Shaun Harper

But Mr. Morrow, my first black male teacher in seventh grade, saw something in me that educators prior to him had failed to see. And he suggested to me at the end of the seventh grade year that I should run for student council president, and it became a bit of a kind of joke around the school, because I ended up competing against Anne Jefferson, who was a white girl. She was very rich, and her parents are really influential. So it was Shaun and Anne, and people were like, This guy is like, totally not gonna win. But somehow I won the election,and it put me on a student leadership pathway that eventually brought me to what we call Student Affairs. I don’t think that would have happened had I not met Mr. Morrow in seventh grade, right, right.

Heather Shea
Welcome to this special episode of Student Affairs NOW featuring two of the most influential scholars in Higher Education, Dr Lori Patton Davis and Dr Shaun Harper, Dr Rochelle Pope and I had the honor of recording this episode on location in Long Beach, California, in front of a live audience at the ACPA annual convention on Monday, February 17, 2025 we would like to acknowledge with gratitude the exclusive sponsor of today’s episode, ACPA college student educators International, the premier association dedicated to transforming higher education, ACPA supports student affairs and higher education professionals through innovative professional development, research and best practices that shape The future in the field. Thanks again for tuning in, and thanks also to Dr Patton Davis and Dr Harper for your time. Here’s the episode.

Raechele Pope
Welcome. We are so excited to be here today, and we really hope that you are too.

Heather Shea
Oh my gosh, we can barely see you. There’s there’s bright lights, there’s bright lights. Thank you so much for joining us. Today’s conversation is a part of the podcast Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside and adjacent to higher education and student affairs.

Raechele Pope
We really hope that this morning’s conversation and the conversations that we host via podcast and our weekly web show contribute to the field and serve as a restorative space for the profession. We release new episodes every Wednesday, so be sure to find us@studentaffairs.com on YouTube or anywhere that you listen to podcasts.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much to ACPA for allowing us to host this conversation. We will be releasing this as an episode in very near future, and I want to just also appreciate all those who helped us bring this to fruition. So Todd, whose voice you just heard, as well as Brian Hopkins, thank you so much for all of your work in allowing us to be here today. Who knew back in August when we proposed this session that this was going to be the moment that we needed to be here collectively and also be joined on stage with two of the most incredible humans in our field. Before we introduce them, we’re going to just take a moment to quickly introduce ourselves and also acknowledge our land. Sure.

Raechele Pope
My name is Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she, her and hers. I’m a professor in the higher education and student affairs program at the University of Buffalo, which is housed on the unceded Land of the Haudenosaunee people. I also serve as a Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Affairs in the unit Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education.

Heather Shea
And I’m Heather Shea, she her pronouns. I am currently serving as the Director of the pathways, persistence programs in the Office of the Provost at Michigan State University. I’m here today honoring the land of from which I came, which is the lands of the Anishinaabe, three fires, confederacy of Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples, otherwise known as East Lansing, Michigan.

Raechele Pope
So let’s get to today’s conversation. We have the privilege of hosting two of the most influential voices in higher education today, scholars, leaders and change agents who work, whose work has shaped how we think about student success, how we think about equity and institutional transformation.

Heather Shea
I’m going to introduce our first panelist, Dr Lori Patton Davis currently serves as the Roslyn and Max Heyman chair and faculty director of the educational leadership program at UCLA. Her research focuses on the experiences of black women and girls in education, the role of black culture centers and broader campus diversity initiatives. She is the lead author of Student Development in college, one of the most widely adopted texts in the field, and her scholarship has been published in the top journals in higher ed beyond her research, Dr Patton Davis has been recognized with numerous national awards, including ACPA contribution to knowledge award and NASPA’s pillar of the profession honor. She is also a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education. In addition to her academic work, she serves as a trusted advisor to university leaders educators and philanthropic organizations committed to racial justice and educational equity. And I want to add one more thing, my first professional role in higher education was with Lori at a school. I don’t know if it’s going to come up, but we worked together back in the early 2000s Yes,

Raechele Pope
yes, equally as powerful as Lori’s introduction, and all of the awards and everything she’s owned she’s earned is we also have joining with us, Dr Shaun Harper, a provost professor in the Rossier School of Education, the Marshall School of Business and the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. I don’t know how he sleeps. He also holds the Clifford and Betty Allen chair in urban leadership, and is the founder and Chief Research Scientist of the USC race and equity center. Dr Harper has authored 12 books, over 100 academic papers, including his newest book, The Big Lie about race in America’s schools, published by Harvard education press in 2024 that was just a couple of months ago. His expertise and influence in the field have earned him dozens of top awards and five honorary degrees. He’s also served as president of the American Educational Research Association, a era and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Ash, he’s a leadership roles that underscore his impact on the field. Lorin,

Heather Shea
Shawn, we’re so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much. Make sure we

Raechele Pope
have all the mics on, because we’re going to be talking in conversation. In conversation now. So let’s get started. Let’s start with you. Lori, I want to send you way back, looking back at your K 12 years How did your early experiences with school shape the way you see education today? Were there pivotal moment moments or pivotal educators that influenced your path. Absolutely

Lori Patton Davis
The most influential educators were my parents, who taught me what family meant. They taught me what love is. They taught me that the traditional roles that we’re socialized into don’t have to be so my mother was the quote, unquote, bread winner. My father cooked our meals. So it was my parents and my sisters. But in school, I had the fortune of attending St Joseph’s Catholic School in East St Louis, Illinois, and our principal was a black woman, a nun sister Carmen, and she was hell bent on making sure that nobody left St Joseph’s without understanding what it meant to have a proud black identity. And so I that sort of shaped my interest in learning more about Black Studies. It shaped my interest in understanding race and racial context. I went to high school at Lincoln High School in East St Louis as well, and it was an under a severely under resourced school in terms of money, but I my the majority of my K 12 education was with black teachers, primarily black women, who just instilled in me belief in myself, belief in my community, and much of that has shaped how I approach my work, that it’s okay to do work. I think people call it me search, but it’s not me search. It’s we search, because everything I’m doing is not for the benefit of a journal or to be liked, but it really is. My hope is that someone reads it and they’re inspired, or they have a better understanding of, you know, a particular experience or population, something that they didn’t know beforehand. And so I think all of those I grew. Up in the church, so a strong spiritual background. And what always dawns on me is Jonathan kozols work, and I’ve talked about this before, savage inequalities. And his book, The first chapter, Life on the Mississippi, is about East St Louis. And if you read that chapter, you would think it’s a desolate place and that there is no life, there’s no joy, there’s no love. But I experienced all of those things in tremendous ways, and so the the fact that I was brought up in a place that was under resourced, that the state didn’t care about, and am able to be successful, I’m able to give back and do all of these things, I think, is really a testament to what we mean when we talk about capital, yeah, yeah,

Raechele Pope
yeah. I can see that, and I can see and I loved how you tied all of those student affairs experiences, the things that you that center you in your student affairs and higher education work, yeah. How about you, Shaun, anything you’d like to share about your own K 12 moments and experiences that stood out?

Shaun Harper
Yeah, sure, well, let me first Mike switch, great, as they would say, and reverend Dr Jamie Washington’s Church, the mics are now open. All right, let me start by appreciating this space and opportunity. I’m a huge fan of Student Affairs now. So this is a, this is a full circle moment for me to do this alongside my best friend. So I grew up in Thomasville, Georgia, a small racially segregated town on the Georgia Florida border where just about half the people are black and half are white. There were no Latinx or Asian American students in my K 12 schooling experience, most of my teachers, certainly in elementary school and really, throughout most of my K 12 journey were white women. They would often write in the comments on my report card that Shaun talks too much. Shaun is my government name. Shaun talks too much. Ain’t it funny that here we are now, here in Long Beach, and Bucha is talking, and he talks for a living in lots of ways. You know, it wasn’t until seventh grade that I had my first black male teacher, Mr. Morrow. Up until that time, I had been at best, average student, certainly not an academic high performer, and certainly not a student leader. But Mr. Morrow, my first black male teacher in seventh grade, saw something in me that educators prior to him had failed to see. And he suggested to me at the end of the seventh grade year that I should run for student council president, and it became a bit of a kind of joke around the school, because I ended up competing against Anne Jefferson, who was a white girl. She was very rich, and her parents are really influential. So it was Shaun and Anne, and people were like, This guy is like, totally not gonna win. But somehow I won the election,and it put me on a student leadership pathway that eventually brought me to what we call Student Affairs. I don’t think that would have happened had I not met Mr. Morrow in seventh grade, right, right. More

Heather Shea
More about how those early influences brought you into Student Affairs, and maybe some of the things that earlier shaped your faculty work and your scholarship and anything that you’d like to share from that kind of trajectory.

Lori Patton Davis
Sure, I was always involved in things, but it wasn’t because I was interested. I had two older sisters who were involved in everything, and so I thought that was what I was supposed to do. And so I was I joined Student Council in my K 12 experience, I placed I’m not an athlete, but something told me to do softball and volleyball. I don’t I’m not athletic at all. But I said, Hey, that looks interesting, so I’ll just go and so this involvement, sort of transition into college, where, again, I was surrounded by people who were involved and they were having a good time. And I said, I want to have a good time too. And so, you know, I ended up joining sororities and doing student government and all of those pieces. But like most people, I didn’t know Student Affairs existed. It wasn’t until I had graduated and was working that I found out about student affairs, but I had done everything. And so. Now, when I think about my career and the work that I do in student affairs, a big part of that was just my own reflection of, you know, those experiences, and figuring out where, where my place is. So when I so I thought I was going to be a vice president of student affairs, and a lot of my interest was in how to get you know more black students involved, right because I was involved, but as I read more into the literature, just realizing that a lot of those experiences were missing, save a few people who were writing about black students, and most of it was black students at pwis who feel isolated, right? And so I’m like, I want to write. I want to do some, you know, I want to contribute to this. And you know, that started the trajectory of just wanting to write about black students experiences, and where do they learn about their identity or whether they feel supported, which brought in the work on cultural centers and, you know, other diversity initiatives, and then, you know, wanting to understand, and I’m not, I didn’t attend an HBCU. I know you’ll talk about that, but you know, being curious about, you know, LGBTQ identities, and it wasn’t in the literature at the time. And I’m like, I know black people are gay. Like, there’s some gay black people. There’s some trans like, where did you know? And they’re not only pwis and so and so, you know, again, I had the fortune of doing graduate school with French Shaun Ontario, like friends who went to HBCUs, and just learning more about that experience and what, huh? And so that started my work looking at how students with those identities navigate, you know, a space that will, you know, support your racial identity, but maybe not your, you know, gender or sexuality. So I think everything is connected, and I think there’s a reason why we ran graduate school together. So say

Heather Shea
more about the meeting of Laura and Shaun and how that happened, where it happened. How did you all know you were going to be kind of lifelong friends and collaborators?

Shaun Harper
Do you remember where we Yes, yes. Is it appropriate for

Lori Patton Davis
it’s appropriate? Okay, good. We knew about each other before we met each other, so I learned about him while I was at Bowling Green, and there was a mutual friend there, and she was friends with someone who was attending IU with him, and so I had known his name. But when I got to Indiana, got to the place, yes, the place where we work. When I got there, there was something called the Black Greek Old Leadership Conference, yes, and that was led by Shaun as a graduate student, right? Yeah,

Shaun Harper
that’s right. And,

Lori Patton Davis
and at the time at that one school, I was advising the black youth letter organizations, and so I know you came. Was it in Terre Haute?

Shaun Harper
No, it was in Bloomington, I’ll take it from here. And had people in common who were wise enough, and in some ways, perhaps even prophetic enough to know that we would become fast, lifelong friends. You know, really, our relationship deepened when we both became PhD students. I was a master student at the time that Lori and I met, but we were in the same PhD cohort, and our first semester together, in our very first class, she would always be late, but like, I would always, like, hold her seat for her and, you know, like, give her a hard time about being late because she was working full time and commuting. But we, you know, I honestly think that it was our love for black people that instantly united us, because she has some really deep, interesting, intellectual interest around black people and black culture. And still does, and so do I, and you know, I think that brought us, that brought us together. And you know, Lori is the kind of person that I know will always tell me the truth about myself. You need you a Lori, if you don’t have one, but she’s also a person who allows me to give myself. Some grace when that is in short supply. For me, she was the maid of honor in my wedding. And it’s just, it’s just, really, I thank this profession for bringing us together, because really, this is another one of those serendipitous moments that you know, had we chosen different career paths? We may not have ever met each other,

Lori Patton Davis
but I don’t know if you remember, it was during my first year in my role, my first student affairs role, where I ran into you at a conference, remember, and I said, I’m thinking about doing my my doctorate. I just, I don’t know. I’m gonna wait. And then you introduced me to George, cool, yes, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna apply. You should apply too. And I applied, and was admitted, and so we were able to join, you know, be in the same cohort. But I, I knew I wanted a doctorate, but I was, I felt like I need to work for like, three, three to four years, you know, before I pursue this. And so I’m so appreciative. You know that You encouraged me to apply.

Shaun Harper
I was probably being selfish. I needed a great intellectual playmate with me. But thank you for saying yes.

Raechele Pope
I think it was more than the intellectual playmate, clearly, because there was this deep, deep connection and friendship developing, and that clearly came to fruition for you all. But I also think about your experiences as grad students, was deeply informed and enriched, and in some ways probably saved, because you had the two of you and whoever else might have been in that cohort.

Lori Patton Davis
Listen, we had the most wonderful time. We really did. We really did.

Raechele Pope
Are you gonna talk about Mary? He’s gonna talk about

Shaun Harper
something. I’ll get to Mary in a moment. Let me just perhaps say something about our doctoral cohort mates. They were a group. We were not invited into that group, so we made our own group. Right? Their group amassed resources to help each other prepare for comprehensive exams, and they would pass those resources to each other and ensure each other’s success. But somehow, they didn’t manage to pass the resources to us. We’re black people. We’re way makers. So we made our own way, and we made our own group. And you know, it was Lori and Ontario wooden and Michelle McClure mayo and John Kuykendall. And then enters Mary Howard Hamilton, who was a professor at University of Florida, then she came to Indiana University, sort of midway through our time there. And you know, that was just a whole game changer for us. We felt so supported, but honestly, it was black folks holding black folks down in that context, as I recall it, that’s

Lori Patton Davis
exactly how it was.

Heather Shea
How has that affected? How you all see your role now in creating supporting, supportive networks for graduate students?

Raechele Pope
Oh, goodness, let me add something to that question, because there’s a piece of this that I see. And I don’t know how many people know this, and if you don’t, at some level, you should. But those of you who have had this experience, Lori and Shaun are two of the most generative scholars we have out there. You could almost do a lineage between who, in particular, are these black women who have been mentored and supported by Lori. You can do the same thing with Shaun and particularly black men. At one point, I was looking at this and I thought this is amazing. If I started asking people who influenced them, either directly because of clear support or through their writing, there isn’t a hand that doesn’t go up in many of these conversations. So I want you to talk about that in light of how you see mentoring and how that influenced you.

Lori Patton Davis
So I think for me, the game changer was Mary, who I met at Bowling Green. I met her during the interview days. So she was leaving the year I came, but she was the first faculty member, or in that in the Student Affairs setting, you know they there was a time, I know interview days is virtual these days, but there was a time when you flew to the place and you met people, and there was big rah, rah, if you named your institution. Well, I said I went to Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Nobody cheered because they didn’t know. Thank you. Nobody knew what. Institution that was, but Mary was the one person who stood up screaming, and I’m like, Who was that, you know, come to find out, she’s from Alton, Illinois, and so we just ended up having a really good conversation that developed into a relationship. And so when I got to graduate school and Shaun mentioned, you know, I think they’re gonna, you know, recruit this, you know, this black woman professor. Do you know, Mary Howard Hamilton, you know, and so just all of this excitement. But she really modeled, I think, for both of us, for many of the folks at IU at the time, what mentoring looked like. She gave us opportunities. There was a faculty member I wanted to teach with, and I was told, because I had not taken that class with him, that I could not teach. But Mary, you know, she was teaching a class. She was like, Sis, I gotta go out of town, you know, can you take over this class? And I had my first, you know, graduate level teaching experience, you know, she invited us to her home. I think during my time there, she was the only faculty member whose home I visited like she just she was always honest, she was always supportive, and she if there was an opportunity available, she made it possible for us. And so in many ways, I try to model that for students who are either at my institution or, you know, beyond if I have the capacity. But I don’t think that happens without someone showing you that it doesn’t have to look the way mentoring, you know, has looked for such a long time. Yeah,

Shaun Harper
let me pick that up right there. Actually, Mary famously rewrote the boundaries that had been sort of crafted around what faculty student engagement looks like. There were not very many black barbers in Bloomington, Indiana, so Mary would ride with Ontario wooden and me to Indianapolis to get haircuts. Just imagine the commute from Bloomington to Indiana to Indianapolis and back the mentoring and advising that happened so informally but so deliciously and amazingly in that car ride. I will forever appreciate those car rides and they informed the way that I work with my own students now, right? Listen, I’m very proud of ACPA past president Stephen John quay, who was my first PhD student. And you know, I it means a lot to me to play some part in diversifying the biggest influencers in our field and in our profession. That’s important to me, because, frankly, not all of them have to be white. Some of them should be black, some of them should be indigenous. Some of them should be Asian American, some should be Latinx. Yes, I just, I feel very strongly about that. It doesn’t mean that we have to push the white folks out. I don’t that’s never been my project, and they’re here, and always will be here in large supply. But I just don’t I just remember when we were in graduate school. I’ll try to be concise here. I just remember we were assigned the Green Book, the Student Affairs handbook for the profession, and I remember the way the text was introduced to us as the so called Bible of the profession. And our instructor told us that the most influential people who wrote chapters for this book, you know, the book includes the most influential people in our field, because I went to a historically black university. I mean, quite naturally, my first question was, well, how many of them are black? Not not enough? Yeah, hardly any. And I don’t know. It’s just been, I’ve just been on a career long crusade to ensure that there is more than adequate representation of very smart people of color.

Heather Shea
Yes and that mentorship. Steve John quay, founder, originator of our strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization, with other members of the governing board and identity conscious mentoring program that now incoming President Jonathan McElderry is going to be establishing. So it is generational, and it is a legacy. So thank you for that.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, so you know, you started to you talked about something important, and that is the changing of this profession. You talked about the changing of who’s there, whose voices get heard, whose perspectives are there. So I’m thinking it might. Be time for us to, like, acknowledge this giant elephant that is all over the room and sitting on my chest, quite frankly, and I’m sure the chest of so many others, that the landscape of higher education is just shifting rapidly, politically, financially and structurally So, what concerns you most, and where do you see that? Room for critical hope, I’m gonna actually start with you there, Shaun,

Shaun Harper
The assault on our democracy terrifies me. Yeah. I mean, not like in a way that I’m going to just like, go run and hide. But it is serious. If people have not yet taken the time to read the Dear Colleague letter from february 14, 2025 you must read it. It’s serious. It threatens to dismantle just about everything that ACPA, for instance, stands for. It aims to dismantle the very values that unify us as a student affairs profession. I Yeah, it’s so anti black. I mean, really, if you, if we really just like, get down to it, right? There’s palpable, disgusting, anti blackness. So look, I just think that during these times, we have to show our work to confirm that it is not the very stupid, very divisive things that attackers mischaracterize it to be if we don’t show our work, we make it susceptible to all sorts of lies about what it is and what it does. I know that it’s scary to show one’s work right now, that february 14 executive order or Dear Colleague letter would have us believe that anything that we do in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion will make our institutions vulnerable to losing their funding. You know, in like the most twisted, perverted kind of way that dear colleague letter is about discrimination. Sure, show the folks that you’re not discriminating, right? You have to, you have to show your work so you know that, I think, is the best thing that we can do during these times. Recognizing that is terrifying to do. So sure.

Raechele Pope
Thank you. And Lori, what about you? What concerns you most? What? Where do you see room for that critical hope.

Lori Patton Davis
So I see, you know, I am also terrified, but I think the space I’m in is, how does the work need to change? I think that we’ve gotten to a point where we’re fairly comfortable, like we know what the field is, we can describe the field, we can talk about it, talk about our values, and all of those things are important, and we have to continue to do what Shaun said in terms of showing the value of our work and the importance of our work. But I also think some way, somehow our work needs to look different. And I’m just I don’t have a solution per se about how it looks different, but I did. It did dawn on me, what would it have looked like to come to ACPA and you know, someday of sessions were switched out because we needed to have a real conversation about the future of the profession, because our institutions are members, and our you know, and faculty and practitioners are members. And so I’m toying, or not really toying, but reflecting on what does different work look like it cannot be the same. And I certainly don’t want to scare people, but I don’t believe we’ll get out of this without harm. You know, like there and you know, you got to wonder, are you ready to fight? Like literally fight. So you know that makes me nervous, like we’re beyond the nostalgia of seeing what Eyes on the Prize documentary, and you see dogs being sick on civil rights workers, like we’re. Moving toward that reality if we don’t act and the challenge I see is that we aren’t acting quick enough. So how do we learn to act quick enough? I don’t know that’s that’s the space I’m in. And to me, I’m not hopeless. I was telling someone today, and I cannot remember. I know it was in Alabama, right, the fight on the pier. I don’t know if you all remember the lawn chair right, Montgomery like I think there’s a belief that people, particularly black people, are docile, and that we won’t fight. But I also believe there is this belief that black people will save, you know, like that will save civil rights, but we did it right. Did it, and I don’t know we’re just in a moment, I’m still on top of the building, sipping my tea and watching it burn. I’m still there, but I know eventually I’ll have to come down. But I just I’m in a place where our work needs to be different, and it can’t just be one group. It can’t just be two groups, like there has to be significant solidarity, there has to be belief. And I’m not just afraid for black people. I’m afraid for people who who are perceived to be immigrant or undocumented, you know, being snatched, right? Like, I’m worried, but I’m also thinking about what looks different for at least the work that I’m going to do, and then how do I sort of spread that? And I think we all need to be in that space.

Shaun Harper
Lori as usual, I’m glad that I that I took the time to hear you out, because I thought I was disagreeing with your standpoint. The example that you gave was incredibly game changing for me when you said, what would it look like if we just abandoned day two of the program? And look, we understand that people work really, really hard on the program and so on and so forth at a conference to just come together to think about what does solidarity and coalition look like. We got 1000s of people here. Let’s seize that opportunity. I think that that is a radical reimagining of a space, yeah, but you know, Lori, the reason why I thought I was disagreeing a bit when you were saying that, you know we’re going to have to change some things. There are things that we’ve worked really, really, really hard on to that I think are worth fighting for and worth preserving. For instance, when I came into the convention center and I came up the escalator, I had to go to the bathroom, and I saw the sign for the all inclusive bathrooms. And frankly, I said to myself, the Trump administration would have a fucking field day with this right like they would try to ban this also, I was intending to striving to be as respectful and as reflective as possible during the land acknowledgement but confession, I wrote a note to Lori that said, Trump is going to rename these lands, you know, like listen, land acknowledgements are really important. And I just, I don’t know, like, I just think that there are some things that we ought to refuse to change.

Heather Shea
yes, yeah,

Raechele Pope
oh yeah. We’re part of this, right? I’m just sitting here taking it all learned?

Heather Shea
I know.

Raechele Pope
No, I think, I think you’re right. There are things that we do need to change. There are some times where I believe that we spent energy and time on things that meant something to this association or our individual campus, and we lost sight of some of the things, but there are also important things where we have all inclusive bathrooms, like the one I have in my home, which so I have no idea why people are all upset about this, right? That that these are the things that we need to keep, because it reminds us that not everybody is me right, and so that we see the world differently, and that’s what you’re reminding us. So I guess what I’m asking you to do is to explore a little bit more with us. Dream a Little bit more. What else would look different? Like that powerful about how we sit down and have a day where we’re going to reframe what we need. Do on these campuses. What other suggestions might you have that seem to be unique or that have been bothering you?

Shaun Harper
Yeah, I’ll give one. It’s a very tangible one. So with the support of two foundations, I’ve created what we’re calling the national dei defense coalition. And in the latter half of fall semester, we brought together a few 100 chief diversity officers, diversity practitioners, culture practitioners, and so on, alongside researchers. Who study campus racial climate, students of color, so on and so forth, to produce a set of assets that we are going to release at the beginning of March. And these are all assets, mostly digital tools that could help people dispel some of the misunderstandings, misinformation and disinformation about dei on college campuses. But, you know, that’s sort of just phase one of the work. Yeah, the urgency of the moment now requires us to greatly expand that tent and build a much, much, much bigger coalition of literally millions of Americans who are willing to stand, stand up and fight back, but they got to do it collectively. Can’t go at it individually, right? Yeah, it has to be collective. I want to go back quickly to that dear colleague letter from february 14. I would imagine that an individual college president would feel handcuffed by the threats in that letter, because there’s a threat to take away the federal funding from your institution, right? But imagine if that President came together alongside hundreds, or perhaps 1000s of other presidents and said, try it. Right? There’s no way we’re going to let you do this. We need more of that.

Heather Shea
Yes, I agree, yeah, and that urgency is part of the panic, right? And, and I think that’s part of the strategy is, how do we slow down, take a breath, right? But also mobilize and build that coalition. Lori,

Raechele Pope
well, wait, I just want to say I don’t think we need to slow down yet, because there’s two things. I think we need things going collectively as academics, as people in higher ed, we often take that time and we put together a task force, and we do all these things in the meantime, they’re rolling on. We need a rapid response group that is saying, here’s our immediate response to this letter, and we’re still doing our homework like we usually do,

Lori Patton Davis
Yeah? So that’s actually what I was gonna Oh, damn Yeah, sorry, yeah. You know, we have this ACPA has this imperative, yeah? So where’s the team that takes that imperative and say, you know, we said these things, and so this is how we move. And I don’t, you know, I wish that existed. I’m also, you know, in all of the time we’re thinking and, you know, strategizing again, I think we have to build up stamina for a fight, and I’m gonna give you an example. You know, it surprised me that there were Congress persons trying to get into the Department of Education, and a guard said, I can’t let you in. I don’t know how that happened, because my response would have been completely different. I don’t know, and I don’t think there is any position or role that puts us above fighting for what we believe in. There just isn’t or there shouldn’t be. There should not be a concern about what we might get arrested. And, you know, like we need, we need help on thinking about what it means to risk take, what it means to be it’s okay to be afraid, like all of these things. And I am of the belief that there’s the work we do as faculty and administrators. And I love to write, but I’m also clear that the people who need to read it, I’m not sure they’re the ones who are going to look at it, and so like, how do you you. How do you make that possible? How do we encourage more people who are in this room run for school board, run for an elective, you know, like the people who are making decisions don’t really believe the things that our Association stands on. And so, yes, run for president of ACPA, but also run for president of school board, or, you know, like we have to be beyond. We have to move beyond our field. To me that that’s what a switch looks like, that we think about leadership beyond just within the field, which is important. And I’m also, I’m excited for the opportunity for ACPA to think about the power it can leverage. I was thinking today, you know, when I was going up for tenure, if my institution was in a red state that doesn’t allow me to do this work, I decide, yeah, I’m still going to do it anyway, but I submit that article to jcsd, and I’m told we cannot publish from red states. That’s going to make that faculty member say, No, I have to go to I have to go to my institution and say, You’re telling me to stay in this job. I need to get promotion and tenure. Well, this is the top journal, so you know, there needs to be some other partnership or something, so that my work will be recognized by that journal. So there is power in ACPA, and lots of what ACPA is doing, but you’ve got to leverage it. And the reality is that some of our members will be hurt in the process, but it’s for a larger like we’re all going to be pushed to sacrifice in some ways.

Shaun Harper
I’m gonna break your rules. You’re the host. But let me ask Lori a question. Do it? Lori, I have a question. I love what you just said. Lori, too, is a past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Lori, how does an association get the confidence to do what you just called for? Because I think that it requires a particular level of confidence that is counter cultural, even to the norms, the long standing norms of an association like ACPA, NASPA, ASHE AERA

Lori Patton Davis
so to me, it’s not about who leads. It’s about who serves, and it’s who, and that’s not mine. That’s Carter G Woodson’s because I’m reading mis education of the Negro. But everybody doesn’t need to lead. It’s about wanting to work and wanting to preserve the things we care about. We want to preserve our imperative. We want to preserve, you know, how we you know, do bathrooms, like all of that, our land acknowledgements. How do we preserve it? Well, it takes people to serve to do that?

Lori Patton Davis
So that, and perhaps that’s a really hard question. Shaun,

Shaun Harper
I think I got maybe one I could re imagine also coalition, like not just individuals coming together, but how do you bring associations together to collectively fight? Yes, in this terrifying moment, sure,

Lori Patton Davis
I think associations are scared. I think some associations are scared. Given my own experience with ash, I think some associations are afraid, and perhaps it is the coalition part that makes them less afraid, I don’t know.

Raechele Pope
Well, even following that up, remember, ACPA has a history of doing this when the Martin Luther King, okay, I’m going, I’m showing my age here, when the Martin Luther King birthday was being established, and there were certain states that did not do it, we said we’re not going to that state for that conference that we were scheduled to be in Arizona, as I recall, and moved the conference in a short period of time, when there is a will, yeah, there’s a way, and when there is the call from the the membership, Yep,

Heather Shea
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that that that’s the imperative, right? Yeah, and that’s living our values. And I think it’s one thing to say the words, it’s another thing to show the actions, right? And I’m, I am proud to be here as a member of this association who is not removing stuff from its website. Right, and is also looking towards those opportunities to build coalitions with other associations. Because I think that is really the path that’s I think that solidarity is going to be the key. Is the key.

Lori Patton Davis
I’ll also add that when we think about, you know, being active, you know, promoting change. Sometimes our mind thinks that we have to do something really big and massive, and that doesn’t always have to be the case. And so, you know, I talk about people you just work from your own sphere of influence. You really can, like, I know people in this room have family members who either didn’t vote or voted against democracy, so you have work within the next two years to help shift our representation in Congress. You can write a letter. You can contact your congress, like, there are things you can do. You don’t have to switch your syllabus. You really don’t. We have, well before we were here, there were people who were criminalized for what they were teaching, what they were learning, even, you know, the act of trying to read to, you know, to be literate. So I feel like I just, I guess, don’t feel helpless in it, but know that you also don’t have to do anything, you know, big and outrageous. You can operate in your everyday toward change.

Heather Shea
Yeah, and I think for me, it’s also, and we’ve spent some time here talking about this, it’s also listening and engaging with folks who have been here in this place and space before, because there this is not the first time we have faced crises, existential crisis. I think that the key here is we need to collectively work towards it. And I wonder if there’s a possibility for for conversations that like this, that generate into further dialog and work.

Raechele Pope
We shifted whole campuses in a matter of weeks. Yeah, COVID. Yeah, right. We completely shifted the way we did everything. What you’re giving us is a call to say it’s time to do that again. It’s time to stop, re look and know that we are not we don’t have to be isolated. We were very adept at zoom now. Zoom now, so we can get together and have conversations and plan actions and things like that, so that we are not alone, even if you are the lone person in your office on your campus.

Heather Shea
So we are, unfortunately, as often happens, on our episodes of Student Affairs now, out of time, we always end with the question, what are you thinking about? Pondering troubling we’ve spent the entire hour, for the most part, doing that just in a final thought. What would you like to leave us with today? Shaun, we’ll start with you.

Shaun Harper
Yeah, I am thinking about what it means to still have joy during these times and to be incredibly intentional about leaning into the things that bring you joy and doing them with the people who bring you joy. Right? You know, again, just quick, full circle moment. I work at USC. Now, my best friend works at UCLA, doing things with her and with her children and her husband brings me joy. So I don’t know. I just think and with my husband too. I just think that he’s always there too. But yeah, I just, I think that it’s going to be important to still be committed to finding joy during these times.

Lori Patton Davis
I think alongside that is resting. I have worked really hard to not get into like, I think somebody called it trauma, scrolling where you’re, you know, on social media, and you see, every story is a negative story. Every story is triggering. So that is joy, but it’s also giving yourself a break, give yourself grace, like slow down and rest, take a nap, and when you wake up, or when you you know stop. The same issues will be there, but you can look at them and think about them. Clearly. And I’m also thinking about imagination. I’m reading Ruha Benjamin’s book, imagination a manifesto. And I just love that book, because we really can imagine something different. One of the things she’s actually, when she was speaking at USC, she talked about how, you know, someone had to imagine slavery. Somebody had to imagine, you know, all of these rules and laws that keep people oppressed. And so, if they can imagine, you know that we certainly can imagine something different. And so, you know, resting and then sort of tapping into your imagination for how things could be, I think is really important.

Heather Shea
Yeah. Thank you both so much for your time, for your wisdom, for being here at ACPA. So fun. It’s so fun. And I have learned, I mean, I always just value the opportunity to sit in space and hear from you all, it’s been awesome.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, thank you this. You know, of course, as I said, I sat there and I forgot that I was supposed to do something. I was so invested in listening to you. This has really been such a powerful and necessary conversation. And I also want to extend a special thank you again to ACPA for allowing us to host this discussion as part of this incredible gathering. We’re honored to be here. We in student affairs now, are honored to be here and to contribute to these important conversations shaping the future of Student Affairs.

Heather Shea
Just want to also give a huge shout out to the other members of the Student Affairs NOW team. A couple of them are here in the audience, Keith and Glenn, thank you for being here. And our incredible producer, Nat Ambrosey, who lives in California, who will make us all look and sound amazing in the in the in the production efforts.

Heather Shea
As I mentioned at the top of today’s episode, this episode is sponsored by ACPA. ACPA college student educators International is a leadership driven association that has been shaping the future of higher education since 1924 student affairs and higher education professionals, faculty and students rely on ACPA for high quality educational programs, access to inclusive research and scholarship and opportunities for Leadership Development at all levels as a values guided organization, the ACPA community is committed to advancing student success and meaningful change in higher education. Learn more and consider becoming a member at my acpa.org.

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