The University at Albany and Special Olympics New York are teaming up to create meaningful opportunities for athletes with and without disabilities to compete together through the Unified Sports program. In this episode of "The Engagement Ring" we talk with Jonathan Louie, assistant director of recreational programming for UAlbany, and Leigh Howard, director of program for Unified Sports, Special Olympics New York, about how their two organizations have devised a game plan for helping young adults with and without disabilities to compete, work and grow together through organized sports.
Special Olympics New York Unified Sports
Article from UAlbany News (April 6, 2023): UAlbany, Special Olympics Team Up to Celebrate Unified Sports
Contact info for Jonathan Louie at UAlbany
University at Albany Campus Recreation
The Engagement Ring, Episode 22: Game On -- Unified Sports, A Model Partnership for Helping Young Adults Compete, Work and Grow Together
[Lively, upbeat theme music plays as program host Mary Hunt introduces the program and plays excerpts from the program.]
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Welcome to The Engagement Ring, your connection to an ever-widening network of higher education professionals, scholars, and community partners, working to make the world a better place. I'm Mary Hunt. Today on the podcast…
LEIGH HOWARD:
A lot of these athletes nowadays at least are coming through local high school programs where they're part of a team, they're part of representing their high school, you know, wearing the jerseys, having fans in the stands, maybe, you know, being featured in the yearbook or on social media. And they're part of this community that's kind of beyond themselves in a way that maybe they hadn't gotten the opportunity to be part of before.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
The University at Albany and Special Olympics New York are teaming up to create meaningful opportunities for athletes with and without disabilities to compete together through the Unified Sports program.
JONATHAN LOUIE:
People with a predetermined notion should just come and watch a couple of the games because it does get so competitive.
LEIGH HOWARD:
If you do create as genuine and as authentic competition as you can, those relationships, those achievements, those moments are that much more valuable because of it.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
I'll talk with Jonathan Louie, assistant director of recreational programming for UAlbany, and Leigh Howard, director of program for Unified Sports, Special Olympics New York, about how their two organizations have devised a game plan for helping young adults with and without disabilities to compete, work and grow together through organized sports.
LEIGH HOWARD:
The university's bought into owning it in a way that we haven't seen anything quite like it with any of the programs I work with.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Here's my conversation with Jonathan Louie and Leigh Howard…
MARY HUNT:
Welcome to The Engagement Ring, Jon and Leigh.
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Hi, thanks for having us.
LEIGH HOWARD:
Happy to be here.
MARY HUNT:
Oh, I'm delighted to have you. I'm eager to hear about your impressive partnership around Unified Sports. But it all stems from the work of Special Olympics. So, let's start there. Leigh, can you tell us what Special Olympics is… maybe give us a little background on its history and its mission?
LEIGH HOWARD:
Sure. Special Olympics, you know, obviously, is a worldwide organization that operates internationally, nationally, and then each state has its own chapter, so to speak. You know, it's an organization that does a lot to offer opportunities, particularly through sport to athletes with intellectual disabilities. It was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and throughout the years, it has grown to an organization that not only offers opportunity through sport, but through community building, through health and wellness, through athlete leadership, to this population that's largely underserved. You know, one of the things that that we joke about often with Unified Sports, and I'm sure we'll get into that, you know, in a few minutes, butis that it's an organization built on inclusion and the concept of being inclusive that has largely been exclusive for a number of years in choosing who, what, what athletes we serve, and who falls under the category of having an intellectual disability. But through programs such as Unified, we've really been able to expand not only the population through which we serve, but the impact that we have, you know, both through sport and through life.
MARY HUNT:
What is meant by Unified Sports?
LEIGH HOWARD:
So, Unified Sports is one of our branches, programs, you know, strategies, however you want to qualify it, that works on bringing together athletes. So that's any participants with intellectual disabilities, so participants that had been identified by an agency or professional as having ID, have cognitive delay that is determined by your IQ or other generally accepted measures, and that have experienced this delay or this disability prior to the age of 18. So, the onset began, you know, when they were presumably a child, and so it brings together athletes and partners who are participants from the general population who do not have intellectual disabilities. So Unified Sports are opportunities for these members or participants with varying abilities to compete together, to work together, to experience growth together on the playing fields in on the court, you know, in the bowling lanes, what have you, you know, through organized sports.
MARY HUNT:
Can you give me some examples of the intellectual disabilities that the athletes have that participate in Unified Sports?
LEIGH HOWARD:
Honestly, our athletes, especially when you involve athletes in Unified Sports really run the gamut of a number of different disabilities and a wide, wide array of abilities. We have a lot of athletes with Down Syndrome. We have athletes with that kind of run the gamut of the autism spectrum. We have, especially in the schools, a lot of athletes that have various IEPs for learning disabilities. So, it does paint a pretty broad brush, especially when you're speaking about Unified Sports because we have some participants that are better suited as partners, but they could technically be an athlete. So, it really is this inclusive program that tries to capture as many participants as will benefit from the program or serve as a benefit to the program.
MARY HUNT:
Now, Leigh, Special Olympics Unified Sports program is not to be confused with the Paralympics. Is that correct? The Olympics are coming up and we're all used to after the summer or winter Olympics the Paralympics taking place. Any connection between those two organizations? Or what is the distinction?
LEIGH HOWARD:
Yeah, no, that's a question that we face quite a lot. The biggest distinction and probably the most in layman's term is Paralympics deals with the physical disabilities and Special Olympics deals with intellectual disabilities. There really is no genuine connection between the two, aside from the fact that they're both two organizations that are really working to provide opportunities at the highest level to athletes and participants with disabilities. But they're very different, very different in terms of who they're serving. So, so yeah, we face you know, conversations where we have athletes that are in wheelchairs, that may be deaf and hard of hearing, that may be blind, and those athletes with those disabilities alone would not qualify as a Special Olympics athlete. They would fall closer to the Paralympics.
MARY HUNT:
Jon, most programs I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, Unified Sports programs take place in K through 12 schools in PE programs, so a college or university getting involved in in Unified Sports is a little bit unusual. And UAlbany is one of a small number of schools that are doing this. How is the experience that an athlete gets in UAlbany's Unified Sports program different than what they might get in a school PE program? What distinguishes it on the university level?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Yeah, well, I kind of think that it's different, but it's also the same, you know, because the spirit and the heart of Unified Sports is really, you know, matching individuals with intellectual disabilities, and those without among with a common goal. So, fundamentally, it's still the same; however, once you go to that college age range, you open it up to way more people, because, you know, they age out of the high school range, right. So, they age out and, you know, in some areas, that's just it for them in that Unified Sports field. But, you know, in this larger age range, you know, I believe ours goes Leigh, correct me, if I'm wrong, we go up to like, age 30 right now. And even still, sometimes we might take it a little bit case by case on that front. And it just, it gives them much more of that experience, you know, working, you know, meeting individuals, their same age, and really uniting in that same common interest, you know, they come together every single week. The way we have it structured here is we have our assessment day, we call it a combine day, where we assess everyone's skills, and then we try a couple of weeks of matching them based on their skills. So, they can form those connections, you know, the athletes can form their connections with the partners and really, just continue to find interest and common interests with each other.
MARY HUNT:
Who are the partners? Are they students? Are they UAlbany staff? And what is the role of the partners in the Unified Sports program?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
In our program in the way that it's set up, we pull University at Albany students to serve as our partners. Leigh's responsible for getting the Special Olympics athletes. And I'm responsible for getting the partners to come and play, and we do our best to try to match them one to one. So, if we manage to recruit 10 athletes, I'll do my best to try and recruit 10 partners and at least try to keep that one-to-one ratio. Again, because it's all about forming that connection between the partners and the athletes. So that way they can come and they can have that connection, and play a really fun game and really develop a relationship with each other from start to finish.
MARY HUNT:
To either of you… tell me a little bit about how this works in terms of the kind of sports that are involved? Is it league play? Is it over the course of a season? Are there weekend tournaments? How is it structured? Do we see 10 games over the course of the season? Do we see weekend games? How do the athletes and the partners come together and how do they engage together in the sporting activities?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
So, how it is here at the University of Albany, we've kind of dabbled in a bunch of different structures of this. I think back in fall 2018 was the first time that it started. You came on to campus here. And that really kind of just that was a one or two day come onto campus and play a game or two, you know. They didn't necessarily care about the number of athletes that were coming. They weren't that worried about the number of partners that were coming. It was just getting it here and established. Then when I started taking the program over, you know, myself and Kyle Walsh, who was the director for Unified Sports at the time at Special Olympics New York… we connected and we talked and we said we could really make this a tournament, a league-based thing. So, the way that everything works is it starts off, we kick off with what we call an assessment day, or like a combine day is a really good, neat way to think of it. That's an introductory period. That's the longest one that we do. And that's really so myself, Leigh and anyone else that we have administering the program with us, we can just, you know, sort them out based on individual skills, and then we can separate them off into teams. So, we've, you know, we've had a bunch of different structures. One year, we had a full league with four teams in it. And then we went into a playoff. We've got… we've really kind of found a home in separating into two teams, and then doing kind of a multiweek round robin sort of system and then that capstones into some sort of… I call it a showcase. But it's basically like the championship game, where we invite you know, friends of the program, friends of the university, individuals from Special Olympics, from the area, friends, family, all that stuff, and we do like a capstone or like a look at all our skill development and our team work.
MARY HUNT:
Are they playing one sport? Are they playing multiple sports?
LEIGH HOWARD:
That's what I was just going to hit on. And, you know, I know Jon has obviously worked with Kyle initially. And I know that they've worked through a couple of different sports opportunities, their offerings, and currently what we're offering is in the fall, there's a flag football program. And in the best in sorry, in the spring, there's a basketball program. I think, from a Special Olympics standpoint, the strengths of it falling on to those two different offerings are that basketball is something that our high schools do so through NYSPHSAA, the New York, New York State Public High School Athletic Association, we have a partnership in which we run unified basketball and unified bowling at the varsity level. So, we're finding community athletes that have graduated from our local high schools are really finding a comfort zone and a home in Jon and you Albany's unified basketball offering in the spring. And what unified flag football offers is kind of this new, spicy different experience that that we might have at Special Olympics, but isn't something that we currently offer a unified setting in our high schools. So you know, I know that there are various reasons why Jon and his staff may have leaned a certain way for the sports but from a Special Olympics standpoint, those are the two biggest strengths I think we find in the different offerings that are currently on the table.
MARY HUNT:
Do boys and girls play together? Is it gender specific, or…
LEIGH HOWARD:
It’s men and women right now because it is a college setting or university setting. We don't have any athletes that are below the age of 18. And we typically try as Jon said earlier, to round it out around the age of 30 so that we're continuing to create a space in which is really peer-based and it's something that these athletes are not only able to connect with partners athletically but personally and socially as well. But yeah, we try to do that case by case as well, depending on the athletes’ circumstances.
JONATHAN LOUIE:
We had one athlete one year who actually aged out but had been very involved in our program. And he actually contacted us, you know, and he turned, I believe he aged out, like one day before the program started. And he contacted us and he's just like, hey, I'm really sad. I'm so sad about this. And we're like, you know what, like, it's, it's one day, like, come on. Just, we'll give you one last hurrah, come, come do this last hurrah. It means more to them than it does to us, like, I'm not going to stand on my high horse and tell them that they can't come participate, especially after they've been there. He did three or four separate programs for us, with us, you know. He finished it out… I think it was like basketball, they finished out and he left with a smile on his face. And that's all I'm after.
LEIGH HOWARD:
Jon kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of what it does, what this program means to some of these athletes. You know, to give you a little bit of a perspective and kind of paint the picture a bit… a lot of these athletes nowadays, at least are coming through local high school programs where they're part of a team, they're part of representing their high school, you know, wearing the jersey, having fans in the stands maybe, you know, being featured in the yearbook or on social media and they're part of this, this community that's kind of beyond themselves in a way that maybe they hadn't gotten the opportunity to be part of before, through basketball, or through bowling and through now, bocci in a unified setting. And when they transition into their years beyond high school, whether it's part of an agency, whether it's living at home, whether it is going off to like a college program, whatever, whatever it might be, that sense of community is hard to find. And I think that sense of community with peers that don't necessarily have the same circumstances as then be it an intellectual disability, be it a physical disability, is hard to come by. And, you know, we have plenty of Special Olympics teams, we offer 22 different sports in the state of New York from a traditional standpoint, for athletes, exclusively with ID. But to be able to now have a program where they can continue to some degree interacting with peers outside of that identification is so important and is so valuable to what they're getting out of the sport, out of the camaraderie, out of the community that Jon and his staff and the university have built.
MARY HUNT:
Sports can get very competitive. I'm curious, what's the level of competition? Do the athletes and partners get extremely competitive? Do the families in the stands get competitive?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Oh boy! Oh boy!
MARY HUNT:
What's the atmosphere like? And does that present any challenges for an athlete who might have intellectual disabilities?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
So, I think this is a great question, really, truthfully, um, and it brings up just like a load of memories for me, of like, you know, because my main thing is the I show up on assessment day. And I would say that it's like, people with a predetermined notion should just come and watch a couple of the games because it is, it does get so competitive. Our basketball program that we just wrapped up this last semester, our championship game was actually a two point game and a guy had to make a buzzer beating layup in order to win the game. And even still, the other team had another chance to like… they just missed the shot. It gets so competitive. You know, flag football this last this last fall… one of the drills that we use to assess is actually a 40-yard dash and I'll have my staff members timing them, right. And then they'll see some of the times that some of these athletes run and they’re like, “Wait a second. Can I beat that?” And then my staff is actually changing their shoes to line up and race athletes and partners and stuff to try and beat them and it gets surprisingly competitive. You know, this last… in basketball again, we had one of one of the partners… you know, Leigh, you remember Jeff As Jeff was, is a long term partner in our program, and Jeff likes to, you know, talk a little trash during the game or whatever, and he got into it with, you know, one of our Special Olympics athletes, and the athlete was giving it right back to him, you know, and they start talking trash, and then you know, the athlete goes down and boom, hits a jumper in his face, and you know, comes back and gives it right back to him. But the really big thing is like, no matter how competitive it gets, you know, at the end of the day, everybody walks through, they all shake hands, they take their pictures together, you know. It was a hard fought hard, contested game. And at the end of it, at the end of the day, everyone walks out no hard feelings They're shaking hands and whatnot, across the board with Unified Sports.
LEIGH HOWARD:
I think that's probably one of the biggest, like, misconceptions that we have to try to battle is that it's, it's not a competitive environment, or it's not the place for true authentic competition, because we want everyone to get out, you know, walk away with a smile, walk away with a medal walk away, you know, feeling as though they're worthy and are. And I think Jon's staff and the environment that they've created, really lends itself well to the message we're trying to deliver is you can have both. You can have an environment where there is competition, there might be medals or T shirts for the winning group, and not for the losing group, but we're still having fun, we're still learning, we're still cultivating and growing these new relationships. And in fact, you know, our argument more often than not, is that if you do create, as genuine and as authentic competition as you can, those relationships, those achievements, those moments are that much more valuable because of it because they know when they made that shot, they earned it, by getting it over a partner trying to block them or over, you know, they've broken a little bit of a press. You know, we're not asking for it to look like it might, you know, on ESPN or TNT every night, but at the same time, we do advocate for as few modifications as possible. We advocate for genuine play and because that's something that the athletes look for, and they really want. They don't want to see you curating opportunities for them; they want to earn them. And I think Jon's partners do a phenomenal job of creating that balance of saying, you know, we're going to play a role in, in helping facilitate the play, but we are going to create an environment in which those moments are truly competitive. And we're feeling like we just got out of that game with a two-point win, you know, by raising the hair on our on our skin, you know, something like that, as opposed to “Hey, they just let us walk through and take that win.” So yeah, it really is competitive. And it's an absolute joy to see the athletes and the partners alike earn those moments and have a great time doing it.
MARY HUNT:
Who coaches the athletes and partners?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
We've kind of found a nice, good little stretch. It's been a little bit different last year was one of our best setups. I have a graduate assistant that helps me run the program. It’s part of their responsibilities. They're the administrator on site of for Special Olympics. So, he actually coaches one team. And then last year, Leigh actually had an intern whose primary responsibility… they were actually a UAlbany student so it was no problem for them to come down and just work with us. And we said, well, let's, you know, during the game, let's actually use you. Why don't you get on the other bench and you coach them? And that worked really, really well. And this year, we actually… it’s two of my students that we had. One was a graduate assistant and one was a student supervisor that took over and ran the other team. But, you know, they played a really critical role because it's really easy to forget to sub out. I coach them too on the unified rules of it, you know. We always try to keep a ratio of three athletes on the core while we have two partners, and we try to keep that ratio as we kind of go through and that's really what they do, and they're really the driving force of being, you know, on the ground in person.
MARY HUNT:
Do the families of the athletes get involved at all? I imagine they're pretty supportive when it comes to the games.
JONATHAN LOUIE:
I can tell you from what we see on site for us. We get a lot of people. And it's more and more every semester, you know, flag football gets cold sometimes and they're right there with their blankets and their snuggies out there. You know, basketball, they bring their chairs so they can sit in our three-court gym. And it's getting more and more ever every semester. You know, some of the parents drive their kids and they just stay for the hour that we play and then they take them home. But I love to see it because you form just the same connections with the families that you do with the athletes sometimes… just hey, how you doing? How’s everything going? So on and so forth? So, it's great support from them, I think.
LEIGH HOWARD:
Yeah, all you have to do is take one look at my inbox in the summer and the amount of emails that I'm getting from families and parents saying, “Where's flag football sign up? Do we get the signup yet do we have the nights yet? We want to make sure that it doesn't conflict with our softball season.” It is it is something that the families value immensely, I think not only to get the opportunity to continue to watch their kids play and participate but also, you know, some will come and they'll go for walks around the fields. They'll take a little time to themselves because it allows them the opportunity similar to, you know, any parents that had their kids engaged in, in youth sports or in sports growing up or in college sports, to be able to have that, those moments of pride, but also those moments of I can take a deep breath and have a little me-time. So, I think it's a great program for the parents. And even it to take that one step further, one of my favorite moments this past year, we had an athlete from Hoosick Falls graduate from their unified program, and the coach helped them get paperwork to be part of the UAlbany program, and his two high school coaches and two of his teammates actually came to the championship game to watch him play and cheer on a former teammate. And that for me was a little bit one of those like, we call them here at Special Olympics mission moments, moments why you do what you do, that for me was a little bit of a mission moment because it was like, wow, I'm now bringing together… we're bringing together different facets of the community to come to this and support an athlete in his journey.
MARY HUNT:
How about some resources? Jon, if students listening in want to become part of the Unified Sports program, want to become a partner… do they reach out to you? Where would they go?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
There's a bunch of different resources, so they could reach out to me, if they were interested in signing up only as a partner, they could reach out to me and I can correspond with them through email. That’s the easiest way to get me. Or if they were interested in joining a Special Olympics club, there is one on campus here and I would direct them to the “My Involvement” page, which is actually like the hub for all UAlbany student orgs. And it's such an easy site to use. You literally just go on to it. And if any of your interests, whether it be Special Olympics, Unified Sports, whatever it may be, if you just type your interest into the search bar there every related club will populate under that. And you could from there, you can click on the club, you can select your club, you can reach out to their club’s president. You can sign up directly through there. That's the best way for anyone who is interested in getting involved in the Special Olympics club here on campus to actually get involved. I usually recruit through the Special Olympics club to recruitYou know, every semester at least half of our partners are from that club. So, it does play a pretty pivotal role in in helping this program along.
MARY HUNT:
Do you mind sharing your email address?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Oh, sure. It is J L O U I E at Albany dot E D U. If you're interested, reach out.
MARY HUNT:
Excellent. And Leigh, what about athletes or families of athletes that might like to get their athletes involved?
LEIGH HOWARD:
Yeah, I'd like even not to limit it to athletes in terms of who can reach out to us, whether it's athletes looking for involvement in UAlbany Unified Sports or partners who are looking to further engage beyond the program that they have, because we've had great partners come through, and 1) become Special Olympics New York employees, 2) become coaches or 3) volunteer at any of our regional or state games or opportunities. Our website is Special Olympics dash N Y dot O R G. And on there there's a number of resources about how to get involved as an athlete, how to get involved as a partner, a coach or a volunteer. They can search regionally; they can also search statewide. And then my email address is L Howard at N Y S O dot O R G. And likewise, you know, I can help point athletes, partners and parents in a direction of further involvement, depending on their interests, their needs, and their geographical location.
MARY HUNT:
I've heard people speak around campus about the UAlbany Special Olympics partnership, the Unified Sports partnership, and just how terrific it is and what a model it is. I'm just curious what in your minds makes this program and this partnership so special and so impactful?
LEIGH HOWARD:
You know, speaking from my place in Special Olympics, I work with the North Country region, the Capital Region and the Hudson Valley region so, I currently work with over 92 schools on the various levels. And one of the things that UAlbany has at the collegiate level that's extremely unique to UAlbany and the state of New York is Jon – is Jon and his staff and I'll say his personality, but no, is the way that they've really grabbed a hold of the of the program in a way that makes it sustainable and unquestionable. The partnership, their end of the partnership, and what they hold up at the university is so integral in the impact that it's able to have year in and year out, because you go on their website and you look to sign up for intramurals and it's there, and there's no question that it's going to be there each and every year with how they're dedicated to creating the offering and fitting it in to what's I'm sure a wild schedule from an intramural standpoint at UAlbany. And that's the level of support that quite frankly we don't have at other institutions… is the willingness to say, hey, we're going to make this your strategies and your program, our own. And ultimately, that's what makes high school so successful is that it's our strategies, our program that they've embedded in their offerings and in their school and that's what Jon and his staff have been able to do. It’s not about me coming in renting out a space every week and it being this, what is this, who is this. It’s no, this is our program, and it's part of what we do. And I think that that can't, you know, all of the special moments and the, the stories we can tell aside, like, that's why it's so impactful is because the university's bought into owning it in a way that we haven't seen anything quite like it with, with any of the programs I work with
MARY HUNT:
Jon, Leigh touched on it, but I'm going to leave the burden of what we call the gem of the day… since this is The Engagement Ring, we always ask our guests for a gem as we close out. So, I'm going to leave that burden on your shoulders. For other universities or colleges who might like to start or improve their Unified Sports program, what's your best advice?
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Really, all it takes is just a little bit of buy-in to it, a little bit of buy-in, a little bit of commitment to it, you know. I… we wouldn't be able to offer what we offer here without buy-in from the people above me, right. I had to have a conversation with my director, with my associate directors and all my bosses and I had to explain to them that when we bring this onto campus, when we make this part of our program, we have to give up a little bit of intramural space on a weekly basis, but it will be a weekly basis, it'll be scheduled thing. And, you know, they look at me and they give me a thumbs up and they say we're good…we're good to do it. If this is important to you, it's important to us, you know, and then likewise, it's just having a connection, you know… Special Olympics, every single person I've ever worked with, and will ever work with that Special Olympics, is so accommodating. And so understanding when I say hey, we have this constraint. I think I have to change this. Okay, good. We'll do it, you know, or have you thought about doing this? You know, all it takes is just a little bit of buy-in and just a couple of people who are passionate about offering the program. And that's really, really the starting point for it, I think. I have this conversation with… a couple of schools historically have called me and say, “Hey, you know, UAlbany… they're talking about this program that’s at UAlbany. How do we bring it here?” And that's just what I tell them is you just gotta get somebody to buy into it and be passionate about it and make sure that it’s there. As long as I'm here, Unified Sports is going to be here to just because I'm not going to let it go anywhere, you know, but I wouldn't be able to do that without the buy in from my directors, or the buy in from Leigh and her group.
MARY HUNT:
Go Great Dane Unified Sports is all I can say!
[Laughter from all three participants]
MARY HUNT:
Thank you both. Thank you. Leigh Howard, director of program for Unified Sports Special Olympics New York, and Jonathan Louie, assistant director of recreational programming for UAlbany. Thanks so much for being my guests.
JONATHAN LOUIE:
Happy to be here.
LEIGH HOWARD:
Thanks, Mary.
ANNOUNCER/MARY HUNT:
Jonathan Louie is assistant director of recreational programming for UAlbany. Leigh Howard is director of program for Unified Sports Special Olympics New York. For more information and resources related to this podcast, visit The Engagement Ring online at the dash engagement dash ring dot simplecast dot com. The Engagement Ring is produced by the University at Albany's Office for Public Engagement. If you have questions or comments or want to share an idea for an upcoming podcast, email us at UAlbany O P E at Albany dot E D U.
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