Andrew Newman is the MUN Director at the John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri. Today, he talks about his experiences with the "Century for the SDG's" campaign, where he and his co-Director of the John Burroughs MUN program biked for one hundred miles (about 160 km) to raise awareness for the SDGs and money for MUN Impact. The novelty of the campaign led to traction among powerful corporate partners, including Microsoft. Mr. Newman's charming personality and well-lived life experiences fill the episode with lively conversation and candor about what an educator's role in MUN has the potential of being.
Join Erik Novak in interviewing Mr. Newman and listening to his fascinating experience!
Don't forget to like, share, follow, and show this to your friends and colleagues.
Andrew Newman is the MUN Director at the John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri. Today, he talks about his experiences with the "Century for the SDG's" campaign, where he and his co-Director of the John Burroughs MUN program biked for one hundred miles (about 160 km) to raise awareness for the SDGs and money for MUN Impact. The novelty of the campaign led to traction among powerful corporate partners, including Microsoft. Mr. Newman's charming personality and well-lived life experiences fill the episode with lively conversation and candor about what an educator's role in MUN has the potential of being.
Join Erik Novak in interviewing Mr. Newman and listening to his fascinating experience!
Don't forget to like, share, follow, and show this to your friends and colleagues.
Podcast Name: ComMUNiqué
Podcast Producer: MUN Impact
Episode Title: Century for the SDGs Biking Challenge
Episode Number: 3
Host: Erik Novak
Guest: Andrew Newman
Date Published: August 2nd 2020
Episode Description: Andrew Newman is the MUN Director at the John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri. Today, he talks about his experiences with the "Century for the SDGs" campaign, where he and his co-Director of the John Burroughs MUN program biked for one hundred miles (about 160 km) to raise awareness for the SDGs and money for MUN Impact. The novelty of the campaign led to traction among powerful corporate partners, including Microsoft. Mr. Newman's charming personality and well-lived life experiences fill the episode with lively conversation and candor about what an educator's role in MUN has the potential of being.
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Erik Novak: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the world's premier podcast at the intersection of education, social engagement and the work of the United Nations proper. I am your host, Erik Novak, and this is ComMUNiqué. Today, I have the utmost pleasure of interviewing one of the heavyweights in the global model human circuit, Andrew Newman. A teacher by profession, Mr. Newman has taught photography at the John Burroughs school in St. Louis Missouri for the last 28 years and had been its MUN director for the last 25. For the past 20 plus years Mr. Newman has additionally been the coordinator of the Press Team at THIMUN called MUNity and has been a member of the advisory board. THIMUN stands for the Hague International Model UN and is one of the largest, most international and certainly most prestigious model UN conferences in the world. Mr. Newman is also one of them mean propellers of MUN Impact, which is indeed the umbrella organization supporting ComMUNiqué and whose work has reached thousands of students across over a hundred countries. In fact, it is interesting to note that the very name for this podcast was concocted in Mr. Newman’s savvy brain. It will take many episodes of ComMUNiqué to review all the Mr. Newman has to offer as an educator and Model UN and thought leader. So today we will hone into only a subset of all that we will focus on a truly impressive feat he accomplished just yesterday, August 11th, 2020. That day, Mr. Newman peddled for a hundred miles on his bicycle. You heard me right. A hundred miles. That's about 160 kilometers together with his co-director and John Burroughs to raise awareness for the UN Sustainable Development Goals and MUN Impact as a whole. So without further ado, thank you for joining me in this episode of ComMUNiqué Mr. Newman. I hope you can still feel your legs today. And please tell me more about the meaning of your bike trek as well as what you gained from the experience.
Andrew Newman: [00:02:06] Well, thank you, Erik so much for that kind introduction. and, in fact, we did, my colleague Shannon Koropchak. Dr. Koropchak has been in Burroughs for eight years and I've been there for about 28 years and we co-direct the Model United Nations program. And, we are all about outdoor adventures and love cycling. So we came up with this idea of century- of a Century for Sustainability. for me personally, knowing, that MUN Impact are engaged in fundraising activities, this would be a really neat way to raise awareness for MUN Impact. so I'm just thinking it primarily as a fundraiser and Shannon is always, adding a cultural component, educational component, which is important to both of us, but she was really focused in, on, raising awareness as part of this campaign. So combined, we decided that 100 mile bike ride a century, they call it, something that neither of us had ever done. And might be inspiring, for our students to, to engage with us, to see our passion. and I digress a little bit only because I want to mention that we've been inspired by so many students over the years in all the initiatives that they create, that we thought we could do something that might be inspiring for them. And so, this was all about the ride and, and, and good health and wellbeing, SDG 3 for not only ourselves, but trying to encourage our students to at MUN Impact around the world to engage in, in good exercise, good habits, particularly doing COVID-19. When we get a little more lackadaisical and may become couch potatoes and are not getting out as much, to, to exercise and to, encourage them to set their own goals, to get outside their comfort zones and to, engage in some kind of exercise.So combined effort, to raise awareness about the SDGs Dr. Koropchak and I believe that, we wanted to really look at the greater St. Louis area and how are in our community we're tackling the issues of sustainability, how are we supporting the STGs and especially during COVID-19. So we kind of went through all of the 17 goals and we came up with pretty much all of them, but one of the focus on about half of them during our ride. And so we started researching, to raise awareness about some of those programs, which we can get into in a little bit. so that's really what the, what the ride was all about.
Erik Novak: [00:04:44] And of course, besides the awareness that it raises because of the difficulty of the event itself in your practices, as well as in the right people, saw you in MUN Impact here and to my understanding as well, you often stopped and talked to locals about the activity, the organization, the movement, and everything else.What was your experience like talking to these individuals who perhaps didn't have any prior knowledge of Model UN or of MUN Impact as an organization and how did they respond to the ride?
Andrew Newman: [00:05:17] We- that's a great question. We had a lot of very positive responses to what we were engaged in and what our students are doing. I'll name in particular, the Urban League, which in St. Louis, is, is a national organization here in the States whose mission is basically to empower African AmErikans and others throughout the region in securing, economic self-reliance, social equality, and civil rights. And Dr. Koropchak had been volunteering for, for several months, always in some way, to provide food. They have, lines of cars lining up thousands of people every week at two different locations to receive goods. and, yeah, all kinds of resources, and shopping items, but primarily food, to feed their families. And so these are a lot of people who are out of jobs, and, and, and having a hard time, with, with income. So it's a tremendous resource for a lot of food agencies to provide these necessities to individuals in our community and Shannon we've been on the food line and I volunteered with her one weekend and we got to talk to a lot of the people who organize this event. So, it was incredibly impactful to, to be a part of this program and for them to learn about how our youth are engaged in initiatives and how they can come out and help, serve the communities in such a way. We also connected with Cortex, which is a tech hub in St. Louis. many startup companies, Microsoft is a big one, that are in a, in an innovation center, in an area in St. Louis and an actual building dedicated to ideas and brainstorming, professional development, is really exciting. And so they have, we learned that they have their own sustainability committee a head of sustainability. They were very curious, how we were raising awareness about the SDGs and what the United Nations and Model United Nations are doing. And so we engage with them and they, tweeted out and, and sent information to their colleagues, to let them know about what we were doing. So there's just two of many groups that we reconnected with, learned about their programs. They learned about ours and, and, and in a way formed partnerships with them. And I think those are relationships that will be everlasting.
Erik Novak: [00:07:39] Wow. It's absolutely amazing. And if I were to guess, I think one of the things that speaks most favorably when it comes to, marketing for those partnerships is the resilience that's needed to bike for a hundred miles a full century of awareness, if you will. So I'd like to know a little bit more how your training was like and how you planned for this relatively cumbersome activity to say the least and how you think others might also be able to set their own goals, which assumably for many will be less than a hundred miles, but will be their own personal challenges nonetheless. How might others also create their own goals and plan analogously though, perhaps not fully similarly to what you did?
Andrew Newman: [00:08:29] I love the way you put that because not everyone is going to go out and run a marathon and do these high achieving goals. Dr. Koropchak and I are both outdoor people. I've run two marathons. My, my high school, my mile time was 4:32. I ran a marathon in 3:25. So, I set high goals for myself and Dr. Koropchak has run a, a triathlon, and done very well with that. So we, I'm I'm grinning ear to ear. if you could see my face right now, because we had a ball training together, we did our own solo rides and we did a lot of cross training and open water swimming in a lake, did that together. So we were able to social distance, but at the same time train together and we just had a ball doing it because we just were able to share a lot of stories. We were brainstorming ideas for our own model United nations program and thinking about MUN Impact and all of our students globally. While we were training and that was just so uplifting. And so we came up with a lot of ideas as we train, but we did train pretty hard and we definitely prepared ourselves for this, so we didn't get injured. and we knew what we were capable of. So I strongly encourage for students to get outside their comfort zone, to be realistic about their goals and not to think that they have to have something that's just totally unsustainable and unachievable. so, you know, Shashank just, swam two kilometers. Zoey Fisher just, biked 24 miles because 24 was her favorite number and she never biked further than probably 12, 15 miles.
Erik Novak: [00:09:58] Would you be able to very briefly, elaborate on who these individuals are?
Andrew Newman: [00:10:04] So Zoey Fisher is our global secretary general of MUN Impact and Shashank is, is one of our leaders, in MUN Impact as well. And so these are two individuals who have signed onto the campaign, with their own donation buttons. we can share with you, the campaign fundraising website. so they are two of many people who have, Have committed to creating their own campaigns. So those are two and Shashank just did 2 kilometers of swimming, which he said was absolutely exhausting. But he was thinking about, about the SDGs as he was swimming at distance and talked about the SDGs to others as part of his awareness campaign. And I think those are two great examples. there are students who want to just throw basketballs into hoops and see how many they can get into- in consecutively. There are some who are, are, I think Sarah or Louis Lemon is a, is a fencer or a Tae Kwon Do. and just have, are setting themselves goals. Someone's going to do a bunch of pushups and no one's checking them to see if they, accomplish it. Some people are, are saying, you know what, I'm going to bike bike 50 miles, and then would you sponsor me for every mile? So there are a lot of different styles of this campaign and which are really fun and creative.
Erik Novak: [00:11:19] Yeah. And that makes sense because, we're all very different from each other. And it's the symbol that matters not a specific action that led to the symbol, but the reasoning why.
Andrew Newman: [00:11:29] Yeah.
Erik Novak: [00:11:29] Now to the extent that your campaign was obviously very successful at the individual level, and also very successful in motivating others to set their own campaigns, both for fundraising, as well as for personal health and improvement. Do you have any more metric-specific key performance indicators regarding how well your campaign actually went?
Andrew Newman: [00:11:52] Well, we, we set a goal of $5,000 and we're now at $6,017 in just under a month. so I think, that we've been very successful to the extent that we've, we've thought about what it looks like to stretch our campaign amounts. So we're now going, reaching for $10,000. So doubling that amount, we’ve reached out to all of our supporters so far and thank them profusely for their support. And, to keep that momentum going, we explained, you know, what their money, provided for us, where it's going and what it's doing, and that we want to keep the event, as I said, momentum going.
[00:12:33] So, we wanted to extend the, the amount and hopefully reach that, even bigger goal. So we are- our aim sites are even higher at this point, but no metrics, I mean, in terms of measuring, other than, keeping track of, of, of where that money's coming from and who our supporters are. because we are, we are looking to expand that, that network of people.
Erik Novak: [00:13:00] Yeah absolutely. And if I were to, briefly make a quick analogy here, I think that the hardest thing is the first step. And to see that this your first step was already so large, so impactful, I think it bodes not just positively for what you were able to accomplish in this immediate call, but the actual true potential of both this initiative, as well as similar initiatives like this I'm reminded of interestingly enough, a youtuber who started, basically walking in a single direction in Minecraft the game several years ago, I think back in 2011 or 2012. And he did a similar, well walk related thing, but using the game itself and started off small of course, but over time, I think in one of his walks was able to raise over $300,000 after he gained traction and gained momentum that now there was a novelty aspect of having, using the game in order to do that. But in your case, you have the resilience aspect, the sheer impressiveness of biking for a hundred miles. And in doing all that, you really, really, I think, do set an example for all of us and what we were able to achieve as humans, not just as individuals, but also as societies.
Andrew Newman: [00:14:22] Oh, thank you, Erik and that, reminds me to mention that this is really a two part campaign so this easily could have just been about Dr. Koropchak and me, and about, raising awareness in St. Louis, but we really wanted this to be a two part two tiered campaign and involve the students who've inspired us. So this is a cycle of inspiration and we want this to keep going. So as we finished our, our a hundred miles, the cycle continues in the, in the programs that our students are initiating and the goals they're setting for themselves. And so the campaign continues through them individually and collectively, as they, hopefully until our next summit meeting in October, can continue to raise funds, continue to raise awareness about the SDGs and continuing to raise awareness about this wonderful MUN impact program.
Erik Novak: [00:15:13] Absolutely amazing. And of course the, the, the, the, the initiative has only just started the first leg may have ended, but this is only the beginning. And what I'd like to point out to the listeners is that one of the things that I found most fascinating about this initiative was the interactive aspect to it wherein in several trainings, as well as most importantly, in the actual bike itself that you did yesterday you filmed the process and you were able to follow along with you on zoom for the full, what ,nine and a half hours is it?
Andrew Newman: [00:15:49] Yeah, we took our casual pace and I think having a, having everyone on the call, the zoom call the entire time we had to focus on answering questions. And that was just beautiful. It was unexpected, to the zoom the whole time, but it was all about raising awareness, the questions were fabulous. We really enjoyed answering them. We enjoyed talking about some of the locations as we arrived, at them. And, it really was fun to have my cell phone on a zoom call with a camera, my view on my handlebars so everyone could see, and we just really enjoyed people, commenting about St. Louis and what they were saying, you know, who've never been to the United States and there were some really, yeah, introspective, interesting comments, culturally, socially, politically what they saw. so in that sense, it was, it was a really an added bonus to this whole adventure is, is, having this webcasted the entire time we got a kick out of that. And it gave us certainly tremendous strength thinking about everyone, knowing there's so many people globally on this call while we were riding, because it does take its toll on your body mentally, physically. And so in our miles, 60 through 90, and then clearly towards the end, Having everyone cheer us on was just extraordinary.
Erik Novak: [00:17:10] And I think it does go to show the multicultural and multifaceted aspect of the MUN community as a whole, as well as its overall strength, to see that, we had the interest in supporting you and also a better understanding your own context because we understand how different people around the world have such different contexts themselves. Now in better understanding your own context, just out of curiosity, when the ride was ending, when you were seeing the St. Louis arch and you were finally approaching it ready to finally rest, what was going through your mind?
Andrew Newman: [00:17:50] Oh, my God. So many things I can remember your voice, Erik, looking around the city and commenting how empty it looked, but then looking at the beautiful old courthouse of St. Louis, where the Dred Scott Case, was tried, ending slavery or helping to end slavery. that was beautiful, you know, just to remind me of an SDG 16, with peace, justice and strong institutions and all of our work with UNODC and the E4J curriculum. so yeah, it just, my, my head was all over the place. but my cup was so full of joy. and I felt so strong at that point. Not even exhausted, to be honest. it was. It was a relief, but at the same time, you know, at the end of a journey, but this is the new beginnings of so many great relationships in our MUN Impact family. So I was, I was just beaming with happiness, honestly.
Erik Novak: [00:18:45] I can only imagine. Sometimes when we pour our life energy into a project that takes two weeks or months, the moment the project is done, our feeling is of bliss, sometimes even of emptiness as if we have a less understanding of what happens next, but nevertheless, it's a certain positive emptiness, a certain motivational emptiness.
Andrew Newman: [00:19:07] Right, I mean, Pierre was tapping in from Orly au France, he may have been a little further South on vacation, but I know it was 2:00 AM for him, and he went to bed, woke up, hoping we were at the yard. So part of me also is like, oh my God, let's just finish because, people are, you know, we said, we'd be there at a certain time. And I knew my well, my cup was, was totally full. My power bank was completely empty and my phone was going to die. And I thought, oh my God, that would be a nightmare if at mile 99.1, my phone died and the connection was lost. And so I was a little anxious about that but it all, it all worked out in the end, both in weather was phenomenal, it was clearly the peak of the week here in St. Louis it poured down rain today, the day after. so everything just came together and in the end, with Cody playing, We are the Champions. he played music throughout the last couple hours. It just, it was beautiful.
Erik Novak: [00:20:03] Fantastic. will you briefly explain to the listeners so that everyone's on the same page, what the UNODC and the E4J initiative are that you mentioned earlier, as well as who Cody is?
Andrew Newman: [00:20:18] Cody is our Global Communications Director and is behind the scenes. fortunately he's become, he's come out, and introduced himself more to our group. And everyone realizes all the hard work. He's, it's-
Erik Novak: [00:20:28] Definitely no longer behind the scenes guy. I think he he's, his goatee is almost as famous as Lisa these days.
Andrew Newman: [00:20:34] They are a dynamic duo who really run the program and UNODC is the, United nations Department of Drugs and Crime. And we've created a really special relationship with them through, the department in, in Vienna, Austria. And they, through the Crime Congress that happened five years ago in Doha, Qatar came out with a declaration, for this education for justice programming, where they realized that the youth are really who need to be tapped into, and if they could extend their agenda items, for attaining peace, justice, and strong institutions into the curricul in schools at all three levels, the primary, secondary, and tertiary, that we would have stronger institutions. We wouldn't, we wouldn’t have as difficult a time fighting crimes and solving some of these issues on their agenda if our youth understood them and started trying to solve them at an early age, and understanding that the youth have a voice. And so they pulled in a lot of educators, they pulled in a lot of youth to some of these meetings, high level, committee meetings in, in Vienna for the past three years and have created quite a spectacular relationship, with different institutions, including MUN Impact and MUN programs. And so now our programming, a lot of conferences will run, a special forum for, the Crime Congress for, well specifically for, the CCPCJ.
Erik Novak: [00:22:09] And I know for a fact that, the WFUNA conferences, -that's the world Federation of United nations associations and they host conferences that try to model the procedure of the UN as much as possible- I know that their conferences that instituted the CCPCJ several times, since the program first started. And I believe that this program has really set forth, quite an interesting perspective for MUN at a global level. And it again goes to show how well-connected MUN Impact is.
Andrew Newman: [00:22:38] Is. Yeah. I'm going to give a quick shout out to Gilberto Duarte, who's been, our connection to, UNODC in Vienna, and helped us with relationships in New York as well. he is, he's met with my students in Doha and in, in the Hague, for dinners, to just talk about the work he does in his life. And it's just so empowering for our students to connect with, with field agents and representatives of the United Nations who are doing great work. it's just really empowering for them to, to know their voices are being heard and to hear about the lives of, of, of people who are working for the United nations with the United nations.
Erik Novak: [00:23:20] Now our time is starting to run short, unfortunately, which is why I said your life story has enough content for several episodes, but I wanted to end this off with one final question, which relates to the fact that the school year is about to start really soon. In fact, I think you have a zoom meeting with your, with the other faculty at John Burroughs pretty soon within a few minutes. So I wanted to get your perspective on how going through this initiative, biking a hundred miles, setting the goal for yourself, working for it, how all of that and ultimately kick-starting what seems to be a very potential-heavy campaign, how, how, how did that change you as an individual and in particular, how do you think that might affect the way you approach the school year that’ll start in a few weeks?
[00:24:14] Andrew Newman: [00:24:14] Yeah. Well, we certainly with, with the pandemic, we certainly are in a difficult position, certainly in the United States, which is far worse off than other countries, it does weigh heavily on my mind. I can't tell you how, uplifting and hopeful I am coming out of six months of working with MUN Impact and all the work the students-led programs have, done in MUN@Home in classes, and in, in debates. And so I'm actually going into the school year, very positive, and really excited to, to engage with my students again, whether that's online or in a hybrid, method of, of, of teaching. So I'm really looking forward to it and, and the work that I'm doing with MUN as a program director at our school, I think we're just in a great position, to work remotely with students around the world, and, and talk about the Sustainable Development Goals and to work with UN officials. I mean, just this morning, we had three, the real UN, talking to a hundred of our students. And so I can't wait to connect my own students, and my school, in these programs, so really looking forward to that.
Erik Novak: [00:25:30] Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Newman, I wish you luck in your upcoming meeting as well as in preparing for the start of the new school year. And I look forward to the next time we're able to host you here in ComMUNiqué and hear more about your work as the MUN Director of John Burroughs, you work with THIMUN, your, your sabbatical that you took this year, as well as other facets of your life experiences, which are vast and certainly extremely motivational for our listeners worldwide.
Andrew Newman: [00:25:59] Thank you Erik, so much.
Erik Novak: [00:26:03] They say an MUN program is only as strong as its MUN directors. Well if biking for a hundred miles is any measure of strength, it seems to me that John Burroughs should be in pretty good shape. I hope everyone tuning in was as enthralled as I was hearing about Mr. Newman’s adventure with his bicycle and Dr. K. Don’t forget to like, share, subscribe, follow, turn notifications on, and show this episode to your friends and colleagues if you enjoyed it. And with that, we yield the floor until next time.