Thandi Sulé
For me, black feminism’s and black feminists. What they offered is meaning, right? They provided me with a language to both understand and explain my experiences. black feminism means that I am not alone. And there are women who share similar experiences who are standing next to me. And among those women are people who who resist who create who transform. Now I’m sounding like a rapper who advocate So, and they and they serve as a source of inspiration for me, right? But at its core, it means it means that I matter. Right? It’s chocolate, black girl, from the hood. matters, right? When, when the world and everything about the world is telling her that she is nothing, that she will not be believed that she has nothing to offer the world of relevance. What it’s taught me is that I matter.

Raechele Pope
Hey y’all welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host Raechele Pope. Today we’re discussing the ways black women have navigated, negotiated and learned how to thrive in the academy with Christa Porter, Thandi Sulé and Natasha Croom. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and 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, and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube, or anywhere that you listen to podcast.

Raechele Pope
This episode is brought to you by Stylus Publishing, visit styluspub.com and use the promo code sa now for 30% off and free shipping. This episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape. Go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create adjust and caring and thriving campus. Stay tuned to the end of this podcast for more information about each of these sponsors.

Raechele Pope
As I mentioned, I’m Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she her hers and I’m broadcasting from Waynesville, New York, near the campus of the University of Buffalo where I serve as a Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs, and the unit Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education. I’m also a professor in the higher education student affairs programs. The University of Buffalo is situated on the unseeded ancestral homeland of the people.

Raechele Pope
So about today, despite their overwhelming success in higher education, black women continue to be devalued, discriminated against and harmed by the colleges and universities where they work or attend school. Their unique standpoints, epistemologies and practices have always challenged the standard white hegemony of higher education. And yet in higher education, we have had few texts that highlights explains and uplifts the unique intersectional perspectives of black women as scholars, activists and teachers.

Raechele Pope
I’m joined today by Dr. Christa Porter, Thandi Sulé and Natasha Croom, the editors of the flyest book out right now, Black Feminist Epistemology, research and practice narratives in and through the academy. I am so excited to have this important conversation. So I want to thank you for joining me today for this episode of Student Affairs now and welcome to the podcast. Welcome. Welcome, welcome.

Raechele Pope
Can you begin by telling us a bit about you your current role on campus and a bit about your pathway in higher education? Christa, I’m going to ask you to start us off.

Christa J. Porter
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us. So my name is Dr. Christa J. Porter. My pronouns are she her. I serve as Associate Dean of our graduate college and associate professor in higher ed administration at Kent State University. The traditional people this land in Northeast Ohio belongs to include the nations of the Delaware, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Cayuga. I pay respect to the traditions, ancestors, and to the contemporary cultural spiritual practices of indigenous peoples. I’ve still acknowledge United States and the many higher ed institutions were built at the often fatal expense of my ancestors who were forcefully enslaved black people. So without me and my various roles, I honor those who came before me by continually uplifting and making space for those coming after

Christa J. Porter
I specifically came to this work as a McNair Scholar shout out to McNair Scholars in the house salient of my intersectional identities as a black woman, student leader, I couldn’t always name what I was experiencing as a first gen student in predominately white spaces. But I came to fall in love with research and this thing called sort of scholarship in grad school. Similar to many in student affairs, I aspired to be this VP of Student Affairs or Dean of Students, right. But then I realized that I could also do some work in the classroom and through the intellectual platform. So I began to understand the power air quotes when it came to sort of counter narrating this discourse, upon which our field of student affairs so heavily rely, right, so specifically, in terms of socialization of faculty, staff and students, students success and theory to practice. So I joined the professoriate 10 years ago, and recently accepted my role in the other side of the house, if you will, as an academic administrator. So I became one of the voices that I needed as a student.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, Yeah – Wow, thank you. Thandi. Are you gonna go next?

Thandi Sulé
Yes, I’ll go next. Hello everyone. My name is Thandi Sulé my pronouns are she her. I currently reside and the contemporary ancestral lands of, I work at Oakland University, I serve as an associate professor as well as a program coordinator. Okay, this journey to higher it.

Thandi Sulé
Until very recently, I was the first and only member of my immediate family who graduated from college. I. And so that led me to think about how higher education can be more accessible to black folks and to poor people. Because I was both and still, to a certain extent, right. So my research, my scholarship focuses on how people belong, particularly marginalized people belong in higher education spaces, and with specific interests and looking at how people resist and transform in those spaces. So that’s, that’s what my work is about. A little bit more about me, I’m a poet. Trying to get back to that. I’m also a world traveler, and dance and music. I give you a little move. So that’s just that’s a little bit about me in a nutshell.

Raechele Pope
Thank you. Thank you.

Natasha Croom
So hello, my name is Dr. Natasha Croom. And my personal gender pronouns are she and her. I’m currently occupying ancestral and traditional homelands of the Cherokee where those lands were seeds and eventually would become Clemson University as a result of being built by enslaved peoples and convict laborers. And, you know, sometimes I hear a lot of these land acknowledgments, and it frustrates me because it usually stops there. So when I give these I like to actually, in order to hold myself accountable to to the people say that, you know, given this history and these acknowledgments, my commitments to indigenous communities here, in my current role at Clemson center around access to graduate education for indigenous communities, I’m the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs and the Graduate School and associate professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs. My commitments to identifying and disrupting inequities and interlocking systems or systems of oppression, in higher education are really rooted in living, living as a black girl and woman and learning from an acting alongside black women, white trans folks, women and men of color and queer folks. My appreciation for research and activism developed in undergrad where I too, was a Ronald E McNair scholar, and one of few non student athlete black students at a Hispanic serving institution. And, you know, I would say that I had a very, what we used to call traditional over overly enthusiastic undergraduate experience where I was student body president, President of the Texas A&M Chancellor’s Student Advisory Board President, my sorority, president of the chess club in the billiards club, I literally started a Wednesday afternoon, live broadcast when I would stand in the quad with a microphone. And it was called politically incorrect, just trying to talk to my colleagues and my peers or, you know, on campus. And so I feel like this work that I do now, it’s been in me the whole time. But I would say my doctoral experience had a profound impact in that I saw black women and other people of color, queer people of color, and white queer folks who really role model the possibilities of being and doing academic work from critical and equity center perspectives. And according to them, I was gonna be a faculty member. I don’t know that I saw that for myself. But literally when your adviser says to you, and I am putting her on blast here, that she’s not writing any letters of recommendation for anything else and so you know, even though I didn’t see that in myself, they really poured into me and so I believe that the work I do regardless of the role I am is rooted and my job is really to pull back the curtain and stand and advocacy and Ally ship and sponsorship and be in community and coalition’s towards constructing equitable spaces, opportunities, policies and practices that extend beyond the higher education.

Raechele Pope
Just hearing your stories and I you know, anybody that knows me knows that I am a sucker for origin stories. I can just spend the entire time talking about these paths that that have intersected and crossed. And you know, I heard something from each of you that sounded like me, except listening to you. Natasha, when you were out in the quad with the microphone made me think of dear white people, you know.

Natasha Croom
People will be walking by like, what is she talking about? I got processing questions.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, I can see that I can see that. And I can spend all day as just doing this just talking and finding out more. But I want to get back to these issues. And they are the same, you know, because we all experienced these issues. What you said was, this is how I entered this space, right? This is how and what I have to to give back and how I can provide something better for the folks who came before me. I mean, I’m sorry, after me honor the folks who came before me. So but let’s just back up for just a second, I want to talk about your book for a second, because it really does encapsulate these issues that you’ve already raised just in your introduction. So for the person who hasn’t read your book, or doesn’t fully understand what is meant by black feminist, feminism, or black feminist epistemology and praxis? Could you offer a brief synopsis of what those terms mean, in both your personal and your professional lives? And Christa, I’m going to ask you to start off again.

Christa J. Porter
Sure. I just, it was a joy, like it was beyond such a joy, pride just to be able to engage with these folks. To be able to to name some of the things that we experienced. And so for me, the language of black feminism is the language right? The concept of black feminism is the language to which I have come to sort of unlearn myself, learn and unlearn myself, my onto epistemologies, methodologies, these words that we’ve thrown around, but it’s really how we do what we do and engage the way we engage. Right. And, for me, it’s less about what I do. But my practice is about how, right so how I engage and approach life’s journeys, right as a cisgender, heterosexual black woman who is educated, right? It’s the reflexivity sort of this constant push and pull that pushes me to reflect all time about black women before me, those coming after, it’s how I gotta put my babies into the space. It’s how I raised these two beautiful black humans that I was blessed with, to be able to carry, how I recognize place and space in the academy. How I persist, white supremacist and sort of patriarchal conditions that are often normalized as all of us I’m sure can share stories of what that has been like for us in our journeys. It’s how I attribute right and pay homage to those black women and black men, right black and queer trans folks, women of color, who have uplifted and named sort of our ways of being as truth and I’ll throw in sort of Bettina Loves idea of coconspirator. So there has been some white folks who have stood stood in the gap. And so it’s sort of the how right how I do all of these things. That’s what feminism is and praxis and ontologies and what all of that means. And so that was sort of me, but I want to highlight our authors and all the folks who have contributed amazing don’t fire whatever we wanted language we use right? Pieces of conceptual, empirical research right? In their narratives to make meaning of and engage what black feminism’s has meant for them, and how they’re sort of been grounded in their practice in their research across disciplines. Y’all. This book is across disciplines, it’s across rank. We have doctoral students, administrators, community activists, right and so, all coming together to really uplift and center what we have come to know as feminism’s and epistemologies.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, yeah. And what those authors have those individual chapters shared, you know, such powerful stories, thoughts, experiences, cautions, ideas, and reminders. And so, you know, I’m hoping that we’ll get a chance to dive into into that as we go further. As we talk about those folks in the present, too, but I want to ask you, and you all alluded to this just little bit in your introductions and just what you said, Christa, how do the black feminist, academic and non academic folks who came before you influenced your work your life and this work that you’re, you’re offering to us now.

Thandi Sulé
I can jump in, I can jump in, and I’m just gonna continue where Christo left off. For me, black feminism’s and black feminists. What they offered is meaning, right? They provided me with a language to both understand and explain my experiences. black feminism means that I am not alone. And there are women who share similar experiences who are standing next to me. And among those women are people who who resist who create who transform. Now I’m sounding like a rapper who advocate So, and they and they serve as a source of inspiration for me, right? But at its core, it means it means that I matter. Right? It’s chocolate, black girl, from the hood. matters, right? When, when the world and everything about the world is telling her that she is nothing, that she will not be believed that she has nothing to offer the world of relevance. What it’s taught me is that I matter. So essentially, it’s, it’s served served as a lifeline.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, yeah.

Natasha Croom
Yeah. If I could build on that, you know, I agree with what has been said. And as the Carmel girlfriend, the suburbs, also world traveler, as a child, I think what black feminists work has done for me over my life, in addition to what’s already been said, is that it has reinforced that the the importance of being in community with other black women, and the importance of that in a world that has narratives that would say, we should not be in community. Right, that has, in my the privileges that I have had, whether that be colorism, or whether that be class that says to me, like, yeah, no, that’s some BS, what they’re talking about, and that there’s a reason why those narratives exist, right? There’s a reason for those narratives. And that is to keep us disjointed. As, as black women, right, because that, in some respects, I think the world truly understands that we are in fact powerful, and that when we choose to speak, and we choose to act as black feminists that said, Something is going to happen. Right, something is going to change. And so you know, the people that have really been influential, that I think do the work of black, black feminism. And I think they would characterize themselves in many ways. But you know, I really always start with the work of Audrey Lorde. And, you know, of course, Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberly Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, Nikki Giovanni, my mom, right, my mom was the first black feminist that I knew without knowing. I remember because many of these people, I didn’t have the privilege of even engaging with their work until graduate school, and really, in my doctoral program, and I remember one day coming home and trying to explain the concepts of my mom. And she looked at me and she said, Oh, you just figured that out. All right.

Raechele Pope
You weren’t Listening to me, I’ve been telling you this.

Natasha Croom
Right. And so in that moment, realizing, like there was a lot of things that I understood that I was learning, you know, from my home, which was being led by a single black woman, and my home being filled with black women and my aunts. But, you know, I didn’t have that language. I think like Chris and Tandi, I didn’t have that language, or that it’s not even just language, but that deeper analysis and understanding to connect what I was learning, and had been learning my whole life in all the spaces I existed in, right. So this like larger thing, and I think the work of all of these, these artists and activists and scholars really helped to firm in me what the fight is, right? Whether it was, you know, I read a lot of Elaine Browns work as the first new to the woman leader of the Black Panther Party. And like what it means to step into that right as we’re in 2022, and many of us are still the first black woman leader stepping into spaces, and what that means for how we operate. And of course, in her situation, if you read what she’s writing, she’s talking about how the patriarchy is operating within our black communities, right. And being a black woman leader in that space, in addition to white supremacy, and really talking about that intersection of what that looked like, you know, in the Lani Guinier ‘s of the world who were riding with Torres and talking about, you know, the miner’s canary. And I think these things have just really, I think, taken a foot inside of me, you know, like taking a hold, and, and really helped me to understand what it means to do the work of being a black feminist, if that’s what we choose to call ourselves, you know,

Raechele Pope
Right. You know, I can’t begin to tell you how good this makes my heart feel, you know, because especially throughout this book throughout this conversation so far, that it doesn’t start today. Right, that the folks that you are pulling up and calling forth to us, you know, from the past, that I worry, you know that there are so many, I’m in a different age group, as all of you I tried to pretend I’m not. But when I realized that people don’t know some of these names still, and aren’t still coming to them, and that they want to start with the now and erase the past and the fact that you honor that and, and bring that forward. I mean, Audrey Lord, my daughter’s name is Justice Audrey, you know, she was named after Audrey Lord and

Raechele Pope
Yeah. And my son’s name is Mandela Peace you know, like, so this is, this was these folks. Were coming with us. Right. And so just hearing you and reading this in the book, how it comes out that this is not a today conversation. This is a continuation of a conversation that’s been coming in, we’re adding our new things to it with each generation. And such a time with only the President seems to matter. And so that, you know, sort of made me think about why was this book needed at this time? You know, What does black feminist epistemology and practice offer us at such a critical and challenging time in the world, in the US and in higher education?

Thandi Sulé
Well, higher education doesn’t exist in a vacuum. This country is at a crossroads. We’re still living in a pandemic, right? We experienced one of the largest anti racist movements, if not the largest in this country. We’re experiencing. We are at the height of political polarization. Voting rights are being challenged. Women’s bodies rights are being challenged. Race conscious admissions being challenged. Inclusive Education, anti racist education is being challenged. We’re at the height of like gun violence and mass shootings. There’s an epidemic of black women being abused and unalive. Right. So that means that the people who who are the most vulnerable who are very vulnerableare experiencing even more trauma. So I’d say I think that our book offers hope. I think it offers hope, because it centers on black women. Right and, and black women are particularly vulnerable. But not just centering on black women. I mean, it’s about black women using their everyday experiences and everyday knowledge to to create and to engage in methodologies and pedagogies. That that galvanize for social equity both within and outside of higher education. Right. So I think for those reasons, I think for those reasons, this book provides hope, and also provides a blueprint. Right. So, so yeah, I’ll leave it there. There’s someone else jumping.

Natasha Croom
Yeah, I think. So when I hear Thandi name, all the things that are happening. I, I can’t help but hear. And none of it is new. None of these things are new. And sometimes I think about, right, like we can’t ignore, like the role of increasing technologies, that right, that have allowed for more people to now be engaged with some of these things. But the fact is, that every single thing, even global health crises, even if they haven’t happened in our time, they are not none of those are new, right, like whether we’re talking about HIV AIDS, right? Pandemic Global Health pandemic, that was just, I was about to say, 20 years have done that I forget how old I actually am a little bit longer than that, right, like, and so when I contextualize the fact that everything that we’re experiencing, none of it is new. I think about the importance for me, then the importance of black feminists epistemology. And Praxis is because what we how we responded to those things, the first, second, third and fourth time, they didn’t really work. And so at some point, I feel like both, both me too, will recognize that is likely in the coal mine, from the Canaries, is likely the face is literally at the bottom of the low in that knowledge. Because we’ve been here, we’ve been here. And while I would not argue that black women have been thriving in any of those previous iterations of what we’re seeing now, it might be in our experiences that folks as Darcy Leigh so eloquently put, and we can figure out a better way forward a better way to address toxic environments, not only in higher education, but in the world. You know, there was this thing that I’d read about where there was this police officer in a major city who white guy following with black women in their cars who were in sexually assaulting them, poor, black women, right women in poverty, but following them to their communities doing this. And then, you know, I started reading about, well, first of all illuminating these types of things that are going on in the world, like the kinds of targeting that we’re experiencing. And I started reading, you know, all this research started coming out about the role of supposedly the role of a college degree, and how that matters for how police engage in the community. Right. So they were saying that police who actually go to college are less likely to be in the right doing these types of things, or, you know, police like engaging in police brutality and stuff. And so it just really got me thinking about the importance of not just black woman’s bodies in higher education, but our ways of knowing and our experiences and our thoughts. And I think that this book, really offers that as a starting point for a lot of people to begin thinking about, you know, what, what our knowledge and our contributions mean to the world?

Raechele Pope
Yeah. Yeah.

Raechele Pope
Oh, you know, Thandi you started out by talking about how you did the Litany and then said, But wait a minute, this is also helpful. It offers a blueprint and I think it does. And so it makes me ask that really important question about what about black feminism? And black feminist epistemology? And this book project brings you joy, you know, brings us that joy that hope, that blueprint

Christa J. Porter
I’ll jump in. So listen, I’m soaking up this conversation because it conversation is bringing me joy, right? Being in community with awesome and brilliant black woman brings me joy. But I recently got an email request from our university library. To play a book, right, I had to look up what that meant, because I didn’t know what that meant as recognition of receiving tenure promotion at Kent State, right? So of course, I selected our text, right? I thought about selecting sort of the Bell Hooks and Teaching to Transgress is the first thing that came to my mind. But then I said, No, I’m gonna pick our book. And this is what I want to share what I what I wanted the placard to read. Because I asked us why you chose the book. I chose this book to represent a collective counter narrative of intergenerational distinct and intersectional stories of black women in the academy. This is the book I needed as a doctoral student and I’m extremely proud to have served as one of its co-editors, right and so engaging black feminism as Praxis means for me to center right this book centers, it is the topic it is the core right it is grounded in every single piece the forward the chapter the concrete like every single part to centers our ways of knowing and being period right not in comparison to not to conflate with not to overlay other people’s knowledge is as our own not to throw some theory on top of black woman participants and say it’s critical right? But it’s I love how our legacy of who we are as black women is deeply embedded within how we have unapologetically shown up for with along side by right each other so our legacy brings me joy. It’s not always easy, right? Dr. Croom talked about the the canaries in the coal mine it’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it for me. And so we are worth it right and this book centers who we are and unique ways we have traversed the academy that in itself all of that it brings me so much joy ya got me goose having goosebumps just talking about this is the type of joy that deeply embedded is that no matter what we go through, we got each other we go continue to show up and do in ways that matter to us.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, yep. Cool. Anybody else want to take a stab at that Thandi.

Raechele Pope
I’m sorry.

Thandi Sulé
Okay, I’ll say this. So anytime we have black women who can name reclaim, affirm themselves, right? And therefore, like assert their humanity. That gives me joy. So that humanity within spaces that are unwelcoming right, and I think that we’re continuing in the tradition of scholars like Anna Julia Cooper, the Combahee River Collective, Beverly Guy Shushtar, Bell Hooks, that gives me joy that we are still engaging in intellectual activism. So I wanted to say that. Thank you for that Dr. Porter. But I also want to say this is why this is what I feel. This is what I’ve seen. This is what people talk about black women are tired, right? Black women are overworked black women are overwhelmed. And what black feminism tells us what it allows us to do is to assert that we deserve rest, right? We deserve to self preserve, we deserve to sit still we deserve to meditate. To regenerate. Not just like when am I thinking of Columbia River Collective not just for not because it’s an act of political warfare. Right? Oh, was that was that Audrey right? But because simply because we’re human. Right. And so what gives me joy Right now at this stage of my life and my career is to see black women joyfully at rest. Seriously? Joyfully at rest. Because we are. Right.

Raechele Pope
Yeah. Then go with a part of that, and I think it’s so true. And so this is where me having to change my head, turn my head to a different direction, because both are true, right. Bernice Johnson Reagan, famously. Yeah. So she says that, you know, that one song that just goes so deep inside of me, we who believe in freedom cannot rest. Right? Until the killing of black kids, Black Sons, black mothers sons is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers, son, we can’t rest, right. So that runs through my head until I finally stopped, you know, reading the nap ministries work and all of that stuff, saying she didn’t mean we couldn’t rest ever. changes meant the struggles not done until the struggles done. So you take your rest right now, but we got some other people in line for you. And then when they need to take their run, but every time I hear that, that importance of that her line runs through me and I really had to spend some time interrogating that and really.

Thandi Sulé
Thank you for that. Thank you for that. That’s one of my favorite that was like the anthem, you know, at their, their concerts. You know, that’s when everyone was stand up. We Yeah, but yeah, right. Thank you for that.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so we got this incredible book published. For those who haven’t read it yet. And I’m gonna pull it right here off my shelf. Look here, folks. For those of you who are there, we got both of them on there you go. For. For those of you who are listening on the podcast, we held up the book so that you can see it. And what we’re wanting to say is run out and get it. As you know, Bettina Love has been called said, We don’t want you to be an ally, we need you to be a co conspirator to be a co conspirator, you need to read this book. So for you, folks who are not black women and black feminists right now get this book, but the books been published, what’s the big takeaway, right? What do campuses need to do differently to better support black feminist academics? What do we as black feminists need to do to better support each other? And ourselves?

Natasha Croom
Yeah, I can jump in here. And that I think, one of the big takeaways, and you know, some of this has been said already, is that to understand the let me back up. For those who are not black feminists or who do not understand what black feminist feminist epistemology has to offer. For me, the big takeaway is for you to understand yourself, who you are, who you are in relation to this world, you need to understand who we are. Because there are through our, through what we know to be real, with our subjectivities. We know. Right? We know we and we see, we experience because of intersecting systems of oppression and privilege. We there isn’t, there is a landscape, I think that black women are privy to whether they’re good or bad, that really needs to be understood, to really understand the context that we’re in. So it’s not just understood, right? Understand me and what I bring and how I see this space, and this world to better understand yourself, but to also understand this thing called higher education. We need to understand how we are systemically systematically embedding intersectional inequities. Right? Don’t use our you know, the outcomes right. Oh, black women are clearly thriving because they’re earning more degrees. I mean, that don’t mean nothing if I’m only earning 34 cents on the dollar. Use this book, I think, to understand what Patricia Hill Collins calls controlling images, right? Like, nobody’s manly. I don’t care how much I show up and care and love and concern. But understand I do that because I want to do that not because you see that as my role. I’m so much more than that. I think you can I think what this book offers as a big takeaway, you know, there are things kind of building off the last question, there are things in here that I had no idea about, right? Black cyber feminism, I’m like, Oh, what’s that? Let me read about that. And what that means and how that shows up. And what that looks like, or some of the more arts based pieces around, you know, how we’re using dance and how we’re using music to bring to light, right? Not only the experiences, but outcomes, the more fuller pedagogical approaches. So I think through reading this, some of the big takeaways, again, are different ways to do some of the things that we really are weird to that we probably should stop being led to, like more opportunities to expand our pedagogies. And our practices overall, I think are what some of the big takeaways.

Christa J. Porter
Thank for just to add to that, thank you, Dr. Crooms to add to that for specifically black women for reading the text. Learn how to own who you are, right, so we’ve talked about whether you’re the loudest in the room, whether you’re the quietest in the room, whether you want to rest, whether you are in the mode of sort of pushing and resisting and combating and disrupting whatever that role is own that, right. But then be in community with other people who can help mentor right and pour into who you are. If anything I’ve learned in this journey, in particular read after working with this book, it’s we all come to these spaces very differently. And all of that is okay. Right. But for many of us that were the only one a few were the first. And so we have to be able to tap into other folks who can continue to pour into us.

Raechele Pope
Yeah. You know, we are getting getting close to the end of the of the time for this podcast, where this experience and so I wanted to know if there’s anything you wish we’d covered. But we didn’t get to something we should have, at least send out into the universe.

Christa J. Porter
The thing about the texts that I really value and appreciate is that it’s intergenerational. What do we mean when we say that right? We got the Deborah Harley’s right, we got the who, you know, who originated sort of this maids of the academy, right? We got you know, Auntie Sis Venus, right. Evans winters, who is offering introductory remarks and really highlighted how we say her name, right? We already sort of mentioned Bettina Love sis auntie, right. But also Adrienne Wang, right? It’s definitely ovens, folks who said, you know, I’m gonna endorse this book and the name on it, and I’m gonna share some thoughts. But just all kinds of folks who, from doctoral students, to faculty to, you know, non tenure track and tenure track to academic administrators, like folks who just poured into their pieces, this book would not have come into existence with all folks sort of sharing who they are and what they bring. And so we as called editors, to share our sincerest appreciation for folks.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you so much for this conversation. There’s still so much to ask so much more to discuss so much more to learn, but we’re getting close to being out of time. So I would love for us to find a way to continue this conversation. And to do that soon. I want to take a little bit of time to thank our sponsors Stylus Publication andLeaderShape. Now Stylus as we said earlier, is proud to be a sponsor of the Student Affairs NOW podcasts browse, browse their student affairs, their diversity and their professional development titles, and styluspub.com. Use the promo code SANOW for 30% off all books plus free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook. You to Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter if you’re still there at Stylus. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences both virtual and in person for students and professionals. With a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more, please visit leadershape.org/virtualprograms, or connect with LeaderShape on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I want to send a huge and heartfelt shout out to Natalie Ambrosey, the production assistant for the podcast who does all the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound good. To our listeners, I am so grateful for all your time today. This conversation has given me so much to think about so much to just feel good about and I hope it’s done the same for you. As you listen today, If you found this content to be useful for your student affairs, practice your higher ed practice and your scholarship. We’d love it if you share this episode with your social media networks. And our folks after this conversation, I am really feeling Stacey Abrams right now. And this quote of hers really resonates today, I’m gonna move forward because going backward is not an option. And standing still is not enough. Again, I’m Michelle Pope. Thanks again to this amazing panel. Dr. Christa Porter, Dr. Thandi Sulé and Dr. Natasha Croom and to everyone who’s listening or watching thank you. Peace out.

Websites:

https://works.bepress.com/christaj-porter/

Article/Book citations: 
Porter, C. J., Sulé, V. T., & Croom, N. N. (Eds.). (2023). Black feminist epistemology, research, and praxis: Narratives in and through the academy. Routledge. ISBN 9781032027258.