Covid has disrupted every aspect of our society, but its impact on education may be its most long lasting. Pierce County is blessed with a wealth of higher ed institutions: UWT, Evergreen Tacoma, University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma Community College, Pierce College, and Bates & Clover Park Technical Colleges are all of such quality that we take them for granted.

As we emerge from the pandemic, school leaders across the world are re-imagining the work at their institutions. At the same time on the student end, after rejecting online instruction at full tuition rates, many 2020 high school grads took a gap year. They will hopefully be returning to campuses later this year. It is going to be a very interesting fall.

We invited two college presidents, Allan Belton from PLU and Ivan Harell from Tacoma Community College, onto the show to talk about all these issues and others facing their schools, faculty, and students.

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This episode was sponsored by Pacific Lutheran University

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In April, Melissa Santos* published a story in Crosscut about nearly 200 Washington State police officers with documented credibility issues. The offenses range in severity, but the violations are serious enough that prosecutors around the state are obligated to disclose them to defense teams when the officers testify or provide evidence in a case, a Brady Disclosure. When that story broke, we reached out to Santos about coming on and talking about her investigation. She suggested we wait until later in the month and do a 2:1 and include a recap of the Washington Legislative Session.

We debated breaking this into two separate episodes, but instead decided to drop a double album, a la Wu-Tang Forever. If you specifically want to hear about the Brady List story, jump to 34:43.

*Yes, Santos is a member of the NF Smoking Jacket Society

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Going Further

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The OL Reign regular season begins in May. We wanted to do a season preview with the Dean of NW Women’s Soccer, Susie Rantz. We talked about new arrivals to the team, Coach Farid Benstiti’s 4-2-3-1 scheme, the rough start for the team in the NWSL Challenge Cup, and the status of Megan Rapinoe.

If you are an OL Regin fan there’s a ton here including some smoke to Rose Lavelle rumors. If you’re new to WoSo, welcome aboard, this conversation is a great intro to OL Reign and Susie is a great follow.

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Going Further

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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The Seattle Sounders went to MLS Cup last year and were sadly and soundly defeated by Columbus. In the off-season, the Sounders lost some beloved players including Gustav Svensson, Kelvin Leerdam, and Joevin Jones. We also had some off-season homecomings with Fredy Montero and Kelyn Rowe.

After an extended off season, due to Covid-19, the 2021 MLS season will start for Seattle on April 16 at Lumen Field against Ozzie Alonso and Minnesota United. We invited on two of my favorite writers from the Sounders beat, Miki Turner of Sounder at Heart and Ari Liljenwall from MLS.com, to preview the roster and the season ahead. We talked comings and goings, remaining holes, new formations, and predictions for the season.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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For a lot of people conversations about personal finance are gauche and to be avoided. As a result, I regularly see people, including former students, lament not getting a meaningful education in personal financial matters: debt, credit, saving, retirement, etc. Some states require a course in financial literacy as a graduation requirement but Washington State is not among them. So I brought on two guests to talk about teaching both students and adults about personal finance.

This conversation features Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani. He is the Director of the Center for Economics Education at Northern Kentucky University. He is joined by Brian Page. Brian is an award winning teacher and now serves as the Senior Director for Partnerships & Advocacy at Next Gen Personal Finance.

When in doubt, remember the advice of Marshawn Lynch: “Keep an eye on your mentals and your chicken.”

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Here’s what we know for sure know: on January 27, recently elected Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer was involved in an incident where at 2am he stalked and confronted a Black newspaper delivery driver, Sedrick Altheimer, who was doing his normal route in the neighborhood.

But Troyer’s version of events and Alexander’s version of events differ: We know for sure Troyer called a special police dispatch number rather than 911, like you and me might have done; we know that 42 units were initially dispatched to the incident; we know that according to Althiemer an officer drew his gun; we know that according to Troyer on the call, Alexander threatened to kill him; we know that Troyer’s version of the story now differs substantially from the responding officer, Troyer’s own statement in the initial call, and statements made by Altheimer.

We know all of this from the reporting of Jim Brunner in Lewis Kamb from the Seattle Times. So, I invited them on the show to talk about their reporting on the story and their unanswered questions of which there are many. Give this a listen and then decide for yourself.

Going Further

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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One of the things that moving to Abu Dhabi has taught me is that I have some intellectual blindspots that I want to use the show to help address. For example, I recently realized in talking to a student from Pakistan that I have only a rudimentary knowledge of the history of South Asia, pre-1947. I shamefully don’t know a ton about the classical African Empires, etc. So we are going to be throwing in a new wrinkle in the show called Nerd Farmer Academy. These will be periodic interviews with academics about topics in history, sociology, and economics.

The first Nerd Farmer Academy episode centers on the interwar period in Europe and the rise of fascist states in Spain, Germany, and Italy. Our guest is Beth Griech-Polelle. She is the Kurt Mayer Chair of Holocaust Studies at Pacific Lutheran University. She came on to talk about the interwar period, the death of European empires, and lessons for today. She is really, really passionate about this time period and I think it comes across in our conversation.

Look for future Nerd Farmer Academy conversations about the history of Black Arabs and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). If there’s a topic you’d like to hear discussed, shoot us an email: [email protected].

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member