Rural Futures with Dr. Connie Episode 4 Featuring Dr. Tim Griffin

Rural Futures Institute Author

06/15/2018 Added

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Tim Griffin

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[00:00:00.500]Hi, it's Katelyn, producer of the
[00:00:02.570]Rural Futures podcast.
[00:00:04.490]Subscribe where you listen, so you don't miss an episode,
[00:00:07.080]and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
[00:00:10.066]@RoyalFutures.
[00:00:11.040]Thanks for listening.
[00:00:13.430]For the complex type of problems that I work on,
[00:00:16.520]both in the agricultural realm, but the broader food system,
[00:00:19.918]it has to be flexible.
[00:00:21.480]We have to be able to think about what are the different
[00:00:24.330]pathways that we can follow here, and you don't wanna
[00:00:26.980]lock yourself into one.
[00:00:28.250]If you do that, you might come to a solution, so to speak,
[00:00:31.330]but it might not be the best solution.
[00:00:33.186](hip hop music)
[00:00:35.290]Rural Futures.
[00:00:36.123]The podcast where we connect thought leaders
[00:00:38.170]and doers at the intersection of technology,
[00:00:41.140]and what it means to be human.
[00:00:42.930]Every episode we talk with entrepreneurs,
[00:00:45.470]researchers and achievers, to create impact for
[00:00:48.367]generations to come.
[00:00:50.690]And now, here's Dr. Connie.
[00:00:53.320]Welcome back to the Rural Futures podcast.
[00:00:55.710]We recorded this episode in Boston, Massachusetts
[00:00:58.495]during our invited visit with Tufts University faculty.
[00:01:02.110]Our guest this episode is Dr. Tim Griffin of the
[00:01:05.130]Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.
[00:01:08.670]I started off by asking him to explain a bit more
[00:01:11.320]about the school itself and his roles at Tufts.
[00:01:14.570]The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
[00:01:17.540]covers a lot of ground as a school, a very interdisciplinary
[00:01:22.150]free-standing school of nutrition, rather than being a
[00:01:24.720]department of nutrition within another college.
[00:01:27.100]So that make us unique.
[00:01:28.950]And then, for the last nine years, I've led an
[00:01:31.431]interdisciplinary program called Agriculture, Food,
[00:01:35.000]and Environment which covers about as much base
[00:01:38.410]as you would think it would with a name like that.
[00:01:40.590]So, we go all the way from farming and the impacts
[00:01:45.360]of farming, and profitability of farming,
[00:01:47.630]all the way through to who has access to what kinds of food
[00:01:51.480]and who does not, both in the United States and globally.
[00:01:55.050]That's big, I mean, those are big questions,
[00:01:57.160]big areas of research, and teaching.
[00:01:59.208]I guess I'm curious about part of your story on
[00:02:02.630]how you even got here to Tufts, so could you tell us
[00:02:05.630]a little bit about your history--
[00:02:07.435]Sure.
[00:02:08.701]And why Tufts was so interested in having somebody
[00:02:10.730]like you join their team.
[00:02:11.950]Yeah, so my path here is a winding path, starting
[00:02:14.800]in Nebraska, at the University of Nebraska,
[00:02:17.860]back decades ago.
[00:02:19.530]You know, I trained as an agronomist and a soil scientist,
[00:02:22.210]so I've been doing interdisciplinary research,
[00:02:25.686]essentially, since I was a master's student in Nebraska
[00:02:29.060]in the 80's, continued on, and have had three very
[00:02:31.990]different positions, but three positions that I've been
[00:02:36.038]really fortunate to have.
[00:02:37.480]So my first faculty-level position was in
[00:02:40.770]cooperative extension in Maine.
[00:02:43.360]It was a sustainable agriculture specialist,
[00:02:46.090]which was the first position like that in the United States,
[00:02:49.110]and I was the first person to have it.
[00:02:50.890]So, it put me kind of right in, you know, maybe a kind of
[00:02:54.814]similar situation that I'm in now where it's not about
[00:02:58.120]focusing on one thing, it's about thinking what the
[00:03:00.260]linkage is across many different things and, you know,
[00:03:02.950]heavily involved with farmers and farming.
[00:03:05.030]At that point, I was a scientist at USDA but was doing work
[00:03:09.040]all the way from greenhouse gas emissions, to
[00:03:12.063]producing organic milk, and when I was in that position,
[00:03:16.410]I actually knew about this program at Tufts in the
[00:03:20.090]School of Nutrition which started in the mid 90's,
[00:03:22.883]but for a while it was quite small and it
[00:03:26.445]just happened to be that they were looking for a
[00:03:29.010]new faculty member.
[00:03:30.110]There was a person retiring, and somewhat on a whim,
[00:03:33.760]which is kind of how I manage things, I applied for it,
[00:03:37.056]and the--
[00:03:39.323]You know, I was interested in it, because it just
[00:03:41.620]continues this kind of interdisciplinary aspects
[00:03:45.030]of agriculture in connection to the broader food system.
[00:03:49.345]I think the university and the school were interested,
[00:03:53.020]because I'd been, you know, deeply involved in agriculture
[00:03:56.490]for a long time before I came here.
[00:03:58.220]It'd been, you know, 25 years or more doing research,
[00:04:02.040]but also working with farmers, you know, did a lot of
[00:04:05.280]public talks so could communicate, that kind of thing.
[00:04:08.020]So the idea was, like, bring that into the classroom,
[00:04:10.570]which is basically what I've been doing for the last
[00:04:13.090]10 years.
[00:04:13.970]So we've heard about Tim Griffin at Tufts,
[00:04:17.250]but tell us a little bit about Tim Griffin outside of Tufts.
[00:04:20.650]I love books.
[00:04:22.718]Actually, I bring books, we do a literature day
[00:04:24.100]in one of my classes, and it's just like,
[00:04:25.630]here's my take on, you know, books that connect to
[00:04:28.690]agriculture or you know the agrarian ideas in the
[00:04:33.160]United States, and, you know, I love music,
[00:04:36.130]so I bring music into class actually.
[00:04:37.830]Okay, what kinda music.
[00:04:38.990]All kinds that--
[00:04:40.270]A lot of folk music, actually, both current but older
[00:04:44.450]folk songs, so I'll bring in old Woody Guthrie songs
[00:04:47.170]to class.
[00:04:48.692]Lot of great messages in some of that old music.
[00:04:51.249]My wife and I, you know we bike a lot,
[00:04:54.844]been traveling a lot over the last six or seven years,
[00:04:58.720]around the United States.
[00:05:00.010]We actually drove across the US four or five years ago
[00:05:03.020]for the first time.
[00:05:04.550]That's awesome!
[00:05:05.383]I didn't know that.
[00:05:06.216]Yeah, yeah, we drove, actually a former student's car,
[00:05:08.790]we drove it out to Sacramento to give it to her, so,
[00:05:11.457]that was fun, and, so I mean, we get out and about a lot.
[00:05:16.530]You know, this is the first time we've lived in a big city,
[00:05:19.070]so we explore a lot of it just, you know it's,
[00:05:22.100]we've gone the last couple of days, public transit,
[00:05:24.400]walking, biking.
[00:05:26.640]So that's you know, that's the kind of things we do.
[00:05:29.020]So tell us a little bit you know, we've heard about you
[00:05:31.430]as a person now, a little bit more, and also you,
[00:05:34.150]and your work at Tufts, and even before--
[00:05:36.470]Tell us a little bit about your leadership philosophy
[00:05:38.840]and style.
[00:05:39.970]Yeah, I wish I had a specific philosophy.
[00:05:42.780]I was thinking about this this morning and it's,
[00:05:45.830]I would say my leadership is somewhat intuitive,
[00:05:50.410]so I don't have a particular strategy, and even really,
[00:05:54.920]a particular direction that you know, like I've
[00:05:58.450]charted out what I wanna be doing 10 years from now,
[00:06:01.010]or five years from now,
[00:06:02.894]which is kind of why, you can see, I've changed positions
[00:06:05.902]to very different things a couple of times,
[00:06:09.520]and been fortunate to do that, but you know, I think
[00:06:13.040]early in my career, if I was asked to do, you know,
[00:06:17.240]to take a leadership role, whether it was, you know,
[00:06:19.820]an extension program or running a research project.
[00:06:23.009]Early in my career, I think, my first question
[00:06:25.288]that I would ask myself is, is it important, you know?
[00:06:27.920]Is it important to me, but also whatever organization
[00:06:32.010]I'm working with or for?
[00:06:33.638]I quickly modified that to be important and interesting,
[00:06:38.020]so you don't get a lot of important things that you
[00:06:40.606]don't really care about.
[00:06:41.800]And then, as I've told many of my, especially doctoral
[00:06:45.130]students recently, I've added to those two things
[00:06:48.070]that it should be fun.
[00:06:49.290]Of course not everything we need is fun.
[00:06:51.480]Not all of the roles that we have are fun,
[00:06:53.712]but I'm at a point now where I can provide leadership
[00:06:59.570]and actually it is on important issues, and it is
[00:07:03.060]interesting, and it is fun.
[00:07:04.370]But I don't have a really specific set of criteria
[00:07:09.559]that I would say I wanna lead this and this way.
[00:07:12.740]You know, very much involved in things that I do lead,
[00:07:16.160]so rather than saying, I'm the leader of this, and here's
[00:07:20.065]the 27 tasks that have to get done, and then just
[00:07:23.590]assigning those to people, that's way more directive
[00:07:25.955]than I am.
[00:07:27.780]It's like, let's figure out as a group, how are we gonna
[00:07:30.665]begin to address this question or this challenge,
[00:07:33.900]and then we will modify it as a team as we go along.
[00:07:36.510]So it's, you know, I may be providing leadership for it,
[00:07:41.070]but it's not kind of me steering the ship, and for the
[00:07:44.050]complex type of problems that I work on,
[00:07:47.370]both in the agricultural realm, but the broader
[00:07:50.580]food system, it has to be flexible.
[00:07:54.380]You have to be able to think about, like, what are the
[00:07:57.550]different pathways that we can follow here, and you don't
[00:08:00.340]wanna lock yourself into one, because you can't--
[00:08:02.836]If you do that, you might come to a solution,
[00:08:05.790]so to speak, but it might not be the best solution,
[00:08:08.550]so, you know, recognizing when you need to change course,
[00:08:11.910]those are all things that, you know, those are all open
[00:08:15.000]as far as I'm concerned when I have, whether it's
[00:08:17.540]a team of students, which I do a lot of, or you know,
[00:08:20.868]efforts that I'm involved in that are you know,
[00:08:24.480]academic colleagues, but also colleagues in government,
[00:08:28.115]colleagues in industry.
[00:08:30.123]It's still about, you know, figuring out,
[00:08:34.089]are we still on the best course to be able to address
[00:08:37.690]whatever challenge or opportunity that we're
[00:08:40.238]talking about?
[00:08:42.370]I really wanna circle back to what you're saying,
[00:08:44.387]'cause I think this is really important,
[00:08:46.320]so of course, part of the purpose of the Rural Futures
[00:08:49.150]podcast is to talk with leaders and mavericks;
[00:08:52.260]people really trying to create a different future
[00:08:54.844]in their own unique way, and I think what you're
[00:08:57.357]touching on, is the fact that leadership itself
[00:08:59.990]is changing, and all this have this sort of unique
[00:09:03.870]approach, but at the same time, you know,
[00:09:06.210]at the Rural Futures Institute, we talk about future,
[00:09:08.480]focus, leadership, and you clearly have an element of that
[00:09:12.072]in what you're doing, so being able to think about
[00:09:14.500]the scenarios is important, but at the same time
[00:09:16.760]realizing the path to get there has to be an open,
[00:09:19.840]flexible one, especially with these complex systems.
[00:09:23.080]Yeah, and I think that's exactly right,
[00:09:24.980]and I mean the experience that I bring to a lot of this
[00:09:28.200]is what I started with a few minutes ago which is
[00:09:30.550]that I was very early on, exposed to being,
[00:09:34.072]as a scientist, exposed to interdisciplinary research
[00:09:39.012]and problems, and when I came here it didn't take long
[00:09:44.058]to realize that as a educational program here,
[00:09:48.335]you have these complex challenges within the food system,
[00:09:54.690]and to solve those, literally you need some people
[00:09:58.370]in the room that can think across the boundaries,
[00:10:01.090]all the way from agriculture to nutrition to health,
[00:10:04.489]and it doesn't necessarily mean you want the whole room
[00:10:07.570]filled with people like that, but basically,
[00:10:10.100]that's one of the roles that I play.
[00:10:12.070]But it's very much also what we're thinking about
[00:10:16.070]when we provide opportunities to our students
[00:10:18.560]in the classroom and out of the classrooms,
[00:10:20.420]is that many of them, they are going to play
[00:10:23.180]exactly that role, and they might be doing it in a company,
[00:10:26.220]they might be doing it in not profit, they could be
[00:10:29.090]doing it at USDA, or a state department of agriculture,
[00:10:33.220]but they can actually, you know, rather than saying
[00:10:35.470]my specialty is this, they have expertise in one or two
[00:10:40.080]areas, but they're also able to see across these boundaries,
[00:10:43.000]and that's, for me, that's the fun part of what I do,
[00:10:47.110]and I've, you know, opportunities that I, even that I'm,
[00:10:50.770]you know, just initiating right now, they have that
[00:10:54.190]as a very, very identifiable feature, and it's something
[00:10:57.830]that I've done a lot of for a long time, so it's,
[00:11:01.016]you know, I'm taking advantage of the fact that I've been
[00:11:03.710]doing it for thirty something years.
[00:11:05.854]And it's--
[00:11:07.800]The difference is that there is a--
[00:11:10.190]I have a group of colleagues that are across the country,
[00:11:13.050]that are about at the same career stage as me,
[00:11:15.470]and we're all, we found that we're all doing that,
[00:11:18.119]but we all learned it by doing it.
[00:11:20.710]It was 30 years ago, 35 years ago there was very, very few
[00:11:24.949]mavericks out there that were thinking in that way.
[00:11:28.410]Yeah, agreed.
[00:11:29.243]Now it's very different, to where we can actually
[00:11:31.890]incorporate that into how we work with students,
[00:11:35.600]how we do research.
[00:11:36.830]That's what's changed, and I just happened to be a person
[00:11:40.610]that was kind of ready to do that because of my background,
[00:11:44.980]because of the experiences I've had previously.
[00:11:47.960]I think it goes back to you being a maverick,
[00:11:49.670]for the reasons we're even here.
[00:11:51.160]You know, one of the reasons we're even here, but it's
[00:11:53.987]also about these relationships that you keep
[00:11:54.820]talking about.
[00:11:55.653]Yep.
[00:11:56.486]You know, one of our team members, Tracy Klein,
[00:11:58.110]is really one of the reasons we're here, because of
[00:12:00.010]her relationship with you-- Yep.
[00:12:01.247]And your wife.
[00:12:02.080]Yes.
[00:12:02.920]And this is really how things happen.
[00:12:04.817]Yeah.
[00:12:05.860]But I think, too, it makes me think about,
[00:12:08.490]as we've connected online and gotten to know
[00:12:10.950]each other better, why have Rural Futures Institute
[00:12:14.840]come and be part of the world of Tufts University?
[00:12:18.380]Right, well, one of the reasons is exactly what you said,
[00:12:21.090]is, I think it's important to build those relationships
[00:12:24.150]and have those conversations, and it's, some of my
[00:12:27.820]experiences here, and the fact that I'm still connected
[00:12:30.540]to places like Nebraska, but I'm also connected to
[00:12:32.813]other rural areas. Right.
[00:12:34.280]I'm still connected to, you know, things going on
[00:12:37.180]in Maine, because we lived there for a long time,
[00:12:39.250]and I'm still connected to farms in Maine,
[00:12:41.487]in a very different way than I was, maybe earlier,
[00:12:45.000]but there's, you know, there is this big set of challenges,
[00:12:48.520]and to think that the challenges that are faced,
[00:12:51.940]and the solutions are always totally different
[00:12:54.610]in rural environments, whether it's in Nebraska
[00:12:57.920]or in Honduras, or whatever, anywhere in the world,
[00:13:01.860]are totally different and kind of mutually exclusive
[00:13:05.190]from the challenges in urban areas.
[00:13:06.880]I actually don't believe that.
[00:13:08.670]There are differences, but there's also similarities.
[00:13:11.860]A lot of overlap.
[00:13:13.127]Exactly, and you know, when you're talking about
[00:13:15.310]the food system, there's an obvious linkage, and that is
[00:13:18.360]that most, but not all of our food, is produced in rural
[00:13:22.220]areas, but most, but not all of our food is consumed in
[00:13:25.050]urban areas, so there's a basis for what could be
[00:13:29.820]a lot of opportunities, or it could be a bit of a tension,
[00:13:32.810]right, of we're just producing things and we're sending it
[00:13:35.970]to cities and that's one interpretation; I actually don't
[00:13:39.620]buy into that one either.
[00:13:41.440]But if I've learned one thing, especially when I was
[00:13:45.840]early in my extension career is that there has to be
[00:13:50.250]at least a handful of people that care about it enough
[00:13:53.850]that they're gonna enter into conversations repeatedly,
[00:13:57.050]knowing that, at the end of the one-hour meeting,
[00:13:59.920]you actually may have no idea where it's going,
[00:14:02.920]and I've done that hundreds of times, and sometimes
[00:14:06.900]it's like it doesn't go anywhere, and again, not everybody's
[00:14:11.110]gonna do that, because not everybody thinks that's
[00:14:13.430]interesting or fun.
[00:14:14.861]I actually do, and some really interesting things
[00:14:18.290]have come out of it on the research side,
[00:14:20.369]on the education side.
[00:14:22.010]Some of the things I've done, you know, being involved in
[00:14:25.600]state level policies, national level policies,
[00:14:28.560]started with just, like, a random conversation
[00:14:31.670]with somebody that I met or somebody that was
[00:14:34.100]introduced to me, and with the Rural Futures Institute,
[00:14:38.170]of course I have a connection to Nebraska, and I have
[00:14:40.510]a connection to people on your campus.
[00:14:43.171]Right.
[00:14:44.811]For a long, long time, and so that, I was visiting,
[00:14:46.550]I've been visiting your campus off and on since
[00:14:48.620]I'd left Nebraska 30 years ago.
[00:14:51.160]We appreciate that.
[00:14:51.993]Any engagement, you know, I think it's so important.
[00:14:54.737]So, you know that there, I was making those kinds of
[00:14:57.960]visits, and then you know, realizing that this was going on,
[00:15:01.217]and some of the things, some of the conversations
[00:15:03.320]we were having here, and when I met all of you,
[00:15:06.360]in person, a year ago this month, it was really obvious
[00:15:09.880]to me that this is the point we wanted to get to,
[00:15:12.460]is you know, having you all here, and at some point
[00:15:15.790]we're gonna reverse that.
[00:15:17.790]That's right.
[00:15:18.717]And we're gonna come there.
[00:15:20.190]And I think it's you know, if nothing else,
[00:15:22.923]it's just really a good example of, you do need to
[00:15:27.346]be able to have the conversations, and think about
[00:15:30.680]what are the things that we might be able to do
[00:15:32.580]in common that there's no possible way that we could
[00:15:35.780]do individually, and it takes time and effort,
[00:15:38.930]but it also takes this.
[00:15:40.120]It takes people actually.
[00:15:42.010]It would be impossible to envision this on email.
[00:15:44.372](hip hop rift)
[00:15:47.210]So Tim, you've talked a lot about the conversations,
[00:15:50.370]and getting conversations started, so tell us
[00:15:52.900]a little bit more about how you get to action,
[00:15:55.590]and take those challenges, and turn them into opportunities
[00:15:58.322]and solution.
[00:15:59.870]Yeah, that's a great question, and the conversations
[00:16:02.770]are important, and but they are really the starting point,
[00:16:07.230]so that, you know, for example, you and I talking,
[00:16:10.413]but the goal is: what is the common ground between our
[00:16:14.950]interests and then what are the things that we could do,
[00:16:17.740]and we may be thinking about trying to solve a
[00:16:20.310]particular problem or being an optimist, we could be
[00:16:23.410]thinking about what's a particular opportunity that we
[00:16:25.870]could address together, that again, maybe has benefits
[00:16:28.809]kind of across the spectrum.
[00:16:31.050]So I think that's a piece of it, but our discussion earlier
[00:16:35.920]about, kind of conversations, is really to get that
[00:16:39.880]common ground identified, and then it is very much about
[00:16:43.716]what are maybe different and innovative ways
[00:16:48.410]that we can address those challenges or opportunities?
[00:16:52.120]And those are actions, and we've you know, thinking about,
[00:16:57.730]the involvement of students here is one of the things
[00:17:00.900]that we're interested in.
[00:17:03.220]Sometimes it's a very specific action,
[00:17:07.700]where they might work with a non-profit, maybe in
[00:17:12.180]the Boston area that has a very specific need
[00:17:15.700]that is around one of those challenges.
[00:17:18.110]So when we talked yesterday to students,
[00:17:21.020]undergraduate students that were very interested in
[00:17:24.398]one, providing, you know, families that are struggling
[00:17:28.610]with, you know, complete meals, but then,
[00:17:31.410]how do you get there?
[00:17:32.600]And they got there by essentially establishing
[00:17:35.291]an organization themselves, and saying these are the
[00:17:39.040]three things and then like, here's the infrastructure
[00:17:41.560]that we need.
[00:17:43.344]So, here's the machine to wrap the meals.
[00:17:45.380]Like a meal wrapping machine which I had not
[00:17:47.310]heard of before.
[00:17:48.680]So, you know, they probably started with conversations,
[00:17:51.800]but they ended up with, it's actually a program,
[00:17:54.910]and it's actually delivering food to families
[00:17:57.870]in the Boston area that are struggling.
[00:17:59.810]So those are actions.
[00:18:00.960]What I loved their food to recovery concept
[00:18:03.140]is that they got to action, but like you're saying,
[00:18:05.450]they took ownership of it.
[00:18:07.067]Oh yes.
[00:18:07.977]You know, they knew nobody else,
[00:18:08.810]maybe was gonna-- Yeah.
[00:18:09.643]Step up to the plate, so when you talk about
[00:18:11.031]entrepreneurial students, and how they're looking at
[00:18:15.065]the solutions, they took action, but they also
[00:18:17.099]pulled in a lot of other partners, and stakeholders
[00:18:19.270]that they were gonna work with, so it wasn't just
[00:18:22.240]a solution they provided, but it was also co-created
[00:18:24.864]with end users and other collaborators in mind.
[00:18:28.290]Yeah.
[00:18:29.123]And I've talked to, I mean this, the idea of who do you get
[00:18:31.690]as stakeholders?
[00:18:32.523]I've had many, many conversations with students here
[00:18:34.960]about not having preconceived notions about who should
[00:18:39.120]the stakeholders be in the room?
[00:18:41.000]That some of the really interesting things come when you get
[00:18:43.800]unconventional partners, that you know, in agriculture
[00:18:48.020]back decades ago when I was doing a lot of sustainable
[00:18:52.830]agriculture work, we didn't draw lines between,
[00:18:55.479]like, we have a group that runs small, organic farms,
[00:18:59.568]and then we're gonna talk to them about these things,
[00:19:01.700]but we're gonna talk to larger, dairy farms about
[00:19:04.270]another set of things.
[00:19:05.500]We actually brought 'em into the room and said,
[00:19:08.110]you know, what's the 87% of things that you actually
[00:19:11.140]agree on, and let's start there.
[00:19:13.930]And then, what are actions that we can take?
[00:19:16.270]So it is, it's a critical piece, and I very much,
[00:19:21.970]you know, the conversations we've had about how does
[00:19:24.198]RFI work in communities, and what role do students play?
[00:19:26.990]It's like, you go into the community, and you ask them
[00:19:30.766]what's the challenge, and how do you think we can
[00:19:33.722]move forward?
[00:19:35.420]And that's a pretty good analogy for a lot of
[00:19:38.410]what we do here.
[00:19:39.650]And sometimes it's, you know, somebody emails me,
[00:19:42.970]or another faculty member, and says, "Can you be
[00:19:45.822]"on this committee?"; state level, national level, global.
[00:19:48.160]And you say yes, and then the idea is, what are we
[00:19:52.320]gonna get to?
[00:19:53.220]What's the action we're gonna take, and what do we think
[00:19:56.070]is gonna happen?
[00:19:57.130]They can be grand efforts that take three years
[00:19:59.610]of your time, or it could be, you know, a group of students
[00:20:02.670]who works with a non-profit, or with a government agency
[00:20:06.240]for a year, and they can move those opportunities
[00:20:09.950]down the road at least a ways, so conversations are the
[00:20:13.585]starting point and the goal is the action and what happens.
[00:20:17.820]Yeah, that impact piece--
[00:20:19.695]Yeah.
[00:20:21.351]From it all, is so critical as well, and I think
[00:20:22.471]one of the other ways we've really connected is,
[00:20:24.190]you know, around students.
[00:20:25.797]Sure.
[00:20:27.360]Like the conversations around students,
[00:20:28.273]the importance around students, and I just,
[00:20:29.577]our whole team really just values the way you teach,
[00:20:34.360]and I mean, I think your sincere passion and wanting
[00:20:37.430]to see those students succeed, and--
[00:20:39.437]Right.
[00:20:40.379]Really, taking some novel approaches to getting them
[00:20:42.079]involved.
[00:20:43.520]I mean even having a student from Newark, Nebraska
[00:20:45.680]here to be part of these conversations.
[00:20:48.725]We've had quite a few students from Nebraska, so.
[00:20:49.710]Yeah, and that's part of that connection, right?
[00:20:52.009]Yeah.
[00:20:52.842]So for them to be able to have an experience at Tufts
[00:20:54.560]and go take that back to Nebraska or go wherever with it
[00:20:57.210]is just so critical.
[00:20:58.270]So, you dive a little bit into your leadership philosophy
[00:21:01.660]around teaching, and student experiences.
[00:21:03.991]Yeah, I've told students that since I came here,
[00:21:07.660]I came here because of the students.
[00:21:09.910]I met a group of quite a few students when I came here
[00:21:13.007]to actually do my interview, my job talk, if you will,
[00:21:17.121]and then I got to talk to those students afterwards,
[00:21:21.119]as you're going to talk to students
[00:21:23.310]after your seminar today, and realized that they
[00:21:26.519]had some really, really interesting perspectives.
[00:21:31.280]They didn't, necessarily, they weren't different than mine,
[00:21:33.380]because their experiences were different,
[00:21:35.500]but very committed to trying to do certain types of things,
[00:21:41.233]and very smart.
[00:21:43.210]We have, you know, really, really, super students here,
[00:21:47.550]and they are the reason I came here, and they're,
[00:21:50.400]you know, the primary, or one of the primary reasons
[00:21:54.530]that I come in every day and you know, being able
[00:21:58.490]to bring some of my reality in the classroom is part of it,
[00:22:01.180]but I get a lot back from them.
[00:22:03.060]They do have different experiences.
[00:22:05.090]They're, you know, uniformly younger than I am,
[00:22:08.960]so they have a different set of experiences,
[00:22:10.980]but that doesn't make it any less valuable.
[00:22:13.114]So it is an interaction, and you know, there's
[00:22:17.608]educational curriculum, but then there are other
[00:22:20.210]kinds of experiences and you know, even on the research
[00:22:23.060]side of we have a funded research project.
[00:22:26.030]We'll find a couple of master's students, and you know,
[00:22:29.360]a doctoral student, and that becomes the team
[00:22:31.740]for the project, and we've had students that have worked
[00:22:34.430]on, you know, specific projects, through a master's degree
[00:22:37.520]and into a PhD for four or five years on one project,
[00:22:41.120]and they're, the thing that we've tried to do,
[00:22:43.660]is to again, not have it be where myself or someone else
[00:22:47.360]is saying okay, here's your analytical task
[00:22:50.840]for the next week, and just go do that, and then
[00:22:52.650]bring it back next week.
[00:22:54.030]There's a lot of complexity here, and we may not actually
[00:22:56.770]know how to get from point a to point b, and then it
[00:22:59.290]becomes all of us, and they've been really, really
[00:23:01.920]entrepreneurial about trying to figure out like,
[00:23:04.370]where do you get the right kind of data, and then
[00:23:06.870]how do you kind of check the quality of that data,
[00:23:10.050]and then how to use that data, and that's step one.
[00:23:12.410]And then how do you do that again, and again, and again?
[00:23:14.980]We did this intentionally on some regional food system
[00:23:18.240]research where we just said they're gonna be,
[00:23:21.300]they're not gonna be our students, they're gonna be
[00:23:23.607]our colleagues, and they have their contributions,
[00:23:25.890]and we have ours, as faculty and scientists.
[00:23:28.706]That's such a great model.
[00:23:30.190]But they're not ranked.
[00:23:32.250]They're not, one is more important than the other.
[00:23:35.070]It's that they're different, and of course,
[00:23:37.250]they're learning while they're doing it,
[00:23:39.340]but so are we.
[00:23:40.256]Right, right.
[00:23:41.256]And the type of research I do now, I was not,
[00:23:42.130]I was doing zero percent of the type of work
[00:23:44.480]I do now when I was at USDA.
[00:23:46.270]So all the work I do now is different in kind of
[00:23:48.937]form and function than it was when I was a faculty member,
[00:23:53.550]and when I was a USDA scientist, so I'm learning as I go,
[00:23:56.500]which I've done my entire life.
[00:23:58.380]It's like, sure I'll learn a new research area.
[00:24:00.810]I'll learn how to measure greenhouse gases, whatever.
[00:24:03.276]So they end up being, you know, key parts of our team
[00:24:06.528]that you couldn't see how the team is gonna do the work
[00:24:10.180]unless you have their expertise, and if they
[00:24:12.667]weren't involved, then you have like this blank,
[00:24:15.570]and it's just not gonna happen, or it's gonna be
[00:24:17.800]much, much slower.
[00:24:19.040]In addition to, you know, thinking about urban
[00:24:21.880]and rural and those two worlds coming together more,
[00:24:24.850]which is one of the areas of the RFI purpose,
[00:24:28.146]is, you know, higher education itself is changing
[00:24:31.000]so much and I think the way that you're approaching,
[00:24:33.520]just the team concept with students is so critical
[00:24:36.690]as we move forward, but how do you see the future
[00:24:38.860]of higher education evolving?
[00:24:40.910]I think that there are, there's certainly more places now
[00:24:43.620]than there were as we were talking about, 25, 30 years ago,
[00:24:47.497]where as a student, which could be a graduate student,
[00:24:51.510]but even an undergraduate student, that can be in that
[00:24:55.050]kind of environment, and be part of a team that's
[00:24:57.360]looking across kind of a range of issues all at one time,
[00:25:00.251]that was, that would have been a very unique experience
[00:25:04.530]when I was in graduate school.
[00:25:06.030]I was lucky enough to actually experience it both at
[00:25:08.240]Nebraska and at Michigan State where I did my
[00:25:11.330]doctoral work, but I would say very much it was
[00:25:14.720]the exception, and not the rule.
[00:25:16.320]There are more opportunities like that, both you know,
[00:25:20.640]land grant agricultural universities, but even at
[00:25:23.970]you know, larger, private universities,
[00:25:26.520]and even small, private universities
[00:25:28.320]and Tufts is kind of in-between those two,
[00:25:30.819]because we do many things.
[00:25:32.980]You know, we have that school and a dental school
[00:25:34.970]and all of those, so we're not just liberal arts campus.
[00:25:38.010]We're a research university here, so
[00:25:40.500]those things are changing.
[00:25:42.130]They're not changing uniformly across all institutions,
[00:25:46.410]and I mean, one of the things that you see, is
[00:25:48.820]a school like Friedman and a program like agriculture,
[00:25:52.275]food, and environment.
[00:25:54.220]We've had this program for almost 25 years and the school
[00:25:58.840]is now about 40 years old, but you're seeing those
[00:26:01.580]kinds of efforts be initiated, and sometimes you
[00:26:05.310]look at 'em and you say, that seems like maybe an odd place
[00:26:09.050]for a program to like have to start.
[00:26:12.270]Even here, I mean that we're right in downtown Boston
[00:26:15.480]right now, and you know, I talk about agriculture
[00:26:18.360]every day in my job.
[00:26:19.730]So, but partly that's because we don't have any kind of
[00:26:23.980]history that says we can't do that, right?
[00:26:26.227]Right, absolutely, you're building it as you go.
[00:26:28.600]Yeah and even, you know, we were talking yesterday
[00:26:31.300]about the involvement of law school and some law programs.
[00:26:34.794]Right.
[00:26:36.487]And many of those that are interested in agriculture,
[00:26:38.310]that are interested in the farm bill, things like that,
[00:26:40.850]are actually at private university law schools
[00:26:43.450]rather than public university law schools.
[00:26:45.610]And I don't, I don't see that, and I don't bring it up
[00:26:48.140]as, well, that's the way that it should be,
[00:26:49.760]or that's right or that's wrong, it's just literally
[00:26:52.410]that's the way it is, but part of it is
[00:26:54.559]the objectives of different institutions are different,
[00:26:58.070]so we're seeing it a lot in private universities
[00:27:01.820]where there are programs that focus on broad issues
[00:27:05.067]around, particularly around the food system,
[00:27:08.433]and then there are food systems programs which kind of
[00:27:12.710]look at how is it all connected?
[00:27:14.370]We do those things, but also, you know, I'm a scientist,
[00:27:17.780]so we actually bring science into the program.
[00:27:19.890]That's one of my roles here.
[00:27:21.402]Higher education is changing, but it's always changed,
[00:27:25.210]and it's not, maybe it's changing in unexpected ways,
[00:27:27.704]and I expect that some institutions will continue
[00:27:31.890]some very, very disciplinary efforts, 'cause you need
[00:27:35.020]some people that are trained with a really, really
[00:27:37.810]deep expertise, but more of them, and in the private
[00:27:41.490]sector are realizing that you do need some
[00:27:43.590]that can think across those boundaries going back
[00:27:45.990]to where we started and that's very much how we
[00:27:48.820]see ourselves here both as a school and as a program,
[00:27:52.110]and our students.
[00:27:53.100]I mean we talk about it explicitly, rather than just
[00:27:56.570]kind of conceptualizing it.
[00:27:57.970]It's like, what opportunities would you provide
[00:28:00.520]a student so that they can get good at being able
[00:28:03.180]to do that?
[00:28:04.140]So really providing opportunities but also taking
[00:28:06.730]that systems approach and reaching across and
[00:28:09.480]creating new partnerships because that's how this is,
[00:28:13.410]and it's how it will continue to go.
[00:28:15.388]Right.
[00:28:17.063]Right?
[00:28:18.375]So, as we kind of wrap up here, I'd love to know
[00:28:20.040]your advice, you know.
[00:28:21.610]Like what words of wisdom--
[00:28:23.147]Yeah.
[00:28:24.220]Is Tim willing to share with our audience?
[00:28:26.340]Well, one is that, you know, if there's a challenge
[00:28:29.250]or a grand challenge, there are more than one way,
[00:28:32.130]there is more than one way to address those,
[00:28:34.530]and I'll give you a specific example around just
[00:28:38.547]the interface between agriculture and farming
[00:28:42.780]in the environment.
[00:28:43.840]For a long time, it even in my own kind of view of that,
[00:28:48.005]the way that we would look at that is, if there's
[00:28:50.860]an environmental problem, what kind of government
[00:28:53.450]action could we take?
[00:28:54.790]Now maybe it's the state of Nebraska, maybe it's USDA,
[00:28:58.861]maybe it's EPA, but that's where it's gonna start,
[00:29:02.552]and for a lot of those issues around environmental
[00:29:06.540]issues but also social issues around things like
[00:29:09.160]farm workers and how they're treated, maybe at the
[00:29:11.530]current moment, maybe for the last five years,
[00:29:13.820]it's hard to envision like, that there's gonna be
[00:29:16.210]a grand change federal level-- Right, right, absolutely.
[00:29:19.020]And what we're seeing instead, is pressure
[00:29:22.263]from all the way from consumers that's coming
[00:29:26.120]through the supply chain in the private sector
[00:29:29.000]saying, we think that this is important, and so
[00:29:31.906]farm workers would be one.
[00:29:34.430]Things like potentially labeling foods that contain
[00:29:38.130]genetically engineered products.
[00:29:40.128]We're not there yet, although we're starting to see it,
[00:29:42.930]but it's not mandated by the government.
[00:29:44.880]It's actually because the consumers at the
[00:29:46.770]other end of the supply chain are saying, "We want that
[00:29:49.297]"information."
[00:29:50.612]That's right.
[00:29:51.445]And so, I guess my advice is that we need to think
[00:29:55.760]broadly about like, what is innovative and not have it
[00:30:00.630]set up at the very beginning as you know,
[00:30:03.630]if we solve this problem, I'm gonna win and you're
[00:30:05.970]gonna lose.
[00:30:06.803]I think that we've used that approach too much,
[00:30:10.044]and we should be thinking about, what are ways
[00:30:13.660]that you know, for example, farmers benefit,
[00:30:17.140]but consumers also benefit, because a lot of times
[00:30:19.640]we say no they're in tension with each other.
[00:30:22.540]I don't know why that has to be.
[00:30:24.060]And if it's a policy or a program, fine.
[00:30:26.690]If it's the private sector mechanisms, fine.
[00:30:29.220]I'm pretty ambivalent about which it is,
[00:30:31.750]but I think we should be thinking about all of them,
[00:30:33.670]much more broadly than we have in the past.
[00:30:35.990]I think it's so great to point out that
[00:30:37.950]thinking about it, so it's not win lose,
[00:30:40.590]but there's a future of abundance for everyone
[00:30:43.260]if we can do this a little differently and have a
[00:30:45.820]different mindset moving forward.
[00:30:47.710]Oh, I agree completely.
[00:30:48.800]Yes, and that's very much the way that we again,
[00:30:52.098]not only think about it, but that's how we talk about it,
[00:30:55.150]is you know, I bring up scenarios or prompts in class
[00:30:59.700]that are, you know, here's the issue, and it's
[00:31:02.300]been addressed in this win lose way and these five
[00:31:05.010]different stages.
[00:31:06.430]What's a potential way to address this that the
[00:31:09.503]very first thing is that you do not set up a win lose?
[00:31:13.970]And it's hard.
[00:31:14.803]And when you think about like, the entire food system,
[00:31:17.700]but it's not impossible,
[00:31:19.117]it's just taught. But I think,
[00:31:20.749]you know a lot of times in our culture in the US,
[00:31:21.890]we're, it's like a competitive culture.
[00:31:24.182]Yeah.
[00:31:25.015]So it's like win lose, instead of what's the overall
[00:31:27.170]win for everybody involved, and how do we create
[00:31:29.540]a new system to do that?
[00:31:31.530]And a new thinking, and a new leadership, future-focused
[00:31:34.960]leadership that it's gonna take to make that happen?
[00:31:37.408]Right.
[00:31:38.364]Well thank you, Tim.
[00:31:39.410]That was very-- Thank you.
[00:31:40.243]Thoughtful information, but also very actionable.
[00:31:42.576]Thank you.
[00:31:43.409]So I think I would challenge our listeners out there
[00:31:44.940]to really think about ways they can have a mindset shift
[00:31:48.490]as well, if they haven't already.
[00:31:49.750]Like, how do we do this a little differently?
[00:31:52.003]Yep.
[00:31:52.836]How do we do it together?
[00:31:53.669]How do we do it together?
[00:31:54.502]Right, because if this is gonna be a sustainable
[00:31:56.571]planet for everyone, we're gonna have to do it that way.
[00:31:59.670]That's right.
[00:32:00.787]Thanks for listening.
[00:32:02.150]Let us know what you think of the Rural Futures
[00:32:04.190]podcast with Dr. Connie on Facebook, Instagram,
[00:32:07.160]and Twitter, @ruralfutures.
[00:32:09.160]Subscribe where you listen to make sure you catch
[00:32:11.220]next week's episode with Dr. Tyler Ideus.
[00:32:14.290]Dr. Ideus is a physical medicine specialist,
[00:32:16.990]practicing in Lincoln, Nebraska, and an international
[00:32:19.730]instructor of a leading rehabilitation approach.
[00:32:22.560]But get this: he's also a small-town guy,
[00:32:24.850]and fourth generation farmer.
[00:32:26.740]Hear how he intersects physical medicine and agriculture,
[00:32:29.720]while balancing multiple businesses
[00:32:31.540]and raising a family.
[00:32:33.033]At the end of the day it's just, sick people
[00:32:35.118]are expensive and it has to get paid for one way
[00:32:38.870]or another, and so if we can do things, you know
[00:32:41.317]in an agriculture and growing food, and growing food
[00:32:44.630]that's gonna be really healthy for people, to prevent
[00:32:47.930]you know, certain things, I think we're all gonna
[00:32:50.490]come out ahead.

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Rural Futures with Dr. Connie Episode 4 Featuring Dr. Tim Griffin

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