VT Stories Oral History with Michael Goode and Levi Daniels, April 22, 2016 (Ms2016-015)

David Cline: So today is April 22nd, 2016. This is David Cline from the

History Department at Virginia Tech, and I am here in the Alumni Center on a

rainy morning in Blacksburg with two special guests. So if you could introduce

yourselves. This is an interview for the VT Stories Project and I'll have you

just each introduce yourselves and you could say your name, your date of birth,

place of birth, and your year at [virginia] tech.

Michael Goode: Okay. So my name is Michael Goode and my birthday is August 26,

1983. I am from Richmond, Virginia and that's where I was born, and I was at

Virginia Tech from 2001 to 2006.

Levi Daniels: And I'm Levi Daniels from Washington, D.C.. My birthday is April

22nd, 1983, and I was at Virginia 00:01:00Tech from 2000 to 2005.

David: And for the record, happy birthday.

Levi: Thank you so much.

David: So I'm going to start with a different question than I usually start with

just because you're here together, so I want to know how you two are friends.

Let's just start with that and then we'll get back into your own stories.

Levi: If I can remember it was early on starting an organization on campus

called Student African American Brotherhood.

Michael: That's right.

Levi: What we noticed over time was a lot of Black students were joining, or at

least Black men in particular were joining fraternal organizations in order to

find some kinship on campus, because there's not a large African American

community on campus. What we wanted to do was found an organization where they

could have some sort of fellowship. And this was actually an idea that was

generated by a grad student on campus at the time; his name is Anthony Crenshaw,

and he brought it to me and Michael and several other people who he knew were 00:02:00involved on campus. And we started that organization to give these gentlemen a

place to have that fellowship, without necessarily having to go through all the

rigmarole that a fraternity actually ask of you.

David: So some might have been in Greek organizations, but not necessarily.

Levi: Yeah. Not necessarily, didn't have to be. And we didn't, and we weren't

trying to preclude you from entering Greek organizations. The idea was if you

really want to enter them, enter them on your own terms, not because you're

looking for friends. So then we are all sitting around the table at the meeting

and that was when I first encountered Mr. Goode and we just had some

similarities, just personalities, all that. And so eventually we just kind of

linked up and just became cool after that, from those meetings and then as an

outgrowth of that and we were involved in similar things. Mike was in student

government and I was in a BSA. I was President of BSA like my last year, so like

[20]04 to [20]05, so we were both very involved, heavily 00:03:00involved on campus. And

that is what got us close initially because we were similar in mind.

David: Okay. Fantastic.

Michael: And then funny enough I think as a result of that, you know Levi was a

year ahead of me, so he graduated and moved back to D.C.. I moved up to that area

for my job and we were actually roommates for what, almost six years?

Levi: Yeah, six years.

Michael: Six years in D.C., so that was kind of a unique thing, so a great

friendship, definitely.

David: So let me start with you Michael.

Michael: Sure.

David: Can you tell me a little bit about where you were born and grew up and a

little bit about your childhood and I know this is fast-forwarding quickly, but

then sort of how you ended up at [Virginia] Tech.

Michael: Yeah. So one of the interesting things, I grew up in Richmond,

Virginia, and more specifically in Henrico County, which sort of surrounds the

City of Richmond. I grew up in the East End part of 00:04:00Henrico County, which is

predominantly an African American area. And so my whole experience was really

around growing up people that looked like me. And I was also one of the first

people in my family to go to college, so this was a really big deal to come to

Virginia Tech.

David: And you went to high school in the [19]90s.

Michael: I did. I did.

David: Predominantly African American?

Michael: Predominantly African American high school.

David: Because Richmond has got an interesting history, that's why I asked.

Michael: Richmond does, it does, it does. In fact, on my side of the county

again it's pretty funny, Henrico County is basically split, where from the West

End side of the County is predominantly White, upper middle class. On the East

End side again, lower income, predominantly African American.

Levi: More working class.

Michael: Yeah, more working class type of area, and so it was very very

interesting to have that whole dichotomy. 00:05:00And you know, funny enough, as I was

growing up my first job was actually on the other side of the county, where it

was very very interesting to see the difference and resources, schools. My high

school was built in 1932. When you went inside of the school they still had

signs that said 'fallout shelter' inside of it. You know you go on the other

side of the county and they had these brand new pristine schools, latest

technology. You know again, all of the biggest stores were on that side of the

county. Again, everything was just different on that side. And so it was very

interesting growing up to be able to see that, particularly working out there

and then coming back home on my side of the county and seeing just how different

everything was.

David: So then you were starting to tell me how you ended up at [Virginia] Tech.

Michael: Yeah, so very interesting. You look at my 00:06:00parents, my parents graduated

from high school, went straight to work, and I think most of the people from

their generation that's what they did. College was something some people did,

but it was nothing that was really pushed or it was a necessity at that point.

You know particularly there was a lot of manufacturing still in Richmond at that

time. Richmond Philip Morris, the big tobacco company was still there. Reynolds

Metal was still there. It's Altria now, but that was a big place that a lot of

people went to work. You know A. H. Robins Pharmaceuticals were there, and all

those things are gone--some of those things are gone now. But that was the

environment that I grew up in, so it was very interesting for me to go because I

never had anybody say, Michael you must go to college. But I was very interested

in information technology and computers growing up. You know, in fact, my family

actually got together when I was twelve years old and bought me a computer for

Christmas, because I always talked about them. I used to look at the 00:07:00ads in the

paper, and I would see them and say, I want that one. I would show them the

computers every day, every day, and I always knew that I wanted to do something

around IT. Just as a part of understanding what that whole world was about, I

knew that I needed to do more than just to graduate from high school, and so

college was something that I set my sights on. And in terms of figuring out

Virginia Tech, I think not having anybody in my family who had gone to college

previously, I didn't necessarily think about college outside of Virginia. It was

just a pretty big deal to be going anyway, and Virginia Tech had a great

reputation, and so I applied to Virginia Tech. I did apply to VCU, even Radford

and got into all three schools. Came out to visit, and I think I was just amazed

by being at a place that was huge. You know it looked like its own little city

to me and I had never seen a place like this. And even though it's only three

and a half hours 00:08:00away from Richmond, this place couldn't be any more different

from Richmond, and so I decided to come here and it worked out.

David: And that appealed to you, that difference?

Michael: Well, I don't know if it appealed to me insomuch as it was a curiosity

about being somewhere like this. And again, I knew that this was a good school

and also the economic side of it. You know [Virginia] Tech was a pretty good

bargain in price point, at that time. I don't know if it is now.

Levi: Still is.

Michael: It still is? But, you know, back then I think looking at the cost I

said, I can't really beat that. So I came out here and did it, and I think

probably until my first day of school I didn't really realize what I had got

myself into, because as you know, you probably talked to a lot of people, or

African Americans, some didn't even visit. They got accepted and their first

time coming here was the day they were supposed to arrive. But I went through

the whole orientation thing. And then I 00:09:00remember my first day. I walked into a

classroom and the whole class was White. And that was the first time that I

realized, I said, wow, what have I done? I'm really in a different place. And I

actually paused at the door and I remember the professor actually asking me, hey

can I help you? Are you in the right place?

David: And you thought, am I? [Laughs]

Michael: Right, right, right, so it was a big question. It was so interesting to

go through that and all the experiences that we had. For many of us, again, we

interact with other people in our lives when we go to the grocery store or

something like that, but it's a completely different experience to actually talk

to people, live with people who are very different, come from very different

backgrounds than you. So yeah, it was definitely a big difference from Richmond

to be here.

David: And also I would say too, as you said you grew up in a place where

everybody looked like you.

Michael: Exactly.

David: And that's not the case 00:10:00when you get here, but then also then you're not

on your own, but in a class like that you're on your own.

Michael: And I think one of the only things about going to a school this large,

you're just a number, right. So I remember being in a couple of classes where we

had three hundred people. The intro-management courses, we had sessions with

eight hundred people. In fact, we had to have a class in Burruss Hall in the

auditorium. It was that large, and so you just like wow. So the connection was

different, and I think culturally, we're used to connecting with each other

differently, and so this environment was a challenge at different points because

it was so different from home and the people and the relationships that you were

used to having.

David: Levi I'll ask you the same question, I'll start with your childhood and

bring you up to where Michael is in chronology.

Levi: You'll notice a lot of similarities between our 00:11:00stories, we've talked

about it. So whereas Michael grew up in Henrico County outside of Richmond,

technically that would be like southeastern Richmond, right?

Michael: Yeah.

Levi: So I grew up in Southeast D.C., so that is Ward 8, east of the Anacostia

River. If you're familiar with it, that's the place that everybody is scared of.

So I grew up there and I mean my life was despite all of that, all that went on

in Ward 8 was pretty normal. Both my parents. I grew up in a town home in

southeast Washington and ended up buying a condo not far from that, like

literally around the corner. But, my dad finished an associate's degree from

University of District of Columbia. My mom finished her undergraduate at Strayer

[University], so they both had kind of a nontraditional college experience,

because they had to do it on their own. They moved to D.C. from Buffalo, and so

basically everything they 00:12:00did they cultivated amongst them and in their friend

group. Fast-forward to me, the neighborhood that I grew up in was interesting

insomuch as I always felt different because I was more academically minded than

a lot of the folks that I grew up around. It wasn't necessarily cool to be the

smart kid. My mom ended up putting me in schools that weren't my neighborhood

schools, because when she talked to people who were native Washingtonians, they

didn't like any of the schools in my neighborhood. They didn't think it would be

good for me and they didn't necessarily think it'd be safe, so she ended up

putting me in a catholic school, where I ended up having to get into a lot of

fights. Not any ones that I provoked, just stuff that ended up happening, so

after a while I told her this is pointless, so just take me out of here. Let's

just go ahead and do public school and get it over with. And then oddly enough

my public school experience was very important to me. That was like third grade

to sixth 00:13:00grade, because I went to a school that was up the hill from where my

father worked on the Naval Research Lab, so we had nothing but Navy and Air

Force brats coming up to that school, along with the neighborhood kids. So there

was this mash-up and this dichotomy that worked out in really interesting ways,

and I think that that was very important for me moving on, 'cause even though

I-- And I guess an interesting anecdote, after I left the Catholic school my mom

tried to put me in another private school that had me test to get in. I did

well. They wanted to give me a scholarship to that school, but I didn't want to

go to that school because nobody looked like me, oddly enough. So I go to this

other school up the street from my father and all the people who look like me

don't like me because I'm the smart kid that goes, ooh ooh ooh, in class. So all

of my friends are Jeremy York, a White kid whose family is from Texas

originally. There was Richard, a Black kid also an Army 00:14:00brat. There was Joseph

who was a Latino, also an Army brat, or was he Air Force? And then there was

Cory, a Black kid. So I had this veritable United Nations was my friend group at

the time. So we moved forward from that and I ended up going to a magnet school

for junior high, which was interesting too because you had the gifted and

talented program and then you had the regular program. So whereas we were in

seventh and eighth grade doing algebra and geometry, they were doing compound

fractions, so I noticed there was a different trajectory we were all on. Then I

went from there to Banneker, which is D.C.'s academic magnet school right across

the street from Howard University, right across the street from their business

school. When I graduated I didn't necessarily know where I wanted to go. I

actually wanted to go to Drexel at first because they had a co-op program that

had a mandatory internship associated with 00:15:00it, and I was like, I knew I wanted

to be in business in some capacity or another. Not necessarily IT like Mike even

though I had some good guidance from my godfather and all that and that's what

got me at least steered in that direction, but like I wanted to go to Drexel and

I really wasn't sure where else I wanted to apply to. I was skittish on Howard

because I was like my high school is right across the street from you guys. Do I

really want to go someplace, and I felt like I needed to get away from D.C. and

see something else. So I applied to Walden College up in New York because for

some reason I thought I wanted to go up there. I applied to Virginia Tech

because a friend of mine gave me the application. I kind of applied on a lark,

just we'll see if I can get in. If I do great, if I don't whatever. Howard,

Drexel, VCU, and Lincoln University, HBCU as a back-up.

David: In Pennsylvania, right?

Levi: Yes. And I ended up getting into all of them. The funny thing about

getting the Virginia 00:16:00Tech acceptance letter is they, we'll call them thrifty,

insomuch as they packed all of that information into a standard sized envelope.

And so I'm thinking, ooh this is my first rejection letter! I want to see how

they word it. How do they carefully word telling a kid like me eah, you didn't

quite make it? So I just out of curiosity I opened it up and they were like

okay, so you've been accepted. It was like, [pause] all righty, cool. So then

it's like April, April 2000 right before I graduate and we have a trip that we

do annually at my school called the European Study Tour. Ten days for about at

the time it was about two thousand bucks. I think that was inclusive of airfare,

bus, trains, all sorts of other stuff that we did. It was through like

educational tours or whatever. So we ended up doing, what was it? We went from

Rome to Florence to Pisa to Paris to 00:17:00Toledo and then to Madrid in ten days.

David: Had you ever traveled before?

Levi: Not overseas, so we did all that and our class went on this trip and that

was where I was trying to make the decision whether to go to [Virginia] Tech,

because at the time that we were going on this trip was when they had, what was

that, the Black Student Weekend?

Michael: Black Gateway.

Levi: Black Gateway Weekend, so it was basically to introduce African American

kids or Black kids to [Virginia] Tech in an environment that also included the

existing community on campus.

David: Had you come to that?

Michael: No.

Levi: So I was supposed to go to that. It fell on the same timeframe as this

trip so I couldn't go. So I literally decided to go here sitting in the Stone

Gardens on the Saint-Gilles, even though sounds really fancy, I just decided to

go off by myself because it came down to either Howard or Virginia Tech.

Essentially the area I had known versus one that I didn't know at all. And at

that point I just decided, I called my mother from there and was like all right,

we'll just send it back and tell 00:18:00them I'm going to go to [Virginia] Tech. And so

essentially I came down here site unseen for orientation and I was like, hmm. So

the first thing I notice when I come in is Lane Stadium. Or no, the VT shrubs. I

was like, they literally cut this into a bush. I was like, that's incredible.

Then we see Lane Stadium and I'm just like that's enormous. Wow. And we still

haven't made it to where I'm supposed to register for all this. All right, cool.

And then I had much the same experience Mike had, but it was at orientation

where I realized so nobody here looks like me. That's cool. Well we'll figure

that out. And every day after that, there were even times where I wanted to,

during my freshman where I wanted to transfer. I thought I wanted to transfer

either to an HBCU. It would have been Howard or Morehouse or something like

that, because even then I realized that a part of me wanted to see myself

represented where I was going to school. Not insomuch as I wanted to wipe

anybody else's face off of the 00:19:00campus, I just wanted to be there too. And it

took a friend of mine who actually was Pakistani American insomuch as Pakistani

by heritage, American by birth. He was like, if you don't like it just go

someplace else. Otherwise stop complaining about it. Fair enough, okay. So then

it took to about my junior year when I started to get really really involved in

campus and that's when I really really fell in love with [Virginia] Tech and

everything that it offered, once I finally opened myself up and started to

really get involved in campus. So it was BSA, it was NSBE [National Society of

Black Engineers] at some point or another. That opened me up to countless other

organizations and meeting different administrators, getting cool with them on

some level or another, and just getting exposed to how this university ran from 00:20:00a business perspective, is a unique opportunity that I got from being involved

in a lot of those programming organizations. You just get a different look at

the school. And I appreciate having gone here just because, I mean sometimes I

look back and kind of wonder at it, like wow, I actually went here and I

finished, because a lot of people didn't finish, unfortunately. I guess they

either transferred other places or you know had some difficulty and some

academic difficulty and didn't quite make it, and I was like wow. So I look back

and I don't even believe it. Like hmm, I really-- Wow, that's cool. And so I see

all the alumni things and it's interesting to connect with it sometimes, like I

really did go there. And now you come down here and everything looks worlds away

and I'm reminded of when alumni came back before. And they were like, oh my God

so much has changed. Like there never used to be a building there. And I was 00:21:00just like oh my God, you were here like in the [19]80s or whatever. And so then

I come back and I walk across from it will be like AJ to--Ambler-Johnson--to

Litton-Reaves and I was like, there wasn't a building here. Hmm.

Michael: That's right.

Levi: Okay. All right. Fair enough. So I mean, ultimately it was a great

experience. Met and connected with a lot of great folks, and I don't know, I

just appreciate it. Once I finally got over myself. Because like I had the

experience I had like Mike was walking from Pritchard coming over the crest

that's next to--or coming down those stairs that are next to War Memorial Gym,

and then I look at the Drillfield. And so versus seeing your class where you're

the only person, I looked at that Drillfield and I was like, yep don't see

nobody looks like me, okay, well let's 00:22:00go! [Laughs] But it was just like one,

there were just so many people. This school had like twenty thousand kids when

we went there. It's like twenty-five, thirty now, but I was just like this

school is really that big. That many people? All right. It was just funny. I

didn't call my mom back with a whole bunch of like the homesick stuff, it was

just like all right, this is what's going on. This is what happens. Anyway, I'm

talking too much.

David: Not at all.

Michael: No, you know I think [Virginia] Tech was really interesting for me.

David: This is Michael again for the record.

Michael: I was going to say I think [Virginia] Tech was really interesting for

me from a couple of different perspectives. I think about my roommate freshman

year, a guy from Knoxville, Tennessee who was part 00:23:00of the John Deere family of

tractors. So I thought it was kind of interesting that he chose Virginia Tech

considering the resources that he had, but it was very interesting because he

had never really had a real interaction with a Black person. And so I remember

he asked me, do all Black people eat fried chicken? And this is in our dorm

room, and I asked him, I said, well do all White people turn red when they get

mad? You know we would have some very very interesting discussions, but I didn't

really get upset, even though some of his questions I thought were crazy. He

asked me, what are those things you guys wear on your head? Durags that you will

see guys wearing, not so much now, but then--

Levi: It was the style.

Michael: Yeah, it was a style thing and then we all had the waves in our hair

when I had 00:24:00hair, [laughter] which has been gone for a while now, but you know,

so we would walk around having every different color to match our clothes and

all that stuff. And I think you know about the exchange you know, his family

grew up being staunch Republicans. I couldn't understand that. I grew up you

know my family were hardcore Democrats. I remember we used to have arguments

about George Bush and how I just thought it was so unfair that this guy got to

become the president and he thought it was great. You know some of the things we

would talk about, we ended up actually becoming friends to a degree. He actually

invited me to come to Knoxville by the end of our freshman year to see his

world, so that was kind of interesting, and to go out with some of his friends

that were from Tennessee and that were here. I had never talked to people like

that or been around some of those things, beer pong and all that stuff. Those

are not things Black people grow up doing or knowing 00:25:00about, and he took the door

off of our closet in the dorm room and did this. I'm like what is this game? Why

are we throwing a ball in cups?

Levi: This is mildly unsanitary.

Michael: This is mildly--that's what I'm thinking! I'm like, this is so gross

and everybody is drinking from the cups where they just had this dirty ball on

this floor that we never clean. And you know the other guys on my dorm floor

they would take the mattresses of their beds and slide up and down the hall.

They would buy pizzas and throw them and see who could stick the pizza against

the wall. They would jump out of the window and get drunk, and honestly what I

would think to myself is, now you guys say Black people are the ones causing

problems and crazy, I've seen nothing but every crazy thing from you guys. So it

was really really interesting to have that whole thing. My freshman year I

stayed in Thomas which we used to call the Projects, because it was on the

academic side of the campus with the Corps of Cadets right in front of Power

Plant. 00:26:00We had coal dust coming into our rooms. In fact, they told us to buy

those air conditioner filters you can get from like Lowe's or Home Depot to put

them in the window so we could block the coal dust from coming into our rooms.

You know when they would blow off pressure from and everything, you hear those

big booms. We hear it and all of that over there, but no one even knew we were

staying over there. You know it was cold on the Drillfield. You had to cross the

Drillfield to go get something to eat or to go to the Cage was a hike.

Levi: Or to just be social.

Michael: Yeah, or to just be social, because no one where I was going. Thomas

Hall? Where the hell is Thomas Hall?

Levi: I was in Pritchard.

Michael: So it was just a really really interesting experience and then I think

about the academic side of it, so that ended up being a challenge for me. And

when I was in school, I was always one of the smart kids. I didn't really have

to study for tests. You know I would kind of just come 00:27:00in there oh we've got a

test today, all right. I just take the test or whatever, take the quiz and that

kind of thing. And I got here and you say okay, you've got a midterm and a

final, that's it. And so this midterm is covering six or seven, eight chapters

of material and I'm okay, I'm sitting here listening to a lecture and I started

getting really bad grades to the point that I was on academic probation, and so

I had to go home and hang my head, because that was sort of the first time I had

really failed at something in my life and I didn't know if I was going to come

back here. I didn't know if this was the right thing to do. And my GPA was so

low, the work that I was going to have to do just to get it back I think to

what, a 2.0? So I could stay was going to be just a monumental task. I even had

gone so far as the semester of vacation that Virginia Tech gave me, I had gone

to ITT Tech and I thought well 00:28:00maybe I'll go there. Maybe I will be like a

technical IT guy. Maybe this Virginia Tech thing isn't right for me. I went and

got a job and worked at Home Depot and it was a big decision point, and during

that semester off, I really thought about it and said you know what, I'm going

to give this a try because I think I belong there. And I came back, ended up

getting straight As. Nobody saw me. I was in fact in Torgersen every night

studying and just going back over things. I would bother professors, because

before I wouldn't go to office hours. I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel

connected. I always feel connected to this place. You know most of my professors

in the Business School were old White men, who I just didn't feel a connection

or that they would be interested in helping me, so I didn't seek that out. But I

realized, I said okay Michael, you're going to have to do something here. 00:29:00If you

want to be here you're going to have to make this effort. And so I would bother

professors to the point where I think there were probably a couple of classes I

still didn't do that well in, but those guys were like okay this dude is just--

David: He's trying.

Michael: He's trying, he's trying, so okay. But I turned it around and that's

when I actually got involved in campus. After that semester when I got things

turned around, I joined the Student Government Association as the Director of

Community Outreach. That's when I got involved with the Student African American

Brotherhood, where I met Levi and some of the other fellows. I joined the

Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity, that was at that time chaired by

the vice president of diversity who was Ben Dixon at that time. And really got

engaged and threw myself into understanding how this university works. I

remember having meetings in Dr. Steger's office 00:30:00talking to Provost McNamee about

things we should have. I remember we were here talking about the Lee Hall thing

when that popped up.

Levi: Yeah--

Michael: I was sitting on the commission during that time. I remember us

standing outside of Burruss Hall when the Board of Visitors made those decisions

about not having or killing programs.

Levi: In reaction to the uh--

Michael: I think the Attorney General.

Levi: The Attorney General and then his reaction to the Michigan case that was

going on at the time.

Michael: Right, the Michigan case at the time, so Attorney General I think it

was Kilgore back then basically said, because of the Michigan decision when the

Supreme Court came down, that if Virginia Tech engaged in using state funds for

programs that were targeted towards minorities that the state would not defend

the university.

Levi: Right. You would get no dollars if you had a court case come about as a

result of it.

Michael: Right. And so the rector at that 00:31:00time then basically said that yeah,

we're going to kill all of those things.

Levi: So that included things like--and this is Levi, sorry to interrupt--that

included programs like Aspire which is very important to the engineers that come

here. That included Gateway and countless other programs that were focused on

making sure that kids who were underrepresented stayed here; it focused on retention.

David: Can you briefly tell me just for the record what Aspire and Gateway are?

For people who listen to this later.

Levi: Aspire was for the engineering kids, especially African American, tended

to be more urban kids that came in there. It was a program I think before your

first semester started to get you acquainted with what you would be entering

into both from an academic perspective and from a social perspective and a

cultural perspective. I want you to understand where you are, what you're coming

in here and I want to help you develop a focus so that you finish 00:32:00 mechanical,

aerospace whatever engineering you chose, because this will not be easy. It was

headed up by Dr. Bevlee Watford who is still here, and she has been instrumental

in most of her years here, making sure that she's retained engineering students

at the School of Engineering, particularly Black students at the College of

Engineering. Also too, there was Gateway. You can explain Gateway.

Michael: Yeah. So Gateway was actually a program that would invite students who

were maybe interested in attending Virginia Tech to come, and then also folks

who had applied for admission and had gotten accepted who were African American.

And so what actually happened is you actually partnered with an African American

student that was on campus and you spent the weekend with them and they had a

whole set of events. But again, it was just to get you integrated 00:33:00and help you

think hey, maybe I could see myself here, build a connection and know that you

would be welcomed on the campus. And then also in the School Business, there was

also a program called Focus which was actually in Femoyer Hall. Is that still

here? I don't know if they knocked that one down.

Levi: I don't know. We'll find out.

Michael: But yeah, we'll find out soon,

Levi: On our old people tour.

Michael: But it was behind Thomas Hall, but over there what they did, they

actually had folks who were assigned a roster of students and they knew every

African American student that was in the School of Business. And you had

meetings that were set up and they would say, hey, what's going on with your

grades? How are you doing in classes? Do you need anything? A fellow by the name

of Christopher Medley was my Focus facilitator, but there were just tons of

programs that really made you feel welcome. In fact, I remember when I came

here, even though I think we both talked about, 00:34:00while those experiences where we

said, oh god, we really are in a place that doesn't look like us, but there were

a lot of programs that were here that helped you find those people. And then

there was the BCC, the Black Cultural Center which was instrumental in being I

think a welcoming place.

Levi: A hub.

Michael: A hub for us.

David: As a social space?

Michael: As a social space, because it was a protected space, because we knew we

could go in there, and not that anybody else couldn't come in there, but it was

like oh that's the place for the Black kids. So we could go in there.

Levi: And to that end there was a perception that we always battled because

people, especially the majority community, the White community would always say

like, well why does this place have to be separate? It isn't. You are welcome to

come in, it's just that when you come in, the dialect will be different. Some of

the social cues will be a bit different, because this is where we feel most

comfortable, and we're going to talk the way that we're accustomed to talking

and we 00:35:00will not code switch like you don't realize we do.

Michael: We do all the time, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Levi: Which is to effectively translate my experience to yours. And so it wasn't

supposed to be an exclusionary place, but it was a place where we could come. It

was my favorite place on campus in my junior year, because I met graduate

students, R-I-P Lisa Tabor. She was a graduate student. I can't remember her

concentration, but she was a graduate student here. There was Takiyah Amin who

eventually came to operate the BCC as a grad student, and then countless others

who would have these really engaging discussions because their level of focus as

graduate students is much different than ours in undergrad, and we got to have

these discussions on you know, it could be social justice one minute. It could

be the Black experience. And they didn't have to be serious and 00:36:00heavy topics;

they could be mundane and run of the mill, but they were just all vibrant and

all of this different information that's being shared. And it was just a place

where you could feel at home. You could leave your stuff there. No one would

bother your stuff. No one would take your things. Nothing would happen to your

stuff. You come back it was right there where you left it. You come in and there

was essentially virtually the same cast of characters or some mixing therein,

and you can come in at any point and you could be playing cards. You could be

watching TV. It stayed on 106 & Park a lot on BET, unfortunately. But that both

gave you license to either enjoy the song that might have been irreverent at the

time, or to chastise it for being so rudimentary in its construction. Either

way, whichever side you pick you could do either of those at the moment, or both

if you so chose. We would call you a bit schizophrenic, but you could do that.

But it was just an awesome 00:37:00space and it definitely facilitated me getting

involved in this campus, because pretty much everything I did was in Squires.

BSA, all the stuff that I really enjoyed was in Squires, and so I was all over

that building, doing any number of things. And that is what really made my

experience. To some degree, and it's probably bad to say it, it gave us a

similar experience to what people may enjoy at HBCUs, here on this campus.

Michael: Right.

Levi: Not insomuch that we needed to be separate, but it gave you like Mike said

a safe space. Well okay, I can be me, all of what that is, whoever that is, in

this place and everybody understands it. They just get it. I don't have to

explain anything. I don't have to try to figure out a different way. Like a good

experience for me trying 00:38:00to make that connection and trying to help people

understand. There was a girl who I was in a group class with, Amy, a White girl

from-- Norfolk, or let's say that area. So she's actually, she went to school,

she was on the track team so she's used to being around Black kids, all that, so

she's not anxious about anything like that, and we are able to have very good

conversations. And it came at a time when one of the fraternities on campus, one

of the White frats on campus had dressed up in Black face and I think he may

have mocked Omega Psi Phi one of the historically Black organizations or Black

fraternities on campus, and there was a big dust-up over it. So we're talking in

true college fashion, these editorials going back and forth in the Collegiate

Times which on some level I found laughable because that's what college students

did. I will intellectually battle this 00:39:00injustice in the newspaper, that's right.

And so there are people walking back and forth and I could imagine the White kid

writing his editorial and the Black kid writing his editorial and we're reading

going back and forth about all this. So Amy is like, well what's the big deal?

It was just a costume. And what I tried to explain to Amy was I was like, well

let's take a look at it this way, when you typically think of Halloween what are

the things that you think of? and she didn't quite understand where I was going.

And I was like, okay, so you think of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, witches. What do

all of those things have in common? She was like, they don't really exist. So

you've effectively lumped me into the same place with things that you don't

really think exist. I exist. I'm right here. I'm just like every day and I don't

see a problem with it. It's just what I'm accustomed to. If I were to walk

around in Abercrombie & Fitch and some Birkenstock sandals, you wouldn't notice

the difference because of your position; you just don't perceive it. But when

you lump me in these groups that is 00:40:00marginalization without using the term.

You've lumped me in the same group with things that you say don't really exist.

You are taking a moment to kind of don a persona that isn't you, but it is me.

It's not a caricature, it's not an idea, it's me. I'm not an idea. I'm here. And

so she kind of understood it from that perspective. I'm not saying that I don't

necessarily need to indict these kids in any serious way for what they did

anymore than I just thought it was stupid. There's any number of things you

could pick. Pick a cartoon character for God's sake! I don't care, anything.

Pick a sports figure or some other figure that you have some kinship with,

anything. Why does it have to be a group of people? If you don't like the

culture, if you don't like the 00:41:00style of clothes--fine. You can object to it.

That's okay. Oh the pants too baggy? The durag thing. Why do you guys wear all

these fitteds all the time? Blah blah blah, whatever. I don't care. You know

knock yourself out. We can have that discussion, but don't mock it and for lack

of a better term marginalize it in a way, or minimize it by making a caricature

out of it. I don't do that to you and I don't want it done to me. That's it. And

so those discussions are also discussions that I appreciate being able to have

with a person like Amy, because I wasn't trying to chaste her like, oh you

should know better. No, this is me. This is how I feel, and I at least want to

help you understand the perspective that I'm coming from. You don't have to

agree with it. I don't care if you do or not, but I just want you to hear me, I

just want you to understand, and she did and I was happy for that and there were

bunches of other discussions 00:42:00where we even had a discussion with-- Because I was

also involved, despite my lack of affiliation with a particular religion of

faith, I was heavily involved with a lot of--a lot of my friends were in the

Christian organization, so that includes Impact, which is an offshoot of Campus

Crusade for Christ, more geared towards the African American community

specifically. And then there was the Enlightened Gospel Choir which was a Black

offshoot kind of with the same people that occupied that Impact, which is a

black Bible study group. And so those are my friends Cedric Owens, Brandon

Pendleton, and they had a friend of theirs, Andrew Lloyd, who was a White kid

from Roanoke. And I remember one of the funniest conversations that we ever had,

and it probably shouldn't have been funny, but Andrew asked, why can you 00:43:00 guys

say the 'N' word but I can't? And Cedric Owens who is perhaps one of the very

nicest, literally one of the nicest people you will ever meet said with a smile

to Andrew in response, I'm not saying you can't say it, I just can't guarantee

you will make it out of the room if you do. He was like, that's it. He was like,

you can say whatever you like. I can respond however I like. [Laughs]

David: That's a perfect response.

Levi: And so Andrew understood, and then we would continue to have these

conversations where we would be upfront about some of the dissonance that occurs

in our community saying it and restricting others. And then we also get into

some of the history that informs a lot of that and we could help bridge that

gap. There was also just this awakening among students. The other thing with the 00:44:00BCC, we had another friend of ours Sean Blackston, and Sean comes from Richmond.

He comes from Southside Richmond like Michael, and one of the interesting things

about him, a very very bright guy, but unfortunately even though he had stellar

grades at his school there was still missing components of his education that he

found out that were illuminating when he got here, so he had to play catch up in

the Corps of Cadets to try to make sure that he was where he was supposed to be.

He didn't realize like oh God, we didn't go over this. We didn't cover this, and

so he had to make up the difference. Ultimately he ended up getting his master's

here in I think sociology. But I say all that to say that while he was having

his awakening he's reading stuff like Herodotus because that was the father of

history and his whole thing was, I want to read in your history books where you

talk about me, and Herodotus did that where he talked about their going to Egypt

or whatever they call it, their kingdom at the 00:45:00time. And being schooled in all

this, he's opening my eyes to all of this, because his whole thing was like, we

didn't just pop up here. Like we didn't just--ohh okay Black people just ended

up here--like no! Like we have been doing stuff and I want to find out what that

was. And so there was this whole-- That was another part of the discussion that

we had in the BCC where we're going through all of this very very deep and

sometimes esoteric knowledge about what had occurred in older societies prior to

this one, and I enjoyed that experience as well. That also included Dr.

Ellington Graves who was still here, who is still here now. He was a graduate

student at the time, and I remember him coming into the BCC and completely

breaking down, almost from a legal perspective, that Michigan decision and how

it was handed down. He also helped to explain to us the Bakke vs Regents case

that had informed that case, so we 00:46:00understood why that case was significant,

what aspects of that case was significant. That's why somebody like Mike could

talk to Steger and the rest of them, because he understood, legally, this is

what you guys are dealing with.

David: So there's a lot of self-education.

Levi: Right. Legally this is what you guys are dealing with, and I can

understand and I can appreciate that. I'm trying to tell you physically what you

will be doing to my community by virtue of that. And I need to figure out a way

with you, if at all possible, that we can avoid completely dismantling these

programs that are very important.

David: What ended up happening with that?

Michael: So you know after the board made that decision a lot of those programs

went away. Now I think over in engineering Dr. Watford was able to get, because

of her connections, some private funds to actually keep the program, I think

they had one called Step.

Levi: Yeah.

Michael: Step over there, which was another program, but once you were here, you

know basically again making sure that you 00:47:00stayed on track, because that

engineering stuff is so hard for anybody, particularly for a group of people who

haven't had that kind of exposure and background. And again, the Focus program

went away in the School of Business. I think Aspire went away to some degree.

They reduced it from what it was.

Levi: But then there's also another aspect to it. It wasn't so much that you had

to figure out some clever ways to do it, so you couldn't have a program that was

specifically geared towards say this program is geared towards Black kids, Asian

kids, Pacific Islander, blah blah blah,

Michael: So then we went to income.

Levi: Couldn't do that. So then what we did was that was when we went to the

other model which was--

Michael: Well it was income and then you are first generation college students,

which tended to trend back to those groups and then they were able to bring some

of those things back.

Levi: So you always had to find an in-door out way to do it.

Michael: But, what that did because that was big news, in [Virginia] Tech we

used to always talk about wanting [Virginia] Tech to be first on so many

innovative 00:48:00things in terms of diversity and supporting underrepresented groups.

The one thing that they were first on was killing these programs. They were like

one of the first schools in the state to do this. And then you know of course

UVA kind of jumped on it by saying, hey, we're actually not going to do that.

Come here because we will really support you. Now they got a bigger endowment

and they got some other things there, and so we saw a big drop in enrollment for

African American students probably for about five or six years. And to be honest

I think only now it's starting to trend back up to the numbers, because we were

actually, in fact I think my class was one of the largest groups of African

American students to come here.

Levi: [Chuckles] Now what was so funny though is looking at his class versus

mine, we thought his class 00:49:00was way too rowdy, way too lively.

Michael: [Laughs] Right.

Levi: We were just like good Lord, because their class came in. I mean with all

the stereotypical travelers did, the pants, the everything. Very very bright

folks once you talk to them, but they came in with all these trappings that

people associated with very stereotypes and all that, we're just looking at them

like what the hell are you doing? You are messing up everything here, go on. [Laughs]

Michael: Well you know we used to joke about it because we started posting up in

front of Dietrick.

Levi: Yes!

Michael: And we would just be out there just standing around, just in groups,

and I know that we had all these people like, where are all these Black people

coming from? They are just up here, just standing around. But you know again, we

were just like, wow, we're here. Where are you from? We found people from

Richmond. We found people from D.C.. We found people from Tidewater.

Levi: And then what you actually find is they were reclaiming history that prior

Black students had. 00:50:00That's what they used to do in the [19]70s and [19]80s, was basically--

Michael: We had Groove on Groove and all that.

Levi: Right. They would post up outside of Dietrick and play cards or whatever

and that was the way they would commune. And so his class was actually

reclaiming that unbeknownst to me.

David: Yeah, I went to UNC and that's UNC's situation for sure, yeah. Social

space, claim it.

Michael: Yeah you know! And so you know we were excited and we thought oh man,

okay, this is something. In fact, I think even in Thomas, in my dorm I probably

had like six or seven other black people in my building and just thinking you

know, we were connecting. We even claimed one of the spaces in there where we

would just kind of hang out and have people over there and stuff. And so you

know, to see those programs go away and to see how that thing really changed was

really something. I think that it had a big impact and I think the rest of our

time here we spent trying to do 00:51:00things, trying to fight for bringing those

things back for trying to help [Virginia] Tech to be innovative as they thought

about recruiting, trying to get the diversity group to do more. And that's why I

think I threw myself into trying to engage the system if you will, because I

know I had friends on the other side like, well Mike why are you sitting on that

commission? Or, why are you going to this thing? You should be out here standing

in front of Burruss and doing all this stuff. And I thought okay, well maybe I

can do something by working on the inside, because no one else that looks like

me is sitting at this table with these people who are making these decisions.

David: Change the system from within the system, yeah.

Michael: But you need it on both ends, right. So you need people working on the

inside. You need people on the outside too, because people have to be pushed and

pulled. So it was really interesting, but I think what it also did for us, it

gave us great insights about the world 00:52:00beyond this place, because this is just a

microcosm of what's happening across the country. And I will say that because

there's always been this debate and I think even recently it came up again about

whether Black kids should go to HBCUs or whether they should go to PWIs, right.

And so we all had interesting opinions. I think you should go to the place that

nourishes you in the way that you need to be nourished, but I will say this, one

thing about being here, I definitely felt like I was more prepared for, in a

most immediate sense when I graduated, for how the world works. I felt like I

had a greater understanding of the people who run this place and who had the

privilege and how it worked, how they think, what they're doing, and I think

that helped me most immediately when I joined the world after college. Not to

say my friends that went to HBCUs didn't do that, I think it just came

differently. 00:53:00And I think one of the good things about their experience was they

got a nourishment everyday all day, that we got in spurts when we would be in

the BCC. You know, because we were always, oh here's my time where I can, I

don't have to code-switch--

Levi: Let my hair down

Michael: I can let my hair down, you know. I can get comfortable.

David: I was going to ask about that. Was there a sense that you just had to be

on point all the time?

Levi: There was a lot of times where you felt like you were educating people.

Michael: Yeah.

David: And that could be a drag, right?

Levi: I mean at bare minimum it's annoying. Like okay, here's something that I

just thought was generally rude. I remember my freshman year I had a shirt,

because at the time there were these whatever company it was that had some shirt

that always had these poems written on it that expressed something that went

along with whatever the artwork was. And so I wore one of these shirts. It had

this very long drawn-out poem on it, and so quite literally this one kid stands

in front of me and like reads the entire shirt, but doesn't say a word to me 00:54:00 at

all. And I was like, so where in the world does this sort of rudeness occur,

where you think that that's okay? And I didn't say anything; I just kind of

walked off abruptly so as to disrupt his reading. I was like, that's not normal!

Like just be, hey, what's that shirt you have? Can I read it? Okay, sure. well,

all that's mean? A simple discussion, quick, easy discussion. Instead you kind

of stared and you stand like literally in front of me and I'm looking at you

like I'm waiting for you to kind of wave or something, you know. It was that

sort of absent mindedness that I found most irritating at times. Going to the

HBCU PWI discussion, I don't think it needs to be a discussion at all. I think

that there is room for both to exist. I think the HBCUs are bastions of cultural 00:55:00heritage for Black or African American people, however you choose to call

yourself, but they are bastions of that culture, all of them. So that includes

Howard, that includes Morehouse and all of the luminaries that came through

that. That includes Spelman [College]. That includes Clark Atlanta [University],

Fisk [University] where W.E.B. Du Bois first came up before he went to Howard

[University]. So these schools were educating people who weren't allowed to be

educated elsewhere. Even looking at Virginia Tech and how it was formed, the

land grant that went to form [Virginia] Tech also went to form Hampton

University and Virginia State. So technically by funding their sister schools,

this was Blacksburg College that the lion's share of the money, about 75 percent

of it went to form Virginia Tech from Blacksburg College. The other 25 percent

went to form those other two institutions, and understanding that history helps

me understand as well. You go back up to D.C., again, 00:56:00I went to school right

across from Howard, we're talking to Freedman's Bureau and numerous reasons why

Howard was founded by General Howard. Because imagine my shock, even though

we're talking about Virginia Tech, when I walk into the main library at Howard

and I see this enormous picture of this White man in a Union uniform. And then I

was like, oh that's General-- Oh. Oh, wow, okay. And they know all this history

because my fiancée actually is an alumnus of Howard, and a lot of my friends

ended up going to Howard as well. And I noticed the differences between us are

subtle but distinct, whereas they may assume certain things are, are the way

they are, I may tend to look at them differently and look at them from a more

systemic standpoint. Like we spend a lot of time in our community talking about

the system, the system, the system. And so I'll change 00:57:00it and I'll say well, I'm

not as worried about the system as I am the actors, because the system doesn't

operate without actors. It just kind of is until somebody pushes a button or

activates something within the system to do something else. So I'm more

concerned with the actors in the system than I am the system itself. And I get

that perspective from here, because in my training as, because I was doing

system development through ACIS, and when we're doing all of our diagrams it

literally spells that out for you. What's your trigger? What's your actor? This

person has to do something and then the process begins whereby information is

either transmuted or transformed into something else or sent somewhere else so

that somebody else can use it, but it starts with this person. So either they do

their job right or they don't, and then that results in either good data or bad.

And so to me it became plain, no matter what system it was, whether it was

political, whether it was social, 00:58:00the actors mattered as much or more than the

system itself. And I appreciated that about my education here because it was

that insight from looking at it, just look at the idea itself to help me to kind

of understand that. And I think that maybe even going back to that, and I'm kind

of getting off subject, but I just think that there's a place for both of them.

Michael: Yeah.

Levi: I typically find that for people like Mike and myself, who grew up in

predominantly African American communities, it was necessary for us to leave and

explore a different world that we had seen. Conversely, my fiancée grew up in

the suburbs in a predominantly White area. It was necessary for her to go to

someplace like Howard to make sure that she codified all of that cultural

information along with the academic information.

David: Is there a special bond then for folks throughout the years, African

American alumni at [Virginia] Tech, who 00:59:00have had that experience then do you think?

Michael: You know, yes and no. I think I will step to one thing and then I'll

bring that back. So your experience here can be two sides of a coin. So I think

on one hand, there's an excitement around being able to have these kinds of

discussions that we had here, and being able to interact with those actors that

you're talking about, and that you maybe have said something or an idea may have

been shared that changes a mind and gets someone to think differently, and maybe

they share that with other people. But then there's also I think a weariness

that you also have, because you're thinking oh here we go again. I've always got

to be alert.

David: Well that's what I was asking before.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. I've always got to be alert to understand what are you

really saying? You know it's funny, I listen to a lot of talk radio, so there's

a guy, 01:00:00Joe Madison, and he always talks about listening with the third ear and

reading with the third eye. And so you always have to listen with that third ear

when you go to a place like this, because you're always wondering, what's

happening? What are you saying? Is there something else I need to get from this?

And then there's this thing about okay, I've got to educate you. I just want to

focus on myself. Some days I just want to do me and that's it, and I don't want

to have to worry about okay, talking about privilege, talking about diversity

recruitment. I don't want to have to go to this thing to bring other Black

students here. I just want to do what everybody else is doing. And so I think

sometimes, there's a weariness that comes from this because you think these

other people who are paid to do these things should be working on these things,

not me. I'm here and paying to be here and I want to just enjoy this experience

like everyone else. And 01:01:00so it's really interesting because I think some of the

Black alumni have very different perspectives on their relationship with this

place, and I think that's why we've struggled. Year after year we have these

reunions to bring people here. We have over, I think at this point--

Levi: Over seventy-five hundred.

Michael: Yeah, over seventy-five hundred living African American alumni. This

year we're only going to have four hundred of them and this is the largest group

that we've ever had on campus for a reunion. And so I think a lot of people

enjoy their experiences, like I enjoy getting to know Levi and the friendship

that developed as a result of us both being here, but there's some people who

don't love this school because of that weariness and the things they had to go

through while they here and it scarred them a little bit, you know. So you don't

see them coming back. You don't see them giving. 01:02:00You don't see them at the

football games. You don't see them at the homecoming celebrations. Because

again, I got a good education. I love the people that I was here with and I got

to know.

Levi: It's cynicism too.

Michael: Yeah, but there was also some pain with that, and I'd rather just have

that be a part of the past. And so it is, it is a very interesting relationship

that we have with it. Levi, it's a little different for us because of our

involvement I think with a lot of things and getting to understand the

university and how it works, and also understanding that we did have some people

in our corner, some people that were really working hard behind the scenes at

very high levels to try to make certain things happen, and that you know, there

is some good here. And so I think that has brought us back and you know, keeps

us engaged with Virginia Tech. But I can't tell you how many people we 01:03:00 graduated

with that they'll come back here for maybe, they may be a part of a fraternity

and they will come back here with they have a probate, but they won't come back

here for a reunion. They won't come back here for a football game.

Levi: So just to piggyback off of that, if you're talking about the bond that's

created, whatever bonds you created naturally at the school, whatever

friendships you would have created, those usually tend to be your bonds. One in

aggregate doesn't necessary exist, like a bond amongst the B;ack students. We

had the beginnings of that with maybe the class that would have left or gotten

here I think in [19]98 or [19]99, because you had a guy named Linwood Blizzard.

He was in Alpha here. I remember Alpha Phi Alpha. I think he started something

called Events Haps. It was a listserv where the Black community could blast out

things that were going on, parties, social functions, blah blah blah, and could

blast it out. Also, in 01:04:00keeping with that, there was this unspoken thing that's

probably gone now. There was a subtle nod that you did at the school whenever

you saw a Black person whether you knew them or not, and there was a subtle nod

just to say kind of, hey, just to acknowledge them. And we may have lost that

shortly after Mike graduated, but that also plays into the demographics of the

kids that they brought here afterwards, which is a whole nother discussion to

have. So that's what I will say about that, is that it tended to be more,

whatever bond you created, so your friends, those are the people you remain

connected with, because those are the bonds that you shared. But in aggregate it

wasn't so much like oh yeah. It wasn't like similar to an HBCU where they may

kind of see each other dressed in some sort of paraphernalia from the school and

they'll say, hey Bison, or something like that. We don't necessary have that

same affect.

Michael: And I think to that point, I've gone to HBCU homecomings 01:05:00and so many of

the folks that Levi counts as friends that went to Howard I know some of those

folks as well. And I find myself at times being jealous of the experience and

the absolute love that they have for their university.

Levi: Unyielding.

Michael: Unyielding. I mean if you talk to a Howard person, you know there's

thing between Hampton University and Howard University folks. They will defend

their university ferociously, and they will argue that their children are going

to go.

Levi: It's a mandate that's already been pastored.

Michael: In fact, this guy right here, Levi, we always joke because his fiancée

Howard alum has already told him their children are going to Howard. It's not a question.

Levi: [Laughs] Right.

Michael: If the children want any help from them they're going to Howard.

Levi: Right. And another one of my 01:06:00friends, Derrick Morgan, who unfortunately he

failed out after his second year, but ultimately he ended up getting his degree

from Howard and he met his wife at Howard, she has also said, if the kids want

any help with college from me they should go to Howard, because otherwise you're

on your own. I was like wow, that's kind of harsh. She's like, for them they

think the Howard experience is great in undergrad to kind of build you up and

then you go to maybe a PWI for your graduate study, because you're already

secure enough in yourself both as an academic or intellectual and as a person,

so you should be able to go out now into the graduate world and do your thing.

And I've seen some people who had some interesting experience with that. A

friend of mine, James McClellan ended up going to North Carolina A&T and did

very well in accounting. 01:07:00Graduated with honors and ended up going to graduate

school in Michigan State. And so all of the things that I talked about from my

freshman year here, he talked about in Michigan State. Very similar in its

construction to us. Very similar in its placement within the state kind of

hierarchy of schools as [Virginia] Tech is to UVA, as Texas A&M is to both

Virginia Tech and to UT. So he got there and he was just like, oh my God, and he

literally called back to his professor and she is a nice and delicate way cursed

him out, and told him that we did not bring you up for you to be a coward

essentially. So you need to kind of toughen up and make it happen, however you

make it happen, make it happen. You have two years. Have a nice day. Call me

whenever you need. [Laughter] She did not let him off. She did not let him off, 01:08:00like you're not going to come home with your tail between your legs, even if

home is A&T, even if home is D.C., I don't care. Finish. Okay. And he did, and

he did very well there. Ultimately where is he working now? Fannie Mae.

Michael: And so you know we often had conversations about that dynamic that we

see with folks who have gone and they have this absolute love for it. I mean

I've got friends that went to North Carolina A&T, same thing. You know a lot of

the HBCUs across you will get the same thing. And so at various points I thought

about it and I'm jealous that I don't have that same connection with Virginia Tech.

Levi: It's not love, it's appreciation.

Michael: Yeah. And don't get me wrong, I am very appreciative of the experience

I got here, the education I got. It's opened a lot of doors for me

professionally, particularly living in the Northern Virginia, Maryland area, if

you have a Virginia Tech degree there's so many people up 01:09:00there that have gone

here. There's so many jobs and opportunities you can have, connections you can

build. So from that perspective, great, but I don't have that endearing love for

this place like they do for at the HBCUs.

David: This is really interesting. I'm going to ask you guys about this because,

and I'm an outsider of Virginia Tech, I've been here five years, and there's

this fervor around this Hokie Nation sort of fervor around here. But what I hear

you saying is that you're a little outside of that. It's harder to connect to that.

Levi: Well, and I want to say it like--you know, I can't connect because I'm

Black and they did all this, I don't want to couch it that way necessarily, but

like Mike was saying, with all of the work that you would do to educate people

it's almost like what is that little, it could be like Chinese water torture.

It's not 01:10:00necessarily-- and maybe that's bad, but it's not necessarily the

individual drops, but in aggregate? That sucks.

David: Right. I hear what you're saying, yeah. It's just wearying over time.

Levi: I mean for me, I was a bit of a cynic when I came here, because for me

Virginia Tech was for me at first very much a business decision. My parents or I

at some point am paying to go here and get a degree. At this point I don't think

I've gotten anything that I didn't pay you all for, so I didn't necessarily feel

that whole endearing, oh yeah the football team, blah blah blah, like I don't

care. If they win or lose, my life doesn't change. Nothing about that paper is

still due on Monday whether they win or lose. My professor is still going to be

in class on Monday whether they win or lose. I don't see what the 01:11:00big deal about

this is. Go see it. Have fun. Drink, get drunk, enjoy yourself and then get over

it. But it was me being cynical about it, not necessarily everybody else. And

part of it was just after a while being involved with the school I saw it from a

different perspective. I was like this is as much a institution of higher

learning as it is a business and it should be respected as both. So I'm not

necessarily so blinded by my love or appreciation for the school that I don't

also see that. And so that was also part of it for me, was like okay, love,

great, Hokie nation, cool, but even outside of that what are we trying to do

with all of this love and all of this fervor? How do we want this to manifest in

a real way and something that is actually good for all aspects of the student

body? It's not enough to just go out here okay, I've got on my Chicago maroon

and my burnt orange, 01:12:00[grunt] we're doing it. No. Like what does it mean? I think

for me, what excited me about Tech was learning about that history of how it was

funded, because [Virginia] Tech for me was for working class where UVA was for

more of your upper class folks. They ended up becoming lawyers. They ended up

becoming doctors. Hell, they were even founded by one of the nation's

forefathers. Love him or hate him, Thomas Jefferson had a lot to do with UVA and

its placement within Virginia's hierarchy of schools. But contrarily [Virginia]

Tech was everyman, and I appreciated that about [Virginia] Tech. I appreciated

that they were land grant. I appreciated that the work that they were supposed

to be doing was supposed to help this area. They were at first essentially Texas

A&M. They were agricultural and manufacturing. That's what they were focused on,

and those are the things that they've done the most work in helping people

realize or overcome a lot 01:13:00of their issues both from an agricultural perspective,

a mechanical perspective, all of the work they've done has been around that. And

even the Ut Prosim thing, the motto, that was actually something I really

appreciate about the school. Because it's not about, ooh look at me, look at

what I did. Well how can I be of service? How can the stuff that I learned at

this land grant institution that's supposed to help the surrounding parts of

Virginia, the parts of Virginia that surround the school, how can I use that

knowledge to help somebody else? And so that kind of went with me as well, like

we can do something with this. [Virginia] Tech was functional, whereas UVA was

more theoretical, and I thought that was smart. I thought that was better. Even

if UVA disagreed with me I don't care. I still think our practical education

beats out your theory, most days. And so I ended up appreciating [Virginia] Tech

in a different way 01:14:00than maybe everybody else might have, because of that. That's

where kind of my love for the school comes from, because they actually do the

work. Other people may sit there and pontificate and give you all these

theories, but the [Virginia] Tech people by and large, and including the ones

that I've met they do the work. They function, and that was most important to me

from a personality of the school.

David: I realize I didn't ask either of you what your major was.

Levi: I was accounting information systems, system development track and then I

did a double major in management.

Michael: I was business information technology, so more I guess a little bit

more techy than what Levi did, but similar curriculum.

Levi: Mike's major tended to focus on--one aspect of Mike's major focused on

production. His is more 01:15:00process focused. Mine was more database focused. His was

more process, like how do I get you to where you're trying to go, be it through

IT or just through your natural processes. How do I get you to where you want to

go? Mine was primarily focused on that. Can we organize your data in such a way

that you don't get duplicates, erroneous data nonsense, and so those are kind of

where the two majors were kind of going.

David: What is each of your positions now?

Michael: So now I am in consulting work and I focus primarily on the federal

government and looking at their processes, IT security, cyber risks, stuff like that.

Levi: And I on the other hand I'm working in consulting as well, management

consulting doing requirements gathering for software development. So I am

effectively a liaison between the business interest and the technical folks that

I work 01:16:00with, and so essentially I do what my major is supposed to do. [Laughs]

Michael: Yeah, I guess I'm doing what my major--

Levi: What you supposed to do.

Michael: Yeah, what you're supposed to do.

Levi: So actually we are probably two of the few people who actually use the

majors we went in there for.

Michael: And stayed with it.

David: That goes with what you were saying about practical. You're doing the

work. It made sense for you.

Michael: You know, I think going back to that whole thing about the practical

piece, I think that is something-- You know we do talk about the things that

connect us with Virginia Tech. This was an opportunity for us to be a part of

the us. Because I think many folks, Black, African American, whatever you want

to call yourselves, view themselves as hardworking people trying to do the right

things to just make things happen. And the school has really been focused on

that type of people and making sure that hey, you get a good education so you

can 01:17:00be a productive member of the society that is actually really helping people

and doing things. Not so much about the theory and sitting in offices and

strategy stuff, but hey, get in the weeds and do something. And so I think we do

connect with this university in that way, yes. We are a part of the us of this.

And again, I think too, for us, what also helps us connect with this place,

particular because we were both involved in leadership that connected us with

the university and we go to see the other side of it, you do realize that yeah,

there are some decisions that weren't necessarily about just making life

difficult for you because of your particular background. Some of it's just

because you know it's a business and they were doing things that would keep

costs low and keep that tuition coming in. They pay professors, they build new

buildings and make sure they've got the research dollars and how this whole

thing is, and endowments, 01:18:00and all of those things. So it has I think given us a

balanced perspective to say yeah, there are definitely some things that are

related to hey, privilege and people who run the university and are involved in

it, but a lot of this is also business and trying to be competitive with all the

other universities in this country.

Levi: Another story I wanted to share real quick that gave me a really

interesting perspective. I think my fourth year here when I was finishing up the

ASIC major we had to take an ethics class, and part of that ethics class you had

to do a volunteer project of some sort and they usually had organizations that

you could work with. The organization I ended up with was Appal Corps,

A-P-P-A-L, so like Appalachia. What made that so eye-opening for me is because

coming from Southeast D.C., if you've ever been to D.C. Southeast D.C. is you

can be construed as either poor, working class, what have you, 01:19:00but primarily you

get this idea either it doesn't have to be told to you that primarily White

people do a certain way, Black people do another way. That doesn't have to be

true in any way, but that's kind of a sense that you get when you're in D.C..

But, then I come down here and I get a taste of Appalachia and that's when it

opens my eyes, like oh wait.

Michael: It's the same.

Levi: Wait. The problems are the same but different, whereas I might be in

Southeast complaining like we don't have a good functioning hospital. The

hospital that would actually treat this lady in Appalachia is some fifty miles

away. There's no way functionally I can get an ambulance to her and get her to

someplace with treatment. She also lives off a gravel road. I can only go but so

fast to get to her. She's also the only person in this home. There's no

guarantee that she will be able to make the call if something happens. There's

all of these different 01:20:00factors that I had not considered that mirrored some of

the issues that I'm dealing with in an urban scene. And so that helped me make a

connection as well, like wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a

minute. We're not the only people not benefitting from this entire system. Oh

crap, I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of my perceptions. And it made me

have to address those in myself. Like damn. I'm thinking like oh you know, you

come in knowing about privilege in some way or another or racism in some way or

another, having some idea about that. Because I remember getting into a

discussion with another friend of mine who happened to be Pakistani American

about what was racism versus prejudice and bigotry from a definition

perspective. So racism being having the institutional power to restrict people

from access. Prejudice being a 01:21:00bias towards something you're familiar with

versus something you aren't, and bigotry being an out and out idea that your

particular way is better than another. He didn't necessarily understand what I

was trying to get at, because he was saying something was racist. I was like

it's not racist. It's prejudice. We can go with prejudice. It's not racist. He's

like, what are you talking about? It's not prejudice. It's prejudice. This

person preferred and they acted on that preference, but they don't enjoy any

institutional power whereby they can restrict you from doing something because

of that prejudice. They can't. They don't have that power. But you come in

knowing all of this stuff and having all of these ideas and then you get into

something like Appal Corps and you're like that turns all that shit on its head.

You're like oh, oh, oh wow, okay. My bad.

David: That program really got you out into the sticks.

Levi: I was out. What county was that? Because this is Montgomery County. 01:22:00 The

next one over is that Pulaski?

David: There's Pulaski, there's Giles.

Levi: And so we were either in one of those two, Pulaski or Giles helping a lady

out with something, and without us doing that work she wouldn't have had the

help she needed. And that was when we rode out there is when I really got the

perspective. I was like oh, okay. Wow. This is different than I thought, because

these aren't privileged college kids in a way, people whose parents at least

have enough income to even make this discussion or to qualify for the loans.

Like her kids, if she had any--

David: There's no way.

Levi: It wasn't going to happen. Like how? And those are the people that

[Virginia] Tech was supposed to serve. These are the people who existed in

Blacksburg College before Virginia Tech started. And these were the people who

needed something after the Civil War, because otherwise how were they going to

fend for themselves? So again, we get to the same point 01:23:00where what we're asking

for as Blacks or African Americans isn't different. It isn't at all different. I

don't want anything extra. I want the same thing you wanted, in 1872, because

you didn't have an opportunity after the war to lift yourself up like some of

those people who may have been connected and went to UVA, who may have been

connected to the money that was flowing through Virginia at the time. And this

was a way to kind of even the playing field for them. And so it was getting that

insight both from Appal Corps and then just understanding how the school was

founded that really really broadened my perspective. It helped me understand

like we really aren't talking different languages here. We really aren't saying

anything different, and we mostly want the same things and that gave me that

perspective. And I appreciate coming here to have had that, because it allows me

to go back to my friends who may be legitimate in some of their complaints and

offer them a slightly different 01:24:00perspective. Like even going back to my father

and some his views, because he grew up in Buffalo which is very very racist, or

very racial. And that informs his perspective in telling him like there are

people who have never come in contact with Black folks whatsoever. I can't

expect them to all of a sudden be altruistic and they've never ever ever come in

contact with anybody like that. I don't go into that conversation with that as

an expectation. I go in knowing you never met somebody like me. I'm going to

inform you about what that means and I'm not afraid to. And so it was an

entirely different perspective that I got by virtue of having access like that.

So, I mean Virginia Tech, like Mike said, you get a lot of those scars, because

I mean to be honest we had somebody smear 'nigger' 01:25:00on the NAACP door in Squires.

For me, for a lot of people, that raised a lot of ire. For me I looked at that

person, I was like, coward. Say what you have to say out loud. I'm like we can

take it. It's a word. It's a word. I don't appreciate you saying it. I don't

appreciate you scribbling it on the door, but you did this under the cover of

darkness. You aren't a person who wants to have a discussion, so I'm not

inspired to actually engage you. I didn't want anybody writing stuff in like

editorial. Forget it. I'm like if you really have a grievance with somebody say

it. Say what you have to say.

David: But something like that didn't make you feel less welcome on a campus or

want to get out of here or anything like that?

Levi: Coward. I'm not worried about a coward. I'm not worried about somebody who

is too afraid to say it to my face, you know, if you have that sort of

grievance, because I don't perceive you as a threat. 01:26:00Like you're not going to

come and do anything to me. You came here as this place was closing or under the

cover of darkness and you scribbled something and you ran away. What are you

going to do to me? Like if we're talking about physical danger, the Klu Klux

Klan really came up on peoples' yards and they really did burn crosses in

peoples' front yards. Like that's literally scary because they intend to do you

harm. This person only scribbled some shit on the door. Okay, have fun. And we

moved on; we cleaned it off, and the response from the school, at least I think

at that time was pretty decent. They made sure they cleaned it up quickly. They

did their best to try to get to the bottom of it, at least to some degree, but

you are never going to find that person.

David: Was it a big thing on campus in terms of the university's response?

Michael: Um, you know.

Levi: From what I can remember it was.

Michael: Yeah, it was kind of a medium thing.

Levi: Yeah, medium.

David: I'm curious, because we had something recently that was a I think an 01:27:00anti-Middle Eastern or anti-Arab--

Michael: We heard about that on the way in.

David: And the president, like we got a letter immediately.

Michael: It's funny you bring that up, because you know I think sometimes the

folks in administration would get it confused. It was not that we expected the

people who run this university, any university around the country to solve these

problems. These are things that have been going on since the beginning of time

in one way or another with different groups of people. So it's not a unique

thing with Black and White people, and even beyond Black and White. I mean we've

got other underrepresented groups that receive all kinds of different types of

discrimination. I think the big thing for us always was that you're aware and

that you care. And we didn't always feel that at different points. If

something's happening on this campus that impacts 01:28:00any group of people, the folks

who are running this university should have an awareness. Even if it says, hey,

I'm aware. I know that's happening. And we did experience it at different points

where it would be weeks or sometimes no response at all. Oh, the president

didn't know because he's out of the country fundraising. Oh, he's in another

state. Oh, he's at ACC Presidents meetings. Okay, well even then in 2000 we've

got cell phones. We've got email. Hey, he can type a statement. He can call his

administrative assistant and say, hey, what happened? Who did this happen to? I

would like to give him a call. I want to send him an email. Hey guys, I don't

support this. I think this was wrong and we're going to do our best to do

something about it. Things like that I think would have gone a long way. But you

know, I think for some reason folks always thought that people wanted 01:29:00them to

solve every social ill that came across their desk or it happened at this

university or anywhere else, and that was not what we wanted. Just an awareness

and that you cared. And that's why I am happy that President Sands is here. I

don't expect him to change this university. This university has been here since

1872, and the thing is that you know, there were Black students,

underrepresented students that were here before that had these problems. We had

those problems, and we still hear about those same problems happening. There's

going to be groups of people that come after the people that are here today and

they are going to have those same problems. But you should be pushing forward to

try to make that change, to create that awareness, to be having those

discussions again to make people aware. Because for me this whole diversity

thing, it isn't about numbers. I look around the room and okay, we've got two

Black people and we've got four Middle Eastern people and 01:30:00we've got two

Japanese--no. You know, for me what it's always been about is that we have an

exchange of different ideas, and that you can walk away from this having a new

perspective or a different perspective. Even as a Black person as an

underrepresented group, you know, who historically has had a difficult time, I

still can learn from other people and have a different perspective about things.

And so I appreciate being able to engage with people who don't have the same

background as me. And so that's what that whole diversity thing is for me, not

just looking around and saying we've got different colors of people around the

room and that the numbers look good. It's about the ideas.

Levi: Anecdotal, an anecdotal example of diversity. Two of my friends, the two

that were Pakistani American, of course we are young college kids and their

original language is Urdu, which 01:31:00is similar to Hindi in the way that Portuguese

is similar to Spanish. And of course all we learned as American kids is the

curse words, so all the curse words. It happened one day we are on the tennis

courts over across the street from Lee, attempting to play tennis very badly.

And then on the other side on another one of the courts are a group of Pakistani

students, visa students. I don't know what you would call them, but basically

they are just over here to go to school and they are playing cricket. And I hear

them yelling all the words that I know in Urdu over this game of cricket, and I

think to myself I was like, that's really harsh for a person that missed a shot.

And then I thought about how I was when I played basketball, and I said fair

enough. All right. We'll just leave that alone. We'll let you guys live. I still

think that's a 01:32:00bit mean to have said to him just because he missed a shot, but

that's your business and I'm in no position to talk. And that to me is diversity

whereby you can connect yourself to another person with whom you have no

connection. I don't know cricket, but I do know sports. I do know people

involved in sports, but their friends get angry and they say hostile and mean

things to each other. And I could appreciate that that doesn't change just

because your language is different, just because your culture is different. Men

are just as competitive and as pig-headed across cultures as they are in any of

them. It was also listening to my friend talk to his mother. In Urdu yes is ji,

so imagine you're talking to your mom and your mom is berating you about

something you either should have done or something she reminded you to do and

you are like, yes-- yes-- yes-- And I hear him on the phone, ji-- ji-- 01:33:00 ji--

yeah. And I was like that's the same reaction. Like his mom is going off on him

because it was something he was supposed to have done either for school or

registered or something, and he might have been a little bit delayed but

ultimately it wasn't a big deal. And he's just on the phone like, I'm just going

to bear this for a little while because I'm going to let her chew me out for a

little bit and then we're going to go on about our business and she'll be fine.

And it was the same thing I went through with my parents, and that's diversity,

is being able to see that and make that connection and know that even though

there are legitimate differences between us all, distinct differences between us

all that should be appreciated. They also make for some very interesting similarities.

David: And those points of connection are so vibrant and strong.

Levi: And they are a lot easier to see than we give them credit for.

Michael: Yeah.

Levi: They're a whole lot easier to see than we really give them credit for. We

make it out to be like okay, I have to figure out exactly 01:34:00where you match up so,

so how do you say are or to be? Hmm, I want to match it all up. No! Like you

know what's up with these things. You know how you react to some of these

stressors and some of these issues. Consider that another human being acts the

same way, they just may express it slightly differently. A good friend of mine

my freshman year, Jin Kim, a Korean American kid from Richmond, it was

interesting to learn his story. His father was murdered I think when they lived

in Georgia, or maybe when they lived in Richmond, potentially by a Black guy.

Because they operated a store in probably a distressed neighborhood or an

impoverished neighborhood and that ultimately came of it. And to see that he

didn't necessarily harbor any ill will to anybody but that person. Even to that

person he had made his peace with that, 01:35:00but even to watch the way that he would

operate and watch the way that he code switches. He ultimately went-- He left

here after his freshman year. I think he got a 4.0 while he was here in

business, and ended up going to William & Mary to study political science, and

then he went into law after that, and I can't remember what school he went to.

But watching him code switch between both myself and the White kids, he grew up

in an urban area so he talked like his dialect was all like Black kids. But by

the same token he could switch and his dialect could be different if needed, and

he was still the same Jin Kim irrespective of that. His humor was the same. His

wit was the same. His approach was the same, his language was different. And I

admired that about him. And he also would chastise me for doing the same thing

that Mike talked about him doing academically, whereas like, oh I can pass that

test. I know I've got it, because there's a few grades I know I screwed myself

out simply by being cocky. And he was 01:36:00like you're resting on your talent, and

you can't do that. And that has stuck with me since then, because it was a

personal indictment that I had to be honest with myself about, really really

honest. Like am I really just trying to kind of live off-- Because there was

literally a class I had, Psychology 101 where I read the chapter review on the

way home on the bus ride here--on the way back here, and I got like a

ninety-something. And a friend of mine who had studied a good deal for that test

only got a few points higher than me. He was angry. I was like, but I paid

attention in class. He's not asking anything he didn't talk about. But that was

a personal gift for me and an understanding of that particular class that I had.

I went to another psychology class, Psychology of Learning. I tried that same

thing there. No sir. No sir. I instantly got like either 01:37:00somewhere between a

sixty or a seventy. What? Oh no. Yeah.

Michael: A different ballgame.

Levi: So the next test we studied. I got it, and I left her class with like a B

ultimately, but it was that cockiness on occasion that screwed me up. And I

didn't blame anybody. I didn't say, oh it's the system, or it was the racial

environment of the school. No. It was me and my own cockiness. It happened in

biology. It happened in psychology. It happened in countless classes that I can

go back to where I thought I had it nailed and I was wrong. And Jin in his quest

for his own goals, saw that in me and was like, Levi you've got to tighten up,

because I know you're capable. I know you're smart enough to do the work, but

you're not.

David: And it takes a real friend to call you out on something like that.

Levi: And I appreciated it. And that diversity is a part of my experience as

well, so that is a Korean 01:38:00kid, there's Pakistani kids. There are Sudanese

American kids that I met. There are Indian American kids that I met. There are

Nigerian kids that I met, Ghanaian. The list goes on and on and on of

difficulties that I at least got a taste of or I got an opportunity to explore,

because I had somebody right there who lived it. And then didn't tell me

second-hand information, they told me what their life was like and the things

that they enjoyed, everything from cultural foods to idiosyncrasies about

culture that you get to understand. You know things that they did or didn't like

about their culture you could understand. Things, like in the same way that

certain people think it's inappropriate for Black kids to use the 'n' word there

were other epithets that people used within their group that I thought were

inappropriate, like understanding what little I understood about the history.

Are you sure you want to use that 01:39:00term? That doesn't seem right, but at the same

time I had to acknowledge that that same thing happens in my culture as well,

and there are reasons for it, some legit, some not. So, that was a part of my

experience is what I appreciated in that year also.

Michael: And I think you know we talk about the weariness and some of those

things, but on the other side I think coming here, we had so many new

experiences. I was just thinking about you were talking about the first night we

had humus, was here. [Laughter] In Richmond I would have never--

Levi: Went and bought some humus.

Michael: Never went and bought humus. I remember going to the Indian restaurant

that was right there on Price's Forks. I don't know if it's still there.

David: Yeah it's there.

Michael: That's the first time I ever had Indian food. Growing up you know we

had just average stuff, you know, and there was so many things, not just food

but activities. I was skiing. I would have never gone 01:40:00skiing just from my

background in Richmond. I did that here. Hiking out Jefferson Forest-- the

National Forest going to the Cascades and stuff.

Levi: Right.

Michael: So there were so many things that did happen here as a result of being

here. I think you know we always talk about the country living, I think we got

used to the quiet. In fact, I know when I graduated and went back to the city it

took me a while to get adjusted to--

Levi: Ooh, boy.

Michael: City noise again, city lights. You know there were times, remember at

the apartment complex we both lived in there were sometimes we didn't lock our

doors here, you know.

Levi: Oh I was good for falling asleep on my friends, so you know, we might all

be up. I get a little sleepy. I go ahead and issue the message like you can stay

as long as you want. Close the door behind you. I'm going to go to sleep. Which

technically is rude, but [laughter]--

David: It's your house.

Michael: But you didn't worry about stuff.

Levi: We didn't worry 01:41:00about it. [Laughs]

Michael: So from that perspective you know, Blacksburg it was very interesting.

I think it gave us a lot of things. But you know, I guess it's just like

anything in life, sometimes it's complicated, right. And there's a mix of good,

bad and everything in the middle, but--

Levi: BSA for instance, talking about having to be clever in a new environment,

BSA's funding was always a bit threatened after the decision and probably often.

I remember talking to a girl about two years ago who was president of BSA and

she echoed that a lot of times they are still in a roundabout way asked to be

folded into VTU. But like I remember trying to work around that by making sure

we partnered with different organizations, and finding the areas where we had

similar interests. So that included working with the LGB community for AIDs

awareness. That included working with LASO, 01:42:00Latin American Student Organization,

on a movie night, whereby we showed City of Gods, 'cause technically even though

that's Brazil, that still qualifies as Latin. It is also a part of the diaspora.

They have the largest concentration of Africans outside of Africa. And that's a

way for us to show that one, Latin America isn't only one shade or one look.

Latin America is a whole cornucopia of people, and this connects us to them. So

you're not foreign from them. You are similar. You are one with them. That

includes working with, oh gosh, we worked with AAU one, but finding different

ways to connect with people in a meaningful way to programming to show that

look, we're not that different. And we did that so we could combine resources

and we could combine money as much as we could to try to show the connection,

the more intellectual academic aspects. 01:43:00If we shared the money, if we pooled the

money we could get more done and we could foster that cooperation between

groups, and I appreciated being able to do that here as well. 'Cause there

aren't a lot of places where you get to manage about what was it, $125,000.

Where it's essentially school and vis-a-vie state money to do some programming,

and that was an invaluable experience that I got here as well, like one that I

don't know could have been duplicated in very many places, so yeah.

David: All right. I think we should wrap up, I think that might be my next

guest. Thank you guys so much. Anything else you want to say to conclude?

Michael: No. Go Hokies, right?

Levi: Go Hokies, and I will say whoever gets to listen to this recording I would

hope 01:44:00that they're able to connect to some of our experience. Hopefully we shared

some anecdotes that they give you something to connect to, because essentially

this is like a vocal time capsule in a way, and so I appreciate having the

opportunity to do it.

Michael: Thank you so much for this.

David: Thank both of you, yeah.

[End of interview]