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News 12 Staff

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Jens Fredriksson, president of the University of New Haven, joins us now. Welcome. Thank you so much. Now you have a new campus coming to Saudi Arabia. Tell us all about that. Well, uh, yeah, it's, it's an exciting endeavor. Um, obviously we have as an institution a long legacy of being sort of a globally oriented institution, both with students coming here but certainly also doing programming around the world and so. Since I came on board in in some ways I, I inherited a set of relationships where we had uh we had delivered some education in Kingdom before and, and obviously for those that are aware uh Saudi Arabia is sort of undergoing an incredible transformation in many ways unlike anything I've ever experienced, and I've certainly traveled a fair bit um under sort of the umbrella of this thing Vision 2030, which is really a massive economic diversification endeavor. Social modernization and so there is there there's a clear need and and desire for high level uh education which we know has traditionally um been done both in the US and elsewhere and there's been sort of a a real desire to bring that back in country. And uh so I think they were looking for partners that that are thoughtful in in thinking about uh a return on investment of higher education and really preparing students for sort of an elite global workforce. That's what we do here at the University of New Haven and so, uh, we began this endeavor about whatever 12 months ago with some of these conversations around what are some of the programmatic alignments, what are some of the sort of market driven, uh, demands that that that particular. Economy face is not dissimilar to the ones that we face, but there's just a massive need and opportunity and given that we've done that before and maintained a team there, it felt like it was a really an important endeavor to pursue and and. Obviously in April we signed a very large agreement in terms of having an actual presence there beyond what we do already in terms of sort of individual one off program deliveries of really thinking about establishing a full-fledged undergraduate and graduate campus and so so that's where we are. It's incredibly exciting and. And yeah, uh, fingers crossed that that hopefully by 2026, we'll, we'll have the first students and, and, and be delivering the first programs. And you were just over in Saudi Arabia. Tell us about your latest trip. Yeah, I was, so I was, I was there, uh, for the large summit, uh, which again, um, I'm sure some, some have followed it, is really in many ways the, the culmination of sort of vision 2030 and these bilateral investment agreements and opportunities you now see a large influx of of US companies that, that are contributing. Uh, to that 2030 vision and, and the amount of opportunity and energy across a variety of different sectors, finance, technology, healthcare, and then of course education. So yeah, I was there, I was there for 3.5 days. It was a very long trip, I had to be back in time for, uh, 3 different graduations, but, but it's hard to sort of not be inspired by. The energy and the urgency with which these modernization projects are, are, are happening, I mean it's sort of like, I feel like, so I've been 5 times in the last year, obviously the big one being, I think it was in April or May, uh. We signed that agreement at, at the Human Capabilities Initiative, uh, conference. Uh, I went to FII, which is the large investment conference, um, earlier in the year. And so, it's hard not to be moved by the energy, the inspiration, and, and just the desire to get it done. And so, yes, for the 3 days I was there as much as I, I wasn't suffering from time lag, uh, uh, jet lag, I, I, I certainly got to enjoy it. Uh, no, certainly we just learned that UNH sports is going division one. This is a really big deal. It is, yeah, thank you for, uh, it, it sort of feels like a whirlwind across, uh, I mean we've done, we've done a lot of things in the past 15 months, and, and it's quite exciting to see sort of the university really stepping into a variety of areas, uh, be it with with large real estate and innovation projects, be it with what we're doing in Saudi and now of course with Division One, which uh. All happened very quickly and, and the response has of course been uh has been sort of all around excitement and uh, but, but it's undoubtedly a big step, and I think I I think we can all agree college athletics is, is, is uh much sort of like the geopolitical landscape, a complicated place to be, um, but, but, uh, again, some of this preparatory work had been done over the years. I think, uh, sort of weird. I, I was a division one athlete once upon. The time. And so, uh, after sort of spending, it, it wasn't really much on my radar, but, but after spending sort of 6 to 8 months on the campus, I remember thinking, in many ways, this place feels like a Division One institution and the focus on athletics and the facilities and how it's integrated in the general student body. Um, and, and so the opportunity presented itself. And again, a, a, a fair bit of work had been done, uh, 4 or 5 years ago around sort of this, this possibility of this move. And uh and we have a brilliant team here. I mean we're sort of a can do group. I know obviously people sort of tend to pay attention to the guy who who gets to articulate it at the end of the day, but as we all know, none of this would be possible without a bunch of incredible can doers behind the scenes. And so yeah, we made the announcement and uh now we're sort of finalizing, uh, putting final final dots on the, on the schedule. So that's all looking good. I think we're gonna. We're gonna surprise a lot of people that we, we, we got that done uh across all the sports and of course there will be some, some, some high profile, uh, games that, that will surely draw some excitement and attention, so we're thrilled. Jens Fredriksen, thank you so much for being with us. Oh, such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Next, paid to picket, state lawmakers consider a controversial idea.

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Should workers be able to collect unemployment while they're on strike? It's a controversial idea, and state lawmakers are debating it right now. News 12 Connecticut's John Craven has the latest. Going on strike can hit workers in the wallet, especially if it drags on for weeks or even months. But should the state pay striking workers unemployment? 3000 workers at Pratt and Whitney are finally off the picket line. We're going to make sure we get you guys the contract you deserve, but it took 3 weeks to reach a deal. The longer the strike dragged on, the more pressure workers felt to compromise. I feel like a lot of the employees did feel rushed to go back, you know, being out for 3 weeks was definitely a long time for a lot of. Boyce has been with Pratt and Whitney for 27 years. He spent Wednesday in Hartford urging state senators to give striking workers unemployment pay. The stress that comes from standing on a picket line and not knowing whether or not you're going to be able to be able to pay your bills, put food on the table. The bill lets workers collect unemployment after 14 days on the picket line unless the company declares a lockout, then workers would get paid immediately. Republicans say the law will drive major employers out of Connecticut. We should not be doing collective bargaining underneath the gold dome. Collective bargaining is something that happens between an employer and its union members. Wednesday's vote sets up a showdown with Governor. who vetoed a similar bill last year. I don't support that. I support the right to organize. I support the right to strike. I don't support striking workers. Now this bill could become law even without Governor Lamont's support. That's because Democrats have veto-proof majorities in both the state House and the Senate, John Craven, News 12, Connecticut. Well, that's all our time. I'm Mark Sudall. Thanks for watching.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/4f4da6fc-83a8-4071-81f4-8f966017c41f/4f4da6fc-83a8-4071-81f4-8f966017c41f.transcribe

State Sen. Tony Hwang and Jens Frederiksen join the show. 

Power & Politics: Controversial CT housing bill; 1:1 with University of New Haven president

State Sen. Tony Hwang and Jens Frederiksen join the show.

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