Helena Gardner
Welcome to Here’s the Story, a show that brings Student Affairs to life by sharing the authentic voices and lived experience of those who are shaping the field every day. I’m your host. Helena Gartner, my pronouns are she? Her, hers, and I serve as the Director of Residence, education and housing services at Michigan State. At Michigan State University. I live my life as a mom, a sister, a daughter, a friend and a mentor. I’m going to toss it over to my co host,

J.T. Snipes
what’s up family? JT snipes My pronouns are he, Him his. And I serve as the Associate Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville and y’all, I’m just trying my best to live as a free black man in a world that would have me live otherwise.

Helena Gardner
I know that is right. I know that is right. Today I want to thank our sponsors here, Ron here on education and research experts help institutions transform their strategy, operations, technology and culture, to foster innovation, financial health and student success. And I want to welcome, I want to welcome you all today to a cool, cool, cool, cool story and introduce doctor Taran mcsee Now we spend some time on a yard together at Central Michigan University as young folks, okay, we did some things up there, and we continue to do some things today. And I’m very excited to have Dr z is what

J.T. Snipes
don’t just jump from the yard now hello. You say what you can’t. You can’t just tell the audience we was on the yard and not tell us a little something.

Helena Gardner
Oh, so, you know, I’m always ready to flex and talk about my experience and the wonderful land of pink, green, of Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority Incorporated. So Imma, let y’all flex and do your yard show real quick.

Taran McZee
Well being. On the yard with Miss Gardner had the opportunity to to be a part of the greatest fraternity ever created by man, Yes, Lord the distinguished gentleman of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity incorporated yo yo from the bros.

Helena Gardner
What you got? JT, what you got, though. You

J.T. Snipes
said, take it back. You know, I appreciate, I appreciate our younger brothers. We love y’all. It’s all love. I’m sorry I’m cutting

Helena Gardner
up. You got to let them know, you guys,

J.T. Snipes
I’m I’m part of the I was, I crossed in 2003 to Alpha chapter of alpha alpha fraternity incorporated at Baylor University. So I love that we were all on the yard.

Helena Gardner
We was all on the yard, and we all out here, still in these yards, doing things right, and still doing it. And with that, Imma turn it over to doctor Z to tell us a little bit about himself, what you doing today, on the yard that you are claiming today. And I know you got a story to tell so you you take it away. Alright?

Taran McZee
Awesome, awesome. Thank you, Miss Gardner and Doctor Snipes, man, I appreciate you both for having me this morning. Yes. I mean, we all. Started on a yard, and we’ve all progressively have gone to different yards, and we’re still on the yard at some other institution. So I am currently at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, which is a small private liberal arts school here in Michigan, and I serve as the vice president for belonging and culture. So I oversee all of the deib initiatives for the institution. And I’ve been in deib work for 22 years now, and it has been eye opening experience for me. I’ve served at six other institutions because, you know, in higher education, you gotta travel, especially if you’re on the administrative side, you gotta travel to different institutions in order to elevate, elevate and elevate. So I’ve elevated, always to the VP position, and do have my eyes set on being a president of a institution at some point in time here in the future. So so very, very excited about that. And some opportunities actually come in this summer. Can’t really talk about them, but some opportunities come in this summer for me to get me prepared for presidential opportunity. So but yeah,

Helena Gardner
if you stay ready, they say, if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. Well, I tell you this, I’m in a

Taran McZee
suit every day, but this will happen today. It’s it’s 87 degrees in the summer. I didn’t want to put on a suit today. I hear you.

Helena Gardner
I hear you. I hear you. I’m

Taran McZee
always dressed to impress, dressed ready to, you know, get the day started, man. So it’s for me. I always make sure, because you never know what’s actually going to come about for that day, right? Yeah, never know who you’re going to meet. You never know what opportunity may be presented to you. So always, I’m always dressed for any occasion. So if I’m going to a cocktail after work, all I do is take the tie off and take my suit Jack pockets and put them in. That’s casual wear at that point, right? So it just depends on what’s going on for that day with that evening. But I’m all like you said, I’m always ready, yeah, ready? Y’all, I promise that. So story to tell us, yeah? So that’s that’s interesting, because the it’s funny, Helena, you said something about dress, stay ready, because my conversation, my story, that has a lot to do with dressing. And so make a long story short, one of my mentors at Central Michigan University. Name is Stan shingles. I am from Flint, Michigan. I am from a fatherless home, so I didn’t get the opportunity to grow up in a house where a man showed me how to be a man. I had to learn from other folks, uncles and, you know, people in the community. And so at the time in Central Michigan, I was getting ready to graduate from college, and I had a couple internship and slash interviews. But I didn’t have a suit to wear. I talked to Stan shingles about what was actually going on. I really was just going to him for advice, what I should do. Next thing I know, man, next day, he told me to come to his office. He had a suit for me and that I don’t want you. I don’t want you to give me anything. I don’t want any money, anything. All I’m asking you to do is to pay it forward one day. And so that stuck with me for, I want to say this was back in 2022 that stuck with me for over 1718, years. How can I pay this for? How can I pay this for? How can I pay this forward? And I had the opportunity to serve, I’m not going to say this institution’s name because I haven’t got permission to say their name, but I had the opportunity to serve as a vice president at a community college, and I can say in the state of Kentucky, I can say that, and I served there for four years now, during my time, when I first got to this community college, they already had a black male initiative in place. And for those for the audience, understand where I’m going with this, my dissertation work was in critical analysis for African American males, for mentoring and community college. And so I have a passion for African American males to persist and to matriculate and to graduate. That is my passion. That is why I’m in higher education. That’s why I love what I do, because I get that opportunity to influence that right. But during this time at this community college, they already had a black male initiative, but it wasn’t wasn’t operating correctly and or they wasn’t getting what they needed from black males out of this program. So I asked if they wouldn’t mind if I took the program over. It was. Little fight at first, but I got it right. Um, when I came in, there was seven to 10 young men a part of this program when I left in four years, and I’ll back up when I left in four years, I had 110 Oh, young men in the program, with 85 coming every week. Okay, that’s the influence, because I came in and talk with these young men and met them where they were at, you know, I’m saying I’m from the streets. They from the streets. You know, I just happen to take a right turn and, you know, in life, and had the opportunity to share my story with my short my story resonated so much with them. They just kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back, and in return, the these young men range from the age of 18 to 54 Oh, okay. And so I had some of my I call them my OGS was, in turn, helping me mentor the younger generation. Although they were there to get their degrees as well, they were actually helping internalize and mentoring those young men. But where the story thickens it is, I have five young men that came to me. They had already been at the institution for two years, you know, community college only two years. They had only been there two years, and was told they were still a year, year and a half away from graduating. And so I told all five young men. I said, Hey, listen. I said, if you all follow my lead and do as I say. I said, What have you done in a year? What I did was I took it upon myself. I went and sat with the register’s office, and I sat with the provost, with about each one of the young men and what their path and where they was at. They gave me instructions on what they needed to do in order to graduate in that year. And I sat with all five of them after that and went through all of their schedules say, this is what you need to do to graduate next year. Now on top of that, they met, although we were meeting weekly in this black male initiative, they were meeting with me two and three times a week to make sure that they were getting the work that need to be done, passing the test that need to be be passing, and doing their clinicals when they need to go and do their clinicals for the trades that they were in they were getting their degrees in. And so make a long story short, y’all, I told those five young men. I said, Hey, and this is where Stan comes in. This is where the story Stan comes in. I said, Hey, if you all pass all your classes with a three point or above, I’ll buy you a suit. None of never, none of them had suits. I asked him, I said, Do you have suits? Well, I think one said he had a suit, but he couldn’t fit it no more. It no more. It was like, prom suit or something like that. But the other other four said they don’t have suits. I said, Cool. I said, Well, if y’all do this, then I’ll purchase you a suit for graduation. Time goes by semester. I mean, the year goes by. I’m nervous, because I know they was doing their thing, right? They were doing their thing. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing in that classroom as well. So then end of the year hits, they all come to me one by one. Boom, boom, boom, boom, all of a 3.0 they range from a 3.0 to a 3.6 that’s where they ranged from. And two of the young men mothers came to my office, and both cried in my arms because they said I had saved their sons. Oh, and that was the most humbling I probably hadn’t cried in years prior to them coming to see me, but that that humbled me. And I have this thing, y’all, if a woman cries, I cry. I don’t know why. I get it from my mother when she started crying, I don’t care if it’s a sole prop or T or a movie, she start crying. I’ll start crying. I don’t know where that comes from, but I do when I when a woman is in my presence, she gets emotional. I sometime have to leave the room, so I’ll leave. But that was that, that was a humbling experience, and to this day, I embrace that because I had, at that point, I didn’t know I had saved someone’s life. I didn’t know that I was just doing the work that you know, that was that I love doing, and that’s making sure black males persist. You know, that was my thing. And so got the GPAs we I said, Okay, y’all meet me at Men’s Warehouse. I think we met on like a Thursday, or something like that. Said, meet me at Men’s Warehouse. They met me at Men’s Warehouse. Now this is time. Time when COVID is 2021 22 we’re still wearing masks at the time, all right, but you can go into places at this time, but you still have to wear your mask, right? So we go into Men’s Warehouse, and for some odd reason, we were the only ones in there that day. I don’t know why, but we were the only ones in there that day. Could have been a time that because it was late in the evening, so it could have been time of the day, but we’re in there, and I’m saying to them, all right, you got three suits to choose from, a smoke gray suit, a blue suit or a black suit. I said, those are interviewing suits right there. I said, so you got those three choices? So they went off, went out and picked the suits that they wanted. I said, Cool. So as they’re as they’re picking out suits and things of that nature, I’m sitting there, the owner comes over, well, the white man that was working there comes over to me, and we’re talking, and he was like, What are you doing? I said, Well, these young men got three point O’s. They’re getting ready to graduate. I promised them, if they got 3.0 but point zero or above, I would buy them suits. And he was like, Oh, wow. And so he started talking to the young man. Next thing I know, they don’t put the suits on the table. Next thing I know, the white man comes up. And he started putting shirts with the suits.

Taran McZee
And the next time, no, he putting ties with suits, right? And then he asked, Who the young man, what size should you wear? And he went, got shoes. I said, Sir, I’m just here to buy suits. I didn’t say I was buying accessories. Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? I was like, hold on, hold on for a minute. Hold on a minute. And he was just like, listen, I heard this story. I want to be a blessing to them as well. I’m going to donate the shirt, the ties and the shoes with the suit. Not only did he donate that, he gave me each suit for $200 when they were $400 suits, you get he gave me each suit for $200 you know, I’m saying. And come to find out, we went in on the best day of the year, because the owner is only there once a month. And we went in on the day that the owner of men warehouse was there. And so he was the owner that we had met that day, and he shared that story. And it’s interesting, because till this day, some of those young men still they stayed in the city that the school was in, and they still go up there and they shop with him to this day. But I told those young men, just like Stan told me, pay it forward. I don’t want no money. I don’t want anything from y’all. Just pay it forward. Do it just for the next young man that comes behind you. Because one thing for certain, two things for show students don’t care how much you know, yeah, until you show them how much you care. I’m a firm believer in that, especially black boys, because we don’t trust easily. We don’t we don’t trust nobody, especially if they’re not in our family, you know. So to have the opportunity to work, you know, with those young men and to work with that program. That’s the reason why I went ahead and did my dissertation on that program and compared it to another program like it at Oklahoma City Community College, through my homeboy Brian, who was running another successful black male initiative in Oklahoma City. I’ll compare my program to his program, and what was the difference in those programs? And I interviewed his students along with my students, and a lot of a lot of the programs were similar in stature and infrastructure and framework, they were similar, because one thing about and just nice. I’m pretty sure you can attest to this one thing about black boys, especially black young men, if you put them on a schedule, and they abide by that schedule, they won’t veer off from them. They’ll stay there. Especially if it’s working for them, they’ll stay there. Now, some you have to push a little bit more. Some you got to cuss out a little bit more, you know I’m saying. But at the end, when you show them that you care, that’s the end. All be all, they’ll run through the brick wall for you if you show them that you care. And so for me, this has been an initiative even at the institution that I’m currently at. I started a black male Scholars Program here and got a title three grant for it. And now, you know, we got a lot of money to do some great things with our black males here at the institution. I. That I’m currently, that I’m currently at, and I have about, probably have about about 5560 young men a part of the program here at Albion, and they love the program. So, so yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s my story. You know. Again, I love this work that I do, especially for our black boys and men. Just, you know, a shameless plug, but I sit on the board for the National Association for diversity diversity, the National Association for diversity officer in higher education. I sit on the board for natahe, but I also sit on the board for the National boys, some of the board for the black boys, and being National Symposium as well. And so our National Symposium is actually coming up, June 11 through the 13th of this year. And if you know, love to have folks come out for that. Because, again, we gotta save our black boys. We have to, that’s a must, that we save our black boys. And so that’s my story. Y’all, I’m sticking with it. I hope that I’ve done what you’ve asked me to do, and sharing with you all. But yeah, this is the work that I love. Y’all, I love this

Helena Gardner
work. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that imma quickly. Give another shout out to our sponsors, and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about this a little bit. We we gotta talk about this experience, so let’s thank Huron one more time for sponsoring. Here’s the story. Huron collaborates with colleges and universities to create sound strategies, optimize operations and accelerate digital transformation by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo here on promotes institutional resilience In higher education. For more information, please visit go.hcg.com/now.

Helena Gardner
Oh. Okay, this what I need to know, did you buy 55 suits the next time? Because that’s a lot of suits.

Taran McZee
No, you know, unfortunately, but also a blessed opportunity. I left the institution after those young men graduated, because I got an opportunity to move back home, yeah, to be a VP here, here in Michigan, to be closer to my family, so my mom and stuff. So, so I left Kentucky and came back to Michigan at that time,

Helena Gardner
okay, okay, because they didn’t like being at home. They don’t like being at home. JT, what you thinking about over there?

J.T. Snipes
Well, I’m thinking about the the urgency of black men, right? And I’m also thinking about the controversy of it, right? Because if we go back to Obama’s national initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, right? There’s significant pushback from black women. And I’m I’m curious about what you would say to people, because you made clear, right? There is a crisis for black men. I’m curious how you would respond to what about black women.

Taran McZee
So, so that’s, that’s, that’s a, that’s a great, great, great question. What I would say to you, Brother Snipes, is, by the time black men and women reached the age of 18 years old, black females outnumber black males seven to one. Okay? Now if you calculate that with incarceration and homicide, okay? So 95% of black men, you know, honestly, I hate to say this, but our, our, our, killed by black men who either love them or that or that knew them. Okay, so let’s talk about the seven to one. Let’s talk about the one that gets to college. You see what I’m saying, even in the college setting, black females persist and matriculate on the graduation 10 times more than black males do. Okay? And this is all in my research. And if people want to challenge me, let’s do it. I’m ready to go because I got Cisco data to back it up. Okay, but, um, our African American females don’t have a problem graduating. Our black males do not grad. They do not. I,

J.T. Snipes
I’m gonna push back and say, sure, when I look at graduation rates, I’ll just use my own institution, okay, right? Our, our black graduation rates period, right? Are 20 points below what our average is. You. Yeah, and I don’t remember the exact percentage for the difference between white and Asian students, but are, across the board, black men and women at our institutions are struggling to matriculate. So I hear you in terms of comparing black black men to black women, but in general, like black women are still experiencing institutional struggles,

Taran McZee
I will say to you, Dr Snipes, I wouldn’t, I would not disagree with you whatsoever, because you do make a great point there. But we, if we still, if we’re comparing black males, the black females are black females are graduating more rapidly than our black males are. And I can give you example my institution here, only 17% of my black males are graduating. That’s the reason why I started a black male initiative at this school. But 67% of our female black, African American females graduate from here. So it’s, it’s in and even nationwide, it’s kind of the same thing our black females. And you know what I’ll be some of you said it makes, it makes so much sense, and it’s true. I it also may depend on the institution. Because I think if we’re looking at apples to apples with institutions, right? Be apples to orange institution. Every institution is different, but I think nationally, I think it’s safe to say that our black females are graduating more than black males. Let me

Helena Gardner
go ahead and be a black female here and offer to the faith that the walk is different. I want to use the struggle, but imma use some positive energy that the walk is a little bit different, and the supports might look different, and the representation looks different on many campuses. On many campuses, I can find a lot of women that look like me to connecting with I’m not sure that that experience is happening everywhere for our black males and happening differently. And many of us, we’re human beings, who we connect to, who we vibe with, who our energy goes with, can look different. I agree, but in this case, excuse me, what I think is that I want to pull out of, out of the scholarly debate happening with my doctor friends, is that passion piece, the passion piece to, I think I want to say to this work where we’ve got and so please, like, let me hang out in my non Doctor space for one second. Here my other scholarly space of just my kind of my knowing that there is we don’t always get to find ourselves in this work. And in finding ourselves in this work, we don’t always get to serve and support ourselves. One of the things I really enjoy the most moving back home in this in this current role, was having an opportunity to go visit my high school and do recruitment work on behalf of the institution in my department at my high school, knowing that for about I don’t know up until that point, 2324 years in my career, I have not had the opportunity to go in my space, in my land, and to serve in that way. So I just kind of want to say to the to the like, we can we can debate the percentage, the analytics, the numbers. I want to give some kudos, though, to hanging out in the space of paying it forward just a little bit, because I think that that’s not an opportunity we get all the time in our work. And I say that loosely because my work doesn’t focus on identity work. So maybe that’s a different experience for you doctor Z, and maybe differently for you doctor sniper, but for me, I just think it’s something that cool about the opportunity to hold up a mirror and then do that work with myself.

Taran McZee
So Dr Snyder, if I say something to you,

J.T. Snipes
oh, I don’t mind say something

Taran McZee
so well, it depends what me now I’m gonna say I applaud you for being at SIU in academics as a professor, because I didn’t have that man, I didn’t have a black professor in undergrad. I didn’t have a black professor in grad school, I didn’t have black professor until my doctoral work at Kentucky, university, Kentucky, you know I’m saying so students get opportunity. Young men get opportunity to see themselves in you, as as a as a positive opportunity, because you they can aspire to be you one day, because they see themselves in you because you’re sitting in front of me, you’re actually teaching. Them, I didn’t get that. So I applaud you for being on the academic side, because you could have went any anywhere in the world, but you want to stay in the classroom and students get that opportunity to see you as a black man, as a proud black man teaching the future. So I want to give shout out and kudos to you, because I never got that opportunity to see myself standing in front of me teaching me something.

J.T. Snipes
I appreciate that, and I know we need to wrap soon, but I really, I want to extend that back to you. You are doing good work in helping improve black men’s self worth. I think dress is critical, and in the academy, we often underplay it as something that’s vain and not worthy of contemplation. But I would argue we need to spend more time thinking about esthetics, yes, yes, and acknowledging it right? Because it does shape how we literally see someone. Yeah, the first thing that we encounter is how someone is dressed and what, what values are associated with that dress. Yep, right, yep. I have a colleague that wears hoodies intentionally because what happened to Trayvon Martin, right? Is a it is a cultural signal to the folks in the space that and he is excellent, and he tells people you can’t, he tells his students you can’t dress like me if you don’t produce like me, because a real consequences. Go up in the cultural wear and have terrible work. The same is true, though, if you, if you wear a suit, because I see this with some of our some of our black men, that will be like, Well, all I have to do is put on a suit, and then I take it seriously. And it’s like, no, the suit does help, but it won’t, it won’t overcome you not doing your work. So I do think we need to have some balanced conversations about the esthetic. I appreciate you at least helping our black men begin to think about their dress critically.

Helena Gardner
I love that because, you know, I think we could spend some time hanging out in the space of professionalism, and perhaps professionalism being rooted in whiteness, but that’s not even what we’re talking about. And I love that just in this dialog, like we know that’s not what we’re talking about, we’re literally talking about adorning your body and what that signals to folks. And so I just, I want to acknowledge that, because I think sometimes we can, we can vibrate a little low and think that’s what was meant, and that’s not what we’re saying. Is, how do you want to present yourself? What, what? What is your look? And how do you do that? Who helps you? Who straightens you out, and literally, like to be super cheesy with it. Who fixes your tie? Because Imma tell y’all. As a single mom out here, one of the biggest concerns I had was that I didn’t know if my son knew how to tie a tie, and Imma tell you, does not know how to tie a tie. And now maybe I should learn. It’s probably like a value add, maybe a skill set that’ll give me a little bit further out of my single life. But in my single life, I was worried about that, and that that baby found a way to fix his tie so that he can take care of himself and so but I know that he did that on his own. Mm, hmm, and it is not because he is short of role models, right, right, like there. Do I wish deeply that somebody put mine to the side and said, let me help you. Let me teach you. Let me show you I do like I got a little teary in my spirit. I didn’t know that was going to happen to me, but what I know, though, is that enough people have shown him how to take some initiative and how to make sure that however he presents himself to the people you gotta do, the things you gotta do, to do it the way you want to do it. So I’m grateful that he found a way to learn how to tie his tie confidently, because Imma tell y’all. I was like, let’s get a clip. And he was like, we don’t do clips, mom, like what? I actually need to figure this out. And so I’m grateful for the role models he had that taught him to do those things. So I just, I, thank you for your service, Doctor z, I think on behalf and standing with those moms, it is a wonderful thing when we have the opportunity to see love poured onto our boys, who then become men who have the opportunity to also pour so I just, I, thank you for that. And I’m not going to say, when we was walking around the yard that you wouldn’t have done that, but I am going to say I appreciate who you become, and so

Taran McZee
I thank you both for this, this wonderful opportunity to be a part of your podcast. And hopefully, if there’s anything I. Do to help the podcast in the future? Please let me know, and it’s nice to meet you. Doctor snipes as well. Thank you.

Helena Gardner
Thank you. Well, this has been here’s the story, part of the Student Affairs now, family, we’re so glad you joined us to laugh, cry, learn, sometimes commiserate and always celebrate being a part of the Student Affairs experience. If you have a story, and we all have a story, please consider sharing your story by leaving a two minute pitch via voice file at Student Affairs now.com/here. The story. Every story is welcome. Every earnest perspective is worthy. And if you don’t feel like sharing yours, you can catch ours because we still out there as the original post. So here’s the story. You can check out others, and you definitely can play this back, play doctor Z back a couple times. Um, we we hope this bad. Your flame a little bit, because your life matters until next time. This is, here’s the story. I’m Helena Gartner,

J.T. Snipes
I’m JT snipes.

Helena Gardner
Thank you for joining us.

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