Ricardo Montelongo
I’m a very critical scholar, but I’m also a very hopeful, optimistic scholar. Because if we lose the optimism if we lose the hope they win when you think about it. And so I’m always in a space of what can we do further and so I use I intentionally use the word wandering because that’s exactly what I did for a full month in Europe. And when I wandered I felt like I had learned.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined the faculty who led the recent ACPA faculty racial justice and decolonization Institute. I’m excited to learn about their experience planning, leading and the participants experience with the Institute. Student Affairs NOW is premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us 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 browser archives at studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity, a true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him, his speaker, consultant, and Coach, you can find out more about me, at keithedwards.com. I’m recording today’s episode from my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation. We have folks here who have planned, orchestrated and recently led this institute. I’m so excited to hear from each of you about that experience, and help share the learning with folks who weren’t able to attend. Let’s, let’s meet each of you and Q are going to start with you and tell us a little bit more about you.

Quortne Hutchings
Yes, so good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening for folks that the time of the recording when you’re viewing this recording. My name is Quortne Hutchings I go by Q pronouns are they them theirs. I’m an assistant professor of higher education at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. A little bit about my connections to this work. As a early career faculty member, I just finished my second year as a faculty member at NIU and have taught some courses primarily on curriculum pedagogy, and really wanted to really dive a little bit deeper and kind of get into curriculum pedagogy bag, if you will. And this felt like a really great opportunity to really work with some phenomenal colleagues. And so that was one of the reasons why I decided to get started and get joined a part of this community.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. And we also have Laila, who was just with us on a conversation about labor acknowledgments. So glad to have you back with us. Tell us all a little bit more about you.

Laila McCloud
Awesome. Thanks again. My name is Laila McLeod. I use she and her pronouns. I’m assistant professor of Higher Education at Grand Valley State University, which is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My interest in working with this institute is really my own research and experiences with engraving and he’s the classrooms and just really wanting to expand the conversation about the scholarship of teaching and learning within our field.

Keith Edwards
Terrific. And Rick’s joining us to tell us more about you, Rick.

Ricardo Montelongo
Greetings, everyone. Hola. Buenas Dias. My name is Ricardo Montelongo, please call me Rick. And my pronouns are he him his L. and I’m an associate professor in Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University, and I teach primarily in our higher education, master’s and doctoral programs. My connection to the institute largely aligns with my research interest and my general interest and Student Affairs Administration, especially experiences of Latin X Latino, Latina professionals in the field. That I also think it’s important that I am also interested in what’s called critical Digital Pedagogy. I am an online instructor. And so I wanted to bring some of that experience in the lens of this institute.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful, glad to have you here and Ericka.

Ericka Roland
Hello, my name is Ericka Roland. I am a assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and our Department of Education leading sort of policy studies. My pronouns are she, her and hers. The reason why I wanted to do this, I’m really passionate about teaching more so coaching and what does that look like? Not only in a classroom, but what does that look like for advising? Also, moving students do dissertation phase, those kinds of things. So for me, it is opportunity. It was an opportunity just really to sit with other folks to really think about how do we do this work, because we don’t often get the space to do that. And then also for we’re missing, Michael Williams, who is also part of this. He is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri in their department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. A lot of his work focuses on mentorship socialization, so he’s been instrumental and really big part of our team.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, thanks for introducing yourself and honoring Michael as well, I really appreciate that. I’m really excited to learn from all of you as you planned and organized and deep dive and I’m sure had powerful conversation with each other and then work with the participants and then learn from that experience. We kind of get to distill all of that hard work and time and thought and everything and all the other things you do, and share with folks. I just want to begin with how did the institute come to be? Tell us a little bit about how that happened? I think, Leila, you’re gonna lead us here.

Laila McCloud
Sure. So ACPA released, the strategic imperative for racial justice. And decolonization was at 2019. Gosh. So you know, and lots of folks have had conversations or questions about okay, what is this framework look like in practice. And so, about three years ago, the AICPA Foundation Board of Trustees voted to give you know, ACP a grant to have a conversation about how faculty can infuse the imperative in our teaching. So obviously, we were all impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic. So that kind of puts the Institute on pause. But a call went out the fall. So last fall, inviting ACPA members to serve on the faculty, the inaugural faculty for the institute. And we applied and were selected and started the conversation about what would it look like to create an institute centering this imperative? And then Ericka can? Yeah,

Ericka Roland
I think in our planning, of course, we looked at what the foundation kind of oneness to cover. But for the most part, we really tried to be intentional, and really think of ways to push pedagogy and teaching in higher ed, Student Affairs. And so we had to have some intentional conversations about what exactly are we talking about, are we going to talk about kind of the social political time, so we’re going to talk about student relationships, or we’re going to talk about teaching and learning our content. And so we spent a lot of time really trying to understand where the content was. But for the most part, we want to be intentional about providing an experience where folks can build relationships, because we believe in order to be anti, to be to enact racial equity and decolonization first, you have to start with some relationships. And also this idea that oftentimes we teach in silos. So it’s really nice to know that other people are thinking about this. And so we really tried to plan a community based conversation dialogue, intentional, foul, Institute, right? And try to model some of the some of the some of our pedagogical approaches.

Keith Edwards
Well, first of all, kudos to all of you for the courage to be faculty for an institute for faculty. That’s usually a not it, I’d prefer someone else do that. So thanks to all of you for applying and wanting to do this task of being faculty for other faculty. I love the intentionality going into this. What was the experience of the institute like for the participants? And for you? Q What was it like for the participants in for you?

Quortne Hutchings
Yeah, one of the things that I’m thinking about, as this happened last week, it’s kind of really fresh and fresh in my mind and my heart. It was just to me felt like just a phenomenal experience, I think at first, you know, it felt like the first day of school at first when some folks know each other, for some folks don’t know each other. But I think that at the heart of it, people really came in from a space of curiosity and engagement. One of the things that I thought that was really beautiful is that we separated each of the days based off of the different tenants of the strategic imperative, talking about critical consciousness the first day, and talking about things such as engraving and other ways of how we engage in that work. We also talked about humanization and radical democracy on the second day, and throughout the time, I think for me, it felt like I was just among a community of people that also just love teaching and wanted to deepen their teaching and pedagogy, like really in ways that folks were sharing information. It felt like as I called it, like a curriculum cipher, like it felt like folks were just dropping knowledge about how do they engage in the classroom in these ways, from a community college perspective. There were folks who worked in first first year, first year experience, there were folks who worked in higher ed, there were folks that worked in different fields of education, and I think that that created such a perfect blend of how do we talk about the work you do to comparative lens?

Keith Edwards
I think that’s so great, because I think, faculty as Ericka mentioned, faculty Life can be so siloed right? You teach by yourself, you’re in community with the students but you don’t know am I doing is that similar to what other people do? When does someone have a great idea that I’ve never even heard about? And so sharing community connection sharing tools and approaches and strategies sounds super fun. Rick, what about you? What was what was experienced? Like for you?

Ricardo Montelongo
It was a fantastic experience. And, you know, looking at the participants that were part of the institute, you couldn’t ask for a better group of participants, especially for an inaugural event. And I think for me, I think it was really a part of me was a little uncertain, like, what is this going to look like in the end, and looking back, it’s like, for an inaugural event, you can only imagine what next year’s event would be. And a large part of that was exactly what Q is describing a lot of community relationship building, but also what have, you know, I think a lot of our participants came with the comfortable in this sharing, like, I guess some of the vulnerability, but also like, um, you know, I want to try something, what are your thoughts about it through the lens of the strategic imperative, and being in that space, where there’s a lot of validation was, I think, for me make the event impactful. And I will say that, you know, working with the faculty team, even amongst ourselves, we learned a lot from each other. They learned my nickname is papa. And so there’s a meaning behind that. And, and I think our relationship building as faculty only made the experience richer for the participants. And I think something like this is needed. You know, you mentioned teaching faculty, well, a lot of us self identified the states that we originate from, you know, I’m in Texas, we have some participants from Florida. And so we all know, how diversity issues and initiatives, especially teaching are being discussed. And so being in that space, where it’s safe to talk, and to feel validated on your emotions and experiences, I think, for me, made the whole inaugural Institute really rewarding.

Keith Edwards
I love that bringing in to the community and the connection and the sharing. But then also what’s what’s the process like the vulnerability, the emotional aspects, again, things that don’t always go so well at faculty meetings, or department meetings, and then you’re off to the races to do all the things that you’re doing, Ericka and Laila, do you want to add what it was like for you or for the participants?

Laila McCloud
Sure, I would say one of the things to go back to Ericka’s early, earlier point about the intentionality behind it was giving folks space to actually try out these ideas or talk them out. And to have the institute faculty, like we were going around the room to kind of, you know, help folks just talk their ideas out loud. And as y’all if we’ve kind of mentioned it before, a lot of times, we don’t have the time to do that, right? We’re throwing a syllabus or throwing a course. And we’re just trying to stay a week or two ahead of the students. So to have this time to be intentional about, you know, why do I have so many assignments? What do I want students to know, think? Or do? Is there a better way to measure how students are learning? But also, I think a really powerful conversation we had was, who are you as an instructor? And then how do you communicate that to students, you know, in your courses, the way that you designed them, the readings that you select activities are a sight, you know, all of these things are shaped by how we understand our roles. Another thing that I thought was really great for our community there was we got folks from higher ed and not from higher ed, right, we have MOOCs from community colleges, four year institutions from around the US and Canada. So the fact that we were able to attract for our inaugural event, as Rick said, folks from all over different institution types, some folks only taught undergraduate students, some folks taught, you know, master’s level or doctoral level students. So being able to here and there even some DACA students who haven’t taught yet, right, so just being able to have that space, of diversity of ideas and the intergenerational conversations that happen, I think it’s really important for us to think about how that influences the work that we’re doing in the classroom. So the energy was just great. Again, shout out to the AICPA Foundation for their generous support of this because I think, when you’re able to fully be present in that space, a lot of beautiful things can happen. So I would say it was overall just a really great experience.

Ericka Roland
And I would add, I have a unique situation where I was not on site. So I felt like the big brother trying to figure out like what’s happening? Can y’all give me a play by play but my colleagues on the zoom here, they were busy facilitating, but one of the things I thought was very interesting But I don’t know my colleagues know that some of the some of the participants, I would check in with them after the event and see what happens. And so this idea that what they were learning, it was transformative in that moment. But how are we communicating what they learned and what they’re thinking about beyond just the people that were there, right. And so it was nice to be able to talk to some of the participants and say, so like, how was it? What was the experience, and to hear from their perspective, as a person that could not be there, I think that’s even more transformative for me, because it’s like, we planned a great Institute, we had an experience, but we still don’t know the magnitude of what happened in that space, how it will impact other people and other ways of teaching and learning in higher ed, and so in that participants are willing to share, and that’s always a good situation. So as a person on the outside for the on site, we’re really figuring out how learning can go beyond just the in person experience.

Keith Edwards
I love that I think the trickle of this is powerful from the faculty who attended to their students, to their colleagues who they’re going to share ideas with, then the faculty that they will mentor as Doc students and things and who then you know, you can really sort of see this spreading out. And as Rick’s drawing our attention sounds like this won’t be the only Institute the inaugural One, they’ll be future ones and what you all did, hopefully, it gets built upon and made even better in the future, and this conversation opportunity to expand that impact as well. So I’d love to hear from each of you. What did you learn from the process? I mean, you were faculty, you were leading your guiding, but it sounds like you were very much participants as well engaged in the self work engaged in the community and relationships and engaged in the sharing of experiences and pedagogy. What did you take from the process that you’re eager to bring to your own roles? Teaching, researching, mentoring, leading? Rick, you get to earn Laila, you get to kick us off here? What did you learn that you want to bring your own faculty role?

Laila McCloud
One day, my colleagues are absolutely brilliant. I think earlier also that, like we’d learned so much from each other, like, we were literally just taking so many notes. Um, I think the biggest thing for me is, is how do I get my students to connect, to continue to connect outside of the classroom, right? So a lot of times, we’re focused on what’s happening in that three hour time block or whatever. But how can I give, I’m not additional homework, but give additional guides or ways that students can further make connections with the material, one thing that keeps coming up for me, as someone who teaches and, you know, Masters only, HESA program? Is there such a disconnect between sometimes what I’m teaching and what students are seeing in their assistantships or practicums. So how can we strengthen that relationship? And so a lot of the conversations, small group conversations, that I was a part of talked about that disconnect. And that’s something that also ties to my own research. And that how are we really promoting a better integration of theory and practice? Like we say it all the time, we market our programs this way. But as we’re seeing, you know, declines and enrollment or people being frustrated about student affairs as a profession. All of this makes me think about how can we close those gaps? So that’s something I’m taking away for sure.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful, wonderful. Rick, what did you take away?

Ricardo Montelongo
You know, at the institute, the component of the strategic imperative that I discussed with the Institute members and with my colleagues was radical democracy. It is a pilgrimage. But like I said it has become very popular. as either an adventure, a hiking adventure, or I think from why interactions, people start as an adventure, but ended up making it a meaning making experience. So going back to the institute, you know, since the experience was so recent, the Institute occurred two weeks after my Camino experience, I’m so glad I was able to talk about radical democracy, because, you know, the the institute or excuse me, the imperative talks about the worlds we want to create that are centered on love. I was able to experience a world where love is the core, you just have to, you just have to walk 500 miles, to understand what love means. And yes, it does hurt physically, but it really reminded me that in what I saw the institute was the imperative is all about creating community, we, you know, it’s used in different ways in terms of practice, but for the Institute, we focused on teaching. And so how do you create community and teaching, the only way you can create community and relationships is by conversing with people, right? Once you make a conversation, then you start learning about the person, or persons. And so that’s what I know, I was kind of rushing through my part, but I really want to use the imperative to focus on like, to create that community, all it begins is saying hello to someone. And I learned that from doing this meaning making experience called the Camino. And when you know, the inaugural Institute, I saw that, like, it just began with the sat on the table. He said, Hello, and by an hour later, you’re sharing ideas or laughing, you’re talking to us, the faculty members. And so, you know, in with this, because I did disclose, I think amongst my colleagues here, I have a more seasoned lens. I’ve been in the profession since the early 90s. And I brought that knowledge to really think about, like the transformations that ACPA has gone through. And for me, you know, I think it was Laila mentioned the intergenerational conversations. That’s very important, you know, as a Gen X or seeing the new generation transforming higher ed, I think they need to learn from the seasoned professionals and vice versa. And and what better way to do that through teaching ideas, seeing people who are interested in tenure track faculty positions, or just teaching in general, and and supporting each other. And so I, you know, I just thought the world we create radical democracy conversations community building, and then after that, making sure we’re all supported.

Keith Edwards
I love that you got it. You know, we talk about love as a strategy. And the imperative certainly talks about that, and that can feel sort of softer, or passive, or permissive. I love you walk 500 miles, find out what love really is right? Love is difficult.

Ricardo Montelongo
I’ve walked 168 miles, I didn’t do the hook. So enough is enough, if I knew that it was enough to interact really, intentionally and intensively with some some folks that just made a huge impact

Keith Edwards
and strangers, and I think it points to love as a robust, challenging, difficult thing, and really engaging that around issues of racial justice, around decolonization around equity broadly, and really bringing that focus, it’s an easy thing to say, it’s a much harder thing to do, it’s an easy thing to say, it’s an easy thing to critique, but it’s, it’s a much harder thing to actually do.

Ricardo Montelongo
And it’s the core of the strategic imperative. I mean, it all revolves around love. And I think when I even looked at the graphic for the strategic imperative, you know, it’s a dynamic charge, but the center of it never moves and that center is love and I’ve been really focusing in on that. Want to continue to explore that. And again, just for me personally, I had the privilege and the opportunity to do a meaning making experience and and it’s provided provided me some profound lessons that I just want to keep talking to my colleagues about, and because I’m still processing it to be quite honest, and the imperative just I mean this to just happen at the right moment. Beautiful.

Keith Edwards
I wish that I wish that graphic could move. I wish that graphic could be you know, we could get a gift and get it in my motion to sort of reveal a dynamic pneus I think maybe someone was skills can help us. Ericka was build on this,

Ericka Roland
I’m still talking about love and new generation. For me I took from the institute is how to

Ericka Roland
organize and think with faculty. Because any other time that I’ve done work with faculty around curriculum is like, hold on a second, you’re not to follow directions. Everybody started doing their own thing. And you’re just like, Wait, stay on task. And so oftentimes, when we talk about curriculum and teaching, it’s really focused on what is the students going to do, I think, for me, really taking away from is how to facilitate conversation with faculty, especially the rethinking of the ways in which we teach and teach in higher education, especially as it relates to student affairs as it relates to ACPA. Because we’re all all these organizations, ACPA, NASA Ash is having the same conversations about program coordinating, we need to change our curriculum, you got to be all these things. But I feel like one of the conversations that brought to light in this institute for me is that what we’re not doing is really having a faculty conversation. We’re trying to be center without really dealing with or engaging with the folks that become the vehicle in which this happens, the thinking, and so for me how important it is not to think about the imperative just for students. But what does that look like for curriculum building? What does that look like for faculty? togetherness, because I think at this point, and especially student first higher ed, we can no longer be in silos. We can’t see teach student development in the way we’ve always taught it, right. Because there’s outcomes to enrollment and all the other things and that we’re all stressed out about that we can’t, the joy of sitting with learning was taken away, because we have to do all these things. But how do we integrate that. And so for me, trying to not shy away from having conversations with faculty, and my colleagues will tell you, I’m pretty good at being like, that’s not our focus. Let’s get back to. That’s great. We’ll note that. But But again, it’s one of those things of how to how to really engage faculty without feeling that you’re impinging on their freedom of speech or their freedom, academic freedom, or challenging their expertise, but knowing that we have at a time right now that we have to be a collective as a family, and have real conversations about curriculum and how racial equity and decolonization goes through our curriculum. So that’s what I took away from this.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I’m really struck with the notion of, and I’ve heard this and for many of you in different ways about faculty breaking free of being the Knowers, and the authority and in charge, and having all the answers and getting in the space of being learners engaging with each other, on learning some things I mean, you know, faculty passed down intentionally and unintentionally what what, what faculty how we were taught and how we were managed, the classroom was organized in the assignments we got in sometimes is really great. And sometimes not so much. So just this, what don’t I know? What do I have to learn? How can I be communicated with each other? How can I do some of that? is really striking to me. Q. Do you want to jump in here? What are you taking away?

Quortne Hutchings
Yeah, so one of the things that I one of the things I will say when I first came into the mix of the group, I think one because I was you know, I’m an early career faculty member, so probably fairly younger and my career, I kind of felt like Michelle from Destiny’s Child, like when she’s coming into an established group. Like y’all are folks who are like super established faculty and done phenomenal work and teaching and some ways I was like, what, what is what is my space, kind of what is my group into this, this moment with my colleagues and some of the things I think that I’ve learned throughout the process is that early career faculty also are folks who are engaging, and learning and learning by like doing things in their earlier moments, or just kind of in the beginning, and for me, I felt very much a part of the group I felt and community I felt love from folks. It wasn’t like oh, like, you know, you’re just kind of early on you don’t really know anything, but it was more so what are what we really freedom during with each other and we really curriculum drained with each other that I felt like it’s it felt to me, like I didn’t have to be anybody else other than myself with these folks. And I think even throughout the faculty, even throughout the institute, I felt that way when engaging with folks there. Teach at a teaching institution and I’m currently teaching two summer courses and I’ve taught about a courses this you know, this year and I actually am going to be teaching a course on teaching and learning in the fall. And that really came out of the love from this institute, I got, we got asked if someone was interested in teaching the Teaching and Learning class. And I was, I was like, wow, I really want to really, really get into this teaching and learning scholarship, and really help other other practitioners, other scholars as educators really do this work. And I think for me, as a black queer faculty member, I really try to center my identities in the classroom and the ways of how I teach. And from learning throughout this process that made me believe that I don’t have to hide different parts of who I am in the classroom, when I work with my students, so the ways of how I create curriculum, the ways I create assignments, and I think from the connections with, with these folks here in a space, it made me believe that you can do this work for many of times in different ways. And it’s okay if you, you know, mess up, or things that you kind of really had the space to just exist in the classroom. And I think that sometimes as a faculty member, we tend to think about so many things, it’s about performance, a lot of it is for evaluating or performing as faculty. And for me, I had to think about let me take that Baylor law, and really show myself from in those moments not only with my students, but also when am I learning from myself featured throughout the book spaces. So those are the things that I’m taking from this process.

Keith Edwards
I love it. I mean, we we’ve centered love and God talked about the Camino and we got a Destiny’s Child reference, we’re off to we’re doing, we’re doing.

Laila McCloud
I just wanted to jump in really quickly and say, one, I am so thankful, again, that the Institute has brought me in community with these amazing folks. Something else that came up, I think, during the institute that we as faculty need to continue to wrestle with is how we understand what colonization is and be compensations. Like, those are terms that I would say, even we as faculty were thinking about, and we know within higher education in particular, we throw this term around very loosely, to mean something, right, whatever it is, we’re not really sure on. And so one of the things that was offered during the institute is that higher education itself is a clone of colonial project, right? So that, you know, Harvard University, or Harvard College was founded. It’s been colonized. So you know, to help with the colonization of this land. And so thinking about the very institutions that we work in as colonial projects, really, I think is an important starting place. When we think about what does this mean moving forward, that it’s still happening? It’s not a historical thing, only it’s that is still currently happening? And what does that mean, for us that study this field if we approach it with that lens? And then what does that mean for the way that we teach? Right? So you mentioned earlier, like, sometimes, we take we teach how we were taught, right, and a lot of this weren’t taught how to teach, right, we just know that we know how to do research, because we have doctorates. But that teaching is not always emphasized depending on your experiences as a doctoral student. So thinking about that adds another layer to the type of work that we’re doing. And I also felt like, when we were initially talking about this today, I was like, Wow, this seems like a lot of time. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, we need more time. There were so much we’ve gone through, because people have such great questions, and people are coming at it from so many different experiences. And so thinking about future Institute’s, I do think those are some things that we would like to delve into a lot more is what is colonization, decolonization? What does it mean for the work that we’re doing? And also, there are some, I guess, technical things about teaching that we need to review and also how that’s different from facilitation, which I think a lot of us who started out as Student Affairs practitioners, like we did facilitate, we do facilitation all the time. But that is different from actually teaching concepts and theories and ideas and things like that. And so how do we help people understand that? So yeah, I just wanna say there’s, it was packed, but it’s like, oh, my gosh, we could have been here for a couple more days, because there was just so much to time cover. So

Keith Edwards
I really appreciate you bringing that in. Because I think it is something that sometimes just gets kind of lumped in, and it was just another racial justice and decolonization without unpacking that and separate that and really examining that, and I love you bringing in the history of institutions and structures. I’m reminding folks within particular one I’m focused on the learning beyond the classroom. How have our understandings been rooted in in colonization of, of what is learning? What is knowledge? What is education? What is teaching and what, when we hear those words, what does that evoke in us and for all of us, probably some similar things and probably some really different things and just apply doesn’t say what, what is what have I learned? What have I internalized? That is really from a whiteness perspective, from a colonialist perspective, from a dominant Western culture perspective. And to not feel bad about that, but to recognize and be conscious and be aware of that. And then how do I want to undo that? How do I want to explore that? I think it’s just, it’s hard. But it’s so rich. And I think I think you you said freedom dreaming? Yes, yes. Yeah, that sounds great.

Quortne Hutchings
And I think I mean, I think freedom dreaming, I think, in a lot of ways, feels, from a sense of like, hope, but insightful, like being insightful and also really wanted to critically engage in that work. But I think freedom dreaming, I think in a lot of ways, particularly for, you know, for black folks, black folks from minority identities, that usually keeps us going in the work. And I think, I think as faculty, we tend to think about the work that we do with our students, but that also was screened dreaming. Like we’re literally dreaming about what’s classrooms look like, even after our students leave the classroom, we’re thinking about it each week. And each semester and each year and my hope is that posts will use the this imperative as a way to freedom dream, particularly within their within their ways of how they do curriculum, how to add pedagogy, how to what to do different practices, particularly, particularly for them as faculty and as educators.

Keith Edwards
I love it. I think a lot of times our equity work is rooted in what we don’t want, right anti this against that we want to stop that we want in that and that’s super that anti oppression is so so critical. And what is liberation look like? And I’ve never heard that term freedom dreaming. I love it. So thank you. Thank you for that. Well, we’ve got a bit of time here. So I want to move us to our last question and give you a little bit of space to maybe freedom dream. But you know, the podcasts called Student Affairs now and I’d love to hear from each of you what you’re what you’re thinking, what you’re troubling. What you’re pondering can be related to the institute can be related to our conversation today can be related to, you know, the world what what you’re thinking about, as we’re in this summertime gearing up for fall courses and all the other things going on. And if you also want to share where folks can connect with you. That would be great. Rick, we haven’t heard from you in a bit. So why don’t you kick us off? What is with you now?

Ricardo Montelongo
Okay, well, first of all, I’ll mention how viewers can connect with me. I’m on LinkedIn, on LinkedIn. You can find information especially about my many areas that interests me in higher ed, but also have a personal website. If I need to update it, but I do plan to use that space to address your first question. I would add a word just for me personally, I’m wandering. And obviously it connects to my Camino experience my recent meaning making journey that I took. And I am trying to use that experience to help me understand where higher ed Higher Education Student Affairs is at the moment, because, you know, I understand a lot of the difficulties, the challenges that we’re going through. But people that know me, people that are even my students in my classrooms, and especially my friends, I’m a very critical scholar, but I’m also a very hopeful, optimistic scholar. Because if we lose the optimism if we lose the hope they win when you think about it. And so I’m always in a space of what can we do further and so I use I intentionally use the word wandering because that’s exactly what I did for a full month in Europe. And when I wandered I felt like I had learned and and I want to continue to explore that and how I can learn more about higher ed and transforming higher ed through the process of the many things that I’m still processing from my meaning making experience and and you know, mine was the Camino but there are other meeting making experiences that are out there. You don’t have to go across the pond or disease to do something like this. And I think I want to explore that I want to explore I want to discuss that with my students like what? What can? What? Is there something similar that you can do that I did that can have just as much impact? It could be visiting your mom, or you know, a loved one. I don’t know. I want to keep exploring those questions and wander a bit.

Keith Edwards
I love it wandering as pedagogy.

Ricardo Montelongo
Your next podcast

Keith Edwards
about wandering is pedagogy sounds like sounds to me, like that’s an idea you’re excited about. And you I look forward to you really.

Ricardo Montelongo
I will give a quick shout out. I mean, since you’re one since you used to work pedagogy and obviously this is in the lens of that. I do want to make a shout out to there’s a wonderful Institute. The pilgrimage studies at William and Mary and one of the faculty members there. Dr. Ben Boone was my informal advisor when I was on the Camino. And so there is a there is a there is study on that Dr. Ben Boone. Shout out to you, my good friend, my fellow Pellegrino. He did, he’d has written a dissertation and other articles about that. So yes, I want to learn from him. And and continue that discussion using something like this, right, and

Keith Edwards
we’ll get some links in the show notes. For folks who want to learn more that would that would be great. Thank you, Laila. What are you What’s with you now?

Laila McCloud
So many things. Um, but I’ll start to with where folks can find me. I’m on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And if you want to continue the conversation, um, I am thinking moreso about how do we expand the conversation around particularly Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, we know that her changing student affairs is a low consensus field meaning that you know, people teach Introduction to Student Affairs, a million different ways people teach history a million different ways. People say I you know, I joke that, you know, some schools, or some programs, the law class is very legalistic, and sometimes it’s just don’t get fired. Right. And so, just having so many conversations around, what do we want the future of this profession to look like? And how can we freedom dream, as Timberline says together? About what are the things you want to keep? What are the things you want to get rid of? And I think we’re really at a at a critical point, I’m thinking, you know, SEPA turns 100 years old next year. So there’s a, there’s, the opportunity is ripe for us to start thinking about, Okay, we’ve been doing these things, we could fill a whole library, some of us have written entire lit reviews on what has and what hasn’t worked. And so Okay, where do we go from there? How do we move these ideas from these journals from these books into practice, in ways that recognize the full humanity of everyone who wants to pursue post secondary education in the US and around around the world? But we have to start asking different questions. So I keep bringing this back to my classrooms, where I asked, you know, each week, there’s a big question that’s supposed to kind of guide our thinking about a topic. But I’m also like, we need to start asking different questions, right. So I often give the analogy as a hurdle Track and Field hurdle analogy of within higher education, you know, we line up these hurdles for students. And instead of removing the hurdles, we just give them better uniforms and shoes through which to jump over the hurdles. And so if we ask different questions, the questions are going to be, you know, why are these hurdles there? Why is our solution just to give them better things to jump over them versus looking at the maintenance who keeps painting these hurdles every year? Who keeps making sure that there’s 30 in the ground every year? Right? So those are just, you know, we need to think differently. Another example I’ll give quickly, is just you know, un-grading, which I think is taking off in lots of different ways. And I say, well, un-grading has limitations, because the rest of the institution uses grades to keep folks out of opportunities, right? And so how do we move it beyond visual classroom to these larger structures and systems? So I’m troubling so much right now, but also trying to get our colleagues and a larger conversation about Okay, what’s next? Right, like we did this great Institute, but our classrooms can’t continue doing the same things that they’ve been doing. And then we’re surprised when people say, I don’t want to do this anymore. Or, you know, this field isn’t great. I think Student Affairs is an amazing field, not just because I’m a faculty member and a program, but I believe in the transfer the transfer, transfer, transformative The nature of our work. But it can’t continue. As Erica said earlier to be in silos, we got to come together. So that’s going to be something I’ll be tweeting about for quite some time.

Keith Edwards
You’ve mentioned this in lots of different ways the theory to practice and how do we make this not just an institute, but also something people are putting into practice, in the many ways that they engage his faculty, and in the helping students put that into practice, which is, you said, something we always talk about, we don’t always do it very well. We usually don’t find out until we get past that graduation. And we get that job and we’re like, Oh, I was not ready for this. I thought it was great. Q What do you what are you pondering?

Quortne Hutchings
Yeah, so firstly, I will share like folks who are post can reach me or tweet me LinkedIn, the email me if you want to reach me, that’s a shout out to. But I will say, my You can reach me through Twitter with Dr. Q. Hutchings. You can also find me on LinkedIn through my name party countries, PhD and in my email, I can share that as well. But currently on Twitter is probably the best place to kind of tweet at me. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about one thing, what folks may not know about me, or I do, I’m a Pisces. So I tend to just very much sit in my emotions and my feelings and my thoughts. And so as you share with thinking, troubling or pondering, I’d have one thing about reflection and discernment. And I think that’s also tied into my work, my work being at a Jesuit institution, and been trained as an institution for my doctorate. And I tend to reflect it across and reflecting, discern a lot. After each of my classes, I actually call my mom. And so shout out to my mom, my process with her very much about my teaching. And she’s also pursuing her her bachelor’s degree as well right now. And so there’s been this like, very much shared experience about what teaching and learning is like, not only through her eyes, but also through my eyes, as well and through into our coaches and our lenses. And so it’s given me some space to really think deeply about what happens to my students in the classroom even after they leave my class. And so I’m continuing to thinking about the reflection discernment, as I’m going up to third year review, how am I constructing my narrative? How am I actually outlining what those things look like? And it’s also giving me some space. So thinking, what are things that still need to be done? What are still things that needs to be evolved? And I think in this work, and so, for me, I think I’m in a space of just reflecting on what is it mean to bring your full self into the into the classroom? And what does that mean when students are not able to do that or when I’m not able to do that? And so how am I wrestling with those pieces, particularly in those ways? And so those are things that I’m currently thinking about right now.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful. Well call the mom for critical pedagogical reflection. We’re getting it all here. Ericka, I love that we’re sort of ending with you about what your troubling pondering or thinking now with someone who was part of the planning and instigating, not there, but also there from afar? What is with you now?

Ericka Roland
So you can find me on Twitter at Dr. E. Roland? I’m be honest, right now, only thing I’m tweeting about is WNBA. So I think two things that I’m pondering outside of the WNBA season, is this idea of especially around the imperative, how do we move away from competencies and checkmarks? And really sit in learning and how learning can inspire critical thinking? Because I think the question I think Laila has posed to us a couple of times is how does our classroom experience match what’s happening in student affairs? And I think that’s hard to that’s hard to put it together in the ways in which we’ve been thinking about it, versus how do we help people have space to imagine a freedom dream, and to develop their critical thinking skills that way, regardless of the situation, that they have the capacity to engage in some critical thinking around what should be next or making I always tell my students, like, I want you to be conscious about your bias. I want to be I want you to be conscious about your oppression, versus it didn’t just happen. And so for me, I’m really thinking about how do we how do we situate learning and critical thinking and less about competencies and job satisfaction or job equipment. But really, the higher ed right now need some people to rethink higher ed and to be able to critically think, I mean, but I also think that’s kind of society big. We are, we are docile bodies. And so how We create spaces, there’s no way for us to have change no matter how many institutes we have. And we have people that are just willing to kind of check the box and do what they’re told. And a few get to the top to make decisions. So, for me, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. And then the last one, because we’re at the end of the summer, I think you talked about bringing your whole self to the, to your teaching, I keep thinking about what is rest look like, Y’all I am tired. And tired physically, emotionally and mentally around what’s happening in our political landscape. Where that situates me as a black woman, but also our students are tired. And in me how lack of coping or resources they have even as higher ed professionals. And so I’ve been really thinking about what is rest look like? And how do we? How do we pause the checking of like, you need to learn this, or you need to have this competency? Versus how do we just be in rest for a second? And so yeah, those are the things that I’m pondering around just kind of a different way of how do we move forward? And what that’s what are those skills that we need to move forward? versus kind of what is the field and competencies that we can check off to say that we’re valuable?

Keith Edwards
We just have a couple of minutes. I can’t help but though, say more about docile bodies? Is I further seconds, just give us You got Morris, I know you got two hours, but just say,

Ericka Roland
but just think the ideal just taking in whatever there is right? There’s not uncritically just accepting, like we have all the information around. It’s kind of like, I don’t want to make wave. I don’t want a resistance. Therefore, I’m just going to do what I’m told. Or I’m just not going to question that. And try to move towards kind of what Bell Hooks is saying is a critical spectator is that not everything? Get anything into my mind, and I just take it right, that that push back that critical thinking asking those questions. And really, it’s just about power and control. So yeah,

Keith Edwards
thank you. i Oh, we got Bell Hooks critical spectator. And I’m so glad we did that. Thank you all so much for joining us. I know you’ve spent a lot of time planning. I know you spent a lot of time being at the institute. And thank you so much for generously giving us a little bit more time to talk about it, and share with others. I’m really appreciative to each of you for your leadership, your scholarship and your time to share. And our colleague who couldn’t be with us Dr. Michael Williams, who is here in spirit, but not here on the Zoom. Thanks also to our sponsor of today’s episode Symplicity. Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institutions simplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being students success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. A huge shout out to our producer, Nat Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make us all look and sound good. And we love the support for these conversations from our community. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube. And wherever you get your podcast and joining our weekly newsletter where we share each week’s new episode. If you’re so inclined, you can also leave us a five star review. Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

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