Growing Skills Through Volunteering

Episode Transcript

SB S1 E15 – Amber Garrison Duncan

Kelly: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby. I am your host Kelly Ryan Bailey. Each week, I chat with inspiring visionaries about the skills that make them successful, how they developed those skills, and their innovative approaches to improving skills based, hiring and learning around the world. Come learn what skills help you live your best life.

My guest today is Amber Garrison Duncan. Thank you so much for joining us today, Amber.

Amber: Oh my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Kelly: We’re really excited to dive in. But before we do, let me give a little background on Amber. Amber is a Strategy Director at Lumina Foundation, which is an independent private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all.

I think that’s going to [00:01:00] resonate with a lot of us here today as well. In that role, she leads a portfolio of work that supports the creation of a system where high quality learning can be validated and valued regardless of where it happens and efficiently contribute to credentials. Lumina’s work in this area includes company competency-based education, learning frameworks, assessment, credential recognition, and learner records, as well as quality assurance and all of this work allows Amber to draw on her 15 years of Excel.

As a campus based professional designing co-curricular learning experiences and leading assessment. I really love this background, Amber, I’m going to just mention that prior to Amber joining Lumina in 2013, she has served as director of student affairs, assessment and research at the university of Oregon.

Also the director of family programs and commencement at the university of Oregon, a first year Instructure [00:02:00] instructor at Florida State University and an intake and investigations coordinator at the university of Michigan. And she was also an assistant director of housing and Greek life at hope college.

I can only assume that all of this wonderful background has really given you such like a great view of the work that you’re doing now. Another thing to point out is that Amber has researched and written on general education assessment. Innovation in students, affairs, Latinas in higher education and women in leadership.

She is the co-editor of the book, leading assessment for student success, 10 tenants that change culture and practice in student affairs, which was published in 2015. We’re actually going to probably have to ask you how to get access to that, to where it’s available. But she holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas women’s university.

Master’s degree from Texas a and M and a doctorate from the university of Oregon. So that’s, that’s the end of my gushing here on you today. But I think this is [00:03:00] like, I point these things out. Yeah. Not on the, because they’re such wonderful accomplishments and we want you to, like, we want to share that with the world, but also, because to me, when I hear those different roles that you’ve had within education, it really.

Is I can, I only imagine, like I said, how that must lead to the work that you’ve done here at Illumina, because you really truly understand you’ve been in there.

Amber: Yes, it was good to have that grounding. Thank you. It’s like where have I been in my life? And to hear just how different all the titles were.

And I’ve always just considered myself a bit of a generalist. But the, the thing that is, has been consistent when we think about skillsets is each of those jobs I was brought in to either create something new or re completely renovate something. Right. And so, but I didn’t recognize that, that through line until probably right before I started at Lumina, but no, it’s good grounding.

It definitely gave me a lot of real experience with students as well. Just to know, what was it like to be a student today and [00:04:00] what are the challenges, where are the great things about it, but yeah.

Kelly: Yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s fantastic. And I would love, I mean, I know I gave some of the highlights here of how you kind of landed this.

I know, and, and I was laughing a little bit there because most cases we don’t realize the connections are really where this whole path in life is leading us until later. But what I find really interesting is kind of how I would love to know how you got into that and really, maybe a little bit more about your journey besides the highlights.

Amber: Sure. Thank you. Yeah. So I think I would go back to You know, just thinking in high school even. So I was so part that we didn’t talk about before I went to Texas woman’s university was, I was an athlete. It was really I played three varsity and three sports. So I thought I’m going to go and be a physical therapist.

And I got to Texas woman’s university and had a tremendous experience. But what I learned about myself was like, That wasn’t my career path. And I was really involved, which was good to learn, right? Yeah. [00:05:00] I L I like this, but this isn’t like my passion. So you know, how do I, where was I spending my time?

And I was spending my time in student government. I was president of my sorority. I was active in the community with lots of community. Different things happening on campus and someone who was kind of who was a mentor for me, sat me down and said like, Amber, like you are really good with your peers and leading your peers, like, have you thought about education?

And I was like, no, like I just, you know, kinda hit child from Delaware. And I was like, oh, this, these are jobs. Like, there are people working with me every day and what I’m doing. And so I. Began to be mentored by, by Monica Mendez grant is one of my big mentors. And then also the vice president of student affairs at the time, Richard Nicholas took me under their wing and I created a practicum experience and just started to learn about the opportunities that could Exists as far as like a career in higher education that I had not even thought about.

And so, you know, it’s [00:06:00] always those mentors, right? Who kinda like shine a light on something and help you see something amazing to see something in yourself that you didn’t see. Like I had been again, kind of thinking healthcare, all these other components. But it was really my, my kind of people skills that they saw me.

Being able to leverage and be successful in executing in an educational context. So, you know, making that shift led me to my master’s degree in student affairs administration and higher ed, and then working for 15 years and all those jobs that you, that you mentioned And, and the three thread again was kind of this, like I’m a change agent.

Like that’s what I know now. Again, there’s, you know, like, as you know now yeah, I’m I’m a change agent. So again, it was like, oh, I, I’m not a maintainer. Like I know that’s like, don’t lead me in to like, maintain something. Cause I’ll be like, Ooh, if we just. Tweak this I can’t, I cannot. So, you know, luckily I had jobs again where it was like, we need a new program or, you know, we had just, we need to start a [00:07:00] family programs.

You know, department or you can also see in my job that I often held two different roles or got a promotion of some sense, because it was like, okay, once I got something done, now let’s go what’s, what’s the next thing we’re going to change? What are we going to like amplify or make better? And again, so I, I feel lucky that I was able to leverage that in each of those roles.

And then certainly. That’s what led me to Illumina. It was seeing across all those institutions, you would be named that students were having the same barriers and problems, regardless of what context they were in. You know, there’s a large research university, there’s a small private college on that list, right?

Different areas of the country. Why? And we have these systemic barriers for students. And I really want to get outside of higher ed and just. Hook on these issues. And again, try to be that change agent.

Kelly: You said he was like, okay,

Amber: wait. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that, that’s what when the job was an opportunity at Illumina, [00:08:00] you know, that’s very much what we do every day is figuring out how do we make this experience?

And it’s very much focused on students. That’s the other piece that I draw on in my background every single day is that as student affairs, professional, That’s all you’re thinking about his students and their success and their learning. So keeping them at the center of conversations can be hard when you’re in an institutional administrator or a state policy maker, because you’re, you’re Allegiant has to be, you know, Is the institution going to survive?

Not maybe what’s always best for the students. So I feel like at Lumina, we get to keep that at the core and make sure that what we’re doing is about students.

Kelly: Now, when you were in those roles, w I, I, this is what I’m curious about because I’m thinking this because of my own experience as a student, and that’s sort of what led me to really get passionate about this.

So I’m wondering now, I can imagine you like heading up the, you know, a sorority or something and all the changes you might have been interested in making, because it was something that potentially [00:09:00] affected you. What is that? How you felt as a student? Were you seeing things that, again, you might not have realized, like change agent was this special power or skill that you had.

But I, I I’m guessing that maybe that’s what you were doing.

Amber: Yes. That’s how I found myself as the speaker of the house of representatives and the student government at TW and and actually part of rewriting the bylaws and structure of the student government. While I was there, I was like, again, how do we, how do we take this to the next level?

And so that was, you know, student in the sorority. Absolutely. We wanted to. Double our membership and really Increase our sisterhood. You know, those are big things that we were setting goals and working towards. And so being able to be that leader that was again, setting a vision and a tone and a direction was definitely part of what I was learning when I was.

Engaged in those co-curricular activities. Which is also, I think, why I’m so passionate about the learning that takes place and a lot of different contexts,

Kelly: That like [00:10:00] firsthand,

Amber: right? So much of my, I mean, and throughout my life, I’ve leveraged my volunteer. Work, whether that’s been and professional associations, I served as a national volunteer for my sorority, supervising 50 volunteers, right.

Like I have not supervised 50 people in my life, but I got to do that in a volunteer capacity, which it was a great again, leadership opportunity for me. So so as we got into this work at lumen around all learning accounts, you know how we understand what those skillsets are, how we Validate them when there’s not like a set systems, there’s not a course around it.

Poses a challenge to our systems of learning, you know, bear on high school, but it’s, but there’s so many rich places I think too about you know, my mom was a single, single mom growing up. And watching her manage, you know, she was going to school full time, working full school, working full time, raising three kids, doing all this stuff.

I was like, how do you like manage your [00:11:00] time? Do all of this effectively. And that skill set of like multitask. I mean, there’s just a lot of things that I think there’s a lot

Kelly: in there.

Amber: That then again, that an employer would be like, that is what I need for someone to bring to my. To my team or what I’m working on.

And again, wanting to make sure that those are things we value. And when you look at who can demonstrate those skillsets, it’s often people who have been disenfranchised. In some way. So that’s where it’s it just, yeah, it’s very personal in a sense of like, this was my journey, but also seeing this is everyone’s journey.

I mean, the, the human way of going about the world is that we’re constantly learning so

Kelly: true. It’s so true. I really, what I’m hearing is because like, I’m, of course I’m always picking up on skills as, as you’re describing this journey. So of course I’ve heard, you know, we might not necessarily. Coined the term change agent as a skill, but quite honestly, it is.

It’s just something that it’s like your unique gift. I guess some people might call it that, but it’s truly a skill. The other thing I’m hearing a lot [00:12:00] is empathy, you know, because you’re really able to understand what other students might be going through and how you can make change. And so that. I think is so important.

And even just hearing you describe the story from your mother, you know, and experiencing that and how it likely that you brought that into a lot of your work and your, you know, early on in your career with these different roles is because all of these students, my guess is they weren’t, some of them were very similar in a similar situation to your mother.

You know, it’s not. Necessarily that we all, and I think it’s always good to remind this because most of us think that, oh, students are young, they’re coming in from high school. They don’t have a lot on their plate. They’re able to do all these things. That’s not always the case. In many more cases than not.

You know, and I laugh because we use the term right. Traditional versus non-traditional. Whereas like the traditional is actually less than the non-traditional.

Amber: Yes. And a big piece of what we tried to be doing at Lumina is an actual campaign [00:13:00] called today’s students to say, you know, the majority overwhelming majority.

I mean, most students work At least part-time, if not more, most of them were more they’re have caregiving responsibilities either for their own children or grandparents or parents or aunts or uncles, someone in their life caregiving. They’re working two to three jobs, you know, that might You know, again, managing all those things, getting different skillsets from different experiences.

Absolutely. I think that’s is

Kelly: this like this time period too with COVID has really allowed anyone who may not have been aware of all the other things that people are doing in their life. They’re highly aware of it right now,

front and center. Like if my kids come running in the room, In the middle of a podcast. That’s what happens. My son did one second before we started. But you know, that’s, that’s what it is right now. I mean, it’s, it’s all kind of wrapped up into one thing. And I think that at least the [00:14:00] things that I’ve been reading and I’m sure you have as well in regards to people saying, well, you know what, I don’t, I want my workplace to see me.

As all the parts of me, not just this one thing. And there, and not only are people now saying this about their work environments, but they’re saying it about their learning environments too. And they’ve been saying it, it’s not that they haven’t. It’s just that I think. This is like this collective moment where we all finally get it.

I hope so. I mean, I think so. I hope

Amber: so. I hope so too. I do think you know, we are seeing, and I’ll just kind of reminisce on faculty a little bit as we’ve been following, you know, how are faculty responding to. Now I am teaching online, which also means that my home is now essentially opened the students, but also how I have a window again, into students’ lives.

And so that empathy you, you hit on. I think we’re seeing more of that of people trying to have a bit more empathy and also you can see it in the dialogue about do people have to turn their cameras on or not? And people just finally saying like, [00:15:00] You should do what works best for you, because maybe you do have, you know, siblings or your kiddos like doing their homework right next or someone

Kelly: last night.

Because like, even this is why I’m like, it’s so funny because people forget all just the regular things that happen. And this happened to me loud last night, or someone was sick last night and you didn’t really sleep. And so you’ve had to have five cups of coffee. You haven’t washed your hair in a week and you just don’t want to get on the video.

Amber: Yes, but it’s definitely the, oh my God. Yeah, there’s a lot going on. And I do think COVID has allowed us to see again, this more human way of being, and, and what we know about just back to learning is that, you know, when people feel connection and in community, that’s when the learning happens. And so I do hope that this, and we are seeing this again, this one at a time of just.

Being in connection and community in ways that weren’t maybe possible when you’re in a lecture hall with 300 people. You know, and, and I think that there’s some [00:16:00] personalization happening. There’s also when we think about equity of access things you know, certainly there’s the digital divide component, but when you’ve seen schools who have said, like, this is an opportunity for us, especially in the K-12 space, why aren’t we thinking about.

Our segregation issues. Like we no longer have to. Since, you know, kids to school based on where they live, we could fix this right now. If we took the phone in time,

Kelly: if they just could fit, like I realized just as we talked earlier, before we hit record, it’s not like it’s just going to be fixed like that.

I mean, we’re not. But it’s just those little pressure points that you keep wanting to. It

Amber: is I, yeah. This is the part part about being a change agent and I’d like constant. You’re like, okay, disruption creates chaos, which creates opportunities for change that can be bad or good change. And how do we make that?

Like we, we want to make the most change for the most good for the most people that we can. And if we, [00:17:00] if we don’t pay attention to that in this moment in time, we will slide back. But there’s a lot of good, awesome moving forward. So I’m hopeful. We can harness that.

Kelly: No, it is so true. And I that’s, I think we can all agree.

Anyone listening now. Right, right now the same thing. So before I, I really do actually want to dive into the work side of things, although we have, but before I do, I want to lean back on to skills for a moment, because, you know, as, as you described sort of how you ended up at Lumina, and I feel like there’s some times still between when you were at Lumina to now that I would love to hear about, but before we go there, What I would love to understand you have all this wonderful, you know, formal education.

You’ve had all of these wonderful experiences in your life. When you think of these skills, at least a few that we’ve sort of pulled out from this conversation. Are you feeling like these were things that you gained in a combination of these experiences or would you feel like they kind of came from one area or another.

Amber: [00:18:00] Yeah. I definitely feel like it’s been a combination of experiences especially in sorry, this is my nerdy learning science brain, right. We, we know that, you know, again, connection and community matter, but also my ability to apply knowledge and skill sets continuously over time, it’s just really important.

And so in order to there’s only so much you can do in a class. True. And there’s a lot, again, a wealth of opportunities to leverage in, in learning and applying that. So, yeah, I think my skill set over time, and some of this is also just the metacognitive skill set to say, like, what do I know and what can I do and what do I need to still develop?

And then being very intentional about going out and finding an opportunity. So, you know, I, I alluded to the supervision piece. So in my role that when I was doing that, I didn’t supervise. Anyone. And I was like, I’m going to need supervision skills to get to my next role. Right. That’s always a skillset where people are like, you don’t have it.

We don’t know if we can advance you. And you’re like, but if you don’t love me, he doesn’t answer. I’m [00:19:00] not going to get it. So I leveraged a volunteer experience to go out and develop that skillset and super, you know, gained some supervision skills in a way that I, I wasn’t able to in my current role.

So I it’s definitely been a combination. And over time, as you can see like very different context, right. Of like, okay, now I’m working with the parents of students. But before that I was doing campus conduct and doing investigations as they like, and, and those kinds of things, which are certainly, you know, some different skillsets, but again, that, that there are some common threads that

Kelly: like every time you kind of went in one direction that really enhanced the next direction.

Because you, you sort of, I think of skills sometimes as this like backpack that we carry, but really it’s just us. But you know, it’s like sort of like this, I don’t know why. Of course I have kids. So I’m probably envisioning like Dora or something.

add all this stuff as you [00:20:00] go along in life. And then obviously that can adjust where you go, because all of a sudden you can pull these new tools out of your toolkit that you didn’t have before. I actually love that you really describe the volunteer experience too, because this week, the podcast that was published with, with Sharon Lu at the U S department of education and she so, so she had described really like this persistence of going after.

When you didn’t have necessarily the network or the opportunity, like finding some way to expand, maybe I know a lot of people and I find this, you know, again, I try to keep as closely tied to what, what I refer to as like just people, but everyone is a learner and worker throughout their entire life, you know?

And the closer that I stay aligned to people and hearing and understanding where they’re at, what I realized is there is. A huge amount of people that are like, well, I don’t have the opportunity or I can’t find this thing, or I’m not being [00:21:00] given this thing. And it’s. I really think that these like going after, if you realize that you’re like, man, that’s something that I really need to do to get over here.

You can 100% figure it out. And that those volunteer opportunities are fantastic. It’s it’s pretty rare. I would say that someone would be turned down. You may have to knock on a few doors for sure. But It’s most people are happy to take assistance and they’re just, so I feel like most people are just really open to when someone comes with that hunger or desire to learn.

It’s like, yeah. I mean that please like come and do that. It just it’s. It’s it’s infectious.

Amber: It is so one loves Sharon Lewis. So I haven’t been able to watch the podcast yet. It’s on my list. So I will definitely go back and watch because especially cause you referenced that, but I, I think about as you were talking about this like skills hustle, right?

Cause people. I think my [00:22:00] general approach is that people want to be successful. People want to learn and, and people are trying to find opportunities to do that. And when you look at you know, certainly I, at Lumina, we have this commitment, I personally have this commitment around racial justice.

Is that right? When you look at what people are doing in our communities look right now it’s social, the social movements and the organizing that’s happening. You know, voluntarily our Indianapolis, you know, black lives matters. Those organizers, those two women who are organizing here in town. I just think about the skill sets that they’re developing and growing in.

And it, it is very amazing because they’re very creative here. Like doing yoga at the mayor’s lawn is like a protest, right? It’s like are really good things. And again, coordinating a city of people who, who are passionate about something, you know, and driving that towards good. Like, it’s, it’s quite amazing to see how those two point like how those volunteer opportunities can be maximized.

And, and again, it’s, it’s.

Kelly: Leadership persistence [00:23:00]

Amber: fundraising. I mean, I’m like taking it off that list, like, you know, so it’s, it’s almost like they’re writing their own nonprofit right now. Right. So, you know, I think about those and again, most people are active in their community, so I really love too that you call it volunteering.

Is that. There’s maximizing again, these people are doing lots of cool things every day and it gets overlooked because our system just doesn’t know how to recognize it. And that’s, you know,

Kelly: yeah. Thing about volunteering too, is that you can tell, I mean, most times we might, you know, again, everyone’s at a different place in their life and sometimes, and I’ve been there too, where, you know, work is a necessity.

It’s not necessarily that I found this job that I, now I do, but like, you know, There have been times where the job was just a job because I needed the money. And, and I totally understand when people are there, but the great thing about volunteering is you can follow the, you know, let whatever floats your boat, like [00:24:00] go after the passion.

Like, it doesn’t matter what it is and it doesn’t matter what other people think like. Right.

Amber: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s where too, like falling not falling into, but I. That’s where I get, I think to your point, like how do I get to the place where I’m most passionate about what I was doing and that’s, that was my college story.

Right? It’s like I was pursuing something I thought was going to make me really happy. But what I, when it was just the option to spend my time doing what I wanted to be doing, where my heart was, it was in some different places that then led me to a different job, ultimately. But because of these sites, like.

Not fight places. I was learning in other ways and leveraging that in new ways. Absolutely got me to, you know, a different place in my career. I

Kelly: love that. I absolutely love that. Well, let, I mean, I think it would be really great to hear a little bit more. I mean, you mentioned this one initiative at Lumina, but I would, I mean, I know you guys do fantastic work, so I’d love to hear a little bit more about some of the things, [00:25:00] especially in this time, you know, have, are, do you guys, have you shifted your focus?

Is there anything sort of like new and latest and greatest that we should. No about in this world of skills.

Amber: Yeah. No, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about work. Cause clearly I enjoy it.

Kelly: And you get to this place where it’s, it doesn’t seem like work anymore, right? I mean, this is just like your.

Amber: Yes. Cause I love, love what I get to do. And the thing that is sticking with me right now at this moment in time, and that is just really personal for so many people, you know, when you have 40 million people applying for unemployment and as the economy is trying to like have fits and starts, right?

Like, oh, the restaurants are open. Oh no, they’re going to be closed again. Oh, the schools are open. Oh, no, we’re going to be on an online again. You know, we’re seeing this, the most dynamic labor market that we’ve seen in a really long time. And so when we think about the skills people need to get themselves back into the labor market and some cases that skillset, the demand of the labor market may be drastically different than [00:26:00] what they were doing before.

And so how do we help them leverage what they already know and can do, whether that came from again, their job or their volunteer experience or credential, they got. To re get, you know, upscale, rescale, or just. Say this skillset is I call it industry hopping this skillset to this industry and I can absolutely go and do this job.

You know, how we do that? Is it, I mean, think about that. That’s a much more sophisticated way than we’ve done hiring or credentialing in this country ever, ever, right. Especially the industry hopping part. We don’t do that very well. And it’s

Kelly: consider right now. I mean, I’m just what, as soon as you said that the industry that I think of so often, and maybe it’s because my family owns like a bakery and a restaurant and a bar.

So like food industry right now is obviously taking an enormously huge hit. And it is like, as a business owner, it is the most, I mean, it’s terrible when you’re the person that is affected, but like when you. Truly care about your business. And [00:27:00] you know that this is affecting your employees and you are in no other position, you know, you can’t stay open.

It is just heartbreaking. And when, but when you look at people, like I think this all the time, I think of like a typical person, that’s like a leader. And, and I’m like, they are an amazing salesperson. Like they would kill it, but no one puts these two things together. And if they don’t have the correct education communicating that to a potential employer is really difficult, but I, I bet you and I are like, it’s so obvious.

Amber: Yeah, absolutely. And again, one of the, so one of the things that wasn’t on my list, I was a waitress and bartender in college. But anyways, I but to that point, you know, yes, you’re watching people who, you know, are amazing who could be rocket in sales and again, a huge customer service who doesn’t need good customer service, especially online right now, when you’re having to navigate, you know, your is [00:28:00] navigating a whole new world and if they need to reach out to you, they can’t come in and talk to you.

And so I think that there’s. You know, but you have to, in order to make that right, our, our proxies are signals that we’ve used before have been that, that experience or that formal education route. And and so that’s not allowed us to do, to help people make these industry hops, but because we’re able to get in and look at skills and competencies, you can say like, this are absolutely translates over here.

The only thing that I, I will say we have to be a little bit careful about is that A person’s ability to know you talked about like pulling a skill out of that backpack. Yeah. Taking that skillset and knowing how to apply it in a new context. That is something that I think we could be. Cause that that is a, what we call a metacognitive skill, right?

Like executive function and knowing like, I do know that I can apply that in a new context. We are very, we do a poor job of teaching that skill set to people generally, and it is a much more advanced cognitive skill set. So we also, while there is good industry hopping, we need to pay [00:29:00] attention to helping people make that transition and doing that in assets best.

Asset based way where we’re saying to someone like are seeing you demonstrate this skillset, this is the same skillset. And calling it out, the customer service you were doing there. I need you to do that same attention to customers in this setting, but just pointing it out so they can at least make that transition as well.

Kelly: And understand just like we were describing before, how your mentor sort of was like, oh, you’re really, they, they,

Amber: yeah, that’s, that’s a big challenge. I think when we see people and I’ve had staff who have transitioned into new things and I’m like, I know you can do this. Remember when you did this over here.

And they were like, oh yeah, I didn’t do that. I’m like, just do it again here, right? Like, but sometimes yes, we have to point that out and be good mentors to people and help them

Kelly: make that connection and confidence right now for people that are struggling in this way. I mean, that’s really difficult.

And so that can really this, the mental health around all of these changes and really [00:30:00] making sure that they’re cared for in a, I mean, that is something I think again, I don’t want to speak generally for. Everything that our country offers, but you know, it’s just something that’s been overlooked more generally.

And I think now it’s definitely something that we need to keep an eye on because there are plenty of people, you know, if we, if we are able to communicate to them, these are the things, you know, you can transition this to here and we can point them in all the right directions. But if they are just so down on themselves, that they can’t see that in themselves.

Amber: It’s huge. I was in a conversation yesterday. We were talking about navigators and navigators in your life, right. That might have, you know, personally I’ve shared a couple of mine help helping navigators, but but yeah, if you are completely stuck and. And, you know, again, you file for unemployment, where do you go for help?

Like, where do I, I can Google, what are jobs open right now? But like, I get this huge list of things that I can’t make sense [00:31:00] of. And so that’s where I, I have been encouraged to see some states step in and trying to create more streamlined processes for this, having more coaches and navigators that can, can sit down with someone and, and be that.

Person to person. Cause I think technology can do a lot to translate information, help us do this skills matching for industry hopping. But it does still take that moment to sit down with someone and help them. The one-on-one it’s it. You just can’t get the human component is still there. Especially when we go back to again, like childcare, transportation, all that.

I’m still trying to manage all of that on top of figuring out what skills I have, where I can go. Right.

Kelly: There’s all these things and I keep. We talked about this internet, you know, or like digital divide, whatever you want to call it. And that is still prevalent to, you know, we have a good portion of our country where people do not have internet access.

And so there are, you know, yes, of course there’s plenty of wonderful online resources, but what if those aren’t even

Amber: absolutely. The other thing that we’re [00:32:00] hearing is there’s a technology as in like, do I have broadband access? Do I have a device to use, to get onto the internet is one piece, but the second piece is.

You know, for a lot of people, they’ve not had to live in a digital, fully digital world. And so there’s the digital skill development that comes along with that before folks can engage with the products and things that are rolling out. So if you talk to a lot of workforce providers who are trying to reach out to the folks who are unemployed, that’s one of the biggest things they say is like, we need in-person digital skills training because I can’t even get them.

Online and an organization. I volunteer with school on wheels here in Indy, which is about supporting students who are experiencing, what is the name of

Kelly: that organization? I’m sorry, I missed it.

Amber: No, that’s okay. School on wheels. It’s amazing organization. So it’s about making sure, you know, again, students who are experiencing homelessness.

And so there was a volunteer, they posted on the Instagram account yesterday that actually went and met with a student because. Their device wasn’t getting [00:33:00] online and you couldn’t get logged into their class. And so you know, there’s just these components again, where it’s, it’s, there’s some really great things, right.

Again, as we were talking about that can emerge from this moment in time, but what we have to make sure we’re taking care of some of these components that could really leave, you know, large swaths of people behind based on, you know, things that they can’t control.

Kelly: I mean, I’ve, it’s funny because like you mentioned this and I was like, I know there have been days where for whatever reason you know, like the zoom wasn’t connecting for one of my daughters for school and it was just like, they had the wrong zoom link, but the teacher was already on zoom, you know?

So like, and I can, I understand how stressful it is. And that’s just that like one moment. But when that would happen, if that happened over a period of days, you’re like, oh my God,

Amber: I’m sure. Right. Right. So scary. So it’s, it’s you know, there’s, again, a lot of good things, but I, I try to highlight the, you know, the good and then the con like some of the consequences, unintended things, again, that we may not think about that what we try to help people navigate through, as they’re trying to [00:34:00] get to the, you know, I can leverage their skills, get to that next job, get to where they need to be.

Kelly: Yes. Now, do you feel like with this work that you’re doing at Lumina, just in and around this area, are you guys trying to support more navigators and counselors or are you try like, is there one area in particular or just all of it?

Amber: Yeah. No, it’s such a good question. We’re actually, you know, this is This moment in time has sent a lot of funders.

Soul-searching right about like, what, what do we, what are the systemic things that we need to continue to work on? But then also what are the things that, again, because of this moment in time that, you know, we can step in and, and provide funding for and support for. And so we are trying to figure out, I mean, the problems I will just share so fast, right?

Like, We have people who need food, sustainability, you know, the digital divide we’ve talked about maybe transportation or some of those components. So in some of this we’re trying to, and we don’t have enough money to fix it all.

Kelly: He didn’t do it all, but

Amber: I understand. Yeah. But you do try to hone in, I think our biggest [00:35:00] question, certainly again, because our goal is.

To around credentials is how do we make sure that students have and quality educational pathway that we know lead to, to a family sustaining job? How do we make sure they have the financial supports to do that? So how do I sustain myself? Cause I’m living and learning at the same time which again is what people always do, but you gotta have money to do that.

Yeah, and then just holistic support. So let’s remind institutions, if you’re providing education that it’s those, that combination of things, quality, educational pathway financial, a good financial plan and supports, and then holistic things like, do you have access to mental health counseling?

There’s a lot of. Trauma happening right now for people. Do you have, again, a guide, you know, a navigator, a guide that can help you make sense of all this stuff. So really trying to say, like, those are the three things that have to come together, keep people on their path. And so let’s make sure we’re paying attention to those investing in those And advocating for those, I would say yes.

Kelly: Yes, no, I think it’s a great, and I mean, it’s, it really is based on, I know the mission of [00:36:00] Illumina as well. That’s a really great focus to have there and that can honestly help so many people. I, I think I’m just excited to see sort of, I know most people don’t say excited, but I really, truly am excited to see how this pans out because.

We talked about this, that it’s just, these moments don’t necessarily have to be a negative. They can really bring positive light. And so it sounds like you guys are really focused in that positive direction. So the more of us that can come together and focus on these little positive changes, I think would really in the end of this all push us in the right

Amber: direction.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s where I love talking, you know, all of these in partnership. I think that’s also something I would just highlight is really important to us is that because we can’t fund it all and we can’t do right. These partnerships are really, really important. So for us you know, partnering with people who are doing the skills-based hiring, because we can say we’re going to cover the based learning or comes to based learning approach of this.

But we also need employers to know like, We’re going to give you, who’s going to [00:37:00] hire our folks. And and so partnering with other philanthropic organizations, other organizations who can help employers get into skills-based hiring, you know, that’s where the things in systems start to meet in the middle.

And so just encourage people to think about that is, you know, how’s what I’m doing. Connected to someone else, because this moment in time, our systems are pretty taxed. And if we’re not working on them together

Kelly: amazing initiatives going on right now, too. As when we come to a close I’ll make sure that I provide Amber his information and Lumina’s information because there’s, you know, and, and, but like I said, there.

Both of us. I’ll just throw that out there. Both of us are involved in multiple initiatives, multiple groups. There’s so many that are coming together right now to help solve some of these sort of major challenges that we’re seeing. So don’t, don’t for one second thing that you can’t find someone out there that is sort of like the opposite to where you’re focused and coming together when

Amber: you mean the right thing.

That’s right? Yes. There’s lots of, there’s so much good stuff happening right now. Again, kind of, how [00:38:00] do we leverage that for this moment in time, this like challenge and it’s interesting. Cause we kept talking about, you know, the future of work is coming in. That’ll be the moonshot of our time. Maria Flynn from JFF was really great afraid.

It was like, and that moonshot just got like, it’s like the moon moves, like instead of the moon, we’re going to go to Pluto. So like all of this we have to do together.

Kelly: It’s so true. It’s so true. It’s the collective as we described earlier. Well, we are coming up on the end of our time here, Amber, but I always like to throw out a little open-ended question at the, at the end.

I know. Not nothing stressful. I just am curious. If you could leave some final parting words. With our guests that, you know, again completely open-ended it’s up to you.

Amber: Sure. I think the thing I would like to leave and again, getting back to just skills and the skills based approach that we’re taking about education and as employers, and it really does change our mentality of Looking at people with an asset-based lens.

[00:39:00] We have amazing citizens in our country who are capable of doing so much. But again, we, because of the ways we’ve kind of worked, some of these systems have been more about exclusion versus inclusion and by focusing in on what is somebody no one can do and valuing. Full thing, breadth of things that they bring to the table.

I think we create more opportunity for people. We create a better economy. We will create a better and more inclusive recovery. So I just, again, that’s why I get excited about this work so much. And this focus on kind of skills and assets framing of, of people. And so, especially at this moment time, when things feel so negative That looking at your neighbor with a different lens and saying, you know, that these are great people.

We have, we have the talent. It’s just, how do we make, how do we maximize it and skills or way

Kelly: to do that. Yes, I, well, I can’t help but agree, but, and again, I love those parting words. I really appreciate that Amber and I really appreciate [00:40:00] you taking the time out to join us today. It has just been a fantastic conversation for those of you that would like to connect with Amber.

She is available on LinkedIn and Twitter at Amber. A M B E R a G D. And Lumina foundation. Is that right? Is it Lumina foundation? Okay. Lumina foundation is available. What is the, what is the website? Is that luminous.org?

Amber: Lumina foundation.org.

Kelly: Okay. I wasn’t sure if it was the full name and of course on all the socials as well.

I follow them. They’re wonderful, but you know, definitely feel free to. Reach out if there’s something that you’re interested in and, or just follow ’em because of the great news coming out of there. And thank you all for listening into let’s talk about skills, baby. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe, share, offer a rating and review.

I would greatly appreciate it. You can also follow me. Kelly, Ryan Bailey on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at Kelly Ryan Bailey. [00:41:00] Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day. Thank you again, Amber, for joining us. Bye.