ASU Welcome to Mars! exhibit at China Sci

Transcript:

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," a public interest lawyer is asking a judge to withhold federal highway money until the state adequately funds programs for English learners. We'll talk to Governor Napolitano about that and more. A series of hearings will be held throughout Arizona to get input on our state's growth. Plus, an Arizona State University Mars Rover exhibit recently featured at a science fair in China. We'll show you the exhibit. That's next on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening. I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "First Thursday: The Governor on Horizon." It's our monthly visit with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as she addresses the top issues of the day and answers questions from viewers. With me now is Governor Janet Napolitano, recently returned from Ireland where I understood you rode the Celtic tiger?

>> Janet Napolitano:
The Celtic tiger, Which is the name given to the economic resurgence of Ireland, which 15 years ago was one of the poorest performing economies in Europe and now is the second highest performing and by every objective measure they've just roared back. That's why they call it the tiger. So we went over to see what they had done in a country's population that's less than that of Arizona's, what had they done to create that turnaround.

>> Michael Grant:
Okay. What have they done?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, first of all, they made a real investment in education. They said the number one thing you have to have is an educated, stable, English speaking workforce. They formed partnerships between their universities and the private sector and between K-12 and the private sector in some interesting ways. They set up a science foundation to fund science research, and that research attracted companies, multi-national companies, to bring their other research functions to Ireland. And so now --

>> Michael Grant:
Maybe Intel?

>> Janet Napolitano :
Intel is one --

>> Michael Grant:
I didn't realize until the latest round Intel had a facility in Ireland.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Quite a large one right outside of Dublin. While we were there, five of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies all announced together they were all bringing research facilities to Ireland. Boy, wouldn't I love to be -- have that kind of an announcement for Arizona. So now we've brought some of those ideas back, looking at some other economies around the world that are really working, how do we translate those lessons to Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
Speaking of Intel, I think what, the day after you got back Intel confirmed it was going to go with the $3 billion plant expansion in Chandler.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Not an expansion. It's a new plant. Shortly after I became governor they announced that they were redoing the existing fab, which is what they call their plant, they fab whatever number it happens to be --

>> Michael Grant:
This is fab 32.

>> Janet Napolitano:
This is fab 32. Obviously don't spend a lot of time on the naming thing. This will be a new plant. It will also be located in Chandler, and it is a wonderful investment for Intel and for Arizona. We hope to build on that and have other announcements of a similar dimension.

>> Michael Grant:
Everyone focused, of course, on the sales tax factor legislation that was passed last session and signed by you as a contributing element, but Intel actually pointed to several other things that called them to pick Arizona over, what was it, New Mexico and Oregon.

>> Janet Napolitano:
At least two other states where they have existing facilities where they could have located this new one. Yeah, I mean, at the announcement they made a point of talking about the kind of high quality workforce that we've been able to supply to Intel and also their close association with our universities and the fact that our -- so much research is now being done at our universities. That's the kind of energy you want to have. That's the kind of partnership that you want to engage in, and Intel has been here obviously a very, very long time but I think we can persuade other companies of Intel's size or dimension or whatever that Arizona is open for business and we want their jobs.

>> Michael Grant
: English language learning, Tim Hogan is asking the court to block federal highway funds until a funding program is approved. I want to ask you about that in a second, but first I want to ask you about the remedy. Is that an appropriate remedy?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, that's for the court to decide. You know, I -- here's my view, and that is I would like to get this out of litigation and into the classroom and into solution. I obviously vetoed the bill that funded this that the legislature sent me, and Hogan has been very clear that that bill would not have met the federal court order that we are under. I have proposed legislation that I think would comply with the federal court order. I think most people believe it will comply with it. I will be meeting next week with the president and the speaker, it will be the first time we've actually had a sitdown since the end of the session but I believe this ought not to be an issue about what kind of sanction. It ought to be what must we do in the classroom and like tying back to our earlier conversation about Ireland, one of the things they made sure was that their workforce was highly qualified, English speaking and had very good language skills, and that's what this issue is about for me. We have a large number of children in our schools who come from non-English speaking families. We want to get them literate in as soon as English as possible, the best way possible. It takes money to do that. It takes accountability to do that. It's time to get at it.

>> Michael Grant:
Legislature will say, because they've already said it to you before, well, Tim Hogan may think that our plan is inadequate, but Tim Hogan isn't the judge, governor, why don't you give us a chance to present our plan to the court and let the court decide.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, I find appear remarkable statement from a legislature that's always criticizing the judiciary for being too activist, i.e., doing the legislature's job. I believe that the legislature, Republican and Democrat alike, knew there were problems, Republicans and Democrats alike knew with this bill they were sending up, which creates this huge bureaucracy without a lot of money behind it. My proposal really doesn't create any bureaucracy at all but puts more money right into the classroom where these kids are needing to learn how to read, write and speak in English. So I think we owe it to ourselves and to the people that we represent to see if we can work this out between the executive and legislative branches before running to the judiciary.

>> Michael Grant:
Legislature is going to say, hold it, unless there is a corporate tax credit for charter schools, for --

>> Janet Napolitano:
Private schools.

>> Michael Grant:
For private schools, tuition scholarships, no deal. What's your position on that currently?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, I've sent them both. In June on the 17th of June I sent them both a proposed English language learner bill and a tuition tax credit that complies with the agreement we made and said I'm willing to sign both. So in my view if we could come to an agreement on English language learner we could have a very quick special session and finish up left what was unsatisfactorily done at the end of the regular session.

>> Michael Grant:
Let me give you a hypothetical that may not be a complete hypothetical.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Go ahead.

>> Michael Grant:
Let's say just illustratively Ken Bennett or Jim Weiers says, okay, governor, we'll give you the sunset instead of the review, but we want, say, six or seven years life for the corporate tax credit. Would you buy that?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, I'm not going to bargain on "Horizon," but I am looking forward to meeting with the speaker and the president and saying, look, we have some undone business, some unfinished business, let's get it done and see if we can get it done before the beginning of the next session.

>> Michael Grant:
So it's a negotiable point even though you're not going to negotiate it here --

>> Janet Napolitano:
I'm not negotiating on "Horizon," no.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Speaking of the Senate president, he said that you sidestepped the law in appointing Randolph Lumb to the commission that selects appellate and Supreme Court --

>> Janet Napolitano:
Yeah, I wonder what he thinks about George Bush appointing John Bolton to the U.N. No, we did not side step the law. We are fully in compliance with the law. I think this is just part of the political stuff that goes on in the off-season particularly given that the -- Bennett is looking at running for the governorship himself. But we are obviously in full compliance with the law, as is President Bush.

>> Michael Grant:
The appointee, if I recall correctly, had been rejected by a Senate committee but never rejected by the Senate.

>> Janet Napolitano:
That's right. That's right. And we've had -- there is actually direct law on that point. So it was an -- absolutely a legitimate appointment.

>> Michael Grant:
Let me return to another Tim Hogan subject, because all legal roads, as you know, lead to Tim Hogan. He's also asked the court to waive the AIMS test as a graduation requirement because of --

>> Janet Napolitano:
The delay in funding for ELL that.

>> Michael Grant:
The under funding for English learners. Is that an appropriate remedy?

>> Janet Napolitano:
You know, I can't comment on that. That will be for the judge to decide, but, again, I think we ought to get back -- not ask the legal question but what's the right thing to do and the right thing to do is to teach these kids how to read, write and speak English as soon as possible. And -- you know, this funding issue for teaching English has been around for 14 years. We've had a whole generation of -- several generations of kids come through our schools that haven't had the benefit of what we know needs to happen in the classroom.

>> Michael Grant:
Which is part of Tim Hogan's point.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Exactly. I think what he is bringing out, it's kind of unfair to say on the one hand we're not going to put more money into -- for English language learners. You need smaller classes. You need teaching assistants. You need people who are specialists in this particular field. It can be done. We know how to do it. We just need to get it done. But you can't not do that and yet make this a high-stakes graduation requirement.

>> Michael Grant:
Placing the appropriateness of the remedy to one side, let me ask it this way because this is at least how some people respond, that whatever you want to do about the subject, and however just that position might be, you're doing no one any favor to give them a diploma when, in fact, they are not prepared to go out and adequately face the world.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Exactly. That's why the discussion needs not to be what happens in court but what happens in the classroom, and how we make sure that the significant number of Arizona children who are lawfully here, legal residents of Arizona, but we're an immigrant state and they come from non-English speaking families, get that education. So by the time they're graduated from high school, they're fully prepared not just to graduate high school but go onto higher education.

>> Michael Grant: But if they don't have the education, should they have the piece of paper?

>> Again, we'll let the wrestle through that, but I think the basic education point is, let's get the money into the classroom, the teachers into the classroom where these students are, teach them English.

>> Michael Grant:
Let's pick up a viewer question, a viewer question tonight coming from unfortunately the victim of identity theft. The fraudulent identification used to obtain credit in my name was an Arizona driver's license. Has the motor vehicle department investigated any means of producing a tamper-proof license?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Yeah, and in fact not only are we looking at that, but I think the new federal law on driver's license I.D.s going to force some of that nationally. We've also created a multi-agency task force on fraudulent I.D., or phony I.D., identity theft, but focused on the use of fraudulent documents to facilitate illegal immigration. But we've got DPS and the department of beverages and so forth all working together on that, and they've been making some good progress over the summer.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Governor Janet Napolitano thank you very much. I'm glad you returned safely -- you were unfortunately -- were you just leaving London --

>> Janet Napolitano:
I was in London between the two bombings. I was actually in the air flying to Dublin when the second bombings occurred. And it was remarkable how the people of the U.K. handled that. I thought it was a model for all of us.

>> Michael Grant:
Obviously we hope that that doesn't happen again.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Obviously.

>> Michael Grant:
Governor Napolitano, thank you very much.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Series of listening sessions is going to be held throughout the state over the next couple of months to gather public input on Arizona's future growth. We'll talk to an official from the Department of Commerce about the growing smarter guiding principles but first, here's more information about the project.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Moving Arizona Forward Jobs 2012 is an effort to develop long-range economic planning for Arizona. The first long-range plan, A-SPED, the Arizona Strategic Plan for Economic Development, was created in 1992. It introduced the idea of business clusters for economic development in which smaller businesses formed to provide services for a larger anchor business. A-SPED later became known as G-SPED or the Governor's Strategic Partnership for Economic Development, in its implementation phase. As part of Moving Arizona Forward, the governor's 2005 rural development conference will be held August 17th in Oro Valley. The long-range economic development plan is part of Moving Arizona Forward as is the Growing Smarter Guiding Principles. Those principles are being developed by the governor's Growing Smarter Oversight Council. Listening sessions will be held throughout October in Arizona to gather public input to formulate the Growing Smarter Guiding Principles. Arizonans will be able to make their voices heard on our state's growth in sessions in Prescott on August 15th, Oro Valley on August 18th, Page on August 22nd, and Flagstaff on August 23rd. You can also give your input through an online survey and get information about the listening sessions at the Arizona Department of Commerce's web site at www.azcommerce.com. Public input will also be posted at the web site.

>> Michael Grant:
Here now to talk about the upcoming Growing Smarter Guiding Principle listening sessions is Heather Garbarino. She is a senior planner with the Arizona Department of Commerce. I hesitated because it was misspelled. Hi, Heather.

>> Heather Garbarino:
Hi.

>> Michael Grant:
It's moving forward Arizona 2012. Here's my suspicion, that's the centennial date. Explain more what's going on.

>> Heather Garbarino:
Well, moving Arizona forward is a new endeavor that the Department of Commerce is working on under the governor's direction. This is an association with the commerce and economic development commission and we're doing a growing smarter -- the governor's growing smarter oversight council. I am purposely focusing on the governor nurse's growing smarter oversight council guiding principles.

>> Michael Grant:
What are you doing in listening sessions? This is both a combination of a -- for lack of better term, land development growing smarter issue as well as an economic development issue, right?

>> Heather Garbarino:
Correct. The two are pretty well linked. Listening sessions are just that, we're going to be going out into the communities and really listening. Government listening to community members. We're going to be having a series of these 17 statewide. We've already begun. Four have already taken place. The next one will be in Prescott on the 15th of August from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Primarily we're going to be sitting down with this group of people, whomever wants to come out, and we're going to be taking some copious notes on their thoughts on growth, development, planning, land use and essentially where they want that to go in their state and specifically in their community. How do they feel about it? Where are we going? There are some fundamental questions that we'll be asking to really guide that discussion. There are actually three fundamental questions we'll be asking. First is as everybody knows, Arizona is growing, but where are we going? Then we tend to focus that into the community. So, you know, we have some -- we have some really -- we have some really great things going on in this state and we know we're growing. Exponentially. There is no question, in fact in 2030 we expect there to be as many children as there are seniors in the State of Arizona, which is huge. But where are we heading? We don't really have a clear defined direction. So that's really important to sort of come to that place.

>> Michael Grant:
Let's stick with Prescott because that's an area of the state that I'm familiar with. They obviously -- they're having explosive growth in Prescott, Prescott Valley, the surrounding area. They have water issues up there. They certainly have transportation issues up there. So if I'm -- what kind of input are you looking for from the citizenry to try to come one these guiding principles?

>> Heather Garbarino:
We want to hear everything. We want to hear everything they have to say about the way their community is growing and the way they want it to grow. So we want to hear if they feel like there needs to be a better transportation system in their community. We want to hear if they need better workforce housing. We want to hear if they feel like it's perfect just the way it is. We are real interested in hearing from all citizens, every facet of the citizenry in the City of Prescott and Yavapai County. This is really going to be covering a broad territory from Wickenburg to Cottonwood and on.

>> Michael Grant:
It sounds like a lot of focus here, it's not to exclude the urban areas, but a lot of the focus here really is on rural greater Arizona.

>> Heather Garbarino:
Yes. That's not an accident. We know that greater Arizona essentially the areas outside of our most highly populated areas are truly huge indicators of where our state is going. They are the ones experiencing growth at just the same as the Maricopa County area, and we really want to make sure we're taking the good temperature and really, really casting a broad net across the state.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. I'm in Prescott or one of the other locales that are going to be visited. Give me your best sales pitch on why I should come out to this meeting and talk to you.

>> Heather Garbarino:
Cookies and coffee. No, we want people to come out for them. We want to have people come out and tell us how they feel, what they want, what they want to see in the future, and essentially have a stake in the growth of this state and, really, there aren't that many opportunities for citizens to get out and truly have their voice heard and have some sort of tangible output. So this is a really excellent way for people to do that. We hope that you come because it helps us do our job better, but we also hope that individuals will come out because this is their -- really their great opportunity -- one of their great opportunities to make sure we hear what they're having to say.

>> Michael Grant:
Okay. Heather Garbarino, Arizona Department of Commerce, we appreciate it. Best of luck on the road.

>> Heather Garbarino:
Thanks.

>> Michael Grant:
In May a contingent from ASU's Mars research program traveled to Beijing for science and technology week. Thousands of Chinese visitors to the exhibition were given a rare look at the latest Mars discoveries while the university made important contacts for the future.

>> Larry Lemmons:
When it comes to the study of Mars, Arizona State University is an internationally recognized leader, and from the early days of the Mars research program to the present, planetary geologist Phil Christensen has been onboard to help it grow and succeed, an investigator on four Mars missions, he and his colleagues have played an important role in the exploration of the red planet.

>> Phil Christensen:
We made the very first mineral maps of Mars. We discovered some really important things about the types of rocks that are found on the surface. From those maps, we found places where there were remarkable minerals that formed in water that really led us to, hey, these are some really important sites that we ought to explore in more detail.

>> Larry Lemmons:
It was such a site, identified from orbit by ASU's TES spectrometer that became the target for one of the two rovers NASA sent to Mars a year-and-a-half ago. Thanks to a string of these high-profile successes and the broad appeal of planetary exploration, the Mars program was a logical choice to represent the university at China's prestigious science & technology week exhibition in Beijing.

>> Phil Christensen:
The original idea was to find a way to get an entree into China for Arizona State University, and administration here is very excited about the growth that's going on in China and are there ways that we can work with universities there and with ministries there to just team with them to do a variety of projects. So it started very simply with, well, gee, we have this interesting technology that we do with Mars and this cool Mars stuff. And maybe we could go and have a small little booth or something at the China science & technology week. And just sort of get our foot in the door with, hey, we're ASU and this is what we do.

>> Larry Lemmons:
During planting process, that small little booth evolved into 5,000 square feet of exhibit space that would showcase highlights of the Mars program. All designed long-distance.

>> Phil Christensen:
The biggest challenge by far was just working with the Chinese on this pavilion, going back and forth, what was going to be there, and as it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger saying, oh, wow, how are we going to fill all this space?

>> Larry Lemmons:
But fill it this did, despite a tight deadline. The result, welcome to Mars.

>> Phil Christensen:
The exhibit itself, I was stunned with. It was the classic sort of just in time, the night before it was supposed to open it looked like it still was weeks away and yet people stayed up all night and it all came together and it was fabulous. So I don't think it could have been any better.

>> Larry Lemmons:
In addition to the science & technology week exhibition, Christensen and his team have the opportunity to bring Mars to several Beijing schools, each of which demonstrated the high priority that is placed on academics by the Chinese.

>> Phil Christensen:
They show a tremendous interest in education and inspiring the next generation of school kids. This high school class that I talked at was remarkable. The students spoke very good English. They had ridiculously good questions. They were asking me about global warming and they were asking me about if we send things to Mars are we going to contaminate the planet and kill off everything there like humans have done on the earth when they've gone places and they were asking very, very politically informed questions about exploring. Very bright, very well educated, very motivated students.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Back at the exhibition, the Mars team was successfully connecting with younger students as well.

>> Sheri Klug:
We brought along through our educational outreach program hands-on activities and what we found was really, really fun. We had lots of different kinds of engaging stations that we set up, very simple kind of make and take ways to explain things, ways of learning, which we found was very different from the Chinese traditional way of knowledge and facts. This experiential kind of activities were something that was very foreign to them but they totally embraced and had a lot of fun with. Everything from learning about the distances between our planets and the solar system to learning how to take a sample of a planet's crustal material and figure out what that plan set like.

>> Larry Lemmons: In addition to making a positive connection with children during the exhibition, the Mars team made an impression on the adult visitors.

>> Phil Christensen:
I think they were very taken by the fact that in American society it's common for scientists and other people to get out and really tell their story to the public, and I think they felt that, wow, we're actually hearing from the people who do this, and I think they thought that was pretty remarkable.

>> Larry Lemmons:
While in Beijing, Christensen and his colleagues also had had the opportunity to meet with representatives from universities, the government and industry, all part of ASU's ongoing effort to make valuable inroads within China.

>> Phil Christensen:
There was a lot of media coverage. We had a lot of dignitaries come through. If our goal was to raise the profile of ASU in China, it was a terrific success. In terms of what kind of groundwork it laid for long-term relationships, that will take five, 10, maybe 15 years to really pay off. But my impression is that the goals that we had were definitely met.

>> Phil Christensen:
For me it was great. It was sort of like exploring Mars. It was this new place to go where no one had gone before. We really were the first serious group of western Mars researchers to come to China. Everywhere we went we were sort of the first to be there. You know, you really felt like you were this vanguard of, hey, we got this neat story to tell and we're here to tell you and they really appreciated that. So it was very satisfying.

>> Michael Grant:
You can check out what will be on future "Horizon's or take a look at a transcript of tonight's show at our web site. You'll find that at www.azpbs.org. When you get to the homepage, scroll down, click on the word "Horizon." Tomorrow the Journalists Roundtable. Join us then. Thanks for being here now. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.