do, that's easier now than ever too because there are sites like labeled radar where you can say, okay, here's the kind of music I make. Here's like, my super-specific niche, that is this song. And any record label that is interested in that, that is also on label radar, will get to listen to it and be like, Yeah, I think I want this, or they'll pass on it. Right. I think that's a really interesting opportunity. And I fully intend on taking advantage of that in the future. Good for you.

Jen Burris:

So how would you say that the internet and all these technological advances have kind of impacted this industry?

Xander Morrison:

On the artist side, it is now easier than ever to create the ideas that you want to create on a low budget, even like super high-end like industry-standard technology that in the past probably would have cost like 1000s of dollars is now like a couple 100 bucks, which is a big step up from where we were at even like a decade and a half ago. And that's really exciting because it allows more and more people to create what they want to it does kind of lead to an overpopulation issue. But I'm a firm believer that if you create music that is good enough and unique enough to differentiate yourself, and if people want to listen to it, then they will I don't think it's necessarily as competitive as some people make it out to be right. Like it's not like stealing listeners from other people who make the same music as you or vice versa. And then on the listener side, it is now easier than ever to discover new artists. And some platforms really push that as like a selling point to the right, like Spotify has their big Discover Weekly playlist where it keeps track of all of the stuff that you've listened to and goes, Okay, here's the kind of stuff that we think you would like. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's not. But then what I do is I go and add that stuff into like my main rotation, right, the stuff I do like then next time around, it's a little more zeroed in on what I'm interested in. I've still got a lot of songs from like that 2013 to 14 era that are not really a style that I'm interested in revisiting necessarily with like newer artists. And so sometimes that pops up a lot. But if I listened to less of it, it's less likely to show up in that playlist. So, stuff like those discovery algorithms and how it's presented to people around the world who use those kinds of plots. forums, that all makes it easier than ever to get heard, which is, I think a positive thing.

Gabe Mydland:

I subscribe to Discover Weekly and love the fact that I hear from different bands or from the bands. I'm already familiar with songs, and titles I hadn't heard before. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's fun. It's absolutely great.

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, especially with electronic music being as kind of underground as it is, it's, it's very easy to stumble on to just entire, like genres that you've never heard before. Because of how like hyper-specific it can get the fact that those kinds of algorithms can push that stuff to you, without you having to go out and search for something that you didn't know existed. That's really useful. Because if you're really interested in like, underground rave music, or whatever, there's probably like a handful of YouTube channels, or whatever, that will promote some of that, but you're never going to find all of it. With Spotify, you can go down the rabbit hole of related artists forever, basically, until you have found all of them, and you never will.

Jen Burris:

So, what's the most interesting thing you've learned? As you've kind of developed as a sound designer and music creator

Xander Morrison:

I think a lot of the interesting stuff to me is taking full advantage of all of the tools that you have using things in creative ways, whether they are physical things like a piano, or whether they are digital tools that seem pretty rudimentary on the surface, there is always a creative application for it, where it's used in a way that it's not quite intended to. But it sounds interesting anyway, and I love that kind of stuff. And certain artists, Mr. Bell, for example, is a really, really good artist for this where he'll take like just a simple delay effect, right? Like you'd hear on a guitar where it goes by. And he will pan that delay left and right, he will make it just delay after like, a handful of milliseconds, so that it repeats at the interval of a note. And he'll cut out all of the low-end frequencies from it. So, it's just the high stuff. And then it just sounds like someone's crinkling tinfoil in your ears just all over the place. And once you hear that sound in a song of his congratulations, you're never going to hear that exact sound ever again. Because it's completely different depending on what you feed into it. And even if it does pop up again, in the same song, he's usually got like a different permutation of that effect that's just a little bit different. So, it's never exactly the same. So, finding unique applications for things that people have been using for decades. That stuff is really what interests me. And another. Another big thing is specialization, which is kind of a newer thing in the music world, where you're like you're familiar with surround sound systems, right? It used to be that you had to go through some pretty specific setups to create music for that for like a film or whatever. And now it's slowly becoming more and more accessible to create, like a home studio with that kind of approach. The big proponent of that right now is Apple's flagship audio workstation logic, right? It just introduced a compatibility feature with the Dolby Atmos surround sound system algorithm. I don't really know what to call that. And we have a studio downstairs that uses that. And it's really interesting to play around with because there are all kinds of possibilities there that you never would have thought of before, right? Like there are a few like demo tracks, Montero by littleness is one of like the demo tracks that comes with that. And you can see visually kind of where things are being placed in the spatial field because you have full control over where whether something is in front of you to the left behind you, or even above you on certain setups. Just being able to place things very precisely like that is another really interesting thing to me that I want to explore more

Jen Burris:

So, does that impact the listener then too?

Xander Morrison:

So currently, not always, it depends on where you listen to it right now a lot of it really depends on What you're listening on, if it's just like your laptop speakers, you're not going to notice. If it's like a pair of cheap earbuds being run out of like an iPhone four, you're probably not going to notice. But as, as algorithms develop, to kind of take that surround sound experience, and transform it into just a stereo listening experience with left and right, that will become more and more accessible. And it was kind of that way, when stereo first became a thing to write, like, the Beatles recorded an album that was really experimental with stereo panning, right where like, the drums were all the way on the left side, and vocals were all the way on the right side. And it just sounded like no one does that nowadays. But the fact that you can is interesting, and I'm glad they explored it, because now people know, right,

Gabe Mydland:

The White Album and the song Back in the USSR starts with a plane landing. Sure. And it starts I think, I believe from the left, and then the sound, kind of you can hear it go to the right as a 16-year-old 50 years ago. Wow, that was incredible. Yeah, yeah, totally and really exciting.

Xander Morrison:

There are people who use that kind of specialization in their music now just in like the stereo sense to just to add like little bits of realism to it, right. Like there's a, there's an artist I'm really fond of named Varian, who does kind of like a combination of electronic and orchestral and like goth rock, which sounds completely out there. And sometimes it is, but for their orchestral stuff, they will pan certain instruments just a little bit to the left or to the right. So, it sounds like you are sitting in an actual Orchestra Hall. So, nothing is right in the middle. Unless it's where that would be sitting harps, for example, would be way off to one side, because they're always on like, the outer edge. And there are certain things that get exceptions to that, like, if they bring in a vocalist, they're not going to make them sound like they're standing in the back of the room or whatever they're going to want to bring that for more forward. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it's a lot of little touches like that, that really make a mix for that kind of song work. Because if it's not realistic enough, then it just sounds like an imitation of it rather than the actual thing. And honestly, if you listened to a lot of versions of music, you wouldn't be able to tell that most of it is synthesized, which is really like, that is the mark of someone who knows what they are doing in that field.

Jen Burris:

What would you want people to know about sound design? Or what would they be surprised to know?

Xander Morrison:

Sure. So sound design, first and foremost, is everywhere that you can hear sounds right, not just digitally, not just like electronically, like I've been talking about anywhere, right? Like when you slam a car door shut, someone made it sound like that intentionally. And then when you turn your car on when it beeps at you and gives you like a little welcome. That's also intentional, you don't really think about it, because you've got four other senses, but that sound is competing with at the same time. But anywhere that that fifth senses, there's usually someone behind it. And it is a very widespread field in a surprising number of ways. And we do a pretty good job at tackling the most popular of those applications here at DSU. I think we've got a class that I'm in right now that's devoted to implementing sounds into video games in unity, making things sound convincing as if you were in the game. There are singer-songwriter classes for people who are interested in the more traditional music stuff. There's a film scoring class, there's, there's a lot of unique opportunities out there. If you know how to manipulate sound. Sound forensics is a special topics class that isn't regularly offered, but it was for a semester, and I took that and that was really interesting because it was all about trying to extract any kind of like intelligible information that you could get out of a recording of like a crime scene. And so we use actual examples of like a particular shooting in wherever from years ago and taking recordings from different places that were all taken around the same time and you can hear gunshots and all of them and using like the delay of those gunshots As compared to the muzzle sound, to kind of triangulate about where that person would have been standing, who shot that gun, which is not at all, like an application that you would first think of when you think of sound design. But like I said, anywhere where sound is, there's someone who can do something with it.

Jen Burris:

So, a variety of applications.

Xander Morrison:

Absolutely.

Gabe Mydland:

An infinite variety of applications.

Jen Burris:

So, what are you looking forward to most?

Xander Morrison:

In terms of?

Jen Burris:

Your future in this kind of field?

Xander Morrison:

Sure. I mean, I'm interested in seeing what kind of new advancements technology can come up with that are complete game-changers for people like me, for example, there is a really expensive soundboard at the Washington Pavilion at a gig I worked a couple of weeks ago. And it had an option for spatialized monitoring. And because normally, on a like live soundboard, if you hit solo on something, and then put headphones on, you can hear just that thing. But with spatialized monitoring, I'm assuming at least, they didn't let me touch it because it's worth more than my entire, like a college degree. But I'm assuming it means you would be able to hear approximately where it would be in the room, as well as all of that. And just like little advances, little inches forward, that doesn't seem like all that much at first. But then if you look back a decade at where we were at, then we realized we've come a long way. And we'll just keep going. I don't see any end in sight for that.

Jen Burris:

Any final questions Gabe?

Gabe Mydland:

No, I again, it seems like every time we start to close in on an idea or an approach to something, we find out, it's more infinite than we imagined, you know, saying? Yeah. Like when we do research, we may come to some conclusions, maybe one or two answers to questions we have. But we also get five new questions that we didn't have before. Yep. And it sounds like it's analogous to what you're talking about in the sense that once we've mastered a certain technique, we've also along the way discovered new and interesting things that we can try and in a variety of different ways.

Xander Morrison:

Yeah, the beautiful thing about music is that no matter how much you boil it down to theories, and algorithms and ways to make your music sound good consistently, on a technical level, there will always be those creative applications where you don't quite know what's going to happen. And sometimes it might not work out, but a few times it does and then you stumble across something that someone's never done before. That's something that is I don't think ever really going to go away because then someone will develop a tool that capitalizes on what you found out. And then someone will find a way to use that tool in a new way. And so on and so forth.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, thank you so much for being our guest Xander. It was really fun to kind of get to know a little bit more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into sound design and how that impacts things like podcasts. So, thanks so much for being a guest today and for being our producer. We appreciate it, and we enjoy having you.

Gabe Mydland:

We do.

Jen Burris:

And thank you to our listeners. Please rate and subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today we will be talking with Dr. Omar El-Gayar about digital transformation. So, can you introduce yourself? And maybe tell us a little bit about yourself?

Omar El-Gayar:

Yes, sure. It's a pleasure to be here. And my name is Omar El-Gayar. I'm a professor of information systems at Dakota State. I've been with Dakota state for a little over 20 years. Now, it's a pleasure to share my thoughts about what digital transformation is all about.

Jen Burris:

Perfect. So why don't we start off by talking about what digital transformation is?

Omar El-Gayar:

Okay. Well, it's simple, right? So, it's all about leveraging technology to make lives better, as simple as that. Now, is this really a new concept? Not necessarily. So, since the use of computers in businesses, I guess that goes back to the 50s, we did have digital transformation, what's really different right now is the amount of data we have, the exponential growth in computing power, the connectivity networks, and then advances in algorithms. So, kind of creating the perfect storm for companies, organizations, and individuals, to leverage technology to improve processes and improve lives.

Jen Burris:

So, it's pretty expansive then?

Omar El-Gayar:

It is. And I have to say, it is not just about technology. So, it's about people. It's about the process. It's about having the right culture, but also influencing and changing that culture. So, in a sense, being part of the digital or the Information Age.

Jen Burris:

Okay, how have you seen that kind of evolve over the years?

Omar El-Gayar:

Well, it did evolve significantly. So, you know, when computers first came into business, and government and so forth, they were essentially number-crunching machines. So, the focus was really to automate what we call back-end processes, you know, doing payroll, the government used it for calculating census, I believe it took like 12 years or whatever, some astronomical time to do that. And that got reduced using mainframes at the time to a year and a half, which is still a long time. But back then that was a was a significant improvement. But then gradually, the evolution, or the advancement, if you will, in technology, kind of started moving computers to the front stage.

So, at some point, we started feeling it as consumers and individuals. And I would say that came about maybe somewhere in the 90s, we started feeling it first, with PCs. But again, you know, you played some games, you ran some spreadsheets, that's not really much what we're talking about here. But with the internet, with E-commerce that came about, I would say, roughly around the late 90s, you started really seeing that notion of digital transformation affecting and impacting everyday life, you know, think of Amazon and how it transformed how we purchase things and how we shop for things, think of Netflix, and where Blockbuster is now, it's gone. Right? So that's, that's part of the transformation.

And the other term that you hear about is disruption. So, these companies when they came in, they leveraged technology in very big ways, that disrupted their industries significantly. And the examples are plenty, obviously, you know, we hear about Uber, we hear about Airbnb, even weather.com, as a company is not necessarily a weather forecasting business. It's really a data company in that leverage data in very unique ways, as part of its business model and for its survival.

Jen Burris:

Can you talk about some of those unique ways that weather.com leverages some of that data?

Omar El-Gayar:

So, they started, obviously, as a weather app, right? You can check the weather, follow the weather and stuff like that. But they're not really making money on that even with the ads that would show up that were not really enough to drive their business model. So that's where they started thinking about how they can leverage their access to weather data in very unique ways. And one of them is really to influence purchasing decisions. And this particular example has to do with hair care products that don't apply to anyone…

Gabe Mydland:

I was gonna say maybe Jen but you and I… (laughter)

Omar El-Gayar:

So, as hair care products for women. And evidently, the kind of product is a function of the weather conditions. So how the weather would look could influence what kind of product a woman would purchase. So, they teamed up with Procter and Gamble (P&G), and they kind of shared that data, if you will. And ultimately, I believe P&G has an app that leverages data from weather.com to influence and provide recommendations for women in terms of what kind of product might be most suited.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow.

Omar El-Gayar:

Pretty unique, right?

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah.

Omar El-Gayar:

Pretty Innovative.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, you mentioned one thing about how technology has affected all of our lives. I was working in Pierre at the time freshly out of college when PCs became more readily available, this was in the mid-80s, mid to latter half of the 80s. And one of the interesting arguments for you know, making a huge investment for state government buying into technology was in the long term, we would be not having to hire employees to do a lot of the work that they do now that with attrition. The technology would take over a lot of those responsibilities and the size of our state employees, and public employees would shrink and of course, that never happened. What happened was is we were using the technology and we were getting a lot of things done. And that left us time to do even more things and you know, more kinds of people needed to come on board. Technology has really changed how we do things, obviously. But there are people who, unfortunately, haven't caught up with the changes or kept up with the changes, how do we make sure that more people are keeping up rather than getting left behind?

Omar El-Gayar:

And let me maybe share, you know, share a comment about your observation, please experienced in the ad. So, I think that's right one of the arguments that you hear often is, that technology is taking away jobs. Well, it's not really taking away jobs, it's you can arguably say it's disrupting jobs. In other words, it's transforming jobs. So, some jobs yes, will become obsolete, just the fact because of the existence and the capabilities of the technologies being developed, looking into like the medical field, the healthcare field. So, physician jobs, you know, certain specialties are no longer or will no longer be as prevalent as before, just because, for example, advances in AI and computer vision, in particular, you know, radiology, you are reading of x-ray images, or MRIs and stuff like that. But that doesn't mean that yes, it might be taking away some jobs from some areas. But there also are other jobs that are being created that are needed to essentially facilitate, if you will, the adoption of the technology, the creation of the technology, the deployment of the technology, you name it. So even business processes get transformed with technology. And along with that transformation, jobs get redefined as well. So that is definitely happening. It obviously happened. And you've observed it in the 80s. And it happened since then and will continue to happen. So the idea that it's a job, technology is threatening, it could be for some, but it's also creating other kinds of jobs. And I believe, for example, for us in higher education, we have a responsibility to make sure that we educate our students for these jobs that may not exist right now in order to provide a foundation broadly speaking, not just on the technology, but on the business side, on the people side, that will allow them to navigate these jobs as they evolve. And as they come through.

Gabe Mydland:  

I have just been amazed at when I first began my career, how differently, it covers the whole spectrum from those who maybe have a limited education all the way up to people who've spent years in graduate school like the physicians, you talked about surgeries, for example, now are being handled, in many cases by robots. And it's amazing. It's just interesting to me, though that some people Yeah, I think you're right. It creates a lot of new opportunities. But some people it's this is the always the way we've done it. This is the way I've always done it. So, there's a resistance.

Omar El-Gayar:

Yeah. I think that was your second question. So let me comment here. So, you actually bring another very important element, right? When we talk about technology in an organization or concept, context or institutional context, or even just in everyday life. And that is change, right? So, when technology comes in, arguably, it is changing or impacting how we do things. Okay. So, in information systems, there's quite a bit of body of research that talks about technology acceptance. And one of the constructs that come in and out depending on which model you're looking at it is attitude, for example. So yes, things that are right up your alley here. And that could impact and there are certainly other factors. But the really the larger picture, could also, especially in an organizational context, is culture.

When we talk about digital transformation, we will talk about the infusion of technology, you do want to have a receptive culture. And in many cases, organizations that are able to engage in successful digital transformation initiatives are those that have what we call digital leaders, in other words, leaders with a mindset that is open to exploring new technology and exploring avenues for leveraging that technology to advance their organizational interests, certainly, so they do play a role in catalyzing a fueled receptive culture to that change. Okay. But then, once that happens, the evolution of that is that you have a culture that is now so used to digital technology that they can't live without it. So, in other words, in a sense, if you think of it as progress over time, you have to have that culture to get started. But once you start and you reach some critical mass, then, you know, it kind of feeds on itself and grows exponentially. And that we've seen in pretty much all the organizations that we're able to leverage this notion of digital transformation to the maximum extent possible. So yeah, so what you're talking about, really about potential resistance to change that is another term for attitude, you know, culture or receptive culture is certainly real. And it's certainly something that has to be managed. And that's why I emphasized at the beginning, that digital transformation is not just about the technology, because if it is just about the technology, there, in my opinion, it's doomed to fail. The people aspect, and the process aspects are key, if for anything else to deal with the exact phenomena that you were just describing. Because that's all people skill. That's all change management.

Gabe Mydland:

And change is inevitable.

Omar El-Gayar:

Well, that's the name of the game, by definition, digital transformation is all about change.

Jen Burris:

So how do you prepare people or like our students for this kind of constant cycle of change, and as you mentioned earlier, positions that maybe don't exist yet, but could in the future?

Omar El-Gayar:

So, one aspect, obviously, you know, in an organizational context, is communication. So, communication goes actually a very long way, for example, to diffuse, if you will, any concern about, for example, jobs, because that's really the first thing. So, once you start talking about digital transformation, leveraging technology, and so forth, the first thing that comes to mind from an employee perspective is will I lose my job? How will this affect my job communication and gradual onboarding, many successful companies actually also approach it in kind of a piecemeal. So as, as opposed to what we call a big bank approach, you know, okay, well digitize everything in the company. That could be very costly, and very hard to manage, and very disruptive to the business to the people, and so forth. So, a gradual, we'll call small wins. So, you get these small wins, so that everybody kind of feels on board, they could see what technology could do to the business to their work. Okay, and really buy into it. So, employee buy-in from the bottom up is really critical for such transformations.

As far as students, I would say for us here at DSU, we're really uniquely positioned to prepare students to be part of this transformation efforts, regardless of their interests. In other words, we have highly technical programs, okay. But we also have non-technical programs, that could help, for example, with change management, okay, or with serving as a liaison between the business functions and technology. And we have programs that are right in the middle, right, so like the CIS program, so students get exposed to some business domain knowledge, but also technology, and how to leverage technology to advance business functions. So, you get the business focus, the humanities focus, you get the highly technical focus, and you also get, you know, somewhere in between, that can maybe bridge and help the communication channels, if you will, between the application domain, and the technology that would enable that.

Gabe Mydland:

What's interesting about Dakota State University is they accept that change is inevitable, and we've got to stay on top of it, we don't like it. We don't always enjoy it. But, you know, Google comes out with Google Docs and has certain features that Microsoft Word doesn't. And then Microsoft Word all a sudden tries to catch up and they develop things. I think it's a healthy attitude that we have here at Dakota State University about change, for the most part.

Omar El-Gayar:

I certainly agree, I'm pretty sure you remember, like, you know, the mission change back in 1984. Here at DSU, it was all about change. And this, you embrace that big time. And this is what got us where we are right now. And we continue to evolve our programs, you know, from undergraduate, very diversified portfolio of an undergraduate program that really speaks to the needs of employers needs even, or expectations about future jobs and stuff we're talking about. Right. But also, master's degree programs, even Ph.D. programs that, you know, I know, 15-20 years ago, maybe unheard of…

Gabe Mydland:

Certainly on this campus.

Omar El-Gayar:

Certainly yes. But it's just a testimony of how nimble and agile this institution is and how open it is to change. And I believe that being part of the culture also impacts students and their view of change throughout their education and then moving beyond.

Jen Burris:

And how important would you say that culture is in preparing people to deal with inevitable change?

Omar El-Gayar:

Well, I think it's the culture. And it's also the nature of the programs. In other words, it provides our students with a foundation, the general education piece is a big part of that. And then the courses and how each of our programs are designed to provide students with the core knowledge if you will, that would essentially propel them through a lifelong career of learning, contribution, and ability to adapt to, to change. And I think these are characteristics of any healthy, solid educational program. So, in other words, we're not teaching technical skills in the sense of well, how do you do XY and Z? That's, that's the room of other kinds of schools. But not the issue. So, in other words, the kind of knowledge that you get is lifelong or timeless, as opposed to skills with a specific technology that might be obsolete by the time she's a graduate. That's a differentiating characteristic of the kind of educational experience our students get here at DSU versus elsewhere.

Gabe Mydland:

You're right. I think having an attitude and openness about change is very critical to success. But I also think the reason why change is so difficult is we're not convinced it's going to take us to a better place. It feels like a bit of a gamble. You know, where there's a lot of uncertainty. And is it really going to improve the situation? Or is it just going to make things more complicated? But I think I would add to what you've said, and I couldn't agree with you more that the opportunities that students here at the issue have with technology and seeing how change happens and the experience they get. They recognize that they can manage it, they cannot let events dictate what happens they can impart not totally, but they can impart help determine the outcome if they make a change.

Omar El-Gayar:

Absolutely, yes. And I think, you know, when we talk about change, you know, you kind of hit the nail on the head here, when you mentioned uncertainty, and that's what we see. And that's what research tells us, when it comes to well, how do you navigate resistance to change and what instigates that kind of resistance and so forth. So, if you want to boil it down into one word, it's uncertainty about the future. And that's where sometimes these incremental approaches come in, you know, I teach now, or we'll be offering a course called design thinking in the summer. And it's really a mindset, and a process to navigate, if you will, not necessarily change, but coming up with innovations. Okay, that that would respond to some genuine human need, if you will, on a problem, okay. And Design Thinking has been associated quite a bit with the notion of digital transformation, innovation, leverage of technology, again, for innovating or for improving human lives, which is really about what we're talking about here. And some of the key elements and characteristics of design thinking in reference to what was talking about here change and mitigating the resistance to change and concern about uncertainty and so forth, are at least two items we're going to share with one is this notion of empathizing with the user, right?

So, understanding what their needs are. So, this is, again, coming and speaking to people is an integral part of the process. So, we're not just again, talking about technology terminology, right? Okay, so that the notion of empathy, and empathizing with users, and then using that knowledge to really revisit what the issue the underlying or the problem is to come up with potential solutions, okay. But equally important is when coming up with potential solutions, that's the ideation piece of design thing, is to follow that with prototyping kind of incrementally testing ideas for that solution. And in doing that, you're actually mitigating the uncertainty that is associated with trying very new, untested ideas that inherently create this level of anxiety with the uncertainty surrounding it. So, you're gradually trying to mitigate that in an incremental, but rapid succession, right to reach your ultimate outcome, which is solving that problem in a manner that resonates with the intended user. In the larger context, hours spent managing all stakeholders' needs and interests.

Jen Burris:

So how would you say digital transformation and the work that goes into it kind of impacts these advancements that we make in society?

Omar El-Gayar:

Well, I think digital transformation is at the heart of advancements that we're seeing right now in society, I think, you know, health care, for example. So, in the, in the 2000s. If you remember, there was a big push toward electronic medical records. In a sense, that is a digital transformation initiative. It is painful, some folks might argue it is still painful, even if they were at least 15 years or more into that give or take depending on the organization. But you could arguably say that it also transformed Healthcare. And it also enabled things that were not there before. So right now, you can go online, for example, and get immediate access to your labs. There is more work now that is being done on data exchange. So, if you change providers or whatever access to that data, that until recently has still been an issue, and there are still kinks to be resolved. But once you have the digital, if you will own the cyber ecosystem in place, you're gradually enabling things that could not have happened before, like access to your own medical data, and so forth. There are other things obviously happening on the clinical side, we talked about imaging and image recognition, computer vision, and so forth, that impacted radiology if you will, robotics if you will, and how it impacts surgery. And that's just talking about healthcare. And AI has some actually big applications there too.

But we could shift to customer support. Again, some of our experiences might have been a little frustrating. But technology is evolving things are what I'm referring to really are these virtual chatbots if you also go in and for customer service and stuff like that. And then eventually, it's like, okay, well just get me a real person, right. But, but the fact of the matter is, that is state of the art. Technology falls under the AI umbrella. And it is evolving dramatically. And think of virtual assistants, Siri, and Alexa. Again, these are examples of such technology that are transforming how we do things. Blockchain in it is actually making great strides right now by supporting supply chain management. And we all know about how supply chains were severely impacted. Because of COVID. Some companies were ahead of the curve and or have already had or leveraged supply or blockchain technology to manage their supply chain. So, they were a little ahead. But right now, with everything going on, there are more and more companies trying to capitalize on that. And the reason I mentioned supply chain in the context of blockchain is that it's one of the success stories if you will because again, Blockchain is still an emerging technology, and people are still exploring what is good for what it's not good for. And so far with supply chain was one that at least there were some proven successes there. And then there are also things really, in the back end that we don't necessarily as consumers or individuals feel about, or at least in a direct way, and that has to do with the development and deployment of software. So, for us in the IT world, we hear about, and we talk about what we call microservices, containers, and DevOps.

And without necessarily going into the details, what these technologies provide, is quite a bit of agility, scalability, and resilience to the pipeline and cycle of developing software, that, again, serves a purpose or solves a problem or a human need. But also deploying that software, making it available to the end-user. And these technologies are what I didn't say are very compatible with the cloud, which we hear about that has been an instigator and a catalyst for a lot of the agility that we see. I'll just give you a concrete example here. So, think of how COVID disrupted everything, right? And even before COVID companies like Best Buy, which is pretty sure we all kind of like to shop there had to answer a big question and that is how they can remain in business as a brick-and-mortar electronics store in light of you can buy anything electronic online. Right? And they started dabbling with the idea of creating an online store but leveraging their physical store for people to shop around, but also to order online and pick up at the store. And to be able to test those business models and implement them. You must be very agile with respect to your software. development and deployment processes. And some of the developments that we don't really deal with on a firsthand basis. Like the stuff that I talked about enables that. And once you have that in place, they were able to test it very quickly on three stores, and then grew that model right before COVID hit. So Best Buy was actually one of the companies that were essentially best prepared to handle COVID.

But then think of other companies that were able still to catch up, because they had that infrastructure as part of the digital transformation effort. Like grocery stores, you know, Sam's Walmart or wherever, where you could shop online, and have your stuff packed and ready to go. And you just go in and park your car and in somebody will bring this stuff to you. and off you go. So all of that is really enabled by various technologies, if you will, and is are all part of this notion of digital transformation.

Jen Burris:

So, what do you see for the future?

Gabe Mydland:

What are you excited about for the future?

Omar El-Gayar:

Well, if you know me, I'm excited about technology, right? So, I'm always excited to see what's really the next frontier what really is the next application that technology would help make better, if you will, the sky is really the limit. When you think about it, there is always something new. And that's really a kind of keep encouraging students and my students to kind of continue to explore whether in classes or outside classes. The nice thing about the era that we're living in, is that you could try new things very quickly. And you can what we call in startup terminology, fail fast, right? So, you can fail fast. But you don't have to worry about it. Because you can, you know, pick yourself up again and try something else.

And there is so much out there in terms of building blocks. Okay, so I think the technology has evolved, that it's more like Lego now. So, if you're interested in machine learning, and AI, there's so much software that you don't necessarily have to be an AI expert or a math whiz, to be able to write AI algorithms. Many of those are already out there. Entire networks, CNN convolutional neural networks, for example, are already out there to do some facial recognition. So, I can actually have a student, you know, come in and use that code already, and create a facial recognition software. So, imagine how would that enable innovation. So, the facial recognition part could be just a small piece of a larger innovation that solves a particular problem. So that's what I mean by building blocks. And I use facial recognition because I know very well that 10-15 years ago, this was entirely out of reach of the mainstream, you have to really have huge resources to come up with such applications that are meaningful and useful. Now you can get those off the shelf, plug them with other stuff, and create some new things.

The bar is kind of lower now, in terms of what you can do, or what one could do with technology. I think the challenge is the mindset. That's why I'm always intrigued with this notion of design thinking and other approaches that would stimulate creativity and innovation. Because if you can come up with the right idea, the technology is a good chance is there or the building blocks of that is there. There's certainly work that is still going on and will continue to go on. That's really the engine of innovation is to develop those technologies. But the availability and access to it are really very different than they used to be.

Jen Burris:

A very exciting and fascinating topic. Well, I want to thank you for being our guest today. Omar. Thank you to Our Podcast Producer, Xander Morrison, and thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe and rate. Thank you.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris and Gabe is out today. So I brought a guest co-host with me, Jena Martin.

Jena Martin:

Hello, everyone.

Jen Burris:

I'm excited to have you on here and help me interview our guest today, Cody Welu. He's Assistant Professor of Computer and cyber sciences in The Beacom College and today we're going to be talking about defensive security. So, Cody, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Cody Welu:

Sure. Yeah. So, as you said, my name is Cody Welu, I'm an assistant professor in the Beacom College. I've taught all sorts of classes over my years here, I think I just hit my nine-year anniversary, overall working at DSU. So been around for a little bit, but actually took some classes at DSU here, back in the day for a couple different degrees, and glad to be back here on campus teaching again. I kind of teach everywhere in defensive security, Windows administration, and a little programming here and there. Pretty good.

Jena Martin:

Cody, can you tell us what is defensive security?

Cody Welu:

Sure. So defensive security is a super broad area, it really can encompass everything that you would think of when you think of security, computer security if it doesn't have an offensive spin to it. It could be vulnerability analysis, that's a big component of it, finding vulnerabilities in software, looking at malware, doing malware analysis really could fall under defensive security, umbrella. Forensics, threat hunting, defensive cyber operations, the list really kind of goes on and on. But all of it has this goal of protecting whatever systems it is we're talking about whatever information systems there are, whether it be from a proactive standpoint, or even a reactive standpoint, if we detect there's something wrong or there's an intruder, and we have to go in and kind of mitigate anything that's going on that way, but a really, really broad area, all with the goal of making things more secure.

Jen Burris:

And so how does that differ from offensive security? Then how do you kind of explain the difference between the two?

Cody Welu:

Sure, so offensive security and defensive security, we really have the same goal. In the end, making things more secure. It's just how we go about doing it is very different kind of on the offensive side, a lot of what we do there is we actually break into systems and prove that something as vulnerable shows the impacts of something. And that's one of the key portions of the offensive side is actually proving that something could happen. From a defensive side, it doesn't include that proof necessarily. But a lot of times when we're doing defensive assessments, whether it be for vulnerabilities looking for vulnerabilities, looking for misconfigurations, things like that, we probably have a broader view over an entire system if we are credentialed. So we have access to the systems and we look from the inside, whereas a lot of times offensive security starts on the outside and making their way in, really working together getting to the bottom of any issues in any systems.

Jena Martin:

Do you think I'm less likely to have issues since I keep all my passwords on post-it notes under my keyboard?

Cody Welu:

Probably not. (laughter) Never would recommend that.

Jena Martin:

Well, can you tell me what are some of the practices that you guys do for defensive security?

Cody Welu:

As I mentioned before, it's a super broad field, right? So, we can take it in a lot of different ways. I think a big portion of defensive security, or at least traditionally has been more of the vulnerability management side. So, when there's a software vulnerability out there that the world knows about maybe one of those big things you hear in the news, are we vulnerable to that? Do we have systems that actually are affected by this software security flaw? And then can we patch that? Do we need to do any specific updates on our servers on our systems, things like that, go to the vulnerability management side, that's a big piece to it. I like to personally play more on the monitoring side of defensive security, somewhat of a proactive which can turn into a reactive side of defensive cybersecurity, but watching what's happening on networks, what's happening on computers, can we find things that are different things that are maybe not as they should be, that could lead to exploitation or anything kind of along those lines, intrusion detection looking for that preventing intrusions which then can get into incident response, if there ever is something found that's not so good, never an area we'd like to get into. But we have to be prepared. If there are any active intrusions or things going on, and I guess really all that kind of can encompass within defensive cybersecurity tools wise, there's a bunch all sorts of different tools and all of those different areas are from free open-source tools for vulnerability management to log analysis and kind of things along those lines. And it's a broad, broad place.

Jena Martin:

Sure, since you were talking about vulnerabilities, how do you fix them, once you discover you have a vulnerable area.

Cody Welu:

So that really depends on the vulnerability, I’ll categorize vulnerabilities into a couple of different ways. One being a software vulnerability. So, a software manufacturer, maybe Microsoft just made an error in Windows in some of the software that someone was able to exploit. It's all sorts of different vulnerabilities and things that can be exploited in software. That way, how we fix those are probably just installing updates. So if you ever

Jena Martin:

That simple, it can't be! (laughter)

Cody Welu:

On somewhere in your line. Yeah, I mean, if you ever see those little pop-ups, hey, you need to restart Windows to install updates, do it. It's, it's annoying. And hopefully, Windows isn't shutting down for you. But it's important to install those patches. And at an enterprise level, sometimes that's hard to do. If a patch might break something else in some old system or process or those types of vulnerabilities, they're hopefully easy to patch if there is a fix that Microsoft would publish in that example. So other types of vulnerabilities could be misconfiguration vulnerabilities. So if you have a file share, or maybe a SharePoint site or something like that, for example, that was configured so that anyone could get to your files, just bad permissions is really all that one would be. That type of vulnerability is just changing permissions, right? But identifying that vulnerability exists is absolutely the first step. Once you find it, it's just changing it whatever that might be. If there's maybe an issue in a firewall configuration, where you're letting through too much network traffic, or allowing attackers or anyone really access to something they shouldn't have access to. It's almost as simple as just closing up that hole.

Jen Burris:

And you talked about kind of monitoring things and keeping up to date with what's going on. So first off, how do you keep up with all the monitoring? And then additionally, what do you do when you hear about new security issues?

Jena Martin:

Jen, I would assume he doesn't sleep at night to monitor all of this right, Cody?

Cody Welu:

Sleep is important. We'll try. It's a busy, busy kind of industry in a busy field. So I guess I'd say keeping up on all that monitoring. Yeah, it's difficult. It will keep some folks up at night. Staying on top of the latest vulnerabilities is absolutely a task in and of itself. There are tools out there that help you look for vulnerabilities that can help you scan your systems for known vulnerabilities. I think last year, in 2021, there were over 20,000 Sound vulnerabilities published, made known the world knows about them, we know how to look for them, our tools know how to look for them. So we can do that. And it becomes kind of mind-boggling how many issues there can be this kind of continuous monitoring going along that track looking for unknown, it's super hard. I mean, having good tooling, good staff can have good people in a security operation center. If you're an organization that's large enough to have one of those or can have one of those managed security service providers working for you do that constant monitoring, it's hard. It's absolutely a round-the-clock job if you really need to stay on top of things if you've got a really, really secure environment that needs to stay. So it's a lot of work. And I think it's really exciting to especially find those unknown things are known vulnerabilities, you find something new and you've kind of got a puzzle to figure out.

Jen Burris:

And so you're also an adviser to some clubs and/or teams on campus, is that correct?

Cody Welu:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm the faculty advisor for our defensive cybersecurity Club, which is a club that falls under the computer club. So we get a lot of students involved in there, kind of get into some of the competitions and things there. It's in our defensive cybersecurity club. Our students meet weekly, they're always talking about some topic as it relates to defensive cybersecurity or systems administration, largely preparing to not only compete in some competitions, collegiate level competitions on the subject, but really just preparing themselves for the real world to a lot of the stuff is is very applicable. Some of the competitions that we'll compete in include the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, and actually, I just came from working on setting up kind of a practice environment for our CCDC team this year. So we're gonna do some practice with them and a couple of weeks preparing for the regional and hopefully the national event where their job is to secure a network of computers looking at a network of 810 1220 different computers that they are tasked with defending from an active Red Team. Okay, I think a fun part of these claims. upset and being a student get them to participate in there, especially when we get to regional events and possibly even national events. They're going up against a really good red team of professional red. Oh, wow. So offensive security for a living.

Jen Burris:

So they're getting that intense experience.

Cody Welu:

Absolutely.

Jen Burris:

That they can take out then once they've graduated into their careers.

Cody Welu:

Yep, that's exactly right. I actually had the opportunity to participate in one of those teams when I was an undergraduate student and that experience, I mean, not only having CCDC on a resume but actually having that practical hands-on experience of getting to defend a network from live attacks was absolutely invaluable for future jobs.

Jena Martin:

Tell us a little bit more about the competitions? Like is it all I'm assuming remote people all over the world? All over the United States? Maybe? Or?

Cody Welu:

Yeah, it really kind of depends on the competition, the CCDC? I'll use that one as I guess the first example, traditionally, that one does take place all over the country. I think they have eight, nine, I think nine regions. So, they'll be nine regional competitions throughout the country participating in and out large region this year, which will end up being virtual. Obviously, over the past few years, a competition was virtual altogether with COVID and everything. But hopefully, they'll do well at the regional competition and have the opportunity to travel to Orlando, Florida this year for a national competition. That's the whole point guys

Jena Martin:

Do you guys gather as a club on campus here and do this, like you have one designated room that allows you to hold your competitions and yeah, more or less with eSports on that type of thing, or are you completely separate?

Cody Welu:

At this point, kind of completely separate. Yeah, yep, we'll team up more often than not with other computer clubs, like the offensive security club or offset club, I can call it for short, we've absolutely got spaces on campus for our students to meet all the time when they're meeting weekly. Typically, in a classroom, when we have our practice competitions, we'll get the offset club together in a room, some of their members to be the red team. And they get to practice their offensive skills. Well, our defenders are in another room on campus, practicing their defensive skills and defending those systems against attacks. That's the CCDC side of things. We've also traveled to Chicago in the past for the Department of Energy's cyber force competition has a very similar flavor to CCDC, where we're defending a network from attacks, but with the Department of Energy, they're often putting some sort of spin that's relevant to them. So critical infrastructure or water pumps, and kind of a SCADA system, those types of really critical systems on those networks. So it's always a fun little flavor of things. And traveling with students is kind of fun too.

Jena Martin:

How does the club normally finish in those competitions fairly well?

Cody Welu:

Yeah, I've been super happy with how DSU finishes overall, most of the competitions were absolutely in the top. I don't know, 10%, I'd say on average, and the best we've ever done at CCDC was a second-place finish nationally. And we've won regional events quite a bit over the years. So

Jen Burris:

Are you competing with a lot bigger schools at those national events too?

Cody Welu:

Absolutely, absolutely. Probably our biggest competition that we like to say in CCDC, in particular, is UCF they're like they played D1 sports very, very, very big school. And I mean, a lot of the other schools at a lot of their competitions. Yeah, they’re your D1 type schools and they, some of them have a presence and, and we're right up there with them, if not better, it's exciting

Jen Burris:

So how do you go about advising your students to some of that start in the classroom with the teaching? Or is there a certain method that you take with your students?

Cody Welu:

I would say that's accurate; it does start in the classroom. And a lot of the stuff can stem from the classrooms, I do teach our undergraduate defensive security class. So, some of the topics and some of the concepts that we cover in that class, we'll make our way into what our club does. And a lot of what we do in the club, honestly, even is more on the systems administration side. So, in some of those classes, I teach our windows administration class. So again, some of those same kinds of topics go over there, but really, I am a big fan of empowering the students to kind of lead and be their best are clubs are run by students. They're really made for students and were there to advise, absolutely. And I kind of like to take that role too. They'll come to me for advice like what if, what are some other topics we could cover? Or could you help us make practice scenarios or things like that and absolutely excited to do that and advise them on that. But I'm also really happy that our students are awesome and take the charge and kind of leading their clubs from a week-to-week basis.

Jen Burris:

What's it like coming up with practice scenarios for them?

Cody Welu:

It's (pause) (laughter)

Jen Burris:

I'm curious.

Cody Welu:

It's an adventure, I'll say it's challenging to an extent to after you do a number of them coming up with something news is kind of hard. But it's with a lot of these scenarios that will first come up with some sort of a business. So the one I'm practicing with right now we're playing with, we're still working on setting it up, I'll say, is a kind of shipping or logistics company. So then what types of websites, what types of applications what types of servers might a logistics company have? So then we're charged with trying to set that up, configuring a network that looks kind of real, actually. So we've got websites, we've got emails, we've got maybe an E-commerce application where people would order shipping services or something like that. And actually setting that up in our, what's called our AI lab, in a big secure big computer, virtual computing infrastructure, we'll say, and setting that up in that environment, and then eventually unleashing the students on it, it’s fun.

Jen Burris:

That sounds like it takes a long time

Cody Welu:

It super does, super does.

Jena Martin:

You're gonna unleash the students on that to see if they can hack in and reroute a package maybe? is that like the

Cody Welu:

Kind of both sides do it my goal is more defensive focused. Right? So stop that from happening, I'll introduce some vulnerabilities into the system. I mean, there'll be probably the easiest and quickest vulnerability to find and hopefully fix is just a default password. Use the same password a bad password on every system, every website, every application will have the students need to go in and fix that. So it is real world too. People do that. And devices ship with default passwords. So there's that defensive side of it. But at the same time, we do have an active Red team. So yeah, if the one of their goals could be to reroute a package, absolutely. Or we're looking at maybe adding a shipping component. So we've got ships that they need to reroute, possibly as the attackers or steal customer information, like credit cards and things like that, you know, having both sides go against each other to practice that way. It's like it's super fun.

Jena Martin:

Do you ever have them try to hack our passwords on campus here?

Cody Welu:

No. (Laughter)

Jena Martin:

It's 1234 in case you’re wondering.

Cody Welu: I hope not.

Jena Martin:

Just kidding.

Cody Welu:

Absolutely, no, no. One of the first things we talked about in our kind of intro to cybersecurity classes is the legal and ethics side of things. If you have permission, it might be okay. But we can't give them permission to hack your password.

Jena Martin:

Probably a good conversation to have. That's always still these kids when I come across some of them. I'm not a techy person by any means. So, if you know me, you're probably like, oh, dear Lord. But I still don't even try to hack my bank account. There's only $100 in it. So don't try it. (laughter)

Jena Martin:

Tell us a little bit about what it feels like when you watch these kids succeed. Whether it be through the club activity or classroom aspect, you have to feel just an overwhelming amount of pride when you watch them.

Cody Welu:

Absolutely. That's absolutely correct. Pride is a good word for it. I'm, I'm excited for the students always when they do well, in a competition. I mean, winning prizes and getting to go somewhere to travel to a national competition is of course fun and everything, but they've just got the experience, even if they wouldn't do well, in a competition, getting the experience of doing the stuff is absolutely a huge win. For the real world. Being successful in these competitions is absolutely awesome to see seeing our students land successful jobs, and hopefully eventually come back to us and say hi, once they're out in the real world in the workforce, that's absolutely awesome. One of the best parts of the job.

Jen Burris:

What kind of career paths can students take out of defensive security?

Cody Welu:

Ohh.

Jena Martin:

Good question.

Cody Welu:

All over, all over. Again, with a defensive security kind of being such a wide umbrella. You can go just as many places right now just as many types of jobs from hardcore malware analysis to vulnerability researcher exploits research for maybe governments things like that to working in a security operation center, being a sock analyst. So, we're doing some of that monitoring stuff I talked about earlier, looking for intrusions, looking for active bad guys moving around and those types of things. We could look to systems administration, our systems administration type degree called network and security administration is super well baked in security, we've got security in and out of it. So where are you take that? Really becoming a pretty well-rounded student out of some of our degree programs and just in the defensive security world in general is kinda limitless, actually.

Jen Burris:

That's very impressive. What do you see for the future of the cybersecurity industry and specifically defensive security?

Cody Welu:

The future? I guess I'd say the industry is changing. The industry is always changing. It's kind of one of the things I like to say about security, in general, it's super a cat and mouse game, it's the attackers trying to break in and defenders finding a way to stop them finding a way to detect them. So, we know when someone's breaking in and well, then they're gonna find a different way to break-in, it's just back and forth, and back and forth. So as technologies change, as we have more and more devices that are connected to networks connected to the internet, have all sorts of different information on them. The way we look at those devices, secure those devices, and monitor those devices for any malicious activity is always going to be changing is to constantly evolve, an evolving field and that's something that I think is super challenging and exciting at the same time.

Jen Burris:

Any other questions from you, Jena?

Jena Martin:

Not that I can think of right now I'm letting you off easy, just I have to say I'm very impressed. You know, not only are you a really good professor here on campus, you take wonderful photography at all the sporting events, so I, you know, you're just a man of many skills. And then you do your Christmas and light show, which is phenomenal. I think you should try to hack that. Maybe I'll sit out there and try to hack that. (Laughter) You're pretty safe in case you're wondering.

Cody Welu:

Well, thank you,

Jena Martin:

But I can't think of any questions right now. How about you, Jen?

Jen Burris:

I guess if you want to mention anything about your outside interests, like the light show

Cody Welu:

I think it's important to have interests outside of exactly what you do for work but I I've always liked Christmas lights and I put a technology spin on it, you know, kind of in the kind of tech and networking and cyber background and I like to play with kind of a Christmas light show and to do a Halloween light show as well out of my place called Mad lights. So, it's it keeps me busy outside of work.

Jen Burris:

I can only imagine. Okay, well. Thank you for being a guest today, Cody, and thank you to Our Podcast Producer Xander Morrison. And thank you for listening to cyber ology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider taking a moment of your time to subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris

Gabe Mydland:

I'm Gabe Myland.

Jen Burris:

And today we have Kari Hall with us to talk about exercise science. Kari, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kari Hall:

Hello, friends. I'm Kari. And I've been at DSU for five years teaching exercise science, and I'm working on a Ph.D. in health and human performance. And I teach most of the upper-level exercise science courses here at DSU.

Jen Burris:

Why don't we start with you just talking a little bit about what Exercise Science is?

Kari Hall:

So, it's a science exactly what it sounds like, we go in and we look at the human body, and how it's affected by exercise. So, first, we teach the structure of the human body. We have students taking anatomy classes, things like that, and biology and chemistries. And then when they get into their upper-level courses, we get more specific with the exercise piece of it. So, we will apply exercise to the human body, whether it's strength, endurance, or cardiovascular running type of things. And then we look from a cellular level all the way up to an organ level to the whole body and see how it affects different systems of the body and the benefits of it, as well as kind of what might be some of the things that hold us back.

The other part, actually, science too, is that because it's physical activity, we also look at it from a healthcare perspective, as far as what can physical activity do to enhance people's lives help with like, living more independently for a longer time. So, you know, if you think about older adulthood, we have folks living up into their mid-70s. And a lot of folks lose independence in those years. One of the things we really focus on is prevention, through exercise, and nutrition, of course, as well. So, when you think about how do we promote that, how do we get people to buy in and do exercise all the way through the lifespan? And so that starts out of course, with our PE teachers. In the College of Education, when we have PE teachers coming into our exercise classes, we talk about, what are some of the skills you can give kiddos? So when they turn 18, when they go out on their own, what can they keep with them as they go through life, whether it's team sports or individual things? And then how can we keep that buy-in into the older adults so that they have the opportunity to have an independent lifestyle because we know exercise and good nutrition are linked to more independent lifestyle, healthier lifestyle, fewer risk factors, fewer chronic illnesses, which is the big thing we're dealing with. Now. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and unintentional accidents are like the top three killers at this point. And physical activity has something to do with all three of those as far as benefit goes,

Jen Burris:

Wow, that's a lot.

Kari Hall:

Sorry.  (Laughter)

Jen Burris

No, it's a lot of information. And it kind of highlights how expansive the field is.

Kari Hall:

Yeah, there's something for everyone with exercise science. And it's a cool major too, because if you're in the health sciences, and you're into science, in general, into research, usually you can find something. When we teach our incoming freshmen, we teach them about the 12 sub-disciplines of Kinesiology as well just called. We have sports medicine, we have biomechanics, we have kinesiology, we have x Phys, we have sports psychology, that's actually become pretty popular lately, we've had a few students go on in their master's degrees to that. The idea is that it's just a really big major where you can kind of go in and find a niche that you like, and you can get a job there.

Jen Burris:

In talking about all these different areas, and research and study, what kind of technology is involved in that?

Kari Hall:

Oh, anything you like nowadays? Really? I mean, you can get, like smart socks that will track.

Jen Burris:

What do they track?

Kari Hall:

They do your steps. Yeah, you can get a smart water bottle that tells you how much water you're drinking per day. It's everywhere. The biggest ones, of course, are the wearables, the new smartwatches, Fitbits, all of that. And those are pretty handy. But those industries making that technology are doing very, very well. A lot of people have smartwatches that can tell them everything from how much sleep they've gotten to their blood pressure to heart rate to how many steps they've taken per day, and you can take phone calls on them to show so kind of wearable stuff is really popular right now.

But there's other technology out there too, that we use a kind of in the lab, I guess. The neuro tracker is the easy one for me to talk about. That kind of technology is more fixed in a lab where you can bring people in and do some research with it or if you want to use it in a clinical type of setting. You can also bring people on board and have them try it out. So the NeuroTracker, I can kind of explain that briefly. It's multiple object tracking, what happens is a person goes in there, and there's a big TV screen, and they put on three-dimensional glasses, so the blue and red glasses, and they stand there. And what happens is, there are eight balls, and then they'll see these eight balls in three-dimensional space. And they memorize which balls they're supposed to track, once they get done with the timer. It's like eight seconds, or 20 seconds, whatever the setting is, for the particular person, they do that over a series of about four hours, not in one sitting, but over time. So, over several weeks, they'll go through about four hours’ worth of training. And what the idea is, is that the perceptual-cognitive type of stuff is supposed to improve. When you think about physical activity, team sports, and getting a competitive edge, this is now kind of a cognitive thing to help train the brain, essentially, to improve their sports performance. You see a lot of professional sports, I think like the Atlanta Falcons use it. There are some places over in Europe that use it for professional rugby, soccer, in the sports world, and sports performance, we're always looking to gain a competitive edge, right? An Olympic sprinter needs to cut point 01 seconds off. And that's going to be the difference between a golden silver or not meddling at all. What can we do? Well, we're starting to figure out all of these different areas that maybe we could touch on that could help people gain a competitive edge.

Speaking of physical performance, we have a ton of tools, we're using already three-dimensional motion, we put people up in front of a video camera with these little discs on every part of their joint. And what that does is the camera will take in what that person's doing, maybe it's a layup, maybe it's coming out of the blocks in a sprint. And that we'll record them put it up into software and turn them into a skeleton. And we can watch what their joints are doing and see where maybe they need to make improvements in their technique.

Jen Burris:

I would have loved that in high school.

Kari Hall:

It's really cool. It's really cool. We don't I don't have that technology yet. But someday.

Gabe Mydland:

Maybe I could learn how to do a left-handed layup.

Kari Hall:

Yes, you could. Yeah. So we have, you know, kind of this new cognitive side that we've been looking at. And the studies are starting to be published with that. But we also have, you know, the physical activity stuff that we've been working on for a really long time. And we can fine-tune things to get those kinds of advantages. So when it comes to sports performance, things like that, there's a lot of really cool stuff out that we can use. But for the average user, for someone who just wants to watch their fitness, make sure that they're getting their 150 minutes of exercise in per week. The wearable seems to be the big, hot button right now.

Jen Burris:

Any thoughts you have so far Gabe?

Gabe Mydland:

Well, some of the things that you were talking about, I have a 99-year-old father, he and his wife live in a rest home in Brookings, and I've noticed, my father seems to be pretty active physically, he's able to get around, okay, and things like that. But some of the other residents, when they lose their mobility, it seems like that's almost the beginning. And I hate to put it this way, the beginning of the end, that when they lose that, that ability to move, it seems to affect every other dimension of their life. Is that just my observation? Or I see you kind of nodding in agreement,

Kari Hall:

independence is so important, right? And you could probably speak to this from the psychological perspective of what happens when we lose our driver's license. What happens when we can't drive anymore, psychologically, you lose your means to get around, to see your friends, socialize, things like that. But we want to keep people as independent as possible for as long as possible. We want to keep people in their homes for as long as possible. So here's why physical activities are important. Let's make sure you can get your groceries through the door. You know, can you hold two bags of groceries? Can you walk up the three steps to get into the house? Can you use the restroom? Can you sit to stand as a big one? Sitting to stand is something we don't even think about at our age, but in older adulthood, it becomes hard. So when you get to the point where you're in long-term care facilities, and what little you have remaining of your independence that might be physical, like walking is important. Right?

Gabe Mydland:

Sure.

Kari Hall:

 You can walk in, you can go to different places, you can go visit your friends, you can get up from the dinner table when you're sitting in a bed most of the day, or if you're your wheelchair user, that's a kind of a point where you realize how much you've lost.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, there are fewer options or alternatives from which you can choose. I'd never really thought of it before. But what you're saying is seems to be critical for overall health, not just physical health.

Kari Hall:

And I look at older adults, just I mean, that's kind of where I have my research based at right now is with that population. When you think about rural people like us, the other Part of that loss of independence is what kind of healthcare Do you have around? Even if you're not in a long-term care facility if you're still homebound, what happens when you fall? That's another thing that you know, is kind of emerging health side of things is telehealth. And sometimes those wearables are able to make phone calls, like 911. Or if you need to, all of a sudden, you know, maybe you're diabetic and you watch your blood pressure or your blood sugar blood. Yeah, or blood pressure. I mean, I

Jen Burris:

 I suppose they both factor in, right.

Kari Hall:

But I mean, that can be a helpful thing for older adults, too. Right? It can be a way to keep yourself safe. Back in the day, when we didn't have those technologies, people felt they you know, if they didn't have the little necklace button that you could push

Jen Burris:

 Life Alert.

Gabe Mydland:

I can't get up.

Kari Hall:

Yeah, so there's a lot of good benefits to some of that wearable technology, especially when you talk about older adults and losing independence, it's nice to be able to know that you have something right in front of you that you can, hey, I fell, I think I broke my hip, I'm going to call 911. That's pretty cool. And so, folks who are in rural areas, too, I guess I'm kind of going away from that. But my point there was when they're in those rural settings, and there isn't a lot of help around, how are you going to connect contact people? How are you going to connect with people? Well, if you, you know if you can afford it, which is one other thing, but if you can afford it, or if you have the means to be able to reach somebody and communicate with them. I think that's an important example of, you know when you live far away, and you know, you're not right across the street from Avera Health there Sanford Health, right. It's, it's different.

Gabe Mydland:

So, you've talked a lot about the technology that we have available to us now, which has been very helpful in assisting people in modifying maybe some of the things that they do, what's coming up that you're hearing about that you're excited about?

Kari Hall:

You know, honestly, it's kind of just all of this wearable stuff that I've been talking about. It's just that people are getting creative with it now. Like, we have the technology, and we can do it, what can we do you know what I mean? So, some of the stuff we didn't have in human performance before. You know, maybe in the last decade, we've had it, I'd have to go back and do my history lesson here. But there are wearable suits now that you can use that will track your bio mechanicals. So, you can put a whole suit on. Yeah. So go to Google, or go to YouTube, and type in ESPN Sports Science Institute. And then look up the Lion King. So, the Lion King went on to a musical theater. Yes, thing, right. So, what they did is they took their performers, and they put these biomechanical suits on them, they like scuba suits. They're like, pull black with like, you know, and then they got the tech inside of them. And these people go, and they dance, and they do their routines and all this stuff. And that suit pops it into a software program, and uploads it onto a computer. And you can see how fast they twirl how many seconds they are off the ground. There are so many metrics, velocity, and torque, it's just it's crazy what we can do. So, I think that's probably the exciting stuff, to me is the wearable stuff that I know I'm talking up a lot. The only thing people want to maybe be careful about is that sometimes we can become over-invested with wearable technology, where we're constantly checking our iPhone, or I watch Apple Watch. Yeah, yeah, or a Fitbit or whatever. So sometimes people get really, you know, reliant upon it, to the point where maybe it's an issue, but I don't think I've ever really seen it that way. But I just know that that's one thing that's gotten brought up in the past,

Jen Burris:

Maybe a little health anxiety from constantly checking their numbers.

Kari Hall:

Yes. You said that much quicker and better than I did.

Jen Burris:

What is the benefit of all of these things to everyday society?

Well, there's a lot of benefits. And I think we've talked about a little bit of that, especially with our older adults, we are notoriously not a very healthy country around the world. It's not great, right? If I go up to a group of people, you know, maybe they're a bunch of, you know, a walk into some sort of business. I can go up to every single personnel quiz them and say, how much exercise should we get a week for health benefits? How many of those people do you think actually know the answer to that? Not many, I would guess so enough. 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise. What's moderate-intensity exercise? Second question, I'd probably ask them.

Gabe Mydland:

Would that be related to your heart rate, elevated heart rate, elevated heart rate 70%,

Kari Hall:

Elevated heart rate 60-70% about 60% of your maximal heart rate, right. The hard part is giving people that literacy, the health literacy that they need, so they understand why they would do something like that. Right. The other hard part is the motivation. There are a lot of folks out there I can't remember the exact percentage, but it's very high. There's a lot of folks out there who do not meet their needs of that 150 minutes per week, which can be cut into 30 minutes, five days a week, which is what people usually tell you to do. Right? Well, that's the reason we tell you that is because that's where the health benefits are. You do that much per week. You're going to get the health benefit out of it. That's different than the fitness and performance stuff.  Fitness and performance, you got a whole different schedule that you're on.

Gabe Mydland:

And a different set of goals.

Kari Hall:

Yes. Right. But if we're just talking about getting the public generally healthy health literacy is, is the issue. So, when you have wearable technology, and you know, your little app might open up and say, hey, today, let's try and get x amount of work done. Why is this important? That type of thing? I think those little wearables and things like that can help with that, you know what I mean? So, a person may wear something like that and be able to say, okay, well, at least I don't have to think about it because my phone is going to think about it or my watch is going to think about it, or whatever. I'm using technology-wise, our phones have health apps on them now that are pretty much built-in, right, you get your iPhone, there's health. So, I think it takes off some of the extra stuff people might have to learn or do. And it's just convenient. I think convenience is probably a pretty big help with what we do. So yeah, motivation-wise. Okay, well, I'm going to invest in this particular app, and they're not cheap, right? So, you'd hope that if you're making that investment, that would be something that would be of benefit to you. And then on top of that the technology and the information it gives you is going to help you kind of learn a little bit more about what do I need to know about why I'm doing this? So how do we get our country as a whole to be healthier, I always talk when I talk with my 180 students about this, like, here are all the problems we face as a society when it comes to health, we know that we have moved on from dying from things like smallpox, and now we're dying from things like cancer and heart disease. Okay, so Wearable technology is one easy way for you to say, oh, this week, I got this much done. Well, I know I need X amount here. And this is what my doctors told me. So now next week, I'm going to try again, it's just an easy way for people to kind of keep track of things, which I think is a barrier. And so that kind of takes that away, what we talked about with the older adults, I think there's benefits there. And you know, with younger generations, I really don't know if I can speak to that if there's a whole lot of benefit to little kids wearing, you know, and I don't know what age range or you know, if it's high school, or what, but I think there's probably some sort of benefit there. For me as a mom, it probably is because I could watch where they're at. Which is not really physical activity-related. But

Gabe Mydland:

Relieves your stress

Kari Hall:

It does relieve my stress. So that would be a benefit to me. But I really can't speak to the kiddos and what might benefit them with that. But it's just neat to see how we can do all of these things now with you know, something that's two inches by two inches, and you can slap it around your wrist and go. So the benefits Yeah, I think the benefits are there. The negative stuff, I kind of mentioned, you know, the anxiety of always checking, we go one extreme or the other. But I think there's far more beneficial to a lot of this stuff, than there isn't, and it gives people other options to be healthy. I mentioned the water bottle earlier where you know, you can drink this water, and then it kind of marks it for you with these little lights. And it's like if your goal is to drink more water during the day because you're not getting enough water, then sure if that's what's going to help you go for it. You know, some of my students just carry around a gallon jug,

Gabe Mydland:

They do, I see a lot of kids across campus.

Kari Hall:

and that's like, yeah, and that's fine, too. But you know, for some people, the technology is what kind of gets them going

Jen Burris:

gives them something pretty to look at while they're swigging water,

Kari Hall:

sweating or chugging water.

Jen Burris:

And when you're talking about all these wearables and the benefits, we as a society kind of have a very sedentary lifestyle. And our jobs play into that. And these wearables can kind of tell us to get up and move every so often, they'll shoot a reminder to you that says, hey, you've been sitting at your desk for the last hour, can you do a couple 100 steps for me? How do we get that into kind of our culture?

Kari Hall:

Well, hopefully, this is kind of one of the keys to that. It's popular in their huge sales on these things. So, I think that says something about our society. I always just go back to health literacy, though, you know, I think a lot of us go to college and we major in what we major in and actually science, we know everything about what you need to be doing. But if we go to the College of Business, do you know everything that we know, you don't. And so, I think it's on our people who are in this industry, to promote those things as best as they can. And you know, one person isn't going to fix the entire country. But when we get our students and we get them out the door, we remind them, hey, you're going to impact some people. You're working directly with people, and you are going to be the voice for them the voice of reason that says hey, here's why you're going to do strength training with your cardio. Here's why it's important to keep your flexibility so that you can move normally so that you Don't start having problems and issues. Here are the rates for folks who work out versus folks who don't when it comes to cancer, death, and cardiovascular death.

Gabe Mydland:

It is too bad that we're kind of a reactive society too, that something happens before we start taking the steps to take good care of ourselves rather than being active. I don't believe there is such a word as proactive. I think it's being active. Instead of waiting for that calamity. And then, okay, boy, I do need to take this a lot more seriously, because this can happen, and did happen to me or someone I love. But that's such a challenge, though, because so many we don't start off in the right ways. We have to make adjustments and we are more comfortable with things that we're familiar with and something new or something different.

Kari Hall:

Well, it’s scary to true fear is a…

Gabe Mydland:

Great motivator.

Kari Hall:

 Yes, it is. Yeah, fear is a motivator. That's the idea, though. And I think that goes back to your question is, alright, we know sales are up in this industry, you know, it'd be nice to make them readily available to people who aren't at a socio-economic status where they could afford such a thing. And maybe we'll get there. One of the other things we talked about is exercise as medicine. And that's an initiative that started not too long ago, I should say, where the American College of Sports Medicine has been working on, you know, this is why we should be including exercise as a medical treatment option. How cool would it be someday for us to have a doctor prescribe an insurance company cover time with a personal trainer? You know what I mean?

Gabe Mydland:

Right.

Kari Hall:

 We do that with cardiac events when someone's already had the event.

Gabe Mydland:

After the event, right? Yeah, we're really good.

Jen Burris:

But how much could we prevent if we prescribed that?

Kari Hall:

So now we're in the realm of health promotion and disease prevention. And that's a very interesting industry. There's a lot of smart people with a lot of really good ideas. But how do we get them out there? So right now, what's working? Right now? It's working our wearables on your phone. You know, it seems like people like that. Okay, so then what can that do for those folks? And what can we do to help them kind of adhere to exercise long term and know that benefits of it reducing cardiovascular events, cancers, and accidents, which when I'm talking accidents, I'm typically talking about falls, and falls will kill people, there is a high percentage of folks the first time they fracture their hip within that first year, their mortality rate goes up. And so those are kind of the three areas right now, where we're really trying to combat things that in obesity, but that leads back to cardiac and cancer. I think we use what we know is working right now. And we try to get people to buy in that way to do the exercise, exercise as medicine. That would be something cool and emerging. From your question earlier.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, kind of the wellness aspect?

Kari Hall:

Yeah. How can we make that work for folks?

Gabe Mydland:

I think I remember, I'm old enough that when you had just the simple pedometer that measured the number of steps you took, was pretty pricey. Now, it's kind of an impulse item, as you checked out, you can buy one for 1099. And maybe it'll take a while for, say, an Apple Watch, a Garmin device, or a Fitbit. But eventually, as it becomes more and more produced. There'll be closer to the affordable range for most of us.

Kari Hall:

Yeah, and you know, some of them right now aren't so bad. Yeah, some of them, they're the knockoff brands or whatever. But some of them are, you can get at a cheaper rate. But yeah, I see a Richie saying that when they first came out, they were wildly expensive. Now we are seeing some of those knockoff brands, Oh, yeah. Lesser in costs. So that would be nice. You know, always, one of the things we teach our students to is, you know, exercise and physical activities for all and if there's a barrier in the way that might be financial, that might be accessibility. How do we knock that barrier down? When you think about inner-city, children, who have parks that they could play in, you know, kids need an hour a day of activity, but those parks aren't safe for whatever reason, needles, predators, whatever. Well, that's a barrier, you know, so when we think about how we're going to fix some of these long-term issues that we see childhood, obesity, cancer, cardiac, all that, we got to think about, you know, what are the social determinants of health that we need to address as well? And, you know, technology will have its place in there somehow. I am not an expert in those areas, but I'm sure that we are using technology or we're going to develop something someday that helps with that.

Jen Burris:

Stepping away from the wearables. As Gabe mentioned, kind of the pedometer was an early adaptation. What are some other like, inexpensive things that people can do when thinking about their exercise plan, or trying to improve upon their health?

Kari Hall:

So, we all you know, the COVID. Here comes the COVID talk, but if we're going to look at any silver linings, home health, home exercise has been a huge thing lately, when we couldn't go to the gym safely, or when the gyms were closed, you got YouTube. There's a lot of at-home stuff that you can do. bodyweight exercises are so, so easy and so free, is just how do they do? Right? How do I do a bodyweight exercise? Again, that goes back to health literacy. Right? Well, if you can find a reliable person on YouTube, and you can kind of, you know, vet what you're going through because you know, you don't want to be working out with some, you know, someone that someone not experienced, who's just doing stuff. There's a method behind our madness and the exercise science world, that's why we take science classes. But home stuff is important. And I've seen a lot of home technology too. Like we all know, the peloton bike commercials, right? Those have gone viral and all that but, and I know again, that's an affordability thing. But there are mirrors now that you can get where you can see your own reflection, but then they do the workout with you.

Jen Burris:

Those fascinate me.

Kari Hall:

They’re cool.

Jen Burris:

it's just so crazy to be like, oh, there's a trainer that's helping you Well, yeah. Virtually, yes.

Kari Hall:

Yeah. But you know, good old YouTube is your friend. And there's a lot of different health apps out there, my friends will occasionally send me, hey, try this app out with me. And we can watch each other's progress. And it's free. Okay, cool. So, I've done that one for a while. My app is called center fit. And it does nutrition. It does blogs to talk about literacy, you know, so all of these different apps out there are free, get on your phone, flip it over and start your workout. So, I think that's probably the biggest thing and a benefit from all of us being stuck at home for so long.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, absolutely. It's been a fascinating listen and learning session for me. I don't know about Gabe? (laughter).

Gabe Mydland:

Oh, yeah.

Well, let's, let's talk about the exercise science program for just a second proximately. How many students do we have in the program?

Kari Hall:

Oh, between like 60 and 80? I think it kind of changes a lot, because every semester we're getting transfers, and people are coming and going a little bit.

Gabe Mydland:

So, when they take on a degree like exercise science, what you mentioned that some were going to certain types of careers, what kinds of things do our students do with that degree? Background?

Kari Hall:

Yes. So they can do so much. They come in, they declare their major. So, if they're an exercise science major, then what they do is they go into their first freshman year classes, they take a couple of the courses that I mentioned earlier, and then they get to their junior year. And that's really where the program takes off. They start with x Phys. And then they go on to all the specialized courses. So, in our program, we have a lot of electives that are available to students. And the reason we do that, partly, is because a lot of times they'll their students who want to go on to advanced fields like physical therapists, occupational therapists, athletic trainers, nursing, just strengthen conditioning, like where you go and work with college athletes, athletes, or professional athletes. Those are kind of the main ones that they go through. And so those elective credits are designed so that they can use kind of those free credits, if you will, where, you know, maybe they would have picked up a Spanish minor with those credits, they have to use those credits to get into those programs. Those programs have specific classes, and each of them was athletic training and PT is very similar. They want a full year of chemistry, they want a full year of biology, and they want a full year of physics. We don't have in our program, a full year of physics where you have to do two years or two semesters of physics. But if you're going to go on and you want to do PT school, we're going to put you in physics too, because you need it to get it. Right. So we tailor our program to a lot of different healthcare professions that they tend to go to later. We've had students who have looked into becoming medical doctors or physician assistants, well, that takes a lot of chemistry. So, then we make sure that they're getting those Chem courses and they're ready to go with that when they go to apply so they can be accepted. I mentioned earlier, sports psychology is a pretty cool one. We're really getting into the mind-stuff. It seems like it's really an important component of human movement is you know, the brain and the body.

Jen Burris:

Working together.

Kari Hall:

Yeah, yeah.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, the connection.

Kari Hall:

Or the lack thereof. For those of us who are ….

Gabe Mydland:

Why are you looking at me when you say that? (Laughter)

Kari Hall:  

Yeah, so you know, sports Psych is a cool one. All the orthopedic stuff, of course, is obvious. Other areas exercise science students find themselves in nursing is kind of one you wouldn't think of normally

Gabe Mydland:

It sounds like there are a lot of alternatives that they can choose from once they've decided they want to do something in the area of physical activity exercise.

Kari Hall:

Yeah. Yeah,

Gabe Mydland:

that's cool.

Kari Hall:

It's good too, um, you know, because we need those folks out there. There's Biomechanics is really cool. I know, it sounds scary. And it kind of, it's kind of intimidating at first, because it's physics of the body. So like, take Newton's three laws and apply it to the body. Just if just to give you kind of a quick snapshot, but those students, you know, if they want to go become biomechanics, they're going to do really cool stuff, like, look at helmets and talk about like, in the velocity of a baseball is way different than a football player in the box, who's constantly getting hit. So what kind of helmets do they need to help with those impacts? Research is another area, they can go into concussion research right now is really important. I think in the last maybe two years, I want to say, it might be sooner than that. But in the last few years, somebody or a group of researchers over somewhere in Europe found a biomarker for concussions, we didn't have that before. Wow. And so now they're kind of taken off with that study over there. So research is a really important area if people want to get behind that, instead of doing clinical type of work. We have a lot of different areas of research that people need. When it comes to different abilities, physical or intellectual. We need folks in the buying the research doing that to help them out with whatever the barriers are, so you can kind of take it and run with it and you find a niche that you like will get you there.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow, that's great. Yeah, that's great.

Jen Burris:

Recently, you had a graduate that went on to become a firefighter, right?

Kari Hall:

That's right. Yes. That's another one. She knew what she wanted. From day one. She came in, she did what she did, and she's out fighting wildfires. She was in the hills. I think when you guys took a picture of her. Oh, wow. Or she sent in a picture center. Yeah. And showed her out. And there's the blaze of fire behind her. And she's in her fire here.

Gabe Mydland:

And oh, wow, I hadn’t heard this.

Jen Burris:

You can find that story on DSU’s website. (Laughter)

Gabe Mydland:

I will look. (laughter)

Kari Hall:

Yeah. So yeah, firefighter, you want to go do that great first responder, you bet. And those are in those type of careers. You need that physical activity too. So, I think you know, she had it right. Firefighters don't mess around when it comes to training. Neither do a lot of police officers, folks who need to be out running around. So, it's a great major for that type of stuff.

Jen Burris:

Well, thank you so much for being a guest today, Kari.

Kari Hall:

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Jen Burris:

And thank you to Our Podcast Producer Xander Morrison. And thank you for listening to Cyberology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider taking a moment of your time to rate and review.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

Hi. And I'm Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today's guest is Andrew Kramer, Instructor of computer and cyber sciences at the Beacom College. Today we'll be revisiting offensive security. And Andrew will specifically be talking about finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities. Andrew, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Andrew Kramer:

Hi, there. Yeah, it's, it's an honor to be here with you. My name is Andrew, I'm originally from the west coast from California, moved out to be a DSU student around 2013, and just fell in love with the school and the community. And so, I feel very lucky to have been hired here as a teacher after school. And you have been teaching here since 2017. Full time, so

Jen Burris:

awesome. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about how finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities fit into offensive security?

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah, so offensive security is all about how you break into machines, compromised systems, sort of violate what we think are the fundamental rules of how computers are meant to work. And so, finding and exploiting vulnerabilities is a quintessential part of that. Most of the time, if you are gaining access to a system in a way that's unexpected, or you shouldn't technically be able to, there needs to be some vulnerability there that you can take advantage of, and exploit that in some way to gain access to that machine.

Jen Burris:

Wow. So how do you find them? vulnerabilities?

Andrew Kramer:

Many, many different ways. So, I would say, probably a good place to start would be to identify all the inputs to a program or to a system. Because if you're going to exploit a vulnerability, find a vulnerability, and take advantage of it, you need to be able to interact with the software in some way first. So, numerating, where and how you can provide input, and what types of input the program expects is going to be a good start. So, for instance, if this is a website, maybe we look at what pages are available on the website, maybe we look at, are there places you can log in places you can submit an order places that you can enumerate the users on the system, or maybe there are other ports open that you could connect to, to upload files or download files from the website. And anywhere that you can provide input to the system is an opportunity to provide some unexpected input that makes it do something interesting.

Gabe Mydland:

I'm curious about this. Do companies come to you and say, we’d like you to check our system? See how robust it is? Or do they wait until your students graduate and go into a job somewhere? And where does the business come from,

Andrew Kramer:

I think any or all the above. So, this could take many different forms. One form would be what we call traditional penetration testing are Red Team Services, where a company hires a person or a team of people to try to break in, try to find a way in and then report on their findings. So, another way that you might go about this is bug bounty, which is when a company publishes a general statement, saying anybody is welcome to submit vulnerabilities that they find in that company's software services. And most large companies are willing to be a part of this. So, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, all of them have made public statements that if you find a vulnerability, as long as you report it in, you know, a reasonable amount of time you let them know what's wrong, they will not only thank you for that, rather than prosecuting you, but they might pay some money for that as well. Another way that folks go about this is if you find a vulnerability in a piece of software that's widely used, sometimes those can be sold in maybe shadowy dark markets around the world, in some ways and places that are legal and others are not. I don't necessarily go about it in that way. But others might

Jen Burris:

so, people can find a way to take advantage of the information they find?

Andrew Kramer:

Yes, yeah, I think you know, if you find the vulnerability on a piece have software or in a company's network, there are many legal routes to report that to get it fixed, even to get a reward for it. And then there are, of course, markets where those can be sold for other purposes, unfortunately.

Jen Burris:

So, is there a lot of research involved in this is like looking into a specific company or their website, things like that?

Andrew Kramer:

Tons? Yeah, more so than ever. So, over the past two or three decades, there's been a lot of research into how to prevent software vulnerabilities, and how to sort of put some guardrails on software so that when they occur, they're harder to exploit, and they're less likely to be exploitable. And so, I would say, whereas, you know, in the early 90s, early 2000s, a software vulnerability wasn't worth any money, people would find them and just publish them online. These days, those are very, very valuable pieces of information, if you have the ability, or have knowledge of how to, for instance, hack Google Chrome, so that if you browse a website, download some software to your computer. These days, those types of vulnerabilities fetch literally millions of dollars sometimes.

Jen Burris:

Wow.

Gabe Mydland:

yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, there's got to be a concern that, you know, working with students and training them to become recognized as skilled people who can be doing this kind of offensive work. Is there any kind of screening process? Or I mean, can anybody declare this major get this information? How do you? I mean, is there anything you can do to make sure that students aren't just taking this to exploit and take advantage of the vulnerabilities of different kinds of sites and businesses and so forth?

Andrew: Kramer:

Yeah, so we, as faculty teaching these subjects, just try to keep a close eye on that. There are some legal limitations on export controls, there are things that you can only teach or say, in a class full of US citizens, I think that's a little bit silly, because, you can find the same information online anyway. And I don't feel like that makes a big difference. But, um, yeah, I would say anybody is welcome to come to school here, and anybody is welcome. In the classroom, I would be happy to teach these techniques to any student that sits down in front of me. So, when somebody sits down in the classroom, I'm going to assume that they have good intentions for the knowledge. And I'm happy to teach anyone these techniques and these skills. If I saw an indication that somebody was using it for evil or using it to hurt other people, I would probably confront them about it or, you know, handle that in other means, but I'm going to assume that they have good intent until I see that they don't.

Jen Burris:

And so, what goes into teaching students about software vulnerabilities and finding them, and exploiting them?

Andrew Kramer:

So ironically, it's just a lot of understanding how the machine is supposed to work. It's a lot of reading manuals, reading documentation, and just experimenting with the tools that are available. We see a lot of people, you know, start the like the Cyber Operations Program here with the expectation that on day one, they're going to sit down and learn how to hack. And to some extent, yes, but really hacking is just finding a new novel interesting way to interact with the machine to make it do something that everyone else didn't expect it to do or didn't know that it could do. And to do that, you need to really understand how the machine works. So, a lot of what you know, we might call hacking is just reading the manual, and figuring out new ways to interact with a system.

Jen Burris:

That is an excellent way of explaining it to people who may not know much about the cyber industry.

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah. So, I'll give you an interesting example of that. If you've been reading the news lately, you may have seen the log4J, vulnerability disgust. familiar with that. So, there was a major software flaw discovered in a piece of software called log4J. Okay. And it turns out, the quote-unquote, vulnerability here is just a feature that nobody realized you could use and that specific way, which led to, you know, software being compromised remotely all over the world and every large company in the United States. But really, it's just a feature that existed from years back that nobody considered that you could use in that special way. So read the documentation that will make you a hacker sign.

Gabe Mydland:

So do A lot of your students then who study this, they might even develop new software's, with all this background information about how systems can be hacked or gained access to things like that. So, I mean, I would imagine that your students have an even broader perspective than many of the technology majors that we offer here at DSU.

Andrew Kramer:

Yes, and I think that's an aspect of DSU that really sets us apart from other universities and other programs like ours, is that where those other programs may be teaching, you know, traditional software development, traditional network management, systems administration, and doing a very good job of it, I don't mean to belittle anyone else's program. But ours has such a focus on security, and the things that can go wrong and how they go wrong, that I think our students walk away with, you know, some of that knowledge, even if they're not directly involved in a cybersecurity field. So, our students that are going into software development roles are going to have a better idea of how to prevent vulnerabilities in the code, our students that are going into System Administration, or network management roles, are going to have a better idea of how the attackers are going to come at them, and what vulnerabilities they need to watch out for, or how to build the system in a resilient way. And I think that's something unique to DSU.

Jen Burris:

So, in talking about students, what kind of future do they have outside? Once they've graduated? DSU? Where did they get to go? With this knowledge?

Andrew Kramer:

Oh, my goodness, just about anywhere. So, every company in every industry uses technology in some way these days. And so, every company in every industry also has an interest in the need and protecting those systems. So, whether our students end up in defensive security roles, you know, protecting systems, ahead of time trying to get ahead of the attackers, whether they end up in software development roles, where they're trying to write software in a secure way, whether they end up in offensive roles, where they're looking for vulnerabilities. There's going to be a space for any niche that the student is interested, in going into. I don't know did that answer it.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about where some of our students have ended up and what they're doing now?

Andrew Kramer:

Yes, I can talk about most of them. In generalities, yeah, um, yeah, the National Labs really like our students. So, Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Labs, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, we have lots of alumni that go to those places. And I probably can't talk too much about the specific work they're doing or the customers that they work for. But you can imagine that it is security-related, both offensive and defensive, and very exciting work. Um, we also have students that go work for banks, hospitals, or other universities protecting their networks. We have some students that freelance I know of students here that make many 10s of 1000s of dollars a year, just finding vulnerabilities and Yahoo, Facebook, Google, all the above. And so, there are lots of opportunities. Wow, that's great.

Jen Burris:

So why is this important to everyday people, this work that you guys do on offensive security,

Andrew Kramer:

It is important to everyday people because we are finding problems with the software that everybody is using. So even if, you know, you all aren't running a log4J instance, at your house, I'm guessing or that you know of you may be and you don't even realize it. The companies that are hosting your data and are providing the services that you use every day probably are. So, for instance, Apple was impacted by log for J. I know Netflix was impacted, and Microsoft was impacted. And those companies are housing data from all of us, all of you. And they also provide services that we rely on. And so, the ability to find those vulnerabilities hopefully before the attackers do before the bad guys do gives us a leg up and hopefully get those things patched to protect people before it's a problem.

Jen Burris:

And so, is that kind of what happened with log4J?

Andrew Kramer:

Yes. Okay. So, I would have to go read about this a little bit more to say a certainty. But I believe that log4J was found in the wild being abused in the wild. Meaning somebody found it and was using it for malicious purposes, on a small scale. And some defense teams, somebody watching network logs, watching what their servers doing, found that and published the information online, thankfully, that we, we all know that that existed, and it has since been patched. So sometimes, you know, finding these vulnerabilities is just a matter of watching the network and seeing what real attackers are doing. And you can sort of snag that out of the air and figure it out. Sometimes it's just poking around with the software on your own ahead of time and finding vulnerabilities that are not yet known or that we don't yet know that anyone knows. Right?

Gabe Mydland:

So, is the I mean, the known level of nefarious activity? Have we seen over, let's say, the last decade? Is it about the same? Or is it increasing? Or what are the trends with this kind of activity?

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah, good question. So, there are a few different trends. Traditionally, like in maybe the 90s and early 2000s, I think that most of the malicious activity on the internet was, I don't want to say benign, because people were certainly abusing it for intelligence gathering and financial gain. But, but by and large, the people that were breaking into computers in the '90s were doing so sort of for the fun and excitement of it, I think, you saw a lot of people just writing a worm, because it was interesting, too. And for better or for worse, you know that that happened a lot. Also, security vulnerabilities were being just openly published, when somebody found a vulnerability affecting, you know, on Microsoft server or a Linux service, people would just publish those and openly talk about them. And I think what we've seen in the last couple of decades is a move towards exploiting software for financial gain. So, you see a lot of cybercriminal groups taking advantage of vulnerabilities for ransomware. To steal data to sell online. So, exploitation for financial gain has gotten big. Also, exploitation for intelligence gathering purposes, I think, has gotten significant. Russia, China, Iran, even the US, to some extent, is using that for intelligence gathering. And maybe rightfully so. I mean, it's a very effective, effective tool. The other thing, the other trend, that I've noticed is, vulnerabilities are no longer being talked about publicly as much because they are much more valuable. And I said earlier, some of the most valuable vulnerabilities fetched literally in the millions of dollars. And so, you know, 20 years ago, whereas that might have just been published online because somebody found it interesting. Today, some of the folks that are finding those vulnerabilities are staying quiet about them and selling them off to the highest bidder.

Gabe Mydland:

Can you talk more about the Ph.D. program?

Jen Burris:

Yeah, that you're doing.

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, I just started a Ph.D. in Computer Science here at DSU. This is the first year it's being offered. So, this is focused less on security and more on, you know, algorithms and optimization and computer programming, some math, and kind of the theoretical and fundamental building blocks of how computers work. But back to what I said earlier about, really hacking is just a matter of reading the documentation and understanding the system by learning all those fundamental pieces of how the computer works, that also, I mean, leads to a greater understanding of how to find and exploit software vulnerabilities.

Jen Burris:

So, kind of strengthens the skills that you already have?

Andrew Kramer:

Certainly, Yeah, certainly.

Gabe Mydland:

And the first year in how are we looking? I mean, have we been able to attract some students?

Andrew Kramer:

I think the only two starting this year are myself and Shawn Zwach, who's also faculty here at DSU. Okay, so we're sort of piloting the program has students. Of course, we have very active Ph.D. programs and cyber operations, and cyber defense right now. But we're kind of leading the computer science Ph.D. here. Great. I want to restate that we're not leading the computer. We participating as students.

Gabe Mydland:

that's great. I mean, that's a process I mean, to get that all set up and running in the approval from the different levels of all the way through the Board of Regents and things like that. That's terrific.

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah, it's exciting to see DSU has really grown up a lot. And, you know, the past decade or two, it's impressive to watch

Jen Burris:

What drew you to DSU?

Andrew Kramer:

specifically, the Cyber Operations Program and the agreement that we have with NSA, or the designation that we have from NSA. In 2013, I had completed two years of just general education at a community college in California. And I knew that I wanted to do something related to computer security because it was already a hobby of mine. And I was just Googling around like which schools have good cybersecurity programs. And DSU was one of four at that time, that had the Center of Academic Excellence and cyber operations designation. And the three others either were too expensive or weren't accepting applicants until the next year, or, you know, only offered graduate programs and DSU said, come on down. And I had never been to South Dakota before I moved here, sight unseen. Got a house on Craigslist and worked out a great worked out.

Gabe Mydland:

Now what a story. Yeah. And you stayed.

Andrew Kramer:

I stayed. Yeah. So, my hometown in California is very small, with 700 people, we had to drive over a hill to see a stoplight or a Walmart. And so, this feels very much like home to me. Fewer trees, fewer mountains, more corn. But other than that, very similar to home.

Gabe Mydland:

what challenges do you see in the field that you're in will be facing in the years to come?

Okay, so I'm going to give you two answers here. And this may sound contradictory, but I'll do my best to explain. In one way, software vulnerabilities are becoming a lot more difficult to find and a lot more difficult to exploit. You know, we've spent 20 or 30 years understanding how they occur, how to prevent them from happening, and then how to like add guardrails to a piece of software so that when they occur, they're harder to exploit. And that is why, you know, a vulnerability in Google Chrome today fetches a million dollars, because they're hard to find an exploit in some pieces of software. So, in some ways, I think the challenges are keeping up with all the mitigations that are being added, keeping up with all the changes, and how software is being built. And, you know, finding vulnerabilities where they are rarer. That said, on the other hand, there is more software being written now than ever before, there are more devices being, you know, added to your home and your car and the environment than ever before. And quite often, the folks that are building those devices and writing that software, their primary goal is just to get it built and get it to market. And more so than ever. There's just lots and lots and lots of software available to look at. So, you know, maybe in the, in the 90s, there were three or four major operating systems, and the Internet was composed of however many 100,000 Or a few million servers all running a relatively homogenous, you know, set of software today, especially with the IoT boom, there are just computers everywhere. And so, there are more opportunities now than ever to find vulnerabilities, even if they're becoming harder to exploit in some cases. So, again, those two statements may sound somewhat contradictory, in some ways, they're harder to find and exploit, and in other ways, there are more opportunities than ever.

Gabe Mydland:

But to me, I think they are complementary in the sense that, you know, the field is advancing as the means to break into, for the lack of a better word, or to compromise a website are getting more sophisticated. So, in many ways, I think, I'm not so concerned about complementary or contradictory. So, it requires you you're in a really advantageous situation and that you're called upon to take what you've learned and what you know and use it in new and creative ways. Every day, and that's a nice, sweet spot. I mean, you're not doing the same, you're not making widgets, you're not doing the same thing every day and you're not doing something that's so beyond your capacity that it makes you anxious. In psychology, we call that your Axi stops and it's at that happy medium between being challenged, but not overwhelmed. And wow, I mean, you must lose Have time some days working on something because it's, it's so challenging to figure out well, how do I fix this? Or how do I prevent that from happening? Yeah, I'm kind of envious myself.

Andrew Kramer:

Yeah, spot-on, I think, um, you know, this, this field, in particular exploiting software vulnerabilities often requires a lot of creativity, which is not something that you think of when you think of programming and computer science, but it requires, you know, thinking about things in a new way, or discovering a new method of interacting with the computer or, or just, yeah, approaching a problem in a different way. And, as you said, everything is constantly changing the programming language that was that we use changes every 5-10 years, the software that's available to us changes every 5-10 years, or even quicker.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, I think that's one thing that's a constant is change. And being in the mental health field, that's what I would work with is people who want to do something different. And a lot of times, well, change isn't easy or fun for any of us, but it's going to happen. So those who are successful are those who anticipate the change and make the leap, and they might stumble and fall, but they get back up because there's another change coming rather than just grumbling about it, doing something about it. And that, for me is one of the reasons I really enjoyed Dakota State University because there's that, that general attitude that Yep, every day, there's a new piece of software or there's another way to use technology. I've invested a lot of time in figuring out what I'm doing right now, but I got to keep up, so I need to change, and sorry for the monologue. But I think what you're talking about really epitomizes the general attitude that people who work here kind of embraced. So yeah, it's exciting.

Andrew Kramer:

I would agree. This is a great place to work. Great place to go to school. A lot of wonderful people here doing a lot of exciting things.

Jen Burris:

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being our guest Andrew, it was a pleasure having you here. Thank you. And thank you Xander, our Podcast Producer, and thank you, listeners. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like, and subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

Hi, my name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

And today we have a guest, Renee Spohn. She is the Director of Health Information Management Programs here at DSU. And she's about to talk about the digitization of health information. Renee, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Rene Spohn:

My name is Dr. Renee Spohn. I have been the Director of Health Information Management programs and coordinator for the Master of Science in Health Informatics and Information Management programs here at DSU. For about five years prior to that, I served as an HIM faculty member at DSU. And I've spent about 30 years out in the field of health information management working in various roles in acute care hospitals, long-term care, corporate office, for good Samaritan Society, and for hospitals in Alamosa, Colorado, and in Cheyenne, Wyoming. So, I've had a long career in health information management. I have served in various capacities at the Good Samaritan Society, as I said, where I worked as the director of clinical applications over electronic health records. I have worked as the director of quality services for the Good Samaritan Society and worked as a consultant in each I am so had a long history, and I am a DSU alum from 1984. From our health information management programs.

Jen Burris:

very cool.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah.

Jen Burris:

So what is digital health?

Renae Spohn:

Digital health is essentially where healthcare delivery and technology meet. So healthcare is transforming how and where services are provided for patients and how the data is collected, how it’s analyzed how it's used for decision making, and the ultimate goal is personalization for patients and improved healthcare outcomes. So hopefully in the future, we'll be able to predict risks for patients and make adjustments to their care plan early in helping patients to use technology as a tool to advance and helping clinicians to actually use that tool for patient care to advance the personalization of health care and to improve outcomes.

Gabe Mydland:

So when we talk about the digitization of health information, what is that exactly?

Renae Spohn:

In the most simple terms, it's really automating the patient medical record. Broadly speaking, digital health information is documentation collected in a patient's health record in an electronic format during and after receiving care by healthcare providers. It's the process of ensuring that the data that's collected by clinicians and others, that it's complete, accurate, timely, valid, and secure. A health information manager is typically responsible for protecting patient information, making sure access to the patient record is limited to only those providing care to the patient. So those that really only have a need to know what's in that patient health record. Another responsibility is ensuring patient care is documented as timely, complete, and accurate as possible after a health care worker provides care services to the patient.

Jen Burris?

Would you actually say that security and cybersecurity come into the health technology sector a little bit?

Renae Spohn:

We have a say in health information management about who has access to what portions of the medical records so when new employees' profiles have access to the electronic health record are decided. Health Information Management Professionals have a say, in what level of access you get to each section of a patient's medical record based on what your need is and what your role is. The other place is health information management directors served in many capacities and one of those capacities as being a privacy officer usually. And with that, if there are any reported breaches of patient information, typically they are part of a team. They're leading a team along with the security officer in a hospital setting to investigate the breach and to do any reporting if there's any state or federal reporting that are required based on the size and type of the person

Gabe Mydland:

I'm kind of wondering, and this comes from just a very limited background of what I've heard on the news and things like that. But it's been a while now that we've had the HIPAA act, where that health information is, is more regulated than it had been before that. I'm wondering if you and your colleagues, I'm assuming that you had a lot to do with putting that legislation together, or at least advising the policymakers on what should be in there? Or are there things that make your job more challenging now with the HIPAA act than before? Is it largely been a good thing from your perspective? Or is it a bit of an overreach?

Renae Spohn:

I think, generally, the HIPAA Privacy and Security Act transactions acts we had, we had a strong role in advocacy on Capitol Hill through our national association. And with that, we're very much proponents of protecting the patient information. And we were very excited to see secondary business associate entities having to comply with the regulation. There were some shortfalls and those who had to comply with the regulation at the beginning, and that has improved over time with some of the changes and updates to the regulations. Currently, we're seeing that with the electronic health record, perhaps there are even more steps that will need to be done in the future, you know, as, for example, data analytics, more folks are wanting to access data to analyze data to help patient outcomes improve, be improved, and just other artificial intelligence initiatives in those types of things. I think we will see where the challenges between protecting a patient's privacy and security will become challenged and even greater as to how much information do we want to give to others? versus how much do we want to keep private to ourselves? So, and then always, the information that's out there and available, the challenge for security is to protect that the challenge for privacy is to proactively identify what some of those risks to patient privacy might be and to try to mitigate or put plans in place before the breach of privacy even happens.

Gabe Mydland:

Sure.

Jen Burris:

And moving onward, what are some of the advantages than have that digital health care information?

Renae Spohn:

One of the biggest advantages that clinicians would tell you about is they were challenged with paper records in the past in accessing and documenting their care timely were so one of the hugest advantages is for caregivers. And that is simply that multiple caregivers can access the electronic health record at one time and complete their documentation timely. Other advantages are the security of the patient information because essentially, a paper record was many times kept in a locked storage area. But if you had the key, or if you knew how to get there, you could get there easier than what you can get into an electronic health record. So, we consider security to be much higher. Another advantage that we would identify would be the team now is made up of IT folks where IT folks used to be considered support staff, but now really, they are part of the decision-making team in a healthcare entity. A couple of other advantages is the opportunities to visualize data to tell the patient's story in a digital format. You know, more and more the clinicians use tools like dashboards that they didn't have, and that helps them sort of understand the priorities of the care that they've got to deliver to the patients that are assigned to them. As we get better and better at using data. The hope is we'll be able to predict what diseases are likely for a specific population will be able to understand better the patient population that's being served within each healthcare entity. And those are just a few but there are a lot more advantages of electronic health records that will help in advancing the tools that can be developed for future use, and some current use but like for artificial intelligence, robotics, all those augmented intelligence tools that will be coming in the future. Again, some are in basic test modes, and some are incorporated already, but there's a lot more to come.

Gabe Mydland:

So, there's a lot of exciting developments with this digitization of health information. What about the downsides? What are the disadvantages in the directions we're headed?

Renae Spohn:

 Well, one of the downsides is that we've been hit with so much data that's being collected and had to become part of the electronic health record, that nobody really had tools developed already to easily filter out the pieces that should come to the top that are the highest priority. And so that's where the dashboards come in. But there's a lot of additional tools that need to be developed and utilized to help in filtering the stuff that's important versus the stuff that the data that's being collected simply for maybe just paying the bill, making sure they're supporting evidence of what the clinician did in the electronic health record. So, you know, there's a growing digital divide of healthcare where some of the populations don't have access to services, such as telehealth or internet, or even computers. And the more electronic health records grow and become utilized by clinicians, those that don't have that equal access will be further behind. And hopefully not, but probably their outcomes will suffer because of lagging behind the hope would be that computerization could be expanded out into those communities and those areas that aren't participating now in electronic health records to really close that digital divide. And that's not just in the United States, but it is in the United States, as well as several other countries. And one other disadvantage is probably that there's a lot of patient-generated data right now through like Fitbits, and things like that, that we haven't begun to incorporate into the electronic health record in any way. And a lot of physicians aren't utilizing that data yet. And we, you know, there's just so many pieces and parts that are moving, at this point, so much new stuff that needs to be developed and incorporated, and we've still got some stuff at Ground Zero, some standardization that needs to occur, as well. So, it's sort of like having all the basic pieces in place, and then moving to the next step isn't really what's happening. It's sort of the Matrix Model where the basics are still being put in place. Yet, we're growing in many ways and trying to absorb all the new technologies and the new things coming at the same time. So, there's just a lot of fragmentation. If you asked healthcare organizations about their project management team, and how important their project management team is, they would tell you in this whole process of implementing electronic health records and continuing to implement new and additional modules as they're being created, that they are just working very hard and very fast to continue to keep up with the growth. And I can say, probably 10 years ago, when I worked at Good Samaritan Society, we had probably 200 projects at any given time happening at the corporate office. You know, and so that's a lot of people involved a lot of moving pieces and parts, and a lot of things to manage to keep the projects on track. And, you know, within appropriate costs and such. So, we implement an electronic health record in long-term care settings. And we had implemented an electronic health record in the home health settings. We had sensor technology, going into assisted living sites, and so those projects are all very different and have all very different data being collected, some similar and but some very different, you know, monitoring someone at home, through technology is very different than having someone sitting in a nursing home or in a hospital and, you know, so there's just a gamut of healthcare entities in the number and types of healthcare entities continue to grow, as well, as well as telehealth services are growing and now being financed, at least for the time being financed along you know, with the importance that they will play in the future. You know, I think a disadvantage right now is there are so many pieces and so much fragmentation that pieces kind of need to start to fit together to really make the system as effective as it could be sure. And so, optimizing all the systems we already have, would be a great asset

Gabe Mydland

Some standardization across the different systems to make sure we're comparing apples to apples.

Renae Spohn:

Right, right. Right, you know, your basic demographics, probably, and maybe histories and physicals of patients, but much deeper than that. There's a lot of standardization that could happen across the settings. And I think, you know, as some of the healthcare organizations merge, and combine and get larger and expand on the number of and type of services that they offer, they're finding that there's no one EHR vendor product that meets all of their needs. And so, they take one that they like and meets all their requirements, and they encourage them to expand the number of modules to meet all of their needs. And so that has caused some of those vendors to come to the top of the list that we can respond the best to the customer's needs. And they are truly the leaders. But there are probably three I would name as top leaders in the United States with electronic health records that can span multiple types of settings.

Jen Burris:

And can I take it a step back? You mentioned wearables, like Fitbit, and Apple watches and stuff like that? Do you see that in the future being an important factor in digital health?

Renae Spohn:

I do. The future that I envision is that we will have tools to add onto our smartphones and Fitbit types of smartwatches or whatever devices will be expanded, the functionality will be expanded, the thought is that more care will be delivered at home, or anywhere the patient wants to be, or consumer wants to be, and that that information would be able to be what we call interoperable or transmitted transferred into a patient's electronic health record. You know and speaking about some of the challenges with all that one of the base challenges that we have in health information management is that every time you go see a different health care provider, you get assigned a different medical record number or health record number. And so that is one of the initiatives that we are fighting for on Capitol Hill to be advanced. There's been a hold on Capitol Hill for a few years, where nobody could work on developing a unique patient identifier. And so that causes a lot of problems. Because if I miss identify you and I can either miss part of your record, or I can cause a duplicate record that shouldn't occur, I can combine parts of your record together that aren't really you. And then you must when you figure out that you've got two patients combined into one accidentally because their demographics were similar, the age was similar all of those fields that you utilize to identify a patient. If you've mixed that medical record together and merged it together at the admissions desk, when you're being admitted, that is a lot of work. And you've got some tools, computer tools to help you separate those records. But that can lead to a fatal mistake in healthcare. So that for us from a health information management standpoint, we strongly support unique patient identifiers. So that if you were to go to one type of health care facility provider, they would identify you as this patient with this number. And then they could validate that through something you have or something, you know, or some, you know, some security mechanism. And if you went to provider number two, they would still identify you as that very same one. So, when you want your record to go from provider one to provider two, then they would easily know it's the same patient, the same patient records the same history that they're combining.

Gabe Mydland:

You were talking earlier about Fitbit devices. I have an Apple Watch, but just yesterday, I experience sleep apnea, and so I use a CPAP machine. And it had been a while since I needed to replace the machine. My sleep study was done over 15 years ago. And what's interesting was that the new CPAP machine I picked up yesterday I have an app on my phone that connects to the CPAP machine. And it reports to the home medical equipment office where I bought it. And they can determine if those settings that I was given 15 years ago are still appropriate or adjust them remotely, I don't have to bring the machine in to be adjusted on the settings, they can all do this through this digitization. I don't know, though, if that information is included in my health records that my physician will see. But I assume that at some point like you're talking about, we're going to get to that where we can have even more of a holistic approach of how we look at our patients if you will, our patients, I'm not a doctor, I just play one on TV. But when a physician is meeting with a patient, they not only have the information that gathered before the visit, blood pressure, blood sugar's whatever it might be blood screens, but all this other additional useful information about how they're doing elsewhere, outside of that clinical setting. So, it really is exciting.

Renae Spohn:

It is and you may be surprised that information may be transmitted to your doctor's clinic. ]

Gabe Mydland:

Really? Okay,

Renae Spohn:

you know, it just kind of depends on your clinic and where your vendor is at. But yeah, technically, it's possible.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow, that's just amazing. It really astounded me that I wouldn't have to make another appointment to visit the home medical people to make those adjustments that they can do remotely. But to think that would become part of my total record that my physician would look at and see if there are other adjustments and other things that he's working with me on. That's pretty neat.

Renae Spohn:

You know, one of the things that I think will change in time, is I think there's a need for a lifetime medical record. Because many times you think, Well, that happened to me when I was a kid, and I don't really remember the details of it, right. And it becomes pertinent as you age. And many of the states have retention rules about you know, at what point can you destroy a medical record or a health record? And some states have not kept their permanent rules. And some states have kept it 25 years, federal regulations, I forget if it's five years or seven years, but they have a limitation on you know, what the statute of limitations is for keeping that documentation around. And, and I think that's one of the challenging things that need to change. Because as we're doing more research on patients, if we had access to lifetime information, genetic information, all the types of information that really are accumulated over a patient's lifetime, we would be able to, I think, advance health care in a whole new way. And I think the opportunity will be there now with electronic health records, especially for the newborns of today versus us that have been around a couple of years.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so how does the digitization of all this health information impact caregivers?

Renae Spohn:

the physicians have had mixed reactions to it, some of the physicians find themselves spending a lot more time documenting using computers versus some of their older technologies and older mechanisms that they use to document patient care. You know, there's a huge concern about the burnout of physicians. In some of the countries that I've studied, physicians’ responses to the EHRs are saying that when they didn't have to document as much for finance and support of the payment for patient claims, they seem to be much happier about the documentation that they had to do. So not that anybody likes documentation, because, if physicians could totally automate that and make that process much more seamless, and they didn't have to spend any time documenting, you know, it just was automatic tracking or whatever reporting the care that they provided to patients, they would be much happier. So, they see the documentation many times as kind of a waste of one of those wasted tasks that wasted time on tasks that they'd like to get rid of. Nurses have learned pretty well to document on computers as well. You know, I think they have learned more quickly than anybody to rely on dashboards when they're doing medication administration passes for a whole group of patients that they have to administer medications to. They're finding that using that dashboard helps them to know exactly who they need to deliver those meds to next and helps keep them within their required timeframes for delivery of meds. So, I think nurses overall, have a great love for electronic health records. Many nurses have moved into a field called nursing informatics and like to train others on using informatics and want to advance its use in nursing. So, I'd say overall, nurses have a positive outlook on it. What we found from our health information management programs here at DSU, is that we found that many of the health care degree programs have not yet incorporated health informatics into their programs deep enough and they're finding now that they need to spend more time teaching the students about technology and about how to really incorporate it and use it well for decision making. Because no longer are they just documenting what they did. Now they're having to use that information that they've documented to advance their decision-making and care that they're providing.

Gabe Mydland:

So how about with digital healthcare information? And the patient from their perspective? How does this affect them?

Renae Spohn:

Patients have the ability to see some key documentation through patient portals that they've probably never looked at before. So, they have a new opportunity to read some of the basic information, some labs, that type of thing, but one big advantage is that they're able to communicate with physicians through the patient portals, which is easier access for them to get to the physician, they're able to order medication refills through the patient portal rather than calling the pharmacy or calling the doctor's office.

Jen Burris:

How does digital health care information simplify Healthcare Administration?

Renae Spohn:

Within an organization it consolidates a Health Organization's records into an electronic format, some of the records may be scanned or some of them may be input directly into the electronic health record by clinicians. So more than one worker can access a patient's record at the time, so that eliminates waiting time on behalf of the clinicians. Also, having electronic security systems in place reduces access to a patient's documentation to those that truly have the need to access the information. There have been many health care providers along the way that have snooped in somebody else's record that they didn't really need to see it. And usually, that ends up in instant termination. So, people learn that lesson really quickly. But that was one of the first lessons in electronic health information, health record information,

Gabe Mydland:

what changes will impact managing this healthcare information in the future?

Renae Spohn:

I believe, the unique patient identifier probably will come about in time, I believe artificial intelligence will advance augmented intelligence tools, I think will be developed more robotics more, more things to supplement what caregivers are doing. My hope is more tools to help in areas of safety management would be identified and would be used in healthcare in general. I think we will find new ways to meet that physicians need to document health care and the clinician's needs of documenting health care. I suspect there's enough unhappiness with people typing into computers that we're going to see many, many new ways experimented with to figure out what's going to work to document patient care because I don't think what we have today is what we will have in 10 years or 20 years down the road. I think it will be a completely different system. Completely different process.

Gabe Mydland:

And change is always hard. I mean for everybody, what are the anticipated challenges to moving forward? I mean, are there obstacles that have been identified now that need to be overcome to move forward to continue with this progression?

Renae Spohn:

Well, I think one is cost. One is cost because all our new technology must be paid for, and it generally is not cheap. And so, the cost is a limiting factor how much costs prepared workers to use, use the tools and information, etc. correctly. Training is needed. So, the roles of the workforce sort of are, they're changing. And like what we've heard about the impact of technology, in any industry, healthcare is no different where a task you did today by hand manually, might tomorrow be automated and be handed off to a whole different area than where you're employed at. And so, some other person who's never worked with it doesn't have your experience might be doing the task. And so, the jobs are changing the workforce requirements and skillsets are changing and will continue to change. And so, I think a barrier to that is you don't know what to train on to be prepared for the next step so that you can get ahead of the game on that.

Jen Burris:

This is such a fascinating topic because I think it impacts absolutely everyone.

Renae Spohn:

It does, it does.

Gabe Mydland:

It's exciting, though, too, with the information being more readily accessible, especially in those cases that we're not familiar with. And suddenly, we have information available to us, and what might be a viable alternative course of treatment, it's an exciting time to be alive.

Renae Spohn:

It is and, you know, like I say, you can't even pour, see what 20 years will be like, because the speed of this changes, lightning speed is so fast. And like I said, all the pieces that need to come together, it’s really identifying what healthcare is kind of been going through for many, many years about how complex a healthcare system is, and how important it is to try to decrease the errors to get the errors, you know, similar to what the airline industry has, where they just have very, very few errors. Some of our processes in healthcare for many years have been very error-prone. And the hope is that automation will improve those processes. But the other side of it is you want to make sure that the automation doesn't create additional errors as well, you know, such as when artificial intelligence, the pieces of artificial intelligence, that don't have the best result. How do you stop that from growing with machine learning? How do you stop that piece from growing? And so, you know, there's a lot of unknowns that we have, I think, and it certainly is going to take a lot of human capacity to figure out what's good about the changes and what should we go forward with? And maybe what should we back away from a little bit.

Jen Burris:

Okay, any final thoughts?

Renae Spohn:

I just say thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. And anyone that has questions about health information management can certainly call me at Dakota State University.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being a guest today. And thanks to Xander Morrison, our Podcast Producer, and thank you for listening to Cyberology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider taking a moment of your time to rate and review it.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland.

Jen Burris:

Today we'll be talking about cybersecurity focusing on offensive security and some of the tactics that are used. Our expert guest today is Tyler Flaagan, Assistant Professor of Computer and Cyber Sciences at Dakota State. Tyler, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Tyler Flaagan:

Sure. So, as you said, I'm a professor here at Dakota State. I also am the director of the Deep Red MadLabs™, where we perform all sorts of offensive security assessments for outside customers. Prior to full-time teaching at DSU. I was a Red Team Operator in the Department of Defense for a couple of years. Doing those sorts of assessments for various customers.

Jen Burris:

Very interesting. So, do you have some secrets stored then?

Tyler Flaagan:

Sure, you can say that.

Jen Burris:

Okay, so why don't we just start by talking a little bit about what offensive security is.

Tyler Flaagan:

So offensive security is a proactive type of security, in a sense to kind of start looking for problems before they actually become problems. Before a malicious actor, or before, sometimes people like us AAPT, or Nation-State, kind of come after you or target you. Or nowadays, we're seeing a lot with ransomware. Before something bad like that happens, we have these teams that come in and do these security assessments and look for the problems before they can be found by those other actors.

Jen Burris:

So, kind of preventative work?

Tyler Flaagan:

Yep, definitely preventative proactive, instead of trying to be reactive, in the case of security of an organization or company.

Jen Burris:

And why is that important to kind of think about it in advance of these potential activities?

Tyler Flaagan:

Just because it's so difficult to react to some of the activities that we're seeing today, especially again, talking about ransomware. If we all of a sudden have all of our data encrypted by these ransomware groups, it's very difficult to recover from that if a company doesn't have you know, backups, and their backups were you know, offline or not connected to the area that that got encrypted. But it's a lot more expensive to have to fix that problem than to pay for someone to come in and try to find those vulnerabilities in the first place.

Jen Burris:

Okay. That's looking at vulnerability assessments, is that kind of what you're doing then?

Tyler Flaagan:

So, all the different types of engagements that we can do are all geared towards that same goal of preventing those problems from happening. The way I like to look at it when it comes to vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, red teaming, really comes down to the security maturity of an organization. So, if it's an organization that's never done anything with security before, we're not going to go to the level of you know, a red team engagement, because they just won't be ready for it, we're gonna start them off with something like a vulnerability assessment or maybe a penetration test. And there's kind of those different tiers of testing to help the organizations along.

Jen Burris:

Okay, can you explain some of those tiers what they are and what you do?

Tyler Flaagan:

So in a vulnerability assessment would be kind of the beginning tier if the maturity model is pretty new. For an organization is just starting out or going to look forwards isn't taken some sort of automated scanner, it's going to be you know, something that goes by pretty quick. Its low cost, low effort, and looking for some of the low-hanging fruit are the easier things to find out a network and get those back to the administrators to get back to the organization so that they can go ahead and fix those problems first. And we step it up a little bit if they come back and say, Alright, we've done that now we want a penetration test, we're gonna come back and we assert down the same path, except, we're actually going to go ahead and verify that those vulnerabilities there so we're actually gonna start exploiting those vulnerabilities. If we can find them again or find new ones are one of the pros that penetration testing has that one ability assessments typically don't is the verification portion is actually verifying that what we see in the scans are actually there. And then we also see the penetration testing side. Once we do exploit something we may find more vulnerabilities later on with some of the newest information that we've gained with new accesses that we've got. And then those portions vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, we're typically trying to weed out vulnerabilities. Once we go to Red Teaming, we're actually kind of switching gears a little bit. And we're focusing on the organization's ability to detect, react, and mitigate the problems in the network, so we're really trying to be stealthy. At this point, hopefully, most of the vulnerabilities have been dealt with in the network, the organization has, has good patch management, good asset management, they have people watching the network, maybe not 24/7 365. But they do have analysts on the network watching for things that are happening. And we're just kind of testing them, to see if they can catch us in the network. So as you go up against more advanced adversaries, they have the skills, and then the policies and procedures in place to handle those things.

Jen Burris:

Sounds very involved.

Tyler Flaagan.

Yep, there are lots of layers there.

Gabe Mydland:

And I'm very interested in what you're talking about the testing of the vulnerability of different assuming businesses or agencies and things like this, the testers themselves, is it just you? A team? Or who does this testing?

Tyler Flaagan:

Typically, it's a team, at least in places I've been, I know, other companies, other penetration testing companies kind of do, they might do smaller teams of one or one or two people. But in my experience, it's always been a team of three or four people kind of working in different areas and talking back and forth. And that collaboration helps out when you're trying to solve problems, or if you run up against a wall, and sometimes we'll find something we'll think it's vulnerable, and we won't quite know how to, you know, fix or the problem or whatever's going on, we can ask somebody across the table from us, you know, that may have a little bit different experience or may have seen that problem before. So typically, it's a team of penetration testers or red teamers.

Gabe Mydland:

And to prepare for this, I'm assuming that you're keeping up to speed with various attacks, more recent attacks so that you can use those strategies.

Tyler Flaagan:

Yeah, so we're constantly watching the vulnerability landscape. Things like Twitter are awesome resources because that's where when, when there's a brand new vulnerability, it's going to be on Twitter, really, within the InfoSec community without the same day, it's going to be faster than that any news article. So following along with that, seeing what new vulnerabilities are coming out, and as they come out, we can kind of integrate them in, and typically, we will take them and test them in our own lab environments, and then go ahead and use them on a customer if we run across whatever vulnerability we're looking at.

Gabe Mydland:

Fascinating.

Jen Burris:

So how do you practice that then in everyday life?

Tyler Flaagan:

So, in practice, it's mostly just having a little, we'll call them lab setup. So virtualized environments where we have these standardized systems, maybe not standardized, but you know, I have a Windows system and I can put different pieces of software on and as we come across those pieces of software, in Target networks, and then we can try to use them. Or we can try to use exploits against the vulnerabilities in our own lab and look at those. Other than that, if we typically are doing enough penetration testing, where we're not really doing any practice in between them.

Jen Burris:

Okay. So why are these a necessary practice in cybersecurity?

Tyler Flaagan:

One of the big things is organizations don't, most organizations don't have folks that specialize in this type of adversarial security. So, if we take a system administrator, network administrator, or something along those lines, there are so many different pieces to the puzzle inside of the network. And if they know, if they missed the checkbox, or if it didn't quite set something upright, or if they just put in a weak password. Right, there's, that's what we're there to find and help them out and come back and educate them and say, this is a problem, or XYZ is a problem, here's how you go fix it. And then, you know, go through our list of that, you know, that same process over and over again, with all the vulnerabilities that we can find.

Jen Burris:

Sure. So, what kind of businesses and organizations benefit from this kind of work?

Tyler Flaagan:

Every size. So, right now as part of the Mad labs, we do very small businesses up to medium sized businesses, even a couple of organizations that are fairly large in the Midwest at least. And then from my previous experience doing Department of Defense, some of our customers inside the Department of Defense had over 100,000 computers total. So, you know, if you talk about some of the small shops that we do now that have just a couple of computers, 510, maybe all the way up to we were doing worldwide operations against 100,000 computer networks, so top to bottom, basically.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow. That's amazing. And it's happening right here at Dakota State University?

Tyler Flaagan:

Right?

Gabe Mydland:

That's incredible.

Jen Burris:

How do you manage such big systems, then when you get up there to that, like 100,000 mark.

Tyler Flaagan:

So as a defender, as an offensive person, as an offensive person, as an offensive person, when we were doing those types of operations, we were in that red team mode. So, we were trying to be stealthy move around throughout the network. And we were not trying to find at that point, we're not trying to find every single vulnerability, we're trying to achieve objectives while the blue team is trying to find us and the defenders are trying to find this in the network. So, our objectives were typically defined before we started. So it could be something as simple as gaining full access to the entire domain. Or we could have made things a little bit more complicated and saying, you know, we want this specific data out of this specific system. So we'd have to work our way around to figure out how to get there and pull out that data. Whether that that data is PII, PHI, customer information, those sorts of things. Nowadays, outside of government, typically it's going to be things that we look for in that type of scenario is going to be customer information, or IP, intellectual property of the engineering customers that we have.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And how did these offensive practices help protect companies and organizations?

Tyler Flaagan:

So, again, being proactive and finding these vulnerabilities, is going to help them by you know having the experience folks experienced penetration testers come in, find the vulnerabilities report on them. And then basically say, here's how you go and fix them. So hopefully, we can't really force them to fix anything, but hopefully, do and it is in their best interest to go and fix all those things, before somebody else finds that problem, and exploits it for whatever they're trying to do. Again, ransomware is now the big topic of the day. So, if something gets exploited by a rogue actor, it's probably going to end up with ransomware on it. That's kind of where we're at. So we're trying to we're really trying to stop that from happening.

Jen Burris:

So are there certain areas that like, you know, to look when you go into working with different people? Or does it vary?

Tyler Flaagan:

It definitely varies. There are, there are certain things after you've done, I don't know, even a handful of penetration tests that you start to see patterns of things. And when I see certain types of software, I will know where to go look at them. And I know how they kind of the underlying works. So, I can kind of go in and maybe abuse them in some different ways. But right off the bat, when we walk into an organization, we don't have a specific place that we want to go look, we start by scanning the network and figuring out what's there and kind of work our way from there start picking based on our results.

Gabe Mydland:

You've been doing this a while, how have things changed over time in testing, an organization's protection? What kind of differences are there today than there were, say, five years ago or two years ago?

Tyler Flaagan:

So let's say the vulnerabilities are definitely different. And that's one thing we commonly hear things like, oh, there's this, this next-gen AV or all these new security products coming out that are going to be the silver bullet. And they aren’t because there are always new vulnerabilities. And that's, that's one of the big changes that we see is just, there are constantly new vulnerabilities for software coming out. We take a product like Windows 10, or Windows itself has been around for two decades now. Longer than that, actually. And we're still seeing vulnerabilities come out for it year after year. So, the vulnerabilities change. The overall testing hasn't really changed. We still use similar methodologies. The methodology may have changed a little bit, but they stayed mostly the same in the last, I don't know 5-10 years. There haven't been any real big changes that So, again, really the big one is just that the vulnerabilities, the types of attacks and things like that change. One other thing we are starting to see or have been seeing is the addition of things in the cloud. So, a lot of organizations are starting to use things like Office 365, versus just using Office on their computer, or they're starting to use Azure for their virtual machines, their servers, right. So instead of having a server room in their business, they're pushing it all up into Microsoft's cloud, which there are different avenues of attack, again, just different vulnerabilities, and kind of different aspects to look at there. But from a testing perspective, a lot of it really hasn't changed, we still kind of follow that same methodology,

Gabe Mydland:

How did you get interested in all of this?

Tyler Flaagan:

I've been interested ever since I showed up at Dakota state a little over a decade ago now. And I got lucky enough to be picked for a scholarship or ended up at an internship where I basically just got picked to be on the red team. I didn't know I had an internship. I showed up the first day, I had no idea what I was going to do. And they said, you're on the red team, go work with them. And I was lucky enough to have my technical background and impressed the Director and Deputy Director of my team and kind of kept working my way up in that system. And I kept doing penetration tests and Red Team engagements and research and things like that. But it all stems from an interest in just technology and computers in general.

Gabe Mydland:

Okay, that's fascinating.

Jen Burris:

Can you talk a little bit about your work with deep red then in the MadLabs™?

Tyler Flaagan:

Yeah. So, in deep red. The idea behind the Mad labs™, for starters, is that we're able to employ students to get them hands-on work in their respective fields or in areas that they may be interested in. So right now, I have a handful of students that work for me inside of Deep Red, and we do penetration tests together, essentially, as a team. And it's large enough now that we have multiple teams handling multiple clients. But we take customers, anybody who comes in and asks, most of them are regional, again, small companies with just a couple computers all the way up to very large organizations in the region. So, we'll go and do different types of testing depending on what they are looking for. And some of them even say they know what the Dakota State is all about and they're trying to support us and help us keep doing what we're trying to do. We take those teams, and we do anything from vulnerability assessments to penetration tests to sometimes we'll do phishing engagement, right test testing the user just to see if they'll click on the things that we send across the wire right in an email or something like that.

Jen Burris:

Sounds like an excellent experience.

Tyler Flaagan:

Yeah. Yep. So, for those students who are interested in continuing on and doing penetration testing, they're getting the work experience before they even leave school.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. So going back to red teaming, what's it like, when you are working together in a group environment on these projects?

Tyler Flaagan:

So, working together like I kind of talked or kind of mentioned briefly before, it's really a nice thing to have other people there, because everyone has somewhat of a different background, they've seen different software, different applications. So, if I run into a wall and something I can, you know, again, ask across the table, Hey, have you seen something like this before? Or hey, like, we're stuck, who's got ideas, and then going off on a little bit to a different angle on that if we're running into an organization that's, you know, very, very large, and we have a limited time to work with them, we'll having a team and we all split up and start looking at different things and scanning different areas and picking on those results and moving around that way. So having a team definitely has benefits in a couple of different areas.

Jen Burris:

And why is this important for everyday people?

Tyler Flaagan:

So, for the everyday person, you have to think about it, as you know, is your data safe? Where it works whatever organization there maybe, right, so we've done testing for banks before, right? So, people keep their money in banks, right? That's, that's an easy one. And when we tell folks or where people are asking, saying, you know, should we get a penetration test, one of the things we say is, you know, what's your, what's your number one thing you're trying to protect? So, banks are an easy one because it's, you know, they get a large bag of money. If we look at other organizations, let's look at Dakota State University. Dakota State has different assets, as we typically like to call an OD threat modeling. And, you know, it may not be assets in a typical way. But we think of those is what about your employee data that that DSU holds? What about the student data? What about intellectual property that's going on with research? Right, all those things? And for every business, there's going to be something that makes them money, right. And in a way that's going to affect someone down the line?

Jen Burris:

Because there really isn't any person untouched by data these days. Right?

Tyler Flaagan:

Right. Yeah, everyone's connected. Everyone's got, you know, bank accounts or you work with certain companies, or you work for a company, right, and they have your information at some point. Your something of you're just sitting on a computer somewhere, whether that's a server, whether it's a laptop, sitting in someone's office, you know, depends on the business.

Jen Burris:

This is all really fascinating.

Gabe Mydland:

It is definitely. Glad you're on our side.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, no kidding. So, what are we missing? What haven't we talked about that people should know?

Tyler Flaagan:

One of the big things some of our I talked about earlier about security maturity, some of the organizations that would deal with that have a little bit lower security maturity, and they're trying to kind of break into it and get some more penetration testing done or get more vulnerability assessments is that security is not a one and done type of thing. It's very much an ongoing process. So, whether that's having a penetration test on yearly or, you know, doing phishing assessments, where we're testing and training the staff of an organization, to, you know, actually take a look at the emails that are getting in, that's just from our side, from a defensive perspective, the ongoing is, you know, always making sure everything's up to date. So, new vulnerabilities are announced, and they come out, making sure to get those pieces of software, those applications patched. So, they are secure. So that's, that's probably one of the biggest things is it's never a one and done thing.

Jen Burris:

So no complacency or no resting on your laurels,

Tyler Flaagan:

Right. Yep. Let's say you're an organization, you can't get your systems to a point where they're secure. And then you know, fire all your security people, because two weeks later, you know, you might not be secure, there might be a whole bunch of brand new vulnerabilities that come out a whole bunch of new problems. So like I said, it's just it's not a one-and-done. It's an ongoing process.

Jen Burris:

So you would say that's kind of a growing field, then in that, it's not going anywhere.

Tyler Flaagan:

Yeah, it's definitely a growing field. There are plenty of companies hiring for, for offensive folks, whether it's in you know, doing penetration testing, or r&d, right, we have on the larger teams they actually have researchers doing building tooling and things like that in the background for those teams. And yeah, it's definitely as more and more organizations realize that they need this help. It's definitely growing, growing our teams, as a will say, as an industry.

Jen Burris:

Gabe anything else?

Gabe Mydland:

No, I'm just trying to ingest all of this. This is a lot of information. But yeah, maybe one question. Companies that are interested in this kind of assessment, contact you directly?

Tyler Flaagan:

They can?

Gabe Mydland:

How do they find you? Is it largely word of mouth? Or is there a number of other entities out there that do the same kind of work that you do? Or how does the word get out that you're available to help them with this?

Tyler Flaagan:

There are a number of penetration testing companies are companies that do that as consulting out there. And so, if you're going to do a Google search, you'd come across a handful that does it. For Deep Red, specifically, most of our stuff has come through word of mouth. We don't have any I’d say really big advertising out there for our own work. But through word of mouth, we typically stay busy, at least throughout the school year, and then dial down during the summer when students are off doing their internships and things like that.

Gabe Mydland:

That’s great.

Jen Burris:

Okay, anything else you want to plug Tyler?

Tyler Flaagan:

I don't think so.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, thank you so much for being a guest today. And thank you to Our Podcast Producer Xander Morrison. And thank you for listening to Cyberology.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to cyberology Dakota State University's podcasts about all things cyber and technology. Gabe is out today. I'm Jen Burris. And this episode, Erik Pederson is here to talk about game design. Erik, why don't we get started with you telling us a little bit about yourself.

Erik Pederson:

I moved to South Dakota with my family about a year ago, I have been doing Game Design here at DSU. For a couple of semesters before that, I was game development program chair at a small college in Madison, Wisconsin during that time. And before that time, I was producer, associate producer, basic studio owner, Lackey, whatever else coffee get her type person in the video game industry got to work with a lot of different people. Before that. I taught instructional design and engineering and building construction courses at a different school. Before that, I was a project manager at a construction contractor. I've got two kids that are with me right now. And they are eight and 12. And I've got a couple of older kids that are at college and having a great time.

Jen Burris:

Why don't you start with a little bit about what game design is and what it entails?

Erik Pederson:

Game Design is a lot of things. In the one-sentence answer, I'd say that game design is the development of interactive software, especially the digital end. You could go game design is Magic cards or Pokémon cards. There's that type of industry. There's also the board game industry that we're all familiar with everything from Twister to Monopoly, there are tons of different games and tons of different formats, what we do at DSU. And what I've got some experience with is making digital designs. So, making it interactive digital content.

Jen Burris:

Can you tell me a little bit about what goes into making digital content?

Erik Pederson:

Well, to break it down you if have artists that make digital content. And it's just artists, you'll have pretty pictures that designers bring to the table, the fact that the product ends up being a good interactive product that’s fun to play. But without the people doing the code behind the scenes, you have nothing. So, it's a combination of design, coding, art, and a few elements of narrative and some other things thrown in there that make it work. So, it's a detailed, tough thing to do.

Jen Burris:

Can you talk a little bit more about the duality of Arts and Sciences in this field?

Erik Pederson:

I can. And the way I'm going to phrase it is how, you know go back to DSU. It's not a sales pitch for DSU program. But how DSU has got their setup of how we go about running the game development program. It's split 50, between The Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences. There's a combination where one of the faculty members is from Arts and Sciences, and I'm out of The Beacom and we work on this together to make it happen. So it's a little bit different than most of the programs. And most of the disciplines that are done here, which are if you are in audio, you spend the majority of your time in one building, if you are in Arts and Sciences, you spend the most of the time in one building. If you're a computer coder, you may split your time between a couple of buildings, the discipline of game design is a combination of all the other disciplines put together. So we're kind of unique creatures.

Jen Burris:

And what do you enjoy about the world of game design?

Erik Pederson:

I like to play games, all different kinds of games. And this is just playing right playing and making are completely different creatures. I've been exposed to games that an eight-year-old would play up to any type of adult-level games. But the 100% thing that I enjoy is the people that are part of the teams that make the games it's all about the people. I've met some crazy, fun, intelligent, creative people in all industries I've been involved with, but the game development industry takes that to a different level. And those are the people that you basically want to surround yourself with. Out of all the stuff in game design, what do I enjoy the most? It's just being around the people being in the trench failing at what you're doing, succeeding in what you're doing, and just being together.

Jen Burris:

So definitely not a solitary industry.

Erik Pederson:

Well, there are people that make games by themselves, if you've got a good financial base that you don't have to maintain a job. And you've got 15 years of your time that you want to invest into making one product could take a long time. Yeah, multiple skill sets are required to and to get good at all of the skill sets could take you 20 years to get good at all the skill sets.

Jen Burris:

what is the industry as a whole like?

Erik Pederson:

Like a speeding bullet train. It goes really fast. The Game Dev industry is very young compared to other industries like manufacturing, and production, and education, all those industries are old school industries. Because people have been building houses for a long time, the game industry is still trying to get its feet. And you can tell because of the fast and vast changes that it makes so quickly. How it evolves, not just technology-wise, but people-wise, the skill sets change. And they're changing all the time, it's a constant evolution, there's typically no silver bullet to solving any one issue. Okay, you can take the werewolf down with a lot of different bullets. But it's just the one that works. It's the solutions that worked the best. A lot of times, there's a publisher that you'll work with, which means that you're getting fronted money. So, you have to understand how the business aspect of being fronted money works, you have to understand how to constantly be problem-solving the game industry is constant problem solving every day, something else is going to go wonky or break and you're faced with refiguring out how everything works almost every day.

Jen Burris:

Prepares you for any kind of lifestyle

Erik Pederson:

It really does. A lot of developers I know have been in the business for five to 10 years. And after five to 10 years, they find something else to do, which they could do almost anything they want because of their skill sets, just to slow the pace of life down a little bit.

Jen Burris:

Along that line. What are some of the variety of the different skills people need in this industry?

Erik Pederson:

Making interactive software is hard. It's very time-consuming. But ultimately, it ends up being a business. Like other businesses, if you develop a product and work on a product, which could be a game or a simulation, or any of the above, you need to be able to turn a profit on that to pay the bills where you live for rent and put food on the table, be able to pay the people that you work with or work for it ends up being a very difficult growing business. I'd say the biggest surprise with it is that the industry itself never slows down. It always is on a fast track. It's always the bullet train versus the old steam train that runs on coal. Other industries run on coal, the game development industry runs on like new killer biofuel, everyone's always going at the same pace. And as an example, for that there was a team that I was involved with that we found out six months into a production cycle, that engine that we were using to actually run the game wasn't good enough. In the last two months of that project, we completely ripped that engine out and installed a new game engine, and recoded the entire six-month process in two months.

Jen Burris:

Wow.

Erik Pederson:

That happens on a relatively frequent basis. Nobody talks about it. But things like that are every day.

Jen Burris:

What are some of the steps in the process of developing a new game?

Erik Pederson:

I'll just break it down and maybe how our students are doing it right now. And that'll make it relatively simple. There's a consummating phase upfront, where either a publisher gives you a concept or you can try, and self-publish something yourself or a small team. And you take that concept, you go into a pre-production mode in the pre-production, you start developing your art, you start developing your mechanics that are going to run the product. Basically, you're developing your USPs, those are your unique selling points, the things that really stand out. If you think of box to game DVDs, where you look on the back of the box, it's usually got three or four things like great first-person action, you know, shoot all your enemies in the head, that kind of stuff or zombie apocalypse, those are usually bullet points in the back. Those are the unique selling points of your product. And you go from there and you start building the mechanics you go into a production mode, which could be anywhere from what we do here is roughly six months at DSU for a student project, the industry could take up to five years to develop that production piece. And then it'll go to post-production finalize, the special effects are added the audio is all refined and then you launch it could be anywhere from eight months to five years that you're working on one thing. If you're in an entry-level position in that game industry, you could be working on textures of rocks in the game for five years. And that's your first project.

Jen Burris:

Wow. So, that's like every day working on just the textures of the rocks?

Erik Pederson:

10-hour days, they might give you different colored rocks. Or if they find out that you're very competent in your production or your ability to make the color schemes work and the patterns work. They may give you some grass that you can color or some stones on the wall but typically your first job as a texture artist in the industry you weren't held responsible for much but you're held responsible for doing a lot of rock textures, Sky textures, usually, it's the lower end stuff that designers that have been there for longer periods of time get to eat the meat off the bone so to speak and here are the ones that are putting the bones together There you go. All you entry-level game designers, there's a reality check for you.

Jen Burris:

Definitely, an area where you have to kind of work your way up then?

Erik Pederson:

it's like any other business you have to start someplace. You can. There's a difference, I suppose in the industry between a triple-A development studio, which is an example would be Blizzard where they have roughly 2000 People that work on a product versus an indie studio, which is smaller, less funding, and they can develop some pretty good indie products, teams of two to four, to 20 to 40. That type of thing. Typically, the indie studios have a much smaller budget, but they're able to turn around products a lot faster.

Jen Burris:

Yeah. What do you think the difference is with the turnaround? Is it just the smaller teams so they can kind of work through it faster?

Erik Pederson:

they're just more agile, we teach our students here to be indie developers, to be faster, to have more responsibility to have more creative input, and be part of teams that are held accountable for a lot more stuff than just being just a piece of the product. you know, it's the difference between going to Dakota State University to the University of Michigan where there's, you know, 50,000 students versus 10,000 students, there's a big difference. And that's pretty much how the game industry runs just like that. Okay.

Jen Burris:

What would people be surprised to know about game design?

it's a big gamble. The way that I'm going to define that is, the bigger the studio, the bigger the monetary investment in the product. But there's no guarantee that that product is going to launch and make tons of money. Let's say that a company like a blizzard or EA or Raven Software, or Activision, or Nintendo, could put up to half a billion dollars into the development of a project. And if that game releases and doesn't take that back, that's a big gamble. That's a big hit. And it's happened, it happens a lot. $500 billion to the triple-A game industry is a game.

Jen Burris:

That's mind-blowing.

Erik Pederson:

It's big money. But it's a big gamble. You know, if you and I were to put our money together and set up a studio and make games with just a staff of four or five or eight people, that's a huge gamble for us. But monetarily, it's a $500,000 Gamble versus a $500 million gamble. So that's the difference between the Indie development and triple-A development. Realistically, if you look at the big market, in general, there's not a lot of new products. There's a lot of Call of Duty Next, there's a lot of Madden 22. I think it's 22, now. The game generally falls into a production line where they're producing another product in that line every 12 months.

Jen Burris:

That's just kind of minor changes type of thing?

Erik Pederson:

Sometimes there are major changes, but they have a well-defined process of development. They can reduce cost by having that well-defined process of development, but the flexibility of what could be really different, or can we add things in can we take things out, it becomes a lot harder to do that

Jen Burris:

Less flexibility, because you've set a standard?

Erik Pederson:

And the players expect a certain level of product. Whereas the independent industry, the indie games industry is far more flexible. There are far fewer barriers or constraints, other than not having $500 million. Of course, that's a that's kind of a barrier. But there are triple-A studios that will spend half a billion dollars on advertising alone. So, you're looking at giant triple-A games that come out that cost a billion dollars between production and marketing, that's a lot of money, they've got to justify the cost of $75 for a game, it is a business. We try and teach that to our students to, by the time they graduate, they'll understand the difference between releasing a product that's free to download, versus maybe a $4.99 game that they can post on Steam and actually turn a little bit of a profit and help pay their rent the last year that they're here, that kind of thing. Whether you're quote-unquote, playing with someone else's money, or your own money, it's a gamble.

Jen Burris:

Are there ways that students can use the skills that they've gained in the game design arena, in different areas outside of that?

Erik Pederson:

I will explain that as well as I can, without a whiteboard and a marker. Picture, the capital T, the width of the top of the T is the breadth of experience, we will expose them to hear okay, so everything from some audio components to how to put together some 2d art and how to put together 3d art and animation and how to code for games, how to use the industry game engine, and then to finish that off would be to put them on teams and teach them how or expose them to working together as a team to actually produce a product. A lot of times we find that's the hardest thing, but the vertical piece of the team is a part that we encourage all the students to select one of those pieces across the breadth of the tee and gain an in-depth knowledge of that skill set. Let's just say they want to be a texture artist. They want to graduate and do texture art for different indie studios. For a triple-A studio, whatever they want to do the last year or two that they are here, that's the one skill that they really focus on. When a student graduates, the breadth of the tee is wide enough so that they understand the game industry as a business. And they understand how each of the different pieces works together. But they also have that in-depth deep dive of the vertical part of the T, that will get them specific positions out in the games industry. And we teach them all that they all can do that, we encourage the students to pick what they want to get really good at, we will push them in that direction. So, the last year they're here, they're working on a team. And that's what they're doing. They're doing their special pieces of that overall component being the head designer, the one with the idea, or if they want to be a level layout person, or if they want to be an artist, or they want to be a coder, those jobs are more defined the last year that they're here. So, when they graduate, they can go directly into those fields.

Jen Burris:

And would you say that they can also then use those skills, such as a designer in different markets if they for some reason chose not to continue on with game design?

Erik Pederson:

Absolutely. Writing code means that you've learned coding languages, and how it works and how the logic works. That doesn't mean that it's just limited to game design. Because basically, everything is running on code, learning another language would be nothing more than just applying that logic, and spending a bit of time to learn another computer language. The same thing for the artist, if one of our game development graduates that has an art-specific background, wanted to go into graphic design, they understand all of the layouts, they understand the sizing, they understand the colors, they understand everything that they have to do table to step right into that field, it'd be a short step versus a long stop. And we do that on purpose, it opens the number of options that they have because getting into the game business is hard. And they may spend a year working as a graphic designer at a print shop someplace if they're an artist looking to get into the business. And that's what they have to do. And they're set up for that.

Jen Burris:

So, building experience in other areas, too. Are your students working on anything cool in the classroom right now?

Erik Pederson:

Oh, I'm glad you asked. I was kind of hoping you'd ask that. So six months ago, our students completed their first round of project classes that Peter and I have been here for to help be part of two of the three projects are actually downloadable games on Steam. One of them went live about two months ago, it's got roughly 10,000 downloads now, which is pretty cool. It's basically the goal is our students have published work before they graduate. And what's the title of that game, the name of that game is three o'clock horror. And it's a very fitting game to play because it is Halloween time now. And it's a free-to-download game. So, try it out, put some comments in the feedback. And they've been updating that game. I think they've gone through two updates already. And that one's being developed as potentially a mobile app as well. The other game is a game called Mi Scusi. And I'll just spell that its m i s c u s i in that game went live about a week ago. And it's got over 2500 downloads in a week. And there's probably another 5000 plays of the game that haven't actually been downloaded just been played 5000 or so times.

Jen Burris:

That's pretty impressive.

Erik Pederson:

Yeah, so two out of the three games, we've got almost 15,000 plays and downloads. And that's pretty cool stuff that puts DSU which is in Madison, South Dakota, in the middle of the country in the middle of cornfields and bison herds on par with a lot of the Eastern West Coast game development schools that specifically teach game development. So, it's been a pretty fun week or two lot of sleepless nights. And that just happens to be one of our team names right now too. So sleepless nights, sleepless nights.

Jen Burris:

I wonder where that will go?

Erik Pederson:

well, we'll have to see what happens with that. We've got four teams right now. Uh-huh. Their products are due for launch at the end of next semester, so they have another six months or so to continue working on them. That's where we're at.

Jen Burris:

Thank you, Erik, for being a guest today. Thanks to Our Podcast Producer Xander Morrison and thank you for listening to cyber ology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider taking a moment of your time to rate and review it. Thank you.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris from the marketing and communications department.

Gabe Mydland:

My name is Gabe Mydland from the College of Education.

Jen Burris:

In this episode, we'll be talking about esports. Our guest today is Andy Roland, head coach for the esports athletic program at DSU. Andy, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Andy Roland:

Sure. My name is Andrew Roland. I am the head esports coach here at Dakota State going on my third year here. One of those years was a COVID year so I don't know how much we can exactly count that one. We really exploded since we've been on campus. Our first year was great success struggled through our second just as everyone else did. And now our third year we're coming in really strong. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future has for us.

Jen Burris:

Okay, can you start by telling our audience in case they might not know what esports is?

Andy Roland:

Esports is an electronic competition. So, it's competitive in the same aspect that football, baseball, basketball, all sports, we do the same thing but instead of football, baseball, basketball, we have League of Legends, Valorant, Overwatch, and Rocket League, it's all electronic all online with PCs, controllers, things like that.

Gabe Mydland:

So, Andy, I'm really curious. How did you get interested in esports? How did this come about?

Andy Roland:

Sure. I've been a gamer pretty much my whole life just like you know, a lot of the guys at this university are. A lot of people are, this is what you do when you're a kid, you go online, and you can socialize with your friends in this way and game with them. It's always been a part of my life. I've always played like Call of Duty, played Halo pretty competitively back in the day. I grew up in Texas, and Texas is kind of a hub for eSports right now. It's like California, and in Texas, a lot of schools are developing the scene well. It is a little bit of a case of right place right time, I was a student at Texas Christian University, and they didn't have an esports team at the time. I saw it as a way for me to kind of build something there with my time as a student. So, I created that program. I played on the varsity team for a year, I was the League of Legends support, and we built a team. I built the organization I ran for two years while I was there, and I fell in love with it. The work of building something, of creating something, and having a purpose and meaning for those involved. You know, when I graduated, I had a job offered to work somewhere else, and I took it as a comfortable thing. I had it lined up while I was in college, I was going to go work for Dell in Round Rock, Texas, their headquarters location, which is right down the street from TCU where I graduated, so I did that. But I was holding on to my esports dream if you will of working in the esports scene, and then Dakota State had the position open for a head coach, and I applied for it. I got to meet Jeff, he brought me in on-campus and we met the whole athletics department and I fell in love with that the big kicker was Jeff. He was and still is a really strong advocate for esports.

Gabe Mydland:

You're talking about Jeff Dittman?

Andy Roland:

Yep, correct. Him and the president of the University, Dr. José-Marie Griffiths. So, the success of our program really is due to the foresight of those two, they saw that this is something that can become great, and they did it the right way they invested in it and they brought in a head coach. Not only that, but Jeff really wanted to give me the creative freedom to build this program. The best way I saw fit, I could have gone back to Dell and work my desk job at a corporate office, or I could come here and build something that I'm really proud of. And that makes a difference for the students. I still have the list on my phone of pros and cons that I made on the plane flying back after my interview and I look at it sometimes and the more I look at it the more I realized that I made the right decision because it's opened up so many new doors and I've met so many great people working with the students here on campus has just been fantastic. You know to see these guys develop real-world skills, leadership skills right here on our program. It's a very humbling thing.

Gabe Mydland:

You know, again, I'm going to ask maybe some obvious questions, but are there tryouts? Are there students that are recruited for esports? How does this work?

Andy Roland:

Yeah, we have returners that come in that are like my rock, my foundation, kind of like the RAs are on campus to bring in new students. These are my coordinators, and these guys helped me do a lot of the managing of this program. As far as tryouts go, we have a one-week sort of tryout session, we call it boot-camp, where we bring in all of our new students and returning students one week early. It's really an integration tool so that we can get the new guys sort of processed and see how our organization runs and they can see what our organization means on campus and how we function really just getting these guys involved with what we're doing, showing them you know, what we do on a daily basis, how practicing and games are going to work throughout the season. And we get all that done during boot camp, we get to know who your coordinator is and who your fellow teammates are going to be throughout the season. And that's one week before school starts. And then when school starts, we've got all this figured out so these guys can focus on class. I like to get them to play as many video games as they can during one week, that way they're sick of it and they can start focusing on classes when school starts, so that's sort of the integration process for new athletes coming in in the fall, in the spring it's a little bit less severe really, we have maybe a few guys trickle in but most of the guys are already settled here. That's the thing about our organization we're very fluid we've got guys who are coming in playing on JV rosters and then they're like I need to focus more on classes and step back and then we'll have guys coming in like hey, I missed a boot camp but I really want to get involved,  ‘yeah come on in, meet your coordinator meet the guys who are going to be on your team get to know these guys and find your fit.’ We are very fluid. We've got guys coming in and out.

But one of the hardest things to do right now in the country for an esports organization is to scout or recruit right? We are an athletic program and I need to scout League of Legends and Valorant players, I want good guys to come in here. And there's just no real foundation for that. There's no scouting combined or anything like that. It may be a little bit simpler because video games like League of Legends and Valorant have a rank system that I can go in and see exactly how good they are. But it's the recruiting process. That's difficult. There are a lot of good guys in California that play this game, but how do I reach out to them and get them to come to Dakota State. It's a little bit challenging because esports is still developing, but I can confidently say that I don't really need to recruit for this university. The university does the recruiting for me, you know, we've got cybersecurity and game design and all of these fantastic programs that just feed into what we're doing. These guys are coming to this university or, you know, they may be on the fence about a cyber security degree. And then when they see that we've got a fully-fledged esports program. They're like that's the kicker. A lot of our majors in academics do a lot of recruiting for me, it just makes sense that these guys that are on their computer all day gaming are going to fall in line with this tech mentality that we have here.

Jen Burris:

How many students are involved with esports?

Andy Roland:

We teeter around 100. Some days I'll go over depending on you know, the new guys that flutter in, like I said, we're pretty fluid, but we stay at around 100. I think I'm at like 97 right now. But I know that there are guys who are joining rosters this week. Those are about our numbers and those are across seven different titles and multiple rosters. I've got my varsity roster set across the board. And then we've got some JV rosters in play.

Jen Burris:

And what are those seven different titles?

Andy Roland:

Without having them right in front of me League of Legends and Valorant are our top two we've got. Rocket League, Overwatch, Smite, Rainbow Six, and fighting games. So, we've got various fighting games like Smash Ultimate, Smash Melee, Tekken, Guilty Gear, and I kind of lump all of those into a fighting game category. And we're always looking to kick up more, right so like Apex has been a huge game that's taking hold in the esports world right now, and Respawn, the company that owns, it is investing a lot into it. So, the video game is gaining a lot of momentum, we've got guys who are gonna come in and compete playing that game. There are games out there that I didn't mention that we still compete in. But these are our like a rock or foundation, we’ve been competing in these for three years. Now I'd love to add more to that list. Because you know, the mark of a good organization is diversity, right? We want to be able to include everyone to play all games.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, in speaking of diversity, you and I have had conversations before this, that there are young men and young women involved.

Andy Roland:

Getting women involved in esports has been difficult. We already have the barrier of tech things, and then athletics, and then video games. With that being said, our numbers are growing. You know, in our first year, I think we had one female in our program, I think we have like five or six now, which isn't a lot considering we've got 100 on our roster. But it's very important to me that we keep this all-inclusive atmosphere going here. There are a lot of things that I'd love to do to ramp up those numbers, like an all-female League of Legends team, or things along those lines. I'm all for it. I love it. And when I talk to the females that we do have in our program, they don't really feel like there's a difference. They just plug and play. They're part of the crew, they're on the team, and there's no real

Gabe Mydland:

The distinction between the sexes?

Andy Roland:

Exactly.

Gabe Mydland:

That's great. That's fantastic.

Jen Burris:

So how does esports compare to traditional sports?

Andy Roland:

I draw as many parallels as I can because it's easier to understand that way. I may go beyond my bounds a little bit and say that the closest to what we are would be like football. I'd love to get the amount of recognition and support that they do. But our athletes don't feel any different. They have more physical demand (football). Yeah, but the expectations are the same. Practicing, team mentality respect, you know, we're training these guys and they're developing team skills to be able to coordinate with each other and process things. Player disputes are always a big thing that we have to learn and overcome. And, and I welcome things like that. These are the things that I want these guys to go through just like on a football team. When things get tough, you guys got to come together to overcome. And I want these guys to do that, too. If there's someone that you're not working well on a team with, you got to be able to figure that out. Because that happens when you graduate college, you're put on a team, and you don't like the guy you're working with. Now we can get you a little bit more of that experience. And that's something that athletics addresses really well is the team mentality. We're all working together to accomplish a goal. And so that's something that rings true across the board, the responsibility aspect of it, being able to manage your schedule with practices and games and school and extracurriculars and things like that. It takes an intelligent person to juggle all that. And that's why being a part of athletics helps us out a lot more. It puts us all on the same playing field, it may be a little bit more difficult for some people to understand, right? Because it's not a traditional sport. But as far as practice and all that goes, there's no distinction between the two.

Gabe Mydland:

And what kind of time commitment? You mentioned, practice like the other sports, how frequently do they practice? How much do they practice?

Andy Roland:

So, I have 10 machines in our competition center. It's hard to juggle 10 machines for 100 athletes.

Gabe Mydland:

I'll bet.

Andy Roland:

Yeah. And it's tough because these guys want to get in there, they want to put their time in. And that's where they play on game days. So, they want to practice that game day feel as much as possible. It's been challenging for me to make sure that everything is fair across the board, but we're making it work. With every challenge comes an opportunity for us to overcome with these guys. I love them to death because they can work amongst themselves. If Valorant has a game on Sunday night. And Rainbow Six has practiced at that time, they can work it out amongst themselves to come up with a great solution. Say, hey, we've got a game, we want to be in there. You guys can practice, just keep it down, we got a game or something. I've got great guys for coordinators. And the success of our program is really due to all of them. These guys communicate across the board with different sports, and they stay in coordination with each other to make sure that the 10 PCs that we have worked for all of us and that it's fair across the board. I come in and manage when I can. But I've laid the law and the foundation for these guys to say like if you're on Match Day, you're going to be in the room. These are the equipment and PCs that you guys need to be on. If you've got practice, get it in. We have practice starting at three o'clock every day and it runs to midnight. They're in three-hour sessions. Every game or every sport, if you will, has two practice sessions in the esports center a week and then one practice session online. It's about nine hours a week I suppose. And that's not including game days. Valorant is on Sunday nights, Monday nights are League of Legends. And then we go live on Twitch with that, too, so you can catch them there. It works because these guys can work together really well.

Gabe Mydland:

That's great.

Jen Burris:

With esports being kind of a new thing to colleges, what's it been like finding competition? I know you helped create some around here. So, can you speak a little bit about that?

Andy Roland:

Yeah, it's difficult because, if you think about it, football is established at every university. And not only that, but you've got like the NCAA, the NAIA, who come in and facilitate all these things. We don't have that. So, when I'm looking for competition, there are national tournaments like NA Star League, AVGL, Conference One. There's a bunch of different just like kick up companies that are like, hey, there's a need for this, we'll do it, you know, pay us. And because esports is so new, I don't like paying for competition, especially because this area's still developing. There are universities out there that are hungry to compete because esports right now is in its development phase. And it's kind of like the Wild West, I reached out to some Midwest schools, and said, hey, you know, we're all pretty local here. We're all developing our esports scenes. We all want this to be something great. We all believe in it. Let's work together on this. And let's create our own little conference. We'll communicate with each other about what our needs are for our university, what they want to see from us, and what we can bring back to them and show them that what we're doing is meaningful.

So, I started the collegiate Champions League or CCL. It's just a kick-up with a bunch of different universities from the Midwest. It started because I'm from Texas, I had a great network there. It started with half Texas schools, half Midwest schools, so we can kind of communicate with them. And there are a lot of really great programs in Texas too. So, joining Midwest schools with Texas schools and having them mingle and compete with each other was really great for those guys. But they’re good. We brought in UT and their Valorant team is one of the best in the nation right now. And they kind of destroyed all of us. But it was an honor to play with them and get to chat with them and learn all that but now this semester we brought in the CCL, everyone within a four-to-five-hour drive from Madison here. We've got the University of North Dakota as far north as we go. And then we've got the University of Nebraska down south that's about as far as we go down. I'm bringing all these guys together and say, hey, like we all want to build our programs together, we want to show our universities that we're doing great things, you know, let's all come together here and have great competition and make this as easy as possible.

Another big need for collegiate play in the esports world. As I said, I like to draw as many comparisons to traditional sports as possible. traditional sports now have season schedules, where we know every week, even weeks in advance who was playing, majority of the competition in collegiate eSports right now is tournament-based. You can enter into a nice Star League tournament with 100 to 200 other schools in the nation, they'll play one round of 82, where you are matched up against one team. And if you win, cool, you go on, if not, you're done, your season is done. And that's not fun. It's hard to follow. It's demoralizing for our guys. And that's just not the best format for us, I can see how it might be a good format for the company who's putting that together and giving away scholarship money for it and all that, but, but it doesn't work for building our scenes and for taking care of our players. So, with the collegiate Champions League that we put together, we've got a season schedule where we know who we're playing well in advance, make sure that everyone that we are coordinating and cooperating with the other universities is around the same skill level as us so that the matches are meaningful and exciting. There are certain aspects of collegiate play that I'm addressing by doing this by pulling everyone together. And by doing that it's making it easier for us to report what we're doing to the university.

Jen Burris:

And those competitions, you mentioned that you stream them on Twitch, can you talk a little bit about that, and how that differs a little bit from a normal athletic event.

Andy Roland:

Sure. Streaming has been an initiative that I've always wanted to put into play, if our mid laner’s mom wants to watch them compete just like our quarterback’s mom does, you know, we need to be able to do that. And it's fairly simple because it's all done online. Well, I say that because I don't exactly know how they do it. These guys are awesome that we've got it working on it, and they do an excellent broadcast show. But it started off as something that just the student organization wanted to do for our athletes. And it's something that I wanted to put in place for these guys because they deserve it. We started off as students, you know, coming up with and learning how to broadcast our matches on Twitch. And we've gotten to the point where our run of the show and our production has just been so great. And people look forward to this, that we've got IT now coming in and helping us with it. We've got Tyler Steele and some paid positions to help us broadcast our matches. And our production value is just going through the roof, every time we do it, it's getting better and better. So much so that the software that we're using vMix to put together the broadcasts and everything, we're doing it across the board now. So now the like the football stream will be done with vMix. We're upgrading our broadcast potential. And this all started just from us wanting to get our matches out there to the public, so you guys can watch. And it's turned into these beautiful broadcasting experiments that we're building on campus. All credit goes to the students for starting it and wanting to get it done and being hungry and learning about how to do this on their own, and really knocking it out of the park.

Now we've got our broadcast booth in a station with green screens and mics. And if you check us out on Twitch on Sunday, and Monday nights at eight o'clock, you'll see what our production looks like. And the casters for our matches, our broadcasters look kind of like hosts and talk during the match. They’re students because they know the game. And their mission during all of this is to translate what's happening in the match to you as an observer, who may not know what League of Legends or Valorant is. But they'll walk you through it and you buy into the hype because it gets fun last night's match. Last night we played the University of North Dakota in Valorant. It was our first game of the year. And it was so much fun, you could tell that all of these guys were just really hungry to get back out play. Our casters did an excellent job of keeping it fun and interesting. The match was really exciting. It's just a great place to really sort of watch what we're doing. And if you want to learn more, it's a good place to come and see what a match looks like. It would be the same if you had no idea what football was, you know, I can sit here and explain to you what football is. But when you watch it, you get a different feel for it. And you start to understand what the rules and penalties mean and things along those lines. It's the same thing.

Gabe Mydland:

Tell us more about where we can get information about an upcoming match or future matches.

Andy Roland:

Before we go live. We make a post on all of our social media channels. That's DSU Esports on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I think we're going to put together a tech talk here soon for some clips for you guys to take a look at, but we post on all of our social media when we go live. It's on Twitch TV, our channel is Twitch.tv/trojansesports you just Go to our channel, and you'll hang out there until we go live. And then when we go live, you can follow the channel. And that way you'll get an alert every time we do go live, that we don't have to wait. That's where you'll find it's twitch tv.com. And then in the search bar, Dakota State Esports. You'll see our logo. And you can go and check out previous matches that we've played last night's match will be on there as the most recent broadcast, you can go in and see how we did against them. But yeah, every Sunday and Monday night we will be live on that site.

Gabe Mydland:

Awesome.

Jen Burris:

So, if you could have people take away one thing about eSports, what would you want that to be?

Andy Roland:

The amount of respect that I think is owed to the guys that are doing this to my athletes, and to the coordinators who make all this happen, we're running just like a football or baseball and it's early developmental days, it may not have had the amount of publicity like they do now. But it will come with time, the number of hours that these guys put in the training and dedicating themselves to their craft and into this organization and the purpose that we have on campus. They're working hard to do something great, and they deserve just as much recognition as any other sport gets on campus.

Jen Burris:

Any follow-up questions, Gabe?

Gabe Mydland:

What does the future look like? Where do you see this heading? You talked about developing a conference and sharing some common interests with other institutions that have these programs. But how far do you see this thing going?

Andy Roland:

I can see it getting as big as college football gets. The steppingstones are there, they've gone through this process. And football has developed itself into this national iconic sport, there's a market for esports out there, there's a professional scene for it, especially in the collegiate scene. I always like to say that esports really is a great tool to help you academically to give you a sense of purpose on campus, just like traditional athletics. The foundation is there we're just taking the steps to get there with the amount of diversity in games for esports. And the number of people who are willing and interested to get involved because this is a passion, they've had their whole lives playing video games. And not only that but there is a professional scene. These guys are developing real-world skills that they can use to go out and enter the esports market. Now there are esports professional athletes, yes, but just like in football, there are professional athletes, but there's a whole lot that goes around that too. There's physical therapy and broadcasting and there are so many components to that. And there are a lot of components to esports too. There are a lot of jobs popping up in the esports industry right now. So, getting involved at the collegiate level is almost a must to develop those skills and move into that area. It's an athletic sport, and I can see it following in line with all other traditional athletic sports.

Jen Burris:

Anything else you'd like to plug?

Andy Roland:

I plugged our Twitch stream and that's a big one. I would urge everyone to go out and take a look at our streams if you're curious there's a chat box there too. So, you can ask questions to the guys who are talking on stream about what things are and what things look like. It's a really fun way to get involved with esports watching and checking out what we do. The big thing that I want to do is just shout out to all the students in our organization none of this is possible without them, they helped me run and manage everything. I run all my decisions by them because this is their organization, we're doing this together. The success of our program is really marked by the guys in our program who are working hard. And I want to give them a big shout-out and to this university for having the foresight and seeing that this is definitely something that's growing and will be huge one day and we got in early and we're doing it right. I need other universities to follow suit. I need them to start hiring coaches and then we need our own NAIA or NCAA conference. That way I don't have to host our competitions, I can put it into larger hands, and it can be done the right way. That's going to come within the next couple of years. We're developing more every year and we're building, and esports is growing. It's an exciting time to get involved and understand what we're doing.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Thank you so much for being a guest today. We enjoyed having you.

Gabe Mydland:

Yes, very much, very interesting.

Andy Roland:

Yeah. I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. And my door's always open. If you guys have any questions, let me know.

Jen Burris:

And thank you to our podcast producer Xander Morrison. Thank you to the listeners of Cyberology. Please rate, subscribe and review. Thanks!

Jen Burris:

Welcome to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast about all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris from the marketing and communications department. And I'm excited to welcome back Gabe Mydland as our cohost.

Gabe Mydland:

Hey, Jen, thank you for having me back.

Jen Burris:

And this episode, we'll be talking about utilizing technology in the classroom. I'm excited to introduce our guest, Kevin Smith. He is an associate professor in the College of Education Coordinator of the Master of Science and Education Technology Program, and currently the interim director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Kevin, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, thanks, Jen and Gabe, for having me on the podcast. Just a little bit about me. I'm just starting my ninth year at DSU in the College of Ed, I've been at DSU longer than that, though, I was an undergrad student here. I graduated with a math education major and a computer minor when I finished at DSU, and my first teaching job was in Nebraska. I was a high school math teacher right out of college. And I've always been involved in technology. And so, thanks for inviting me to talk more about something that I'm really interested in.

Jen Burris:

We're glad to have you. Can you start out by just kind of telling us about some of the tools that you use in the classroom?

Kevin Smith:

Sure. I mean, I feel like I use lots of different technology tools. And it changes all the time. That's one of the things that we know is constant with technology is that it's always changing. I guess when I think about technology tools in the classroom, I kind of group them into a sort of different categories. I do a lot of things with multimedia. I love to have students create things with multimedia. So, we use tools like Canva, and WeVideo, and Book Creator to create videos and infographics, and posters to show we know I use a lot of tools for formative assessment. Or ways to get feedback from students to make sure that we know that they're learning what we want them to learn. We use things like quizzes and GoSoapBox, and Kahoot. And then collaboration tools. One of the great things about technology is the way it allows us to collaborate with people all over. So, a lot of different collaboration tools for video, we use Google Meet and Zoom and Skype and Microsoft Teams. And then the last kind of category that fits in with the technology, things I do is adaptive learning tools. These are things that teach us in a self-paced way. And so, I use those in a variety of ways in my classes to help students learn. So yeah, lots of different technology tools. Definitely.

Gabe Mydland:

Kevin, you mentioned one thing really quickly, and it might be helpful for our audience who aren't involved in education, formative assessment. Can you explain what that is? And why it's so important?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, good question. Formative assessment is really, I like to think of it as gathering data while you're teaching. While we're teaching, we want to gather information about what the students know, and maybe what they don't know. We don't need technology to do formative assessments. We do formative assessments just by observing what our students are doing, by asking them questions. But technology allows us to make sure that everyone has a voice. Sometimes, if you just have a discussion, you might have students that aren't as eager to participate as others. So, if we use technology, it allows everyone to respond in some way to tell us if they know the answer to a question or to give us feedback. And then based on that, as an instructor, we can make decisions about do we need to reteach something? Do we need to move on? Do we need more clarification?

Gabe Mydland:

Can I just follow up quickly? How would you use technology to do a formative assessment while you're teaching a lesson? And how would that work?

Kevin Smith:

Good question. I'll give you a specific example. And I'll talk about a tool that I use. I use a tool called Nearpod, which is a tool that you can use to really deliver interactive lessons in the Nearpod tool, I might show the students a slide with some information on it some text, maybe the next slide I show them is a short video that explains a concept. And now I want to find out are the students with me, do they understand what I've just shared with them? So, I would pull up a slide in Nearpod. And Nearpod allows me to have this slide appear on everybody's screen in the classroom. And on that screen, there might be a question that they would respond to. And it wouldn't matter how many students I had in the class, I could have 10 or 50 or 100. They would respond to the question and in a matter of seconds, I would have data on how everybody did on that question, and based on that now, I can decide do I need to explain things further? Are we ready to move on?

Gabe Mydland:

So, it allows you to get feedback almost instantly as to where the students are at with the new idea that you're introducing to them?

Kevin Smith:

Yep.

Gabe Mydland:

Do students get to use that as well, as you're preparing them to go out and teach in the world?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, good question. Almost all the technology tools that I use, I use them, really for two reasons I use them one to help in my instruction. So, I use tools like Nearpod, to make my lessons more interactive together with that formative assessment data that we just talked about. But I also use them in my classes because I want to introduce future teachers to all these tools that they have at their fingertips. Really, every technology tool that I'm using in my class, is a potential tool for them to turn around and use in their own K-12 classroom in the future.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and can you speak to some of the other benefits of introducing these technology-based apps and extras?

Kevin Smith:

Sure, my philosophy or kind of my approach to technology with students is, I really want to give them hands-on experience with tools, I don't want to just talk about them. But students need to actually not only see it but touch it and use it and do it. This helps build their confidence. That's kind of the first piece that I think about, like, how can I give them hands-on experiences. The next thing I think about with technology and preparing future teachers is I want to think about integration strategies. I want them to think ‘how could I use this in a meaningful way in the classroom?’ And then the third thing I think about is, I really want to have them think about their mindset when it comes to technology. And when I talk about mindset, I want them to have, you know, we would call it a growth mindset in which they are not afraid to learn new things, because like I said, really, the only thing that we know for sure about technology is that it's going to change. And so, I want students to leave DSU with the mindset that I can learn new things, I'm not afraid of it. But also with those other things, they have the confidence to tackle new things, and they have good strategies to use them in meaningful ways. And those are really the things I think about, I try to impart all of that information and kind of take that approach to technology with my students.

Gabe Mydland:

I was kind of wondering when you introduce a tool to students, some of them really take off running, can you share some of the most gratifying moments or of some of the things that students have done with technology that just kind of made you go, wow, I hadn't considered it that way. I mean, what are some of the success stories?

Kevin Smith:

That's a good question. I feel like I'm always happy when I hear about a former student, or you know, a current student that's in a field experience that tries a technology tool that we use in class, it tells me that they're confident enough to give it a try, while they're just learning to be a teacher. That always feels good. I feel like a more gratifying thing is when a former student talks about a new technology tool that they learned about and they're excited. And they turn around and share that with me, which really demonstrates to me that they have embraced that idea of having a growth mindset, learning new things, you know, adapting to change, so that's gratifying. One gratifying experience for me was I had a former student who was teaching in Bangkok. And that student wanted to connect with me and my students using Zoom. And it was a simple technology integration. It wasn't sophisticated. You know, we just got on a Zoom session, but how powerful to be able to have my students in Madison, South Dakota, talking to a teacher in Bangkok, you know, it was 10 am our time it was 10 pm her time, and getting to hear her talk about her experiences teaching middle school math, and really powerful use of technology, and it’s gratifying that a student is willing to take a risk and do that.

Jen Burris:

Very cool. You use so many different areas of technology. And can you speak a little bit about the virtual classroom that you use?

Kevin Smith:

Sure. At DSU, we have something called the VALE. It stands for Virtual Avatar Learning Experience. It's something that a colleague of mine brought to DSU in 2018. His name was Dan Klumper. He's the person that really brought this, what we call a mixed-reality teaching environment to DSU. Dan saw it at a conference that he was at. There were no other universities in the area that were using it. There were universities in other parts of the US that were using it but no one in our region and he thought it would be a really good experience for our students. So, he wrote a grant and brought this technology to DSU. And now we use it a couple of times each semester to give our students a chance to practice teaching. And so, what mixed reality is, is it's a combination of virtual reality with a human component. And that's why they call it a mixed reality. The way it works is our DSU students, our students that are learning to become teachers, they go into one of our classrooms, and they stand in front of what looks like a big-screen TV. And they teach lessons, they lead discussions with avatars, and the other five avatars on the screen, are middle school-aged avatars. And we have them work on things like classroom management, and strategies for leading discussions. We have faculty observe them while they're doing it. Then when they're done, we have debrief sessions to talk about what went well, and what didn't. It's a really unique experience. It's not something that students get at other universities in the area. We think it really is beneficial for our students because it gives them one more chance to get actual teaching experience with students and then get feedback from faculty on how they did one thing.

Gabe Mydland:

I'd like to add to that discussion about the VALE not being involved with it directly. But being in the same building. When the students are using virtual reality, the mixed reality, as you explained, they kind of gather in a group outside the room, and they're all going to go in one at a time. When they come out they share their experiences with others. And what I thought was really kind of neat was the students stay, even though they've had their time in the VALE room to find out how it went for others. They share experiences and they give each other tips about how to watch out for this thing because it might happen to you. But the VALE is a unique experience for each of the students. It's not just one simulation that's repeated over and over again. And so, the students are kind of learning vicariously, if you will, not having observed what another student went through in their experience, but they're sharing different ideas of how to handle different situations. And funny things that happened and frustrating things that happened. And there's a real sense of collaboration when the students have a chance to do it. I think it's just an incredible tool to help prepare students when they are sent out to the actual classroom. Because even though there's just five of them, I've seen these avatars behave, and they are just like, you've got the crowd-pleaser, you've got the student who's distracted, you've got the student who's distracting other students. It's a very good simulation of what it's like in a classroom. And that kind of technology is a nice way to be able to practice and learn from before you actually do the real thing. It's amazing. I think it's great.

Kevin Smith:

One of the things I'll add to that is I totally agree with Gabe, I think it's a great experience. Last semester, one of the powerful things about this is the fact that we can have faculty, watch all of our students teach to the same group of students. That's really powerful because when we talk about a student and behaviors, we can all kind of speak a common language because we all know that all the students experience that same student and that's hard to simulate. When you send students off to different classrooms, it's hard to zero in on behaviors and talk about them. So, in the spring, when we did it, we had a couple of students, a couple of the avatars that were fairly defiant, they did not want to do the activity that they were asked to do. And this happens at times. And the DSU students were kind of unsure of how to handle this, and they don't have a lot of experience with it. So, what I did after the VALE session, I observed them, gave them some feedback. And then I asked several of my colleagues in the College of Ed if you had a student that did this, that demonstrated this behavior in your classroom, how would you handle it? They all responded to me, I didn't let them share their responses. I wanted to see how each of them would handle the situation. And then I went back to the DSU students and said, here is what the faculty said about this. And the interesting thing was, what came out of that discussion was really the importance and the value of relationships. All the DSU faculty had really good ideas for how they could deal with that behavior at that moment. But in teaching, there isn't just one magic word that you can say that's going to correct it or one thing you can do. It really all came back to you have to have a really good relationship with the student and understand where they're coming from and that was just a consensus among faculty. And then sort of bring that back to students and have them experience that student and then hear from faculty I felt like it was a really great teachable moment for them.

Jen Burris:

Kind of a little bit of preparation for that year-long student teaching?

Kevin Smith:

Definitely, our students, they student teach, like you said, for a full year. We want to give them as many classroom field experiences as we can. And this just adds to that part of their learning experience at DSU.

Jen Burris:

And does it help to have maybe those avatar instigators to give them an experience of a child or a student that might not be the most responsible in class?

Kevin Smith:

I think so. I think you don't know what to expect with teaching, you don't know what kind of students you're going to have. And oftentimes, those students that you have that might be defiant, that might not be doing what you want, when you do it, oftentimes, there's an underlying reason for that. That's where it really comes back to the relationship piece. And so, for our students to get to experience a student that doesn't listen to them. And then to think about, how can I change that? How can I help them listen and learn so that this is a good experience for everybody? I feel like you can talk about those things. But the only way to really learn and to really make headway in that area and work to become a really good teacher is to get some really concrete experiences in the VALE. I think that it's a nice simulation closer to the real-life experience without actually dealing with actual students. So, I think it certainly boosts their confidence. And it makes them more self-assured that while they can’t anticipate everything that's going to happen in the classroom, they've had some experience in different situations and how best to handle them.

Jen Burris:

In addition to the technology in your classroom that you're using with DSU students, you also do a Chasing Einstein challenge and math mentorship with some elementary schools, if I'm correct?

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about my Chasing Einstein activity first. So that's an activity that I do in one of my courses. It's K-8 math methods, Chasing Einstein is a gamification activity. If you're not familiar with gamification, it really means you're going to add game-based elements into a non-game context. In this situation, we're going to add game-based elements into the classroom, to motivate and engage students. And when I talk about game-based elements, it means things like leaderboards, and quests, and challenges, and badges. And so, I started to do this Chasing Einstein activity as a way to introduce my students to gamification. I wanted them to think about this as a tool they could use in their own classroom to motivate and engage students. I started it in 2017. It's a nine-week challenge. And we partner with area schools on this activity. My students are math mentors, for students in area classrooms, and every week, they create videos for these students in classrooms. We all do math challenges, both my DSU students and the classrooms, students that we partner with. I keep score, based on the challenges they do, I have a leaderboard, we give out some prizes. I think it's a really fun and unique way for my students to learn and see gamification in action. And it's a neat way for students in area classrooms to get to learn from college students. The ultimate goal for these classrooms that we partner with is to really show them that math can be fun. That really the most important thing in terms of being successful or being in the classroom in the math classroom, and being a productive student is to really have a positive attitude and put forth the effort. So, we really try to stress those two things, attitude, and effort. That's kind of our goal with the Chasing Einstein activity that makes all the difference, I think, having a positive attitude.

Gabe Mydland:

Yeah, and I think that the whole idea of paying attention to the effort, not how fast we can resolve a problem or solve a problem or how fast we can find an answer. But the approach that if I really put some effort into it, I can be successful is what I'd hope more teachers would pay attention to, rather than the student who is just more performance-based. They're doing what they need to do to get the grade, more mastery type of learning through effort, how it applies in different situations, or how it can be used to solve certain kinds of issues or problems. That's exciting. I like that a lot.

Kevin Smith:

Yeah, I would say there's a real push in math teaching to really do just that, to deemphasize speed and to really emphasize effort. And the fact that sometimes the best mathematicians are not the fastest, they’re people who can look for patterns and make use of structure and take their time and put forth the effort to solve problems. That's really what we want to try to instill in our students, as they think about math.

Gabe Mydland:

And I think that makes for a better educator, to be quite honest. I mean, generally speaking, I think you have two types of educators, you have one, that the subject matter is something that comes easily to them. It's more like a talent. And then you have someone who's just genuinely interested in the topic, who might not again be the fastest or the quickest to find an answer or have a response ready, but genuinely enjoys the topic. And I think the best teachers are those that fall into the second camp rather than the first camp because they know what it's like to kind of wrestle with the information and struggle with it a little bit, and have had success and they've tasted success, and are excited about others who, again, find it challenging find it somewhat of an obstacle to move through, that they can to experience and taste that success. Certainly, we want everybody to be proficient. But proficiency doesn't always mean speed, or how fast they get something done. It's how they go about solving the problem and their ability to get the problem done.

Jen Burris:

And to that point Gabe, I think the second camp of teachers that you were describing sounds a little bit more empathetic in connecting with their students….

Gabe Mydland:

I would guess so I mean, I think that they understand what it's like to be stumped. And maybe a little bit frustrated, but also a little bit determined to want to find the answer because they enjoy the challenge. And they're learning and they love learning. I think everybody enjoys being around people who enjoy what they're doing and find it not something that comes automatically, but something that comes with a little bit of effort and work.

Jen Burris:

Kevin, you've also been involved with some learning apps in the Apple Store. Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to create those and how you went about doing it?

Kevin Smith:

Sure. I've always been interested in technology, and when the App Store first started the Apple App Store, I immediately was thinking, how could I get an app in the app store? How could I come up with an idea of what can I do to get an app in the app store and I remember one of the early apps that was really popular was angry birds. And you know, you would hear stories about millions of downloads. So, a friend of mine from graduate school and I put our heads together and started to brainstorm ideas for apps. We wanted to do something with education. And at the time, I had three young kids at home that were doing spelling tests. And so, my friend and I thought a spelling app would be a really good choice. At the time, he happened to be an assistant principal at an elementary school. So, he saw a need for helping students practice their spelling lists. That was really where the idea came from. We went through the process of trying to figure out how do we get this idea into the app store? You know, we started kind of through the whole software development process, we created wireframes, which were kind of sketches of what our app might look like. We spent a lot of time researching other spelling apps thinking about what we liked and what we didn't like. And then once we got to a point where we were happy with our wireframes. And we had kind of thought through what it might function like we started to think about the interface, and then programming. We were at a standstill with programming, we weren't quite sure how we were going to program something to get in the app store. So, we actually found a college student that was a computer programming major, and the college student built our first app. I did the design, and he did all the backend programming. We launched the first app that we have in the app store in 2012. It's been quite a while ago now. And it's called Spelling Star. It's a pretty simple app and allows parents or teachers to enter a spelling list. They record their voice, they read the spelling words, they can put the spelling words in a sentence, they record it, and then their child or the students in a classroom can open up that spelling list. It randomly gives them one of the words they can hear the audio, they have to type in the word correctly three times in order to master their spelling list for the week. So that was the first app. And now since that time, we have two more apps in the app store. One is called Math Mountains Add and Subtract and the other one is called Math Mountains Multiply and Divide. And those apps are very similar. But the idea behind those is we really wanted students to see the relationship, in fact, families.  want to talk about fact families. In addition, I'm talking about six plus two equals eight. But we also want students to recognize that eight minus six equals two, we want them to recognize the relationship between addition and subtraction. And we want them to visually see this. So, in the app, there's a triangle, and that kind of represents the mountain. Those are our three apps, but certainly a fun process. We don't have as many downloads as Angry Birds. We're not in the millions for downloads, but we have had more than 500,000 downloads for our app. Wow. So that's kind of exciting. From lots of countries, we actually have a lot of downloads of Spelling Star in Australia. But we've learned a lot about the whole process of coming up with an idea and then thinking about what are all the steps that go into actually getting this into the app store? And then not just when you get it in the app store? But how do you actually tell people about it? How do you let them know that it's there? I always think about the movie Field of Dreams If you build it, they will come. I think people think that oftentimes about websites or apps, all I have to do is build it and all these people are going to come but there are 1000s of apps out there. You really have to think about the marketing piece. If you're going to get any downloads. We've learned a lot about the marketing piece, of how are we going to get people to know about our app. So, it’s a fun hobby, but also a great learning experience coming up with these apps.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow, where were you when I was trying to learn master spelling?

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, any tech tips for current educators or future ones?

Kevin Smith:

I guess my tech tips would be kind of back to what I said, the three things that I really tried to instill in students for technology or try to really work on with our students is to give them hands-on experience to build their confidence. I want them not only to hear about tools but use them, I want them to think about integration strategies, you know, don't just use technology to use it. But really think about what kind of value it is adding to the learning experience. And then work to develop a growth mindset, work to develop a mindset that you're not afraid to try new things, to learn new things, because I feel like that's probably the most important thing when it comes to technology. Really, those are kind of the three things I'm always thinking about when I'm working with students, how can I do those three things, I feel like that sets them up for success with technology and puts them on the path to continue to learn about technology. One of the things I really try to work on with my students and I feel like some semesters I'm pretty successful and other semesters, I don't know, but that is I really try to encourage all of my students to build their personal learning network, their PLN. And you know, for me, my tool of choice for that is Twitter. I try to get my students to use Twitter, to connect with other educators. I feel like it's a great way to learn about new technology tools that are out there, see how technology tools are being integrated into classrooms, that's a piece of advice that I would leave anybody is to really work on building a PLN. Try to be connected so that you can you know, learn new things, and then just embrace change and don't be afraid to try new things, it may not go as planned, but it's fun to try new things.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, thank you Kevin for being our guest today. I really appreciated you coming on the podcast, and it was quite interesting to hear what you had to say. Thank you to our podcast producer Xander Morrison and thank you for listening to Cyberology. Please rate, review, and subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for sharing and discussing all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris from the marketing and communications department at DSU and I'll be your host. Today we'll be talking about how evolving technology has impacted the study of English. I'm excited to introduce our cohost for this episode Brittni Shoup-Owens. Brittany is a content writer in our marketing and communications department where she writes copy for the website, media paperwork, like pamphlets, social media, and so much more. Brittni, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

Hi everybody, my name is Brittni Shoup-Owens. And like Jen said, I'm the content writer for DSU. I am an alum of DSU as well. I graduated in 2017, with a Bachelor of Science in English for new media. And prior to that I was actually in English education for about three, three and a half years, but switched my major a semester away from graduating with that. And I've been here ever since I came to DSU. In 2013. I have a husband and a nine-month-old little boy. And so, he's the joy of our lives right now. But yeah, that's about it.

Jen Burris:

And our expert guest for today is Dr. Justin Blessinger. He is professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences. And Justin teaches courses like intro to lit and Media Studies. He's also an award-winning published author and director of the DSU AdapT Lab for Accessible Technology at Dakota State. Justin, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Justin Blessinger:

Well, thank you, Jen. Well, let's see, I came to DSU in 2003. And at the time, the job was called professor of computers and writing. And it was just one of those first, I think indicators that DSU was a little bit different. And I'd grown up around technology. Even though I grew up in northeastern Montana on a farm and ranch up there, my family was, I guess, early adopters of home computers and that sort of thing. And so, I was pretty comfortable with computers. And a lot of my friends were in computer science when I went through my undergraduate years too. And it was really a an attractive fit for me to be able to come to someplace that was happy about the alignment of those two different skill sets, I had a little bit of programming and a little bit of early HTML, and that sort of thing, just you know, enough to get myself into trouble. But it was such a good fit, then to come to someplace that didn't just act surprised about being able to do both of those things, but really celebrated that. My wife, Christina, and our two kids live here in Madison with me, and they're both in middle school in high school.

Jen Burris:

Okay, and do they have a love of English and/or technology?

Justin Blessinger:

Yeah, they're equally comfortable in both worlds, I'd say. And a little bit of the mechanical side, too. You mentioned the work that I do in the AdapT Lab. And there's some hardware and modifying wheelchairs and little electric cars for children before they're able to use a wheelchair with the go baby go program, stuff like that. And so, one of the things that probably growing up on a ranch really instilled in me was just a familiarity with the tools around me to be able to keep something going after it's broken a couple of times, you're too far to return things to the store or even buy another easily when you're up there. We were 100 miles from a Walmart, I think so you when you're out in the big open area in Montana, you do have to figure out a way to get things done absent professionals or experts around. So, if you end up sort of learning on the job a lot. And I think that that has served me well at a place like DSU, where as I said, it's kind of celebrated not just tolerated or looked at with a mixture of amusement and concern, perhaps that any English professor might have some other skill sets. But here, it's a place where everyone has always been encouraging along those lines. And so, I've been able to do a lot of different things and develop some talents that I think I wouldn't otherwise have been able to

Jen Burris:

Okay, and so you mentioned your first course, was entitled computers –

Justin Blessinger:

Yeah, Professor of computers and writing. That was my first job title here. those first couple of years, I was teaching composition and a class called advanced writing at the time, which was what eventually became what we call media studies now, so even though it sounds like it was mostly about writing, writing, writing’s a tool. You know, when we look at the big technologies that have really changed the world, and the printing press is one that makes everybody shortlist and, of course, the internet. And both of those are publishing technologies. And we often talk about the code behind them the advent of HTML and how important that was, because really, then we start to see what we call the World Wide Web, it becomes recognizable. But the bulletin board systems were before that, which is again, a sort of metaphor for publishing that, well, two of the world's most significant technologies. And writing itself, of course, would be among the technologies that have to do with you know, communication and publishing. So, English has long had a relationship with what we might call high tech. When the book first showed up, separating the manuscripts scrolls and chopping them up and putting it into something that we would recognize now as a book. That was a huge change. Writing itself, literacy, the movement towards the book, becoming a culture and certainly in western civilization where we celebrate the book, it became a metaphor for all things. You see in Christian iconology, Mary starts to become a woman of the word. You know, her earliest depictions are she's holding baby Jesus, you know, she's the mother of Jesus. But then later on, you see Mary holding books, you know, carrying that metaphor of Jesus being the Word made flesh into something that the culture really celebrates, which is the written word and the kind of access and privilege that education affords us. So, in a sense, the icon of the book really starts to penetrate all culture or Western culture at that point.

Jen Burris:

So, in looking at the association with a high technology, how has that evolved? Then you start with printing presses and things like that? And how would you say that television and other forms of media have been a part of that?

Justin Blessinger;

Well, there's a sense in which our progress has been, I suppose, fits and starts. And I think that's really how all what we might call progress moves. It's never a smooth curve, right? There's always a sudden move when we encounter a new technology. And so, television works a bit like that, there was a lot of ink spent decrying the damage that television was doing to us intellectually. And I don't want to say that that was all without merit, we were moving as a culture away from the written word and moving towards the spoken word. And you don't go through something like that, as a culture without something being given up, you might celebrate what we gained along the way. But that's a major change. But there are two of course, the English for new media program is one that starts to say that a text is more than the printed word. So, we start to use the word text to describe things like music, like a computer game, you read the language of advertising, when you consider it all at once. So when you look at the Opus, or the collection of some massive amount of work, movies are texts in our world. Now everything can be read, and I suppose decoded in that sense. But as I said, it was kind of fits and starts. So early in the 20th century, college professors were bemoaning the state of writing. And so they asked English professors to help fix this, because what was happening is they were assigning usually papers at the time for students to write not English professors, everyone else was too. And they went to the English faculty and said, what can we do to remediate the quality of writing that we're seeing in our incoming freshmen especially. And that's when comp one was born, you know, so your composition class that just about everybody's taking a when they come to college comp, one comp two, it's kind of the bread and butter of an English Program in terms of the bulk of the classes that we teach, and was certainly the bulk of the classes that I taught when I first came here to DSU. But it was intended to sort of fix a problem that the rest of the faculty were expressing, and that was, they weren't seeing as high quality as they wanted in response to the essays they were assigning. And where are we now it's probably an extremely rare non English professor who's assigning essays as the output as the project as the great measure of what it is that you know, as a student, what sorts of sources you know how to use all the things, they still want that critical thinking they want demonstrated use of expert sources, but a lot of times these days, it takes the form of a video, or it might take the form of an interactive program, it might take the form of a song here at DSU. There's a lot of different outputs now. And so, you know, the writing side of the academic life, certainly for an undergraduate is really different, I think, than it was 100 years ago when composition was really born. And really different than 200 years ago, when it was assumed that you had that skill set, and that it was sort of beneath the university to remediate anything like that. Like, of course, you know how to do that. I mean, General Beadle is one of the founders of our university had to spend a year before being fully admitted to college. So, at 18, he did a year of remediation because his Greek was so bad. The assumption was that if you went to college, you had Latin, you had Greek maybe had some French, because if you're going to be a world traveler, that was sort of an expectation of the time, but a couple of different languages, and certainly Greek and Latin, not necessarily you could speak them fluently, but you could translate them. And since Beadle was from a rural place, he knew going to college was going to be an upward climb for him because he had some Latin, but he didn't have the Greek and so he had to spend a year and he did just fine. He knew that this was something needed to remediate. But that was before they even thought about remediating writing. That's how much of an expectation being a good writer was for the culture, that it didn't even occur to anybody that you would take a class in that as a college student. I mean, now we have the occasional class in reading, you know, I mean, that's, that's how much things have changed.

Jen Burris:

So that expectation that you should already have those skills.

Justin Blessinger:

right, that expectation was that not only could you write very well, but you also have Latin, Greek, probably French, you know, those kinds of things, maybe a little Russian, you know, those were just expectations for coming to college. I have a copy of an exam that was given to incoming freshmen here at DSU. Wasn't the issue at the time Eastern State Normal School, I think the letterhead says and it was a handwritten exam. And it was on Lake Chautauqua hotel letterhead. I would guess that the faculty member who was proctoring, this exam was staying out at the famous hotel out on Lake Madison, and made copies of the exam by hand, and then distributed them when they had freshmen coming to test into college to see if they were ready. And I think it would be a rare freshmen indeed, who could pass that in part, because the language of what we talk about when we talk about language has changed. We have different names for certain grammatical phenomenon these days. I still remember when a professor of Hebrew I took a class in Hebrew when I was an undergraduate, because it sounded interesting (laughter). He was Princeton trained, and I was just thrilled to be able to take anything that he was offering. And when he offered that I thought, well, that'd be really neat to know, this ancient, ancient language. And I remember a day when he kept talking about the preterite tense. And I was just dumbfounded. I had no idea what he was talking about. And I, I don't know if it was I was brave enough to ask finally. But someone finally asked, what is the predator and oh, my goodness, the disgust on his face? Because there were several English majors like me in the room. And he's like, how could you possibly not know what the preterite was? And I was deeply ashamed at that point. I'm like, wow, this is really elementary and I don't know what it is. And so, by way of explanation, he said, it's, it's what you use when you want to talk about the past? It's the tense and I said the past tense? Yes. Well, for goodness sake, why can't we just call it the past tense? Right? As grammar books have changed, some of the vocabulary that they use have changed. So, some of this exams, difficulty lies in that, but some of it just lies in the expectation that, of course, you have a pretty solid understanding of how grammar works. And part of that is, if you've studied any foreign languages, of course, you have a better understanding. That's what was happening when I took that Hebrew class. If you didn't understand English grammar, before taking foreign language, you have a much better understanding of English grammar after taking foreign language because you got to answer all these questions like how do they use the definite article or the indefinite article, and those are fancy words for the indefinite article is a, the letter A, and the definite article is the T H E, right? So, these aren't complicated words, we all know how to use them. When we have something specific in mind, we say the pencil, when we have something nonspecific, I don't care which pencil give me a pencil. It's called the indefinite articles. So, these are names for things that you don't have a need for the vocabulary until you study, especially a foreign language, but you study your own language, as such, that'll do it too. So, you know, that's one of those incoming expectations, they wouldn't have thought of offering really a class on that it was expected, you knew how to do that, if you were ready for college. So, it was a threshold kind of a skill. And that has changed. Now I suppose we're in a place where, really, it's more about the device and the use of the device. The technology that gets us to the publishing world, you know, of the of the internet, but the, the keyboard that goes along with it. If you didn't know how to use a keyboard, if you didn't know how to use on its basic level of computer, not, you know, Macintosh versus PC, or those kinds of things, but if you just if this was new to you, I think you would struggle a great deal to prosper in modern higher education. Because think of the remediation you would need to do just to learn to use a keyboard, and all of the little tricks that we know, without thinking when we're scrolling, when we're swiping when we're double clicking. There's a lot of things that you know, intuitively from having used these technologies for a very long time. And we don't remediate that we don't. And we, and everyone would sort of think, well, why would we? And that's how English grammar, or some of the foreign languages were just assumed that if you were ready for this level of study, that of course, you had those kinds of skills.

At that point, we started to see English professors become a little more specialists. And we were always sort of generalists before that, and by that, I mean, you started to see a certain group of professors who studied and trained to become compositionists. They were teaching composition, studying rhetoric, and, and studying, writing. And they became sort of specialists in that area. And meanwhile, all of modern education started to move towards I think, maybe a disparaging of the generalist saying that if you really wanted to be respected, you had to sort of become extremely esoteric, you had to become an extreme specialist in your field. You know, as we got the flood of new students that happened in the wake of World War Two, you know, we saw all these people on the GI Bill, for example, who were coming in some of my my most beloved professors, when I was an undergrad had gotten their degrees, thanks to that amazing opportunity. That was the GI Bill. You know, there were no student loans yet. The GI Bill was transformative, but that plus student loans then some years later, kind of terraform to the modern university where you had so many more people now seeking a college degree than you ever did before. And that change, I think, is what really drove people to become specialists, absolute specialists. And there's something lost when you do that, right? There's a lot to be said for becoming a specialist. But, you know, you often lose where your specialization fits in that in the big picture. I think that English is one of those fields that while we have our specialists, to be sure, there's still an area that we simply call a generalist. And it's just somebody who can teach American literature, British literature, can teach composition. And that's sort of how most of the faculty at DSU have been. It's a small enough university that all of us at some point or another are going to teach something that's maybe a little bit outside of what we focused most on in our dissertation process or something like that. So, while I don't teach American lit here, it shows up in my intro to lit class all the time, I teach one of the world literature classes, but not the other that's a little more modern world lit. In order for there to be any conversation between Ancient World Literature and modern, I need to know what the other faculty members doing, heck, maybe we should switch every once in a while. So those of us at DSU, end up treasuring our specializations, but we're not allowed to be true specialists all the time, because the reality of what's needed here is that generalist kinds of thing, and I think that's actually been a really good thing for the kinds of people who thrive at DSU, especially in our, in our English program, where we're part doing Gen Ed kinds of things like composition. And we're also trying to bring talented students into the English new media program and help them find a place in the world of modern publishing. It's not a publishing degree, per se, but because of the way new media works, and we're always looking at how media is changing. And that means thinking about how we get information to people. And, you know, obviously, that's a question of publishing, a lot of times even this podcast that we're making, right, we're, we're thinking both about the editing process, and how do we move this thing online? Where do we market it? All of these are questions for the modern English new media specialist.

Jen Burris:

Okay, Brittni, could you speak a little bit about your experience in English for New Media

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

So, I absolutely loved the English for new media program when I did switch. And through all my classes, the aspect that I loved the most was the analyzation of everything. It wasn't just, you know, hey, here's a story. What do you think of it, it was a literal, in depth analysis of the text itself. And it was like, well, what do you think he's actually meaning when he says this, or she says this. And so, I find that a really unique perspective of the English for new media program, and I'm just kind of curious, how do you teach your students in your classes to kind of have that perspective or to kind of be aware of that perspective while they're reading?

Justin Blessinger:

I love what you brought up there. And in part because it reminds us that the English new media degree at DSU, the way we do it is still a very lit heavy major. So, we didn't give that up. When we started talking about what is English look like for the 21st century, it's still an English degree. And we weren't willing to let go of what makes so many of us truly fall in love with this field, which is the written word and the actual text. In the original sentence, the words on the page, I don't think you'd be drawn to this field, if that wasn't already something that you'd developed. But we have certainly broadened our definition of, as I said before, text right of what we're thinking about when we do analysis, so we can analyze James Joyce, and take a look at Dubliners, for example, just did this this semester in my Irish lit class, read most of Dubliners. And each story you know, standing alone is wonderfully fun to analyze. And then of course, there's that question once you've finished the whole work, how do they interact with each other? And that's everything that an English major traditionally would do. But then we might take a look at some of the video interpretations that we might take. Look, if somebody ever dared try and make a computer game version of this. Just as an example. I sincerely doubt somebody, well, somebody has surely tried it. I don't know how successful that would be. But there's a lot of what we call transmedia worlds now, which are worlds that have been created, usually because of something that started in the world of original text of text on a page. But you think about something like the world of the Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth, right that has a computer game iteration, multiple computer during game iterations, movie iterations, probably there's a series out, or something like that, certainly some animated attempts at it, and all manner of different ways in which media works. They're all feeding from the essential world created. And so, when we talk about analysis, we just have more grist for the mill than we ever did. Our world of what we can analyze has gotten bigger. So, one of the skills that we're all Seeing employers are looking for one of the things that the modern University actually seems to struggle a bit with assessing for measuring how good students are at it. They're always talking about critical thinking. I mean, you know, everybody heard this way back to middle school and so on, you know, how do we assign things that really challenged critical thinking? And how do we measure successful critical thinking, and everyone in English has always sort of been baffled by the question, everything we do, is about critical thinking. That's what's fun about the study of English. The analysis, the looking for patterns, and looking to see where connections can be made between not just, you know, one text or another by Joyce, but then between those texts, and non-printed texts, songs, and pamphlets. I mean, all of those things, touch on that central habit, that's it's so human, we're always looking for the pattern, we're always looking for the signal in the noise, you know, humans wouldn't have lived very long as a species, if we weren't able to say, Boy, you know, is that growly sound that always comes before a tiger grabs somebody out of the cave here (laughter), you know, because we can notice those patterns. And obviously more sophisticated ones than that, because we can notice those patterns and then start to develop our own. That's the birth of communication, of language, eventually, of writing, it's all pattern making. And so, you know, English is part of, I guess, a pattern recognition, and critical thinking pattern that goes all the way back to the dawn of the human, as a member of a group, you know, from the very beginning of humans starting to behave cooperatively, wanting to share tools, and share protection and so on. The basic elements of what we might call a tribe today, that's how far back what we call the English major really, really would be, or at least the things that we study in English major, all of those communication skills and writing, and message sending and message receiving. Because, gosh, think about smoke signals, think about beating on a drum to communicate over long distances, these are all part of how we communicate. And it's necessary for us to be able to do that pattern recognition, encoding and decoding in order for us to, to have thrived as a as a species. So, you're never gonna see the English major go away utterly. You know, there'll be times when it's more popular and less popular. But it always has a form. And, while it might go through name changes, there might be more technical skills added to, you know, the modern English major than then many people expect to see. But it's not something that can ever disappear from the modern university.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

So, with that, do you think there's physical copies of books, and then there's Kindle then all those kinds of things? So, I guess my question is, what do you think's gonna happen? Are? Are those physical copies of books going to continue to be out there? And, you know, publishing houses and all that? Or is it going to go away at some point entirely and go online?

Justin Blessinger:

There was a lot of concern about this, when we really started to see ebooks emerge, there was a lot of concern about well, what about the classic book? And most of that was overblown, you know, I listened to someone speak recently about how everything's going digital, including, of course books, and this person was speaking about textbooks. And I agree that the majority of textbooks are likely to go towards the digital, in part because search ability. A textbook isn't something you read cover to cover. a textbook is something you access selectively, you might have read a good chunk of it by the time the semester is over, but you probably didn't read it in order. And you paid very special attention to specific things. When it came time to study for that exam. You probably use the Ctrl F or the search tool and tried to find keywords and look for those keywords. That's, of course, just being expeditious, with your time. That's just being strategic about how you're going to study. So, we will continue to see certain types of information move towards the digital. I am so grateful that some people took the time to digitize some of the old sources that I access today. For example, I mentioned General Beadle earlier and the research that I've done on him. And it's so fantastic to be able to find his autobiography digitized. Because while I've read it, I often think to myself, Oh gosh, where was the section where he was talking about his first arrival in Dakota territory? No, it's at the beginning somewhere but I just couldn't find it. Well, you know, with a digital text makes it effortless to access that information really quickly. So yes, we will see especially certain types of books, maybe move entirely into the realm of the E book, and nobody's gonna be really grieved by that, right? It's a rare person for who holds their tattered copy of a textbook as a precious artifact, right? But your your copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or your copy of T.S. Eliot's collected poetry, right, that's something that is well worn, and you've dogeared certain pages. And you just simply wouldn't trade that for the digital, even though sometimes it's nice to find the digital copy, use the digital copy, because you're looking for something. So, I don't see the panic that arrived early on, as having been justified. But I do think we're going to see, you know, continued change, we will see that probably there will always be a certain market for print, but it'll probably remain more for books that we enjoy reading, rather than have been assigned to read. And it'll be more for the classics especially. And let's not deny there are those who use books as decoration (laughter), you know, they read that book, they want others to see that book. They put it in a prominent place in their home. I mean, there's a certain status, that's always been associated with the book I mentioned before, you know, painting Mary with a book in her lap. And that's a prestige thing, too, even though they really did read the book, nobody's you know, faking this here, but it was, it was a valuable thing. However, I think the novel itself is changing. And here it at DSU, Professor Joseph Bottum recently published a really important work, The Decline of the Novel. And in it, he makes the argument that as you've seen the collapse of what he calls mainline Protestantism in the United States, so there were like five denominations that 50 years ago, something like 80% of all Protestants belong to one of these five, and now it's something like 22%, it is a really tiny percent of those, but some of them switched denominations to more evangelical or to Roman Catholic or something like that. But a lot of we just left the church entirely. And so, the mainline Protestant group in America has been really, really changed and decreased in terms of its influence. And Dr. Bottum makes the argument that the novel as we know, it had a lot to do with Protestantism, especially with Protestants. Protestantism is focused on the individual. And being an individual and being able to sort of think for yourself do for yourself, which, you know, doesn't work quite as well within hierarchical systems like the Roman Catholic Church. And so, he makes that argument that that it had a lot to do with Protestantism. And therefore, when you see Protestantism collapse, you're going to see the art that Protestants championed, also collapsing. There's another conversation for you to have you guys need to do a chat with Dr. Bottum, because he's certainly seen how that technology, the novel itself, has really changed. He's not saying that we don't write novels anymore. He's saying we don't use the novel as the way to communicate the biggest ideas of our culture anymore. We used to use it that way. And we don't anymore. It's a fascinating argument. And really a worthwhile read if you can get a copy.

Jen Burris:

Going back to the ebooks, did that change the publishing scope somewhat? Because there seems to be a lot more self-publishing going on?

Justin Blessinger:

Yep. I mean, Brittni may be able to speak to this better than I can. But, you know, we certainly offer classes that have an eye on both types of publication. So, our publishing for new media class in particular. It looks at publishing in the print world, and it looks at publishing in digital environments. And so, it as one of its projects, creates the New Tricks DSU literary magazine. And I've always really enjoyed getting that in both forms, I like to have the traditional paper form. But the digital form allows us to celebrate, you know, full color, or 3d images, or interactive images that have been created by our art students, and so on. We can feature things that you can't with the traditional book, so we want our students to have that skill set that can flex in either direction, right, they can work with the classic, because, you know, certainly, in promoting DSU, right, we're still using a lot of paper. We're still publishing a lot of documents and so on, but it isn't all we do. And to do it in only that way would extremely limit your audience. Right. And so that's the sort of ideal for our graduates is to be able to be very functional with whatever platform comes along. You know, this is going to continue to change and and we need to be Right there, alongside it and in many ways to help shape it, not just to follow it where it leads, but to detainment.

Jen Burris:

So, kind of a flexibility in platform use? Like journalists using Twitter for sources and to get the word out on breaking news, things like that?

Justin Blessinger:

Great examples. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the other things that the English major would do, we have a class on text analysis and on data analysis, that has a text component. So, you mentioned Twitter, that's an absolute must for our students to be able to say to themselves, well, I'd like to take every post by this organization, or every Twitter post by this individual. And then I'd like to run some analytics on it and see what patterns emerge. what's so cool about text analysis, a lot of times, we have no idea what we're about to find, when you start running a text analysis program on a body or a corpus of work, you sometimes have a question in mind about what you're going to find or an expectation, but you rarely have an inkling of what you're really going to find. And so, there's all kinds of sort of surprises that come along when you start running an analysis of text. A recent graduate of ours, did an analysis of Romeo and Juliet. And, you know, that's one of those things I mentioned, professors becoming increasingly specialized. And, you know, one of the first areas that became over specialized was the Shakespeare arena, to the point where it was it felt impossible to say anything new about Shakespeare, 400 years of popularity, a lot has been said. And then once you had all these newly minted PhD is a lot more was said. But when text analysis came along, you were able to plug in everything that he'd ever written and be surprised by some of the patterns. One of our students plugged in Romeo and Juliet and took away all the stage directions, the sides, and you know, the specific direction of who's speaking so Romeo colon, Juliet, colon, right, all of that was stripped away, left with only the spoken words. And she found that Romeo spoke about Romeo more often than he did Juliet (laughter). I mean, this should shock no one who has ever been or been around a 16-year-old boy. But you know, that sort of narcissism is such a delight to find in Shakespeare who 400 years ago, has a teen boy who actually talks about himself a lot. And that alone was a revelation. And it's not something I've ever heard any scholar of Shakespeare observe, because you don't really notice it while you're reading it. But text analysis made it very apparent that Romeo likes to talk about Romeo. Juliet actually likes to talk about Juliet too, but not to the degree that Romeo likes the sound of his own name.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

So, you're talking a little bit about text analysis. And earlier we mentioned kind of, you know, it takes form of many different shapes, like scripts, and even movies and all that stuff. I remember in your media studies class going in, I didn't really know what it was about. And you just kind of took it nice. It was an analysis of movies, basically. But compared to text as well. And I remember watching “Amelie” and you said something, I cannot remember why it's been a long time. You said something specifically about how it's an outside perspective, but they're going in through like a window. And it's like, it's supposed to signify the I can't remember exactly what it was.

Justin Blessinger:

No, there's a boxing metaphor that shows up. Oh, it's such a neat piece to look at. Because throughout the film, characters are being boxed. They're being boxed in with, with visuals, so that when we meet the parents at every beginning of the film, there's columns alongside and a sort of arch above each of them. There's this shot that gets repeated many times where the camera is sort of deep inside a hole in someone's looking in, through the chink in the floor, the tile at the bottom of a bathroom wall, a tile has come out and someone's looking in there. It's underneath the refrigerator when someone has had to jack up the refrigerator and is looking in and each time it places their face, you know, visually in a box. And it's so extensive that the art designers who put the DVD box collection together created a box that slides into another decorative box, and there's holes cut in the exterior of the box to show just on Amelie's face peeking out from her bedroom and then and not on the opposite. It's her face peeking out from while she's in the park. But the box itself is playing that same game, extending that same metaphor.

I do really enjoy media studies because it's a stealthy way of getting students to read some pretty deep texts. But then it gives them the skills to take those texts. We start with the apology Plato. And we try to apply that immediately to some of the texts that were the visual texts that we're looking at. We read Ursula K. Le Guin, the ones who walk away from all mullahs, in which she says that it's treasonous of the artists to refuse to refuse to admit the banality of evil, the terrible boredom of pain. She's criticizing the habit that we have of celebrating something as a little more intellectual when it's really dark. And it's the seedy underbelly of the things Oh, this must be intellectually interesting. And she says we've betrayed our ability to tell a happy story. And then we take a look at the film Amelie, in which it's a happy story. I mean, she faces problems, in many ways Amelie is her own problem, right? If you if you know the film, Amelie needs to self-actualize. And she keeps sort of hobbling herself and denying herself full access to the joy of life. But it's a joyous movie, and it's about getting access to full access to joy in your life. And so, I challenged my students with Ursula K Le Guin’s short story in which she's saying, we have a nasty habit of celebrating anything that's dark as somehow more intellectual than things that are light. If it's light and happy, well, that might be for kids, you know, and if it's dark, and brooding will the fan it's fodder for, you know, our serious intellectual questions, and so on. And I'm not saying nothing dark is interesting. Of course, there's some great pieces out there are ultimately pretty dark. You know, I used to use the Godfather in that class a lot. And then you know, it's a great example, it has a fair amount of darkness in the film. And it's extremely intellectually interesting. But there are some modern texts, films, and otherwise, they really do celebrate joy. I think Le Guin is right, we have a habit of discounting happiness as somehow trivial, or less worthy of our intellectual attention. But it is a very good class, in part because students are usually willing to go along on the more difficult reading, because each time they're rewarded out the other end with an application to something that might be a computer game, it might be a film. In that class, we use several films, so a lot of times, it's a film in that or a piece of a TV series. We now do Sherlock, the BBC Sherlock in that one, and Firefly and, and that sort of thing, too, because there's been a lot of critical material produced in the last 20 years on on those kinds of things, too. It's a great fun class. And a great example of the kind of thing that really feeds the English new media major at DSU.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

I think one thing I took away specifically for that, from that classes, I can now not watch a movie without thinking about it, analyzing it and being like, okay, or like, Elliot, my husband, and I will be watching something on Netflix. And I'll be like, oh, did you realize they're doing this because of this. And then at the end of the episode, I'm right. And so, it's a great class, and I really, really enjoyed it,

Justin Blessinger:

And you can't turn it off. And that's not always a good thing. Right? Right, when you actually want to. But once you get good at pattern recognition, you're always analyzing, you know, it's sort of like, I do a lot of proofreading for the composition classes that I teach. And it's a curse and a blessing because of course, every sign you run across every menu that you pick up, you know, it's always teasing your ability to use apostrophes or something like that. Right? Yeah.

Jen Burris:

And why is it important to develop these pattern recognizing abilities?

Justin Blessinger:

While pattern recognition works in so many different ways, you know, I work on my own cars mostly. And that that comes from my time in Montana, and the remoteness of where we lived. But there was also just an element of personal worth. You weren't much of a man, if you couldn't fix your own car, you know, you might not be the best one for it. Maybe at some point, you're like, you know, what, I got enough money to pay some bills to do this job. It's a nasty job. I don't want to do it, but you need to know how it was just sort of an expectation. And you know, just by way of example, recently, our primary car started making a terrible sound, you know, it was clear something very serious was wrong with it. And the process by which you diagnose that kind of thing is pattern recognition, you know, you start to say, okay, it has this interval, and it has this sort of percussive sound to it. And it only emanates from this one area of the engine. And, you know, you break out what we lovingly call the Redneck stethoscope, which is really just a piece of hose that you put to your ear. And you can isolate exactly where, well down to a few inches in the engine, it's coming from and son of a gun, it was coming from under the timing cover, which means that it was a timing chain issue or one of the guides for it. And that meant open heart surgery on the engine, and I was like why can’t it ever be something easy? But that's pattern recognition, you know, trying to diagnose what's wrong with a computer program, you know, removing whole chunks of the, of the code at a time. And, and running those components to make sure they function properly. You know, you're narrowing the field, because you're able to recognize a pattern. There is really no such thing as a major that doesn't in some way, you know, really make probably significant use of pattern recognition. It just so happens that you know, with English, every word we speak, every word we write, is part of the pattern that we study. There is nothing that's really off limits, you know, we can study the rhetoric of computer programmers, we can study the use of language by historians, you know, it, everything is grist for the mill for the English major. For that reason, there's no possible way to be exhausted to or to reach the end of what we study, there's always new material. And there's always something fun and exhilarating, to be studied. So, I think that that's one of the things that when students recognize that, that it, it can feel overwhelming, of course, you know, and maybe even a little sad, there's no way to master at all, in any field, but especially in our field, where, you know, there's 1000s years of the printed word. And that's just the beginning. Because in the last, you know, 20 years alone, we've like tripled the amount of printed material, probably a great deal more than that, but we've exponentially increased in the amount of printed text to be read, the internet's full of it. So yeah, there's no end to the rabbit trails that you get on, there's always new material.

So, in my study of General Beadle, I just found out that University of Michigan has all the minutes from the Literary Society of which he was a member, and ultimately was president. While he was probably a member of the Underground Railroad, he has this sort of oblique reference to a student, he says, who was a writer for the Underground Railroad was recruited by abolitionists while he was an undergraduate, and ultimately, you know, brought on to deliver messages up and down the Underground Railroad. And he knows the location of everything in his story. He knows which houses they stopped at, he knows which abolitionists were involved in and what they were charged with, when they got caught by authorities. I mean, he knows so much, that he's clearly sort of winking at his own audience saying, okay, it was me, but I can't say that because it was illegal at the time, you know, to help a slave escape was illegal, sadly enough, even in the north. It was made illegal. So, you know, slavery wasn't allowed in the north, it was had been banned by them in the north, but he couldn't help slaves escaped, it was the most peculiar thing. But this Literary Society I've really started to think was a cover, at least during that time, it was a cover for abolitionist activities. Because he mentions having given a speech that was blaming the Mexican American war for having an increase in the number of slaves. And so it wasn't, you know, noble in that sense, certainly, they were the cause of it may have been, but the outcome was that they were, they were more slaves after the war. So that's what caused the abolitionists to start recruiting him as the speech that he gave for a Literary Society. And so, the fact that those archives exist, I'm now very eager to go out to Michigan and get access to their archives, and just spend some time nosing around in the minutes of a student secretary for a student organization from 1857 to 1861. I have no idea what it is, maybe it's going to be terribly disappointing, and hence, it's going to be very brief. But at the time, a lot of secretaries took copious notes. It's possible that Beadle’s speech is part of that record, you know, that somebody actually asked him for his copy of the speech and put it into the record. You know, the old clubs used to do meticulous record keeping. So, if we get lucky, maybe we find out a great deal more about us, you know, secret society, using an English club as its cover for helping slaves get across to Canada because they're so close. They're at University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, they're really, if you made it that far as a slave. You could just about taste your freedom at that point, ‘cause you were getting really close because just from there to Detroit, and then you're across the river and you're into Canada. So, it must have been well exciting for The people who are helping is one way of saying it, but it was greatly dangerous for them to. But there there's a great example, you know, Beadle was entered as a as an English major, that's when he went off to college. That's when he wanted to, to study first. And there he is helping with the Underground Railroad as part of really what he's doing. Why? Because the study of literature reminds us of our own humanity. Of course, you would be provoked to think more seriously about what freedom means. Does that mean that every English major made the right decision? No, certainly not. But it doesn't surprise me that he did. It doesn't surprise me that some time with great works. He was also raised in a Quaker church, so certainly that they were famous for their abolitionist activities. So that had to have had a major effect on him too. But it doesn't surprise me that an English major at that time would have been thinking seriously about the big questions of the day, what it means to be free.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

You know, you mentioned how literature can resonate with you. And I remember many times, not just in college, but in high school reading a book or I was an avid reader. I'm too busy now to read. I try to make time but anyway, that's beside the point. And um, you know, you mentioned this, just random pieces can resonate with you. So, I'm kind of curious what pieces over the years have resonated with you personally.

Justin Blessinger:

Well, first of all, you need to give yourself permission to take a break, when you've got little ones at home, oh, my goodness, I used to play a lot more computer games. And then of course, along came children. And, you know, they tend to get into trouble if they're not being supervised so you can't put on headphones out. It's not okay.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

 Mine just started crawling. So..

Justin Blessinger:

You have some things that are keeping you pretty busy, but I know you'll return to it when the time you know, permits you again, especially because you'll be and I'm sure you already are reading to your little one. But pretty soon you'll be reading more sophisticated texts together, right? Oh, goodness, you know, there's been so many that have spoken to me. But I think one of the first that I felt was really transformative was Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, which isn't read nearly as much today, but in its time was just hugely important. And Sherwood Anderson kind of became a sort of, I don't know, kingmaker sounds dismissive in some way. But he helped many other authors find success. And in particular, he was a great help to Ernest Hemingway, you know, so he was much younger Hemingway was much younger than Sherwood Anderson. But Anderson was writing about these stories that are taking place in Winesburg, Ohio, and it's the small town in Ohio. And the main character is a sort of newspaper man who's thinking about going off to college and to the big city, and so on. And he's really sort of encountering something that was really significant for America. At the turn of the last century, as so many people were moving away from the rural places and moving towards those urban centers. I remember I was an FFA in high school, a lot of people don't know that about me. But you know, the Future Farmers of America and I owe them so much. It was great, because I would have probably not traveled nearly as much if I hadn't been, so I got to see Kansas City because I was in FFA and so on. But in FFA, I remember some startling statistics about how demographically, the United States it changed something close to 90% of Americans were involved in agriculture in some way, at the turn of the last century in the 1900s. That were involved right selling grain counted, you know, running a mill counted, but in some way involved with the business of agriculture, and that by the turn to the next century, so by the year 2000, it was fewer than 8%, fewer than 7%. And it's far fewer even today still. So Anderson's story about this young man who's got some great intellectual gifts, who's seeing his own little town through the lens of somebody who reads and thinks. And he's telling the stories of the people of Winesburg, Ohio, and they're all he uses the word grotesque, which doesn't mean in his usage, the way we mean it today. But it does mean we're all transformed and sometimes harmed by the world around us. That we're all maybe scarred is a good word for it. And so, he uses that word again and again and again to describe how people are made grotesque by the pain in their life. And each story is so tender. There's a story of a teacher, and it's called hands. And the schoolteacher just loves his job. He loves the little ones. He loves encouraging them. He's a wonderful teacher and his hands they're sort of always flying about when he's talking. And he loves to ruffle the hair of this boy, while talking to them, he loves to pat this child on the back while encouraging them. And so, the hands are always used, and they're almost like birds flying. And then there's an accusation made against him because of his fondness for children and for teaching children and dad beats him up. And from then on, the hands are tied against his chest. And he's wounded forever, you know, and no doubt because of the accusation alone. And how successful as a teacher can you ever be once an accusation like that has been made, right. It's such a tender telling of the story, because you feel the ache, that this person's passion for teaching how good he really was, and how expressive he was. And all of that is quashed by this one bad, you know, day where there's an accusation made, there's no proof to it. But you know, he's, he's harmed, irreparably by it. And there's a moment in in, it's called an adventure, in which a woman runs out in the rain stark naked in the middle of this tiny little town, because it's just so beautiful, the rain and the dark and so on, and she can't stop herself. She just does it. And that, of course, somebody yells out the window and sees her and somebody makes fun of her, and she's crushed. She's like, what am I doing, and sees she shrunk again, and she, you know, goes back into the house and locks all the doors. And it's such as deeply ashamed of this expression. My goodness, King David, danced naked, according to one of the one of the stories in Samuel. And so, you know, being inspired to dance in the rain is a metaphor we use even today for how moved we are by beauty in our in our lives. And so, and yet to really do it, boy, that's not something we're all actually willing to do. And she does, and she pays dearly for it.

So, I remember just sort of reading this catalogue of grotesques as, as Sherwood Anderson calls it all of these people who are scarred by a combination like usually love, but love that's, it's gone awry in some way. I think it was really transformative for me here was somebody who seemed to understand thoughts that you've had, maybe only in your secret self, and here's somebody telling you your own truth back to you, which I think is what the greatest poetry and the greatest literature always does. It's not a truth that you can't fathom that you'd never considered. It's something that you somehow in your secret self always knew to be true. And there it is expressed to you in words that you didn't have for it.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

I think that's one of the most beautiful things about writing is, you know, he can just train you can translate to other people, and you don't know how it's gonna affect them, or how they'll resonate with it. And I think that's why I'm so drawn to writing feel and reading because, you know, you can escape in a book. And then it might not be what about what you're going through, but something in that first chapter or wherever it might be, might hit you in a way that you're like, oh, maybe, maybe this is how it's, is for me right now. And I just got to accept that or something like that?

Jen Burris

So, I'm talking about the different use of the word grotesque, how has our language kind of changed? And even in the technology sector, where we've started using words in a different way, you know, you're going on your weekend at Netflix binge, or items like that, that are just kind…

Justin Blessinger:

Part of one part of every English major I've ever known, has been a sort of deep love for just words themselves. And in part, that's because I know I don't want to want to get too poetic here. But I love this time of year because of the lilacs. Right, we're just getting the leaves on them right now. So, we're not even that close yet. But once you see the leaves coming out, you know, it's imminent, those gorgeous fragrant blossoms that they only last a week, maybe a week and a half. But you go outside, and you haven't even seen the blossoms yet, but you know somebody in the neighborhoods lilacs are starting to open up the gates that powerful and and that fragrant and I think it's a little bit like that we recognize that words change. That, you know slang is of course a well-documented mechanism by which it happens, but technology has a lot to do with it as well, because words change. They change a little more slowly than the blooms each spring. But because they do that, we kind of hold them in a in a in a different precious place. Those of us who study English, right? We love words, just for being words, right? The fact that the Oxford English Dictionary exists is such a testament to that, you know, it's like 22 volumes, if you actually look at the printed form of it. Speaking of digitization, there's one that everybody is grateful for the digitization of. Because to have an actual copy of the OED was, yeah, that took up a significant amount of shelf space. But somebody wanted to write a dictionary that traced the word origins for every word that English uses and tracked how it changed over time. So, you could look up the word weird, and find out that well, a weird was actually a noun 1200 years ago, where there was a word that meant a force of the supernatural that would shape your life like fate, kind of. And so, this is why Shakespeare has the Weird sisters. Right? They're there. They're the three fates. He's evoking the t ancient Greek mythology of the fates. It's not because they're strange sisters, though they are. Right. It's because of that word, the were weird sisters. And that word, of course, is easily tracked for how that one has changed. And it's easy to understand why you might at first say, well, the weirds did it. The words changed the world. And you can say, well, that look at that tree. It's all deformed. Maybe the words did it. And from there, it's a short jump to say that's a weird tree. Right? And so, it becomes an adjective, then sometime later, still meaning something that is so odd that certainly Surely, it's supernatural. And then eventually, it becomes a sort of the progress of almost all words is to move from a more sacred usage, a more profound usage into the flippant and into the casual. Like, that's sort of the only way they move. We sort of always need new words to describe our experiences of the profound or of the supernatural, perhaps, because they always end up diminished. Think of the word awesome. 50 years ago, it was still reserved for something that inspired terror in you because it was so great, so amazing, but terrifyingly amazing. And, and now we use it to describe gelato, you know, (laughter) that, that gelato is awesome. And we do it so casually, right? But of course, then the word loses a lot of its force, when you can apply it, you know, to something as trivial as your visit to the shopping mall. And so I think that's one of the things that drives home, how precious each word really is. It's a living thing. And it is active for a short time. And of course, there are words that just simply disappear out of use, sometimes for really strange reasons. But the cultural habit of using a meme is a great example. We all now use it in a very specific way to describe content that especially sort of amuses or speaks to the historical moment in some way, you know, but it was really a word that was to describe patterns, you know, being able to recognize patterns in the culture. And so, you might say, well, this is this has become a pattern in our culture. It's, it's a meme. And it's derived from the word mimetic, you know, something that imitates something else. And indeed, in our English classes, we talk about how art is usually leaning heavily towards either a didactic purpose, a purpose to teach us and make us better, or a mimetic purpose, one that simply tries to hold up a mirror and say, this is this is how you guys are, but it's not necessarily trying to teach, it's just saying, I want you to see it. So, you know, that's, that's another example of word that it's almost delicate. They're almost fragile because we turn around and a word that we used just a few years ago, you know, has changed maybe even radically, I'm always putting my head my hands when my kids refer to me as a boomer (laughter). Like for goodness sake, that's the baby boom, right after World War Two, do you know when I was born, you know, but it doesn't matter, because now it simply means anybody older than the millennial, right? It just, it's a dismissive way to describe. So, Gen X gets lumped in with the boomers somehow, right? But it's a good example of another word that you know, describes the fragility of a word, a baby boomer, even 10 years ago, if you read the word Boomer, it meant specifically that generation and already, you know, it's being used to describe somebody who's kind of old and you know, not hip anymore.

Jen Burris:

And going beyond that, would you say that our, like, human desire for storytelling is something that will keep English evolving along with technology, and it will basically, it's something that won't ever go out of fashion, so to speak?

Justin Blessinger:

it right? Yeah, you've said it. You've said it very well. There's no possible way. I mean, it'll change how we do it, of course. But you know, storytelling as a habit, think about the very first forms of it, maybe even in our earliest human form, when we didn't have much for language, you still wanted to hear from Thag how he killed that mammoth. And so, he's going to act it out, he's going to jump around the fire and pick up his spear again, and, you know, put on a little drama for us

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

Or etch it on the cave wall.

Justin Blessinger:

Which ultimately leads to writing, you know, it's symbolic communication. But built into that storytelling is a whole host of things that you wanted transferred, you wanted the little ones to thrill, and wow, Uncle Thag killed a mammoth. And he did it with that tool, you know, and so you're transferring not only the skills necessary to do it again. But the cultural values that celebrate somebody who can do that, you know, somebody who's been able to raid a neighboring village and come back with a whole lot of grain. So, we don't die there on die, but we don't die. My tribe is going to make it by goodness, right? So, there's a lot more going on inside what we call storytelling. There's, there's a beating heart there of an entire culture and a value system. It's beyond that. And so how could it possibly ever go away? Unless human culture itself goes away?

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

That's a great answer.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, we'll wrap things up here. Brittni, do you have any last questions or comments?

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

I really enjoyed this. This is my first time ever on a podcast. So, it was very, very fun. I'm looking forward to doing more.

Justin Blessinger:

It was a delight speaking with both of you, thank you so much.

Brittni Shoup-Owens:

 Thank you for visiting, being a part of this.

Justin Blessinger:

 Anytime happy to do it.

Jen Burris:

Yes. Thank you so much, Justin. And thank you, Brittni, for coming into cohost. Thanks to Spencer wrap, our sound designer and engineer. Thank you. And thank you to our executive producer and editor Jake Hoffer. Thank you for listening to Cyberology. Be sure to subscribe.

Jen Burris:
Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for sharing and discussing all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, and I'll be your host. We welcome back again, Dr. Gabe Mydland as cohost for our final episode on artificial intelligence.

Gabe Mydland:
Thank you for having me.

Jen Burris:
And our special guest today, an expert on the societal and economic impacts of artificial intelligence is Dr. Jack Walters, Professor of Management and coordinator for the Masters of Business and Administration program in the College of Business.

Jack Walters:
Good afternoon.

Jen Burris:
Hi, jack, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jack Walters:
Well, I've been at Dakota State for almost 16 years, and about four years ago started to get interested in not just the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, but the economic impact of it both positive and negative. And I've been collecting resources, articles videos about it since then, and it's just an endlessly fascinating topic.

Jen Burris:
You mentioned the positives and negatives. Why don't we start with the benefits?

Jack Walters:
Okay, the benefits, it's probably not right to use the word unlimited, but I want to position it near-unlimited. So just to give you a few examples, there are no already in use artificial intelligence systems that can outperform physicians in making diagnoses of patients.

Jen Burris:
Wow, that's fascinating.

Jack Walters:
So just think about what that would mean if we could just make a quantum leap in the quality of diagnoses? What would that mean for people's long-term health, that's just one example. The potential of it is just amazing just to revolutionize maybe everything. So that's the
positives,

Jen Burris:
Let’s look at some of the potential negative impacts.

Jack Walters:
When we've had huge leaps in technology in the past, they generally added to the economy, and they didn't take too much away. So that helped to boom, the economy of the United States of the world for over a century. When you look at the matching of artificial intelligence to robotics, it's almost inevitable, that it won't just add some new jobs and some new industries, but it's going to take employment away from a bunch of people. So, my perspective on it is I'm not against any of this technology. This is not one of those anti-technology arguments, but we need to be prepared for it. It's going to be dramatic.

Jen Burris:
Okay, where do you see the timeline on that? I know a lot of people predict like 2030

Jack Walters:
I would say definitely by 2030. But maybe that decade between 2030 and 2040 is going to be where we think we understand what the economy is like in 2030. And then we may have a completely different understanding of it in 2040.

Jen Burris:
Okay, how do you see that impacting jobs as it moves forward?

Jack Walters:
So people who work in the field of artificial intelligence would have a more complex view than I do. But my rule of thumb is, if what you do is repetitive, it can be done by artificial intelligence. So everybody says, Okay, well, that's factory jobs and certain other routinized jobs true, but it has a broader impact. For example, a knee surgeon who's doing a lot of arthroscopic knee surgeries, that work in a holistic sense becomes very repetitive. It's routine and many surgical establishments now to video record those surgeries. Well, if you take those videos, and you run them through existing artificial intelligence software and processes, you could begin to develop a machine-enabled arthroscopic surgeon. So, it's not just the person who's getting an hourly wage, it's all the people whose work is repetitive. And that's an awful lot of people.

Jen Burris:
Yes, it is. Gabe, do you have anything now that you want to ask?

Gabe Mydland:
Yeah, you know, I'm kind of curious. As a student of history. Also, we've gone through these changes in these transitions before. I'm wondering, in your reading, have you seen where we've learned from any of these shifts, and how to better prepare ourselves for making the transition from you're used to doing this as your job that now this is going to be done more efficiently, and you're going to have to move into something else. I think of the coal industry. For example,
we talked about bringing these jobs back when we know that we can provide the same kind of power from the sun from the wind, and we've got a whole rustbelt of folks whose families for generations were working in the mines. Is anybody planning for this kind of transition?

Jack Walters:
In my opinion Not enough. There's a concern in the fields that surround business and organizations that if you look across society, certain other major segments have had giant leaps forward – medicine, technology, even there are some improved governments, if you look at historically, the world is getting to be a better place, democracy wise and so forth. Organizations do not seem to be progressing at that rate of speed. And we see the same mistakes, read the paper, people do the same unethical things, they do the same illegal things, they make the same judgment mistakes. It's worrisome, because if we charge forward and use the same logic, so to give me an example, starting 30-40 years ago, businesses decided they would like to offshore their labor to lower-wage environments. And they did that. And it's had profound effects on the economies of places where their jobs went in their economies of the places where they left from. That could happen with artificial intelligence and robotics, where there is a cost advantage somewhere and the business, people say, hey, let's just go to that it's faster, shorter, more reliable, whatever their argument is, lower cost. And then that could just sweep like a plague across the employment patterns of the country. That's my big concern that we need to prepare exactly what Gabe was saying, we need to think what would it mean if people who drive long-haul trucks don't have jobs? Because there's a machine doing it?

Jen Burris:
Does that kind of play into the basic income talks about potentially paying people a flat level every month?

Jack Walters:
It's a very interesting question. One of the things I tried to do on this topic, I'm not an economist. And so I try not to get too far down the path of saying, well, maybe that's, you know, monthly Basic Income argument or other things like a Spain just went to a four-day workweek as a sort of standard model. All those things are out there. But I don't feel like it's my spot, to say, here's what we should do. I'm just here to say there's going to be employment effects. And somebody's going to have to figure out what to do about them.

Jen Burris:
Do you think that raises concerns for pretty much every industry?

Jac Walters:
Yes. So, I've collected all these things. And we tend to think that, well, there must be some industry or some profession that's not affected. But here's an example. There is already significant development of artificial intelligence in teaching. So, you know, all the folks like me and Gabe, who are teachers, we'd love to hear no, we'll never be replaced. What do you mean, this is a completely unique and creative job, there is already an artificial intelligence college professor. And then you also have to think it's not the end result we're looking at. It's a walk between here and there. One University did a fascinating experiment, they did an online course. And they replaced a TA with one of these expert systems that you just type your questions and it's a natural language system, and it figures out what to do. Students could not tell it from the human, this is the early days, you know, of this. So how sophisticated might that be in three years from now?

Jen Burris:
And do you see that impacting different areas in society, not just employment?

Jack Walters:
I do. To go down a completely different path. One of the things that are of great concern to ethicists and others is the development of robots that could take the place of soldiers or other military personnel.

Jen Burris:
That sounds terrifying.

Jack Walters:
The part that's terrifying about it is how easy it makes it to go to war. So, you know, if you're a president of the United States or the leader of any other country, and you're considering a military conflict, you're thinking I am going to be responsible for the deaths of XYZ number of people, but if it's just machines, and they can be bought or replaced or repaired, it's a different war decision. But of course, there's always collateral damage in war, right. So, it's not just the combatants that are killed and injured in a war. And that's the part that is very frightening to some people. That's really a concern.

Jen Burris:
Do we kind of already see that with drone strikes?

Jack Walters:
To some extent we do. And, and one of the things that for many obvious reasons the military doesn't talk about, but drones are probably now able to largely be flown by AI. Everything that's done in that kind of work is recorded. So you know, there's a bunch of drone pilots in Rapid City. So they record all those flights, and then you put it in a neural network or that kind of thing. And back into what worked, what didn't what was done and what's associated with what worked, that creates an artificial intelligence or a machine learning algorithm that can do the same kinds of things that human pilots do.

Jen Burris:
Wow, that only will probably further develop in the next 10 years.

Jack Walters:
Yeah, I think it's going at an exponential rate, but it's not just linear. Well, we did this in June. Last year, so this year in June, we'll do XYZ. It's much faster than that. It's just unlimited, as we've already said, in both positive things that it can do. I mean, just wonderful things it can do. And then it's also, to some extent, has very big downsides that we haven't thought through.

Jen Burris:
And do you think that the quickness of developments in AI can lead to some of those problems because it's just moving at a very accelerated pace, which might leave openings for these issues to crop up and get missed?

Jack Walters:
I do think that one of the things that are of concern, when I mentioned that decade, 2030, to 2040, there's a lot of big, big, big, big, big brains on the earth who have expressed concern about the development of the ability for machines to design machines. Up until now, people design machines, and then people design the software that machines run. But we are approaching a period of time in which some of that work could be done by machines. This is where the ethics questions really boil over. Because there might be a higher efficiency operation model or design that a machine would do. But it's not ethical. It's not the right thing to do for people.

Jen Burris:
Because they're not the sentient beings that we are.

Jack Walters:
Right, for example, it might have decided in this recent virus thing, we should not treat these people, they're too old, or they have too many preexisting conditions. And it's not doing that to be cruel. It's doing that out of some optimization function. But that's often not how ethical decisions are made. So that's a big concern.

Gabe Mydland:
So the plotline of just about any really good science fiction novel is coming true, where machines take over and humans become subservient. If I may, I, I'm curious about your perspective on this, because how do we as a society approach this? How do we make sure that the applications that are being designed are in the general interest not in a specific interest? And that we're still in command, if you will, of how this is used? And what it's used for? Is that an individual responsibility? Is it a government responsibility? Is it both? I was at a speech Condoleezza Rice gave at a forum in Sioux Falls. And one of the things that she talked about was this whole idea that we're becoming more and more efficient with machines. And it's becoming a better way of doing things. But she brought up the point that employers who displace employees with artificial intelligence-driven machines have a responsibility to their workforce, to help them transition into something new, whether it be training, or some guidance on what kind of transitions I can make, or is this something that we should do as a society as a whole?
I mean, I don't know where you come down on that.

Jack Walters:
Yeah, it's a fascinating set of questions. And I really think there's going to end up being lots of people doctorally trained in all those topics that you mentioned, you know, there's really going to have to be deep knowledge in the creation of educational programs about that. So, when you look at Dr. Rice, she was probably, I'm guessing, making the argument out of an ethical framework, that there is a sort of moral obligation that if you displace someone with a machine that you should help them. My personal view, based on my knowledge of business history, that won't be enough. If you want that it'll have to be done by regulation, I think that regulation will be highly controversial. So those are the kinds of issues that surround that. In the larger context. I think higher education has a huge role to play, maybe K-12 education has a role to play as well. When we have been developing a proposal for a program about artificial intelligence in organizations, one of the things that have come up and up and up, including a meeting I was in today is courses in ethics. And how do you train people? Because it's not going to be one of those where robots run everything, and we're just has-beens or bygones. We're still going to be running it. The question is, how will we run it? And what rules will we implement? For example, there will come a time within 10 years, as Jen was talking about when human workers and AI workers are working side by side. Well, that's a whole new realm of human resources and human resource law. What happens if there's a dispute between the human and the artificial intelligence? What happens when one or the other makes a mistake? How are things held accountable, just on and on and on? Those kinds of things are going to be happening soon. And so there has to be some kind of large-scale three-dimensional understanding of where we're headed and how much things are going to change.

Jen Burris:
Do you think it's possible with all the industries that this will affect basically everyone at some point that we can find new jobs or new areas to get everyone reemployed somehow?

Jack Walters:
I'm very sorry to say I don't believe we'll be able to replace all the jobs that are lost. There will without question be whole new categories of jobs, whole new ways of doing things. But when I look at how many jobs will be lost, I don't see how it's possible to recover them all. And then I'm very reluctant to hear people say, ‘Well, people need to get different training, and they need to be, you know, re-skilled,’ the scale of that task is just almost incomprehensible. We're really talking about gigantic numbers of changes.

Jen Burris:
Do you have any personal input or feelings that you would say to these people, as they're making these advancements and considering society as a whole?

Jack Walters:
The interesting thing is my particular focus is not on technology development. In other words, fine with me, if that continues apace. That's how it's been throughout history, new technology has always supplanted old technology. The audience I want to speak to our people that make policy at the government level, and people that lead organizations, I really think that's where we have to talk about this. And one of the things that could be considered this could rewrite international economic competition and cooperation because right now, there's a bunch of just to pick on an easy sort of pin, a bunch of iPhones are made in the east. Why is that? Well, the wages are lower there. Well, if you shifted to an economy, where they're mostly constructed by machines, then the machines can be here. And then people say, why that's not adding a job, the machines doing the job, but the transportation, the logistics, the supply chain, that all that stuff that goes with having a business entity is here. And so that could just change how we place labor, broadly defined in the world.

Jen Burris:
It’s a lot of stuff to take in.

Jack Walters:
it is it's really, really big, really big.

Jen Burris:
And you have any positive stories that you've seen in AI as potential impacts in different areas?

Jack Walters:
I have. So, here's one, and this one's probably tilted a little more over to the robotic side. But it's so much of a very hot topic right now, in the news. There is existing, a working prototype of a robotic traffic cop. When someone is seen violating and speeding, running a light, whatever the current model is driven by a human, but the car is outfitted with a robotic traffic cop. So, they’re pulled over, the car that carries the robotic cup puts a stop stick under the back of the car. So that's a thing of like a board with nails in it, and it can extend and go under the wheels of the car. So, if the car tries to speed away, it can't go fast, because it's going to have holes in the tires, the tire will be deflated. Then this little robotic police officer moves up from the back on some kind of a bar, stops at the front window, and has a camera, a microphone, a speaker, and a little printer in it. Then the robotic cop tells the person what they have done wrong, and has a conversation with them. And then if it issues a ticket, the ticket comes out of a little printer, and they take it. Look at what the news is we have two horrifying cases going on one where police improperly shoot civilians and the other where civilians shoot police, which is pretty much always improper. This is the kind of thing that we're talking about, it doesn't matter if somebody shoots the robot, they can get a new one, and the robot is not armed, it's not going to shoot anyone. So, you can sort of solve a kind of hot topic problem right now with that kind of device.

Jen Burris:
Eliminate some of those inherent risks…

Jack Walters:
There are just scores of those kinds of examples of positive improvement, better service, better quality, less danger, then there is you know, a whole other side of what will that do to employment and array of occupations.

Gabe Mydland:
So, I'm at risk of repeating myself, and I don't mean to but in your collection of all this information about all the things that deal with AI. Did you come across information about different groups who are prepared to sit down with policymakers and leaders of organizations to talk about ethics? Are there training available and business programs that are being developed to address this new world that we're approaching?

Jack Walters:
being developed? Yes. Existing? Not so much. We're definitely seeing now rapid across the country and probably across the world as well, ideas for training, understanding, seeing the limitations of the technology, seeing the benefits the technology, but right now, we're not to the point where there is, for example, a group of people who are expert in that who was serving as some kind of advisory board or, you know, NGO or something like that, as it regards these issues.

Gabe Mydland:
I wasn't aware of any, you know, I mean, like the President's Council of Economic Advisers, for example. They kind of take a look at what's going on and try to draw attention to certain things. And I didn't know if there was anything similar to that. Maybe not at that level, but maybe even in the private sector. I haven't heard of that.

Jack Walters:
Yeah. There are troubling cases. For example, Google is one of the leaders in the development of artificial intelligence. Well, they have had, for reasons that are not immediately clear, it is their private information. But certainly important parts of it are in the media, where they've dismissed a couple of people that were key in their ethics development effort for AI. Well, then that led last week to the resignation of one of the biggest names in all of AI in the world from Google. And so it's troubling. It's like, is this gonna be our history where there's this constant back and forth and contentiousness and stuff like that? Or will we lean the other way of like, we got to do this ethically, or we're going to be sorry, you know, that's the concern I have is, could we go in that direction?

Gabe Mydland:
Sure. Ideally, we'd probably like a balance where both sides are at the table. And obviously identifying the areas where they agree, and then identifying where they don't agree, but what they can work together on.

Jack Walters:
Yeah, I'm hopeful. And this is probably pretty quixotic. But I wish that we could make a finer distinction about the transparency of things. I totally understand that Google's in a competitive business, and one that's likely to become more so and so they want to be private. But there's a lot of these things that get put under the bushel of competitive and private information when really, we ought to understand maybe those people got dismissed for a reason that has nothing to do with what we think. But how would we know no one will say, and so it's troubling.

Jen Burris:
Do you see cyber ethics then, or AI ethics being a big part of new college programs like the degrees that are coming to DSU?

Jack Walters:
I really do. And I think that there's a group of my colleagues here at Dakota State who are involved in this very deeply in developing programs. And I think they all see the importance of the teaching of ethics of embedding ethics in almost everything we're doing. And it's got to happen that it can't go forward in this kind of agnostic context, that would not be the right way.

Jen Burris:
And do you think that that'll happen kind of across the board with these new degrees in the country and that that might maybe level some things out if all of these new up-and-coming workers in AI have some ethical training?

Jack Walters:
Yes, I think there's a possibility for it. What I would like to see is where the ethics of the development and management of AI have the same role that professional accountancy has. A CPA, for example, is honor-bound and legally bound to certain principles of ethics, even if that's not what their client wants. And that's where we need to be with this that, yes, there's going to be companies that develop stuff, and it's in their financial and economic interest to do something that cuts corners, we have to have people trained and licensed and ready to say nope we can't do that. That's not the way to go. That's going to be a concern.

Gabe Mydland:
It's a step in the right direction. But I don't think it's the only answer. I think we all have to be alert. And we all have to be involved. And we all have to step up when something's not right.

Jen Burris:
Gabe are you kind of saying that by studying ethical stuff, they could circumvent it?

Gabe Mydland:
Just saying no, I think it's important that we study this stuff. I think it's important we test people on this stuff, and that they have a certification that says they understand it, but I don't think that's where it ends. In my view of where we're at, not just with AI, but in society in general, is that we don't have enough people involved in the process. We have, for example, fewer than a majority of the people in South Dakota, who are registered to vote. And yet in the last election, we're all celebrating that we had a 70% turnout. Well, if 45% of the people who could vote are 70% of that, that's still a minority. And that's part of the problem is that people don't have a voice or they're not exercising their voice. Things like this that are going to disrupt families, lifestyles, communities, they think that would be enough of an incentive to be involved.

Jack Walters:
If you really want to put yourself in the tumble dryer and turn it on, consider this – the solution to some of those very serious societal issues? Ai. (laughter)

Gabe Mydland:
It's a conundrum, isn't it?

Jack Walters:
The thing is you look at this like we could do a thing. It would take a lot of work, but it could be done with artificial intelligence. Who has been complained about who's a practicing licensed psychologist, then collect all kinds of data and have it back solve against that? What about that person? Is there a pattern? Is there anything that would explain it as something that could then be used as at least a warning signal, if not a predictor, this is just write down the core of what AI is good at. And so you could solve some of those kinds of problems with it. But then you're also advancing its place in society when you do that. It's just really

Gabe Mydland;
It is a conundrum. I mean, it really is.

Jack Walters:
And then if you know, just to throw one more out there, this really worries me. There are plenty of groups in the world, most of them are not governmental. But some are, many of them are individual groups or terrorists or whatever. None of everything we've said about ethics means anything. It's in their interest to create something that has no ethical subroutines, or guards or ability to be stopped. And that's really scary. There are already tools out there that would make those existing prototypes extremely dangerous if they were not controlled.

Jen Burris:
Do you think that that would spread quickly, kind of in a criminal world, so to speak? Would they be sharing their nefarious advances with others?

Jack Walters:
I think they would. An example, this was not a terrorist thing, it was an artistic thing. It shows you what we're talking about. There's a robotics company called Boston Dynamics. They're one of the world's leaders in the development of robotics. So there was an art teacher who got one, somehow they make a dog, a mule, and a human. And they got the dog, the dogs really popular, and it's about the size of a medium to large-sized dog. So they got one, and they strapped a paintball gun on the back of the dog. And then they connected the dog to the internet. And they would let people log on and steer the dog around, and then fire the paintball gun at walls and make art. This was the whole point of it. But first of all, really ticked off the people from Boston Dynamics who already have military contracts. But also, it raises that specter of what if that was a real gun on the dog, and you just walk it down the street and fire the gun? It's just there are too many of those kinds of questions that have not even been addressed at all.

Gabe Mydland:
No, I was just gonna say I'm sleeping better tonight. I know that. (laughter).

Jack Walters:
Nothing to worry about at all.

Jen Burris:
Is there anything that you think the average person should be doing or focusing on as these advances are made?

Jack Walters:
Yes, I think we should be honest and forthcoming with people about the kinds of work that they're doing that is either easier or more difficult to be automated. And then that helps people to choose careers that help people to start on a path and so forth. The more variable your daily work is the much, further along, it'll be before anybody is trying to automate. There's a whole class of those kinds of jobs. But if what you do each day is repetitive, that's at least a concern that sooner or later it will be in someone's financial interest to try to automate that. And that's where the pinch will come in.

Jen Burris:
Do you think that can also apply to creative areas? I know they've had AI create songs before…

Jack Walters:
Yes, there's fun stuff out there about creative work by AI. But we're nowhere near the level of sophistication. Too many people, when you say artificial intelligence, they think of Mr. data, you know, or these kinds of fictional characters that may be midcentury before there's anything like that, but it's crazy of us to think, Oh, well, that's way out there. The stuff that will affect employment and jobs is very close by. So, we should be thinking in terms of what will we do? What other ways can those people have meaningful employment? And what structural changes might be needed in light of the large-scale changes that AI and robotics will bring?

Jen Burris:
Okay, anything else you can think of that we might have missed on this topic?

Jack Walters:
No, the only thing is, I'd look back and restate something that I sort of said in passing. I think if you listen to this, especially if you just listened kind of with part of your attention. You think, oh, look, that guy. He's just against all this stuff. On the contrary. Not only am I not against it, but I also don't think you can actually be against it. I know people who say I don't like it that Walmart has all those self-checkouts Well, too bad for you, those things work, they're never going away. And the idea that we should pull them all out of the stores so we can give the cashiers back their jobs. That's never going to happen. So that's just a tiny drop compared to all the other things that could be done in this way. So, what we need to do is lean into it, not fight it and got rejected, not deny it. But say here is something that's coming, and we should adjust.

Gabe Mydland:
And that's the hard part. It is, yeah, people find it very difficult to change. Hopefully, that won't be the part that gets AI because that's what I help people with.

Jack Walters:
well, and Gabe is a professional Ph.D. trained psychologist, that's the job I'm talking about is forever down the path, you know, because it's almost every case is unique. And there's a lot of sort of unstructured decision-making that goes on. But my goodness, look around at the jobs that people do in large numbers across the economy, they're not like that.

Gabe Mydland:
Well, and I even can see how it could be applied to my profession, quite frankly, you have a finite set of variables, and you just plug it in. And I'm replaceable. So yeah, I think it's a challenge for all of us. I do think it brings great things, but nothing comes without a cost.

Jack Walters:
Yes. And the benefits are going to be astounding. I think that in medicine that we talked about, but also in many service-type fields where people are given advice or are given support by various things in professions, lots of that's going to get much better. And that's great. That's wonderful. But like we said, the change in the employment structure, not only in the US but of practically everywhere is going to be profound.

Jen Burris:
So it's really about adaptability in society.

Jack Walters:
It is and that's a wonderful point, I'm glad you brought it up. The country that is most adaptable is going to be the leader in this and the ones that are least adaptable or most resistant, are going to be behind.

Jen Burris:
Well, I found this topic very interesting and would love to revisit it sometime with you. I'm sure you have a plethora of knowledge that we didn't cover here today.

Jack Walters:
It is such a great thing to be involved with the scholarly, wise, and intellectually wise because my goodness, next week, there'll be some new blockbuster thing that we didn't know about this week is just amazing. MIT released this is about three weeks ago, most of the learning models in machine learning and artificial intelligence are trained models. So you get a neural network. And that's, you know, that's a software thing. And you put data in and it associates outcomes with inputs. But you have to do that a human has to do that. MIT released three weeks ago, the first AI that can do it on the fly. It takes the data and starts making generalizations from the data on its own. That's the science fiction version of AI that we've had for almost a century. But that's where we're headed in reality.

Jen Burris:
Scary and exciting.

Jack Walters:
Very exciting, and somewhat scary too.

Jen Burris:
Well, I'd like to thank Gabe for cohosting again. And jack, thank you for being our guest. My pleasure. And our sound designer Spencer. And thank you all for listening to Cyberology. Be sure to subscribe.

Jen Burris:
Welcome back to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for sharing and discussing all things cyber and technology. I'm Jen Burris, and I'll be your host. Today we welcome back Dr. Gabe Mydland as a cohost.

Gabe Mydland:
Thank you, Jen.

Jen Burris:
And this episode, we will continue our series on artificial intelligence. And so we have a special guest with us today. Darrin Dutcher. Gabe, would you like to do a little introduction for Darrin?

Gabe Mydland:
Darrin is one of the students in my honors section for EPSY 210 lifespan development. And in the class, I invited students, they could take a test, or if there was a topic that we were covering, that they were interested in, they could come to me with a proposal to do some sort of project. And Darrin reached out, and he said, you know, what I'd like to do is put together a research poster. And I said, Wow, that that sounds great. And we'll talk a little bit about how that involves artificial intelligence, along with what we're talking about in the class, and how Darrin put that together.

Jen Burris:
Awesome. Darren, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Darrin Dutcher:
Oh, sure. Born and raised in California, going to Dakota State University. I'm a cyber operations Network Security Administration major. And yeah, I look forward to this podcast.

Jen Burris:
Awesome. So can you start by telling us a little bit about what inspired your idea for this product,

Darrin Dutcher:
I've always kind of enjoyed psychology, philosophy, and I enjoyed going with concepts of like, can AI truly come to a sentient being? So, I always had a fascination with AI from the start, and talking about how children develop I thought would be great to kind of be like, oh, compare a kind of a child to AI and how they both develop because I feel like there's a lot of similarities with how they develop.

Gabe Mydland:
And of course, we're talking about in the cognitive sense, what Darren chose to do, if I may, Darren, how children begin to understand how to categorize things. This is even before they begin to speak, that they begin to recognize, for example, say, a family pet. It has four legs, it has a tail, it has whiskers, and their family pet happens to be a dog, but on a playdate with another child who has a pet that has four legs and a tail. He learns that this is not a dog, he's corrected, this is a cat. And he starts to understand and distinguish the differences, even though he can't articulate them. And in talking about this way that children learn to assimilate and accommodate. Darren came up with the idea of how that parallels with how we train if you will a computer. Am I saying that right?

Darrin Dutcher:
Yeah, I mean, how we kind of like train a computer AI program, in the simplest way is just giving a bunch of pictures having human self-identify it sit, you know, like the little recaptures there, like, are you a robot click on all the stop signs, and that that helps to process data. And say Okay, these are stop signs. And they basically relate them say, okay, there's an octagon, and all of these pictures, it's all red with lettering there. And it relates it by pixels instead of just by the word stop. Through that AI starts to kind of like process and say, these similarities helped to create a full picture helps to create a pattern.

Gabe Mydland:
And so assimilation is taking something and trying to categorize it with what we already know. And accommodation is when we recognize that it doesn't quite fit. So, we've got to change the way that we think about this new thing. As I understand it, I learned a lot about AI from Darren's project that very much like a human being learns to accommodate to meet the needs of a new situation, that that's how we train, if you will, a computer to distinguish and notice that there are differences. And now we have two things rather than just one thing. And it's a process that repeats itself over and over again. And of course, our knowledge then accumulates.

Jen Burris:
So expanding the AI's definition of something. You show a bunch of pictures of dogs, and then you throw a cat in there, and it says, it's the dog again, and then you recalibrate it kind of?

Darrin Dutcher:
you recalibrate it, you can kind of train it and show it some pictures of cats, because for the most part, what you do is you'll have a bunch of different pictures. And you'll have people select stuff. So, one of the experiences that I got to go to was this one place at the University of Maryland, College Park. And they were working with the classification of imaging. So, they had a setup with a camera, and whatever the camera was looking at, it would say, Oh, that's a monitor, that's a computer, that's light. And it would just put a box around that stuff. It's basically getting fed a lot of information. People put boxes around items like this is what light looks like, this is what a computer looks like, this is what this looks like. And through that, it's basically able to say, okay, all of these boxes have this similarity to it and tries to basically say, okay, that similarity is what this image is. So, it's sophisticated in a way, but it's not as sophisticated as humans at this current level.

Gabe Mydland:
Sure, there's a distinguishing of the different features. It's kind of a fascinating process when you think about it, but it takes time. And it takes a little bit of direction, sometimes from someone else, but very rapidly. Children, and we're talking about toddlers, starting at approximately nine months of age, the more and more exposure they have to new things, they're assimilating and accommodating quite rapidly. And with a computer program, it's much the same.

Jen Burris:
So, it's kind of like expanding categories?

Gabe Mydland:
Exactly.

Jen Burris:
How did you go about researching this project once you had the idea?

Darrin Dutcher:
I would say the first thing that I did was hop on to my trusty friend, Google. And I just looked at some scholarly papers. And looked at machine learning algorithms, because there's a bunch of different machine learning algorithms for image classification. And I chose one of like 20 different machine learning algorithms. I looked at each one individually, and chose one that seems very rudimentary so, it's somewhat easier to explain. Once I found the method, I just looked into that method. okay, let's see how a child takes an image and processes it. So, I looked up some scholarly articles of how a child processes images and read through them, then I went over and kept looking at, oh, these two are pretty similar, although it's not like oh, yeah, they both look at the same image and know exactly what it is. Or they get told what the image is, the child looks at this image and is told, oh, that's a dog. Well, then a computer has to get told what a dog is, too. But then it goes on a lower level, it looks at the pixels, it looks at the very small details of it. It requires a larger test size than humans because it requires multiple, this is a dog, that's a dog, this is a dog to basically create that category. It can create the category on the first go, but it wouldn't be too precise.

Jen Burris:
Were there changes to the children's levels as they got older compared to AI?

Darrin Dutcher:
It's around the same if you boil everything down, children get told what an object is, and then they keep learning or they go look in their book and see Oh, This is what a butterfly looks like, this is what a fish looks like, once you kind of learn what a fish is, then you maybe look at some other fish and you're like, this is a cod, this is a salmon. There all these different types of fish. And you see that there are subcategories to the category that you create, which can be the same thing with AI.

Jen Burris:
Okay, so is the timespan kind of similar in the learning experiences? Or does AI move a little bit slower because it takes more information?

Darrin Dutcher:
I would say that it actually moves faster. Because you can feed a bunch of numbers to an AI, you can feed a lot of information to an AI very quickly.

Gabe Mydland:
The real advantage, of course, with technology is, is the processing speed. And I'm really speaking out of school here. So Darrin, correct me on this, but my understanding is that a lot of the ways that we've designed a computer are really a representation of how we understand how our brains work, particularly in the area of memory. And you address this in your assignment to I mean, first of all, we have to attend to something, if we don't attend to it, it's lost. And then it moves into short-term memory where it can stay for about 20-30 seconds at the most. If, if we practice and rehearse that information. If not, it's lost again, it moves into something called long term memory, which, up until recently, most psychologists degree was infinite. But now there's been some studies that say, well, it's pretty large, but it's not infinite. Again, if the information is processed, if it's related to other things that we understand and know, well, there's a good chance that we can retrieve it later. The advantage of technology is those things are stored and can be retrieved depending on the user, if they remember, for example, a file name or something like that. But that processing speed that Darrin was referring to, being able to take in all kinds of information, and organize it and connect it to other things, is so far superior to what we can do as humans.

Jen Burris:
but does it lack the ability to make inferences that we humans can quickly do? Once we've learned things?

Gabe Mydland:
Right. And I think the parallel is that with humans, the more experiences we have, the more likely we're able to categorize and distinguish between different things. I think the same thing would be true with AI. The more it's exposed to and directed by humans, the more it's able to make those distinctions.

Darrin Dutcher:
Yeah, I know, some of my friends. Last year, they did a really cool project. And it was on adversarial AI networks. And that is basically having one AI fight against the other AI. And how they implemented it was they had one AI that creates medical record codes. And then they had the other AI identify which ones were fake and which ones were real. In the beginning, the one that is making the fake medical codes would send it to that and it would automatically get detected. But then as they kept doing larger and larger numbers, and I mean, hundreds of 1000s of test runs it started to get where this one AI couldn't tell like a fake medical record was and what a real medical record was.

Jen Burris:
When you're talking about pitting the two AI's against each other, does that help you kind of find flaws in things too? Maybe in a cyber-attack for example?

Darrin Dutcher:
I have been looking at implementing AI into cyber, which hasn’t to a large scale been done. There's a lot of companies that are like, Oh, yeah, we have AI in our cyber technology. It's not really AI for the most part. It's either like a framework or an API. To let's say, implement AI into this, it gets pretty complicated because each attack can be different. You can have something that it normally exploits be extremely secure and can exploit that. So, you have to look for a different way in you can probably tell the AI, hey, look at all these ways in and then do that. But to my knowledge, I don't think there is a fully automated AI program that can find the vulnerabilities, exploit them and then be like, Oh, yeah, these are your vulnerabilities that your company has.

Jen Burris:
And you mentioned framework and API's, can you explain for our listeners what that is,

Darrin Dutcher:
frameworks and APIs tend to be mistaken for AI, it's more coded and stuff. So it's not learning as it goes. It's just this is how it's programmed, this is what it will do.

Jen Burris:
So an API is more like completing a task over and over again, versus expanding upon that, as it learns?

Darrin Dutcher:
That's the TLDR (too long didn’t read) of that.

Jen Burris:
Gabe, what was this like, as his professor in learning about this new topic and comparing it to early childhood development?

Gabe Mydland:
Well, again, fascinating, you know, I use technology a lot. And I like using technology. I don't know how it works. And I love all the things that it can do for us in enhancing the quality of our life. I'm interested in psychology, but I recognize that there's a lot of things, other subjects, other topics, other disciplines, that have a lot of overlap with what I'm interested in. And what Darren was able to do was to really show the overlap with if you will, Ai, or even on a broader scale computer science in a really meaningful way, with how we understand how our brains work. And of course, psychology is the study of not only behavior but mental processing. And, of course, I understand that computers are our best representation, or maybe are a representation of how our brains work. But to see how it actually can do more than just what you were talking about earlier, doing a command that we've programmed it to do. But to go beyond that, and to think about the fact that. I guess I understood this, but this was really tangible to me that you can actually have a computer begin to make those distinctions to begin to make decisions based on what information you provide to it, on its own. It's amazing. It's kind of scary. But it's also, I think, going to lead to some really exciting developments, that due to the limitations that we have, as humans are going to enhance the quality of our lives.

Jen Burris:
As you put together your research poster how did you choose what to highlight?

Darrin Dutcher:
I looked for a lot of the similarities between AI and people and development. Basically, I'm wanting to make sure these are similarities instead of going for a more advanced AI that may not share as many similarities or may use a more advanced process. And I also want to find a simpler process. So I could put it in easier terms to understand because as I know, Gabe tries to adapt to computers.

Gabe Mydland:
I’m simple. I'm a very simple person. It's alright Darrin.

Darrin Dutcher:
I mean, you do better than my grandma. (laughter)

Gabe Mydland:
I got Grandma beat. But yeah, I think he wanted to make the project accessible to a broader audience than, say, his peers and colleagues. And I think he did a really nice job of providing an overview of the parallels between the two processes. It's just a really fine piece of work. And I'm really proud of what he put together.

Jen Burris:
Did you get any feedback from anyone else besides Gabe?

Darrin Dutcher:
I ran it through my roommates. I'm like, hey, do you mind looking at this real quick? Or do you have a second? And I just turned on my computer and let him look at it. Tell me if you can understand that if you have had nothing to do with this concept or that or is it easy to understand and follow? Even if you never worked with image processing before. Even if you've never worked with memory or AI or people or that I just hand it to him. He checks through it check spelling and that because Spelling's a different thing for me.

Gabe Mydland:
I'm really disappointed you didn't share it with your grandmother, but okay. (laughter)

Jen Burris:
Okay, Gabe, you have any questions left?

Gabe Mydland:
No, I just, I was really pleased that Darrin saw this as an opportunity. And again, this is something new that I'm doing in my classes, but it's really proved to be very fruitful and helping students to see beyond just the domain that they're interested in. And seeing how they can expand the things that they're passionate about, from looking at things from a different perspective, from a different discipline’s viewpoint

Jen Burris:
that's nice. I bet it's also beneficial for the students as well to kind of get outside of their comfort zone may be a little bit.

Gabe Mydland:
Yeah, I think, it encourages them to demonstrate their mastery of the content in a different way. And I think that students would like to show that they understand the information, but in a different format, like a poster. I've had students make videos, I've had them do a podcast, they've come up with these ideas. And I've kind of told them what I'd like the parameters to be and they just take off. I really do think, and I try to tell students this, it's your responsibility. It's your job, it's your task to find how what I have to offer is linked with what you're passionate about, they're adding to their expertise about something that they care about. And they're just so excited to see this, this connection that they didn't realize exists. And it does, everything overlaps, to think that they're different disciplines or silos is incorrect. It's really more of a Venn diagram.

Jen Burris:
I'd like to thank cave for cohosting. Again. Thank you for having me and Darren, for being our guests. Thank you for having me. And of course, our sound designer Spencer. And thank you for listening to cyberology. Be sure to subscribe.

Jen Burris:

Welcome to Cyberology Dakota State University's podcast for sharing and discussing all things cyber. I'm Jen Burris from the marketing and communications department at DSU, and I'll be your host. In this episode, we'll be talking about artificial intelligence with Austin O'Brien.

And today, I'm happy to introduce you to my co-host, Dr. Gabe Mydland.

Gabe Mydland:

Hi, Jen.

Jen Burris:

Hi, how are you today?

Gabe Mydland:

I'm doing great. And artificial intelligence seems to fit my personality very well.

Jen Burris:

So how so?

Gabe Mydland:

Mainly because I don't have real intelligence. How about that? No, the topic, I think mirrors our understanding of how the brain works. And of course, psychology. The courses I get to teach are about behavior, and of course, mental processing, and how the two influence each other. So, I suspect what we're going to learn here today, I'm going to learn here today too, is how our understanding of the way the brain works, informs how we use and create artificial intelligence. So, I'm really excited to be here. Thank you.

Jen Burris:

And we're happy to have you. Let me introduce our artificial intelligence expert, Dr. Austin, O'Brien. Austin is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Austin O’Brien:

So just like you say, as an assistant professor, this is my fifth year here. So, my background in computer science, my bachelor's and master's degrees come from there. But my Ph.D. was actually in computational science and statistics. So that's kind of a departure where it's really a way of looking at a lot of the machine learning algorithms that we know today. So, I didn't really, you know, know that at the time going into it, but it's kind of worked out really well. And so, I've been working at DSU, with these new courses that we got with artificial intelligence we've been working on, really trying to get folks interested in which has been really easy to do, students have been kind of jumping all over the courses that we've been starting to provide. So yeah, really excited with the way that AI is starting to take off, you know, here at Dakota State University, and also in other universities in South Dakota. It's just something that's really taken off, and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

Jen Burris:

Awesome. So how about you start off by telling me a little bit or telling us the listeners a little bit about what AI is?

Austin O’Brien:

Sure. Yeah. So artificial intelligence, you know, the whole idea, at least from a computer science perspective, is trying to get a computer to behave in a way that's intelligent like you would expect a person to, and you know, that that's kind of really the end goal. You know, we talk about, you know, different things in artificial intelligence that we have now. But I wouldn't say that we're anywhere really near the end goal of where we want, we'd like to go, you know, that the whole sci-fi idea of some self-entity that's able to walk around behave, think to react to its environment, you know, things along those lines. Right now, we're kind of at the stages, where we're doing mini partitions of that. And the whole goal someday is to kind of get this all working together. But that's kind of the idea. So right now, you know, the way that we're working with that, it's typically, there are these different facets of artificial intelligence, machine learning is one that's become very popular lately. And really, there's a, you know, the reason for that is really, because of computational power has really started taking off and data collection is a huge thing. You know, there's obviously a lot of controversy one way or another about, you know, data collection, and all of that.

So that's something that we have to think about going forward when we're, you know, working on artificial intelligence, you know, the ethics of AI is something that is really starting to take a step forward in our line of thinking when we're working on these algorithms and things like that. So yeah, you know, just, you know, there's the old school, rule-based artificial intelligence where, you know, if something occurs, then the bot should do that, you know, that sort of thing. The problem with that is that it's you can't predict everything that could ever happen. So, it's hard to create rules for these bots, or for the software agents to actually behave in, you know, a very natural environment, right. So you know, that's where we're going towards machine learning more recently, where we're able to actually feed the software agents, lots of information, and through this information, you know, they quote-unquote, learn how to behave better, and so they have all of the different situations that we can try and feed into it so that it can learn to, you know, behave intelligently like we would like it to do. So, that's kind of where we're at right now, obviously, the folks who have all the computational power, Google, Amazon, all those folks, you know, those are the ones that you're hearing about. And that's really why they're really taking off, they have tons of data, they have tons of computational power. So, for researchers, you know, we do the best we can with what we got. So that's why there's, you know, a little bit of concern, I think, in the field of AI right now, just because these large companies are kind of privatizing this sort of thing. And researchers are just by the nature of being able to conduct this research, it costs a lot of money, to collect data, to store data, the computational power needed to run the algorithms, some of them need graphical processing units, or GPUs, which are just really expensive hardware to run. So. So you know, as far as that goes, you know, research is doing our best to kind of keep up with that. And because we want open artificial intelligence, we want it to be for everybody to use to understand. And understand, I think, is one of the more important things about it, too. So that's what we'd like, but so, yeah

Jen Burris:

So the hard part is, is that you don't have Jeff Bezos's net worth of...

Austin O’Brien:

No, No, I do not. I don't think the state does, either. But, you know, at the same time, a lot of these companies, you know, and I don't want to paint them in a dark light, either, you know, a lot of them actually supply, processing power for folks to use, there's like a free level, Google has a service, I think it's called the collaborative or collaboration, collaborate something, something along those lines. And basically, you can use their computational power, if you upload your data, you know, or there are a lot of free databases that you can use for certain projects and things like that. So, Google has theirs, Amazon has their web services, and Microsoft has their version. So, I think there is kind of a push to get it for not just researchers, but anybody who has the interest to get into that sort of thing. There is kind of this free tier for folks to get into it. But to do the really, really kind of interesting stuff. I mean, you need big, big budgets. And so that's something that we're working towards, we'll do a few more fundraisers (laughter). But we'll get there.

Jen Burris:

Gabe, I can tell you have some questions percolating there.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, I am percolating a little bit (laughter). I'm more interested in this vast spectrum of abilities that AI can tackle. Where do you fall on the spectrum? Where's your interest? And what are you working on?

Austin O’Brien:

Sure. So my interest is really kind of, you know, because like you say, there's lots of these different facets of artificial intelligence, like, the one that's probably being applied the most right now is probably AI for business. And really, it's using a lot of these machine learning algorithms to do numeric predictions like trying to predict housing markets, or, should you decline or accept somebody's credit application, you know, something along those lines. As far as what I'm interested in, it kind of takes a little bit of a turn. And it's kind of more of what most people think about when they think of AI is actually more along the line of an autonomous agent, or some bot, as you might say, that's able to behave in some environment. So, to give you just an easy idea is, it's called reinforcement learning, which is what I'm interested in. And it's where a computer basically, as I say, learns to behave in its environment in an intelligent way. So, the example I like to use is there, you can train a computer to play an Atari game or something along those lines. So just by having screenshots, basically, what we'll do is we'll digitize that screenshot, well, it basically already is, but feed those numeric values into a deep learning model. And deep learning, some folks might be familiar with the term a neural network, a neural net, and artificial neural net. And basically, it's kind of mapped after the way that you know, some scientists think that you know, the brain might work, we feed it some data, and it goes to some neurons. And then it kind of processes that data a little bit with what we'll call some sort of activation function and then it gives some output. And so, then that data kind of percolates through the neural net and gives us finally some output. So, this example with the Atari game, basically, as it will read the screen, the pixels, basically, each pixel has a numeric value. So, you know, the color scheme, RGB, red, green, blue, right, so every screenshot has a value, you know, between zero and 255. And so, with that, it just kind of looks at you know, what is the pattern of pixels represent? And then it just basically the output is what is the move it wants to make? So, for the easiest one Pac Man, up, down, left, right. So, you feed this information, and the output is basically going to be one of those four options. And so, what happens is, is that if it was did something good, we try to reward it. So, what's an Atari game, the easiest way to do that is just the score, the basic score, if the score goes up, Agent did great. If not, we find a way to punish it, if it did something bad, like maybe if it's Pac-Man, getting hit by the ghost, right? That sort of thing. Or maybe we can say, if it doesn't get any points after a long period of time, that's bad. So, we try to punish it if it doesn't do that. And it's just this, in this reward and punishment, it's just a numeric value, if it does something good, give it a positive number does something bad, take away some numbers, that sort of thing. Over a long period of time, in the beginning, it'll start by just kind of randomly making moves. And it doesn't really know what's correct. But after a series of rewards and not just instantaneous rewards, but mathematically, we can try and get it to get the culmination of rewards over time this value, and then the tries to get the maximum value that it can. And so, it just kind of learns, given what the screen looks like the pattern of the pixels, it'll learn well, if I go up with, you know, when that looks like the ghost is below me, then I get a reward, I live longer, get more points, those sorts of things. And so, through that, this whole reinforcement learning is where a computer learns to do something, well, whether that plays a game, whether that's a robot that can learn to walk, or something along those lines.

Gabe Mydland:

So, I'm struggling here, because I just watched this on Netflix, or excuse me, Sundance now is one of the channels that I've subscribed to, okay. And they were referring to the Norwegian chess master Morrigan. I can't think of his name. But to achieve that title is the Grandmaster of chess competed against a gentleman from India, who used a computer program, I think that was using AI to think of all the different possibilities, given the moves. And one thing I was amazed about, I'm not an avid chess player, but they said after the first four moves in the chess game, there are something like over 4 billion different possible plays, they could go from those first four moves. And, of course, the advantage to having artificial intelligence with a processing speed in the computer, is it can go through all those variations. And what you're talking about is not only anticipating what the next best move is but after that move what how a sequence plays out.

Austin O’Brien:

Right? Yeah, absolutely. So you know, as far as artificial in chess goes, You know, I think back to deep blue. I can't remember the year that was running. But basically, that was just a supercomputer, because there's a game tree essentially, is how that worked is, this is the state of the board. If I make this move, then it would kind of say, Okay, well, this is what the board would look like. And then it would try to cycle through all possible moves. And like you say, just the permutations, it's a huge number. So just as a supercomputer, just trying to do as many as it can, before its time limit was up and it had to make a move was how that worked. At that time, I want to say was the 90s. I can't remember exactly when that was but, with reinforcement learning, it's, it's a little bit different. Because basically, we found that, you know, that's not really tenable, there are so many moves, that even now with supercomputers, that that's not really probably the best way to move forward. But with this reinforcement learning, what we're trying to do is find, you know, where it learns kind of the relationships between the pieces, and it kind of gives this probability, you know, what I'm talking about this reinforcement learning, it's not always just a straight-up like this up is always best or down is always best, or, you know, talking about chess, moving the knight to this position is, you know, the best thing you can do. But what it'll rather do is give a probability, like, if I move this chess piece here, I have an 80% chance of winning later on and, and so on, like that. And so it's not nearly as much computation once it's actually running training, the agent actually does take an incredible amount of time and power, but that's done before the game. And once this neural net is trained, then it actually will say, it'll look at the board, and then it'll actually compute fairly quickly out of the different options that it might do. What might be the best probability of winning not just in so it's not just for that move. What's the best move in this situation, but just like you said, looking forward, what's the end goal of winning that?

Jen Burris:

So basically, it's strategizing?

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. And that's such a good way to put it. And that's why we try to set those values, not the immediate reward, but the long-term reward. It's actually funny, we were talking about student projects. And a few years ago, I had a student project want to use reinforcement learning to do tic tac toe, right, a very similar thing. Tic tac toe, technically a solved game. You know, if you look at any board with X's and O's, there is technically the best move, you know, something like that. But the student wanted to say, Well, I want to use reinforcement learning to see if we can do something to get it to learn. And the problem was, is that he was using immediate rewards and not this long-term goal. And what would happen is, it would always try and go for a win, it would never go for a block. And it was kind of cool, but it's kind of neat, you know,

Gabe Mydland:

Just all offense?

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly, and that's what it was, is this all offense, because it wasn't thinking it wasn't strategizing, it was just thinking, what is this immediate reward, the closest thing I can do to winning, but at the same time, not actually thinking about the other player or anything like that. So it's kind of really cool.

Gabe Mydland:

So I'm kind of curious, this reinforcement learning with AI, you know, obviously, with a game of game chess or an Atari game, as you mentioned, but what are the applications in business? In the world of commerce?

Unknown Speaker

Sure, the whole idea of reinforcement learning is, to take in what is the environment? So, like, for Pac Man the screen for chess, it's the board, let's just go into the world of the stock market. Sure. So, what are the stocks and not just the stocks, you know, they're moving, but also what is happening in the world, like, I'm trying to think long term, like. So again, this is kind of above and beyond what's really out there now, but it's kind of looking at the end goal. So, you know, the idea of looking at the stocks, looking at the numbers, you know, they're going up and down. And so that's a lot of what people are working with right now. But we know that the real world affects these stocks in a dramatic way. So adding more AI, so natural language processing is the idea of a computer being able to understand language, so maybe being able to, you know, basically read articles from different internet sources, perhaps, and kind of see where maybe different companies have had great success with new announcements, or something's gone wrong with scandals, or whatever various other things, but be able to use that and also look at those stocks and be able to decide well, buying and trading, what is going to yield the highest value after and you can specify maybe a long period of time, maybe a shorter period of time. But what it will try and do, essentially, is just basically, you know, you'll start training it by you know, at first it won't know what's right and what's wrong, it'll start making random trades. And if it does things wrong, well, then the algorithm, the way that that works, is it tunes it to do you know, this, you saw this environment, you made this move, and that was bad. So, try this, try something else, essentially. And it just would try to there you go try to trade maybe a different stock, maybe for a different amount different times. And then so as far as you know, commerce goes, being able to have that live data is something that would allow it to actually function very well. But I guess, you know, reinforcement learning, just kind of coming back to that, it's just being able to look at your environment. You got to be able to feed it that data, so it can make a decision. And it can only make good decisions if it has seen similar situations before. So that's how it learns. It's not always automatic, it has to train and learn after a long period of time.

Jen Burris:

So they have to learn from their wins and their losses.

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. Yeah. It’s kind of neat because there's a lot of libraries, coding libraries that are available. And students will do that for fun. It's make-believe they're not actually making trades or anything. But that's what they'll do is they'll try to train reinforcement agents to do well on stock markets. And it's really interesting because you know, this AI, it's not just you don't just throw it out there and it just works or behaves in a certain way. There's actually a lot of tuning that's done by humans still. And so, like two different researchers trying to do the same thing might get two different reinforcement agents behaving in entirely different ways just because they how they train their agent, how they fit it data, how they treat the reward system, the value system, penalties, that sort of thing. So yeah, I think there's a lot going on.

Gabe Mydland:

I would assume that what data is made available for the processing to determine what's reinforce able what's punishable is key. I mean, so the human element is really critical. If you're reading only the Wall Street Journal, you're getting certainly a very good source of information, but you're not getting probably enough information right?

Jen Burris

And can that lead to bias in your AI?

Austin O’Brien:

Absolutely. And that's kind of the big thing, since we're talking about, you know, ethics and AI, that sort of thing. And bias can play a huge part in that. Now there's kind of there's the strict, you know, sense of bias, not like in human terms, but let's say facial recognition. One way that we talk about bias, not in the way you might be thinking, but let's say we the way that you would train an agent to recognize faces for, maybe a webcam, like it follows your face as you're moving around something. So, it has to recognize your face, or if you play around with Snapchat, all the different filters that they can do that sort of stuff. So, it has to recognize your face, essentially. So they have to train that agent with tons of faces, and whether they get that pictures from scraping the internet, you know, stealing from Facebook, or whatever, but they get all of these faces. So it learns what that looks like, well, if you only use faces, let's say just straight on looking straightforward faces right at the right the camera, then that's what it thinks a face is. As soon as anyone puts on sunglasses, it's going to get confused. And then there's also kind of the other bias that you might be thinking of if you're only, you know, training with Caucasian people, there's going to be trouble with folks of other races. And that's something that we really do have to think about when you're working with artificial intelligence - is the data that you have, does that create a bias? Because you really want to get encompassing of what it's going to be used for. And you don't want to want anything falling through the cracks that you don't think of. And data selection is a huge part of that. We have the phrase garbage in garbage out, if you don't have enough data, or it's not good going in your models not gonna work for you.

Gabe Mydland:

You’ve discussed the ethical side of AI. Are their structures are their governing bodies, or how does it work in the world of AI?

Austin O’Brien:

Right now, it is kind of a lot of self-policing there. If there is a central ethical agency, I'm honestly not aware of them. And so even if they are, then maybe they're not that effective. So, so not to be rude about it. But uh, one of the big ones that are pretty popular, there's an open AI is the company, you might be familiar with Elon Musk. And so he has his company. And so he started the whole company, the idea is that artificial intelligence could be open to everybody, so everybody could see how it's working. So we could see problems, whether that's, you know, bias or just unethical use of artificial intelligence. And one of the things that they came out with is this natural language processing agent. So being able to read text, natural language, which is normally very difficult for a computer just because of context, semantics, think of when people are being, you know, sarcastic, incredibly hard for a computer to understand that sort of thing. But they came out with a program here GPT-3 and it’s their third iteration of this natural language processing agent. They found that with just a little bit of a prompt, it was able to write entire news stories. So, you give a prompt, like this week in the news in the White House, and then you just feed that line into it. And they will write an entire news story, that would seem plausible, that sort of thing. And they became incredibly worried about obviously, you know, write fake news, artificial and artificial intelligence doing those sorts of things. So, what happened is Microsoft ended up purchasing it and said, people can use it, but the source code for it is not up for grabs anymore. Then when people use it, it's very limited. It's not kind of in the huge context like that, that what might have been made for in the first place. So you kind of have to license it out. And usually, it's these bigger companies that are doing it for you know, chatbots for their customer service things along those lines. So yeah, so ethics and AI are just such a huge thing. Deep fakes anymore, is something. Are you familiar with the idea of deep fakes?

Jen Burris:

Yeah, so I've heard a couple of recent news stories, the Tom Cruise videos were on TikTok, and then also a mother using their deep fake videos to threaten cheerleaders on her child's cheerleading squad. To try and like get them off the team, I think.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, so if you're not familiar, basically, what you can do is you can manipulate basically a video to you know, you can if you feed it, someone's face, you can have somebody else kind of doing the action, but you can put anybody's face on or vice versa, basically make a photorealistic video out of something that isn’t real, a deep fake. So that's just kind of a huge, huge ethical thing, a dilemma that we're looking at now because there are even just lots of websites where you can just upload a picture and it just looks like you're singing a song and I've seen a couple of them and it's crazy how realistic it is.

Gabe Mydland:

Well to continue with that. It was a couple of years ago after the 2016 election they were talking about Adobe had some software that not only did the visual but they were able to take President Obama who's you know, been recorded several 1000s of times, and type out a dialogue. And it not only visually looked like he was saying it, but it also sounded like he was saying it right. And being someone who is very active politically, I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's a lot different than a newspaper report or a journalist, you know, writing the story. This is what appears to be a person standing up and make taking this wild position, right? And who's to say he didn't?

Austin O’Brien:

There's a ton of research or a ton of grants, I'll say that people are saying, Can we detect deep fakes? The last paper I've seen was 96% effective at detecting a deep fake, and the way they did it was the reflection in their eyes, they could determine if the reflection was realistic to the environment that was around them, which is crazy. That's what I read.

Gabe Mydland:

Did it get to that level?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, the model that's able to determine if it's a deep fake, that's where it was able to pinpoint kind of, and that's just one method of doing it, the last one that I've read so far. But there's just a ton of money, kind of going into just being able to try to avoid that. Now, I think that we're all kind of being made aware of these types of situations, just like you say, and, you know, not just to kind of compound on kind of the scary stuff. But I remember, you know, just kind of being on the cybersecurity sort of thing in AI, I've been trying to kind of put those two together. One of them, you know, I know of is that you'll get a call, you know, one of the spam calls or something like that, and there's really nothing on the other line, they might say hello, and then there's really nothing. They're not even trying to sell anything. It's just kind of this weird nothingness? What they're trying to do is collect your voice, what does your timber, what does your tone sound like? And what they'll do is... they'll use that to call people in your phone with your voice, say, Grandma, I need a check for $1000 bucks for school. And it's crazy how they're able to do that sort of thing. So, when you're talking about ethics, we're there, we got to be able to get on top of this. So you know, there's the ethics side of making people aware of what's going on being able to teach students, you know, obviously where is the line, and then trying to get people to defend against that sort of thing. And you know, the research to be able to detect when things are going wrong. And along those lines. So, yeah, so AI and cybersecurity or even just security, in general, is just kind of the thing that's starting to come together very strongly just because of these sorts of things.

Gabe Mydland:

So we've kind of talked about the view of a dark side. You were talking about end games. And in it sounds like there's lots of promise with AI, what do you see is going to be something that AI contributes to our existence?

Austin O’Brien:

Sure. So really, the idea is trying to solve problems that we just would not have been able to come up with ourselves. And coming back to those reinforcement learning agents. The fun thing with those is that you find strategies that nobody else has ever really come up with. And so, if you think about that, you can apply that to any range of problems in any environment you can think of. So, there are a lot of environmental problems, the oceans are running hot, running out of fish, global warming, in general, picking up, you know, all this garbage that we're collecting, what can we do with it? So, there's artificial intelligence that can tell us how to create different chemical compounds. Here's an example. Like in chemistry, with recycling, maybe we're trying to break down Styrofoam cups or something like that, what can do that safely, efficiently, not give away nasty fumes, that sort of thing. Typically, in a lab, you'd have to work with these chemicals that can be expensive, time-consuming, and may be dangerous. With artificial intelligence, what we might be able to do is go down to that molecular level, they know how these combinations normally occur between different elements. And so maybe we can come up with a new compound to do that, without all of that expense of all this lab stuff. Something that comes up, you know, through the simulations, and then we'll try that in, in real life, and see if that can help us out. So maybe that's something we can do and, you know, take out pollutants in water, then, you know, agriculture is a big one that I would like to work with, too, with pesticides, you know, it's standard to just spray the whole field. And that can, you know, lead to drainage and cause issues there. Well, with artificial intelligence, we can get a bot maybe to do what we call strategic, micro, spraying something like that, where it can recognize a weed just zap it or do whatever it needs to do, and then go on and keep on moving. So we're not spraying mass chemicals, just little bits where we need to, or maybe just dig it up, Whatever you want it to do. So, there's a lot of different AI's working together with the reinforcement learning bot where it has to drive around, then you got image recognition, which is kind of its own thing where it can recognize that a plant is actually a weed and not your, your soybean plant and, and then dig it up and then, you know, return back before the battery dies, and there are lots of things that work together to make it work and so solving these huge problems that are coming up for us, you know, we got so many people on earth, you know, we only got so much food, how can we handle this? You know, it's this, these big problems, and maybe AI can help us out with whether it's in a pure application, or even maybe just coming up with new strategies, we haven't thought of.

Gabe Mydland:

Amazing. Exciting.

Jen Burris

That brings up a lot of ideas for an opportunity, and maybe a little hopefulness for some of the stuff going on.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, I know, we were talking about the bleakness of it. But you know, when I look forward, I don't think of it nearly as bleak as you know, we were talking about earlier. That's kind of with any tool that comes up in human history, there are people who are going to use it for nefarious reasons. But eventually, there's going to be either regulation, there are enough good folks, I think that are going to be willing to work to step in front of it and curb it where they have to. And so you know, when I think about AI, I don't have any of those apocalyptic worries, it's just, I don't really worry about it, I think we'll get way more good than bad.

Jen Burris:

So in the aspect of AI way down the road, you train it to try and solve this problem. And it is superseded intelligence. So it starts disregarding how that would impact humans or something is that something that is even plausible?

Austin O’Brien:

When we're talking about those bots, like you give it those values, you know, we're trying to reward it. So it reaches some end goal. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily know what the goal is, sometimes it just tries to keep getting value and value and value. But there's also you know, punishments. And so really, it comes down to because I was talking about that student who is doing tic tac toe, at the end of the day, there is still so much of a human element behind it at least right now, where I can't see a system such that any sort of hurt on a human whether physical, whether you know mental or anything along those lines, or just removing humans from the picture, I really don't see that happening explicitly. It would take somebody going out of their way to make it that way, to begin with. And that would just be odd. And it would take in to have something that could actually then affect people on a large scale, incredibly expensive, time-consuming. Like I say, all that computational power. So you're talking about governments and large companies are the ones that you'd have to worry about trying to do something like that. So that's why we have our great cybersecurity agents trying to stay on top of those sorts of things, making sure folks aren't doing gnarly things to hurt other people. And but as far as just kind of the average Joe, even if you have the intelligence and the know-how to build something like that, just the resources you would need to actually make it work. It's just not at this time feasible. So I'm not too worried.

Gabe Mydland:

So I'm thinking, let's say I'm a student, and I'm listening to this podcast, and I'm really excited about what I'm hearing about AI. And I'm thinking about coming to DSU to explore this. What does a student who's interested in in this field? What kinds of classes do they take? What's their program of study? Sure.

Austin O’Brien:

So you're working with computers, and there is a lot of programming going on. So I say computer science is kind of at your core, really doing programming algorithms, things like that. Especially with machine learning the backbone to a lot of it is statistics. So, I would say if you could learn as much statistics as you can, and then kind of run with that also just kind of math in general, neural nets, in order to work properly. You know, they use a lot of linear algebra, which is, you know, matrices and vectors being multiplied and added together. all that fun stuff.

Gabe Mydland:

I'll take your word for it. (Laughter).

Austin O’Brien:

And multivariate calculus, right. So to build those algorithms, you know, is kind of fairly math-intensive, I kind of equate it to like someone building a car versus being able to drive a car, we're kind of at the point where these software libraries I've kind of been calling them. Where these packages where you know, a programmer can still build these agents without having to know this intense math, the computer can kind of do that behind the scenes. For the most part, it's really good to understand. So if you have to tweak it can do that fairly quickly. But why we're doing these courses now at this undergraduate level is that's just kind of starting to become possible is where these students can really take off and build these agents without this incredible mountain of statistics and math behind them. So as far as that goes, you know as much math and stats as you can just really understand, getting back to your question there and then programming there. But after that, you know, we're working on building AI at Dakota State University as a full-fledged degree. And so, a part of that, though, is that we want people to actually apply it to all of these different problems. So really taking an expanse of different majors, applying it to music, applying it to psychology, applying it to agriculture, teaching. All of these different things are so viable, that we really want a diverse set of students who want to apply AI to other fields. And so we really want to see is kind of this AI for all this kind of the idea. So we want all sorts of students at all levels.

Jen Burris:

And you guys have an AI minor now, right?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, we started with a specialization. You know, we were just kind of just playing with the idea. We had students who were interested. So you have to do some courses. And then we'll have this specialization, said, well, let's take it another step further. So that's what we did. We built the minor those courses kind of really shot off. And so we've been working to see if a Bachelor of Science in artificial intelligence is tenable. So we've been working on building the curriculum. And as far as I understand, we anticipate offering that this next fall.

Gabe Mydland:

Wow, that's great.

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, so a Bachelor's in AI, so we're really stoked for it. Yeah.

Jen Burris

And can you speak to any of the research that you might be working on in AI, or that's going on here at DSU?

Austin O’Brien:

Yeah, so just kind of going back to, you know, using AI, and then, you know, just because Dakota State is, you know, has a huge footprint in cybersecurity, I had a graduate student I worked with to build an agent that would do penetration testing. A penetration tester, they'll be hired by some company to basically try to find the faults in their security system, try and actually hack into it, and, that sort of thing. So trying to build an agent to automate that process, you know, going into, you know, computer terminals, automatically typing commands, findings, quote, unquote, sensitive files, that sort of thing. That's something that I've kind of been working on the last kind of few years or so with students. And then just kind of in my own time, eventually, I would like to really kind of get more into agriculture. You know, I really liked the idea of these bots working and, you know, self-driving tractors is already kind of a thing that's out there. My father-in-law has one of those, it's pretty fun. So working with other universities in the state, who are, who have kind of that agricultural, the resources to be able to do that research. It's good to be collaborative whenever you can. So that's really great, you know, to be in South Dakota, where it's the primary economic factor, as far as I understand. So those are kind of the things that I've just kind of been working on. And you know, as you say, just kind of that precision AG, but we've been hiring, you know, new faculty just over the last few years that are just super interested in AI besides me, some folks are doing research with looking at x rays, letting the computer look at x rays and determine what's the probability of cancer? Let's say like in the lungs or something like that. And we have others that are, you know, working on what's called edge AI. So, I was talking about, you know, how much computational power it takes to run these things? Well, edge AI is where actually the computation is done on maybe like a central server, and then it's beamed either via the internet, or a wireless network or something like that, to like a mobile device or device on a tractor.

Jen Burris:

So you don't need all that space.

Austin O’Brien:

Exactly. You don't need all that computational power, I can just kind of still run the intelligence side of it, without really burning the battery.

Jen Burris:

Those definitely sound like great things to be looking into, especially the ag in South Dakota.

Austin O’Brien:

So that's just what interests me. But like, the fun thing is about this is students come up with the best ideas. They'll walk up to me and just say, I want to do this. And I'm like, that's, that's cool. Let's go pursue it. So. whether it's just playing with games, or like I say, a lot of students are interested in the stock market these days. But with Sanford health, that sort of thing, we've developed a new relationship with them. So, there's just a lot that we can do there as well, with artificial intelligence in the medical community. So that's another exciting opportunity that's opening up for us. So now, a lot going on. We're stoked.

Gabe Mydland:

I'm excited about the idea that you talked about it, not just a background in mathematical computation and statistics and things like that, but you're looking and hoping for students across disciplines to jump in this and I hope that at some point, when we develop the curriculum even further, those kinds of classes might be an elective or two, that students can pursue not only their professional passions but add to that another dimension, where they're using and understanding how AI might be something that can assist them in their futures.

Austin O’Brien:

Right. Absolutely. So maybe like you say, if their bachelor's degree is in education, something along those lines, maybe they can do an AI minor and see how that can help them a little bit and at least like you say, understand what's going on. And, and then I don't want to talk too much about the major because it just hasn't been solidified yet. But really just, you know, the conversations we've been having is that we would prefer that these AI students actually pursue a minor outside of technology. Well, they can if they want to, but we really want students just from all over, because it really allows people to think of how to apply it to ideas that just haven't even thought of yet.

Jen Burris:

It kind of offers a diversity of thought in the AI industry, then?

Austin O’Brien:

Absolutely. And that'd be great. And that's where new ideas come up. And then you know, somebody uses AI for such and such problem in education and somebody else in some other program, whether it's, you know, maybe athletics or something along those lines, saying, Hey, I kind of see what they're doing there, I can kind of twist it a little bit to work in such a way with mine. So it just, it just opens up this idea of applying AI and all of these different ways that we just haven't thought of yet.

Jen Burris:

Sounds like an exciting area for new students to look into

Austin O’Brien:

Hope so yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're excited.

Gabe Mydland:

If I  was only 40 years younger.

Austin O’Brien:

Oh, you could do it now.

Gabe Mydland:

Well, I guess I could.

Jen Burris:

Yeah, there's no timeline.

Austin O’Brien:

Four years from now, you'll still be four years older. Might know AI.

Gabe Mydland:

That's true. I can't wait to tell the wife (laughter). Honey…

Jen Burris:

Have her help you with the math homework.

Gabe Mydland:

Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely, because you really freak me out on the math.

Austin O’Brien:

It's not so bad.

Jen Burris:

Well, anything else that you want to add while you’re here?

Austin O’Brien

Let's see. So, I want to make sure I plug the program, but I think I did that pretty well. But every time I’ve ever heard an interview about AI, there's always that doom and gloom, you know, that comes up. And I guess I just want to say the folks don't worry too much about that. It's way more sci-fi than then you think. And then even with the deep fakes and things that are real. And then the other things like that there are folks who are working to rein it in. So, I was gonna say, don't panic, because a lot of people do. And I think I think the future with AI is actually really exciting. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. And I think it's going to solve a lot of these problems that were a lot of us are worried about, you know, the whole grand scheme of things. And I think, eventually it's going to help us solve those problems. People working with AI to help bring that together for a better future than we might have had without it.

Jen Burris:

Excellent. Well, I want to thank Austin and Gabe, for being here and chatting.

Gabe Mydland:

This was fascinating. This was great.

Austin O’Brien:

I appreciate it.

Jen Burris:

It was a learning experience for us all I think and I want to thank Spencer, our sound designer.

Jen:

Welcome to Cyberology Dakota State University's new podcast where we'll be sharing and discussing all things cyber. I’m Jen Burris from the marketing and communications department at DSU and I'll be your host. Today we'll be talking about cybercrime, which generally speaking, is considered a criminal activity involving a computer network or network device.

I have a couple of experts here with me. I'm excited to welcome my illustrious cohost for the episode Dr. Ashley Podhradsky. Ashley is a woman of many accomplishments and almost as many titles at DSU. She is an Associate Dean in the Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences, where she is also an associate professor of digital forensics. She is the founding director of DigForCE, a digital forensics lab that is a regional resource for law enforcement agencies and businesses who have been victimized by cybercriminals. She is also the founder of CybHER a program with the mission of empowering, motivating, educating, and changing the perceptions of girls and women in cybersecurity. But that's not it. She's currently serving as Interim Vice President of Research and Economic Development here. Ashley, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Well, that is a big list. As you're reading it, I am excited to be here today and to talk about the work that Dr. Arica Kulm is doing in the dig force lab at Dakota State University. Connecting with students is one of my favorite things about being a professor. You get to learn their strengths, their interests, and watch them excel in their career. I met Arica when she was coming to study for her master's degree and then I asked her would you consider a Ph.D.? And I was thrilled when she said yes, today Dr. Kulm is the first graduate of our Ph.D. in Cyber Defense program and is our lead digital forensic analyst in the DigForCE lab. Creating that lab is something that is a big passion of mine because our field of digital forensics and incident response helps people, organizations, and the government here in South Dakota and beyond address cybercrime.

Jen Burris:

Amazing. And with that, why don't we have Erica talk a little bit about herself.

Arica Kulm:

Yeah, so thank you, Ashley, for that generous introduction. Like Ashley said, I came to DSU to pursue a master's degree, kind of a career change for me. And I found myself wanting to get into a field that was interesting and impactful. And I think that's what I said, I was looking for a job, that would be something that was interesting, and made an impact on people. And when I was going through the master's program, people would often ask me, like, what are you going to do when you're done? And that always made me uncomfortable, because I really didn't know. And I knew I'd liked forensics, I knew it interesting, but in our areas, so often, that leads to law enforcement, which obviously, I don't have a background in law enforcement. So, I really was fortunate to be here, right at the perfect time when DigForCE was being launched. And honestly, when I started the master's program, had no intention of pursuing a Ph.D. But same thing, perfect timing, the cyber defense Ph.D. happened to be offered right at the same time that I was finishing the master's program. And I thought, sure, why not. I had finished basically all the core classes and had the research classes and a dissertation left. And I thought, well, a dissertation doesn't seem so hard, which in hindsight, was a little short-sighted. But I'm now finished and fortunate enough to be working in the lab. And I get to come to work every day and do a job that I love doing and do it with people that I really enjoy being with. So, I'm very fortunate.

Ashley Podhradsky:

We're at the intersection in our field there, technology, and IoT, our wearables our phone has become such an integrated part of our life. And at the same point, people then do things they shouldn't do with those devices and investigating what data resides on the device where the device was, what the people did with it. That's what this field is all about. And having a person who's inquisitive and intelligent and can take those puzzle pieces and put them together and tell us a story, is what this field is, and Erica excels in that space. And fortunately, with her leadership and work, we've been able to help quite a few agencies investigate cybercrime that's occurred throughout our state.

Jen Burris:

is that something that happens quite frequently?

Arica Kulm:

It’s very frequent. So, it depends on what you consider a cybercrime. Because what we do in the lab is more host-based device forensics versus, you know, a network intrusion or data breach or that type of thing. And we can certainly do that. But what we've done up to this point is more the host device forensics at this point.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And can you talk a little bit about what the process is like with the host forensics?

Arica Kulm:

Sure, so you know, as Ashley said, we work with different agencies here in the state and some federal agencies as well. So, when they have a criminal investigation, where they've seized a device, they'll submit it to us. And it always has to come along with the proper paperwork. So, either search warrant or signed consent form. And we read that form to see what we're authorized to look for because it's not always a blanket consent to look for everything that there is on the device. So, if it's a drug case, we're looking at chat information, images, communications, that type of thing. And we extract the data in a forensically sound way and go through and look for whatever we're looking for. And then a big part of what we do is write very detailed reports, we write how we got the device, step by step, everything we did with it, and to document that, and then what our findings are. And so, a couple of things that we really need to be conscious of are being very detail-oriented and having very good writing skills. One of the last reports I did was, I think 50 pages. So Yeah, it can be

Jen Burris:

Wow time-consuming,

Arica Kulm:

It can be long and time-consuming. But you know, Ashley mentioned it being like a puzzle. Also starting a new case is a little bit like reading a new book, you know, you're reading through the case report to see what it's all about. And then you're going through that evidence to see what evidence that you have there matches up with what you're finding in the case report. And kind of like a book you're reading, sometimes it's super interesting and really kind of sad when you get to the end. And sometimes about halfway through you’re just like ugh, I just want to be done with this. Even though you can't, you know, you can't just shut and be done, you have to finish and do a thorough job no matter what it is. But that's what I would kind of equate it to also is kind of like reading a book.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Okay, so the labs working on a lot of drug cases, as Arica mentioned, but another example would be embezzlement and people that are in business together, perhaps one starts selling inventory online, and is cutting the partner out of the profits. So taking a look at the different sites they visited the different transactions they have on their machine or system and the communication that they had people document a tremendous amount of things that they're doing and being able to pull those pieces together to share what happened is all part of this space.

Jen Burris:

Do you think some people even document things that they might not realize are telling on themselves? Do you find that?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Oh, absolutely.

Arica Kulm:

Absolutely. I find a lot of screenshots. People that, they may delete the text message, but they've screenshotted the text, and it's saved as an image on their phone.

Jen Burris:

I have a lot of screenshots on my phone. Yeah.

Ashley Podhradsky

You wouldn't want someone going through years of your screenshots no.

Arica Kulm:

Even as an innocent person, I don't want somebody going through my phone.

Jen Burris?

Yeah. Okay. So, what is a standard day for you? When you're working on a case? Is it all research and reporting?

Arica Kulm:

It varies. I would say we average probably three cases being submitted a week. So, it's coordinating with those law enforcement officials, if they're gonna drop it off, or if it gets sent to our office. So, it's, you know, in taking the device and the information, we photograph everything, when we get it, we make sure that we have all the proper documentation. If there are any questions, then we communicate back with them. If we have any questions on what they're seeking, or what they're looking for, once we photograph it, then we're doing the extraction. So, we're working with the device itself. And then once we're done with that, then we're processing it and then looking through that information. So, it's, you know, some days are routine, and you're kind of doing the same thing, but other days, not so much. It's, you know, coordinating with those officials as well.

Jen Burris:

So, would you say there's a lot of collaboration in your department in DigForCE? Or is it kind of solo?

Arica Kulm:

it's pretty solo a lot of the times Yeah if we're doing research, there's a collaboration in which we have a research student employee that works in our office who is a great help to us. And he does a lot of our research for us if we have something that we're not sure, you know, we get a new device, we got a GPS device in last week that we haven't done before. So it's having him, you know, look up, he doesn't do the work on the device itself, because that's evidence but you know, he can do the research online and try to figure out, you know, what would be the first step to deal with? How would we handle that?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah. And that's really helpful having our student employees who don't touch anything with the actual case, but we can say, here's this new router, or here's this IoT wearable device. Tell us what other people have found, what have people published about it so that way we can take that in and use that to advance the work

Arica Kulm:

And we're fortunate we have a student right now who's reliable, great communication skills, and just a great student. So

Jen Burris:

 it's a nice learning experience?

Arica Kulm:

Yeah, it's, you know, it's not always that easy to find. So, I'm very thankful for that as well.

Ashley Podhradsky:

I like to bring up one of the specialties that we have in the lab. And I'm gonna tee this up for Arica because she's not gonna say how awesome she is in this space. But the dark web is such an emerging part of our work. Criminals are using it to obfuscate their location, there are transactions that are occurring on it of illicit goods. And there are very few forensic investigators that understand how to find host-based dark web artifacts on a machine, whether that's on Linux or phone or a Windows-based system. Dr. Kulm’s dissertation was focused on this, she spent a couple of years honing her skills and understanding what data resides and how you can analyze it and use it in your case. So, she's gotten to the point where, you know, she is that national leader in this space. And you know, people have been using the dark web for a long time, but more people are starting to understand that it's being used and they're recognizing that they don't have the knowledge to properly investigate it. So that means that a lot of people are perhaps walking on situations that they could have been prosecuted on. So, I'd like if Arica could talk to us about her work on host-based dark web artifacts, and perhaps any anecdotes of cases where she has used that.

Arica Kulm:

Yeah, so my dissertation was on finding those host-based artifacts and creating a framework that investigators could use to assist in finding those because they're not always obvious and easy to find. So, I used Justin Nordine’s OSINT framework, and it's a clickable framework. So, you can go in and it's a yes, no. If it's this, then is it that type of framework. So, you go in the first question is, are you dealing with Windows? are you dealing with Mac OS? Or do you have a tails drive, which is a bootable operating system to access the dark web? And then as you step through each one, it asks a series of questions to help walk you through what you're trying to find on that system. And then as you get through, it gives you the artifacts that you can look for, and not all artifacts that are listed on the framework will you necessarily find on a system and there may be artifacts that are on a system that may not be in the framework, it's you know, obviously with any framework, it's a work in progress, but it is a good guideline to help investigators find those artifacts. And a way that I use to validate it was to have our South Dakota DCI ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) task force, some of the members from that go through and validate it and use it and actually use it in an actual case to find some of those. And one of the things we're finding, and we've had a couple of cases recently that the people that are using the dark web to go out and buy drugs are high school students. So even though I would say millennials and older may have heard of the dark web and think Ooh, you know, I don't know what that is that the kids know what it is.

Jen Burris:

I find it an interesting topic. But I know very little about the dark web itself.

Arica Kulm:

Right, it's this mysterious, we know it's there. And but maybe you don't want to talk about it.

Jen Burris:

What do you think that is?

Arica Kulm:

I would equate it to ICAC a little bit like, you know, it's there. But it's maybe a little distasteful, so you don't necessarily want to address it.

Ashley Podhradsky:

ICAC is internet crimes against children. It's a lot of the child pornography casework that's done.

Arica Kulm:

You know, it's there, you know, it's happening, but maybe not to the magnitude it is. And if we just don't talk about it, then it's not an issue, which we know that's not the case.

Ashley Podhradsky:

So when you go to Google, and you put a search term in, you're going to get page results that have been indexed based on those keywords, when you go to the dark web…So traditionally use a utility like Tor, the onion router to get on the dark web and pages aren't indexed, you have the dot onion link at the end. And so, they're alphanumeric, you're not going to know what it is. It's not cnn.com foxnews.com. It's 1AA7W8, you know,

Arica Kulm:

There are 16 characters or longer and not easily rememberable, you have to go look them up and cut and paste or type them in.

Ashley Podhradsky:

So, the point is to get where you're going, you have to know what's there. And people move their sites around so often so that way people don't find them. But there are some well-known marketplaces that have had a persistent connection. There are also some legitimate uses of the technology. So, the New York Times has a dot onion page, because people all across the world who might be in countries where that type of news is prohibited, can actually read it. And so, it was actually designed by our government for our citizens across the world to communicate anonymously. So, with that anonymous ability, people started realizing that, hey, I could do more than just send a message back to the States, I might be able to make a transaction and people can't necessarily trace. So when you log on here, in Madison South Dakota, it takes your web connection and it's going to pop it all the way around the world, for multiple routers – the onion – onions have layers, it's going to go from layer to layer, and then it's going to show that your exit node might be Russia, or it might be North Korea. So, it just depends. But the whole point is it's obfuscated your location through enough hops that we can't really tell where you're coming from.

Jen Burris:

And that makes it harder than to find the person committing whatever acts that they're doing, right?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yes, absolutely.

Arica Kulm:

But it also encrypts that data along each step. So that not only is it obfuscated, it's encrypted, so you don't know what's inside that data until it gets to the very end. So, both of those things together lend themselves to criminal activity.

Ashley Podhradsky:

But it was created for data privacy, you know, we create a lot of things for good. And then people think, Hey, I could use that for the opposite reason. And so that's why we need people like Dr. Kulm who can do these types of investigations.

Jen Burris:

And what interested you in doing that dissertation on the dark web and getting further into that area?

Arica Kulm:

So, I've never heard of the dark web until Ashley, you'd asked me to do some research on it. I'm like, how can this be?

Ashley Podhradsky:

That was your first time?

Arica Kulm:

First time I had got into it. Yeah, I mean, I had probably heard of it.

Ashley Podhradsky:

I love that! Yeah, I was going on a long flight, so I asked her to put together a little read book with some new technologies in the space. Ah, I love that.

Arica Kulm:

So as I got into it, I'm like, how can it be that this is not traceable, this doesn't seem possible that you can leave no trace behind knowing what we know about forensics, that just doesn't seem possible. The traces are minimal, and like anything, depending on the sophistication of the criminal is what's left behind.

So, if they're sophisticated enough, there may not be much trace left, if you use something like tails,

Ashley Podhradsky:

Dr. Josh Stroschein and I  did a case down at the FBI in Omaha a few years ago about Deanonymizing Tor traffic. If there are misconfigurations, and settings within your browser, we can start to see the true IP. It's not masked like it was before. But those are always emerging situations because you don't know how a configuration setting will change the output unless you really dig for it. So, there are possibilities, but it's just it's not something that is absolute.

Jen Burris:

Okay. And when you find these traces, does it lead to more information about what's going on? Are you pretty solid, about being able to expand upon it once you find one in?

Arica Kulm:

You can, yeah, it can show you, you know, sites that were visited and what it can be images that were downloaded from those sites, and you'll find the dark web is full of can be full of malware. So, you may find traces of malware on that system. And you can find that they installed Tor, which like Ashley said, it's used for privacy. So, it doesn't in and of itself mean that they were doing something criminal, but that combined with some of the other things can often be an indicator of what they were doing. Yeah.

Jen Burris:

very cool. I think that that is something that a lot of people are interested in and don't know a lot about. So glad we covered that topic. Can you tell how the dark web might impact everyday people? Or if it does?

Arica Kulm:

I don't know that it really does if you don't go out and look for it. It'd be something for parents to be aware of, if you're a parent of a teenager packages starts showing up in the mail that you don't know what they are. Because that's that's how you if you're ordering something on the dark web, that's genuinely how they show up as US post office. So, you know, your student starts acting funny. And that would be something to be aware of.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, there's been a few different cases that we've done that have been started with a tip from the post office. Multiple packages being delivered, that goes to law enforcement. Law enforcement does their investigation, confiscates the devices, and turns them over to us to analyze. Brookings had a situation where someone was using stolen credit cards to purchase goods and have them shipped to their residence. So, you know, they might say, well, they just showed up. But once you look at the system, it says, well, they showed up because you bought them. You put those transactions on your systems. So, you know, there's tells and things like that as well.

Jen Burris:

And do you always know what you're looking for?

Arica Kulm:

Not always. Now, the last case that I had; it was not a drug case that it started out as –

Ashley Podhradsky:

domestic terrorism.

Arica Kulm:

Yeah, domestic terrorism. Thank you. That was a good word. And as I was looking for evidence of that, I started seeing some of these other indicators of dark web activity with weapons and drugs as it turned out, so it's not always what it seems.

Jen Burris:

I don't know how I would react if I were the one finding that information out. So how do you guys feel when you start to kind of solve the case so to speak?

Arica Kulm:

It just kinda depends on the nature of the case. You know, if we're in there, like I said, with a search warrant, where it's not always a blanket look for everything type of case. So, if we're in there looking for drugs, for example, and we find child pornography, that's something I have to stop right there. I can't investigate that for two reasons. Number one, we're not a law enforcement facility. So, we can't possess that any more legally than anyone else can. So, at that point, we stop and turn it over to the DCI investigators to do that. And the search warrant doesn't specifically say that's what we're looking for. So that's something that we can't do so and that would be a case where we have to just stop and then we don't always know what happens to that case. So that can be a little frustrating.

Jen Burris:

So, DCI would take over the case completely at that point?  

Arica Kulm and Ashley Podhradsky:

Correct. Correct.

Arica Kulm:

And that can be a little frustrating, not because we're turning it over to them because they're more than capable and we know it's in good hands then. But we don't always know what happens to it at that point.

Ashley Podhradsky:

The digital forensics lab at Dakota State University has dual leadership. We know that we need academic leadership for our DSU side, but we need law enforcement leadership through the DCI side divisional criminal investigation, so I work jointly with agent Toby Russell. He is a DCI agent and he's in our lab and works with Erica. He works with Erica more than I do on a daily basis. And he's has a wealth of information and knowledge. So, our funding through the Attorney General's Office supports the leadership between DSU and DCI in order to have this lab so that way the output and reports that we do are accepted in law enforcement. Arica goes and testifies in court in participates in expert witness testimony and does those things. So, through our funding through the attorney general's office and consumer protection in our partnership with the Division of Criminal Investigation, we're set up to succeed in this space and assist law enforcement in South Dakota in helping solve cybercrime. In addition to the digital forensic casework that Dr. Kulm leads with our partners in DCI, we also do investigations for consumer protection in the attorney general's office. So individuals, organizations, government entities in the State of South Dakota who has had a crime or cybercrime in that regard, so perhaps it is a scam where a business lost $50,000 on payroll diversion, perhaps it's a scam where someone was tricked into buying gift cards because the CEO asked them to and they need to figure out who that person was. So, we've helped in multimillion-dollar scams that have arisen here in South Dakota for, as I mentioned, individual people, businesses, private entities, and the state government.

Jen Burris:

Do you think that a lot of people don't hear about these things? Because when I think about South Dakota, I don't think about multimillion-dollar scams taking place.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yeah, yeah, people aren't excited to advertise that they were scammed out of money because you might not have as much confidence in that business and their operations. And so, people think, well, we have our data breach notification law, we should know this stuff now. Well, not really, because there are certain parameters that have to be met. And a loss of a million dollars doesn't meet that threshold, because he didn't lose personally-identifying information. And so there are things that happen daily here in the state, unfortunately, but the biggest takeaway from all the cases that we looked at is, when you incorporate the human into it, you can usually stop it in its tracks. So it's very common for HR departments all across our state and country to get an email from someone or fax that says, I updated my checking account, please use this new routing and new account number to process my next payroll. Oftentimes, that form is found on their website so they can find out and it lists on their fax it here. You know, they might go up to LinkedIn and say, Hey, I know this executive works at this company. Here's the form that changes payroll, and here's where I fax it. And so, the number one thing people can do is just pick up the phone and say, Hey, Mrs. CEO, did you really change your payroll? And if it's no then don't process it. So, you know, schools are hit hard in that area, and municipalities are hit hard in that area. And it's all about trying to balance the scam with the quickness that we're set to operate. And when you throw in a virtual world of a pandemic, it further exacerbates that so whenever you hear something or get something in that context, just reach out and call the person don't email them back – “Hey, is this really you? Mrs. CEO?” Well, they’re gonna say yes, it might not be. And it likely isn't. So just as a tip always reach out.

Arica Kulm:

And I think CEOs can help themselves too, by informing their staff, I will never ask you to buy gift cards or that type of thing. And it's so easy it is to handle everything by email, and I get that, but the personal connection, just pick up the phone. And one of the things that Ashley you didn't mention that we also do for the attorney general's office is consumer education.

Ashley Podhradsky:

Yes, yes.

Arica Kulm:

You know, we do a lot of that out of our lab just to help consumers, you know, protect their private information, whether it's on social media, or just educating them about what they're putting out there. And just know what of your data that you are putting out there for people to then use to, you know, then further these scams.

Ashley Podhradsky:

You know, and that's the uniqueness that we bring to the table as an educational entity, is that our core is education. And yes, we can do the applied work, we can do the casework, we can help them solve what they need to solve. But on the reverse, we also are incorporating the human factor into it along with the education of, well, we're seeing so many of these Can't we just turn that around and help train people a little bit better? Can't we help educate our citizens in the state that you should not send someone you met on Facebook money? You know, those kinds of things. So, the romance scams that we see in our state, all of those types of scams that impact our citizens, just kind of breaks your heart. And so, as Dr. Kulm mentioned, we are incorporating those common lessons learned into outreach for AARP and things like that.

Arica Kulm:

And I think people see those on the news and think, Oh, my gosh, how could you ever fall for that, but it happens all the time. And I think people just get caught up in it. And sometimes they know themselves, and just can't either can't or won't get out of it, for whatever reason, and it's hard. And they're very good at it. They aren't making all this money scamming people because they're bad at it.

Jen Burris:

And do you think that scams are something that every citizen should be educating themselves about?

Arica Kulm and Ashley Podhradsky:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Arica Kulm:

Be aware of your own information that you're putting online. You know, we live in a world of social media, but you don't have to put everything out there.

Ashley Podhradsky:

You know, I have a seven-year-old daughter. And when I let her play on games like Roblox, it's always when I'm right there with her. So, she was in the kitchen, and I was making dinner, and someone sent her, and I tell her, you can play the games, but you can't chat with anyone. Well, a chat popped up, and they said, 'I know where you live.' And Chloe, my daughter, she's like, 'someone says they know where I live'. And I said, 'tell them mommy has a VPN. And that's not true.'

Everyone:

Laughter.

Ashley Podhradsky:

But you know, so I mean, it goes to that young of a group where, you know, parents might think, hey, well, this is a game, it's harmless. Well, it's not because you still have those games are not, when I grew up, it's not Nintendo words rudimentary standalone devices, it's heavily embedded communication systems. And they might look like a game. But your kid is can be chatting with someone that you have no idea who they are, you're inviting them into your world, and they can say anything. And so, you know, putting those safeguards on your kids to is important.

Jen Burris:

Something that some parents might not be aware of?

Ashley Podhradsky:

 Yeah, you can get proton VPN for free. All it does is it takes your connection and does obfuscate it. So, it takes those hops along so people can't see who you're where you're at. It takes the geolocation ability from the IP and protects you in an extra step.

Arica Kulm:

And even the paid versions, what $2 a month or something

Ashley Podhradsky:

I pay $10 for multiple devices.

Jen Burris:

So just another safety measure?

Ashley Podhradsky:

Absolutely.

Jen Burris:

Okay, well, anything else that you guys want to…

Ashley Podhradsky:

You know, when it comes to protecting ourselves in businesses and organizations, if you go to the consumer protections website, or call them at 1-800-300-1986, they can help anyone who has been scammed or has been part of a situation like this, and they can help get some hopeful resolution for you. But they have tips on their website that they change quite often, too. If you go out to the DigForCE website on the DSU site, we have different tips for social media platforms. So, if you want to lock down your Facebook or your LinkedIn or your Twitter, how do you do that? What steps do you take to make sure that your account is private and can't see your information that you don't want them to see

Jen Burris:

That's definitely a good resource. And I'm glad you shared that with us. Well, I don't want to keep you busy ladies all day. But I just want to thank you both for coming in Ashley for cohosting and Arica for being our guest. And Our sound designer Spencer Raap. Thank you for listening and make sure to subscribe to our podcast Cyberology.

DSU spot:

Technology's changing everything fast, faster than you can say Bitcoin or 3d printed meatloaf. But you know that what you might not know is a school right here at home is leading the future of cyber, Dakota State University. With cyber, we're solving real problems and transforming education. We're redefining possibilities for the entire state and beyond. Get to know Dakota State. The future is here. See how we're breaking through at DSU.Edu.