Episode 102: Barbara Illowsky and Judith Sebesta === Intro Music and Highlighted Quotes --- [00:00:04] Barbara Illowsky: But my life was so enriched by knowing that I contributed to this movement, to find out how much money at my own college we had saved. This is the little piece I can do to help people achieve their educational goals. I felt that it's my responsibility. It's not even a choice, it's a responsibility to help other people who are struggling. And everybody knows where the open global movement is now. [00:00:34] Judith Sebesta: So we need stories like this, inspirational stories of how that does not need to be the case. And this book isn't just a history, I would argue, of California's OER and ZTC origins. It's a blueprint proving that educational equity is actually scalable when people with a passion and a drive and goals act collaboratively and collectively to make it happen. Episode Introduction --- [00:01:02] Alan Levine: You're listening to the voices of Judith Sebesta and Barbara Illowsky. We recorded episode 102 of OE Global Voices, the podcast we produce here at Open Education Global. We share with you conversation style, people, practices, and ideas from open educators around your world. I am your host, Alan Levine. In this conversation, recorded a bit back in July 2026, we hear the story and aha moments behind Barbara and Judith's project on Sowing the Seeds of a Global Movement, an OER that highlights the contributions of key people in the founding of open education movement in California. The interesting twist is that Barbara was the interviewer of key subjects, but also, Barbara herself was an interviewee for her groundbreaking work at De Anza College, where she co-authored the first open textbook in a platform that we know now as OpenStax. Let's get to these great stories that Barbara and Judith shared with us. It's so great to have you both here in the studio. Obviously we would like to ask you each to introduce yourselves, and of course tell us where in the world you are and what you do there. I'm gonna ask Barbara first. [00:02:16] Barbara Illowsky: Sure. Meet Barbara --- [00:02:54] Barbara Illowsky: Hi, I'm Barbara Illowsky. I am currently sitting in my home in Silicon Valley, Cupertino, California, where I have lived for 39 years. I am happily theoretically retired. I worked for over 30 years for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, hired as full-time faculty, teaching math and statistics, and then I moved on and was on loan to a variety of statewide projects, including being on the executive committee for the Statewide Academic Senate, two years at our community college chancellor's office, and then a lot of years working on OER projects. [00:03:07] Alan Levine: Judith, of course, who I've gotten to know for a while, but, tell the audience all about you and where you are. [00:03:15] Judith Sebesta: Alan, thank you so much. And I just really first off want to say thank you so much for inviting me to join this podcast with you two luminaries of the field, and just so grateful to be here. Meet Judith --- [00:03:26] Judith Sebesta: And I'm Judith Sebesta, and I am sitting in my home office in what is rather oddly for July, rainy Austin, Texas, where I live. I've been here for about the past decade, although I first lived in Austin back when I got my PhD at UT Austin in the '90s. So I just really dated myself there. But, I work as an independent consultant supporting various institutions and organizations across the United States, particularly focused on topics like open education, zero textbook cost degrees, accessibility, and artificial intelligence. And right now, what really brings me to this podcast today and the project that we're going to talk about, is my role, which I'm so honored to serve in, as the project manager for the technical assistance provider for the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office Zero Textbook Cost Grant Program. I know that was a mouthful, but I work with James Glapa-Grossklag there, who I imagine many in your audience know, and, his name will be coming up several times today. And so that's really what brings me to this project that we're going to be talking about [00:04:30] Alan Levine: All right. Workspaces and Touchstones --- [00:04:32] Alan Levine: And, you both kinda got there, but I do like to ask because this is audio, of course, and we can see each other through our Zoom cameras, but I think it helps listeners , to get a feel for the room that you're sitting in. And so can, you describe it? I'll start with Judith 'cause we're already talking. Describe your room, and if this is your regular workspace, what is one thing that you find yourself always looking at when you're in that space? [00:04:55] Judith Sebesta: Oh, wonderful, Alan. So I am so privileged to have my own dedicated home office on the first floor of my home here in the northwest corner of Austin. So that's where I'm sitting with my guitar quite handy, which you two can see behind me. I have a Martin acoustic guitar that I like to grab and play just to relax between meetings. But also then on the other side of my office, there's a beautiful window that overlooks a tree-filled courtyard. I feed squirrels, I have birds, and nature really is a touchstone for me and an inspiration. So I'm just so fortunate to have this situation that I work in full time. [00:05:29] Alan Levine: Great. And Barbara, you're in Cupertino... [00:05:32] Barbara Illowsky: Well, I'm about to move to Judith's home, [laughter, Judith offering her spare bedroom] And it sounds so lovely, just so lovely. I am also in my home office. Because I had a campus office for over 30 years, my home office is not the same level as Judith's office. It's a part of my bedroom. We happen to have a very large 20 by 30 foot master bedroom, so I have a 10 by 10 sort of blocked out with dividers and desks and such as my home office. First off, Alan and Judith, I wanna thank you so much for inviting me to be on this podcast and share this time with you. It's really quite a delight for, an, an old retired lady of the field to be up here with all the people who are coming up and are running the OER field now, the zero textbook field. And, that's a real honor. I am actually looking at some plaques on my wall that are not at all associated with my professional life. These are plaques that my children created growing up. Now, I will tell you, my children are now parents themselves, so you can tell that these are quite old. But I'm looking at a few special plaques on the wall that bring memories to me. [00:07:10] Alan Levine: That's great. I, love, both this and it's gonna get into the theme of talking about your project of, the personal elements, in your space and your work. Barbara Growing Up --- [00:07:20] Alan Levine: Barbara, where did you spend your childhood years? Where did you grow up in the world, and what, what kind of student were you a- as, in your early years? What did you think of school? [00:07:31] Barbara Illowsky: I'll have to preface it by saying my mother was a teacher. She taught physically and cognitively disabled children who were hospital bound, and she taught the young children. So I, grew up in suburbia Connecticut, right outside of Hartford. It was a beautiful place. It was a place in my town where a good chunk of the fathers had bachelor's degrees. Not so many mothers, but the mothers who did were all teachers or nurses, like my mother. My father had his master's degree before I was born, thanks to the GI Bill, and my mother went back when my sister and I were teenagers to get her master's. It was lovely. One thing in California that has taken me 39 years to get used to is that we have fenced in properties. We did not have fenced in properties in Connecticut where I was. And in fact, I can remember playing kickball in the neighborhood, and home plate was a stump, a tree stump in my yard. First base was a bush near the creek of a neighbor's yard. Second base, now this was certainly not a diamond or parallelogram shaped. It was sorta-ish, and third base was a patio wall in another yard. So that's the area that I grew up in. We lived a little while outside of Boston, but mostly I lived in Connecticut growing up until I went to college, and then I never lived there again. So the type of student, oh, this is so embarrassing. I was every teacher's dream and nightmare because to me, the challenge was always to get perfect grades. So good grades didn't count. A 95 on a test could have been an F. It was the same thing. if it wasn't a 100 or above, then I might as well have failed. So that was the part that I worked myself really hard. It turned out I got my, my undergraduate degree in Math and my master's and two-thirds of a PhD in theoretical statistics, and then I went back years later for a PhD. But I loved logic puzzles. I loved doing the puzzles, and in fact, I loved doing the Sudoku that are nine puzzles put together for the logic part, not just one puzzle. And I loved sorting out intellectual problems. So that was the good part. The bad part, I was always the one with the hand raised, and so I didn't realize until I became faculty myself, that's actually annoying when you have one student who's got the first one with their hand raised on there and only 'cause I was like, "Oh, I could do this," not thinking of how it might have made other students feel there. But I've always been attracted to intelligent, go-getter friends, fell in love with my husband because he was so intelligent, and, kind, and all the other wonderful things. But his intelligence certainly struck me, first. It was one of the things that I love, Newington, Connecticut, where I grew up, smack in the middle of the state, is that we had the fall foliage, beautiful, colors. And I lived near the side of what we called a mountain, which, might have had a 300-foot elevation. We would climb up the back of the mountain and look out over the colors always, and that was beautiful. [00:11:23] Alan Levine: No, I would've loved having you as a student who raised their hand. Participation is everything, right? [00:11:30] Barbara Illowsky: And I was organizing. I was always organizing students even as a child into, "Let's work on this problem. Let's work on this problem." Judith Growing Up --- [00:11:39] Alan Levine: Now I'm eager to hear from Judith, 'cause I've known you for a while, but I don't know where you grew up. [00:11:43] Judith Sebesta: I love this question, Alan. And I have to say, when I come to talk about what kind of student I was, I think you and I would have been competing against each other, Barbara. [00:11:51] Barbara Illowsky: would've been, It would've been like a love competition [00:11:55] Judith Sebesta: Oh, it would have been a friendly competition, I think, but probably competition nonetheless. Alan, I grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, largely. A pretty idyllic childhood I would say in many ways. For my father's job, we moved up to Ohio to near Cincinnati for a couple of years, and then over to Charlotte, North Carolina, which by the way, had just become desegregated. This was in the early '70s, and was a very eye-opening experience for me in that way. But that's for another podcast or another time. My dad and my mom always wanted to return back to Dallas, so we did return to Dallas in I think it was about 1976. And I was a model student. And I have to connect this again to my parents. My father is an immigrant who fled the war-torn Europe, Czech- former Czechoslovakia with his mother to move to New York. And he grew up in quite a bit of poverty, as the son of a single mother. My mother grew up in quite dire poverty in Illinois, and she never had the chance to go to college. You mentioned the GI Bill, Barbara. My father was the first in his family to attend college due to the GI Bill. So they valued it. what an amazing opportunity. And my dad served in Europe, in, in Germany in the Army during the 1950s. but they even my mother who I think maybe because she didn't get a chance to go to college, they valued education and hard work, and instilled those values in me. So succeeding in school was very important in my family, and as a result, both my older sister and I were valedictorians of our high school class. Then I go to college and I get a shock because I'm not the only one who was a valedictorian in their high school class in college. But ended up I think thriving. Went to a small liberal arts school up north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I left and took a job in Washington, DC completely unrelated for a year, and realized that I missed school so much. So I got my master's degree and then my PhD, and then I never left higher education because I just always liked school in general. So that's my little story. [00:14:04] Alan Levine: So, both immersed in education and learning. And, gosh, I could spend time just having this conversation about these kind of influences. Barbara OER Aha --- [00:14:20] Alan Levine: But of course, we wanna ask about what was your, your calling, in your past to Open Education. In the book we're gonna talk about, I've seen it used as your "aha" moment. Can you remember the spark, Barbara, that, that opened the door for you? [00:14:29] Barbara Illowsky: Absolutely. I think that by being faculty in a community college system, my mentor and a dear friend, Dr. Martha Kanter, who's interviewed in this book, always would say, "We take the top 100%." And given that I'm in Silicon Valley, I've been to educational meetings at Stanford, that had the UC faculty and the CSU faculty, and then I was the lone community college education expert there. And they would say, "We have the same problems about students not being able to do math." This was mostly math related. And I was like, "No, you don't. You don't have the same problems." You may have that the students are weak, but they're weak according to your standards. You still need a certain level to get into Stanford, Berkeley, San Jose State, and all of the schools. We have people who are coming wherever they are. And the demographics changed over the years. We had a lot of students when I first started whose parents were boat people from Vietnam, or were themselves there, or who came from a variety of different situations. And my aha moment was when I was in the classroom, and I was always trying to figure out what could I do to help the students, and I would see brothers and sisters sharing a textbook. I had single mothers who were in their 40s, having very often married at 18, 19, worked to put their husbands through college, and then the husbands were gone, and they had children. And I saw them struggling. I saw students taking two or three buses to come to the school, bringing a sick child to class, which I always encouraged. Not that I wanted to get sick, of course, but that if it means you skipping school and your child is okay enough, but not okay enough to go to school, just bring the child. And I realized, okay, what can I do? I can't help their living situation. I connect them to Financial Aid, and then they can deal what they can do there. I can't help their daycare situation. But what I started in the early '80s, speaking of Texas, was when the TI graphing calculator first came out, I worked on a program with TI where for every so many calculators that students bought at the bookstore, I would get this many free, and those would be loaners to the students. 'Cause the graphing calculators were running about $100 at this point in the '90s, and that was too much for students. I ended up with a collection of 25 or 30 graphing calculators that I could loan out to students. So that was the first thing. From Notes to OpenStax --- [00:17:26] Barbara Illowsky: And then, my colleague, Susan Dean and I were really dissatisfied with all the statistics books that were out there at the time in the '90s because they were all algebra books in my mind. They were all, solve for Z, the Z score, solve for the P value, and I'm thinking, this is not what the real world is like. Even in the '90s, when you're gonna go out and work, nobody's gonna ask you to spend a day calculating a P score and then say, "Good job. Good job. Now you know P equals .040," whatever. So as we started redoing how statistics was taught and using the graphing calculator. After that, we had these notes and notes. They were just printed at the bookstore, and we were experimenting with a whole bunch of books because we're required to have a textbook. The students finally said, "Couldn't we just use all your notes as a textbook?" So long story, we ended up with, a bound textbook and we had an agreement with a publisher that the cost would never go over a certain amount adjusted for inflation, and this was really a low cost. Then that publisher sold to another publisher who sold to another publisher, and all of a sudden the textbook jumped over $100. And Sue and I took our own money and bought back the rights to the textbook. Now, this is pre-internet for the masses. So we were able to sell the textbooks through our campus bookstore to our school and about five or six other colleges for, I can't remember, but I think it was between $30 and $37, in the '90s. We were the lowest cost anywhere. My aha moment was when Dr. Cantor said, "I want you to come with me to this conference at Rice University. We'll get a substitute for your, for your classes and I'll cover your costs out of, not personally, out of whatever funds that college presidents have." So she took me to Rice University to a Connexions conference. Connexions was the predecessor to OpenStax, and I was hooked. I knew about MIT Open Courseware, which made faculty actually quite wealthy 'cause many of them were putting up their teaching notes, and then students were buying their textbooks. And I knew about Carnegie Mellon, but Connexions, Rice University, Dr. Sidney Burris, blessed memory, and Rich Baraniuk had this idea of putting a course that was accessible, meaning ADA compliant, and before it was all just PDFs. So long story short, Hewlett Foundation funded a contract to Rice University to create the first ADA-accessible, open textbook, and to the High Tech Center Training Unit, who helped us with the ADA part, and, to ISKME, that Lisa Petrides runs, to do a study to see "Is this gonna be harmful for students to have an online textbook, even though they could buy a hard copy?" The reason we wanted the online was 'cause we had hyperlinks put in, which was nonexistent at that point. Dr. Robert Maxfield, of blessed memory, was on the board of trustees of Rice University. He purchased the copyright. He had a foundation. He was co-founder of ROLM, a large company in Silicon Valley. He was the "M". He purchased the copyright from Sue and me and donated it to Rice University. And what was then _Collaborative Statistics_ became a worldwide-- Rich Baraniuk says it's a prototype. I say it was the guinea pig of the world. There was no open textbook in the world at that point that any of us could find, that was ADA compliant, that had hyperlinks on it, that was free. Our book had already been accepted, by the UC system for transfer articulation. In California, the textbooks have to be articulated. So you can't just choose a textbook in the community college system and decide you wanna use it, because if the UCs look at the textbook and say, "Oh, do we want to accept this course for transfer with this book?" And it already had been in hard copy, so what was moving was the online. And then it became the prototype for OpenStax, which most people have heard of, even if they haven't heard of, Connexions. And the rest is history. It went from being used at five or six colleges with Sue and I getting a small royalty, to being used at, I think, up to maybe 1,500 colleges and universities now internationally, and us _not_ getting any royalties. Impact and Responsibility --- [00:22:39] Barbara Illowsky: But my life was so enriched, really so enriched by knowing that I contributed to this movement, to find out how much money at my own college we had saved. At one point before I retired, we had saved over $3 million just in elementary statistics books. And that's the aha moment. It was like, okay, this is what I can do besides being- hopefully a fabulous instructor, and making students not hate statistics, at least tolerate it. This is the little piece I can do to help people achieve their educational goals. And because, like Judith, my father grew up in- his father died very young, so he grew up in poverty. He was a scholarship kid. He was born in the US, but he went to work at age seven in the summers. I don't think there was welfare at that point. My grandmother just got gifts, , money from her siblings. But the GI Bill helped him to achieve his educational goal and give me a middle class upbringing. I felt that it's my responsibility. It's not even a choice, it's a responsibility to help other people who are struggling. And everybody knows where the open global movement is now. [00:23:54] Alan Levine: it's everywhere, but it started from printed notes, and but it made so much sense. [00:23:59] Barbara Illowsky: That was it. Yeah, MIT, they were really, a great innovator, MIT. , For years I was like, " How does this community college teacher get to play with all the (it was mostly boys) the big boys, and sit at the table?" Granted, I had a PhD, but still I wasn't at, at, label, of MIT and Carnegie Mellon. And I was getting to sit at and I was on the board of directors of OEGlobal before it was OEGlobal, but long after the book was published, and this was an international movement. And to great, and to meet these great leaders from around the world, it's, Judith, I'm sure and Alan, how inspirational it is to meet people from all around the world who are doing the most amazing things. Seeds of the Book --- [00:24:50] Alan Levine: So we're here to talk about your work together on _Sowing the Seeds of a Global Movement_. I'll let you describe it, but just curious to phrase where the idea came from and why you decided it was important and worth the effort to have these interviews with people who were, the starters, the trailblazers, as you use in the title too, of the open education movement in California and much farther beyond. [00:25:18] Judith Sebesta: I'll go ahead and dive in here if you don't mind because I was a part of this before my supervisor, James Glapa-Grossklag, had the brilliant idea to bring Barbara on board to support and really i in so many ways lead this project, I would say. But it really was James' idea. So James Glapa-Grossklag, if you don't know, he's a dean at the College of the Canyons in California. Well you know him, Alan. Many of your listeners do as well. A dean at College of the Canyons, but he also serves as the leader, the director of the technical assistance provider of the ZTC grants in California. It was under those auspices that James came up with this idea. I'd like to think of it like James planted the initial seed, Barbara watered it with her brilliant interviews that she conducted, and then I was just the gardener as the editor who was pruning the manuscript. [00:26:08] Barbara Illowsky: She's so modest, and that's really not the case. [00:26:12] Judith Sebesta: That's kind of you, Barbara. I will say one of the most important and impactful contributions I made to this volume is I in turn got to interview you, which perhaps I can talk about in a moment. But it, the idea came about, Alan, I think as Barbara probably knows, in that, James was realizing that many of the early initiators of the open education movement were retiring, were going to be retiring soon. One of them, really is considered the godfather of OER, Dr. Marshall Mike Smith, passed away in 2023. And I do believe that for James that was one of the impetus behind him thinking about this project and the importance of capturing these stories while we could. And also providing a model for other states, systems, countries to do the same, to work to tell the stories that they have within their context. We really wanna urge listeners to think about doing this in whatever context they're in. But that's how the idea came about. And it, very quickly James approached me and said, "I don't think you've ever met Barbara Illowsky." I don't think I've met her, but I certainly know about her. And he said, "I have this crazy idea. What if we got one of the actual trailblazers themselves, Barbara, to conduct these interviews?" I made a note about this. It's a little like having a Jedi interview the rest of the Jedi Council for anyone who is a Star Wars fan. I'm a huge Star Wars fan. So that, really I think was the big idea that made this work and made this happen. So Barbara, perhaps you have some thoughts about this. Choosing Trailblazers --- [00:27:53] Barbara Illowsky: Sure, I do. So first off, the year before, I was truly honored when James called me and he said, "We'd like to interview you as one of the trailblazers. " just to let you know, this is a California Community College grant that he's working on. So I wanna first state that there are many more trailblazers that we would have loved to include if we could have, but this was California funds going for a California document. So everybody who we needed to be involved had to be California centric to the OER. [00:28:27] Judith Sebesta: Thanks for mentioning that, Barbara. That's an important point. ' [00:28:30] Barbara Illowsky: I know people say, "why didn't you interview so and so or so?" And yes, I would have loved to, but the funds were specific for California trailblazers for our grant. And Judith had interviewed me the year before, and that was fun, and I was honored. I was really honored. That went up on a website that I'm not sure how many people saw the website, but it was up there. if you searched it, you found it, and that was great. It was fun. My mother loved it, of course. And then when, James asked me about this, I thought, yes, because I had said to him, even when he asked to interview me, I said, "why are you interviewing me? Why aren't you interviewing so and so instead?" So he asked me, he said, "I want, I'd like you to come up with a bunch of names for who you would wanna interview from California Community College system." And of course, as Judith said, I would have loved to have interviewed Mike Smith. I knew him relatively well from conferences. He certainly was a huge visionary. But alongside that, Cathy Casserly, who had reported to Mike at the time, herself was quite a visionary. Even when she was reporting to them, she was an international leader in the field and made decisions on funding so many of the, the projects. At the time she had left the Hewlett Foundation, was at Creative Commons, leading that. She's done so much. So I gave a list to James of who I thought would be the right people to interview, and, he only balked at one name, which was himself, at that. [00:30:17] Judith Sebesta: He is always so modest, Barbara. [00:30:19] Barbara Illowsky: Yes. Everybody else said, "Wow, Thank you. I would love to." One person declined. So there was one leader from the very early, days who had retired, and she had declined to be interviewed. Chasing Final Interview --- [00:30:35] Barbara Illowsky: I guess she was just done with her career, and she is a very modest person as well. That was unfortunate, 'cause, Dr. Judy Baker was a mentor to me, and I really loved working with her, and I felt that she deserved to have her story down. But she didn't want to be doing it, and that was fine. When she declined, I said, "Okay, James," There was one person who we hadn't thought of, and he said, "Could you add this one person in?" And by then I had finished all my work with the others, and I said, "Here's the deal. I will add that person in after you get me your interview completed." I had sent him the questions probably eight months before, and he was just, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get 'em to you. Oh, yeah, I think he kept thinking I would forget, but like Judith, I was a good student. I wasn't about to forget that, he needed to be in there. He's so instrumental. He's such a leader. He had been president of the board of OEGlobal when it was in one of the precursor titles. And so he got it for me. Discovering Hidden Histories --- [00:31:44] Barbara Illowsky: Then I interviewed the final person, and we put together... even as I'm reading this, there were so many things about so many people that I was clueless about, and I was just so delighted. I had no idea. I had worked with Gerry Hanley at the CSU system, through the open movement, but part of his background I had no idea of. I knew he was at the chancellor's office. We worked together. I was at the chancellor's office. And yet, I just kept learning and learning. And other people, it was certainly a joy to interview each and every one of them. Dr. Michelson, who founded the 20 Million Minds and the Michelson Foundation, which has funded quite a lot of this, grew up poor, talked about how he borrowed his textbooks, put himself through medical school, and has really been instrumental in creating policy on OER. After I retired from Foothill-De Anza, he created actually a fellowship for me, Innovation in OER Fellowship, that now is continuing along. There was so much to learn about every single person. There were so many separate things that I thought, "Wow, you're even more unbelievable than I thought," and, "Wow, how did I get to be the person to interview you? You are just so inspirational. You've accomplished so much. Thank you." That's all I could say to everybody was "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Why Barbara Was Perfect for this Project --- [00:33:20] Judith Sebesta: And Alan, if I can jump in, Barbara was a perfect person to do this because she was doing similar work. You're being very modest, Barbara, as a trailblazer of open education. So I think had an inside understanding of the types of things that work required, as well as the rewards. Repeatedly in these interviews, the interviewees highlight the joys and the rewards of this very grassroots work that they were doing. They make it clear that it's hard work, but it also kind of highlights that anyone-- that, a faculty member, a staff member, or just about anyone with the right passion and then surrounding themselves, I think, with the right people and resources can engage in this very, very impactful work. And Alan, one other thing is that I just wanna make sure I mention for your listeners the others who are highlighted in this volume. So we do have Cathy Casserly, who, Barbara had mentioned. Barbara interviewed Una Daly, the former head of CCCOER with OEGlobal, and she mentioned James and Gerry Hanley herself, Martha Kanter, Gary Mickelsen. Lisa Petrides is also interviewed in the volume. And finally, Hal Plotkin, who I must say, your listeners just go to his interview and read about the struggles that he experienced as a student attempting to work to make it through community college and running up against some significant prejudice against him as a Jewish man at the time. Very compelling, poignant stories that Barbara was able to draw out of these interviewers. It seems like for all of them, it comes back to supporting student success, supporting students that were often that are like them, where they had so many barriers to overcome and just such compelling stories that Barbara was able to bring out of these interviewees. [00:35:10] Alan Levine: I know exactly what you were describing, Barbara, because it's such a honor to be able just to listen to people tell these stories. Building Interview Questions --- [00:35:18] Alan Levine: What went into making the interviews? And, were these interviews, audio or were they in text? It's kinda daunting to come up with a series of questions to cover someone's life of work [00:35:30] Barbara Illowsky: That was hard. That was a lot of work. I had, a small stipend, and which James said, "this is just gonna be three or four hours work for each person. It's a really good stipend you're getting." Three or four hours doesn't even cut it. I knew all of these people, and I knew them well, I thought. I just learned more about Hal Plotkin last week. He and I belong to the same synagogue, and he talked about his role in the Oslo Accords. I thought I knew everything about him, and sitting next to Yasser Arafat at dinner, because Arafat called him in. This is amazing stuff that I had no idea of, even having researched him. Each person I knew, and I thought about what I want to ask. I dove into their LinkedIn profiles, of course, to find out what else I could find from their CVs or resumes. I Googled them, ad nauseam to find every little bit about them. I called people who I knew who were close to them to find out other parts that I didn't know about, and I compiled a list of questions. There were a few questions that I wanted for each person. "What do you hope your legacy is? what do you feel most proud about?" And so on. Then I started reading interviews of other, famous people. So what James thought was a three or four hour project for each person was probably more like 30 hours per person. And yet I was totally honored to do it, and delighted to do it. For all of us who work in the education field, which is the three of us and probably most people listening, you know when you get a grant from somewhere, you end up earning pennies an hour. It's because, "oh, I could do this, or I could do this," and it's really a delight to learn, and to learn more, and that, type A student of wanting to do the best job I possibly can to make them shine in their best. I felt that Judith had asked me such incredible questions, so I knew she had done research about me more than what I have. Yeah, that was very apparent. I was like, wow, she dug deep to ask some of these questions about me. I'm surprised that she was able to come up with those questions. Some were typical, and some were very like, "how did you find out that to ask me this? I just worked as hard as I can and then I narrowed it down. I had a list of about 15 questions for each person, but we had a word count that we were striving to. We wanted to make a certain number of words, obviously not have it too short. I didn't want 15 questions where people gave me two and three sentence answers. I wanted really deep answers, which I feel that I was able to get deep. For many of them, they would send me their answers, and then I would send up follow-up parts and ask them to include the follow-up parts in their answer. And they're like, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that." One person who took quite a long, not James, but another person who took quite a long time to get me her answers said, " I'm, glad that you're asking me this, 'cause I've always felt I should write a memoir about my work in the open field, and these are really good questions to get me start thinking about what I would wanna write down." Nerves and Surprises --- [00:39:04] Alan Levine: Yeah, you talked a little bit about the experience of being the interviewer and the interviewee, but was there anything surprising about flipping the tables like that for you, Barbara? [00:39:12] Barbara Illowsky: Oh yeah, I was so nervous being the interviewer. I was really nervous. First off, even though I knew all these people and had worked with them, I knew they would take my email or phone call. these were people who I had very positive relations. But I was really worried about people saying, "thanks very much, but I'm busy." Only two were retired. All the rest were working full time, and they could say, "I'm busy, thanks. The world knows about me already. What do I need one more interview when I've been interviewed on radio, on TV, on conferences?" So I was surprised that everybody agreed to be interviewed, and I was also surprised at how nervous I was like "please don't think that's a dumb question. Please, write something, that you think is valuable" because I knew these people had such incredible stories. I was nervous that I wasn't gonna do them justice in their stories. [00:40:11] Judith Sebesta: And Alan, I think I can say on behalf of James and myself, how grateful we were that these interviewees, the subjects of the volume, and Barbara herself were willing to take the time to share their stories, their incredible stories with us. [00:40:26] Alan Levine: That is quite an ask though, to really think deeply about it, then to have to, write it out and respond to it. Why Document Now --- [00:40:32] Alan Levine: We talked a little bit about, some of it just because we wanna, capture these stories, but, why is it important now? And, also thinking this is the year, this is the year of the 25s, right? The 25th anniversary of Creative Commons, of MIT OpenCourseWare, of Wikipedia. I've also been asking people what the heck was so special that was going on in 2001, at the time when all this was starting? But, first of all, why do you think this is important work to be doing now? [00:41:02] Barbara Illowsky: I think it's really important to document the history so it's not recreated by a next generation. And, actually, right before this happened, David Harris, who had been the editor-in-chief of OpenStax- I feel, so blessed that I can call these people really good friends. I still meet with David, every few months, and he said he was at the conference in Rhode Island a few years ago, I forgot what year that was, and he was listening to a young group of people, much younger than the three of us, who were talking about being the leaders of the OER movement. They had been the leaders, on their campuses, but these people were in their mid to late 30s, early 40s, and he said he was listening to them and thinking that they were thinking they invented or discovered this. And he went over and he asked them a question about whether they knew about Mike Smith and Cathy and Martha, and they're like, "No, who are they?" They just had not heard of them. And that was about the time that this project was starting. I think I was in the process of being interviewed at that point, and I know I mentioned to James, "We gotta get the history down here," thinking international, but his grant was California-centric. Even though Dr. Kanter had moved to DC by then, 'cause after Foothill-De Anza, she was Undersecretary of Education for President Obama, and then she was a professor at NYU, and then College Promise. So she was out of California, per se, but I was writing about her work in California. We know for everything, history changes when the people who aren't Involved in the actual history rewrite looking back. And it would be through different lenses, not, meant as a derogatory comment towards these people, but they didn't know. They didn't have the background. And I think these leaders needed to be known, to get their due. People will say, "Oh, wow, you're one of the first." It's like, "yeah, but I didn't do it myself", all these people I consider friends and mentors. They said if, Dr. Kanter hadn't mentioned to me, "I want you to go to Rice University with me," I wouldn't have known anything about Connexions. If I hadn't met Dr. Burrus, who was at that point the dean of the electrical engineering department, I met him. There are so many great ideas that are coming from other people. If Richard Baraniuk, hadn't gone to Dr. Burrus and say, "Hey, I have this idea. Instead of another electrical engineering book on some title that I don't understand anything about, what if I do this?" And hadn't gotten the support from him as his dean, none of this stuff would have happened. [00:44:21] Judith Sebesta: If I could add, in response to this question, and what a great response, Barbara, about why this work now. I bet everyone can agree here, we live in an age when information is ubiquitous. Yet, unfortunately, access to that information, academic access in our case, continues to be gated and monetized. So we need stories like this, inspirational stories of how that does not need to be the case. And this book isn't just a history, I would argue, of California's OER and ZTC origins. It's a blueprint proving that educational equity is actually scalable when people with a passion and a drive and goals act collaboratively and collectively to make it happen. It's such an exciting story. Open Blueprint and Sequel --- [00:45:07] Judith Sebesta: This is openly licensed, this collection. So what we would hope is folks might take it, and they can build on the beautiful questions that Barbara has created, and I also created some too, as Barbara said. I don't think they're as good as hers. [00:45:18] Barbara Illowsky: They are as good as mine. Some are better. [00:45:20] Judith Sebesta: You're so kind, Barbara. But they can take those questions, and they can build on them and adapt them to interview folks within their context. One other thing I wanna add, Alan, while I have a chance, for your listeners, is that the work is not ending here. James was able to secure funding from the visionary Michelson 20MM Foundation, for me to author a next edition of this story. So building on these interviews, what I have done, and we're now in the editing phase of this volume, is I have created a broader and larger -- a history, not _the_ history. I would always argue this is just one history of the growth of OER and ZTC in California. And what this has enabled me to do is to build and expand on those interviews to include more voices, more diverse voices, not just at the community colleges, but at the four-year institutions in California as well, at various organizations like ISKME and the Michelson Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation. It's a broader story that builds on these interviews. We are hoping to have this published by the fall. Stay tuned. It's called _From Grassroots to Ecosystem: The Growth of OER and ZTC in California._ [00:46:30] Barbara Illowsky: Oh, and I can't wait to read it. And it doesn't surprise me that the generous Dr. Michaelson is funding this. It really doesn't surprise me. Giving Back Ethos --- [00:46:41] Barbara Illowsky: I wanted to add one last thing about why it's important. All the people who were doing this in the beginning, we had full-time jobs, and we also had this passion. We were doing this passion not getting paid, per se, for it. Now Judith's a consultant on it. Now, I have consulting based on OER, but I didn't know that was gonna happen at the time, right? I did this because I thought, "This is right, and this is what we need to do, and I have an opportunity." I feel like I was almost blessed by given an opportunity to help students in a way that I didn't know that I could. And we see and hear a lot of people saying, "Why should I go to this meeting? It's not in my contract. I've done my contract. Why would I go and do this? I'm not getting paid to do this extra stuff. Why would I promote this? It doesn't promote me." And, I don't know if I'm just noticing it now, being an old lady looking back. I don't know if it's a change in the demographics of the younger generation. I'm not really sure. Or maybe they haven't found their passion. But I, think that it's really important for people to know that, yes, we do need full-time jobs. When Sue and I decided to sell the book at such a low price originally before internet was being used, we said to each other, "We have full-time jobs." I had, graduate school was from an Ivy League, and I could have taken that theoretical statistics degree from, Wharton, which is considered, good school, higher than I ever would've been able to go to on my own, but I had scholarships and... so somebody helped me, right? I had scholarships so that I could go to a private school, which was never in my mind that would happen in my life. So we take this and we say, "All right, how do we give back?" And I think that's something that needs to be instilled. I hope that's, Judith, in your book. It's our requirement to give back to the community because none of us... I don't know your history, Alan. I'd love to sit down and hear your history, but I truly believe that there's not one of us who became as successful as we have without somebody helping us along the way, and somebody helping us for free along the way. When Dr. Cantor said, "I'll give you advice on this," she never said, "Okay, I'm gonna charge you this amount to listen to my brilliant wisdom." She just said, "Barbara, here's what you need to do. You need to come to this conference. You need to go here." And I knew she was right, but that was such an influence on me. And it's my responsibility as somebody who's educated, to make sure that other people can achieve their educational goals and dreams. And I think that's part of what we need to tell, it needs to be emphasized, is we all need money, yes, but once you get a certain amount where you can pay your rent and have your basic needs covered, instead of something new, how about seeing what can you do that helps somebody else there? [00:50:01] Alan Levine: That's beautiful. I, hope, do you have a few more minutes? I know we're at the top of our hour. [00:50:04] Barbara Illowsky: Yeah, you're gonna edit us down to nothing. [00:50:07] Alan Levine: No, that's gonna be the challenge. Seeds and Favorite Quotes --- [00:50:09] Alan Levine: That aspect, it's a little bit of generosity, but it's also that, that sense of, how we grow the field, which, you know, I was gonna ask about where the Sowing the seeds came from as the title. [00:50:21] Barbara Illowsky: Judith's title, not mine. [00:50:23] Judith Sebesta: Thank you, Barbara. [00:50:24] Barbara Illowsky: And I love it [00:50:25] Judith Sebesta: I do like to garden. It's one of my interests outside of work. [00:50:30] Alan Levine: , I, reuse that metaphor all the time myself, so it does, work. You did allude to some of these, but do you have any, favorite, surprises or, gem stories that just really jump out from the experience? [00:50:47] Barbara Illowsky: I think that each person has an individual gem story. I hesitate to highlight one because then I'm close out Zoom and say, "Wait, why did I say that one? Why didn't I say this one instead?" Because each person, especially out of all of them, there were three or four who I thought would have no surprises for me. I knew Hal extremely well. I had been to many of his family milestone events. I still do. There was nothing about him that was gonna surprise me, and let just this past Friday night was like, "Whoa, how did I not know that?" Martha, I thought I knew extremely well. She was vetted completely when she became president of the college. She's an open book. And yet, , everybody, every single person had surprises in them, and... I'm not gonna give you one, because then I'm gonna forget and be mad at myself for not giving you one of each person [00:51:47] Alan Levine: That is total- fair, and we can, go and read them. Can I share a favorite quote from the volume? Probably should save this for your listeners to read it, but let me tell you, I got chills whenever I received this quote from Barbara herself, if you don't mind, Barbara. [00:52:03] Judith Sebesta: At the end of her interview, she says, "This may sound a bit hokey, but I truly believe that much of the world's problems can be solved with an educated population for all, not just those with enough financial security to achieve it." [00:52:19] Barbara Illowsky: Yeah. I truly believe that. Yeah, and that drives a lot of what I do professionally and personally. [00:52:27] Alan Levine: So I can quote the quote when I publish the podcast. [00:52:31] Barbara Illowsky: Yeah. Thank you, Judith. That's, that you even remember that is amazing. [00:52:36] Judith Sebesta: I get chills. Reminds me of why I'm doing what I'm doing, so thank you, Barbara. [00:52:41] Alan Levine: Excellent. And so exciting, Judith, to hear that, that a second volume is in the works. Maybe you can put the challenge out to other organizations or groups to say "Hey, you should be doing..." You said it earlier, but it's, worth doing this, right? [00:52:55] Judith Sebesta: I would really like to emphasize that, Alan, and I know I speak for James as well, that we're hoping that this will inspire other similar volumes. Not that there aren't some out there. There, there are. I I used AI to do a search for some similar work, but I'm not sure that there is to this level or, especially what is going to be the comprehensive volume that I think the second edition is going to be. So I truly encourage other states, and not just states, but it could be, an institution, a small community college somewhere, go out there and talk to the folks that are engaging in this work. We all know that community colleges have been on the leading edge of many of this. And four-year institutions as well, at systems, in organizations. I just hope that others will be inspired to tell their own stories and get those histories out there. [00:53:45] Alan Levine: All right, we put that out there. Life Beyond OER --- [00:53:46] Alan Levine: I, do like to ask,, as part of the getting to know people, and I could guess your answer Judith, but when you're not in this room, your workspace, when you're not doing this work, what are the things outside of the work you do that really give you passion and reward? [00:54:01] Judith Sebesta: I'll let Barbara have the final word, so I'll just say I had mentioned music, so I do like to both play guitar and sing. I love getting out in nature and walking in nature and connecting. I I enjoy working out. I have a particular love for animals, especially dogs. Sadly, since my sweet rescue golden retriever passed away last year, I just haven't had the heart to bring another dog into my life, but I'm hoping to soon. I also love to stream movies and films and read. So those are some of my passions outside of work, Barbara? [00:54:33] Barbara Illowsky: You're busy. I will say that now that I have six grandchildren, they are a strong passion. They are ages four to eight, so they're all about the same age, which is fun because the cousins love to get together. I volunteer in the foster care system as a CASA volunteer, which is a court-appointed special advocate. I'm not taking in foster children, but I work with foster children. That's been very rewarding. I do love to be in nature, and I will just put a plug because you can see I'm an old lady, that in December I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. So that was a big challenge to myself, with a friend. Usually my hikes are not like that. They're much more local hikes. . I wish I could garden, but I've got the best brown thumb that there is to garden, although right now I'm eating cherry tomatoes from that plant. And I volunteer a lot at my synagogue, and so a lot of social justice activities. There's a lot of social justice activities that we do, and that keeps me quite busy. I'm honored to be able to help in all these different ways. [00:55:49] Judith Sebesta: And fun story, I have to say, Barbara, if you don't mind me intervening, when we had to reach back out to Barbara a while ago and say, "Do you mind just helping us wrap up a little part of this work?" it really went on for almost two years. And I remember at the time she emailed back and said, I'm climbing Mount Kilimanjaro tomorrow, so probably not gonna be able to take care of that until afterward" I went, "Oh, okay, fine." [00:56:13] Barbara Illowsky: I had a trip to Uganda, which was a combination of touring and volunteering. Our synagogue has the first female rabbi ordained in Uganda, I think actually in Sub-Saharan Africa. And so she was leading us back to her home village, and then she toured us around. We started some social activities there because many of the places, she grew up in a mud hut with a thatch roof, and many of the other places still don't have running water, and they still don't have electricity, and they still don't have other things. So we've started this project. And I looked at the map of Africa, and I thought, I'm probably never gonna be here again. So if I'm gonna be here, why don't I go to Tanzania for a week first?" So that's how that, that came out on there. [00:57:04] Alan Levine: I do have to say, it, for all the things that you've done on this project and your career and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, you can't be throwing out this "old lady" thing anymore, okay? So just stop that! [00:57:16] Judith Sebesta: If your listeners could see Barbara and how vibrant she is and beautiful and no, not buying it, Not buying it. Podcast Wrap Up --- [00:57:29] Alan Levine: Thank you for listening to this episode of OE Global Voices, the podcast produced here at Open Education Global. We certainly hope you enjoyed this podcast. Each episode features a different musical intro track selected from the Free Music Archive. For today's show, I selected a track called Plant the Seed by Brentin Davis, licensed under an attribution non-commercial, Creative Commons license. You can find this episode at our site, voices.oeglobal.org, and you can be part of follow-up discussions with Barbara and Judith in our OEG Connect space or wherever you interact with us in social media. If you're listening and you'd like to share your Open Education work, or have some great stories, or want to suggest a future guest, or just want to give us some feedback, let us know via our website or our email, voices@oeglobal.org. And tune in again soon for episode 103.