Well, good evening. Welcome and thank you for joining us this evening for what im sure will be a very stimulating session. My name is susan poser and im the president of Hofstra University. This Evenings Program will address the leadership and legacy of first Lady Michelle obama. Tonight, we will hear about the role that the first lady played in supporting president obamas election campaign. Advising him during his time in the white house and how she continues to influence american politics today. I want to thank the women in Leadership Advisory Board of Hofstra University for cosponsoring this event, and many of them are with us today. My role this evening is to moderate a Panel Discussion about with mr. Tina tchen, who served as chief of staff to the first lady. From 2011 to 2017. And in conversation with several members of the house, two faculty. So ill begin with brief introductions. Tina tchen currently serves as the executive Vice President and chief strategy and impact officer for the Obama Foundation. She served for eight years in the obama white house, first as the inaugural director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and then as chief of staff to mrs. Obama. Chen also served as the executive director of the White House Council on women and girls for eight years after the white house, she worked in the Chicago Office of the Buckley Law Firm and later served as the president and ceo of times up now and the times up, founder. The panel this evening also includes three hofstra professors who have scholarly expertise in womens studies, public communication policy making, education and Mental Health counseling all priority of Michelle Obama when she served as first lady. So far, this to your left. Dr. Lisa merrill is professor of writing, studies and rhetoric in the Hofstra College of liberal arts and sciences. Her research and publications are in the fields of performance studies critical race and Cultural Studies and womens and lgbtq history. Professor merrills publications have been awarded the jo Callaway Callaway book prize, the oscar bracket essay prize and the eclipse center. Visiting professors in north american studies at the british library. Sitting next to professor merrill is dr. Tomeka robinson. Shes a professor of rhetoric, rhetoric and public advocacy and the senior associate dean in the rabinowitz honors college. Her scholarship focuses primarily in the areas of health, culture and argumentation and debate. She is frequently invited to give lectures throughout the u. S. And brazil and regularly gives commentary to regional and National News organizations about issues of politics, health and race. Dr. Hollis serra, closest to me, holds a joint appointment as a professor in the department of counseling and Mental Health professions and educational leadership. Shes an active member of numerous professional and community organizations, has presented at regional, national and International Conferences and has authored or coauthored articles on topics ranging from the impact of hope, grit and resilience. Behavioral health, College Persistence and online pedagogy. So we will engage in this conversation with tina tchen for about 40 minutes, after which we will welcome questions from the audience, and we will conclude around 815. So. So mr. Chen. Here we are. I will lead off and i will just simply ask you, what were your responsibilities as the chief of staff to first Lady Michelle obama . Oh, well, thank you, susan. Thank you for inviting me and for having me here. Im going to actually answer a different question first, because to answer the chief of staff responsibilities, you have to ask your question what are the responsibilities of a first lady . Because one of the things we used to talk about is theres no statute. Right. Theres no statutory responsibilities as theres no regulation that sets up an office of the first lady. As we used to say, theres no salary that comes with the office of being first lady of the United States. And so entering into this, you know, you sort of come with a blank slate, you know, and hat and how to do that so that thats one piece that is the context for working in the east wing of the white house. And then similarly as chief of staff, that sort of follows i mean, obviously, you are the manager of the staff and we had our staff size. We kept actually very carefully at exactly the same number of staff that laura bush had, because we knew it was inevitable and it did happen where the critics would say shes got such a huge staff and it was like exact same as our predecessor. And so that included the social social office, which runs all of the events on the white house from the easter egg roll that just happened to large state dinners, to the press conferences. The president would hold it in the residence. We obviously had scheduling in advance for the for the first lady and but then, you know, we had various initiatives which will i know well get into and talk about and those morphed over time. And so then we had staff who worked with us on that. So theres that management piece. But then there is the strategy sizing and helping her figure out message communications, i forgot to mention, was in a hugely Important Department because how do we communicate and how do we project ourselves out into the world . And that morphed over time because we were also really the first social media presidency to ever happen. And she was a big part of the leading edge, i think, of how the Obama Administration portrayed itself in social media. Okay. So our next question will come from tamika. Yeah. So as the first africanamerican first lady, you knew this question was coming. She is constantly framed as being a role model for girls of color, and particularly for black and brown girls. How did she feel about this framing and how it was portrayed in the media . So, you know, its one of those things where and she has talked about this and written about i mean, when when youre a person of color and ive experienced this to you, live it your whole life, right . I mean, she was this first, you know, or the only or the one of only a few, you know, when she went to princeton, you know, when she was at harvard law school, when she was in sidley austin, at the law firm. So, you know, she youre very you grow up almost conscious of that. So it became sort of a part of, i think, who she was knowing that. But her commitment to young people also sort of matured. You know, it started even before the white house when she did her work at public allies, which was a not for profit in chicago, that she spent some time working as as the ceo, which inspires young people to do social service and that connection she always used to say that, you know, if she was tired or if, you know, a little cranky, that put her in a room with young people and that would be the solution. So we had lots of roundtables and lots of go to jumping jacks on these on the south lawn with young people. But she did understand that the role that she had would be very important. And so she used to say, you know, it was very interesting that we would we did this on the south side of chicago and roundtables with kids in anacostia in d. C. And overseas with kids, you know, young girls from just disinvested neighborhoods and she would explain that im like you, you know, i remember her saying this to kids. We werent a roundtable and the south side of chicago, you know, at a school that had experienced a tremendous amount of gun violence that was less than a mile away from where she grew up. And she had to explain to these kids a couple of times because they didnt believe or to say, i grew up a half a mile from here. I did. I walked these streets, the very streets that you walk on in this neighborhood and now here i am. And you can do that, too. But that was very much her message was this. And making really clear, explaining what the southside of chicago was to an overseas audience. Remember, she did that at the Mulberry School when we were in london with a school of immigrant bangladeshi girls. You know, to say, i understand that what youre doing is this let me paint you the picture of what growing up on the south side of chicago. Look like. So using her platform to do that was really important to her remains important to this day. And this is the thank you for being here. This is an exciting time, i think, for all of us. So we appreciate you being here. Im a performance historian, so its going to be a question based on some of that. Frederick douglass famously said if theres no struggle, theres no progress. Those who favor freedom. And yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. So my question for you, tina, is during the obama term in the white house, which particular struggles did you see . The first lady and your office regard as necessary to take on . Well, im sort of laughing. And, you know, some of my colleagues from the Obama Administration are here. Phil schiller and nancyann deparle, because actually struggles is how many in terms of what we face are over. We walked into the Great Recession and then we walked into you know, you know, trying to get the Affordable Care act passed. We walked into the repeal of dont dont is dead tell you so yeah there were there were a lot of. And your question about you know what did the first lady and our team view as necessary struggles actually is shaped by something that was a guiding principle for our work that mrs. Obama articulated. And from the very beginning, she said theres only one person elected in this building and everything we do on our side of the house needs to be in service of his agenda. And if its not, then we got to ask ourselves a question about why are we doing it . And so, you know what we did and the initiatives we did, how she spent her time, where she went out was very much shaped by what what would serve the president s agenda was very much shaped by not doing something that would detract from his agenda or what was going on in that particular moment. So, you know, that that framing, you know, what were the necessary struggles, you know, obviously because it filling nancy your hair you know that fight for the Affordable Care act which the two of them were so instrumental in, was clearly something, you know, that was necessary to really illuminate. And remember, this is actually was not her chief of staff at the time that we were doing this, i was running the office of Public Engagement. But i helped her put together a moment in the Jackie Kennedy garden with Breast Cancer survivors to really highlight, to make sure that, you know, she could be a unique messenger to women in what the importance was of the Affordable Care act to Womens Health and what that would do. So there were very, very moments where we knew we could be a unique messenger, you know, to speak to kids or to families or, you know, to shape that. And so i think thats thats probably how we approached that. What were the necessary struggles . Thank you. Great. Thank you. My question has to do with education. And we know that mrs. Obama was such a strong advocate for Postsecondary Education as evidenced by her reach hire initiative, promoting opportunities for higher education, and with a goal to have the United States have one of the highest proportions of College Graduates in the world. Could you please share with the roles that you think colleges and universities today can play to make that goal a reality . Well, while we are look, mrs. Obama and the president both felt strongly that education really obviously led to their success, you know, shaped you know, their lives, you know, mr. Obamas, you know, first generation, you know, she and her brother, you know, first generation in their family to graduate from college. So she really understood how critical that path was. She understood how difficult the path is for lots of kids. You know, as you may recall, because weve told the story a lot, you know, she was she went to a college, a High School Magnet school in chicago. And yet when she expressed her desire to go to princeton, you know, the college, you know, counselor at whitney young, which was already a magnet, schools sort of said, i dont think so. You know, i dont think your princeton material which to the Young Michelle robinson was just seen as a challenge, rather, because thats who she is. And so she had lived it. Right. And so expressed it that a lot how reach higher came about was when we during 2012 during the Reelection Campaign most of my staff could not work on reelection work because their official white house staff and so when i had our policy staff do was to think about if we were so fortunate to get a second term, we already had our lets move initiative on Childhood Obesity. We had joining forces veterans, military families. We knew there was room to do a third initiative. What could that be . And this is an interesting thing to get back to the opening question, susan, which is when you are the first lady and everythings in front of you and you could do anything with this platform making those choices you find is actually exceedingly difficult to figure out where are the places where you could make a unique contribution . Youre not doing something somebody else did that is sufficient, totally worthy of the platform of the first lady of the United States. And yet will have a deep enough effect that isnt just something surface that that was all the elements we tried to put together. And so we hit on the College Education goal because the president had already articulate it, that as a goal, the secretary duncan and and keeping with the were doing something in service of the president s agenda that became the hit that the president and arne duncan had already articulated this north star, they called it to really increase. We had fallen from the top of the world in College Graduates to like 16 or 17 by the time. And how do we return that and a big pitch as mrs. Obama could uniquely make with given her story was two first generation and and disadvantage kids on the message of what why you should go to college or to your Community College or Technical School something postsecondary the importance of a Postsecondary Education and you know, i think she and the president really believe that is sort of the pathway to upward mobility. It is the pathway to Economic Economic opportunity for kids and we did a lot of talking about. So what can colleges and universities do more of . One of the things we talked about a lot was is obviously access so increased Financial Aid increasing deep, reaching down into high schools. We visited several programs in colleges that were doing innovative things, you know, to bring kids on to college campuses. We actually did something where we did, you know, partnered with google, who did these virtual tours, you know, on, you know, on google view, whatever they call it, you know, where they you could you could do 360 views of colleges and universities. And then we went to howard to do a like a tour and, you know, took, you know, like an instagram thing around howard and were like high school, you know, Guidance Counselors wouldnt have putting inner city kids together to make trips to places like howard and elsewhere. So schools can do more of that. Right, pulling kids who might not otherwise think about your school to do that and get some exposure to it. And then when theyre here and mrs. Obama talked about this a lot when youre in school, if you came from a you know, were you the first generation person to go to school . If your family is struggling, the pressure on a kid who got a scholarship to go to school, to spend that money, not on books, but on helping their family get fed, is tremendous. And i think we dont approve. Those of us who dont didnt have a good fortune not to experience that folks in as she yours administrators of of schools need to Pay Attention and help support those kids who are coming from different circumstance is to be able to stay in school and to be able to fully experience. You know, its not just enough to give them a scholarship. You have to help them manage that. And manage the scholarship and manage it together with the rest of their pressures, and then to make those kids feel like they belong. Yes. She talked a lot about imposter syndrome, you know, because, again, she felt it. She was representative of how, you can work your way through that. Its some of what she talks about now. And like we carry and you know what shes doing now in her current book, you know, its very much that message to. So i think those are some of the things that i think, you know, institutions of Higher Learning can do to really promote that acce