Leonard Taylor:
I think one of the challenges with leadership education is, is that, you know, historically there’s been one way to be a leader and that way changes that society changes. And what I think CRLL is doing is inviting us to not focus on that one way but really think about what leadership looks like in different context, with different people based on different, you know, goals or desires or outcomes.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman. Today we sit down with the authors of the book, Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning that explores how this concept can be leveraged into the leadership program we design and facilitate. Now, I was able to review the book, this holiday period. So I’m excited to be hosting this discussion and having the panel share more of the work in research. So this is, this is gonna be really, really cool. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast, an online learning community for thousands 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. But before we jump into the conversation this episode, I do want to acknowledge our, our sponsors for this episode, Stylus publishing, visit styluspub.com, check out their student affairs, diversity professional development titles, use promo code SANOW.

Glenn DeGuzman:
for 30% off all books plus free shipping and LeaderShape. This episode is also sponsored by them. So go to leadershape.org and you can learn more about how you can create a, just caring and thriving world. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Glenn DeGuzman. I’m the associate Dean of students and director residential life at the University of California, Berkeley Go Bears. I use the he series as my pronouns. I’m hosting this conversation today from my home in Livermore, California, which is the ancestral home of the unsedated territory of the Pelnen tribe of the Ohlone peoples. I like to welcome to the show our co-authors Cameron Beatty and Kathy Guthrie, both at Florida State University and from the University of Auburn contributing author, Leonard Taylor welcome, happy new year. And for me, new year. Yeah, this is my first episode of 2022. Is that what you were in out? So I keep thinking with the pandemic I’m like, what year are we in now? So let’s go ahead and get started. I’d love for the audience to connect with you a little bit more. And if you could introduce yourself and, and just share about what you do, your journey that led to the development of and your contribution to this book. Let’s go ahead and start with Kathy.

Kathy Guthrie:
Wonderful. Thank you. And happy new year I’m with you. It’s like, what year is it? What month is it? It tends to be, you know, going all together, but thank you for having us on the show and just having time to chat about this. My name is Kathy Guthrie. She, her hers, and I’m an associate professor at Florida State University. I was thinking about this actually this morning that I have been at Florida State for over 14 years, which one of those things, I was a practitioner for eight years when I was getting my PhD at the uUniversity of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. And so when I think about having been faculty now for actually longer than 14 years, 16 years, it gives me a moment to pause because I am very much a practitioner scholar. I think I situate all my work in that practitioner aspect. And so when I think about my journey, that is such a core part of my identity, but I serve not only as an associate professor in the higher education program at Florida State, but I have the honor of directing the leadership learning research center, where I get to work with Cameron and other brilliant minds. I’m also the director of the Hardee center for leadership and ethics at Florida state. And I’m just excited to be here.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Wonderful Cameron, a little bit about yourself.

Cameron Beatty:
Thank you, Glenn, for welcoming us to the space to the podcast, Cameron Beatty he his pronouns and I’m an assistant professor at Florida State University with Dr. Kathy Guthrie, where we, as she highlighted get the privilege of working with brilliant doc students in the undergraduate leadership studies program through the leadership learning research center at, at Florida state, my particular research spans, but specifically thinking about the experiences of students, of color, students of color and how they identify as leaders, how they are on the front lines of calling out racism and addressing issues of, of equity on, on campus. And of course, collaborating and thinking about how do we operationalize culturally relevant leadership learning, and what that looks like and excited to engage with you all and have that discussion. Me too.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Me too. And let’s now welcome Leonard a little bit about yourself Leonard.

Leonard Taylor:
Yes. Thank you for, for having us. Thank you for the, the invitation. My name is Leonard Taylor. I’m an assistant professor at Auburn University. I use he him his pronouns. I came to this work in a interesting kind of maybe haphazard way. I don’t know. I, you know, traditional kind of student experience and that when I was an undergraduate at University of Wisconsin, I was a student leader and that student leadership role led to, you know, being a GA for kind of leadership oriented programs, like, you know, fraternity and sorority life. And later on in my career, my practitioner career, while I was working at the University of Minnesota as a professional, I also started to teach as an adjunct instructor for the leadership minor there. And that’s where I really kind of delved into the world of more formal curriculum when it comes to leadership education and also how to kind of change and advance leadership ed curriculum.

Leonard Taylor:
And so that kind of, but up against my my broader research agenda. So I think, you know, my day to day about transformation and change in higher education environments, how we change or how we don’t what gets in the way and more particularly in the context of leadership education I’ve been thinking about what it is that we need to do in the classroom environment, for the programs that houses kind of leadership ed programs, to make sure that the curriculum gets delivered and the outcomes get met for students. So from a org perspective, how do we, you know, till the soil so to speak so that we can grow the leaders that we need to environments that we work in,.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Love it, and let’s dive in because this is gonna be a wonderful conversation. And I really wanna start at the macro level. And so Cameron, this question is for you, if we can, or if you can kind of provide our audience who may not be as familiar with the culture relevant leadership learning model could you summarize it for, for the group?

Cameron Beatty:
Yeah, absolutely. So CRLL is a fairly new model if we want, think about, you know, the theories of leadership that my wonderful colleagues Dr. Kathy Guthrie, Dr. TA Beran Jones Dr. Laura, Olstein really challenged us to think about leadership and centering culturally relevant pedagogy and campus climate, right? Like what’s happening in our respective context in campuses thinking about titles work and others. And then what does it mean to center the learner and the educator in that process of their leader identity, their leader capacity and the leader efficacy. Right. So how do they see themselves as leaders? How do the intersection of social identities contribute to that leader capacity? Right? Like what skills, what experiences, what knowledge are they building around leadership and then the efficacy, right? Like what, how do I believe that I can engage in the leadership process and really thinking about leadership as a process?

Cameron Beatty:
And if it’s a process, then it’s not happening in a vacuum or in a silo, but it’s happening in a context. Right. and when we think about campus climate, then these five domains really contribute to that that I think the model does a brilliant job of really thinking about, right. So if we think about the compositional diversity, who is, who makes up the space, right? What are the backgrounds, what are the experiences of the people that are engaged in the space, right? What is the history, what is the legacy of exclusion and inclusion in a particular campus environment? But I think we have, I think that what I, the model does brilliantly is then to think about all leadership programs, right? Our leadership programs have a history of inclusion, exclusion, how do we interrogate that? And then on and on to thinking about behavioral, psychological, our beliefs, our actions around DEI work thinking about the organizational setup of our respective campuses of our leadership programs that we offer. So that’s what I, that’s, what I love about, about the, the CRLL model is it offers a, a framework that’s built upon when we think about situating leadership, learning and leadership as a process. And I know Kathy, if I miss anything, please feel free to, to elaborate. .

Kathy Guthrie:
No brilliantly well said, absolutely

Glenn DeGuzman:
You know, and, and you speak to the, the inclusion of other lenses and perspective, and this model, you know, from, from what I read Kathy, this questions for you is really the, the model seems to have its origins from that two. I think you referenced a 2013 monograph that you co-wrote with others and it, and that pointed to not only the need for leaders to be able to develop on them, but also to the skill sets, to lead diverse people to that because of different narratives. Can you take me through how this evolved or just your take on this generally?

Kathy Guthrie:
Oh, yes, absolutely. It, you know, and I think like any good model or framework, it should be continually evolving, right? That it’s, so this definitely, I still feel that CRLL is in its infant stages almost. And how can it really be used in, in really used to the maximum capacity, if you will, but yeah, the 2013 monograph, it was an Ash monograph. And it’s interesting, because I was thinking about this, how it would’ve been 10 years ago that we were sitting in a room and it was again Dr. Bertran Jones, Dr. Laura Ostein and myself really talking about this need and what we were missing. It goes back to some of the things that Leonard said earlier about environments and, and leadership learning and how are we doing it? And it really started with a conversation about what are we missing at Florida State?

Kathy Guthrie:
And then it was like, oh, this is not just Florida State. This is everywhere. Oh, this is about leadership education. And it just kept, I’ll say festering. And I remember we had weekly meetings, in the small conference room actually it’s right next to Cameron’s office that he is sitting in right now, right next to it. And we would have these conversations about, we need to really dig in deep and think about what this could be. And then Dr. Shuping Hu, who is also a faculty at Florida State said, this needs to be a monograph. Let’s get this going on. And so that’s how it turned into really talking about from diverse, you know, backgrounds, students with diverse backgrounds. And that was even an interesting source of tension because we wanted to say diverse students and people weren’t ready for that yet. And that’s just 10 years ago, they were saying, no, it should be from diverse backgrounds.

Kathy Guthrie:
And remember having a long conversation about that, but it really did start we with identity and capacity. And from that, we got a incredible amount of feedback saying, yes, we need, this is what we need in leadership education. And when I say leadership education or leadership educators, it’s really all student affairs practitioners and professionals, right? All student affairs professionals are educators are our leadership educators, because we’re asked to do that in every facet of what we do. So I wanna make sure I say that because it’s very much about inclusion in what the work that we do. And so from that, it was like, okay, we need to think more about these concepts that were kind of floating around in the 2013 monograph and then the new directions for leadership that, that series Dr. Susan Komives was like, you know, you really should do an issue on this.

Kathy Guthrie:
And so we worked on it and that was where the culturally relevant leadership learning model was kind of named and it really was developed. And we brought in colleagues that we’ve been having these conversations with for years and saying, can you talk about it from your, from your perspective? Right? So we have Dr. An Mahoney did an amazing piece on, you know, how the walls of whiteness really does. how that affects different pieces. We had Susan Jones talk about NDI. So there’s multiple frames from that, that was in that new directions. And then it kept evolving because in 2017, the journal of leadership studies said, can you do a symposium? And how do you actually apply this? This is great information to think about. And it’s a great framework. And that’s really what it started off. Like let’s get people to pause and think about the work that they’re doing intentionally, because one of the biggest things, or the most often heard about leadership educators is, oh, I did how I learned leadership.

Kathy Guthrie:
And when I was a first leadership, you know, a new leadership educator, I did that as well. I said, oh, I learned leadership this way. So I I’m gonna kind of do the same thing. And whenever I realized, oh my gosh, that’s one white woman’s perspective. That’s not gonna work that’s we wanted people to stop and think about that. And so then in 2017 we had, how does that actually, how do you put it into practice? How do you apply these concepts? And then it was getting more traction. I literally, the first time and it stopped me in my tracks was I was at the Atlanta airport, Dr. Darren Pierre at University of Maryland. I see people smiling because on the cause you know who he is, the legendary Dr. Darren Pierre. He stopped me and said he was at University of Chicago at the time and student activities.

Kathy Guthrie:
And he said, oh, I’m using the CRLL model. And I used it with my staff of student activities, you know, programmers. And I was like, you did. And he goes, yeah, we spent the whole day talking about it. And I literally was speechless and I’m getting goosebumps right now thinking about it, because I thought, wow, this is what it’s meant to do is to get people to think intentionally about what they’re doing. And so then it was starting to have more kind of traction and people are using it and also questioning it and really interrogating its usefulness, which is exactly what it should be done because in something like this, with leadership being socially constructed and each of our contexts being so different, not only institutional context, but the offices that we work in, the programs, whether it’s curricular or co-curricular right. I could talk about the differences in context.

Kathy Guthrie:
And then you layer it with a socially constructed concept that is a lot of complexity and not one model will definitely be able to hit every part of it. But it’s how we then translate the model to then be applied. And so Cameron and I started talking about how do we invite more interrogation around this? Right. We want people to interrogate it. We want people to be like, Nope, that doesn’t work for me, but you know what, if I did this, that would work for me because then it would be more useful. And so then we started, you know, I think it was, was it 2019 Cameron that we started talking about this? Okay. Head shaking. Yes. That it was, Hey, how do we ask people if they’re using it? And if they are sharing it and it was brilliant and how all the stories came back that were not in one area.

Kathy Guthrie:
Right. So it wasn’t just student activities, but it was like how personally, as scholars, they use it as, you know, professional development, they use it, we had Belmont university and Nashville said that they redid their, their leadership office to take into consideration CRLL, you know, concepts. I mean all of this. And there were moments when Cameron and I would be talking when we were, you know, writing the book where I would be like, and you know, just like goosebumps it in tears thinking, this is exactly what models should do. Right. So thinking about how is this really happening and continuing to move us forward in having more of a socially just, and culturally relevant leadership learning opportunities for all. But so really it’s still evolving and it is still being interrogated. And we invite that. Cameron, what did I miss? because we had lots of conversations about this

Cameron Beatty:
Yeah. What I love about it is that it doesn’t answer questions, but it poses questions thinking about the model. And then we know obviously take that approach with, with the book and the questions is a, is the interrogation part of what Cathy is highlighting is not the personal reflective questions, the contextual questions, but that’s as a field as, as, as leadership education as student affairs. That’s what I, that’s, what I love about is the questions that are being posed, not necessarily answers that being offered. Yeah.

Kathy Guthrie:
Yeah. And Leonard, I know that you have seen this kind of evolve in your work, anything that you think I’ve missed as being an observer of this?

Leonard Taylor:
No, I think, you know, what you all are talking about as far as like the questions and the you know, the interrogation are the things that are so sorely needed, I think in our field in general. And so, and this is not me getting on a soapbox, but I think one of the challenges with leadership education is, is that, you know, historically there’s been one way to be a leader and that way changes that society changes. And what I think CRLL is doing is inviting us to not focus on that one way but really think about what leadership looks like in different context, with different people based on different, you know, goals or desires or outcomes. And, and so that was really helpful for me. As I think about the work that I do in the classroom with before were pre with students who are like learning leadership, right.

Leonard Taylor:
But now with aspiring leadership educators, right? Like the masters and doctoral students that we work with, you know, how do we help them to create a tool set that allows them to interrogate, you know the world broadly, but leadership specifically so that they can provide that, those same type of interrogative experiences for the students that, that they work for. So, you know, one of the, the words that comes to mind for me, when I think about what I was listening to to Kathy and Cameron is like possibility. And I think that what they’re offering and the ways that they’re pushing leadership ed is to really embrace the value of possibility rather than you know, certainty because I think previous conceptions of leadership will really focus on certainty. Like this is how you do it rather than hear all of the ways that it can be done.

Glenn DeGuzman:
And in my opinion, I think that the book captures this this interrogation and it really allowed different voices and narratives to come in. So as a reader, when I read that, I was just so amazed that the different context and different perspectives and how they’re pointing their perspectives into the is. And so Leonard, I wanna stay with you with this next question. How do educators and this redefinition of this with utilizing this leadership concept how we as educators define, teach and practice by using these narratives and sharing different educator perspectives who are coming from these diverse backgrounds I found the use of narrative to be captivating Leonard. I saw your, your narrative about how CRLL has influenced your professional approach to develop student leaders in creating you, you use a term cultivate liberatory spaces. Can you share more about how from your personal perspective or professional perspective, CRLL has influenced your work with students?

Leonard Taylor:
Yeah, I think one, you know it goes back to my own experiences as a student and as a professional in the field of student affairs as an administrator and practitioner in various kinda context and capacities. I wouldn’t describe any of the environments that I’ve worked in as liberatory. They were actually quite oppressive and I didn’t necessarily have the language to understand that in those moments there were moments of liberation that I experienced. There were kind of, you know, co-conspirators that I was able to engage with on the student side and the professional side that, you know, helped me to exercise agency in a particular to, in a way, but know that the spaces that I in were inherently focused on, you know, my kind agency as, so that said, when I think about Le you know, this model and the work of leadership education, if we want to create and cultivate, you know, kind of these sensibilities alongside aspiring or emerging leaders, then how do we make sure that the environments that we exist in aren’t reflecting or reproducing the same type of challenges that we want those students, you know, or those leadership learners to take on when they go out into the world right.

Leonard Taylor:
So we’re saying be expansive and imaginative and be really empathetic and focus on social justice. But here you are in this rigid classroom where your instructor isn’t providing though, or committing to those values in the same way. And then how do I do that as an instructor, if the environment that I’m responsible to doesn’t also reflect that. Right. And so, for me, it was, as I thought through, through what my own experiences were, I was like, you know, I learned some good things, but if we’re really gonna push and be more concrete and unapologetic about the commitment to liberation, about the commitment to justice, about centering students from various backgrounds and identities, then we also need to be serious about changing the environments and the ways that they need to change that have historically prevented these types of perspectives, these types of students from having healthy, you know, and affirming experiences or one step further.

Leonard Taylor:
And then I’ll, and I’ll, I guess, I think this speaks to your question, but the other piece around it is also thinking about which colleges are privileged in the environments or by the educators that are running the show in these, in these learning spaces. And so Cathy and I actually did a, a presentation not too long ago for ILA, the international leadership association, where we were talking about decolonizing leadership ed curriculum. And one of the things that we really had to, that we were really taking up and grappling with was the fact that, you know, leadership in, you know, leadership as a, as a kind of a pedestrian concept is really rooted in management, you know, and business oriented ideologies and all of those things stem back in some way, shape or form to, you know, colonialism and kind of these imperialist ideologies, like, how do we grow?

Leonard Taylor:
How do we expand? How do we consume more? How do we increase value? Right? Those types of commitments are the things that we need to interrogate, because when you interrogate those, you realize like, oh, when you look at indigenous communities, you know, across the globe leader, it might be about care, right? Leadership might be about healing , and those aren’t conceptions that fit into, you know, management necessarily, or at least for my, my advantage. So I say all that to say for me, it was an opportunity to think about what we want students to achieve and how we want them to be on the world in the world. And then to ask, is the classroom environment reflective of the world. We want them to create. And if not, then how do we start to create a classroom environment that aligns with, you know, the space, the type of world that we want to have especially because as an instructor, that’s my locus of control.

Leonard Taylor:
You know what I mean? And so sometimes, and this is a slight tangent, but sometimes it can be a challenge as an instructor or as an educator in these spaces, because we do work in organizations, we work in systems, you know, that have their own commitments to different isms, you know? And so some of the work is having a model like this helps us to aspire to something beyond kind of, you know, what we know, so we can create a little liberatory pocket in an institution that might not be the most liberatory to help students have some space to learn and explore in the ways that are aligned with the model. So those are just some of the things that I think both brought me to these types of perspectives and also why they resonated so much with me as a leadership educator.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That’s very powerful, like you speak to these learning environments and how critical it is to the develop that space and finding pockets. I mean, I think location geography all plays into classroom outside of the classroom environment, all plays in, into this to this, this learning environment that you’re speaking. And I guess maybe it’s when you read the whole book, maybe it gives you more say, so without giving away the book per se, but how this environment, this creating this appropriate learning environment is built on that inter plan. It was mentioned earlier about the domains of the the CRLL the identity capacity and efficacy. Can you expand on that a little bit, and this is for Leonard or others how, how how, or what tips would you give student affairs professionals leadership educator on the beginning of how to develop that learning environment, knowing that sometimes you’ve got all these constraints, whether it’s organizationally or societal, or just geographic,

Leonard Taylor:
I mean, I can offer a quick thought and then I’ll certainly defer to Cameron or, or Kathy. The thing that is the hardest and also the easiest is to acknowledge what the constraints are. I think sometimes we try to imagine that the spaces that we work in are different than what they are, you know, so for example, I remember being an instructor saying like, oh, you know, I don’t wanna create these hierarchies, you know, and don’t want to be peers with my students and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that in that sounds great, but in the end, based on the structure that I’m working in, I have the grade I have to make decisions sometimes that align with what’s expected of me. And sometimes I need the structural power that I get from my role as an instructor, because in society, I might be disempowered when confronting a particular student around a topic.

Leonard Taylor:
You know, so if I have some, you know, some, you know, challenging, you know, something that I’m saying I’m open to the challenge, but also, you know, my structural authority as a doctor, as a faculty member are sometimes the things that minoritized instructors have to rely upon to be able to assert themselves because research, you know, has illustrated for decades now that you know, people of color and women’s authority and knowledge is often in first challenge in the classroom, you know? And so I think one of the things that’s just acknowledging those constraints and acknowledging in those things that we experience as an instructor, as instructors is helpful, because then you have a realistic and really just honest understanding advantage when it comes to the environment that we’re navigating. So that that’s thing for is really just being upfront about what the constraints are. As a leadership educator.

Cameron Beatty:
I think the other piece to build off with Leonard’s talking about is we also, we often talk about self work, like, oh, you gotta do your work. You gotta, you gotta do your self work. Right. But we don’t talk about how to do that work, or what does it look like in the messiness of the work? And for me, that’s a part of being a leadership educator is for you being a reflective, a reflective person, a reflective being in the work. So what, in what ways were your leadership education experiences culturally relevant? In what ways were they not? And what are the constraints that built that, right. That, and how do we think about then walking into a space where we have some power to deconstruct or reimagine a space, and you can’t re imagine something until you think about why is the space the way it is, or why is the environment the way it is.

Cameron Beatty:
Right. and I think what I, another plug for the book, what I think the book does well is, is offering a possibility model of how you do your self work, right? And the self-work is not, is not an endpoint. There is not a graduation. You don’t get a certificate. But the ongoing self work that has to happen, like you, you could have been at one institution and you were rocking it out as leadership educator, and you get to another institution and they got some constraints that you didn’t have to navigate before. And that asked you to reimagine the possibilities of then what does it mean to do this work in this particular context, in this particular way? So I’ll pause there.

Kathy Guthrie:
No, and I, I agree, Cameron and Leonard, that self work, the constraints mean absolutely. And I, I go back to the context piece, which Cameron, you just said that, right? Like you might be in one space and you’re rocking it and you go to another and you’re like, oh. And part of it is even getting learners to really think about how they are defining leadership. That those terms, we all know, people throw it around, like it’s confetti. I mean it, but yet they really don’t stop and think about what is even a difference between leader and leadership. And I say, there’s, there’s a interstate. I drive quite a bit here in Florida. And there’s a big billboard that says, buy this car, be a leader. And I’m like, what does that even mean? Right. But getting him to pause and think about what does leadership mean, and even breaking it down into, it’s not just a definition, but how is it socially constructed and where does that come from?

Kathy Guthrie:
Which is that self work. And so really starting there. But I do believe that identity capacity and efficacy Glenn, that she had mentioned, that’s really the pathway right. Like that is the entry point into really, I feel that really being able to dig into understanding leadership learning, not the format and doing it, but really personally, and in different context, is that what, and how do I come to my identity, that capacity, that efficacy. And so really centering it on that versus, oh, we’re gonna talk about, which is part of capacity skills and time management. But some of that falls into that management stuff Leonard had talked about. And so I really think of that identity capacity and efficacy. If we could start centering our work more and those spaces, I think it would be very powerful.

Glenn DeGuzman:
You know, I can really resonate with their comments and that’s very real. So I think that as, as I’m, as I’m trying to focus, I keep finding myself reflecting about how even I’ve evolved as a leadership educator and, and your points are just, I can really resonate connect with them. I found the book the time of the book and when it was released last year or I guess it would be now two years ago, it was written two years ago. Was it 2020, 2021? So it’s very real in the sense that it was written while we were experiencing a pandemic, we’ve had all these social and political divisiveness across our country. And so on. And I, I always, I felt I picked up this intentionality of the way the book was written towards these current times. Can you speak more about how this book can redefine and assist student affairs professionals, practitioners, leadership educators with students given our current climate?

Cameron Beatty:
Yeah, I think, I think that’s important. I always, I always tell people like people skip over the preface. I would ask that you read the preface of our book because it offers that, that why this book, why at this time and Kathy noted that in 2019, we came together having conversations. We started, you know, collecting narrat in 2019, early 2020 from, from the contributors and then pandemic then the killing of George Floyd that we were editing. I think, I don’t think we had to submitted to the editor yet. Kathy, maybe we did, but then the January insurrection, January 6th happened, right. All of these things were shaking for me. They were shaking me to my core of thinking about advocating for a more socially, just a more critically thought out approach to leadership education.

Cameron Beatty:
And then these things were happening that were in some ways deflating or contributed to a lack of energy around, around the work . And then revisiting when, when Kathy and I were thinking about laying out the book of like, we wanted obviously wanted it to be a useful tool. And we’re thinking about, oh, curricular, co-curricular thinking about self-work professional development, thinking about theorizing and the research approach. And when we start to lay out the book where the energy came for me is around, okay, this is, we are writing this in this time and in this place. And how can it be most useful to give people the energy, to continue to do the work even deflating times. Right. and I, and I’m glad, glad, I’m glad Glenn, that you fell out the intentionality around, around the purpose and how we approached it, because there was a lot of conversation back and forth with, with Kathy.

Cameron Beatty:
And I of thinking about really thinking about this, right? It’s one thing to tell somebody, go do your work. It’s another thing to go tell somebody, do their work in a pandemic. It’s another thing to go tell somebody to go do their work when they have watched racial trauma collectively as a nation. Right. and, and I think what we wanted to do was for people to really think about that, there’s gonna be other things that are gonna be happening that are deflating, but how do you commit to doing this work? So we can arrive at a better world, a better place that, that contributes to learners that contributes to those people that we want to influence. Kathy often talks about her beautiful daughter Kinley, right. And how do we think about those people that are be walking into the future of leadership and it, and it can’t just be management or it can’t just be positional. And how do we shape that early on in the process? And if we can start to do, and our work that we have, the sphere of influence over that, that’s, that’s what we were excited about in the terms of offering the time and context of the trouble that, that we sit with, but the possibility of what, of what it could be.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I want to squeeze this next question in, because I, I really I think it leads to a follow up to your, to your comments. I like, like, I love how the book was laid out. I think as someone who has engaged in leadership development in my career, both inside and outside the classroom and in different functional areas, reviewing and reading the narrows allowed me to connect to different aspects, depending even in what area I was in, for example, I love the, the article on the student, that small piece on integrating social justice and conduct systems. Now I’m in res life. I can be able to connect to some of the different narratives and, and it was just a very fascinating read for me. I found myself going down this rabbit hole per se, cause I just couldn’t put the book down. The evaluation of existing leadership programs was powerful. And that’s what I took away from it. Was this your hope or, or what hope do you have if I can, so if you can summarize, like what you hope leadership educators gained from picking up this book.

Kathy Guthrie:
Oh, well, it really is a lot of where, how does this, this the content, the what we’re trying to, you know, bring forth matter in all aspects of student affairs and in higher education and that isn’t just curricular and co-curricular, but down to those pieces of like, this does matter in conduct, this does matter of course, in classroom spaces, in our professional work. And honestly, there’s 51 narratives in the book and it started off where Cameron and I are like, let’s see what’s out there. And when they were coming in and we are seeing this, you know, just the breadth, I mean, each of ’em are the depth, but then it was this, you know, kind of wide range that we’re like, oh my gosh, this is so beautiful. because people are seeing and taking what they need from it to then be able to apply it.

Kathy Guthrie:
It goes back to that possibility model, like what are the possibilities? So yes, that definitely was that it would connect with many different individuals because we all come to this with very different lenses and different experiences. And so I appreciate that you said that, and I think there’s a lot more that we don’t know or that we have any, I feel like since it’s evolving, we’re just scratching the surface because we have a lot of work to do in this area. We all know that. And so, but you know, I think that is beautiful, but just in how people came together, that we could amplify these voices and that collectively we’re working towards it. I tell you that it was beautiful. Jessica Chung, who I know Leonard knows and Cameron knows she is a brilliant leadership educator at the University of Minnesota. She did the artwork for the cover.

Kathy Guthrie:
And so we were really she’s brilliant artist, but so yes, yes, she is brilliant. And so thinking about how are we amplifying voices in different ways? And as Cameron said, a, it was very deflating at times because we were like, oh my gosh, we’re doing all this work. And then, and it was right around January 5th last year that that happened. And Jessica’s like, I did the artwork for the cover and it was like new energy. Right. And so even thinking about how our journeys, not only in higher education and student affairs, but in as leadership educators can be that way. So yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Yeah. For those, for those who are gonna be listening to for those who are gonna watch us on YouTube I held out the book in the artwork and for those who are listening on podcasts, go to the website and you’ll be able to take a look at the artwork that Kathy referenced. So, you know, I wanna we’re running out of time and I, I really wanna make sure that we can wrap up with our final question that we always ask all our panelists, you know, this podcast is called student affairs now and after discussion if you can take a minute or two to summarize what you’re pondering, what you’re question, questioning what you’re excited about or troubling you now. I mean, you all know each other really well, you’ve worked together. So this is a chance for you to just kind of share your final thoughts and I’ll start with you Leonard.

Leonard Taylor:
Hmm. So what I’m thinking about, and this has some ties to the, the book and as, and also some of my work more, more broadly and in the field more broadly than that is what role do student affairs practitioners and administrators play when it comes to social change and the tensions that come when people embrace that role. And, and so I’m thinking a lot about the, the tensions that come when, you know, you have student activists that are on campus doing their thing, and you have practitioners on campus who don’t know whether or not they can support them. Or senior leaders are suggesting that they shouldn’t, you know, because of their organizational affiliation, but also they might be deeply committed to the, the movement or the cause that those student activists are working toward, you know, so many of our, our, our student affairs practitioners and professionals are in this kind of space where they have to almost be forced to a align with the institution or their humanity.

Leonard Taylor:
And I’m trying to envision and really, and really pondering what ways we move the field forward, such that the that’s not a, a contention that practitioners or, or other folks in the field have to experience, you know, when things like George Floyd, you know, and all of the energy and, and action and activity that were happening around that are happening, like as a black professional, do I have to say, well, I’m really excited that the world is starting to pay attention to, you know, these state sponsored murders of African Americans you know, but got to eat next week. So let me do my job and put this, you know, black part of my identity down, or my desire for liberation down my desire to see the world be different down because of the world that I’m living in right now in this particular role. Right? So that’s what I’m sitting with and really trying to advance. I think this book is really contributing to that in a way. And also I’m trying to do that in my own work is thinking about how our role as practitioners, our role as educators is not separate from our humanity.

Kathy Guthrie:
Thank you, Leonard Kathy. Yes. Leonard. Some of that is it’s it for me, it’s about how are we centering humanity and everything. And so exactly what you’re saying for me, it’s coming from also of leadership learning this lifespan approach. So Cameron mentioned, I have an eight year old daughter who has taught me more in these last eight years than I ever thought was possible, but like, she really gives me motivation every day to get up and do the work because I don’t want her to have to deal with the same stuff that is happening. Right. I wanna see, and I’m not saying her specifically, but her generation and being able to move forward, because then I would feel that I hadn’t done the best that I could to try to move us forward right. In some way. But I think about lifespan approach, because I think about how the messages she’s even getting in grade school, that how that shows up when we get ’em in college.

Kathy Guthrie:
And how then do we expand our reach in higher education to help students in their leadership learning journey? Right. So I think about Florida State over 40,000 students, I might only get a few in class or, you know, and we have certain programs, but how can we even get students to even pause and think about leadership beyond a position? I mean, we’re talking about like, you know, right this continuum, but how can we collectively do that in different ways, in different spaces? So, but with humanity at the heart of everything, and when we have seen such poor examples of that, how are we not slipping back into that as we ebb and flow through a pandemic still, right. Like we thought, I mean, I thought I was a go, we’re doing good. And then Omicron comes and it’s like, oh, wait a minute.

Kathy Guthrie:
We’re and I’m feeling this again. And so, but how are we teaching what needs to, or setting up learning opportunities that are not the same old, but how are we continuing to move forward? So I kind of moved a little bit, so there’s this life span approach it’s centering humanity, but it’s all really connected. And how are we collectively moving forward? The other piece I would say, which I think this book continues to help me as to how do we amplify these diverse voices? How do we hear the narratives? How are we making sure that individuals who might not identify as leader as a leader or that they are acknowledged for the work that they’re doing and that we can amplify and learn from their brilliance.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you for sharing that. I resonate with what you’re sharing. I have two teenagers and I can see, I second, this is a good book, even as a parent and looking at it from, you know, my quote students, my kids. So wonderful piece there. And Cameron take us home.

Cameron Beatty:
Yeah. I just wanna build something I’ve been sitting with. This could be beginning of the semester. I redid my syllabus. I teach our master student diversity equity and inclusion course here at Florida State this semester. They, they get Kathy and I tell ’em they get a double KC this semester and I’ve been sitting with like, oh, how do I we’re graduate preparation, right. Preparation for student affairs. And what I’ve been struggling with is preparing them for the unknown, right? Like, so who, who, who could imagine five years ago that we would be sitting in a global pandemic in the way we are. Right. And, and I’ve been thinking about like, oh, I got to, my syllabus needs to be so tight because they need to be, I’m preparing them for something. Right. And what I, what I am sitting with now student affairs now is how do we, how do we prepare and, and think about things in a way that it’s not about the preparation in order to receive, what’s gonna happen to us, but the preparation to critically think about what’s happening to us and how do we learn from what is happening from us in a way to be able to show up bigger, better and more realized.

Cameron Beatty:
And that’s, that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot as I go into this semester, this spring of, of thinking about this class, this is the first time I’m teaching it since the pandemic has started. And I, and I just don’t wanna teach it the same way. I don’t, I think it’s almost doing a disservice if I continue to teach it the same way. And then how do I model that for those that are, that those, the eyes are bright and they are excited and they are all about the fire of student affairs. And, and that fire might burn out, but then how can it be re-lit in a way that can reimagine this space? That’s more equitable, more, just more liberatory

Glenn DeGuzman:
With that. We need to wrap up and I want to thank our guests, doctors, Kathy Guthrie, Cameron Beatty, and Leonard Taylor. Thank you for joining today. I wanna give also shouts out to Nat Ambrosey, our amazing production person. And so she does everything behind the scenes, and she’s gonna get this episode prepared, transcribed, and ready to be aired. So I do again, wanna acknowledge and thank our sponsor Stylus publishing. Stylus is proud to be a sponsor for Student Affairs NOW, podcast browse their student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com use code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. I like the free shipping part. It’s really cool. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, they’re everywhere at stylists pub. So check them out. LeaderShape is the other sponsor. They partner with college 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 leadership offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community ability to find out more, please visit them at www.leadershape.org/virtual programs.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I just say Google them, they’ll be there or connect with us and you can connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. These shows these episodes on student affairs now would not be possible without their support and to our audience and listeners as of today, as of earlier this morning I just found out we have had over 26,000 podcast downloads and that doesn’t even include the hundreds of views on YouTube. So thank you for continuing to join us. Thank you for sharing us with your circles. It’s very much appreciated. I’m excited about this episode when it’s gonna launch. So you’re gonna get more information if you’re listening to it, you’re not getting our newsletter. Please visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com. Scroll to the bottom, add your email to the mailchimp. You what’s another email in your inbox. While you’re there, please check out our, our archives. I’m Glenn Guzman. Thanks for listening or watching and wherever you are, go out, make it a good day with out there. Please make good decisions. Stay safe, take care.

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