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Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
Our guest this morning is Jessica Maneer, co-advisor for the Civics Corps at Golgebic Community College.
She joins us to discuss the upcoming Veterans Speak event happening on Monday, November 23rd at 7pm.
Veterans Speak is an intergenerational dialogue that brings veterans and students together to listen to veterans' experiences, learn from different generations, and honor veterans' service to our country.
Each year's program features a keynote speaker and a dialogue with veterans from other eras.
The 2026 program is focused on a Vietnam-era panel and will include a dialogue between them and veterans from other eras.
Dr. Michael Gillan, a Vietnam merchant-mariner and historian, will offer the keynote address.
This event is presented by the Bay and Gogebic Community College Civic Score in partnership with Waging Dialogue, the American Legion Department of Michigan, American Merchant Marine Veterans, and Veterans for All Voters.
Our guest, Jessica Maneer, is the co-advisor for the Civic Score on the campus of Gogebic Community College.
She is currently the director of TRIO and Accessibility Services at GCC and has been there for two years.
She is excited for the partnership between Bay College and GCC with the Civic Score.
She states, to have a partnership between community colleges and the UP is incredible.
It is great for the institutions and the students alike.
Good morning, Jessica, and welcome to In Our Range.
Good morning, Mike.
Thanks for having me.
Yes, ma'am.
It's good to have you.
Now, before we discuss the Veterans Speak event happening on the 23rd, I'd like to ask you a little bit about the Civics Corps program, which produces this annual event.
How has Civics Corps created and how does it serve students on the range?
Sure.
So the Civic School actually started as a student group in 2020 at Bay College in Escanaba.
And then just recently, this past fall, the start of the fall semester, we partnered with Bay College so that students from GCC could be a part of the Civic School in partnership with Bay.
So the Civic School helps students develop job-ready civic skills, tied to dialogue, personal empowerment, and mindset development.
and our work combines methods from history and psychology and builds on non-partisan skillsets through intergenerational service and conversations that promote effective understanding of differences.
So it's really about the intergenerational dialogue that happens, you know, between our students of the younger generation or non-traditional students and then the events that we put out.
So like with Vets and Speak, right, we do this in the fall,
And we partner with the American Legion, the American Merchant Marine Veterans and Veterans for All Voters to host Veterans Speak, which is an intergenerational conversation between veterans.
And then in the winter, Civics Corps focuses on civic diplomacy through a microing credentials program that helps students broaden their skills as an ad to their resumes.
So at the end of the year, the students participate in both semesters,
they earn these sort of micro credentials to add to the resume as they're going out and applying for jobs.
So that's sort of the cool thing that happens with civic scores that the students can add this work to their resume, which is a big boost for them.
Yeah, and the work, it sounds like it's engaging in sort of a service to the community that helps people engage in
you know lower temperature nonpartisan ways that promote dialogue and encourage sort of a community coming together
yeah you you absolutely are correct right that nonpartisan that communication that relationship building right to kind of help cross divide right because we all can can speak you know whether we have differences or not on the topic
It's okay to come together and talk about it, right?
Because we can learn, we can learn from difference.
So that's what's important, right?
So we're building civility and civic well-being by practicing positive interactions between individuals and groups using growth mindset, right?
Time management, problem solving and dialogue skills and just listening, right?
Listening is a huge part of that communication and intergenerational dialogue because we can always learn
from those that have come before us.
So the people who come out of this program, you know, it seems as the temperature is really hot in the country right now when it comes to discussing almost anything that these students
really
benefit from gaining skills, from learning how to listen well, understand the other party, and then come out and be able to communicate any common ground effectively.
correct right so you don't have to necessarily have to have a position one side or the other right we can communicate effectively you know we're listening and we're learning and we're using a growth mindset instead of fixed mindset to really learn from opportunity that others present to us right from the past or similar age groups right so we all have something to learn from one another and that's really
kind of what the students come out with is you know conscious decision-making dialogues because like we talked about before before and professionalism right they know how to talk to someone that may be older than them right they know how to you know build that professional relationship as they're going into the into the working world.
Yeah, that's that's incredibly important.
So when you bring together these people of different generations, there often are a lot of barriers to communication, you know vocabulary just being one and And so this ability to take in and listen and hear from these different perspectives It's important for older people and it's important for younger people to gain a mutual understanding
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's what it that's what it's all about
It's just gaining that mutual understanding and that mutual respect for each other's position or view on whatever the topic may be.
With the Veterans Speak event happening on November 23rd, this is an online event, right?
Yes.
So Veterans Speak is going to be our fifth annual event this year.
coming up and it's again that intergenerational dialogue that brings veterans and students together to listen to veterans experience, learn from different generations, and honor veterans service to our country.
So each year focuses, each program focuses on a different sort of generation of veterans and keynote speakers.
So this year our 2026 program is focused on Vietnam era veterans
that panel and we'll include a dialogue between them and veterans from other eras.
So we have, you know, veterans from the Vietnam era, and then we've got a panel of veterans from more recent areas, you know, eras of the military and branches.
So Dr. Michael Gillan, a Vietnam merchant, mariner and historian, will offer our keynote address during this event.
And then we'll have that intergenerational dialogue between
the two panels, the Vietnam Veteran Panel and then the other more recent Veteran Panel and they will have dialogue between themselves.
So it's going to be a really, really fun event.
I'm excited.
It's actually my first one being a part of, so I'm really excited to hear and learn from the generations of military veterans.
Yeah, I went back and I watched a little bit of previous ones that can be found on one of the organizations that you partner with to promote this event and put it on as an organization called Waging Dialogue.
And you can find these past presentations.
on their YouTube page, Waging Dialogue.
You can just search for the veterans speak.
And I watched a little bit and there was one involving veterans going as far back as to the Korean War.
And it was really, really eye-opening to sit and listen to these veterans speak there because they each have not only their own individual
experiences in serving our country in the military, but coming from different generations and then there are different genders, they have their individual experiences, but they're able to speak frankly in a manner because of their common military cultural experiences.
And so it really is kind of a wonderful way to see people who already they're coming into it with a mutual regard for each other because of their common service.
And and the way that they're able to speak so frankly I found really really very poignant
it is it's very poignant and it's very you know It's humbling right we don't often veterans often You know You maybe they don't always want to speak about it and so big to get them to open up in this way and for us to Hear the actual experience read the event coming up on the 23rd.
We're gonna focus on right how did they how did they feel?
Knowing that the war maybe wasn't as Supported back home right there was mixed feelings about the war and it was mandatory, you know draft back then and so those sort of Experiences and that dialogue that comes from that is very very powerful
It sounds like a very important experience for younger people to learn
about that and
see the
changes in the way that we structure our military as an all voluntary one today versus the experiences
of
folks who were drafted during the Vietnam era or earlier.
Absolutely.
And then again, this whole merchant marine veterans, right?
We're looking to help that sort of, there's a bill in Congress that we hope to continue to push forward as a result of this event.
to get the American merchant marine veterans their full veteran status that they so rightfully deserve.
So that's what we hope to that comes out of this event that we learn more about that everyone learns more about this and the merchant mariners and what they contributed to to the wars to our to our nation's history.
Yeah, as I heard one gentleman put it on the 2025 veterans speak YouTube video
He said, you know, maybe a merchant marine, but he said, I was still dodging bullets like everyone else when I was over
there.
Correct.
Correct.
Yep.
He was still on the front lines and still doing a job that he, he was asked to do, right?
He was still on the front lines.
Like he said, dodging bullets and, and fighting for, for freedom in our country.
So they deserve that honor as well.
Yes, ma'am.
So this will be happening on November 23rd from 7 to 8 p.m.
How can people find the link to access this program on that day?
So the link is on Bay College's website so baycollege.edu and if you search events or veterans speak it will be on that webpage and then GCC has also posted it on our
social media and on our Facebook page as well.
And then our website as well.
So if you want to log on to our website and click on the link, they can find that there.
And it's a Zoom webinar format.
So you can sit at home in your comfy chair and log into the webinar and kind of be there with us and hear what these incredible veterans have to say.
Wonderful.
Well, Jessica, is there anything you'd like to add this morning before we get out of here?
I don't, I just thank you for the opportunity and I hope people tune in and be engaged in the intergenerational dialogue and I hope that they learn something and listen and continue to have dialogue and intergenerational dialogue with community members throughout the range because I think it's important that we all learn from each other no matter what our backgrounds are.
Well, that's an excellent way to leave it.
So I thank you very much, Jessica, for joining us this morning.
to discuss this event and help us learn a little bit more about the Civics Corps program at GCC and at Bay College.
And I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Thank you so much, Mike.
Thanks again to Jessica Maneer from Civics Corps and Gogevic Community College for joining us this morning.
The Veterans Speak event will be held online on Monday, November 23rd at 6 p.m.
Central.
You can join the event by going to baycollege.edu
Thank you to all our military service members as we marked Veterans Day this week, and thank you for listening to In Our Range.
We'll be back next Friday.