The New School

I think he took his wallet.

That's my buddy Jeff's acting teacher at New School.

He was

there.

So there's that.

So you know him, or your friend knows him.

Yeah, my buddy, so he is the head of... or at least eight years ago, was the head of MFA training at the New School in New York.

I think he took his wallet.

When we started, we were aware of three or four existing programs.

one at the New School, one at Duke, and I think one at Harvard.

We had focus groups.

I noticed in doing some preparation for today, we apparently even advertised in the Washington Post at one point.

But I was in my second year.

I was studying for my master's in strategic design and management at the New School.

And that time in New York, like the DTC starting, like it really inspired me to focus my thesis on customer experience and community building and reimagining what that means for these type of businesses.

And Glossier was at the heart of my thesis.

But what if the platforms were owned as co-ops so that the drivers own the platform The workers own the technology that is changing their lives.

And so there's a scholar at the New School named Trevor Schultz who's been developing now for many, again, a couple decades now, a whole movement around platform co-ops.

But it's a vision of left kind of worker ownership, justice-oriented tech deployment.

So

Yeah, apparently it's been hiding under my nose all the time.

Right here in New York City at the New School, they've made Gnarls the Narwhal the mascot.

Such a good name too.

And actually Lizzie did her MFA at the New School and I asked her, why didn't you tell me that narwhals were the mascot? And she was like, I didn't think you'd care.

Of course I care.

And they only created the mascot in 2012.

But luckily, the narwhal won, and it provided this unique opportunity to showcase that if you're a unique and lovable weirdo, this is the school for you.

And they further refined that sales picture over the years.

Please welcome Michaela Coyle, pronouns they, them, a lesbian writer from Anchorage, Alaska.

They're the engagement editor for the website Literary Hub, and they hold an MFA in fiction from The New School.

In their free time, they read fantasy novels and make a lot

of jam.

Like you will spend hours and hours and hours working through melodies and lyrics and sections and shuffling stuff and rewriting stuff.

My point is, I don't think these kids, which it sounds terrible saying this, but I teach undergraduates at the New School songwriting, It's so hard to not look at your phone, to not be distracted by just all of the stuff in the world.

And I don't think that maybe they realize how many hours a song might take.

And so you're an advocate for a long time spent loving this thing that you're creating, right?