Susana Muñoz:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs Now, I’m your host Susana Muñoz. Today. We’re talking about a new and exciting book titled identity conscious supervision. I am thrilled that today we are joined by the three author authors, scholar practitioners, and generally just fun people to hang out with. Student Affairs Now is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope that you’ll find these conversations, make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find us at studentaffairsnow.com or on Twitter @stuaffairsnow. As I mentioned, I’m Susana Muñoz. I’m an associate professor and program chair in the higher education leadership program at Colorado state university in Fort Collins. My pronouns are she her hers. I’m hosting this conversation today from Fort Collins, Colorado with respect. I want to acknowledge that I am on the lands of the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho Cheyenne and Ute nations and peoples. Now let’s get into our conversation. We’re here to discuss a new book, titled identity, conscious supervision in student affairs, building relationships and transforming systems with three of the authors, please introduce yourselves and their relationship that you have to the topic.

Robert Brown:
Well, thank you so much for having us. My name is Rob Brown. My gender pronouns are he him and his and I serve as a director of social justice education at Northwestern university and Evanston, Illinois. And I’m calling in today from Chicago. And in addition to that, I’m also a third year doctoral student in the higher ed leadership program at Colorado State University. And so what kind of got me engaged in kind of doing this book is really, my lens is both like a scholar and a practitioner. So as a practitioner I have been supervised, I am a supervisor and it is super hard and it’s a, just a very difficult thing. And I think as a supervisee, I don’t know that I always understood that complexity made sense of it. And until I was really in the role of a supervisor, particularly a professional staff. And so it’s really through some early conversations with Shruti who was my supervisor at one point in my career that we started talking about some of those complexities and realize that more folks in our field needed to start having some of these conversations, particularly with a clear lens around

Robert Brown:
Inclusion and equity which is kind of thinking and in alignment with my broader research interests on, in equity and inclusion in higher education. So through, through time, you know, I’ve been able to partner with Shruti and Craig will introduce themselves in a moment and have really been fortunate to continue to build really strong partnerships and collaborative relationships with them. But more importantly, just really strong friendships. And so I’m excited to join you all today. Thank you.

Shruti Desai:
Sure. Thanks Rob. And thank you for having us today to talk about this and just, it’s always a great opportunity to spend time with Greg and Rob. So I always appreciate that. My name is Shruti Desai, I use she, her pronouns. I serve as chief of staff for the Gephardt Institute for civic and community engagement at Washington university in St. Louis. and I’m on the academic side of the house, a little bit different of a lens. And as Rob mentioned, we went on a supervision journey together and in that had a lot of conversations about identity and as identity is important to me. Equity and justice work is really important to me. I always felt some dissonance between the way that I was told to supervise the way we did performance evaluations, promotions, merit raises, and my values around identity and inclusion and justice.

Shruti Desai:
And when I started interrogating that a little bit with the team that I worked with it, we found that a lot of us were struggling with this. I think you couple that with the retention and job satisfaction and mental health, more and more challenges that professionals who have marginalized identities face there’s a clear need in our field for, to talk about supervision. And a lot of times people leave jobs, not because they don’t like the work that they’re doing, but because they don’t like environments and managers. And I think we have a lot of work to do and a lot of growth that could happen in our field around that intersection.

Craig Elliott:
Beautiful. Yeah. Just echo thank you for being here. We’re for having us here today and loved time with Rob and Sruthi. Every time we get to do this, it’s a joy. So yeah, my name is Craig Elliott. My pronouns are he him and his and I currently serve as the assistant vice president for student affairs at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California, and also have a leadership role in ACPA as well. And yeah, just, this was a journey. I think we talked about, so there’s so many stories in, in the book from our own experiences of, of the, the OK. Supervisor experiences, the handful of really good ones that we had, but a of really challenging experiences that we had along the way. And you know, this, I mean, I share with Shruti and Rob, about this kind of motivation that I had about, I wanted to do better in my supervisor experiences, you know, it was a lot of on the job learning and identity was always a play and I, and I never knew how to engage it meaningfully in the relationship.

Craig Elliott:
And so that kind of drove me to being a part of having these conversations with Rob and Shruti. But I also said I had, I mean, I knew it was something for us that was our motivation for doing presentations and, and writing this book. But it was, I was, I am still surprised about how much of a need it is out there for others. Just the, the demand out there and the continued conversations about people needing help, engaging race and gender and orientation, and class and ability and how all those things play out in our lives, but very specifically in a supervisor relationship and how there’s lots of challenge and fear there, but also the potential for transformation. This could be a really powerful relationship in our lives if we did our work to have that happen. So so there’s some really great positive hopefulness that has come out of this for us as well. So just great to be here and be in conversation with y’all.

Susana Muñoz:
This is awesome. And I love that this, you know, this kind of stems from personal experiences that you’ve all had, and you’re absolutely correct. Like I remember being, you know, in my practitioner role and not necessarily getting a lot of guidance around supervision, but I gotta want to understand a little bit about sort of your, your sort of where you sort of enter into conversation in terms of personally. And so Rob, like, can you explain what motivated you to write this book and, and from sort of a personal sense and, and why do you feel it’s important in the fields of student affairs and higher education?

Robert Brown:
So just in like full authenticity, right? We didn’t go into this sitting down saying we want to write a book, you know, and I think some of that is rooted in our backgrounds as practitioners. Some of that is rooted and some, some class dynamics, I mean, just even the notion of I’m going to write a book with not in my consciousness. And so as I, as I kind of gained some motivation to write this book, a lot of it came through doing what I’m more apt to do, which is present. And so, Shruti and I, and then Craig joined, we

Robert Brown:
Were presenting on this topic with practitioners and as we were engaging with them, there was this hunger that we were receiving from them for more like, we want more, like, we need this more people need to be talking about this. And so some of the motivation just came out of a need to be responsive. And then an invitation right from Rutledge, our editors to, to think about. And I think in some ways an invitation from them was immensely validating for me to think about this as a scholarly endeavor and a practical one, and then as we actually just kind of got into the outlining and the brainstorm process with, with each other you know, Shruti, Craig and I are very much so grounded that this needs to be both kind of a head and heart exercise. So kind of, how can we think about this intellectually, but also how have our own lived experiences really informed the lens in which we kind of experienced the need for this text.

Robert Brown:
And as I reflected on that personally you know, I am the youngest professional of this group. And, and so just in my young career, yeah. As a black man working in student affairs, I often have navigated isolation around those identities and finding community finding mentorship. And that was a big aspect of my supervisor relationship with Shruti and kind of what started getting this ball rolling of kind of, how do, how does identity play out in this, in this role of supervision? And, you know, there’s really like two real, I think seminial moments that have validated the need for, for me to write this book. And I think one was, was with Shruti and talking about this need for kind of Black male mentorship and why I couldn’t find that at the university in which we were working and really leaning on her for that as a supervisor and at one point in our conversations, I think she was really great about like, hearing that and wanting to connect me with colleagues and folks that she knew who could provide that type of lens and support.

Robert Brown:
And then after a while as I kept pushing on, you know, she, you know, yeah, rightly so pushed back on me and, and, and shared like, you know, well, what am I to you? And I think in that moment, I was like, Whoa, totally, like missing and erasing on that, the mentorship that I’m receiving from Shruti as another person of color women of color on, who has shown up and held much space for me to process through my identities. And so even just to think about identity with more complexity in the context of supervision was kind of one motivator. The second experience that really stuck with me came after our time working together. And I was working in multicultural affairs where identity is so constant as you know, you work to support students and campus. And you know, it was about five years ago.

Robert Brown:
You know, I was making sense of the murder of Eric Garner and was just sitting in my office alone one day and watching this video you know, that first time that we heard “I can’t breathe” and was just at a loss and at such a low point personally, professionally, but was in my center sitting in my office. And that same evening there was you know, students quickly organized and there was a vigil. And as a, as a staff member, I got asked to attend that vigil by my supervisor and their supervisor to show student support, to be present on. And as I got out there and I was gonna, you know, just be there to be in solidarity and supporting students as they navigate it, kinda whatever might come up, standing out there in the cold, I just started like crying you know, myself personally.

Robert Brown:
And in that moment, I was like, God, why didn’t no one tell me I should not be here. Why didn’t know one see me that night, right. As both a human and a student affairs professional. Right. And I think it is in that memory, like it still lands on me so heavy. And, and I know that there are so many practitioners as, as we just this week, right. Who had to sit and make sense of Brianna Taylor’s loss and continued injustice and go to work and pretend, and kind of operate as business as usual in the way that we have corporatized higher education. And I, and I think that feeling that I feel that I can relate into with so many practitioners in this work, particularly people of color, but I think this work shows up around marginalization in so many different ways you know, created the motivation where this book had to be written, not to fix all of that, but at least to speak some level of, of truth into that, into that void. And so that continues to be remotivating.

Robert Brown:
And I find myself,myself as we continued to talk to folks about the book that continues to be a major point of dialogue that folks are starting to reckon with and make sense of,

Susana Muñoz:
Thank you so much, Rob, and thank you for showing up as you are and your authenticity. And I think what you’ve discussed is super real in terms of what we’re navigating in these times. And in your book, you do talk about racial battle fatigue and how you bring in critical race theory as tenants to look at sort of our leadership models or courses of leadership. What do other folks think about sort of how we’re navigating our current times given the importance of this book?

Craig Elliott:
Yeah. Okay, good. Excellent. Yeah, so just, and Rob, just beautiful. I just want to acknowledge the emotions and the feelings and, and, and, you know, I think we spent a lot of time together and I’m still moved by that experience that you shared. And it, you know, I think it reminds me of, and I appreciate how to we brought it back to Briana Taylor about how it has not eased up. And I don’t know that it ever has, but I think in this last five years has been such a visceral experience of racism and how that’s infused in our, in our country and our campuses in our profession. And just how omnipresent it is. And I think I, what I love about what Rob shared is that it’s, we’re trying to, I think w I think we had a, we had a, a vision of hope if you will, about bringing the humanity back to what we do and who we are and our roles.

Craig Elliott:
And there’s, there’s no question that I think any of us here, and probably lots of our professionals see our work as, as connecting with students humanity, but there is a clear gap in us connecting with each other’s humanity, and often how our institutions see us as, as as employees on our campuses. And I think, you know, same thing. It’s like, you’re here to do a job, go do it. And you know, this kind of, what we ended up calling this identity neutral way of engagement and way of relating with each other does so much harm and perpetuates so much pain and creates trauma. But I think about the invisibility of our colleagues, our friends and colleagues that are, they’re giving their hearts and souls to, to care for students and educate them and be some good positive force in their lives and in our, in our campuses and our leaders.

Craig Elliott:
And we, like, I, you know, I hold myself into that because I’ve done that more than I care to admit. But how we forget to see who’s working with us in our tasks because of how we’re trained because of how the system works, because of how we’re taught, we’re on-boarded, we’re normalized and told how to show up on our campuses and higher education. And you know, it’s, so it’s so frustrating and hurtful, and, and, and I’m angry, you know, there’s a lot of, we had to, we spent a lot of time processing through kind of all of our feelings and do this, but it just, this anchor that it was, you know, almost 30 years into my professional career before I was able to have meaningful conversations about identity in my role on campus and holding it in terms of supervision balls.

Craig Elliott:
So as a, as an AVP and an administrator on a campus, and what that means and how do, how do we, how do I show up with and, and you know, those are the interesting things like the showing up with is a whole different paradigm. Unfortunately, it’s a whole different paradigm for what we’ve been given. And I think Rob talked about that. It’s, it’s, it’s go show up for rather than the show up with, so it’s, you know, I think that the humanity bringing the humanity back and, and the hope cause there’s still, you know, like I think we are, we still believe deeply in what we do and, and, and as educators and as practitioners and caring professionals that, you know, higher education can change the world. We can be a part of that transformation. We can, we can help be really positive sparks for our students in all of their identities. And so this was a, was a part of us trying to help make that happen.

Susana Muñoz:
Awesome. I, you know, it’s, I, I feel that the emotion of this, this was a labor of love, but also deep emotion for everyone. And I, you know, I honor that, and I think that’s, that’s, that’s a beautiful thing that we don’t necessarily see in student affairs scholarship is, is bringing your full presence self in the work. Right. And so I appreciate that. And Shruti did you want to add anything to that?

Shruti Desai:
I mean, I think with the way Craig ended up just, we got it, we got to find a way to get some hope. And I’m reading one of Brenee Brown’s books, and I know she’s complicated, but talks about hope as a skillset. And I think we forget that. I think we just want hope to be this ideology or this intrinsic thing, but it is really a practice skill over and over again of, I gotta stay hopeful. And I, you know, if I saw Craig walking down the street, I’d be like, who’s this like progressive, hippy white guy. And not even like engage in conversations, but being in a relationship with him, I’m able to have a little bit of hope that there are white folks in student affairs who are doing the work or trying to change systems. Rob, as a straight Black man is always like Shruti.

Shruti Desai:
You’re like undervaluing yourself, you got it. And so we advocate, we advocate for each other in a way that disrupts the systems that disrupts the messages that we’ve internalized. And I think that what we sometimes want to do in student affairs in higher education is fix things without doing the hard, painful work of internal reconciliation. And I think I’ve been in St. Louis for about 10 years now and was here when Michael Brown was shot and killed and have had several incidents since then. And I remember the first time Michael Brown was shot and killed the list of demands from students. And I remember now that George Floyd list of demands from students, and it’s so frustrating to me because when are we as higher education and student affairs going to reconcile ourselves with the values that we impose, the values that we espouse and the work that we’re actually doing.

Shruti Desai:
Right. and it is like, Shruti you are queer, why don’t you go serve on the LGBT advisory board? Cool. I don’t want to do that. I, you know, I want to come home to my partner and hang out with my dogs and, and, or compensate me for doing that. And I, and I feel also, I think we feel responsible of, I want this to be better for our students and I want this to be better for our next generation. And so there’s this constant, like conflict of values that is occurring. And it’s been interesting to watch as we’re doing a series that we called two pandemics, one of the COVID pandemic. I want us to racism, pandemic. And it’s been interesting to watch the university across universities of who’s presidents and deans and vice presidents, all really being in the weeds of COVID because people are dying, but when it comes to racism and people are dying, it’s not the same response.

Shruti Desai:
And I just I’m like, what do we do we not see that people are dying because of racism and transphobia and classism and all of these other things. So I keep waiting and hoping for higher ed to have some reconciliation around this. And I see people leaving our brilliant, brilliant scholars, leaving our field. And if they’re leaving our field, I just wonder what’s, what’s next for our newer professionals. Are we going to be able to keep doing work that really is impactful to our students? And I know for many of us we’re called to and love what we do, and we’re also frustrated and want more from our institutions.

Susana Muñoz:
Yeah. I totally resonate with that particularly sort of like the, the discrepancy and labor, and who’s doing the work, you know, in, in my class last night in student development we, we talked about this notion of agency, right, for students it’s a readily, you know, used concepts, but, you know, at what point is, is that labor for students that, you know, is, is seen as additional and additional burden that they have to endure in our college campuses. And yes, we, we see these list demands and it’s all sort of led by students. You know, we sort of, you know, guise in under this sense of agency, but it’s also labor that they probably didn’t have to do with our campuses where we’re just inhumane spaces. Right. And so I appreciate you bringing that into the conversation and, and Shruti, I wanted to also talk a little about this concept of courageous leadership and how that gets enacted and into the supervision. I, I really resonated with that. And I’m wondering if you can even talk about it. What does that look like in the academic affairs? You know, what, you know, how, how does that get talked about or practice or implemented enacted? So if you can say a little bit about that.

Shruti Desai:
Yeah. I think the beauty of academic affairs is tenure, right. Faculty just have more agency in voice because of tenure. And so are some of our biggest advocates. We had a panel last night about the debate and the faculty members we had on at where it had the opportunity to explicitly named this is racist. This is classist. This is, you know, and, and I think staff and students, we have a little, we have to walk a little bit more of a tight rope because we don’t have that backing or the support that we’re not going to lose our jobs, that we’re not going to be suspended. Or, and I think our students have a little bit more agency, but still they struggle with, I don’t want to, I need to get a job when I leave here. I want to be hired particularly students from low income backgrounds who have a lot more on the line and don’t have like the network that have their parents and their grandparents, their whatever.

Shruti Desai:
But I think when we can partner with student affairs and academic affairs can partner, I think there’s just a stronger voice that is given to some of these topics and some of the change that happens, needs to happen on our campuses. Faculty have clear research and clear kind of critical thought and access to the provost differently than the average student affairs person does. And I think that the piece around tenure, when you can really partner with them and ask them to leverage their voice that makes a huge difference. But I also think that that’s how dollars are brought in, you know, particularly on a campus like mine, that the med school and the research brings in huge dollars for the university. And I think it would be fooling ourselves to say that doesn’t matter. It does matter where the money is and how it’s coming into universities is really important. And so if we can also leverage that I think that starts to get on the radar of chancellors and presidents and board of trustees differently than students who are making demands, who have been making demand to the last four, eight, 10, 12, 20 years. So I think if that’s an area that I think universities can continue to grow and learn in,

Craig Elliott:
You know, I just , Shruti talked about the, the courage with the power dynamics on campus and how to navigate that. I also think this, this idea of, from, for me as a, as as a white male, a straight white male practitioner it’s also in those of us, in our dominance identities about having the courage to lead these conversations and to start them because I think the way we navigate through some of the power dynamics and the fear and the, and the lack of protection that some people on our campuses have is we’re supervisors helping lead some of that. And, you know, I think as, as I’m working with, with new professionals coming in to work with me, I think it’s, it’s us establishing that this is part of what our relationship is. But sometimes it’s also for me to, to show up and say what needs to be said in a one on one conversation in the hallway on campus, when we used to go on campus and have conversations in the hallway or in the meeting. And white people, I have, we don’t have good practice in this. And so and so there’s a lot of fear of making mistakes and that’s whiteness, there’s a lot of training that comes with that, that we have to unlearn. And I also want to acknowledge that it’s, if, if we’ve not had these conversations before, they’re really hard to start. And so so one of the things

Craig Eliiott:
I think that we did a great job with is just saying, we have to start, start where you are be messy. But try to do the good work in the moment. People will see that and hold that more than fumbling in the, in the mess that you make. And so we want practitioners and especially those with dominant identities to be courageous, to be, to start having these conversations and have identity be an appropriate and an effective part of the relationship, because it matters.

Susana Muñoz:
Yeah. I like how you brought up too, that know this notion of fear and the lack of protection. I don’t think we have enough conversations about that, that just the climate in itself impacts identity and how we show up. And so I’m happy that you brought that. Rob, did you want to add anything to the, to this?

Robert Brown:
I would just echo that. I think in what Craig is, is sharing is that there’s a, there’s a vulnerability required that we are contextualizing supervision in, in that I think traditional hegemonic notions of supervision, top-down it’s like you do for me, I make the rules, I have all the answers. And I think we are trying to move from that kind of one direction supervision relationship to an actual relationship that is co-constructed and power aware. Right. And so there’s a, there’s a giving up, there’s a vulnerability that’s kind of required within that. Well, one other thing that I would say that, you know, our book attempts to maybe start having folks think about is how are you also courageous beyond the individual relationship and advocating for change within your department within the broader like human resources system at your institution.

Robert Brown:
So it’s great if you individually support me that’s wonderful. And if, if there is not broader structural change, that it’s, that is increasing access to employment, that is putting equitable policies in place on that is ultimately going to either cause folks to leave the university or to never find their home at, at your university. And so as supervisors, depending on your level of positionality and power and influence, I think that’s another place where kind of, we prompt practitioners to think about courage in that context to, to intervene and to advocate at that broader level as well.

Susana Muñoz:
Yeah, I totally vibe with that. I think, you know, the courage, you know, application to systemic change to transformational change again, you know, we, we focus sort of sometimes these, these bandaid approaches to higher education, right. But not really looking at a systemically and the institutional legacy that we have to really address and in these conversations, I appreciate that. And, and Craig is someone, you know, who is, you know the leader of one of the, you know, national student affairs associations, ACPA you know, how does this book maybe transform, you know, climate? You know, we talk a little bit about sort of, you know, notions of fear and you know, this lack of protection, you know, how, how does, you know, how does that our associations, you know use this, utilize this book to transform our campuses.

Craig Elliott:
Yeah, it was, and I would say too, I w so, so the answer, I think we’re, we’re talking about it’s systemic change changing, and really part three of the book talks about the systems change, work that we need to do, and both you and Rob also talked about it as well. And I don’t when we started either, when we started presenting them, when we started writing, this was not yet something that was formed. We knew the work had to be done at the individual level, the self work and the work and relationships, but also as Rob talked about the courageous part about showing up in, in our, in our representative roles, in our groupness both in our professional roles, but also in our identities and who we are on a campus. But really we, once we started to do that, we quickly began to understand that we can’t be stopping there.

Craig Elliott:
We need to be, we’re here to do good work. Social justice asks us to change the system and, you know, resist not just resist oppression but transform the environment so that oppression doesn’t continue to continue to happen, which is liberation. And so we, for us really, we came into it with our liberatory mindset. And, and this is to where I think it’s important, this idea of critical hope. That’s true, talked about that we believe that there is a possible thing out there. And it’s, we’re, it’s not a naive hope. But it’s a critical one to say, it’s gonna, it’s going to be a hard road. And we’re going to encounter resistance all along the way. And I mean, you look at this week, last week, the month before we’re getting all kinds of resistance.

Craig Elliott:
And so how are we continuing to do our good work collectively, individually, but then collectively to create this change? And so I think that so I think this, this book gives us an opportunity. It is not the only way to bring liberation in higher education or on our campus or in our divisions. But it’s, but it’s a way, and we clearly saw the path that doing changing the way that we supervise supervising from an identity conscious way and authentically and vulnerability can lead us to create opportunities for that transformation of our campuses. And in the profession, you know, I think it’s, you know, connecting the, the work that we did here with the work that we’ve been doing in ACPA for many years, it started with with Donna Lee and then continue with Stephen Quaye and Jamie Washington and, and myself.

Craig Elliott:
And then Vernon Wall now this strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization that’s, that’s a huge map a vision, a critical hope for transformation for higher education. And, and it’s massive, and there’s so many different elements of that. Their, their piece that they wrote was brilliant. And interestingly, a lot, there’s a lot of similarities there abouts, you know, sent love in the center that they wrote in, which is, which is our relationship. So the center too, and what we would also all say is love. Also, but there’s, it’s a, there’s a path for that. And so one of the ways that we’re we offer it through this book is, is, is supervision as a key part about that. And I, I will say to it, it’s, it’s inspiration for me individually, me refining my own practice.

Craig Elliott:
But it’s inspiration for me to, as a as to be a part of this change energy and to be a part of liberation on our campuses that, that professionals that follow us you know, we’re, I hope we’re influencing professionals to change now, but really the, the ripple that we put in place is going to be for the generations that are going to follow us. And so for us to be one small part of this bigger movement that eventually transforms higher education, so that it is it’s, it’s a learning environment that, that allows every student who comes through it’s to thrive, to find exactly what they need to be, to be wonderfully challenged and grow, but for them to thrive and find their purpose and go out and to make their ripple out in the world. And so, you know, so it’s a big thing.

Craig Elliott:
And I think we I wish we had four more volumes to talk about the, the change work that we wanted to do. And we also knew that it was important that we started here, that we didn’t get this to get lost in the big picture, but we talked about the really critical work that we can do on a daily basis for supervision that can, that makes a huge difference. And I would say at a, at a, at that micro level that if we can, if we can transform that experience of, of professionals coming to work and doing great, excellent work on our campuses, that’s a huge difference that it makes and that, that directly

Craig Elliott:
Changes people’s lives so that we can then continue to partner and change our students’ lives.

Susana Muñoz:
Yeah. So I appreciate that. And, you know, one of the things that I know I will be doing is assigning does book in our graduate program, because I think this is really a great way to not only influence sort of our, our, our professionals and rethinking how, you know, we, center love and hope, as we navigate higher education, but it’s so needed, it’s so needed. And so I’m hoping that other programs will follow suit and, and assign this book in their programs. And so we’re at our last question, I just kinda want to ask, this program is called student affairs now. So what are you pondering or questioning or troubling now? And so I’ll start with Rob, I know, put you on the spot a little bit.

Robert Brown:
Thanks for putting me on the spot. I know a lot, I I’m, I guess I’m trying to track my energy as I trobule is, is definitely up for me now. But, but beyond that, I think about you know, how do we have the work that we are doing and higher education truly responsive to the voices of our students and, and our youth knowing that that is, who will filll the halls, the zoom rooms of higher education, and so much of what I am seeing and, and, and hearing from them is this the statement that like, things do not have to be the way they are which is, I think is a powerful statement of resistance, but also a statement of hope possibility. And as I reflect on my work, as I engage with those students, as I engage with other scholars and practitioners I am often wondering and pondering kind of what, in our ecosystems within higher education does it need to be the way it is now and, and, and, and realizing that that is something that we have control and agency around.

Robert Brown:
Right. and so what comes up in that context is rejecting fear at times, like that sometimes comes up rejecting the, the unknown and how that comes out rejecting scarcity that puts us into these false binaries of choices that we need to make then really leaning into possibility. And, and the wisdom that we can learn both from youth, but also from, from elders, right. There are folks who have done this, this work before. There is radical transformation happening right now in the present on that we can be students of and become students of. And so that’s really where I’m investing. My energy is kind of, where am I seeing radical truth tellers, folks engaged in the practice of transformation. Folks engaging with a sense of kind of radical hope. And, and I am like running as fast as I can on to those spaces, those people, those, those forms of literature and trying to consume that energy as a way of, of looking forward. And I think there’s so much of that happening right now, even as we are in the midst of what is a incredible mess in our nation and our world in higher education and on our campuses. And so from an energy standpoint, I can only consume so much of that mess right before, you know, I started to bog me down a little bit. And so finding those glimmers amidst the storm has, has, has been something that I am looking to, to ponder, to question, to seek out in the now.

Susana Muñoz:
I love that Rob, thank you . Shruti how about you.

Shruti Desai:
Yeah. I don’t get to spend that much time with students anymore, but I am, I pay a lot of attention to newer professionals in our field. It is a South Asian woman I’m thinking about who role modeled and paved paths for us. I think about Mamta Accapadi, Ajay Nair, Shadia Sachedina, you know, Smita Ruzicka, and so there’s, there’s folks ahead, but there’s only four or five folks ahead. And I know that they’ve what they’ve gone through to get into these vice president, vice chancellor, Dean of students positions and the pain that they went through and the things that they had to listen to. And how many times they were told no, and had struggled with imposter syndrome. And for that generation being kids of immigrants, the whole notion of healing and mental health and therapy were not palatable things.

Shruti Desai:
And I look at this generation, particularly South Asian professionals who are coming and I see them valuing themselves, even when the system is saying you’re not valuable. And I think that’s when the power and the shift and the healing happens because we’ve done our own work because we are investing in ourselves because we know that there’s a lot of lies out there around who matters and around who’s at work matters and how people are compensated and who gets promoted and who gets published and who doesn’t. And I think people are finding, particularly, I’m not that old, but like at the, particularly the generation behind me who’s saying yes, and I still matter. Yes. And I’m still going to get published. Yes. And I’m still gonna get promoted. And I’m going to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Shruti Desai:
And I think that that’s really powerful. And I think that’s going to help us help students and increase our retention and increase our pipeline for students from low SES and students of color and that’s hopeful. And I keep waiting and we’ll keep waiting for a reconciliation, but the, the generation behind us and the generation ahead of me gives me hope that this reconciliation for higher education is coming and it’s going to be one way or another. Either through our finances, through our board of trustees, through enrollment dips, it’s going to become more than just, we need to do diversity inclusion work. It’s going to be in order to survive in order to be relevant in order to admit students and get students here. This has to be in the ethos of what we do day to day. And I am excited about that, and I see institutions already moving in that direction and sometimes taking a few steps back, but continuing to fight and move forward in those ways. And I, you know, as presidents retire and new presidents come along there’s going to be some change and I am really excited about that.

Susana Muñoz:
Thank you. I appreciate that. Craig, how about you? What do you, what are you pondering?

Craig Elliott:
Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, I appreciate how, what truth is said about the pandemics. And so I’m wanting to pondering about how, how do our institutions engage the pandemic of racism and the pandemic of sexism and misogyny and the pandemic of trans oppression and the others with the same kind of resources and the same attention, the same fervor that they’ve done with the pandemic of COVID. And I know we’re struggling to keep balanced with that, that it’s easier for us to engage about the health crisis of COVID than the health crisis of racism. And so I’m wanting us to, to, to bring equity, bring that same kind of attention to addressing racism and sexism and transphobia and, and hate of all kinds on our campuses with that, with that same attention. And I think it also reminds me too, that I think so I’m professionals to be a part of those efforts.

Craig Elliott:
And we can, there’s so much we can do right now. So it’s also reminds me of do what you can. We all have spheres of influence as Beverly Daniel Tatum talks about. So use your sphere of influence to make a difference and to create that change work. And for those of us that are supervisors there’s work there for us to be able to do for those of us who are being supervised. All of us are being supervised by somebody. We can then begin to initiate those conversations and to bring about this this, this critical hope in this critical liberation that all of us have talked about. Our, our students deserve this, our upcoming professionals to serve this. Our campuses deserve this. And so just for the call to action for all of us to just show up and start addressing all of these pandemics, not just some of them,

Susana Muñoz:
That’s brilliant. I love that there, we reconciliation towards liberation, you know, finding glitters of hope and really addressing that, you know, the pandemic of racism. I think those are, those are awesome. Last thoughts. I am grateful for all of your time today as guests on, on Student Affairs Now, you can receive reminders about this and other episodes, but just by subscribing to the student affairs now, newsletter or browse our archives, at student affairs now.com, please subscribe to the podcast and invite others to subscribe, share on social media or leave a five star review. It really helps the conversation like this, reach more people and build a community so we can continue to make this free for, for you. Again, I’m Susana Muñoz. I want to really think our fabulous guests today and everyone who is watching, listening to be kind to yourselves and make it a great week. Thank you.