Helena Gardener: Welcome to Here’s the Story. I’m your host, Helena Gardener. I serve as the director of residence education and housing services at Michigan State University. I live my life as a mom, a sister, a friend, a mentor, and quite honestly, on this particular day, a just quite frankly a wonderful human being, and sometimes we gotta say that about ourselves.

I am here excited to bring a story to you today. Here’s the Story is in the family of Student Affairs NOW. If you have a story, and we know you do, please check us out at Here’s the Story. We’re gonna do it again. We’re gonna do it again. We’re just gonna stop this and-

Welcome to Here’s the Story. I am your host, Helena Gardener, and I’m excited to be here with you today. I currently serve as the director of residence education and housing services at Michigan State University. I live my life as a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a mentor, and quite honestly, just a magnificently made, well-developed human being.

That’s how I’m feeling today. Here’s the Story is a part of the Student Affairs NOW family. You can learn more about us at studentaffairsnow/heresthestory. You can also leave a story of your own there. You’ll find a link that says, “Throw a pitch,” and we will catch that. So please go check us out. You can also check us out on YouTube or anywhere you enjoy podcasts.

I am very excited to be here today with my cohost friend. I’m gonna turn it over to you

J.T. Snipes: Hi, y’all. My name is JT Snipes, and my pronouns are he, him, his. I’m an associate professor and chair of the Educational Leadership Department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. And I’m just trying my best to live my life as a free Black man in a world that would have me live otherwise,

glad to be here with you, sister. It’s been too long.

Helena Gardener: It’s been too long, but we here today. We here today. We’re gonna give a quick shout-out to our sponsor, Evolve. Evolve offers four leadership coaching journeys designed to be, designed to expand capacity and build capability, empowering courageous leaders to transform institutions and reimagine the future of higher education.

‘Cause that’s what we’re here to talk about. Hears the Story features folks working across all levels of higher education, and our stories provide an opportunity to just humanize the experience and to help our colleagues across the world connect and relate. So today, I am super, super excited for our guest.

J.T. Snipes: Excited.

Helena Gardener: I’m so excited for KeJuan. Tell me about him. Let me tell you why I’m excited about KeJuan. So I had a great trip to Baltimore to attend the ACPA National Conference, and while I was there, I just happened upon meeting KeJuan. KeJuan shared some awesome stories, but what is most memorable for me is the energy.

And so I couldn’t wait today, one, to be back in that calming energy, but that energy is so powerfully dynamic and silent.

And it’s not silent, it’s quiet. It is quiet. It’s on somewhat understood, doesn’t need to be explained type energy. And I am excited that KeJuan made time to be with us today to share.

I, and not just, I re- recall I was in present for someone sharing with me how Keywuan talked about something about comparing leadership to water, and that’s what we just gonna sit with. It’s like water. Like Beyoncé said, like water. So it is just a fantastic experience to just be in community.

And so JT, I think that our listeners are gonna be in for a treat, and,

J.T. Snipes: I’m

Helena Gardener: excited … an important opportunity, yeah, to learn. So with that, I’m gonna turn it over to you, Keywuan, ’cause I know you got a story to tell for us today. So tell this story.

Keywuan Caulk: Thank you all for inviting me to be on your show. And to tell a little bit about my story, I have plenty but I’m gonna try to pull out a highlight.

But first let me introduce myself a little further. I am Keywuan Caulk. I use he, him pronouns. I am the proud director for the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities at Rutgers University, the New Brunswick campus, the state institution of New Jersey. I’m a Jersey boy, born and raised, have lived in, lived my whole life in Jersey except for grad school.

But I’m back, and I came back here in 2013. Quickly left where I was and came right on back home to the metropolis area of New York City. And so I am very cultured. I love a good New York venture, Philly venture. We have the best of all the worlds in our area. But here I am. So that’s what I do nine to five, quote-unquote, ’cause we know student affairs nothing is ever nine to five, especially in the programmatic world or student affairs.

And I also teach. Little known fact if you’re not at Rutgers, I do teach a class. I’ve been teaching this class for six or seven years now. And it focuses in feminism. I am the only male professor in this particular section of in this topic. So this is super fun to, to have a no boys class, if you will.

All women identify people talking about feminism and identity and their relationship to womanhood, and I focus on Black feminism in my course because no one else does. And Black, Black women make the world go around here we are. So I’m really excited to be present. So I guess I’ll just jump right on in.

Is that right? Sure. All right, cool. I don’t know that the story’s gonna be long, but I hope that it’s impactful. And I’ll try to let it lead me to some other different things about my experience related to the story. So I wanna talk to y’all and tell you a little bit about the time that I found out that Black folk didn’t exist.

And I’ve lived my whole life Black. Black Black some more. And 365 days a year, and 366 on a leap. … And

so a little bit about my history and where I’ve come to know about my Blackness is in a little town in New Jersey, southern New Jersey, called Penns Grove, New Jersey. Not a very diverse town. But Black, white, and maybe Spanish folks in town is kinda how I grew up. That was my worldview at the time.

Diversity really hit me when I went to college. Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck Campus. I was meeting Black folks from all over the state of New Jersey, from the hoods, from the suburbs just a conglomerate of folks. But that’s when I was introduced to international students and so on and so forth.

So my worldview kinda opened up a lot. Once I graduated there and decided I was gonna go to grad school I ended up going to grad school in Bloomsburg University at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania, Central Pennsylvania. Kind of northern central, if you will. So it was really in the middle of that great state.

I was pursued by some folks at Gettysburg College, and this is where the story will begin. I was pursued at the, a- after by folks at Gettysburg College to come work there. At the time of my my hire it’s my first job into student affairs out of grad school, but not my first student affairs job.

I think every grad student who is working in student affairs is a full-time employee just getting paid on a grad salary. So but my first job out of grad school was at Gettysburg College, and many of us have learned in American history that the Battle of Gettysburg was fought there from July 1st to July 3rd.

Three days of- A lot of things. 165,000 soldiers roughly and 50,000 men were killed or wounded. So that is the context of the space that I was going to work in. Gettysburg is very much still we are gonna be in character, we’re gonna give people the tours, and it’s very much Battle of Gettysburg through and through in the restaurants, in the town, horseback riding, all the things.

And so you can imagine the demographics of the people that still reside there is really like a 90-some percent white space, and folks who are of color are either at university or in town for some halfway reason, but not staying. So I like a little fashion. I enjoy shopping, I enjoy putting my clothes on.

Gettysburg has a strip mall so you go and you shop in, in and out of the stores. And I encountered a little girl. I got my bags in my hand, I did a little shopping. I encountered a little girl. She probably was no taller than my waistline. So we could probably guess she was six-ish, give or take a year or so.

And she ran up to me and her father was walking behind her, and she said, “Daddy, what is that?” Right in front of me. It wasn’t hidden, it wasn’t quiet. It was literally a confident question from this little white girl. “Daddy, what is that?” He picks her up, put her on his shoulder, walked away, and he said, “I don’t know.”

So that’s my, my, my jarring experience around my Blackness for the first time in Pennsylvania. I think that was my first encounter of overt racism. The first time I’d ever been face to face with someone who couldn’t identify me as a Black man, a Black person, Black something. And I always wonder what the conversation was after they walked away, in the car, at the house.

Was there ever a conversation about what just happened, or was that the end of it? He never acknowledged me. He never spoke to me. He never apologized. It was as if I just really did not exist. And so it stuck with me for a good two to three months trying to process this little white girl running up to me saying, “Daddy, what is that?”

Not, “What is he?” Or, “Who is this?” But, “What is that?” I’m polling my students at the time, and this gave me some really good insight. Maybe it should be a re- research project one day, but I was asking a lot of my students, “When was the first time that you knew that Black people existed?” Or another question I asked is “Did you all grow up with Black people around?

When was your first encounter with a Black person in real life?” And to my surprise, I wish I would have had it recorded and published or something, ’cause I feel like people just won’t believe me. But many of them said I’m coming from this place,” or, “This place in Pennsylvania,” or, “This place in wherever the location is, and I actually didn’t have any Black people in my high school or growing up.

It’s very few Black people in town. I really didn’t see any.” And then when I came to Rutgers, I asked some of the students the question, and some of them were also saying the same thing. “There’s no diversity where I’m from.” So that shocks me. So I say how do you find out that we exist?” “Oh, we see you on the news.”

And we know that the news is an outlet that perpetuates really negative things, lies about Black and brown folks, and media doesn’t portray us always in the best of lights. And so it pushed for further conversation. And that is where the depth of my passion for identity development, social justice education, diversity has begun, and then the evolution of that into the understanding more of inclusion, and now I’m really deeply rooted in advocacy and equity.

I still can’t believe it at times that has happened. But I’m really grateful that I encountered that because I think I might have been walking in the Earth as a naive Black man. Hearing the stories understanding Black history from a storytelling lens of this is what happened in this time period or to those people, but never really experiencing it myself live and in person that opened my eyes to what is gonna be the direction and the path that I’m taking in student affairs.

‘Cause I knew residence life was not gonna be my home. I can’t be on call the rest of my life. I don’t care how much you give me a nice place to live. You can have this duty phone back, okay? But for sure, where am I going? And when I got to Rutgers, I spent two years in res life. That was my entry point into Rutgers University.

And then my previous director, who then discovered me, if you will, I’ll use that language, and said, “You need to come over to our place and do this work ’cause you do it well. I’ve seen your workshops. I hear you. We have an assistant director role. I want you to do that.” So I did. I joined the Center for Social Justice, Ed, and LGBT Communities as the assistant director.

I traveled through positions that I created with her, and then she got her doctorate. She left, and then I became interim director, and I had to prove that for a year and two months before I was elevated to the director. And so I’ve been the director now for, what, eight, eight-ish years. I’m going into my 14th year at Rutgers spending the majority of my time in this center and also teaching in women and gender studies.

So that’s my story. The time that I found out that Black people didn’t exist, and ever since then, I’ve been making sure that everybody knows that we are here, that we are smart, that we are present, that we’re creative. We’re all the things that you know of and more. We are literally the backbone and the foundation to what happens in this world, and the things that people love, we most likely created or popularized it.

So that’s where I’ll stop. I’ll end that story, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you’re taking from it or what you wanna know more about

Helena Gardener: Okay

J.T. Snipes: Nat, can we add applause? I want that for sure.

Helena Gardener: We need an applause button to just bring it in. Yeah. We need an applause button and like a what and a aw. We need them. We need those sounds.

J.T. Snipes: Let’s see if we can get a soundboard. Yeah. Talk, talk to the crew about that

Helena Gardener: So here’s what’s on my mind.

I, oh, it’s too many things. One of the I I think I’m gonna go with it. I think I’m gonna go with it.

Keywuan Caulk: Okay.

Helena Gardener: What did you hope Dad would’ve said? Like, when you think about it either at the real time or as you’ve grown and evolved and reflected. I don’t know which time. I don’t care which time it is.

Wherever you find a point, what do you hope he would have had the ability to say?

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah, that’s a good question. I’ve actually never pondered that. Not in that particular format of a question. I think what I would hope he would have said was something around, “What are you talking about? What is that?

This is a person. It’s a, it’s this-” Yeah … “this is a man, let’s ask him who he is.” I think creating opportunity and space to teach your child how to get to know someone, or to still be curious, right? ‘Cause children are curious- Yeah. Yeah … and I always teach my students that curiosity breeds discovery.

But how do you open the door for curiosity in a way that isn’t offensive, that is inviting? Or a- at least an apology. “Oh, I’m sorry about my daughter,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would’ve hoped something was said, but it was an “I don’t know” and a walk away, which kinda just left me like, “What just happened to me?”

Helena Gardener: It’s like dehumanizing, right? It’s like- Yes … I just think of it so many ways, and I appreciate you saying curiosity because it’s like nurture that for baby girl. Nurture that curiosity in her and allow it to go, right? Even if it’s beyond your being.

Keywuan Caulk: Yes.

Helena Gardener: Don’t stifle that for children.

That’s one part for me is don’t do that. That is how they understand and explore. But that’s why I said what did you wish he had the ability to do, because I think I’m giving some grace when I say there’s an inability for you to m- for, for that dad to move through whatever was happening.

It’d be grace if I said it was discomfort. I think it could be grace to say it was an awkward moment, but the “I don’t know” is just disrespect.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah. Yeah.

Helena Gardener: For hu- for your humanity, yeah. So I am sorry that ever happened to you, but I am- All things happen for a reason, so I’ma just leave it there.

J.T. Snipes: Yeah. I can’t help but think about a couple of things as I was listening to your story. So first, a shout-out to Beverly Tatum’s classic text, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together? Cafeteria table, right? Absolutely. I think she has… she outlines a similar incident where, she’s in the grocery store and a little girl says to her I think she says, “Mommy, what’s wrong with that woman’s skin?”

“Has she been rolling around in the dirt?” And it immediately took me back to that passage, right? ‘Cause a- as isolating and harmful as these incidents can be, they are by no means an aberration, right? Like-

Helena Gardener: Yeah. Yeah …

J.T. Snipes: they are very common. So it also takes me back to Du Bois- right? In The Souls of Black Folks.

Keywuan Caulk: Yes. And

J.T. Snipes: He asked the question, how does it feel to be a problem? And I think that’s what your story awakens in me or reminds me. Yeah. Yeah. That some hundred years later, right? Souls of Black Folks was written in what, 1905, 1904? Over 100 120 years later-

… We are still grappling with the same- Yeah … question of, what does it mean to be a problem? So I’m curious as an educator a social justice educator, someone who is tapped into thinking about justice and equity, h- how do you not become overwhelmed by the r- … the rinse, wash, and repeat of it all, right?

Like Groundhog Day. Yeah. Here we go again with ignoring or dehumanizing Black folks. I know that’s an easy question.

Keywuan Caulk: I don’t think that there is an option to not be overwhelmed at some point. I think you can learn how to cope, and I think that’s what Black and brown people do. We learn how to cope with societal structure, systems of oppression.

We learn how to put it on when we go outside of our homes in order to stay safe and return back to our families and our spaces. But you never are absolved of overwhelm. It’s so interesting. As you said earlier, Helena it’s serendipitous that you would even use that word. Because one thing about me as a Black leader, I’m very transparent with my staff, and I literally text them after work and said, “Today overwhelmed me.

Literally, today overwhelmed me.” There was so much to do today, so much teaching, so much learning, right? So much sharing space and storytelling with others, and then preparing for this. I had to acknowledge I am overwhelmed with this j- this justice stuff, with this DEI stuff today. What helps me to empty out a little bit is the fact that I get to engage truthfully and honestly with people.

There is always space for me to tell my story, my piece, as an example to what removing barriers look like, what accessibility for Black and brown and marginalized folks like LGBT people, especially trans folks, look like. There’s always space for me to empty into this space a little bit, but I still have to worry about leaving space and being a Black leader.

I’m not just a Black leader, I’m a Black queer leader, right? And I’m also a single person, so I live my life very much with this economy looking crazy. So I’m balancing a lot of things. And where is my space, right? So I remember Trisha Hersey tells us that rest is resistance as well, but rest is not only sleep.

Rest is also the ways that we balance our calendars. It’s always the way that we tell our stories or we empty out. Do we journal? Do we therapy, right? I think, do we church or do we not? Do we have spiritual practice? Do we gym? So what is my rest and my, as my resistance? That’s super important for me to hold daily as well as I empty out the overwhelm.

And hopefully that answers the question, but that is, that’s how I do it. But I’m never without it. I’m gonna

Helena Gardener: tell you what, I get so excited to be around people who are just really smart, jaw-dropping, like quotes and pulling in relevant authors, and I’m just I love it so much. O- one, I think all people, again, talking about ability, have the ability to.

I think it is something just amazing when it is in, in just honest, authentic, Halena way Blackness. Because I, I think that sometimes in that I don’t know, those are the things for me that get suppressed, that get missed, right? It, the greatness, the magnitude when I even speak of like the magic of you, like that is what is missed.

That is what is minimized. And in the same way that I’m wanting and wishing for nurturing to that baby girl-

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah …

Helena Gardener: like the, that thin line that exists where all of that can be stifled and gone forever is what I, just for no reason, grieving more. But when I like hear it and see it, I’m so excited about it because I do know that at any twist and turn, it becomes overwhelming.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah.

Helena Gardener: And one of the things that I have been working on with myself lately is also understanding that overwhelming is a way of being full. It doesn’t have to be a way that of capacity or maybe capacity’s not the, the word when I say full, but your ability to manage emotion- Yeah … and feelings and things with overwhelm.

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed because I’ve done it all so well that I am full with well, and it is over. It is over the c- … the top where it should be because I’ve just managed it all. And so I’ve been really wrapping my mind around making that a way of life for myself, because that feeling can be misinterpreted as you, you can’t, but actually I did, and that’s why I sent a text to my staff because I did that today.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah.

Helena Gardener: But I also wanna sit with the impact on me. So with that I think we got time for one more good question here. And the question- Is a little bit different than the rinse and repeat.

Keywuan Caulk: Okay.

Helena Gardener: This question is more Today. When you tell that story today Why? Why is one? Where can be another. Or how do you hope it lands?

But for today, what is, what, what is that like for you?

Keywuan Caulk: In writing, we’re often taught to open our papers or our body of work with something that is attention-grabbing and something that is a hook and reel, if you will. I think this piece of storytelling is what grabs the attention of the audiences that I am usually in front of. So to your where question, it’s usually in workshops.

It can be in keynote speeches that I’m giving or even how I start every semester in my class. Because I wanna make sure they know that I’m gonna root all the things that we’re learning in Blackness when I talk about myself and my experience to womanhood in my class, right? So it’s always gonna be to my Black mom.

However the why is to grab your attention and to give you a piece of information that today’s folk don’t even know still exists in, in large parts. I think we especially in this area, it’s very diverse. You’re gonna see people from all over this world in this area.

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Keywuan Caulk: And I think- Yeah.

Yeah … Rutgers is also a microcosm of where we live, given that we’re over 50,000 people on our campus day in and day out, plus the local town and who’s there. You’re not seeing that there is a possibility that people won’t understand who you are by looking at you.

Can’t identify you. And what I appreciate about the little girl that some of these grownups don’t have is her boldness- Yeah

and confidence to walk up to me and say it, right? We love a say it to my face type of situation. And that was what I appreciate about her, is that you had the boldness to do that, but you didn’t have the support to nurture it.

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Keywuan Caulk: And we bring it to class, and we bring it to these educational spaces as a means to bring you in, to humble you a little bit in your confidence around race relations in this country.

And furthermore, in New Jersey.

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Keywuan Caulk: So that’s the why. My hope is that by the time it’s all said and done, that there is a consciousness for humans as they walk about the world in whatever form, whatever intersectional identity we might have, and an understanding of how the systems will continue to perpetuate ignorance.

Ignorance is not bliss in any shape or form for any situation. Ignorance will c- continue to perpetuate the isms. It will also become the barriers. It also will be the death of others, right? And so when I make it real and understand, like, how we get to caskets as Black folks and Black men, and it’s these conversations that are not had many people are killed because of a lack of understanding.

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah … so I’m Christian, and in my scripture it says I’m gonna reference, “Without a vision, the people perish.” And sometimes the people don’t know how to have vision ’cause we’re not taught how to see well. And so I wanna give people space to grow in how they see and what they see and how to connect to what they see.

And then we also teach people how to see what they can’t see, and that’s hard. That is very critical, that’s analytical, and that’s curious. Students aren’t taught at home how to be curious anymore. Think about our Black parents, do as I say, right? I used to ask my mother questions. She’d say, “Don’t question what I say.

Do what I said to do.” So now I’m unlocking what it means to see differently in the spaces that I occupy. I hope that when you see differently, you can treat people differently

Helena Gardener: Yeah. ‘Cause that’s that experiencing life through that storytelling lens, you only heard about it. And we’re in a season where the warnings and the, the myths and the things are great to help you think through the world. I was talking to a friend recently about how in community, at least in my community and their community, as Black people, may not be all Blackness, but for our conversation, that we share things that we experience epigenetically and things we actually encounter, and we sometimes share it as, as you said, “Don’t do or don’t go.”

We were specifically talking about, I’ma be light with it, be short ’cause we’re at time. Recent allegations of what maybe we don’t do or what parents should think about differently because the unintended outcomes or the unanswerable outcomes that can sometimes happen, as you said, to I’ll use what you said, Black men, right?

We see Black men up in caskets, and a lot of times we’ll say sh- we give a lot of shoulds.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah.

Helena Gardener: Or the shouldn’ts, but we’re not always telling the, the why, right? We don’t tell the story of what happened, right? We… In Gettysburg, they’re telling a story of what happened, so you’re fully aware of the land you are traveling.

And we may say things like, “Don’t ask, don’t question. Please don’t do.” But the, the learning is in what happens when I’m there?” Because some things that curiosity can’t be afforded. Yeah. And some things I just need to tell you.

Keywuan Caulk: This is it.

Helena Gardener: But when you experience, it moves it beyond the story.

And I just love that you say people experience a lot of things through a storytelling lens, but they don’t know what that real is like. And so- We don’t

Curiosity, as you said, isn’t being taught anymore. So if we don’t tell what happened. Yeah. We see things.

Keywuan Caulk: Yeah.

Helena Gardener: We see those things, and this is I’m thinking and I’m finding myself hesitating on what it is I’m talking about. And it’s that line.

J.T. Snipes: You c- you can speak

Helena Gardener: freely,

J.T. Snipes: Crystal.

Go for it, JT. Go, y- go ahead.

Helena Gardener: I know I can speak freely. Speak freely. I know I can. Thank you for the encouragement, because I’m thinking about the allegations of Nolan Wells, and I’m thinking about the incarceration and the multiple stories of Carmelo Anthony, right? And I’m thinking about Daniel Irvin, and I’m thinking about my son.

I am thinking about what happens when we’re left at the story and the wonder of, “Ah, that’s a great story,” but what the reality is. So I thank you for sharing that. I thank you for encouraging curiosity. And I am grateful for the person who- Was able to see you

Keywuan Caulk: Yes

Helena Gardener: So that guy wasn’t.

We may never see him again. We may have seen him again. We don’t know. Yeah, we don’t know. We don’t know. His daughter could grow- we don’t know what she gonna grow up to be. Hopefully she was able to still get that, that nurturing. But the person who saw you, and you said discovered you, I’m grateful for that discovery.

Because when it was time to be seen, you had the opportunity to enhance 50,000 lives over and over again at the tune, say if I, if my count is right, at least in one space-

…

Helena Gardener: Eight to nine years. Yeah. At 50,000 a go, right? And you may not get, you might get 49,999 because one of them just didn’t show up.

They just didn’t show up every year. But collectively- Collectively … because I think that’s the other thing we’re not doing in our work, is really thinking about how our reach goes year after year, and it doesn’t stop within the confines of our campuses. So I’m grateful for the person who saw you, and I ironically feel like we need to be grateful for the person who didn’t choose to see you-

Keywuan Caulk: Yes.

Yes …

Helena Gardener: because it brought you an opportunity to be like I can see, so I have the blessing and the privilege, so I’m a see.” Yeah. So thank you for that. And- Yeah, it’s

Keywuan Caulk: a missed opportunity. I love that you are, like, naming that because it also has encouraged me as a a mentor, as someone who is also discovering students and tapping into “This is who you are.

This is what you’re strong in,” or, “This is what I see for you,” and really sticking with them as we grow. Particularly other for me, other men of color who- Yeah … I’ve had the opportunity to cross paths with, who are suffering real bad from imposter syndrome, or no one’s ever encouraged them around their intellect and how smart they are.

Or, you were a leader in your household, but we don’t translate that to what that leadership looks like in the world around you. And so doing that, having that happen to me, I feel s- I have to pay it forward, Yeah … to create space for more people. What does liberation look like?

It’s not gonna always be in a policy change. … The systems are gonna be the systems, honestly, and if we don’t abolish them and start over somehow, some way, the systems are gonna be the systems. What is my little part in this to impact? And when you talk about reach, I’m gonna send people out.

I like to say I’m training you now to send you into the world to be as great or greater than I. Yeah. And that’s important to me. The bus project was important. That’s extending the impact of my reach, but also the work of the people who built my center, which are other Black folks who built my center.

Lionel Cuffy was a gay sophomore student when he was inspired by Stonewall Riots, and then my center was created. So I’m standing on the shoulders of advocates and giants from my own community. The thought of messing that up- Ooh … and all the lives that has been transformed in the space, the survival stories.

I don’t know if I would be alive if it wasn’t for this particular space. It’s not just a resource center on a college campus. It’s a hospital. It’s chosen family. We are in a house, so we- it’s easy for us to have family-like atmosphere. S- academic success. It’s hard conversations you’re never gonna have in class, but these are the conversations you’re gonna need for everyday life, right?

We’ve seen people transition from their physical identities, socially transition. It’s so many things, so I value the space. I value how I’m able to see them and help them see themselves f- in the future. So I appreciate you naming that.

Helena Gardener: Like water. I’m telling you, like water. It’s flowing. It just flows.

It just flows. JT, you got anything finally? Final words? Final questions?

J.T. Snipes: No, just thank you for sharing your story authentically with me and with our audience.

…

J.T. Snipes: It it is a reminder of the work that still lies ahead of us. And I, and Helena, I appreciate you naming the moment that we’re in terms of what is happening to Black boys, particularly in the South and in my home state of Texas.

Seeing the deaths particularly of Carmelo Anthony and Daniel Irvin most recently strikes a chord. And we need to hear stories about Black folks existing and continuing to exist in the future, right? The work of Afrofuturists is to imagine futures with Black folks in them because-

Oppressive folks, white folks-

Helena Gardener: Yeah …

J.T. Snipes: white supremist white folks do not want to see us in the future. They want us to be eradicated. So I’m grateful for all of our collective imaginings of a future together that is beautiful and one that we exist. So thank you, future Dr. Cock for- Yeah, thank you … sharing-

Helena Gardener: Right?

J.T. Snipes: sharing that with us.

Helena Gardener: Yes. Yeah, most welcome. Thank you. Thank

Keywuan Caulk: y’all.

Helena Gardener: Thank you. I’m gonna do another quick shout-out to our sponsor. I think it, it connects pretty closely here. Given the con- the current context of higher education, we need to invest in leaders with the capacity and the capabilities to transform their institutions and the future of higher education.

The Evolve Institute for Higher Education offers four leadership coaching journeys tailored to four different leadership levels. Each is a three-month journey that includes individual and group coaching, plus a curated curriculum of short asynchronous video modules. We also offer… Not we, they also offer Evolve for leadership teams.

If you are, if you’re ready for Evolve, your leadership voice… let me do that right for Evolve, ’cause I sat with them. I went to an informational, ’cause I wanted to know. I want to know what the sponsorship does, and I’m real interested in Evolve will see me in April. We also offer with Evolve leadership for teams, and if you’re ready to evolve your leadership voice, visit theevolveinstitute.com to learn more.

There’s some great people, had the fortunate opportunity to do a Student Affairs NOW episode with the Evolve leaders and I describe them as humanists, like I would describe the two of you. And I love a well-made human who is here to make the world better. This has been Here Is The Story. I’m your host, Helena.

I’m turning to JT before I sell us out.

J.T. Snipes: What up, y’all? JT, happy to be a part of this.

Helena Gardener: And we along with our third host, Neil, we provide this format as an opportunity for folks who are doing the work, walking the walk, talking the talk, to be able to be in community, share stories, share laughter, commiserate cry if the situation calls for it, to allow us to remember ourselves, our humanity and to Remind all those we serve that we walking this earth just like they’re walking this earth.

This is how we chose to use our passions. Again, if you have a story to tell, and we know you do, if you talk to me anywhere, I’m gonna find that story and I’m gonna pull you on this show. But you can leave your own pitch at studentaffairsnow.com/heresthestory. Again, you can find us on YouTube, anywhere you enjoy podcasts, and always at studentaffairsnow.com.

There’s also a Patreon group if you are interested in having some more intimate conversation. And most recently, Student Affairs Now began a book club. That book club is probably into… It’s about a month and a half in, so don’t go look to join that, but keep your eye out for opportunities with studentaffairsnow.com.

Shout-out to our fantastic editor, Nat Ambrosey. Nat helps us look good, helps us sound good and just takes care of us on the other end, so we appreciate you, Nat. And on that note, again, this is Here’s the Story. We thank you, Keywuan, for your time, for your story, and we see You, you are magic.

What’s that? That’s magic right there. Thank you all, and we will catch you next time.