Becki Elkins
Yeah, I think, you know, I, I think we talk about intersecting identities a lot. I don’t know, from a practice perspective that we, on whole, have figured out really how to tend to and care for people’s intersecting identities. I think about that. I just was a co author on a paper that was really a student’s work looking at the enrollment patterns of queer, mentally ill neurodivergent and disabled students, and who also had many other salient identities. And I think we are, we are not having conversations about how do we take the, for a field that talks about the whole student, we really struggle, I think, today to get to the whole student. And I understand that’s because we have a lot of them, but but I really think that we, we have to look at that from a practice perspective, and how do we, you know, in my role, how do I help prepare practitioners, not just think about, here’s the Pride Center, and I might want to go work there, or here’s the, you know, Office of Multicultural Student Services, and I might want to go get there. Go work there. And I think the other the final thing that I would say is, we can’t go back, we can’t come to a place where DEI folks in DEI offices are the only ones doing this work, right? We just can’t.

Raechele Pope
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host, Raechele Pope. And I’m also joined today by co host Michael Almond, who who you will hear from in just a bit. Today we’re discussing ACPAs leadership in the queering of higher education. This is part of a 13 episode series for ACPAs 100th anniversary, and a partnership between ACPA and Student Affairs now, we have three amazing guests today, Jonathan Poullard, Becki Elkins, and Quortne Hutchings to talk about this topic, the association’s history and our future in boldly transforming higher education. 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 and 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 C three nonprofit association, which is sponsoring this special 13 episode series with Student Affairs NOW to celebrate its 100th anniversary of boldly transforming higher education. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she and her and I’m a professor in the higher education and student affairs program at the University of Buffalo. And I also served as a Senior Associate Dean 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 unseeded Land of the Shawnee people.

Michael Almond
Thank you for that introduction, Rochelle. And I’m your co host, Michael Almond. My pronouns are he and his. I’m currently a program coordinator in the department of student volunteerism and service at Kennesaw State University where I encouraged college students involved with community engagement activities off campus. And we’re recording today from Kennesaw Georgia which is the ancestral homelands the Cherokee East people. So let’s get the conversation started. We’re grateful to welcome all three of our guests and we’re going to have them introduce themselves right now. So please introduce yourself with your pronouns and land acknowledgement. And then just share a little bit about yourself and how you’re entering this conversation today. So I’ll start with you, Becki.

Becki Elkins
Thanks, Michael. My name is Becki Elkins, you she her pronouns. And I am coming to you from Coralville, Iowa. Land stolen from the which I’m an Associate Professor and Student Affairs Administration at the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse, which is occupying the lands of the people’s. I’m a cisgender white woman who is loving life in my 50. So that’s how I’m showing up today. But I think most importantly, today, I identify as an out proud lesbian. And I owe much of my ability to say that and to claim my identity, of course, to you know, sort of get old good old development theory, but also to ACPA. And so I’m really excited to be here for this conversation. Thank you for having

Michael Almond
Thank you, Becki. Next, I’ll have Jonathan introduce himself.

Jonathan Poullard
Hello, everyone, Jonathan Poullard coming to you from Mexico and the state of Jalisco, from. I use him, he him his pronouns. I am a long standing member of the left ACPA, I have been in the profession or was in the profession for over 30 years. For the last 10/11 I have been working as the president of the equity Consulting Group, we provide senior leadership development, trainings across the world, very happy to be doing that healing work. While NAACP, I was a part of the Standing Committee and was a proud Chair of what was then the standing committee now the coalition and how am I showing up? I’m just happy to be alive. I’m very grateful. And I’m very grateful to be a part of this, I think, very necessary conversation. I think history is so contextual and so important to us, we often forget it. So we’ll be able to talk about this with you all in this very inclusive way. Feels very warming to me. So thank you for having me.

Michael Almond
Thank you, Jonathan. And last we’ll have Quortne introduce themselves.

Quortne Hutchings
So hello, everyone. My name is Quortne Hutchings. I should go by Q. My pronouns are they them. There’s Assistant Professor in higher education at Northern Illinois University, which is people. I’m also very much indebted and thinking very much about unseeded lands and thinking about the ways around how we ought to be RE and RE reminded the ways we take up and occupy spaces for indigenous folks. I think what I’m coming to this conversation, I’m a, I always say I might be newer to ACPAs started ACPA, in 2019. We got that phrase called I’m not new to this, but I’m I’m new but I’m also true to this work, particularly in ways around centering queer and trans folks identify as black, queer, non binary, which is also has been ways around how my presentation, this masculine has also centered in different ways around this binary notions of language and gender. And so that’s also been very much reminded for myself through not only my scholarship and my research, but also how I’m coming to this conversation, they’re going away, it’s about intersections of our identities, often come up in around historical moments, particularly for us with an association, and queer people in general. So those are things that I’m thinking about right now.

Raechele Pope
Well, what an exciting opportunity to talk with you all I am just, I mean, the conversations that we could have, just from your introductions, is amazing. But I thought perhaps for our viewers, we should back up a little and talk about this history in this context that we that Jonathan mentioned, in particular. So when we were thinking was about we share some of the history of LGBTQ plus or queer issues in higher education. I think we can use ACPAs leadership in queer in higher education as a loose proxy for the experiences of other higher education and student affairs, professional associations in the fields of higher education, student affairs themselves. And so I was wondering if we can use the history and examples from the coalition of gender and sexual identities, formally the standing committee for LGBT awareness as a place to begin, so. So how about we get you to start us off there, Jonathan.

Jonathan Poullard
I’d be happy to So again, very familiar with our beautiful history. For those who don’t know, we were the standing committee for our first lesbian gay awareness. There was no, it was gay and lesbian awarenesses was in the mid 1980s. And Jamie Washington and Vernon wall, and Mary McGee, Jim Crow toe, Amy Reynolds, some of our first founders who came together in a very small little rooms inside of the convention, hotels, sort of invited space to create this, this little small but mighty group of folk, it was Mary McGee, who pushed for the inclusion of bisexual folks. So we began our identity in the 80s, as the standing committee for lesbian, gay and bisexual awareness. I came into this understanding of this association in the late 80s, I was a little coordinator and Residence Life at Penn State. Way back in the day, I went to my first ACPA Convention, and of course, Jamie Washington was there to greet me, he became my mentor. He’s now one of my closest friends. We’ve been in this work together for more than 35 years. Hate to say that out loud, but yes, more than 35 years. And it was at that time that I became very heavily involved in the standing committee, which was called at the time, I was looking to become a coordinator. It was also during this time that we sort of stole from the standing committee for women, how we would set ourselves up and how we would make ourselves known in the association, the Senate committee for women had a very strong network, and a very strong understanding of governance for how they ran their, their their group, we basically said, Let’s just steal with pride. And we basically copied that same model for growing out the standing committees Directorate. It was in the mid 90s, early 90s and mid 90s, that we actually began having our summer meetings. And basically using an equity model where people just whatever the cost was, we divided by the number of members, again, took this right from the Senate committee for women and men on campuses where we could actually have free housing, so that all of us can get to the standard committee major meeting, because most of us were young professionals who had no budget for professional development. So this is a way for us to actually meet do the work and grow. It was under the tenure of of Julie Elkins who actually helped to push us to think about the inclusion of tea and our names. This was the midnight so like 9596 It was it was you would have thought the world was getting ready to come unglued. Just as hot hardest the B was to add the tea was equally hard. And during our summer meeting in Boston, while I was the chair of the Standing Committee, we went and got ourselves educated. And I remember penning a letter and then developments, which was a newspaper at the time, it was not online. It was a newspaper, I penned a letter with the help of the director to explain why we wanted to add the tea, we had gone to the Center for Transgender awareness, we have to we have long in depth conversations around what that would mean for us. And the then governance structure on which I said wanted us to become the extended committee of sexual orientations. We were like, No, we’re not, that’s not what this is. So trends, is not about sexual orientation, per se, we had to break this apart, we got to add the T. And they were more concerned about our name becoming too long as thinking through why we felt it was so important to add that T to our names. And so it was It was also during Julie’s tenure that the big gay dance began with five literally black gay men, voguing having a bow contest, at the VIN social, that is how that happened. I was there we had a boom box somewhere in winning. Well, who wouldn’t got the boombox for someone that got the boombox to then have our social, which then became one of the biggest premiere events of the association, not just for the standing committee or the coalition, but for the entire association. So that was, again, that was pretty amazing.

Raechele Pope
Let me just say that that was pretty amazing. Because this went from a small sort of dance social to this big voting thing to a place to be seen. So exactly. Firing, you wanted to show that you were an ally, to directly you had to be there.

Jonathan Poullard
you had to come, you had to make an appearance you just had to. And even after I stopped being the chair, I was part of the big game. But I had to make an appearance, I had to go and show my face and walk around with all these young folks who I didn’t even know anymore, but I had to go somewhere. That’s what well, that’s just what you did you go show your face. So off, I would go. It was also then that Tony Kearney in 1998 97 98 said we should have a direct show. This was another big pivotal moment in our little associations history. So I was like, Okay, that’s interesting. Let’s think about that. I was very afraid. For our young professionals. I was very fearful that if we had the Drag show, they might not get jobs in this was the 90s. Right. And so it was not what it was now. And so we said, Okay, we’ll do it our first convening in Atlanta, as long as we do it off site. So we made sure that that event took place that way people went, they knew where they were coming to they were coming to a gay bar, to see us and be in our world. So if you’re choosing to go there, that’s different than happening on it at the convention. That was the thinking right, and actually began to then spawn not only our sort of power in the association, but sort of reclaiming that how we show up and how we take up space is not in these monolithic ways that there are multiple ways that we can show up and take space and be seen and be known and be understood. That was really why we did this. And so now I’m very happy that the cavalry is still in existence, some whatever, many years later, but that was its beginning. And it was also then that we really sort of started to think through how can we position ourselves to be in collaboration with than other standing committees. So it was our standing committee and the standing committee for multicultural affairs that began the first coalition’s coming together to think about how we broker our of marginalized voices in the association. Right. So we had our own meetings, we would all come together and think about our shared agendas that needed to be on the docket for the association. At the time, all five of us sat on the governing body. That was before they changed the structure of the organization. So I was an actual member of the governing board or the executive committee, as it was called as the chair of the Standing Committee. And we went to make sure that it wasn’t just because we recognized the intersectionality of how we showed up and how we took up space, and many of us were members of multiple standing committees. We may have had a home in one, but we were actually part of many. So that just gives you an overview then, and quite honestly, I’m gonna need help because I have no idea when we became a coalition. By that point, I had left the association because I left UC Berkeley in 2013 as the Dean of Students, I don’t know when that happened, but it happened somewhere after that.

Raechele Pope
Well, there were two other things that happened in them. That was a very what it gave were those voices, those voices that were often marginalized, a very big seat on that governing board on that executive board. We had a real voice because we had come together. Now, there were two other things. And I think this might, I’m not sure if this over laughs with Becki’s time period. I mean, because she picks up where you left, I think she was there with you too. But she’s picks up. But there was this whole, the AIDS Memorial and the experience of AIDS in the community. And I remember I think I don’t remember who began that. But that started again, as a small room, we demanded that we have that experience, because there were so many people there and in IRC community, that we’re losing people. And then it turned into one of the biggest events of the conference again. And then it was later changed to be a memorial for anyone who had passed away. But that was

Jonathan Poullard
about that was about them and that was Julie were the ones who really pushed for having the AES Memorial. And we actually didn’t name the fun after vow after he died of cancer. So that he would always sort of be remembered in that space in that way. So the Standing Committee at the time had scholarship funds set aside in his name, and in honor of what he was able to do to bring. And this again, was late 80s, early 90s, right that this came to the fore, right, and again, it kind of it kind of morphed into an annual memorial for the association. And before that happened, though, there was much consternation to change it to an association wide Memorial, and we pushed back and we said, No, we’re not going to do an association, wide Memorial. No, we must pull space for the impact. And that pandemic that is AIDS, and we’re not letting this go. So again, I don’t know when that transition to an association wide Memorial, but up until at least 1999 2000. It was the 80s.

Raechele Pope
Okay, so Becki, maybe you can help us from here on out here your experience and where the association has gone since then.

Becki Elkins
Yeah, that’s great. I want to pause though, and just, I think it’s really important to, to note the courage that it took for folks to step forward in a professional association. Right. And, and, you know, demand and claim a right to be there. And I think about that in the context of the formation, right, the formation that Jonathan just talked about, that’s happening in 1984 1985, right? The first time that AIDS was out front page news article in The New York Times was 1983, these things are happening, you know, a very similar time. And you see, here’s why I think about this, I have, I have myself, a queer child. And my queer child just recently graduated from college, and we have to have this conversation all the time, about when, when, when I was early on doing this work, there were no gay folks on TV. There were no, you know, there was no queer I there was no right there. There was no Bravo channel, right, that these things were not the culture or the context in which all of this was happening. So I think it’s important to note the, the association history, but also to put it in context of what’s happening societally, in, in the US and then globally, as well. And, and I think, to pair with that, the ostracization that happened of student affairs professionals who either stepped forward and advised at the time lesbian and gay student organizations, particularly those that were their campuses, where they sued their campuses for recognition, right? Those folks were ostracized, regardless of regardless of their own identity. Right? They, they, they, they lost jobs, they lost opportunities for promotion. And so I think there’s a there’s a great article by Michael Hubbell on Tim Kaine that just came out in 2022. Looking at Steven lutins story, who was at Virginia Commonwealth, I believe, is the the police and so, you know, I think to just pause and really honor the courage that it took to, to step forward and step into that space and, and and claim it. I was a young professional in the 1990s I attended my first ACPA in 2000. I was stunned. I remember signing up I was absolutely stunned that there was like, there was a standing committee for LGBT folks. And I had been working in the mid 90s, alongside graduate assistants at the Texas A&M working to provide support services for lesbian gay, and we did manage to add bisexual, but we were unser unsuccessful adding the T to that, that we tried several times. So we’ve been working there, this was before there was a campus pride organization, right, it was, was difficult to find space, where you were the only professional doing this work on your campus, it was difficult to find space to connect with people on your campus. And so you had to look outside of your campus. And those resources weren’t readily available, they weren’t readily available at the professional associations I was part of. And so when I went to ECPA, and I found the Standing Committee, and I went to my first meeting of that standing committee, and it was standing room only. That was amazing. To me, it was amazing. And for me, then ACPA became home. It was literally in that moment, I remember standing in that room and listening to folks talk about why they wanted to be the Directorate chair. And, and thinking, This is my home, these are my people, where have you been all along. And, and so that the organization really became my home. It was the first time I felt seen and heard, and felt like I could be in a space where at the time identified as bisexual, and I could, I could say that out loud. And be be be accepted. And not, I still worried about job security, and I worried about what my, at the time I was, in my doctoral program, what my my faculty were gonna think of me and what my, my then partner with, I think I had all sorts of worries. But you know, I think that that was, it was essential, it was an essential space, and then you sort of move forward and think about all the ways in which we have made promises that we haven’t lived up to. And so I think about the conversations about the ways in which we have added trans to the name, but we have not actually lived up to I think, some of the assertions that we make as an association. And so to really watch and be part of the wrestling with those conversations, I think, for me, also demonstrated, not only is this a place where you can claim that space, but you have to learn to pull, you have to learn to pull apart the ways in which we’ve thought about and identified that space, as we continue to grow and evolve. And I think, you know, associations develop, just like people do. And I think that’s some of what I’ve seen at ACPA.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, you know, I really appreciate that. They can because especially the honoring of the of the courage, and I also think about those people who read before these people, because I do believe that the history says that before this group that we’ve already named as these founders who said, Okay, I’ve got that there were people before them who were saying, I can’t or I risk too much, or I did this and created a space where we could begin. And so you know, I really appreciate you stopping to honor those.

Jonathan Poullard
Yeah, let me just add one more thing there too. And speaking about the courage, I forgot to mention Joe Campbell. Yes. Who followed me, chair. Joe, was the keeper of names. Yep. This is critically important to our history. Because people were so afraid about being out. She kept a separate separate database for over 20 years of people who were on our standing committee. Yeah, just so their names would not be in the association’s database, and they could receive the resources that they needed to feel supported as LGBT folk. I mean, I think about that and just how she kept say, she was the only person we didn’t even know as directorate members who was on that list. Only Joan? Yeah, right. Keep that Yeah, yeah, I know. I got had chills thinking about her role? That was the period of time. Yeah.

Raechele Pope
And then we move into the more recent with Q, you know, joining us in 2019. Tell us, tell us about you and how you see the associated, oh, how you came into it or whatever.

Quortne Hutchings
Yeah, I came into the association as a practitioner, but also was a recent doctoral student. I have worked previously and LGBTQ work at my institution where I got my got my doctorate, and I was really trying to find a space where I could really be seen in that space. And during that time, in 2019, always said I was at my before, before, I came out as non binary. But I remember coming to ACTA, and there was just this sense of weight that was lifted off of me, there was a space where I saw so many different types of queer folks from many different intersections. And there was a space where I, you would have conversations where you felt like you didn’t have to be, be something that you weren’t. And I remember going to cabaret and people were talking about this thing called cabaret. And I was like, I was like, how I was like, How is there a drag show like at a, at a conference, and they were like, No, you just have to go, you just have to go and I remember going there. And I had been at drag shows before and other you know, other spaces, personally, but to go there in association, so just felt like they were centering our community and such beautiful ways. And to also see, faculty, I remember seeing one of my faculty members performing and I just screamed, it screams kind of like Tom and Jerry, and just to see that representation, but also seeing practitioners seeing students seeing just history in that space was really profound. And it gave me some thoughts a process of like, who this has been here for had been here for so amount of time, there must have been folks who were here beforehand to make sure that this place like existed. And so that made me think about on my first my first AICPA what are the ways around how history also it’s important for us to be to recognize and acknowledge that there wasn’t for me to be there 2019 and met that folks in the 80s and the 90s and into the early 2000s. Were there because of the space and so I think now that I’ve been been in the space for a few years I’m often thinking about the ways how queerness is very much enter interconnected into different coalition’s so now you see multiple votes, multiple spaces across different coalition’s around queer representation on directorate boards on these different different Commission’s and coalition’s that is really is really due to the work of folks, folks from from historical perspective. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about like, what is the intersections of queerness looks like? That is not just also, but also how to set permeate and other spaces. You no cross the association.

Michael Almond
Yeah. Thank you all for that, that historical context with ACPA in mind. I know I’m someone who’s very new to the association as well. And so just having that background is really impactful for me and understanding, you know, what were the struggles and the difficulties it did take to get to where ACPA is today. And I think it’s really telling us where the association has has come from and where it’s still going to today. And now we’re transitioning the conversation a little bit. I know we’ve been having a lot of conversation about ACPA itself. But we also want to talk about just higher education as a whole, and specifically, how queer issues have evolved from where they are, where they were couple decades ago to where they are now. So I just love to learn from your perspectives. What are the current needs of queer students on campus, maybe be about Queer Student Affairs professionals or just faculty talking about these topics in the classroom? Kind of what’s that? What’s the situation going on with that on college campuses right now? How do you see your perspectives

Becki Elkins
Well I was gonna say? I think I think this is an excellent question. And I also think it’s a big question. Right? I think it’s there’s a lot to this question. And I have a lot of thoughts about students and student affairs educators, but but one thing I want to make sure that we get into the conversation is Well, I live in As I mentioned, I live in Iowa, I work in Wisconsin, these are two states where currently, there is a lot of anti DEI legislation taking place. And, and folks are really being impacted in terms of their work by that legislation. So for me, as a faculty member, the thing I want to throw out and make sure we address is that there’s a continued fight for the academic freedom to, to engage in scholarship, that focuses on on our queer folk, and, and to bring these issues into the classroom. Right. And I think that that is very much under the on, you know, the political onslaught. And I think, also to add to that, to not just bring the topics to the classroom, but to be able to do so through relevant critical theories, right, to be to be able to talk about critical race theory, queer theory, crypt theory, and to embed that in the ways in which we do this scholarship, and then the ways in which we then teach it in our classrooms. And that I think I want to make sure that, that it’s also clear that that’s not just Student Affairs, folks, right, we’re talking about, we’re talking about all sorts of academic disciplines, where faculty’s ability to do that I think, is not very far from being seriously questioned. as we as we go down this path. Yeah.

Raechele Pope
What would you add to that, because we knew you said that you talked about the onslaught, what’s coming? You know, we were getting to a point, you know, and we I think we got too comfortable, we’re thinking that it’s easier for queer students. And I’m thinking about that traditional age students, though, I certainly mean it for everyone to come out to be experienced. And we know it’s not as easy as it seems, or as television is making it seem right. But, and the media in general, but this entire dei thing, is throwing that back. And it’s again, telling these young folks in particular, it’s not okay to be you. And it’s not okay to think this way, in ways that we hadn’t heard everywhere with the same virulence that we are hearing now. So I’m wondering, what what, what are their needs? What else are their needs? Yeah.

Jonathan Poullard
Well, I mean, if we can even frame this more broadly, a little bit in the context of what I feel is a strong period of contraction and evolution, and tension point, between us contracting as a world not even just in the US context, let’s just move ourselves with an umbrella centric view of the US. Yeah. And think about the rise of nationalism and think about the rise of on the right on the left, you’re wrong. I’m right, up down. Yes. No, black, white, if you’ve been think about that fear that is permeating the call for the contraction? Yeah. Because we are actually evolving. And I actually attribute the trans community with a lot of that evolution. They have literally grown up binary. Yep. They’ve said no more, we’re not going to do either or anymore. We’re not doing it. So that’s what you’re setting us up for. We’re not here for it. Right. So in some ways, we have communities of people that are isn’t it interesting that those folks who comprise less than 2% of our population, or all the legislation are against them? Yes, just think about how this is being framed. So when I think about it in the context of a campus, by the way, I’ve not been on a campus, let me put this out there for the last 10 years. Good on you all, you all rock that out. Go go do all things. You all go through all this. Because UC Berkeley wore me out as the Dean of Students, you all rock that out. But I do get to come back in as an interloper, doing training for senior leaders who are then responsible for the education, the direction of students, right and their holistic well being. And what I see them struggling with is how they have conversation to hold that container of contraction in evolution. And our inability to do so does not allow our students to experience what we say, which is their developmental Well, being holistically. So we got so far up for me the work is from the inside out. Where are you contracting? Where are you evolving? And where are you bumping up against other folks who are simultaneously evolving in contracting? Right, so that is again, where I spend most of my energy helping leaders think through how am I going to show We’re going to how am I going to take up space to allow for that breath and not shut things down? Yep. As we move towards fear based thinking of the legislation of the going to get me started.

Quortne Hutchings
I think it’s super warranted that you all for sharing this contraction versus evolution because I keep on thinking about what happens to I think as a early career faculty member, I’m often reminded of like supporting the students who are getting ready to become student affairs professionals, and how they’re living in this contract this this contradictions versus evolution, and the middle of it, and often were their students who a lot of our doctoral students, master students who are very much wanting to be in the nexus of change how they’re being met with dissonance and divisiveness, and how that’s often particularly in for queer folks who are living those intersections. How do we often have to navigate those spaces? How do we navigate, I was talking to a recent alum, and we were having conversations about him starting his first job and where he can find queer community, particularly in the south, and how that impacts him in particular ways. And even though his campus may be queer firming, but you also think about Sometimes people’s outside spaces may not be and also you think about different intersections, you know, differences between folks who identify as white versus folks who are white or marginalized and in different other ways. And so, I’m often just RE and RE reminded of this continuously feels like a force that is like resisting to us. When we have also when transphobes Navara like so many folks have been trying to resist against that force that is pushing us towards liberation in those ways. I’m often reminded of like, these pockets of bubbles, that are often can be really challenging for for for us to navigate.

Raechele Pope
That’s right. Can you wouldn’t you say pockets of like

Quortne Hutchings
pockets of pockets of a for my I feel like I decided Dory moment from Finding Nemo. I thought it was pockets of pockets of liberation pockets of like freedom. That often I think as queer folks we often have to, we often find for ourselves, we also curated we created ourselves, the other folks in a lot of ways benefit from that. And so I think there’s ways around how do we also keep our own protective bubbles? Where spaces are really kept for us and by us?

Raechele Pope
Yep. Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. And I think that that’s true of marginalized groups as they push to themselves. It’s that whole thing about the rising, you raise the tide for everyone or whatever the all the ships rise, you know, and I think we sometimes miss that we think there’s a special thing there.

Becki Elkins
Yeah. I think that I think the other thing I would add to to, Jonathan, your point about contraction is what I what I see that concerns me more than anything is silence among senior leaders as those presidential cabinets, Chancellor cabinets, that, you know, those are the places where I think for our time, it’s been somewhat safe for folks to advocate for, for the needs of, of queer students, and staff and faculty. And I think as we see sort of this force coming back, one of my concerns is that we respond to it with silence. And I think that takes us back into our history, as opposed to what I want to see as I want folks to not abdicate the responsibility to keep speaking simply because it feels unsafe to do so. And I think that’s particularly true for those of us in privileged identities. And we haven’t, you know, we haven’t really named that that’s, you know, we don’t all come to this space, with sort of, you know, the same capacity to push back against that force. As you’re mentioning q&a. I think that’s important to also name and recognize, and it’s my hope that folks will continue to speak regardless of the concerns of doing so.

Jonathan Poullard
And let’s not forget, though, and this is again, I want to remind us, just because I move into senior more leadership does not mean I have develop my skills and my capacities to win. Well, man, Churchill But secondly, coupled with that is, because we’re in a period of contraction, there is thisBecki blaming that happens, and I’m not taking. So if we go back to Amy Edmondson psychological calculator, right where she kind of talks about my silence will protect me. If I speak, I don’t even know if my speaking is going to matter. But I know when I am silent, I’m going to be the one protected regardless of where I sit positions that mean I ignore positional authority around race, class, gender size, ability, class positionality, that’s real. And whereas our for me, we’re only going to get to this next phase of evolution as far as I see it, and how we support LGBTQ students with humility, and with some damn compassion in the absence of it. I don’t I don’t see another way forward. I really don’t I it’s like, Yes. And you have responsibility, because you are the vice president. And where is my humility around? Well, one of the things that always has concerned me in the DEI spaces, this wokeness, I believe I am woke about something. I say that we’re in a constant state of awakening. Yep. I might be woke about this. I know nothing about that. Right. So my capacity to hold humility around. What don’t I know? And like you said, then Becki, and then take the risk to still speak up? Well,

Raechele Pope
let’s not forget what Audrey Lord told us. Here’s an years ago, you know, as we just celebrated her birthday, our silence really doesn’t protect us, our silence will not protect us. And so you believe there’s this veneer that says our silence is protecting us. It’s not, it’s not protecting you protecting the people that you’re not speaking out for. So yeah, Michael, I think you were hitting somewhere.

Michael Almond
Oh, yes. So we kind of already started this conversation about, you know, what needs to happen in the future in order for any progress to get started? And so our question is just what queer issues do you believe will be the most pressing for practitioners to address in the future? And I’m thinking, you know, this what we already talked about the all the way up from the Vice President, who is in charge, as you’d mentioned, Jonathan, all the way down to how we’re preparing future practitioners in grad school, as you had mentioned. So I’m just curious now, what, what are the things that you’d be looking out for?

Quortne Hutchings
This is, some of the things I keep on being reminded of is I think, as a faculty member, as I move farther in, I lose some of the practitioner pieces, in some ways, right? It’s kind of like if you don’t use it, you don’t you know, if you don’t use it, you lose it. But I am often reminded of how where’s the nexus of scholarship and practice meet, because also in random, the folks are queer practitioners, queer and trans and non binary practitioners are really on the front lines, the way they always have been in front of front of historical movements in those different pieces. And so when I think about some of the pressing issues, I think about housing, I think a lot about housing insecurity about food insecurity, often think about the ways around how queer students or practitioners are often helping queer and trans students navigate, harmed by faculty, things that are happening, you know, even with other senior administrative leaders that often are still living in this binary, binary multiverse, and often just not necessarily moving past expansive notions of gender and sexuality, even from from from a racialized racialized racialized ways. And so I’ve been thinking about how do we think about moving past not moving past but really holding folks accountable, and not just moving past people being obviously, it’s important to name around, you know, finally, for complaints and all these different pieces, but folks are protected, particularly senior leaders, particularly tenured faculty, right, and there’s no consequences and I think that we, we as as a as a field and as Association need to also think about what are some ways that we’re also holding people accountable when harm is being done? Because the folks that are often happened to pick up those pieces are queer and trans practitioners that often have to sit with those pieces and still have to go back to their own homes and their own communities and still processing all of these things that are happening so those are the things that I’m thinking

Raechele Pope
well, you know, I I hate to use That silence, you know, because I know that I was just marshaling my thoughts, right. But, you know, we are getting close to the end. And you know, we there’s so much that we can continue to talk about, but I just want to give each of you a chance to just say one more thing that you want to make sure that didn’t get sent yet you didn’t have a chance to say, but that you think is important as we think about this discussion. And Becki’s gonna ask you to start us off, if you’d if you’d like.

Becki Elkins
Yeah, I think, you know, I, I think we talk about intersecting identities a lot. I don’t know, from a practice perspective that we, on whole, have figured out really how to tend to and care for people’s intersecting identities. I think about that. I just was a co author on a paper that was really a student’s work looking at the enrollment patterns of queer, mentally ill neurodivergent and disabled students, and who also had many other salient identities. And I think we are, we are not having conversations about how do we take the, for a field that talks about the whole student, we really struggle, I think, today to get to the whole student. And I understand that’s because we have a lot of them, but but I really think that we, we have to look at that from a practice perspective, and how do we, you know, in my role, how do I help prepare practitioners, not just think about, here’s the Pride Center, and I might want to go work there, or here’s the, you know, Office of Multicultural Student Services, and I might want to go get there. Go work there. And I think the other the final thing that I would say is, we can’t go back, we can’t come to a place where DEI folks in DEI offices are the only ones doing this work, right? We just can’t. So those are the things that are really sort of ruminating for me, Raechele? Yeah,

Jonathan Poullard
I would, I would piggyback on on Becki’s and I’m thinking about Michael right now who’s in civic engagement and learning. So we often go to those people to do that work. And this is coming from a former Director of Multicultural Affairs, which I thought was a bankrupt job. But I digress. So in that word, all this stuff had to come to me. So back to cues perspective around the emotional taxation that we pay from a marginalized identity perspective, we’re always going to pay that here’s my offer, or here’s what I would when he wants to lean into. Lean into your privilege, not into the marginalization. I am a privileged individual, I have class privilege, I have male privilege, I have identity pretty much around being able bodied. I got a lot. And if I spent all of my time just focused on where I don’t, I tend not to see the full spectrum for how I leverage and how I show up from the inside out. How emotionally Am I aware not only of my own taxation, but the taxation that I cause? Yep. I am causing taxation on women folk. I am causing taxation on lesbian folk, even as a gay man. So where is that? Where where is my work from the inside out with some level of humility and grace, regardless of what other folks are doing? To me, this is the biggest part. This is the outward mindset part. So I don’t care what Michael or Q or Raechele is going to do. What am I? And how am I going to use my own positional authority to think about where voice is and voice is not being used? So that for me, if I’m leaving people with anything, what is my work from the inside out? That’s where I have the most dominion.

Quortne Hutchings
Yeah, that really resonates with me, I keep on thinking about when we talk about this word queering, which it to me feels like a verb. I very much think about you know, when Tyler and Marseille semana says like, you’re on a model, your model lane, like you’re not a noun or a verb, you’re action, you’re moving. And I think often as we know, queer and trans non binary folks have always been the verb. We’ve always been the actor we’ve always been moving. And I keep on thinking about what happens to what happens that we’re a space of deserving abreast. Like what happens when we get a chance to center community, healing our own healing our own joy, our own laughter. Where do we get the space to also be centered where Not being from from a place of us having to be the answer. Yeah, right. And so I’m often trying to be reminded, I think of ways around similar like, like Becki and Jonathan who have shared around, like my own privilege as a faculty member. I’m also thinking about ways to center have our, you know, queer practitioners and administrators really be centered in the research process. What does it mean to pay them? And like really, like, you know, it’s being asked to set pay them in equity, you know, let them reverse out of debt. When I go I like, this is like life like, like, this is people whose lives have been put on the line to change campuses that are often being erased, shared, and being silenced. And so I’m often being reminded of really putting to win a call of action from folks from privileged identities to pay to pay us and pay us not, and just, you know, just an award, but actually pay us financially pays to professional development, all these other pieces that we’re needing that often that, you know, we’re often being left siloed and those ways, and so those are things that I’m, I’m thinking about as well.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, save the pizza party. You know, think about how you give me that seat at the table. Right? Right. So I’m hearing that. Yeah, go ahead. Michael, you look like you were gonna say something.

Michael Almond
I was just gonna say thank you to all of you for sharing your wisdom with us today. I hope all the listeners are also going to be as I guess, I don’t know, I’m a little speechless, because I’m still processing a lot of these thoughts. So just thank you again. Yeah, this

Raechele Pope
has been an amazing conversation. We could have done this for so much longer. You know, I am, I am just overflowing with the things that I’d like. So I’m so want to send a shout out to not only you all, but we had another panelist who is going to join us today Cole Eskridge. And Cole, as we do in student affairs got called in 10 minutes before we began to say, you know, he had to take care of something on campus. And so I just want to I’m sorry, I don’t even know if I’m misgendered them. I don’t remember. I had met Cole yet. But I just wanted to say a shout out to call for all the prep that he did to be decoded to be part of this conversation. And so I want to send a thanks there. I also want to thank our sponsors of today’s episode ACPA. ACPA college student educators International is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and is boldly transforming higher education by creating and sharing influential scholarship, shaping Critically Reflective practice and advocating for equitable and inclusive learning environment. 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 decolonization as defining concepts of our time and the foreseeable future. ACPAs annual convention is March 18, through the 21st in Chicago, so Hey, make some plans. If you haven’t already to be there, we would love to see you. Visit my acpa.org or connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter X to learn more about ACPA. And of course, I want to send a huge shout out to our producer Natalie Ambrosey, who does all of the behind the scenes work to make us all look and sound so good. And we love the support of these important conversations from our community. And you can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to our podcast, our YouTube channel and weekly newsletter, which announces each new episode and more. So if you’re so inclined, you can also leave us a five star review. I’m Raechele Pope, with Michael Almond. Thanks again to our amazing, amazing panelists today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Let’s make it a great week, folks.

–