Eye on the Triangle

Ennis Wells 0:00
The views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC or NC State student media.

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Hello, and welcome to WKNC US public affairs program Eye on the Triangle. My name is Ennis wells, and today I'm joined by Dr. Lincoln Larson, NC State Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management from NC State's College of Natural Resources. His work focuses mainly on natural resource management and conservation issues, and how education can be used to help us better understand and respond to these issues. So I'm joined by him today in the WKNC Studio to learn more about these topics, and how they impact the Raleigh flash triangle area. Thank you for joining me today, Lincoln.

Lincoln Larson 1:15
Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks.

Ennis Wells 1:17
So to get started, I wanted to ask you how you would introduce yourself and the work that you do.

Lincoln Larson 1:24
Yeah, so that, in fact is an interesting question. I am a conservation social scientist, which means I study all sorts of aspects related to humans, and the natural environment. And that includes how we interact with green spaces through outdoor recreation. It also includes human wildlife conflict and other natural resource management issues. I also do a lot of research on things like environmental education. But ultimately, I'm really interested to understand how we can promote and sustain positive interactions between humans and nature.

Ennis Wells 1:54
Cool, was environmentalism, always something that interested you.

Lincoln Larson 2:00
I've always been really interested in the environment, I grew up in a rural part of North Carolina, my parents ran a campground in Upper Michigan. So I spent the summers romping around the north woods in the middle of nowhere, which is a lot of fun. So I always liked nature. Actually, my first degree was biology degree from Duke if I'm allowed to say that on NC State airways here. And I worked field jobs and wildlife for a long time. And as I was working in different places in the Amazon, and Alaska, all around the world, I started to realize that if we were going to make a difference, or if I was going to make a difference in the world of conservation, I had to understand people, more so than animals or habitats, because people are the ones causing a lot of the problems for the natural environment. And somewhat ironically, we're also the only ones really capable of creating the solutions to address those problems, too. So understanding that human element, those human dimensions and natural resources, quickly became the focus of my research. And for the past two decades, that's pretty much all I've been doing and studying.

Ennis Wells 2:59
That's interesting. So as you mentioned, you studied a lot of things. But one of the topics I noticed that gets referenced in your work a lot is this concept of green space. So I was hoping we could delve into that and discuss what it means in the triangle.

Lincoln Larson 3:15
Yeah, so green space, you know, that term can be defined in a number of ways. When I'm talking about green space, what I'm typically referring to would be forested land, trees, you know, grassy areas, parks, really anything that has a green tint to it, that isn't a gray impervious surface, and like an urban environment or something like that. So it's a broad definition. But what we know, throughout human history really is that our interaction with these green spaces or natural areas, has been so integral to our development, our survival as humans, for 1000s, if not millions of years. And really, it's only recently that you start to see a major disconnect between people. And nature. If you look at stats now, you know, 100 years ago, almost everybody lived in rural areas now 80% of the world live in cities. 80% of residents United States, I should say live in cities, and a majority of the world's population live in cities. And when we live in urban environments, by default, we we have fewer opportunities to engage with natural areas. And I think this is a big problem, certainly for youth development. And there's a lot been written about that. And the psychological impacts of spending all of our life cooped up in these you know, concrete jungles, if you will, but also for our physical health, our mental health, our social health, and our desire to protect natural areas. All of these things can be negatively impact impacted by excessive time spent in these urban environments. So I'm really interested to figure out how we can bring nature to people in cities and how we can kind of alter that dynamic and have a bit of a course correction when it comes to our disconnection from nature.

Ennis Wells 4:57
Yeah, my initial misconception I guess was that it was like an empty field would count as a green space. But it's more of like a designed space a little bit. That's like urban.

Lincoln Larson 5:09
Yeah, well, so greens, it's a broad definition, right. So any green is better than no green. If you look at the health research on this, any green space is going to promote health and well being. And that includes even virtual connection to green spaces. So if you've got a TV with nature sounds on in the background, that's going to be better for your mental health than a TV showing whatever else might be on a TV. So that virtual stuff is valuable. But it's the authentic connection with nature, that's really important. And when some people hear that they think, oh, I need to go on three week backpacking trips in the Rocky Mountains, that'd be great if everybody had a chance to do that. But the reality is, you don't have to do that. To connect with nature, this concept of nearby nature is really important, especially to people in cities who might not have time, or resources to access, you know, remote wild wilderness areas. So just going out and watching bees at a couple plants in your backyard or birds at your feeder, or walking down the sidewalk where you have some you know, shaded shade trees over the top, all that stuff can really be valuable for your mental health and well being. And for humans as a whole. So it doesn't have to be this pristine, idyllic natural setting, it can be the grassy field next door. And that is certainly better than nothing when it comes to nature Bayes health promotion.

Ennis Wells 6:32
So it's beneficial to health, is there any other benefits of green space?

Lincoln Larson 6:37
Green Space has have so many benefits, you know, I don't know how much time we have this morning to get through them. I think the best way to encapsulate all of them is probably through this concept of ecosystem services, which is a term many people have probably heard before. But it's just this notion of the benefits that nature provides to people. And some of the obvious ones that we think of that we've already talked a little bit about here would be the Health Promotion benefits, outdoor recreation, maybe aesthetic value, some of the cultural values that we hold with some of the places that we love. But beyond that, I mean ecologically, they provide a lot of regulating services. So stormwater management, air purification, soil quality, these would all be elements embedded in ecosystem service frameworks. Clearly nature provides for us in a number other ways through food, clean air. If you look at you know, most where most of our food comes from pollinators play a huge role. So having pollinator habitats, even in urban areas for bees, and, and butterflies and other species is really important. From a food provisioning standpoint. The list can go on and on when you think about all the ecological benefits that healthy natural areas can provide. We tend to think of it in our own terms as people what benefits us, but it far transcends that one dimension of this larger system.

Ennis Wells 7:52
What about like wildlife? How does green space in the city impact them?

Lincoln Larson 7:57
That green space obviously provides really important habitat for wildlife in all areas, but particularly in urban areas where those habitat opportunities are somewhat constrained. So in a place like Raleigh, we actually have a lot of green space in our city, relative to many other places. And as a result, we have a lot of wildlife species living in the city, which presents really cool opportunities for wildlife viewing wildlife encounters, and also some challenges regarding wildlife conflict. If you have species, you know, raccoons, coyotes, others that tend to Peru's Navy patrol neighborhoods get into trouble, certainly in western North Carolina and Asheville, they have huge problems with the black bear population out there getting into food, and dumpsters and everything else. So you know, urban wildlife is both a blessing and a curse. Depending on your perspective, I tend to think that the benefits far outweigh the cost when it comes to our ability to interact with these species in urban environments. But we have to know how to do so responsibly. And people have to be aware of some of the impacts positive and negative that can come from those interactions.

Ennis Wells 9:00
When I searched your name on Google, like all the articles that came up said that green space was something that could reduce crime. Is that a true statement?

Lincoln Larson 9:08
So this is an interesting, it's an interesting and complex question when we think about this relationship between green space and crime. And I would say the short answer is it depends on what type of green space you're talking about. But perspectives on this very, so a lot of people think partially because they probably watched like law and order and all these shows where every bad thing happens in a park. But a lot of people think that green space is a haven for criminal activities. And in some places like New York City in the 80s, for example, that was partially true. But the reality is green space also has a lot of attributes that will deter crime, one of which is just being green. It's cooler, people are less aggressive and green spaces, there's less stress. And so physiologically, and psychologically people are less inclined to engage in violent behave. yours. Also green spaces tend to attract a variety of diverse people who are interacting in positive ways. And that presence of people and positivity can also be a deterrent to a lot of illicit behaviors and in criminal activities. One of our recent studies looked at the 300 largest cities in the country, and we wanted to go down to the very specific neighborhood level or census block group level and look at is there a relationship between amount of green space in these neighborhoods, and the amount of crime in these neighborhoods and what we found, astonishingly, almost is across all but three of these cities, there was a significant inverse relationship between green space and crime. So more green space, less crime, in literally every neighborhood, across the country, the three exceptions where we didn't find a relationship either way, were Chicago, Detroit, and Newark, which have, you know, escalated problems with crime, as we've probably seen on the news that maybe not even green space can solve. So, you know, it can go either way. But in general, I'd say the greener a city is, the less likely there will be to have crime in that environment.

Ennis Wells 11:06
So what does the Raleigh green space situation look like? Or have you done any research specific to North Carolina?

Lincoln Larson 11:12
I've done some research on green space in North Carolina, not Raleigh specifically. But in general, Raleigh does pretty good. When you look at the park and green space metrics. Every year, the Trust for Public Land puts out its rankings of the best Park City park systems in the country. Number one is always a toss up between Washington, DC and Minneapolis. But Raleigh tends to be in the top 30 or so most of the time, and most of those rankings. And we're known for having, well, the city of Oaks is known for having pretty good tree coverage, overall. And we have a really large and extensive Greenway network, a trail network that many of you might be familiar with, that not all cities have. And so that's another major asset that Raleigh has going for it that other places don't.

Ennis Wells 11:59
So, when I was reading some of your work before this interview, something that really interested in me as maybe a political science major was this talk of the need for collaboration between individuals, and the government and profit and nonprofit groups in order to achieve these environmental goals such as increasing green space. Is that a true statement to make?

Lincoln Larson 12:21
Yeah, when we think about green space, you know, how its allocated, who manages it, and who enjoys it. There's no one group or one sector that's responsible for any of that, you know, a lot of green space is in the public domain and is managed by state, local, state or federal government agencies. This is true, but a majority of green space in the United States is not it's privately owned, or owned, in some cases by nongovernmental organizations, you think like the Nature Conservancy and other groups, land trusts. And so there's a lot of different players out there that are responsible for protecting green space that everyone benefits from. As a result, it's really important that these organizations work together. Because you know, if you think about watersheds, and riparian corridors, for example, you might have four or five Neuse. River green might be a perfect example, right? You might have four or five different entities owning land along this whole corridor. But if you want to create a greenway, that everybody can enjoy a 20 mile stretch, you have to find a way to work together and connect that space physically, but also kind of socially, culturally and politically, so that everybody's on the same page about the goals and objectives. And that can be really hard to do in certain environments, especially the politicized and polarized environment that we have today in the United States. What I'm encouraged by though is the fact that when you look at issues in this country, and we did a recent study on this, looking at all the political issues that people are talking about, whether it's the economy, or abortion, or immigration, or whatever it is, and you look at natural resource conservation. While it's not high on the list of the things people care about, it is one of the least polarizing topics out there. Everybody can get behind natural resource conservation, whether you're Republican, Democrat, whatever background you're from. And so for me, that's really exciting to know that we have so much common ground on this issue, and so much potential to work together to achieve mutual goals when it comes to our relationship with the national environment.

Ennis Wells 14:28
One of the main concerns I did notice people would bring up is in pertaining to pursuing environmentalism is that maybe this thing wouldn't be beneficial economically. What would you say to that?

Lincoln Larson 14:42
When we look at conservation is especially you see this a lot with the one environmental topic that tends to be polarizing, that's climate change. A lot of times we say, well, the costs of preserving this land don't outweigh the benefits that might be generated. And in a lot lot of economic models, if you look perhaps just a direct impacts, that might be true. But I think what a lot of those models fail to account for is all of the indirect benefits that come from these spaces. While we might not generate direct production from a landscape, by preserving an area, we're creating all those other ecosystem services. And it's really hard to put a price tag on those things. But how much is a quality life worth to you? How important is your health and well being? to you as an individual? These are questions we need to be asking, because if we pave over everything, or turn every landscape into one that's production oriented, we're going to lose those benefits. And our health is going to suffer, our environment is going to suffer, and what on earth does that mean, for future generations? So these are some of the questions that keep me up at night. And I try to think about how do we, how do we articulate the benefits and really convey this message of how important nature is in a way that policy and decision makers can understand, but also in a way that all of us can understand. So that we, you know, we realize that if we connect with nature, we can have happier and healthier lives to

Ennis Wells 16:10
have you been involved in any of these causes, or noticed any movements addressing environmentalism happening here in the triangle.

Lincoln Larson 16:17
Yeah, I mean, this is the triangle area is great hotbed for the environmental movement, generally, but also the environmental justice movement. Specifically, one of the big concerns when it comes to human interactions with the environment, it's it's certain populations have historically had much greater access and derive far more benefits from nature than others. And those minoritized populations tend to be low income, they tend to be communities of color, especially African American in the south. And that creates some real social justice issues. And so this concept of environmental justice, this combination of Environmental Equity, inequities and social justice, that movement really started here in northeastern North Carolina and the 1980s, related to toxic dumping in a low income community, and they didn't have the power the voice to really stand up to that. And we see this, really across the world where certain populations get exploited, and certain populations have fewer access to the amenities that nature can provide. So one of the things that the triangle area is trying to do, and we here at NC State are really working hard on doing is to kind of reverse some of these historic inequities and access to natural resources and outdoor recreation opportunities, and make sure that everybody in the community has a chance to experience these benefits that nature has to offer.

Ennis Wells 17:37
So would be do with doing that be like making sure parks are in these other, like historically marginalized neighborhoods or?

Lincoln Larson 17:46
Yeah, I mean, there's it's complicated, right to think about, okay, we've got these systemic inequities who've created this system, where, really, it's wealthy white people benefiting from Park environments. How do we change that? And how do we get everybody involved in that. And it's hard to do that the first step in that process is recognizing the problem and what's causing it. And I think, as a society, we're getting closer to that we're at least acknowledging that not everyone has equal access to these opportunities, and we're trying to do things about it. The second step in that process, is thinking about the distribution of these resources and how we can reallocate them across the landscape so that everybody has access. And there are a lot of tools out there to help with this. For example, I mentioned Trust for Public Land earlier, they have a park equity score index, you can go to any city, and you can figure out where there's Park deserts or zones where parks are most needed based on socio economic factors and other park factors, and where new parks that they come in need to go. And there's a few places like that identified in Raleigh, particularly in northeast and southeast Raleigh, where they're parked deserts are spaces where more green space needs to be. And that's going to be a priority for the city. As they expand. There's other indices that look at tree equity, where trees are on the landscape and where they should come in. And so there's tools out there to help us address kind of these distributional aspects of justice. And I'm excited to see, you know, if we use these tools, what that can mean. So thinking about recognizing the problem, thinking about how we fix this, this distribution challenge are both really important. But the last piece, which is often the hardest to do, and most time consuming, is this notion of, of engaging people in the process, so that we don't have top down decisions made by people in power about where a park should go, or where a tree should go wherever these things should go. But it's actually the communities themselves that are going to be impacted, positively or negatively by these developments by these management activities. They have to have a say in what's happening in their community. And historically that has not been the case. And that's something that we hear in Raleigh, and that everybody around the country and really the world needs to be thinking about how do we bring these communities and the people who need these things the most into the decision thinking process.

Ennis Wells 20:01
The last main topic I wanted to ask you about was your educational angle to promoting all of these concerns. Why would education be one of your priorities in this environmentalism fight?

Lincoln Larson 20:14
Yeah, I think education is so critical. And I say this not just because I'm a professor here at NC State go pack. But also because, you know, as we've seen, as we've seen for some of our research, while people care about this stuff, it's not high on the priority list. And I don't, frankly, I don't understand why, given the things we've been talking about here this morning, and all the benefits linked to these outdoor spaces. So you know, through some of our educational activities and programs, one of the things that we hope to do is help everybody and by everybody, I mean, you know, every member of the public who's out there and benefits from natural areas, as well as the policy makers, decision makers who make decisions about allocation, these resources, help everybody understand that this is absolutely critical. We're not talking about luxury here, or hobby, or anything like that. We're talking about an essential component of our lives, that is critical to our health and well being. And when you frame it that way, it's hard not to listen. And think about man, this is something that we really need to care about. And the good thing about education around these issues is that we all know it deep down inside, we see it when we go and enjoy the spaces with our family and friends are going on vacation, hanging out at the beach, go to the mountains, you know, sit out on the lake, whatever you do, you can feel different, restored, happier, healthier, less stressed. We know this. So it shouldn't be too hard to remind people that, hey, you already know this stuff. Why don't you integrate into your decision making process and prioritize it a little bit more. So it's a good situation educationally, where there is kind of a foundation or baseline, we just have to build on that and help people put the pieces together. And a lot of our research agenda is designed to do that, especially at high level policy for both the state and the federal level. But what I'm really intrigued about is some of the things we've been doing recently since the pandemic, here at NC State. And what we've seen certainly during the pandemic, is that our mental health situation deteriorated across the board, and especially for college students for obvious reasons. And one of the things that we found through our research on NC State students, as the students who managed to cope with these challenges the best were the ones that were using green spaces in and around campus. And that was consistent throughout the two years or more and counting, I guess, if you want to go there of the pandemic, and what was happening. So just being in these spaces made a huge difference. The other thing we found is that very few students were using these spaces despite that. And so Aaron hid my colleague in the Department of Parks, rec and Tourism Management and I are working together. Now we created a class called Nature, health and wellness, primarily designed for incoming freshmen and sophomores here at NC State, where we essentially go over everything we've discussed this morning, all the health benefits that nature can provide physically, mentally, socially, even some of the economic benefits and come from that. And make sure students are aware of them. And then we actually visit these places on campus so that students can see, hey, look, these resources are literally right in my backyard, whether it's on main campus, or centennial, wherever it might be Lake Raleigh, and Lake Raleigh Woods happens to be one of my favorite places on campus. But these resources are right there. And the students in class are nature journals and other things that we did for the over the course of semester have really started to transform the way they think about their own health promotion, and the time they're spending on screens versus the time they're spending out in the green. And it's been really important to them, and their health and well being as students. And the more we can reach a diverse array of students across this campus in this classroom golfer to get this fall, and hopefully every fall from here on out. I think we can help address a lot of the health challenges facing college students at NC State these days, but also across the country.

Ennis Wells 24:01
How would you envision the best way for people to get educated about environmentalism if they're not in college?

Lincoln Larson 24:07
Yeah, that's challenging because it's, you know, we have fortunately here in NC State and other universities, we have mechanisms in place to share information with social groups and networks and everything else. It's harder if you're out of college, and you're looking for ways to connect. I think a lot of you know, there's increasingly more websites, government agencies have real interest in outdoor recreation opportunities that are out there there other corporate more industry oriented websites like all trails and other groups that have created organizations about what's the nearest trail where you where can you go to hike. So the internet is a valuable tool for finding a lot of these resources in an area. Heck, if you get to a new location, you could go to chat GPT and type in things to do outside and city, whatever. And you'll get a list of a bunch of different opportunities. So if you're just a little proactive about finding these spots, they're out there, but you have to share a little bit Have initiative and you have to be intentional about getting to them. And again, I just want to remind everybody out there, it doesn't have to be a trip to Alaska or to Yellowstone or to these far flung wild places. It can literally be a walk on the sidewalk in your neighborhood, with a little bit of green view and in your view escapes. So that's all it takes a 10 minute walk is might be all it takes to achieve those health goals that you've been hoping to achieve for a long time.

Ennis Wells 25:28
What was the name of that course you mentioned again,

Lincoln Larson 25:30
it's nature health and wellness is of course it will be teaching and in the Wolfpack problems will fact solutions introductory course for freshmen, Aaron hip. And I also did a short segment about nature and the key to health being right outside your doors with nature, health promotion. So we're really trying to actively spread the word on this throughout campus. Another thing that all you can do out there, if you're listening to this, is share this with your friends with your family and others who might benefit from these nature based health promotion benefits. Every time somebody else goes outside and reaps the health benefits of nature. Everyone benefits. So that's really important to keep in mind as well.

Ennis Wells 26:08
All right, thank you so much for discussing this all with me. Where can people find out more information about your work or anything else you'd still like to promote?

Lincoln Larson 26:16
Yeah, sure, you're welcome to go check out here at the Department of Parks Rec and Tourism Management here at NC State. It's not just me, it's a lot of people doing this kind of work. And there are a lot of opportunities to engage with us, where they're interested in research opportunities, just following our social media, knowing a lot of the research that some of which we've discussed today that's coming out about these topics. That's really important as well. So you can check that out. And you're welcome that my contact information is there on the website, you're welcome to reach out to me as well. And follow up about you know, any questions about these things if you want to recommend a list of recommendations of cool natural resource recreation sites in Raleigh, I'm happy to oblige with my own list. So yeah, hope to see you out there on the trails, or in the forest somewhere around Lake County one of these days and stay healthy out there. Thank you.

Ennis Wells 27:13
You just heard Eye on the Triangle interview with Dr. Lincoln Larson, and associate professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management from NC State's College of Natural Resources. Thanks so much for him for joining me today and telling us all about green spaces and how they affect the triangle area.

Next up on this episode of Eye on the Triangle, I've got some more short news stories from around the triangle. First, although tentative agreements have been made, the UPS teamsters strike is still a possibility as workers continue to argue for more pay, specifically for their part time employees and other benefits such as AC in the trucks. Although this is a national development, it would still have an immediate impact on the triangle as a lot of our mail is delivered by UPS. And about 70% of the UPS drivers are represented by the Union. This strike doesn't mean that the UPS services would completely shut down. But it does mean that they would be trying to operate with only 30% of their normal workers, which would be a very difficult thing to do. A lot of reports I've read on this have recommended companies and individuals to preemptively start sending their mail through UPS or FedEx or other companies. And that could be a short term solution. But looking back to when the UPS teamsters went on strike in 1997. I would predict this also resulting in delays since the sudden increase of demand would also put stress on those services. If the UPS Teamster strike does occur, it would begin August 1 2023, after their old contract expires on July 31. And then it would go on indefinitely till a new contract is approved. I think the situation could really go either way, since UPS is still involved in negotiations with the union and obviously doesn't want the strike to occur. Since it would the magnitude of it would have huge impacts on the revenue and the mail services of our entire country. So regardless, the teamsters union has been strongly advocating for their demands and prepping for this moment for a long time so it could happen. They've even started hosting practice picket lines across the country. So it's definitely more than just a threat from the workers. And plus with the Writers Guild and now the actors union to already on strike. Labor activity seems to be rising across the country, so I would recommend keeping an eye on that as it develops. Next story, I wanted to share some quick info on some of the bills developing in North Carolina's legislature. One of the most recent and notable bills that NC residents should be aware of is Senate Bill 90. This bill is one of those parental rights bills that would give parents more control Over there children's experience within public schools. And it's had a kind of confusing trip through the legislature, since it began in the Senate, and it passed there. And then it was supposed to be heard by the House last Wednesday, July 12. But it was abruptly pulled from the calendar. And as of when I'm recording this, it looks like it's going to be heard first by the Education Committee, and then come back before the house for a vote later. There are a lot of things in this bill. So I'll try to run through as many of them as I can. But basically, one of the things, it would enable a pathway for parents to sue schools and remove school superintendents, if they impact what the bill considers a parent's fundamental right to parent. And it would allow parents to act to remove harmful books from the school's library, and give parents access to their children's library card history. And it would also force the school to inform parents if the student was questioning their gender identity. It also pushes back sex ed to seventh grade, and gives the parents the right to opt their child out of that class. And finally, there's also certain provisions given to private schools within this bill, deciding that even though they receive state funding, they shouldn't be considered state actors, and therefore, the charter schools wouldn't have to comply with certain state statutes that would normally affect public schools. So this bill in its entirety is back primarily by Republicans, but some Democrats as well. And I think that the amount of stuff in this bill is probably an explanation as to why he got pulled from that quick vote last Wednesday. But still, the NC legislative session ends on August 31. So I'd imagine it comes back pretty soon and moves onwards pretty quickly so that they could pass it before the session ends. So that's a big bill to watch out for, since it would have such a huge impact on NCS education system. Other two bills I wanted to touch on here where House Bill 574 and House Bill 808. Both of these bills have already passed the House and Senate, but they were vetoed by Governor Cooper, so we're waiting to see if they have the supermajority to override his veto. House Bill 574 bans trans youth from playing on the sports team of their chosen gender while House Bill eight await bans all medical care for transgender youth under 18. If passed, that would go into effect August 1. Organizations such as equality NC are a good resource for following these bills and hearing about the impact that they would have on our state. More on Union news Dukes Graduate Students Union has received permission from the National Labor Relations Board to conduct its Union Election to see if the graduate students their desire to be recognized as an official Union. This election actually happening was up in the air for a while since Duke contested that these graduate students couldn't technically be considered employees and therefore shouldn't be allowed to unionize. But the National Labor Relations Board sided with the graduate union. So elections will be held this summer. It'll be a secret mailing or in person ballot election among the employees in the chosen unit. And the employees will vote whether or not they wish to be represented by the southern region workers united. Their grad student union has actually been around informally since 2017. But this vote could grant them even more collective bargaining power. And this will be an interesting thing to watch as it's one of the first universities in the south to organize as this. And so it'll hold precedent for other universities and their grad students to potentially do the same. Also, it'll just be interesting to watch to see whether what this bargaining process might bring, and whether it begins quickly or if it stretches out for a longer time and is contested in the courts again. And my last story of the day from right here at NC State, NC State has failed to build another lab building on Centennial Campus. This is a continuation of their plan to build what they're calling the innovation district 30 acre urban mixed use innovation development, where they move further to overlap the college with private companies. I assume this is in order to increase the research capabilities here and also to help graduates already have jobs by the time they graduate. So this building would have around 350,000 square feet of lab and research base and that would be huge step for this goal. One interesting explanation I found for this on Axios rollease. website was that there's a lot of remote work done these days but of course lab work still has to be done in person. So this is a good and stable investment for state. You can find out more about this on On Centennial that ncsu.edu/innovation das district. I've never ever on Centennial Campus so it was interesting to read about all of this

thank you all for listening to this episode of Eye on the Triangle WKNC 88.1 FM Hu one rollease public affairs program. You can listen back to this episode or past episodes on wknc.org/podcast music for this episode is titled No Stark and was made available by the artists Krakatoa through a Creative Commons license. Check wknc.org/schedule to catch the next episode of Eye on the Triangle live. Thank you

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