Donna A. Lee
Or what I wish I knew now was I never prioritized myself and my health. And it took something serious happening before I realized, like, oh my gosh, my health needs to be the priority, because nobody else is thinking about that. Yeah, you know. But I think as an opportunity, I would say, if we spend time reaching out and mentoring each other and pouring into each other, that, you know, we’re the most educated. Black women are the most educated in the population, but yet we hold the fewest roles. Yeah, yeah, you know. And so if we lifted up each other, like there’s just such great opportunity there.

Raechele Pope
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host, Raechele Pope, and today I’m joined by co host Dre Domingue, who you will hear from in just a bit. In this episode, we discuss black women’s experiences in higher education, particularly their experiences as leaders on campus and in Student Affairs in Higher Education and in the professional associations to which we belong. Exploring the leadership of black women in higher education is essential to understanding their experiences as well as critiquing the policies and practices that may cause harm. Doctors Donna Lee and Jasmine Lee have agreed to share their experiences and expertise with us and to bring us closer to appreciating all the leadership that black women have historically and continue to contribute to higher education. This episode is part of a 13 episode series for ACPA. Is 100th anniversary and a partnership between ACPA and Student Affairs NOW. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education. Student Affairs, we release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com Today’s episode is sponsored by ACPA, an independent 501 c3 nonprofit association which is sponsoring this 13 episode series with Student Affairs NOW to celebrate, as I said earlier, it’s 100th anniversary boldly transforming higher education. As I mentioned, I’m your co host, Raechele Pope, my pronouns are she and her, and I’m professor in the higher education and student affairs program at the University of Buffalo. I also serve as a senior associate dean and for faculty and student affairs and the unit Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education. I’m recording today near the University of Buffalo’s campus on the unceded homeland of the Haudenosaunee people.

Andrea D. Domingue
I’m your co host. Dr, Dre Domingue, my pronouns are she and her. I’m the Chief Strategy Officer for student life at Davidson College, and I also served as ACPA president from 2022 to 23 I’m recording today at Davidson College campus, just outside of Charlotte on the land of the Catawba people. I’m really excited to have Dr Jasmine Lee and Dr Donna Lee as well join us for our conversation. To get us started, I would love for you all to kind of give us a brief introduction of yourself, your pronouns, and a little bit about your kind of how you’re coming to conversation today.

Donna A. Lee
Hello. I am Donna Lee. My pronouns, are she her? I had the privilege of serving as the president of ACPA 2017 18, and I now have the honor of serving as the vice president of student affairs at Rollins, located in Winter Park, Florida. I acknowledge that the land that I reside on and work on is stolen land that rightfully belong to the micosuki Seminole and to mikuwa peoples.

Jasmine A. Lee
Hi. Good afternoon. Good to be with you all. I have been with ACPA Since 2015 and so this is really exciting. Dr Lee Donna. Lee was a part of the presidential trio when I was coming in. And so this feels really cool in a lot of ways, a bit of a fan girl, but happy to be here. I’m in between positions and current roles in between universities at the moment, so I’m actually excited to kind of be sharing my thoughts detached from a specific role, most recently, serving as Vice President at a small liberal arts college in the Baltimore metropolitan area, heading to a large, mid, mid size regional institution in a couple of days to serve as the Associate Vice President for community and culture. My pronouns are she and her, and I’m calling from the Baltimore metropolitan area on the unceded lands of the Susquehanna Piscataway and kanhoye peoples thanks.

Raechele Pope
Thank you both for those introductions, and I got to learn a little bit more of you. And I’m afraid our listeners are going to believe that you have to have a last name of Lee or Domingue. And I was going to say that you are not related. I just want to make sure that’s true,

Donna A. Lee
correct. As far as we know,

Raechele Pope
you absolutely can be president and can continue to survive and thrive without having to last name Lee. You know, I think our listeners would like to know more about both of you and your journey in leadership, in student affairs and higher education that didn’t come out of nowhere you worked. Get there. You’re both in significant administrative roles on campus. We’re recently about to move into a new one. How did you get there? What was your journey like? And what do you wish you knew then that you now know Jasmine, if you don’t mind, how about if you start us off?

Jasmine A. Lee
Sure. Yeah, I think. What else I’ll start off just by saying what I wish I knew then, that I definitely know now, is to trust the process, to know that all the dots connect when you look backwards, so to speak. And so I say that to say for I think, like most folks, I didn’t know that a career in higher ed was actually a career was a real job, but my entire academic career was literally all over the place. So I’ve been to a community college, I’ve been a part of an HBCU, I’ve been a part of a land grant, a part of a prestigious flagship. I transferred three times, 15 hours apart, right? And so I had all of these experiences even before being introduced to this idea of a career. And yet I was kind of touching all of these different all of these different parts of what would turn out to be such a really important, pivotal part of my long term career trajectory as I think, along that same lines, what really matters, I think, for how I show up as a leader. And big picture too, is that during this time frame, I also found social work as a practice, as an academic practice, as a way of being and aligned with how I wanted to see the world and my beliefs in equity, it helped introduce me to the kind of ideas and practices that I wanted to see in the world, and thinking about systems and how they connect, and all that kind of stuff. And those two things, really, even before getting my first job, influenced every other part of how I experience the academy, from the start to start to finish. So I’ve had a job in kind of every part of higher ed, both in academic affairs and in student affairs, ranging from serving as a lecturer to doing academic boot camps and academic advising and really traditional student affairs roles, and so I think all of that, when I was going through it felt like I was just bouncing all over the place, making all of these undefined choices and decisions. And yet, as it turns out, they all were supposed to happen exactly the way that they were supposed to. I was supposed to be kind of ping ponging in some way, because as I continue to move along, my career, as it turns out, every single one of those experiences, every single time, has been useful. And when I think about even just the past year, having some of the more challenging moments of my career, navigating some of the sociopolitical stuff, every single thing came back and was useful for me. And so that’s a little bit about my journey, really kind of all over the place, if I were going to name it chapter and and to trust the process. Is what I learned along the way that I think I wish I knew, knew from the beginning, to trust it all the way through. Yeah,

Donna A. Lee
that is so powerful. I mean, I it resonates deeply with what I believe in. I think a path unfold just the way that they’re meant to and the things that we encounter, the people that we engage with, all of our experiences, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly all shape and define who they are. Um, I mean, I guess I resonate too, because my journey wasn’t very clearly defined either. I mean, I actually started in the military. I had my career started there. I kind of went in out of desperation. Honestly, I was at a HBCU. Couldn’t afford to pay after the first year and a half because I lost my grant, Reagan came into office and removed federal aid, so suddenly I was without monies to go to college and so very impulsively, enlisted in the Army. Was enlisted for three years. A black captain told me about a scholarship that I could get so I can go back to school. I took that and so I was a commissioned officer for six years. Um, got out as a captain. I knew that, that I didn’t want that as my career, but I also didn’t know what I wanted to do in terms of my next step, like, what was I called to do? And a professor of mine talked to me about student affairs, had no idea what that meant. My first, like, kind of step into trying to figure out, like, pursuing a career in student affairs. Was going to a NASA conference in Chicago, going as what, like, I wasn’t even a member, so I had to pay that full cost. You know, I put my resumes when we had the big cattle call kind of, um, job interview process, and, um, no one wanted to touch me. They did not see any of the skills or experiences that I. Brought to the table as relevant to our field. And there was one college, and I was just honestly, I What happened in in the elevator, I was talking to some other candidates, and I realized how different I was from all the other candidates. They spoke language I didn’t understand. They all had these, like the perfect lineup. I felt of like, what you needed to do to get into this student affairs profession. And I, like, I spent all this money, and I didn’t even get one interview, and this guy over the conversation and what, looked at my resume and invited me for an interview. So I started off at a small, private liberal arts school. I started off in residential life, and that probably was my I don’t my field experience in student affairs, living on campus. Now. I’m in my 30s at this time and married, living in a residence hall. I had given up a three bedroom home that I owned to jump out there, just taking a leap of faith and do this work, but again, trusting the process and just kind of leaning in different doors started open for me now I stayed at this institution, gosh, for 13 years. Over that time, though I was in several jobs, actually left that job as the Chief Student Affairs Officer, but it was over that period that I really got to learn more about not just Student Affairs, but who Donna was and what and how I felt. I showed up and could do this work. I’m not going to say it was easy, because there was a lot of imposter syndrome. I didn’t have the back to training, and I that was thrown in my face a lot. I was also told that because I stayed in one at one institution so long that I would never advance, and I do have to correct something. You were calling me Dr Lee. I do not have my PhD masters in counseling. I was also told, because I didn’t have a PhD, that I would never be hired as a vice president. And there have been occasions where I’ve been recruited for a position and it says that a requirement is a PhD. And I’ll say, Well, I’m not, I’m not qualified, and the job description was changed so that I could, you know, and so again, I think all the pieces fall in place the way that they’re supposed to. I will share though I would not have moved into the role as the Chief Student Affairs Officer, just ordinary like it happened because someone asked me to do it. I was, most of my time has been in diversity work. And you know, the first time I was asked, I was asked to serve in an interim role, and my first instinct was to say no, because I didn’t feel I was qualified. I also had in my mind that that person was a white man in a suit, and that’s now how I saw myself. He pressed me, though, and had me answer in the moment like he wouldn’t let me leave. And then he said, the students need you, you know. And so it’s like, okay, well, it’s just interim, so let me try it, you know. So I if I hadn’t gotten that nudge, I’m not sure where I would have ended up. But here’s the thing, this is related to today’s conversation when so after the interim role was over, I was asked to apply for the permanent position. I applied. I got it. I got a visit from one of the senior administrators who said, and at the time, I was wearing cornrows, um, he said, Well, now that you’re in the permanent job, it’s probably time for you to take your dreads out.

Andrea D. Domingue
I took a deep breath

Donna A. Lee
a these are not dreads. These are, let me show you how the what the difference is and B, if that’s a requisite for the job, I don’t want it

Andrea D. Domingue
right, right? Yeah, he

Donna A. Lee
did apologize to me three years later. But three years, three years later, that I think for me, was my first moment of Wow. People are looking at me like when I did diversity work, it was okay for me to be a certain way, but now I’m in again, the white man suit position, and so now there’s this expectation that I’m going to then now be. That way. And I think throughout and for all of us in these roles, there’s always kind of that push and pull, like, do we show up authentically as ourselves? And if we do, and when we do, what are we compromising as a result? Right? Because honestly, I do know there are tables I haven’t been invited to or doors that haven’t opened because of the choice I’ve made to show up as myself, right?

Raechele Pope
Right? I don’t think that that’s an unusual unfortunately event. I think that probably all four of us right here, plus so many of our listeners, could say, yeah, that’s my experience, and sometimes we hear it directly, yes, sometimes, most times we don’t, even though it’s still operating. Yeah, right. You know, really powerful. And I bet if I asked Dre and if I shared myself, there would be so many overlaps in certain ways, with the kinds of experiences that you’ve had about trusting the process, and there’s a point we don’t you can’t see it when you’re really young, right? Because we think it falls this way. But as we look back and say it’s because of that experience that I had, that I gave this expertise, that led me to the next step. We also find that there are times when we it’s purely by happenstance. We didn’t we were standing in the right place at the right time, in the right moment, sure, but these other experiences still brought us to that moment. So

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah, for sure. So I want to, you know,

Raechele Pope
I want to dig one more level. And I think Donna, you started helping us get to this towards the end, as you talked about your experiences of being able to show up as yourself or having to make choices, or some people feel they have to make choices. Can I show up as myself not and so I’m thinking about that as you reflect on your own journey, the things you just shared with us and the things you couldn’t share in this short period. How would you describe today’s landscape for black women working in student affairs and higher education? What are some of the opportunities? What are some of those barriers?

Donna A. Lee
You know, I would love to say that things have evolved since I started, what 25 years ago? I haven’t seen great change, and it makes me sad. Now I’ve only served at predominantly white institutions. At each one of those, I’ve been the first only or the one of few, mm hmm, and I think with that comes a burden. Quite honestly, some of it I know is what I put on myself, the pressure I put on myself to represent, to always make sure that my stuff doesn’t stink, but a lot of that’s real too. A lot of it is real. I think that even just the the pressure to constantly shift, I’m very aware of how my presence impacts students of color who see me, and so that that responsibility to make sure that you are that good model for them, and I am open and transparent and authentic with them when I’m in some of the white spaces, though, there are times I actually have to code switch. It gets tiring. I often feel isolated. Um, you know, you’re in a lot of, especially when you’re in, you know that a lot of the senior positions you’re in these environments where most of the time I don’t even relate to, like, on a social level, but the Kiki, you don’t just, but I’m doing it. But, you know? But yeah, is it means I can do the work I need to do for the students to be able to get their education and be who they can be, you know. So I’m always kind of going through this self talk with myself, you know. And but it’s, it’s exhausting. Mm, hmm. And I don’t know if this is the thing more on pwis or if this is across all of our campuses, but I don’t even feel community among the few black women might be around. There is a there’s almost a feeling of competition. Um, anybody you know what? I think that that is about how pervasive racism is, that we have internalized it enough ourselves, that we believe that we need to fight in our own little corner to get the little piece that we think we should have, or you don’t even recognize that if we all just pull together, you know, you know, box there, but, but that makes it even more isolating. So that lack of support and mentoring, I mean, the fact that it took, it was actually a white man who encouraged me to step into, into the role, you know, so those kinds of things, I think, I don’t know. And then I think, just as black women, we we are, we’re hardworking, we’re nurturers by just our makeup. And then when we’re in these roles, I think other people see that in us, and we almost become like these Olivia popes on, yes, yep, like, I deal with stuff that has nothing to do with Student Affairs,

Donna A. Lee
But you know what? I do it right then it’s again, at what expense? Yeah, I forgot to share this in the earlier question about, like, what did I learn? Or what I wish I knew now was I never prioritized myself and my health. And it took something serious happening before I realized, like, oh my gosh, my health needs to be the priority, because nobody else is thinking about that. Yeah, you know. But I think as an opportunity, I would say, if we spend time reaching out and mentoring each other and pouring into each other, that, you know, we’re the most educated. Black women are the most educated in the population, but yet we hold the fewest roles. Yeah, yeah, you know. And so if we lifted up each other, like there’s just such great opportunity there, yeah, yeah,

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah, yeah, I agree. I, you know, when I was thinking about kind of the landscape and this question about barriers and opportunities, a couple of things came to me in kind of two different categories as it relates to barriers and opportunities. So the first, you know, some of the some of the things that I see across the landscape that I think right now is really beautiful and really positive for black women in in levels of leadership, is that, I think that there is an acknowledgement and a recognition that of the kind of high achieving nature, I think of many black women, in particular, those who kind of pursue life in the academy, right? And so I think what has come with that out that I’ve seen is a lot of trust to make decisions, a lot of autonomy and space to kind of move with a certain degree of freedom. What I have seen come with that on the converse, right on the other side of that, or kind of in the grip, in the basement, if you will, is the ability then to also be tossed out as connected to field expectations or failed goals, or what have you. I also think that there, there black women in leadership come with really high expectations, and I think that a lot of times we are, I won’t cuss, but we are the sugar, honey, iced tea, and so we meet those expectations. And so they’ll so then, you know, this Superwoman in human kind of trope that people talk about, you know what I mean? And the literature, I think, just kind of gets attached to our identity, both that we carry for ourselves and that people attach to us as we’re moving through spaces. And so I think, exactly like Donna mentioned. And so then the barriers become being able to balance our well being, our health and well being, to be able to balance, I think, our needs and desires outside of just work right. Like, one of the soap boxes that I’ve been on lately is like, I don’t give, I don’t give my job, my best anything. They don’t get my best time. They don’t get my best ideas. They don’t get. Like, I just, I’m not doing that anymore. That might be a millennial thing, and I’m kind of a cusper, you know, and so maybe it’s a zennial thing, I don’t know, but it’s something that has has, I think, given me a bit of freedom to move in leadership in such a way that says this is at. Because, even because, I think also the landscape is also changing generationally. And so I think in particular, millennials, black women leaders, who are millennials, I think we all we have, like, a particular moment in this generational shift where we are both almost like Moana is a Disney movie, but we’re kind of connecting the old guard to the new way of being and the new expectations. And so we have this really unique space of actually being, like, you know, there are certain things that I don’t actually care about. Like, if you’re getting your job done, you not getting here exactly a day is not really, we don’t have anything to talk about, right, which is not necessarily old expectations. And so I think that’s a part of the landscape as well, that black women right now, who, who are kind of in this middle generation, I’ve been kind of talking about it in that way. I think we kind of have unique opportunities, actually, even to almost, dare I say, infuse more aspects of black woman womanness and black feminist approaches to leadership in ways that are now accepted, in ways that are celebrated, in ways that are pedestal right, like the the degree to which emotional intelligence is expected for leaders now and as a as opposed to what was expected then. And that’s something that I think that oftentimes black women excel in. So anyway, I’m kind of tangential to tangenting at this point. But my point is that I think that there are some opportunities where at this particular generational shift, we get to show up differently and in ways that are more authentic to who we are. Yeah, and I think that I’m seeing that in the choices of the tattoos and the nose rings right and the the bold fashions and all of that kind of stuff, which I think is beautiful and I’m excited to continue on that journey.

Donna A. Lee
Can I just red or cornrows? Yes, I will say, though, because you talked about the generational differences in terms of mentoring, like there has the generations older black women, and I’m in that generation too, but I’ve been criticized by my sisters about how,

Jasmine A. Lee
well, yeah, yeah, no. And I appreciate you naming that, because I do think, and this is going to come up in one of my answers later, but I’ll just frame it really quickly. Here is, is that, because I do think that when it comes to white supremacy, when it comes to expectations around behaviors and norms, I have gotten both the most praise and most support in my freedom choices is kind of what I kind of frame some things and my freedom choices from black women and I have also gotten the most chastising and the most like, girl, get back in that box from black women, and it has been really harmful and traumatizing to say the least.

Andrea D. Domingue
Yeah, exactly, yeah, both of things y’all are saying. I’m like, Ah, I think I’m probably somewhere in the middle of, I guess, career factory wise, both y’all career and maybe closer to Jasmine. Y’all just have my head spinning about just my own trajectory of where I’ve been, not only in terms of institutional type, but also where I’ve been positioned. I made that transition from diversity di work as a leader to kind of where dot like I’m not where Donna is exactly, but senior level, broader scope, and I felt that shift, the change in some of the things they were talking about, the dynamics, I guess, relatedly, I guess to Jasmine started this conversation, and Donna also, too, just about the what kind of where we’re seeing some kind of critical changes, right? So thinking about covid, and for me, anybody knows me well, I was one of the acba presidents during the covid pandemic. I was around during a lot what is the ongoing us, social, political context that we’re seeing that just dynamic and constantly going and I during that time, I’ll name this too. There was we were dealing with the great resignation. We were dealing with people leaving. We were dealing with just some really major questions and changes of student affairs. It was bringing up a lot for us, like both Donna and Jasmine. You know, we definitely had a different times of the leadership, sorry, the governing board of ACPA. Now the Leadership Council, and during my time, I launched the task force around employment, 21st century will be really grappling with what is this? I want to call it new. But what are the frameworks we’re really kind of pushing up against in higher education, critically. And when I was working with that group in Raleigh a few years ago, we just kept coming up with white supremacy, like that was the thing, and the frameworks of perfectionism and different things like that were really big. And so I’m curious. And y’all kind of started kind of just a little bit, and I know Donna talked about it a little bit through some code switching and hair, and, you know, Jasmine talked a little bit about some of this through choices of decision making, what have you. I’m curious, thinking about our field of higher education student affairs now. So where are you seeing white supremacy, kind of dynamics, those frameworks, really coming up and impacting the ability for women like us to do our work on a day to day basis.

Jasmine A. Lee
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I think you know, part of the challenge with white supremacy, oftentimes, is that it can be so insidious in that it can be a bit challenging to name. For me when I’m thinking about, kind of naming it in concrete ways, I often go back to that piece that was floating around some time ago called, I think, like how white supremacy shows up in organizations, or something along those lines. And, you know, they later followed it up with this piece around racial equity principles, kind of like responding to each of those. And so I think about that often. And so the way that I’m going to frame that question or respond to that question today is a couple of ways, I think, especially in aspect expectations of perfectionism. And in particular, I think because for black women, I would argue that part of our work, or part of how we, I guess, move through the world, and I think women of color, more broadly, how we move through the world is is more kind of somatic in nature. It’s an it’s an embodied experience. It is head and heart and spirit connected. And so that means that if, if that is the case, we need to have the space and the freedom to flow right, to follow the ancestors, as me and my friends say, and to trust our intuition and things of that nature. And I think it is impossible to do that and to be perfect. And I think in and I think in a moment. So I currently am doing dei work, and I think in a moment where diversity, equity and inclusion is a cuss word, and in particular, higher education spaces. In a season where higher education as a as a institution of society has lost a great deal of trust, is being deeply criticized in all of the sides, in all directions and all that kind of stuff. And that means imperfection, like we don’t have time for that, right we don’t have time to explore, to feel it out. We need to make the right choice. We need we need to make the right choice immediately, right now. And I don’t think that that is serving I think it is it causes harm to black women who should be able to be creative in the ways that we show up, and I think in the ways that we are able to be more flexible and adaptive, even in our leadership styles and approaches. And so that’s one thing that I’m thinking about. I’m also thinking about this bigger is better. And so that’s one of the things that I personally struggle with, because a lot of times, even though I’m a qualitative researcher by training my mind is socialized such that I do think bigger is better, bigger money, bigger populations, bigger access points, bigger all of this kind of stuff. And so I think being able to, in particular, in not just dei work, but in some of the work that I do around dialog, being able to think bigger picture about the fact that it everything should be emergent, right? And kind of the small is all, and all of the changes and things like that that we want to see, kind of in the world and on our campuses, in our divisions and departments, has to come from small relationships, those fractal interactions and all that kind of stuff. Thinking about some work from Adrian Marie Brown. And so I say all of that to say, like even the idea of emerging strategy, right? Is introduced to me by a black woman who a lot of her work is built on ideas from a black woman, right? And so I think those ideas and those approaches inform our leadership styles in ways such that we should be able to lean into small impact, knowing that it contributes to large changes that we can lean into creating change and interventions for small ends, knowing that those one to five experiences create big picture and long term changes in the ways that we want. So I think those are some of the ways that I’m thinking about how white supremacy shows up and how it can be harmful to black women. I think outside of perhaps the obvious, which has to do with esthetics and has to do with, you know, patriarchy and all of that kind of stuff as well, and expectations of behaviors, norms and all of that.

Donna A. Lee
No, I agree with everything you you shared there. You know, what? I think about a lot, you know, as I try to advocate for change and work against white supremacy, I always have to remind myself, though, like I’m in a system that was rude supremacy, you know. And until we are willing to tear down those structures, and this and really not a willingness to do that is going to keep showing up, you know, and so, I mean, it shows up in these ways, like, you know, you hire one, and we’re done, you know, we still have, you know, the tokenism that we won’t name it as. At, but that’s exactly what’s happening. You look at, most of the curricula across campuses is still very white. Our students are taught predominantly by white professors. I mean, so everywhere you turn, that’s where the white supremacy is showing up. It’s been a little more challenging in the political climate now to call it out without creating drama. But I do have, I mean, I will probably talk about this later, but I have been fortunate to let at least be working in a private institution where you know you’re not as as tied down. But I do think, um, our campuses have almost hid behind now the politics to not have to address some of the issues that are related to white supremacy. So until we’re willing to tear down the structures, like, completely burn it to the ground and rebuild it again, this is going to be a continual issue. Yeah.

Jasmine A. Lee
And so look, can I actually just respond to that? Because one of the things that you, you know, be very transparent, one of the things that you named actually reminds me of a conversation that I’ve been having with my therapist, and I sought out a therapist specifically who does or had a history of doing dei work in higher ed spaces, right? And so it was like a very specific, like work relationship choice. And so I say that to say because you’re absolutely right, needing to acknowledge that, like I work in a system, a system that was not designed for me, in fact, is not designed to actually let me do my job, and is not designed to serve the people I say I’m here to serve, and I chose to be here, right? And so I think even for me, when I made this most recent transition into senior leadership, I actually really struggled with this idea of, like I chose to be the man what the heck. Like it was a, you know, like it was a hard emotional transition, because it was, it goes so against my activist nature. It goes so against kind of, my heart for for justice or whatever. And, yeah, I had to get to this space where I was able to, and this reminds me of, kind of what we’re talking about earlier, about well, health and well being, get to this space where I could reconcile, like, well, some, sometimes somebody has to be inside the house to open the windows, to open the doors, right? And so, like, everybody has a role to play and and to be able to to be able to protect a sense of radical hope in that right also is connected to my ability to be well, right? And so being able to have all of these conversations around what, what does it mean to acknowledge that I’m in a system, that I’m a part of the system, and that some of my role perpetuates the system, even while I’m trying really hard to dismantle it, you know, dig it up, unroot it, and all of that kind of stuff, and needing to reconcile that on a daily basis from a space of radical hope, and also even from a space of radical acceptance, right for this career that I chose, that I feel called To no

Raechele Pope
you know, as you’re talking about that, it’s so interesting to me that we all got into this, and we could keep naming the people who we know who got into this to make a difference, to make a difference in the lives of students. And we can’t get past the fact that we are and yet, at the same time, we recognize that. You know, when Donna talked about burning it down, right? That’s, it’s, that’s, we know that that’s what it’s going to take. We also know that that’s probably not going to happen. And so the way that we do it is really the example of building a new plane on top of the one that we’re flying. And there are times when we get really frustrated thinking we’re never going to get to put this new bolt in the new thing, because this is falling apart here, you know, or or we get real hopeful, you know, in 2020, with the racial reckoning that was happening. Then we thought, listen to them talk. They really get it. Finally, that’s white supremacy. And that lasted for about two and a half years, and then they came back real hard. And so now all we’re doing is putting patches on the old plane again, in many places and and we get to look at the plane we’re trying to build that’s sitting on top of the old one. So it is a really funky place to be.

Donna A. Lee
I did, you know, um, I won’t want to refer to ever refer to it myself as the man I really respect, yeah, yeah, you know. And I encourage you to reframe that for yourself too. You know what I realized when I moved. From doing my dei work to being in the senior level work, I suddenly my platform from which to do the work I needed to do was suddenly longer, wider, exactly. Yes, I know I caused a lot of distress, and, you know, people didn’t, you know, like I triggered a lot, but I was reaching people that I could not reach when I was doing

Jasmine A. Lee
work, for sure.

Donna A. Lee
And I always have to remind myself, and I know it’s never going to be burnt down, but I take the time to at least look back and see the little steps, yeah, for sure, because we are in the house now, and so I never question getting into the house, you know, and so I will never see myself as part of Yes, I do know that. I do perpetuate some of it. I do know that, baby, because there’s some things I can’t, or at least I haven’t figured out how to navigate and how to go up against, and I also have been silent in some moments because I knew it wasn’t going to be effective at that time, and if my people were watching me, they would not be proud, but I knew that It was the right thing to do in that moment. And so I think we have to not be, like, beat up ourselves. You know, we Exactly, yeah, we recognize we’re doing this work, and we’re doing it because, yes, we’re called to do it, and it’s going to need to generations behind us are going to pick it up. Like you said, you we’re opening up the windows for other people to come into house, yeah?

Jasmine A. Lee
And then we came in with our own tools, right? So we’re not mantling the master’s house with the master’s tools. We got our own tools, yeah, that we’re using, yeah,

Unknown Speaker
yeah,

Unknown Speaker
yeah.

Andrea D. Domingue
Let’s stay here a little bit. I know that Jasmine alluded to this as well. And both y’all having experience in dei work in higher education. We just named about I laughed a little while y’all were saying this, because I disagree a little bit the rate, the kind of the racial reckoning that kind of happened in 2020 Sure, sure. I don’t, I think for some Yes, and for others, it was like we’ve been saying this forever. And I think there was a balance of there were moments where I think we could see some some changes. I’ll say to my campus, on my campus, I started seeing moments of possible change in conversation that had not happened before, but yet still not much happened, right, in some ways, right? Um, so I just want to name this for the sake of people that might listen in a different point, we are in September of 2024 we’re approaching our US election, both from a federal and a state. And there are some things that I we may talk about now that may be different, but it’s somebody listens to it. But what you named about the DI legislation, that’s the, probably one of the biggest things, I think, not the biggest, but a major that happened in higher education. Impacting the work that we do. I’ll speak for my my lane of being in North Carolina, knowing that literally up the road from me, at UNC, Charlotte, just had a major moment in which we lost dei offices on that campus. And there’s conversations in North Carolina collectively have at my impact private. So I’m curious for both of you, both from you know, your standpoints and where you are given where we are in our climate with dei and yes, I think some of it started with critical race theory, and we’re seeing things around LGBT and immigration and what have you. How have the like local, state, location, even some federal things impacted the way that you navigate your work on campus, knowing that sometimes things are happening above you. I know Donna talked a little bit about being in a private versus a public so I’m just curious for the two of you, or how do you how are you grappling with approaching the work given this kind of you know, moment that we’re in, this ever changing around dei legislation,

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah. So for me, interestingly enough, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the state of Maryland, and it feels just a little bracketed in some ways, I personally have not felt impacted in my professional day to day work, in fact, during in the middle of anti dei legislation, I was hired to be an equity and inclusive excellence VP, and that was an inaugural position, and so there was like doubling down of the commitment. And I remember even in the posting, it talked about that, like, while other people are doing this, we’re doing this other thing. And similarly, at the institution that I’m heading to, there has been like a fortification of cultural centers and like a reallocation of funding. Now, there has been kind of a clean sweep of language, so that there is kind of this, like might be for this population, but open to all right, like there some of that approach, but that. Has been familiar to me, because that was the approaches that we used in the state of Michigan. And so while I have you know friends and colleagues who have lost their jobs, who have had to change their titles, who have left their jobs, who have relocated to different states, right, like all of that kind of stuff, we just actually hire someone who, at my previous institution, have recently hired someone who was intentionally leaving the state of Florida because feeling both professionally and personally, it was no longer safe for them. So that is what is happening around us. I personally just have not been professionally impacted in my spaces of work just yet,

Donna A. Lee
and I’m right in Florida. And it was interesting, because there was lots of conversation in the beginning the year before. Let’s see, this is maybe the second year, the second year, now that the college had named dei be belonging, we had a belonging as a strategic priority for the college. When all the anti DIB legislation came about, there was lots of questions around, do we need to stop? We’re private, so no, we didn’t have to stop. But there were people who wondered if we should just stop. Did we need to hide? Do we need to whitewash language? But there again, there was the doubling down, and I was very, very proud of the senior leadership for taking that stand. Um, it wasn’t fully embraced by the trustees, um, and there is pushback from some of the families that, come to campus, questioning by students when we’re doing training with some of our student leaders, or going into some of our fraternities and sororities to do training, you know, they’ll quote what the law is, and you know, we can’t Make them you know, it’s interesting to see how the things continue to roll out. It’ll be really interesting, after the upcoming elections, what the impact will be. Um, you know, I’m trying to remain hopeful, but I got fooled once. So,

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah, yeah, that part, I will say too. I think that part of what maybe is it is is a important impact. I’ll say to name, though, I think is the level of anxiety and angst has increased for women of color. You know, I think about this time last year we were talking about, you know that Vice President of Student Affairs down in Louisiana who passed away. We were talking about the president of Temple who passed away, and the program went on right and so I do think that not just the anti dei legislation writ large, but like even some of the things that we’ve already talked about and the unique impacts on black women and black women who are in high levels of leadership, who also, I think, oftentimes navigate the world. What I’m about to say is not researched, so don’t side assist. I’m just this is my own speculation, who have my own observation, who oftentimes are navigating the world, not not attached or partnered in traditional ways, and so I my argument is that their source of support is different. And so I think it is probably unfair for us to be having a conversation about black women and not frame the anti dei legislation as physiologically impactful, emotionally and mentally impactful, because it is, yes, I would just add that too.

Raechele Pope
Yeah. You know, when I think about that, I think on Student Affairs Now, a couple of episodes back, maybe three or four episodes back. Now, we did one on Black Women’s Health in higher education, about how the weathering that takes place. Yes, we and how we just continue to keep this on, but there is a cost at holding on to all of this tension and frustration. And I’m thinking about, I don’t know if I’m citing the right person. I think it was Gavin Henning. Started talking about student affairs programs. We’re going to have to start. We are basically having student affairs programs in red states and blue states, training them differently because of some of this legislation that we just talked about. And what’s happening about that? And you. Um, it, it is troubling at so many at so many levels. Yeah, go back to the two of you for a second. In particular, I want to talk about the ways in which you know you you touched on this a little bit. I want you to think about a little differently, the ways your identities, your roles, your functional areas, influence supervision dynamics. Because, you know, a lot of the language that we’re talking about right now in the field is we talk about identity, conscious supervision, we talk about generational dynamics, both of which have been talked about here a bit. We’ve touched on it a bit. I’m just wondering if, if you could identify the ways in which you supervise from an identity conscious way, if you can think of those and the ways in which you saw how the ways in which you’ve been supervised are influenced.

Donna A. Lee
So I have to, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been supervised. I don’t know what it

Raechele Pope
feels like. Well, because you don’t remember. Well,

Donna A. Lee
no, I actually had someone tell me that he did not know how to supervise me. And you know, in my relationships with my supervisors, it always seems to turn out that I’m supervising them, yeah, but I think that gets back to what I shared earlier about just how we show up as black women like so before I know it like an hour’s gone by and let them process all their crap and right? There’s some meetings, honestly, that I have to go into with my supervisors, where, if I have an agenda, I walk in the door and start talking. Got stuff I need to talk about. I don’t need to hear your stuff, right? Yeah, so I don’t, I don’t. I cannot really remember a time I’ve really been supervised. Wow,

Raechele Pope
that’s a statement in our field in particular. Now, yeah, it is because we talk about supervision. I know importance of it

Donna A. Lee
all the time. I know, I know, I know, but you know, I’ll take some ownership too, for taking on their stuff. Yep, you know

Raechele Pope
that’s one of those say, how do you not when they’re your supervisor, until you learn to get comfortable saying, No, I got my own stuff to talk about today. Here are the things that we want to go over, you know? And that’s something. And

Donna A. Lee
now I’m wired, though, honestly, because I don’t really let power dynamics, and there’s just something in the way I’m wired that I do allow people to dump their stuff on me. It doesn’t matter where, where they sit in the org chart, you know, so. But in terms of my own style, I mean, it’s just a recognition, like, beyond just I like identity. It’s a one slice does not fit all. And I’m very relational already, you know? And so I do spend a lot of time getting to know my team and recognize that each one needs different things right now I have the I have received feedback over the years that I am harder on women and harder on women of color. And when I first heard that, and I thought about it, I mean, I wasn’t doing it, um, knowingly, but when I thought about it, I think some of it is about wanting to make sure that she is ready and prepared to go out and like face some of the very things that we’ve been talking about, I’ve had staff members, women of color that I’ve worked with, who have just kind of oblivious to it, and they think that they can just perform like everyone else does? And no, that’s not the case. And so no, you’re not going to turn this raggedy document in and no, yes, I’m going to call you out when you know there’s, there’s a typo in your email, you know, just so maybe I am harder on them, but it’s out of love. Maybe it’s not received that way, but it really does come from a place of love and wanting, wanting to see her be successful. I am very open and transparent. Like, why I’m giving the feedback. Some receive it and some don’t,

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah, so I think my supervision style is a little is a little different. And so there’s a couple of things that inform my style, and then I’ll get to the front of the question at the end. And so for me, when I’m thinking about my style as it relates to my identities in particular, you know, obviously we’ve talked a little bit about the intersection of race and gender, that’s kind of the focus of our conversation. We enter. Juice earlier, some some thoughts and ideas around age and kind of myself as a millennial leader, and how I think that that shows up, and kind of unique approaches to leadership and supervision in particular, especially in moments where I am often younger than people I am supervising and don’t quite understand all the time their workplace expectations and how they are different from mine. But one of the things I have been thinking about lately, lately, meaning, like the past two to three years, is actually the impact of religion, and in my case, Christianity on my supervision style, I am very churched, and I am very black churched, which is a very unique and specific experience. And then you add to that, being from conservative Michigan, and so I’m like a black, black church girl from Michigan. And so oftentimes what I recognize is that so then in my approach to leadership, like some of my ideas around grace and forgiveness came from kind of this grounding in Christianity, and also some of my expectations around perfection and showing up in a particular way, right? There’s some, some kind of, I think, some of my more problematic notions around sometimes what I frame as reputation management came from expectations that grew out of church and needing to be perceived a particular way. And so I’ve had to actually start thinking more deliberately about how that is showing up in my supervision and my expectations of folks on my team, like I have said to folks on my team, like, don’t, don’t be out here having me look raggedy, right? Which, in of itself is, you know, you represent me. I represent you. We’re a, you know, Ubuntu, all of this stuff. And also that, for me, comes from a very churched notion of, like, when you leave this house, you represent me, and you represent God, you know, all of this stuff. And so I’ve had to really interrogate some of that. And then I think conversely, I talk a lot about this ethic of love and this deep ethic of care, and one of the outcomes that I have as related to my supervision style and approach, and I do share this with with folks on my team, like the desired outcome is that they feel loved as a result of the work that we’re doing together, that they feel like they love what they do when they’re doing it with people they love and who love them. And so I had to also, to some degree, interrogate, like, where this idea and this thought and this practice and commitment to love came from. And a lot of it started from my introduction to Christianity, even if my theology has grown and expanded over time. And so those are, I think, some of the identities that have influenced my supervision. The other part that I think is so interesting for me is that in my master’s program, when I was getting my Master’s of social work, I was introduced to intergroup dialog at the program for intergroup relations at the University of Michigan, and it fundamentally changed my life. And part of the reason why is that? I ended up having an internship, a master’s level internship, doing dialog work in high schools, and we had to have weekly supervision. And so the dial, the lead facilitator is the person who managed and led my weekly supervision. And that experience is, is, is literally, I have never changed a supervision vision meeting since then, like the agenda structure, the like the love and care that goes into the time that we create together, the commitment to CO, creating this space as a protected boundary that we share, where we both expect to grow, we both expect to give each other feedback, was fundamentally life changing. And so as much as there’s some identity stuff there, there is also a practice and a training that I that I got as a part of some very specific experiences in my master’s program.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, it’s pretty wild how we can replicate what we get. You know, we become good supervisors. I say the same thing about advisors. You know, as a faculty member, I say this either because we got a really good experience of advising or supervision, or because we got a really poor experience or absent one. And so we make it up based on, in a sense, what works for us or what didn’t work for us. Think about that. And I’m troubled by a couple of things, you know, like we began this conversation talking about this need for mentoring, and in the last session that I was talking about, where we talked about black women’s health, it was almost it was all faculty, and they’ve talked about this mentoring group that’s happened, people grabbing women faculty. I’m not saying everybody’s getting mentored, but I’m looking at the Mary Howard Hamilton’s the sherry Watson, the and Lori Patton Davis, who, if you did the, you know, the tree, you know, they were mentored or touched or in some way pulled by these women. And I’m a little troubled that I think in our practice. Titian standpoint, in our administrative standpoint, we haven’t quite been as intentional in making sure that people are getting that from that broad view. And I think it’s something for us to to think about.

Jasmine A. Lee
I might say something to that really quickly though, that I think is interesting that I have, I feel like I’ve seen, have been seeing more across the academy is maybe less directional mentorship and more kind of peer mentorship, like I’ve I feel like I’ve seen the growth of Sister Circles, yes, kind of like virtual meetups and connections, wherein there is kind of a creation of lateral support. And so perhaps how we’re how we have long to see it, is not showing up. But I think maybe there are some ways that people are seeking to fill that gap and kind of still kind of traditional sisterhood formats. I think

Raechele Pope
we are seeing that, but what I wonder about is some of this cross generational stuff. Yeah,

Jasmine A. Lee
yeah. We’ve

Raechele Pope
also that helping to figure out. And less of the you got to get in here and do it this way, but more of the, let me tell you how this may be viewed. You make a decision, you know, how you step in, how you provide, how, yeah. But somehow we’ve gotta make sure that those connections are not just going this horizontal way, but some of this Yeah, vertical way, with those of you, the three of you who are these more senior administrators, and how we’re getting to some of the young folks, younger folks coming in, and I say yeah, because everybody on this panel is younger than me.

Raechele Pope
I’m just thinking that that might be something for us to look at in the future, to recognize, support and nurture those, those horizontal relationships that you mentioned Jasmine, but also to find people at different levels to say, watch for this. This thing happened. This is what they mean. This is the real latitude that they have. They’re going to hire you to come in and change this campus, you’re gone in six weeks because they didn’t need and change the campus Right, right? When you’ve had that, we’ve seen that, so we should pass that up.

Donna A. Lee
Yep, I agree. But we have to be us old women, have to be willing to accept the fact that general, general relation, generationally, we’ve changed,

Jasmine A. Lee
yes, yeah, what it looks like doesn’t look like that anymore, exactly, right?

Donna A. Lee
Yeah, that could be showing up in Penny hoes and heels, you know,

Raechele Pope
conversation, because we’ve got a lot too, right? We’ve got a lot. There are more than one way of managing there are the people who came in and modeled the people that were there before them and thought that was the only way to do it. It’s not. We’ve got a whole generation that’s come in and say none of that works, right? You might want to do some of this. That typo that she mentioned in that email makes a difference. Yeah, competence, whether or not it should, it’s

Donna A. Lee
true, and honestly, I’m even more conscious of it, and it puts, I put, again, additional pressure on myself, because I’ve chosen to show up the way I show up. I’m really like you should the work I put into preparing for station or eating or a document I have to submit. I know I cannot make any errors. To be like show up like this,

Jasmine A. Lee
mm hmm, and, and I approach it the opposite, such that I, if I ever have a typo, I go out of my way to point it out as almost like, as like a as a communication of an expectation of imperfection, right? Which I do, which I also think is like a is a generational shift, right? I think it’s kind of like we should be able to show up as just imperfect, like, the reason I actually can’t spell because I always get a red squiggly line, and I’ve always had one, right, like, and so, you know? And so just thinking about that, and also thinking about even how, as Gen Z becomes more of the folks who are shifting into middle leadership and their expectations and even, quite literally, the things we think they know how to do that they cannot do they don’t know, won’t learn to do you know, and needing to adjust to that, instead of expecting them to adjust to

Andrea D. Domingue
us. Yeah, and there was something riddled both said that. It was powerful to me, and just really naming that and again, to go back to maybe an earlier question about kind of the opportunities that what I hear from both you, Donna and Jasmine, is that there’s more space to be human, right, whether it’s about a mistake or whether about being authentically yourself. And yeah, there’s some stuff that comes with either one of those things, but I think what I hear in both of your comments is that there’s more space to be allowed to be human, rather than trying to meet this kind of maybe limited archetype of what it means to be a senior level black woman leader right now. So, yeah, yeah. Well,

Donna A. Lee
I would like to add maybe be human, and I would like to hopefully we could also just be black too. Yeah. I know that’s right.

Jasmine A. Lee
And all the very in, all the versions.

Andrea D. Domingue
So this conversation has been amazing. I wanted to have a special thank you to Jasmine and Donna for not only your time today, but your amazing, critical, affirming insights and your sustained leadership in higher education student affairs and ACPA.

Jasmine A. Lee
Thank you for having us.

Donna A. Lee
Yes. Thank you very much.

Raechele Pope
also want to thank the two of you and thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode, ACPA. ACPA college student educators International, celebrating its 100th anniversary, is boldly transforming higher education by creating and sharing influential scholarship, shaping Critically Reflective practice, reflective practice and adequate cating for equitable and inclusive learning environments. ACPA aspires to be higher education and student affairs most inclusive and community driven Association by leading our profession in centering social justice, racial justice and decolonialization as defining concepts of our time and the foreseeable future. Visit my acpa.org to connect with us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I refuse to call it x to learn more about ACPA. And of course, I have to send a huge shout out to our producer, Natalie Ambrosey, who does all of the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound so good we love. The support of these important conversations from our community, you can help us reach even more folk by subscribing to our podcast, our YouTube station and weekly newsletter announcing each new episode and more. And if you’re so inclined, you can leave us a five star review. I’m Raechele Pope with Dre Domingue. Thank you to our amazing sister leaders and colleagues, Donna Lee and Jasmine Lee, and to all of you watching and listening to Student Affairs NOW, thank you, and take the time for yourself, and don’t hesitate to trouble the water.

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