Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello, thank you for being here with us. My name is Esteban Olivares. I am head of New University Partnerships and Managed Services at Summer Discovery.

Speaker 1: 0:20

Summer Discovery is one of the premier organizations that are providing leadership opportunities for students during the summer.

Speaker 1: 0:30

We've been doing this for over six years learning, refining, creating partnerships with universities, helping universities deliver those academics and, outside of that, those spaces where students learn about themselves, whether it's through roommates, doing laundry for the first time, being away from home and negotiating, kind of that space is what Summer Discovery does and we've been doing it for 60 years and we are the industry trailblazers and we're very honored to hold that space. And so I have today some partners and some colleagues and we're going to be talking about summer learning, summer utilizing university campuses and how do we utilize these opportunities to build those future leaders. A lot of what we've been talking about today are some of the inherent issues that students will be inheriting when they become adults, when they become us, and how do we prepare them to be leaders, to take those challenges on. So I have with us today Chris Musi from Parsons School of Design at the New School and Emmett Shaw from Summer Discovery. So we'll take it from here and, gentlemen, if you want to let us know who you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Hi, I'm Chris Musi. I'm the director of summer intensive studies and youth and pre-college programs at Parsons at the New School. We serve students starting in the third grade all the way through high school and preparation for college and we have a great partner in summer discovery. Our program is year-round but sort of the jewel of our portfolio is our summer intensive studies, where students come, they live with us for a month, they take one course six hours a day, five days a week, three weeks, and we are responsible for their learning and well-being for 24-7 during the time with us. We do those sessions in June and July and the range of courses are truly reflective of Parsons and Parsons pedagogy. Students study fashion design of Parsons and Parsons pedagogy. Students study fashion design, architecture, product design. You know, as our conversation progresses, I can talk about our pedagogy and how it reflects a lot of the issues that were brought up in earlier panels that are very important to Parsons, such as social justice and equity and also sustainability. Wonderful Thank you, chris.

Speaker 3: 2:43

Thank you, Chris. My name is Amit Shah. I head up Strategic Partnerships for Summer Discovery. I'm relatively new to the organization. I started earlier this year and I'm tasked with finding and collaborating with some of the best companies, organizations, globally to deliver programs for the youth that we serve A little bit of a deeper dive into Summer Discovery.

Speaker 3: 3:06

You know we've been around for 60-plus years. We've been in the youth development space for 40-plus years. We're the world's largest organization that does this type of work. We offer 300-plus programs and courses across 20-plus universities. We collaborate and partner with amazing institutions such as Parsons and 50% of the Ivy Leagues, and we create these immersive camps for K-12 students, where students get to go to a campus, live in the dorms, participate in university activities, use the facilities, attend world-class academics put together by industry leaders, such as some of the folks in the room today and world-class professors. But they also get to experience field trips and workshops and guest lecture series and fun activities in a new city, from concerts to events to visiting the museum. So we have students from all 50 states and over 80 countries globally and it really does round out the experience that these students have to meet folks from other cultures, languages, backgrounds, upbringings, and it really shapes their future and their mindset and where they see themselves down their career path.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, glad you're here, glad you're here. Well, let's get right into it, chris, when we're talking about cross-sector collaboration, there's a lot that happens, especially at Parsons and at the new school, in order for those eight weeks, nine weeks of summer to happen and for the students high school students to come on and take college credit courses. You're having to deal with academics, with faculty, with security, with facilities, but then you're also working with other organizations to make sure that you know they can go to behind the scenes at the Met, that you have Summer Discovery helping you with the residential life pieces, and you also work with some organizations to help make sure that there's scholarships and there's access and equity and folks are able to attend the program if they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. So can you dive a little bit deeper into what those cross-sector collaborations and why partnerships are so important to make this happen for youth?

Speaker 2: 5:12

I'd be very happy to. So summer 2025 is just around the corner for us. I've already had five planning meetings and we have our schedule builder done. Of all the courses selected, I hire almost 100 faculty for the summertime. That also includes student workers. I have a huge team. We have a decent-sized campus in Manhattan. Our major building takes up the whole block between 14th and 13th Street on Fifth Avenue and we have satellite buildings and Esteban Summer of Discovery is a huge part of our important collaboration.

Speaker 2: 5:50

We're responsible for the livelihood or the lifestyle and the living of students who come from all over the world. We have students from 40 different countries and 40 different states and regions within the US. Their parents are leaving them with us, often for the first time. They're ages 16 to 18. They bestow a great deal of trust upon us. We want to have a great learning experience, but also there's a lot that happens between 4, when classes are dismissed, and midnight at curfew and Summer Discovery. We have extracurricular activities for them each evening and on weekends and they involve sort of New York City culture exploring New York, self-care and learning to network with other students and learning to network with other students.

Speaker 2: 6:44

I have students who, when I taught in a program before I was a director. I've had students that I've known since they were 15, who are in their mid-30s to early 40s, who are still networking in terms of businesses and their career challenges, which is really great. So the new school is quite a decent-sized business. So I have to start negotiating with different areas within the new school. So, for example, in the next month I'll be working with our making center. So the making center they provide all the high tech technology that our students use, anywhere from the industrial sewing machines to 3D printing and laser cutting. And so our students who are in the disciplines of fashion architecture, interior design, product design, we want to make sure they have the state-of-the-art equipment. So I have to work with people who work at the university, but also sometimes outside of industry, for donations, for access to this equipment, and it's quite a nice community.

Speaker 2: 7:44

We have faculty who I would say all of our faculty teach in the undergraduate graduate programs. The new school has a great force of adjunct faculty. Ninety percent of our faculty are adjuncts, so they currently work in industry as they're teaching, which is really remarkable for our students and we leverage our faculty's connections with their industry. So we have quite a few faculty who work on projects on Governor's Island for the restoration and building there, so our students will go out to Governor's Island or our students have an opportunity for behind the scenes tours of the Met Museum or Bergdorf Goodman. So we really are able to really provide, you know, through our faculty expertise and their business relationships, leverage that. So that's just within our community.

Speaker 2: 8:28

And then with Summer Discovery, we really rely on you to you know that well-rounded experience so the students can be successful in the classroom, that they have activities in the evening and the weekend, and some of them are doing laundry for the first time or they're, you know, getting on the subway for the first time. So we have Summer Discovery provides us with one adult to every 10 to 12 students that they're responsible for and you know they collaborate with our faculty as well too. So the Summer Discovery staff will often go on field trips with our students or meet industry professionals that we have come in and if a student needs additional support we will partner together so that the student feels heard, both for their academics and their lifetime experience. And then a big part of my job is to network with people in industry and also foundations to make sure that students who can't afford our programs really have access to them. So our programs are year-round. Students can participate in studies with us at all different price points. So, for example, our year-round weekend programs. I want to make sure that the courses are popularly priced so that it would be less than, let's say, daycare, so a parent can put their third grader in our classes for less than it would be to have a babysitter. But then we go all the way through the summer programs where students are studying. They're receiving three college credits, they're having that undergraduate college experience. The price becomes much more of a premium.

Speaker 2: 10:02

So we partner with different school districts Across the river. We have the Newark High School for Fashion and Design, powered by Parsons and I helped develop the curriculum for that high school where students will study the fashion industry for four years and as part of that experience they will come and study with us in the summertime and that is through. Very. You know the Newark Board of Education is very, very successful in how they work with our high schools and how they create opportunities for that. We also work with, you know, foundations such as the De La Cruz Collection and the Miami Foundation in Florida, so students from Dash High School can attend our program.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Those are just actual high schools that have their own partners that we work with and everything is also very, you know, it's not exactly transactional, but we want to make sure that we give them something in return for them providing scholarships to the students, whether it's marketing, publicity, support, guest speakers.

Speaker 2: 11:07

And then we rely on organizations from the industry who want to really give back.

Speaker 2: 11:10

So, for example, creatives want change is an organization started by um, the most powerful executives, black executives in the fashion industry who want to sort of create a new um, new idea of access for fashion, and so we work with Creatives Want Change to make sure that students have full ride scholarship opportunities. And also Target we love Target Target Advancing Design Diversity. We will partner with them where we will create workshops and learning opportunities that they broadcast and in exchange for that they provide scholarships to our students. So you know there's a lot of hours that go behind making sure that students have scholarships to attend our programs. And then, of course, parsons we give our own scholarships and um at any time during the year. There's probably 40 to 70 students who um take our programs without any cost or expense. And many of those students are in our associate scholars program, where they start their sophomore year and they attend classes on weekends and the summertime all year round. They graduate and then they have access to our admissions team for opportunities at Parsons after high school graduation.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Wow, so a lot of networking, a lot of network a lot, a lot of partnerships, a lot of cross-sector. You know private industry, some discovery your your own academics, people in the industry and are the people that I work with.

Speaker 2: 12:43

We all have had careers outside of education. You know, um, that's what the new school was very famous for. I worked in branding and marketing for Teen Pop Star. I worked in luxury shoe design prior to this, where I would come in teach two days a week and then go back to my full-time job. Now this is a full-time gig for me, but we rely a lot on industry partnerships through our own community, which is really great.

Speaker 1: 13:10

And it's always great to hear from the partners what happens and everything that it entails to bring the program together. A lot of times we're asked what does Summer Discovery do in these what we call managed service partnerships? We help the university or the organization or the corporation develop the pre-college program. But a lot of what we do is it allows you to laser focus on what you do best building those scholarships, marketing enrollment, making sure the families know what to do and how to do it before they come to campus and then, once they get to campus, we take care of all the rest and make sure that we have the 24-7 supervision, holistic student development, and that we are it's syn synchronicity and we work together to make sure that there's a great program for the students at the end so that they become those future leaders in the future. We're going to say that program had an impact.

Speaker 2: 13:58

So thank you, chris thank you I I think that's very important because you know um, when you're, when you're working with college students who can advocate for themselves, you're just usually working with one person, but we work with the student and their parent and sometimes their grandparents, and it's really great to have a team that can really address issues that could be anywhere from academic to just their living experience in New York City. So we really have to make sure that we want our students to be fearless, but we want to create a safety net so that they can explore their creativity in New York but also feel safe and have their parents have a peace of mind as well too.

Speaker 1: 14:39

So Ahmed partnerships, cross-sector corporations, what does this mean to what you do and what's happening at Sun Discovery?

Speaker 3: 14:51

Sure, just the short of it is, you know, we have great university partners, we have great families that we collaborate and partner with and we're really, you know, a lot of the conversation that happened over the course of today was how do we think about change for the future, how do we impact change for generations? And it really starts with the youth and being able to show youth that the impact they can have, what careers they could, they could follow, and giving them an inside view of these different companies, how they work and what different paths in their career could look like, really gives them a life-changing experience, and so our goal is to really make sure that we play a small role in developing that with youth. And they say it takes a village to raise a child. It takes even more to raise a child. It takes even more to develop them into someone that's going to be an industry game-changing individual that can motivate, inspire and drive impact.

Speaker 1: 15:39

That's wonderful and it's kind of just being able to be that conduit for when there's an idea. And how do we bring that idea to life? How do we bring that idea to life? How do we bring that vision to action? Years ago, ideagen and summer discovery talked and we said how can we bring this ideagen experience into a summer program for students? And now we have a future global leaders program that runs at georgetown university I think. I believe there's about two sessions, 40 students or so across two sessions last year. But this has been I think the fourth summer that we've been running this program, so it's been an amazing opportunity to work with IdeaGen and develop that program, bring that vision to life. So, Chris, can you talk a little bit about how the summer programs, how courses fashion, architecture, design do have impacts to help develop our future leaders?

Speaker 2: 16:36

It's. You know. First of all, we want to reflect pedagogy of the undergraduate and graduate programs. We want, you know, parsons greatly values sustainability, social justice, equity and inclusion. All of our learning is project-based learning. We want to be very contemporary and and even on the cutting edge in terms of how our faculty present courses. So so, for example, in fashion, there's a huge emphasis on upcycling. Our students go out to visit fab scraps where they purchase fabric that is reclaimed fabric from industry. Their project prompts are it's not like make the most beautiful dress, it's like there are ways to address important issues in the world, even at the smallest of levels.

Speaker 2: 17:24

We want our students to design, reflecting about how they feel about world issues and their life and their responsibilities, because they have a lot ahead of them. And then also our faculty, bring in really important objectives that are important to them. So, for example, in our School of Constructed Environments, our students aren't allowed to use foam, core and certain adhesives to build models. That you know. Quite often, when our tote bags and water bottles come in and getting ready for the students, we break down the boxes and we save them for students, for model building, or you know. So we really have to be very laser focused on what's happening in industry. Now all of our courses are analog and digital, so a student will be designing, draping and sewing with their laptop out. At the same time, we talk about zero waste, pattern making. You know it's. We really try to push their thinking and so that they have a different perspective of what will make them unique when they apply to college and also what careers are available to them.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Insightful. Thank you, thank you. Final word, mitt. So what's your call to action? So, if you are the IBMs and KPMGs out there wondering how can I get into summer programming, how can I have an impact, how can we maybe even develop something, what's your call to action?

Speaker 3: 18:47

Yeah, I think so many organizations are really dialed in and do a tremendous job of having these conversations at events like this and they're very active on university campuses and with recruitment and they're very active in the college world.

Speaker 3: 18:59

But this really starts earlier. You know, when kids are the most influenced by outside resources and information, right, they always say if you want to learn a language, learn it when you're a kid, not when you're an adult. Right? If you want a tree to be planted and grow straight, you have to make sure the foundation is laid. Really, you know, at the right level from the very beginning. And so, you know, for companies that want to really reinforce the change that they're talking about, it's collaborating with organizations like us and influencing and impacting students that are more dialed into their own social impact and be and what they can do in this world to make this, you know, better for the next generation. So call to action is you know, contact us, contact other organizations like us to get more involved and just continue the good work you're doing and continue to surface these conversations so that we're all more aware.

Speaker 1: 19:52

Thank, you, gentlemen, appreciate it.