In this episode of The Texan Recap, Multimedia Editor Joseph Sweeney chats about UT Professors expressing concerns over the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and an exhibit from the Texas Immersive Institute that is longlisted for the Yugo BAFTA Student Awards.

Reported by Ren Leija and Maya Thakur. Hosted and edited by Joseph Sweeney. Cover art by Emma Berke. Music by Top Flow Productions.

Joseph Sweeney: UT Professors speculate on the potential impacts of Project 2025 and a project by students from the Texas Immersive Institute is longlisted for 2024 Yugo BAFTA Student Awards. 

I’m your host this week, Joseph Sweeney and this is the Texan Recap for Sunday, July 21.

*Music Plays*

Joseph: The LBJ School of Public Affairs will begin accepting applications for its new undergraduate program in August of next year. The University said in a press release that it hopes the Bachelor of Public Affairs program will be able to improve state services such as education, health and safety.

Employers are not legally required to give paid 15-minute breaks or cooling time to prevent workers from sustaining heat-related injuries. This may change however following the proposal of a new rule by the U.S. Department of Labor. This new set of rules by the Occupation Safety Hazard Administration would protect approximately 36 million Americans who work in environments prone to heat-related injuries and fatalities. A public hearing regarding the proposed rule will be set at a later date.

Last year, the Heritage Foundation announced the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, more commonly referred to as Project 2025. UT Professors expressed concerns about the policy proposals laid out by the project, here to tell us more about Project 2025 and these concerns is Senior News Reporter Ren Leija, how are you doing today Ren?

Ren Leija: I’m doing pretty good. How about yourself? 

Joseph: I’m doing great. Thank you for asking. So let’s just jump right into it. So what is project 2025 and what are some of the policy proposals laid out by it? 

Ren: So basically, Project 2025 is a conservative think tank that’s essentially a blueprint to prepare for what could be Trump’s second presidency, to recruit like minded people for basically a conservative platform and a conservative presidency. So, Project 2025 is a very, very long proposal. It’s over 900 pages and includes different action items, such as transgender rights, climate change, but, for example, something in terms of climate change, it would include leaving the Paris climate agreement, overhauling the Department of energy, it seeks to, to restrict abortion and like the procedure, not necessarily call for an abortion ban, but essentially like banning federal funds to provide limited access to this kind of thing. As well as DEI and LGBTQ rights to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs throughout the federal government and in universities as well.

Joseph: And so what concerns did you two professors share with you about Project 2025? 

Ren: When I spoke to Joshua Blank, who is a research director of the Texas Political Project, kind of like I said earlier, it’s just shrinking the role of the federal government. And basically it’s anticipating that accessing these government services is going to become more challenging things like Medicare and Medicaid or people who are eligible for low income programs. This is going to become a lot more difficult to interact with as well as access to abortion and transgender rights and LGBTQ rights, not only within like the federal government, but also within like different schools and universities throughout the United States as well. 

Joseph: And so what is the Heritage Foundation and the other organizations that are behind the project?

Ren: So basically the Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution and I believe its mission is to build and promote conservative policies. This is based in Washington D. C. and is essentially what all of the government professors that I spoke to is a conservative think tank. So a lot of this is conservative action items, conservative policies, and ultimately just conservative, a conservative agenda that they want to have under a potential new Trump presidency.

Joseph: And so who are some of the key political figures behind the project? 

Ren: Although the project is not necessarily 100 percent tied to Donald Trump as he is, he has denied that he isn’t fully aware, but as we know, he has spoken about it. So we know he is a little bit aware of what project 2025 is. Stephen Moore, an advisor to the Trump campaign co authored the Project 2025 proposal and said it’s basically, it’s not necessarily meant to be a blueprint for Donald Trump, but a blueprint for a conservative presidency. But a lot of people have tied this to Project 2025 and a Trump presidency, essentially because a lot of the values are pretty similar. And again, like Trump and officials like Stephen Moore, who is a coauthor of this, is very close to former President Trump as well. 

Joseph: And so my final question for you to hear today is how does social media serve as a way for people to learn about Project 2025?

Ren: When I was speaking to Bethany Albertson, who is a professor for the Department of Government, she basically said that with Project 2025 being so long, over 900 pages, the average voter is not reading through all of these 900 pages and like, Oh, this is what this is specifically about. This is what this is specifically about. You know, it’s a lot. So social media has been a way to kind of break it down into bits and pieces of like, ‘oh, this, it wants to end gay marriage’ or something. It wants to restrict like the DREAM Act and, and restricting DACA. So social media has been a way for it to break things down. However, we also noted that it’s important to not only get information off of social media, like TikTok or Instagram, because, you know, she mentioned that there are so many ways that people can get information, whether that’s talking with friends or family and finding other sources to check in with. So sources kind of like. The article I wrote for the Texan or other like. Media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post to kind of see what they’re saying as well and not just kind of rely on like a 15 second clip to be informed, fully informed of what project 2025 encompasses.

Joseph: That was Senior News Reporter Ren Leija, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Elysian Heights, an exhibit opened last year by students from the Texas Immersive Institute, was longlisted for the 2024 Yugo BAFTA Awards out of over 800 submissions from 37 countries. Here to tell us more about Elysian Heights and the students behind it is General Life & Arts Reporter Maya Thakur, how are you doing today Maya?

Maya Thakur: I’m doing great. A little bit of a chaotic morning, but I’m good. 

Joseph: For the uninformed, can you go ahead and tell us, what is Elysian Heights? 

Maya: So, Elysian Heights is described as an immersive experience combining live theater, escape room puzzles, and augmented reality. But in simpler terms, it’s a story that you can walk through and interact with and ultimately have a part in deciding, deciding the ending of the story. So the story is a futuristic retelling of The Wizard of Oz. As an audience member, you come in and you play a visitor of this super technologically advanced city. city. At the beginning, you’re introduced to O.S., who’s like the AI ruler of the city, and he wants to show you his technology and sort of expand it to other cities.

At the same time, you also may meet Ella, and she she’s a rebel figure, and she hacks into Oz’s program, uh, into his broadcast, and he tells you that, like, not everything is as it seems in the city, and she tells you that, you know, O.S. has taken control of this city and that she really needs to release her friends from his control.

Joseph: Awesome. And so Elysian Heights is one of 79 projects listed for the 2024 Yugo BAFTA Awards. So what is this award and what makes it so prestigious? 

Maya: Yeah. So the BAFTA Awards are like you said, super prestigious. It’s actually an international event. This year it had over 800 submissions from 37 countries, and it celebrates really the most outstanding work from, animation, documentary, live action, games, and immersive. And it’s, yeah, it’s just a very well recognized award. It recognizes some of the top work from schools all over the world. 

Joseph: One of the main themes of Elysian Heights is partnerism. So what is partnerism, and how does it fit into the narrative and the experience? 

Maya: So partnerism is a concept developed by Rianne Eisler, who’s this very prolific, well-respected social scientist.

The way I understand it is that it’s a socio economic system that it’s an alternative to both capitalism and socialism, but it places a really strong emphasis on caregiving. It really values partnership and working together to take care of each other and build a better world. So the way it figures into Felician Heights is that when you visit each of these, each of these characters, each of Ella’s friends, they all represent sort of a different partneristic theme.

So Macy, who’s the scarecrow, she highlights sort of, reconnecting with nature. Um, Ironclad, who’s the tin man, highlights, you know, making sure not to overwork yourself and to, um, Not to sort of, you know, sell your soul, to your work and to focus on the work that really matters and is really important to you.

So you visit these characters and they all, and you help them break free from O.S.’s control and learn and relearn how to, what’s what’s really important and what their values are. 

Joseph: Tell me a bit more about the students behind Elysian Heights and what inspired them to make this project. So Elysian Heights is the capstone project of the Texas Immersive Institute.

Maya: It’s a three semester program and students learn about, you know, experience design and Elysian Heights. Experimental storytelling. And at the end, they’ve created an enormous project like this. It’s comprised of, you know, graduate students, undergraduates from any major. I think this exhibit, this project, had 30 students from 10 different majors. And that’s because for a project like this scale, they need all kinds of people. So they had programmers, they had artists, producers, game designers, lighting and audio designers, You know, the directors, the directorial team, and more. 

Joseph: Cool and so how did these students feel upon completing the project and upon hearing about the long listing for the award?

Maya: It was such an incredible accomplishment, like we talked about earlier. But when I talked to them, really what they emphasized more was that what was most satisfying to them was at, like, at the end of that, you know, that opening night when they were able to watch the audience participate and, you know, participate in the story with the audience, and really see like that everything that they had made had finally all, it had all come together and all of their hard work had paid off. They really emphasize that that was something that was incredibly, you know, wonderful to see and fascinating. They talked about how throughout the entire project, they had really sort of held, held fast to the idea that no matter what happens, whether we win something or are long listed for something like the BAFTA awards or not. Yeah. At the end of the day, we’ll have made something and just making something for them and that all of their work had paid off.

Joseph: Awesome. Well, that was general life and arts reporter, Maya Thacker. Thank you so much for joining me here today.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of The Texan Recap for Sunday, July 21. The Texan Recap is a production of The Daily Texan Audio Department. If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe to The Daily Texan on your streaming platform of choice and follow us on Twitter @texanaudio. This episode was hosted and edited by me, Joseph Sweeney. Special thanks to Ren Leija and Maya Thakur for some of the reporting featured in this episode. To read the news stories in this episode or see more from the Texan, head on over to thedailytexan.com. Thank you for listening.