Elevate: Cory Morris

Timothy Webb: Thank you all for joining us today here on Elevate, broadcasting from the Razorback Camper Sales studio. This National Park College podcast highlights a different Nighthawk with each episode. We'll talk about their journey, challenges, key moments of success, their moments of elevation, leveling up, and overcoming. I'm Timothy Webb, your host, and I'd like to welcome to the program Cory Morris. Thanks so much for joining me today, Cory. Cory Morris: Thanks for having me. Timothy Webb: So Cory, tell us a little bit about yourself. Cory Morris: I've been here for a very long time, six years, and I'm excited to be finishing it. It's a little bittersweet to be walking through the halls for the last time, but my family's ready for me to be done with this step in the journey. I've always been aiming for graduate school, but due to some personal reasons right now we're going to be taking a step back from that and I'll be joining the professional field. Very excited, apprehensive. Sometimes life throws things at you that change your direction, but I think that most of the time it's best not to try to dig in too deep and to be a little bit more flexible if you can help it. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Life does throw things at us, and how we deal with them, it shows our character. Somebody had a great quote once. It was, "Situations do not make a man, they reveal him." I think that was Ben Franklin. I always liked that quote. Cory Morris: That's incredible. I wish I could remember quotes off the top of my head. I've always been envious. Timothy Webb: So Cory, what field are you studying here at National Park? Cory Morris: Well, I'm not on the degree plan that I started, I'll tell you that much. I came here passing through, and the degree that I was looking for wasn't here. I started for an Associate's of the Arts just to knock out some of those pre-reqs, but they say you might find your path here. It was by the end of my first semester I was fully on board with the engineering program here, and that went really, really well. I was looking to transfer out of here as soon as I was done with the program, but I've also got three boys and one of them's birthday is today. He's 19. He's actually one of the reasons that we kind of stuck it out here is because he was in high school and doing really well in the ROTC program, had a real solid core group of friends. It was going to be a lot to try to disrupt that in the middle of his high school career. And SAU came along with this opportunity. I might not have even ever heard of it except for Dr. Martin over at the chemistry department just grabbed me into his office one day and asked me if I'd ever given some thought to chemistry. Like I said, I was on the engineering track, but I was on the engineering track for materials science. I was really trying to figure out a different way for us to build our materials in a more sustainable way. I was trying to become an environmentalist. Timothy Webb: Oh, okay. Cory Morris: And that, like I said, wasn't available here and that's why I was doing the AA. After my first semester, I realized that there's really a lot of really brilliant people out there that have a lot of amazing things to say about what we might do differently. It's not all doom and gloom, but still people have their hands over their ears and they're just not making the kinds of changes. So I decided that environmental science might not be the best answer for what I was seeking to do. And I got it kind of in my head, that little Spaceballs image of the giant robot in the sky with a big vacuum just pulling out all the toxic stuff, and maybe leaving behind the good stuff, and maybe we could even keep that stuff from the bag and repurpose it to do something else with it. So engineering really became a focal point of my interests. And it was where I discovered chemistry, where Dr. Martin discovered me. We've actually been working together solid ever since. It's been four years now since he entered into my mentorship and I was slated for this biochemistry track, big shift. I was a mathematician, I was physics, very much the rigid kind of interactions that we might have with this world. There's some theoretical stuff that's really amazing to look into, but that's not the concrete stuff that's going to make a difference here, not the tangible things that I was trying to do. Biology was not something that I ever was going to look into. Chemistry, I found I liked it quite a bit whenever I got into the engineering program. But biochemistry, you know they say, "Find your path." That was not in my ... Timothy Webb: That was not in your scope. Cory Morris: Never even thought of it, never heard of it before, really. I cannot say that the biology has been the strongest side of my academics. Those are bumpies, those are the ones that are holding me back from keeping it pretty strong. But there's so much more potential that I've found in interacting with our biological worlds and trying to tap into the mysteries of nature that are beyond our capacity right now. That opens up so many more possibilities than I ever, ever imagined. I think about things like there's a author I really love, Orson Scott Card. He writes about this guy named Alvin Maker that's able to basically grow buildings out of the ground, conjure them up. But it's not that he's manifesting these elements from thin air, it's that they're already there in the ground and he's just inviting them to rise. I know that's really farfetched sci-fi stuff like that. But I had seen a few years ago a foam that you could just take these two different powders and you break the seal and you shake them together and you pour it into a hole and it will foam up. These two powders will turn into a foam, and then you can just cut it off while it's still kind of raw and it will set in there and be as hard as concrete. That really intrigued me. Maybe like a programmable growth, something to those lines. Since then, just being plugged into this program, looking into all the research that you have to do to finish, being exposed to all of the innovations, it's breathtaking. I'm humbled by all of it. Timothy Webb: So for our listeners, Cory, you are doing the bachelor's program here at National Park College through Southern Arkansas University. Is that correct? Cory Morris: Yes, sir. Timothy Webb: And then you're studying biochemistry, is that right? Cory Morris: That's right. Timothy Webb: Okay. So you're getting a bachelor's in biochemistry here at National Park College through SAU. What has that experience been like? Cory Morris: Okay, so there's this term that goes around called, The First Cohort. But behind that, there's kind of a nickname for us, and it's Guinea Pigs. Honestly, we've been able to access much more hands-on and personal education experience than we would've gotten at any university. We've not been lost in the throngs of two and three hundred people in an auditorium getting a lecture. We've not been getting our labs from an undergraduate or somebody that's just also seeking their degree that might not know any better. And we've been taking the instruments out of the box. We've been doing the troubleshooting of the setup and learning of how to work with these machines alongside of our instructors who have the training with it. They were also trained by the professionals that installed these. But we've been able to get hands-on. I'm told by my mentor there that, "You might not ever touch these instruments at a university, many of them. You can send off your labs or whatever for certain analyses, but you're not going to be performing them yourself. There's just not enough equipment for everybody to get their hands-on them that way." We're using them all here. So many it's hard to even just list them off the top of your head. So we get more familiar with ones we use more often. I've been afforded the opportunity to work on some independent research with Dr. Martin, and that gets me a lot more hands-on with certain instruments. Timothy Webb: So you guys are part of the first handful of students to go through this program. So like you said, y'all really are taking these instruments out of the box, and putting this together, and helping set up these labs, and doing these different tasks for the first time here on campus. So that's pretty amazing. Y'all are pioneers. Cory Morris: It's not something that I would've ever expected. Truly. We actually got to take an entire class called Lab Technologies, and the whole focus of the class was the study of the backgrounds of these instruments. It was an elective class. So that's in addition to a class that I took as a chemist called Instrumentation, which gave me the insight into all of the chemistry stuff that we use. So we've got two different labs, biology and chemistry. They're not the same. We don't use the same instruments, same techniques. There's similarities depending on whether you're using maybe organic or inorganic substances. But obviously in biology they're going to be all organic. So that's pretty much where those lines stop. Timothy Webb: So Cory, are there any common myths to being a college student that you'd like to clear up for the audience? Cory Morris: It shouldn't be easy. If you're not being challenged, then you're not challenging yourself. There are many ways that you can get by in certain instances. When the opportunity arises people can find themselves in the position to have all of the answers handed to them. There are programs that can do your work for you. They're growing in numbers, but they were already prevalent four, and five, six years ago. I could go to honors conventions and be next to the best of the best. But then there's always the underside to everything. You get to know some of these people a little bit better and there's those that exceed all of your expectations. Maybe that is a large majority of them. But there are the others that have all of the backdoor answers. They're not putting in the effort. So the most effortless way to accomplish whatever it is that they're being asked to do. And when we're in undergraduate courses, it was so easy for many of these people when confronted to brush it off because it doesn't really matter to them. It doesn't matter to their coursework in the future or whatever. But what are we doing trying to undermine a system that is meant to produce somebody that is a good critical thinker, that's able to think outside the box and from multiple perspectives? Timothy Webb: Right. No, you make a great point. A lot of people, especially young people, they don't realize that if it was easy everybody would do it. It's not going to be easy. You're going to be challenged every day. You're going to have to stay up late and do the work, and you're not going to want to. These are challenges. For me, I started when I was young, 19. I wasn't ready yet, and I wasn't ready to do the work. As I progressed, and as I got just so sick of having the lower-end jobs, I finally got serious, and I stayed up late, and I did the work, and I kept pushing, and I kept pushing, I kept pushing. Cory Morris: Hear, hear. Timothy Webb: And I myself, like you, am about to graduate with my bachelor's. I'm so excited, and I know you are too. What's it going to feel like when you walk across that stage? Cory Morris: Well, I'm a first generation. I actually have a baby sister that has preceded any of us across the stage. We have five of us siblings in all. And our baby sister made it across the first, so congratulations Amber. That's just astounding. For me, it's a day that I never really imagined I needed. I was swinging a hammer. I was making a lucrative living as a contractor. It was the only time in my life I guess that I wasn't needing to worry about our next meal. And we were comfortable in that. As a contractor, all I could ever hope to do was make somebody happy in their home, and maybe a generation or two thereafter. That was something I really aspired to and looked forward to. It was what gave me the drive to do what I did. But this bachelor's and the doors that it's going to open for me, it's not for the renown, it's because it could make a difference. It could go into every home. Whether that's something that we make synthetically, or something, that we grow biosynthetically. There's so much potential, there's so much hope there that it gives me something a lot greater to look forward to than just some other family. It's all of our families. It's my family and it's their families. Timothy Webb: So as a contractor you were able to build a home and it would affect one family for two, or three, or four generations. But now as a biochemist, you're going to be able to affect a multitude of families throughout the world. So Cory, where did you grow up and what was it like there? Cory Morris: In the military they make you claim your hometown, and it could depend on the day of the week that you asked me. That was always a difficult question for me. I could tell you it was here in Hot Springs, or I would tell you it was in Arizona. Those were my two first and foremost answers. But I graduated in Virginia, so my paperwork doesn't necessarily line up. It might be the story of my life. But I kind of came up in my adolescence in Arizona after being born here in Arkansas. Moved around quite a bit, about 11 or 12 different school districts, or I think I went to 19 different school structures- Timothy Webb: Wow. Cory Morris: ... altogether before I graduated high school. So it was always kind of difficult to nail down what I would call home. But I did my high school here in Hot Springs. I went to Lakeside, and those are also very formative years. It's where I would've chosen to graduate high school and where I would want to come back for my high school reunions. I came up a little bit of everywhere, and I was raised by a man that couldn't see the world the way that we do. He was quite literally colorblind. I mean he couldn't discriminate between the pretty colors, much less the colors of people. So we were exposed to a lot of different backgrounds, different demographics, but always of the working class. Some of them in different places in their life as well. So there was many times in my life that we had people sleeping on our couches that we might not have known for an extended period of time because they were down and out, and we were raised by every place. Timothy Webb: That's interesting that you went to the 19 different schools. I actually only went to one growing up. Cory Morris: Wow. Timothy Webb: So what a contrast we are sitting here today. I too had several different little towns that I would call my hometown, Hot Springs being one of them, Glenwood being another one. Actually, I'm more close to this really tiny town called Caddo Gap. And my school that I went to was in Norman, Arkansas, which is another tiny little town. So I'm from basically a little group of towns. But I didn't move around hardly at all as a kid, so I was just in this one area, went to the same school, and gotten very comfortable there the whole time. Cory Morris: Yeah, I've always envied that opportunity for people. And it's unfortunate, I've pretty well deprived my children of it. My 14-year-old has lived in four different states himself, so we've been around already. Timothy Webb: Cory, can you tell us about an influential person and how they impacted you? Cory Morris: The most influential person in my life has always been my father, as cliche as that might be. I've looked to historical figures certainly. I've even looked to actors, and authors, and even characters in books. You can find inspiration in many, many, many places. But my dad was just about the kindest spirit you've ever met, and his legacy would be his love for his children. It was unconditional, and his love for others as well, because again, his vision actually was more debilitating than just color. He was legally blind. He said that he could maybe see about 15 inches of the world around him and it just went white after that. Timothy Webb: Wow. Cory Morris: He was such a practical jokester. He would pick a point someplace across the room or over your shoulder and he would ask you, "What is that?" He'd point at a spot on the floor and you would find yourself looking for something there. And he would just be over laughing, laughing, laughing, because he couldn't see anything like that. But he found beauty in everything, and he was brilliant with his hands. He used to carve food sculptures. One of the brilliance of food sculpting is that some of the details that somebody that is more detail oriented like myself might get hung up on, a person that can't experience the world in that way never did. So he was able to bring anything to life in a fruit, or a vegetable, or a meat tray, or an ice sculpture. He even was able to carve. He was really handy with his wood crafting. I guess that's where I got my love for carpentry as well. Because he could craft anything. And he could carve anything out of wood, busts of Indian heads, he identified really strongly with his Native American heritage, or eagles, a herd of elephants. Things that he could never experience or see at any kind of distance whatsoever, but he could bring to life so that he could see it with his hands. I always just thought that was miraculous to be able to appreciate something or maybe not be able to appreciate something in the way that someone might describe it to you, but bring it into life in the way that you might be able to appreciate it yourself. Timothy Webb: Yeah. That's quite an interesting hobby that your dad had to be a food sculptor and then even to sculpt with wood. It occurred to me as you were talking about it, that perhaps because he was legally blind, that maybe his imagination was a little bit more enhanced and that's why he could do those things. As an artist it is easy to get hung up on the details, and to be freed of that would be a great freedom to have, honestly. Cory Morris: Yeah, I wear glasses. The easiest thing for me to do artistically is take a picture of it. I can recreate that all day long. But to do something that's dynamic and alive, even a tree, like the tree shifts. I want to capture some of that. I can take my glasses off though, and it takes a better form on paper. Timothy Webb: I see. Cory Morris: So maybe there is a little bit of beauty in the fuzz. Timothy Webb: Yeah. So Cory, if you could give your younger self any piece of advice, what would it be? Cory Morris: It's a lifelong lesson in what I'm still struggling with or working with. It's maybe just don't take it all so seriously. There are ways that a person can take things so seriously that they can derail. It's like the perfectionist that can never finish a project. Timothy Webb: So Cory, outside of carpentry and all that, what are some of your hobbies? Cory Morris: We love to be outdoors. We came up through a 25-foot toy hauler. My family of five and our dog were living in a toy hauler for about a year and a half. It was a choice. We actually were kind of hanging up the brick and the mortar for a little while to do some traveling and we were trying to make it over to the West Coast of the United States. Long story of how we ended up staying here in Hot Springs, but we are very thankful that we did. But it was because of our love of outdoors. Timothy Webb: So Cory, what are your future plans? Cory Morris: I still have the graduate school fully in my crosshairs. I want to make it out to University of Colorado Boulder, or perhaps I could find another laboratory that's similar to what they have going on there. But they've got a program called Living Materials Laboratory that absolutely directly 100% lines up with everything I've ever aspired to, and is achieving it in ways through their team and all of their brilliant backgrounds. I've been recruiting into their program for a couple years and I've met with some of the people in the program. I've been to some of the webinars, and it's an interesting engineering program because they don't care what your bachelor's is in. You can come up from any background whatsoever with the right mission statement and be brought on board with their team because they're looking for all of the different perspectives. And they value the way that they can be used to build a better design than a bunch of like-minded individuals might be able to come up with. So that in and of itself was really inspirational. But they're growing concrete. They're allowing plants to not only clean our gray water from our buildings, but photosynthesize in the sun and produce the same kind of currents that we get from our best solar panels today at the same cost that it costs to install them. But none of the precious metal resources that are lost for the development of the solar panels were lost because we actually have no way to retrieve them from them whenever these things are retired. They just go to landfills. These photosynthesizing plants, they're capturing carbon while they're producing our electricity and cleaning our water. It should be a no-brainer. But these are kind of things that are pivotal to their study over there and they're approaching it from all the different ways that they possibly can. And that has been where I was ready to go next semester even. We went out as a family to visit their campus in October. Our 18-year-old, the one whose birthday is 19 today. He was not with us because he's already moved out of the house. So it was just my wife, myself, and our seven and 14-year-old. My 14-year-old is just entering into high school. He just started his ninth grade year this year. So this is freshman semester, and he wants to be a civil engineer. His best friend, he wants to be an astronomer. They happen to have both those programs there, and so my boy became fixated on it just like I was. Unfortunately, by December we got a diagnosis for my 14-year-old. He's got Ewing sarcoma cancer, and that's changed everything. We got that just two weeks before the early admissions, early consideration, or whatever for graduate school was due. I had my CV ready, curriculum vitae, something that you get to pick up as you're trying to go into higher ed. It's like a resume for school instead of a job. I had all my letters of recommendation. I had the whole application complete. I even had a statement of purpose. But after his diagnosis, I wasn't able to submit my application to go into graduate school next year, which is just as well because we will still be in treatment. He's doing well, he's fighting, and he's exceeding all of his doctor's expectations. But the next step of his treatment, which will begin sometime this July, is actually not offered here in Arkansas so we would have to be looking to relocate. And my son is as in love with that University of Colorado Boulder as I was. We're actually looking to make our way out there so that we can get the in-state tuition whenever it's time for him to go to school, and he can maybe even be plugged in with some local students that might end up going there. That would be great. Hopefully start to establish some stability for him as he's recovering. Timothy Webb: Well, we're all thinking about him and praying for him here at Elevate, I can assure you of that, and hope the best. Cory Morris: Thank you. Timothy Webb: Cory Morris, you are a brilliant young man and I've really enjoyed talking to you today here on Elevate. I thank you for being here with me today. Cory Morris: Thank you so much for having me. Real honor. Timothy Webb: And thanks to all of you for listening to Elevate today from the Razorback Camper Sales studio. Here at National Park College spring semester is almost over, so we here at Elevate are going to take break until the fall and hope to be back with you then. Until next time, this is Timothy Webb reminding you that every day is a chance to elevate.