Dr. Keith Edwards discusses the new book Reframing Campus Conflict with co-editors Jennifer Meyer Schrage and Nancy Geist Giacomini and two of the contributing authors Ryan C. Holmes and Tamara Greenfield King.

Edwards, K. E. (Host). (2020, Nov. 11). Reframing campus conflict. (No. 11) [Audio podcast episode]. In Student Affairs NOW. https://studentaffairsnow.com/susankomives/

Keith Edwards:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards. Today we’re talking about the new book, Reframing Campus Conflict: Student Conduct Practice through the Lens of Inclusive Excellence. I have it right here in my hands. I’m thrilled to be joined by two of the editors, Jennifer Meyers Schrage and Nancy Geist, Giacomini, and two folks who contributed multiple chapters, Ryan C. Holmes and Tamara Greenfield King to this exciting book that is obviously so needed in today’s times.

Keith Edwards:
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 you find these conversations and 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.

Keith Edwards:
We’re really excited today that Stylus Publishing is a sponsor of today’s episode. Stylus is proud to be a sponsor for the Student Affairs Now podcast. Browse their student affairs, diversity, and professional development titles StylusPub.com. Use promo code SANOW for 30% off all books, including this new edition of Reframing Campus Conflict plus free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter @StylusPub.

Keith Edwards:
As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he, him, his. I’m a speaker, consultant, and coach. You can find out more about me, at KeithEdwards.com. I’m hosting this conversation today from Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is the ancestral home of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. Now let’s get to the conversation. We’re here to discuss this new book, Reframing Campus Conflict, which is a fully revised update on the original, which came out about 10 years ago. Please have folks introduce yourselves in relation to this project. And I will also say I contributed with Ryan, as a co-author on a chapter that he led, so I’m familiar with this. I will try and be the audience for us, but, maybe Jennifer, if you could go ahead and tell us a little bit about you and then we’ll, we’ll move our way around.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
Sure. My name is Jennifer Meyer Schrage and I’m the interim associate vice president and senior advisor to the vice president for student life at the University of Michigan. And prior to my work in higher education, I was an attorney and I’ve also taught at a law school in dispute resolution. And the work over the years that I’ve been doing has, has really been focused on building a safe and just climate. And I’ve been devoted to anti-discrimination and peace building work. And this book project really has been a satisfying compilation of the wisdom gained over the years, 10 years ago, and even wiser now. And and still hopeful. My contributions to the book include as you mentioned, I am co-editor and also a co-author I co-authored chapter one with Nancy where we discussed the context of the work right now and campus climate. Chapter four with Monita Thompson on the spectrum model. Chapter five, with Royster Harper on dialogue. Chapter 10, with Veronica Hipolito on shuttle diplomacy. And then the afterward with Nancy really trying to put words around the pandemic and racial justice and what it means to do this work and the relevance of this work.

Keith Edwards:
Well thank you. I’m tired just listening to you list all those chapters you contributed to. So thanks for all that, Nancy, let’s go to you.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Thanks so much, Keith, thanks for having us. And I’m so happy to be with my colleagues, especially since we haven’t had a chance to be together in a very long time physically. And Keith, you’re going to hear us name drop a lot of people because we’re lucky enough to have gotten the invitation to keep our zoom call from going, you know, going too long. But really we represent 33 contributing authors across 15 chapters plus a wonderful new brand new preface and forward and afterward, as Jennifer mentioned. So forgive our name dropping, but we are with a whole lot of people in spirit. And we want to respect their contribution very, very much. Again, I’m Nancy, Giacomini, as you said, my pronouns, are she/her. And I’ve been at this work for, I didn’t want to tell you how long, but since let’s say 90, I started my early career at the University of Delaware where I earned my doctorate degree and began this kind of long journey out of valuing adjudication processes and leading our conduct program for 10 plus years at Delaware while becoming certified and then practicing across mediation and facilitation and conflict coaching work.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
And it’s just really neat the way it continues to all come together as we’ll talk about when we introduce the pathways of the spectrum with you today. After I left the University of Delaware, I moved into a parent role for a couple of years and then began to pull back in my work as a mediator and a private educator and a conflict coach, and I’m an adjunct faculty. So I enjoy a lot of different roles at this point. I’m really proud to be working with the graduate program at St. Bonaventure University way up in upstate New York teaching graduate conflict and human resource management programs and providing some subject matter expertise. I am mediating continue to mediate in the special education community with the Pennsylvania office for dispute resolution and just to kind of pull it all together.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
My newest privileged role is to work with the City of Philadelphia. They invited me in along with dozens of other volunteer colleagues to help them support landlords and tenants during this time of COVID and the eviction diversion program. So we are learning alongside everybody else with the remote ways to do all these things that we’re going to introduce with you, but I can tell you firsthand that it works. It’s every bit as valuable online. It’s just a little different, and I’m just really proud again, to be here representing folks that aren’t here with us with my wonderful colleagues of many, many decades. And I’ll pause there and you can read more about my credentials in the bio if interested.

Keith Edwards:
Great. Thank you for that, Nancy. Tamara, tell us a little bit about you.

Tamara Greenfield King:
Hello and good morning. This is Tamara Greenfield King. I go by she, her pronouns, and I have the pleasure of working at the University of Pennsylvania currently as one of the associate vice provosts for student affairs. I’ve had a long history in higher education. My previous institution, which I’d love to mention is Washington University in St. Louis. And that’s because that’s where I grew up in the world of higher ed was there for nearly 20 years. I will say that my initial interaction with the book, the first edition was 10 years ago in 2010 when I was the first African-American president of the association for student conduct administration and friends with Nancy, Jennifer, and Ryan. And at that time I wrote the endorsement for the book as the sitting president. And I believed in the transition that our association was undergoing, which was switching to a more inclusive and socially just model. I still believe in that. And 10 years later, I’m happy to be able to share that I helped co author chapter three, which is what objectivity is not nearly enough and chapter 15, which deals with keeping it real with inclusive and collaborative leadership. So I’m delighted to be here and get the conversation going. I also like Jennifer and the recovering attorney many years ago. So higher ed has done for over 25 years. Thank you.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for joining us over to you, Ryan C. Holmes.

Ryan C. Holmes:
Hey, thank you, Keith. I really appreciate you. I’m Ryan C. Holmes. I function as the associate vice president for student affairs and Dean of students at the University of Miami. And I’m just going to say this to start everything just happy to be here with you. All feels really great to be my brother and my sisters here. When it comes out to my higher education, I started off at the University of Maryland working in both multicultural involvment and community advocacy, as well as working with Upward Bound as a full-time counselor in summers. Right? And so with that, I didn’t realize back then that everything that I would ever do, everything I was passionate about would be steeped in social justice and diversity equity and inclusion. And what I mean by that is when I first left Maryland and went to the University of Texas at El Paso I was working with a conduct system. That’s when I was excuse me. I just skipped all over the LaSalle University. Sorry, about the I went to LaSalle first. That’s where I started.

Keith Edwards:
LaSalle is going to send us a nasty note.

Ryan C. Holmes:
They know I love them. Right. And I went into conduct there and that’s when I got involved with ASCA. But even then it was really about social justice and diversity equity inclusion. So when I went to UTEP and their, the conduct system, their student activities, and went on to the counseling center and went on to the accommodations and and the accommodations office, alcohol and other drugs, you know, in, in those types of positions, it was still really about making sure that people have heard voices and really got the resources that they needed from the institution. And so move on to the University of Miami here, we have all of those things and then you have Greek life, and then you add case management and social work, and you have a chaplain’s association and you add the work with athletics as liaison.

Ryan C. Holmes:
And now everything has always been steeped in social justice, diversity and inclusion. And it also comes right into the book because of the two chapters. I was able to work with one with you and one with another individual by the name of Jay Wilgus. And of course the first chapter Mike DeBowes as well as Tamara there as well. When we talk about why objectivity is not enough, it’s really talking about social justice, diversity and inclusion with that is we talked about facilitating dialogue and is also getting people who may not necessarily be on the same page of background to actually take a step out and to converse with each other. And so I’m just happy to be here having to be a part of the work and have to be a part of this discussion with you all this.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And I loved the conversations that led to that chapter 10 years ago and loved the conversations that led to, how do we rethink this? How do we change? How has the world changed? How is our thinking change? So that was super fun. So great to have you all here. Jennifer and Nancy, let’s maybe start with you you edited this book as the original Reframing Campus Conflict, and now your complete revision. And I’d just love to hear from the two of you, what has evolved and changed in your thinking around campus conflict over the past 10 years, what, what sort of happened in the in-between space? Jennifer, maybe you can kick us off with this.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
Well the, the context shifted in case anybody noticed dramatically/ And ironically, that is the larger message of the book, right? Context matters. And it’s the heart of the spectrum model part of the book. And we talk a lot about it in the first chapter. But this idea of speaking about the work in this new context is what brought us together as a writing team. I think Keith, Ryan, Tamara, Nancy, you can remember that first call when we all came back together again, to talk about, you know, do we want to do a new book? Why do we want to do new a new book? And I think it all for all of us we really had this thirst with regard to the power of the pen to respond to the current context. And I think what we were observing, we were all observing was this shift away from social justice, diversity equity inclusion, the shift away from healthy conflict engagement and the shift toward authority and control.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
And I know Nancy can put more words around that too, but, but I just briefly, you know, as we think about that shift away from social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion, when this first, this book first came out, we started speaking about these ideas. It was a much, it was, it was, it was it was new in some ways to the profession that we were speaking to the subset of the profession, but it was definitely a friendly environment. There was an open heart, there was an openness we had just, we were on the way to electing the first Black president. And then you think about to now, and just a few weeks ago, this order from the White House, literally against diversity training. And so that shift in landscape, and really, you know, the first time speaking about social justice, as I mentioned, there was openness to it, but you know, all of us and Nancy and I had very specific conversations, Monita C. Thompson is really good about bringing this to the table.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
We watched over these year, this drip away, when people would talk about the spectrum model, or they would talk about this, this set of work, they, this drip away of anchoring it in social justice. They would speak about restorative justice, but suddenly nobody was talking about social justice as they talked about the spectrum model, which the model doesn’t make sense if you don’t embrace social justice as the primary concern. And so I think that was for all of us, this shifting external context, and then watching the profession respond was important inspiration. And then with regard to healthy conflict management, what’s being role modeled for our students around healthy conflict engagement, right? So we’ve shifted away from, and we’ve always been working on this as a community and national community. But the shift away from listening to one another and third truth and civil dialogue to polarization and echo chambers, and this desire to just speak with people that are the same with me, rather than speaking across difference in doing it constructively.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
And so I think the relevance of the book more now than ever the shift towards authority and control, which I know Tamara and Ryan will speak about in the context of COVID and the pandemic is very real. So all of this shifting landscape happening was very affirming. I think for all of us, for the project affirming of the need to put social justice, restorative justice, and educational lenses at the center of the table, this need to increase the capacity for healthy conflict engagement, both within our student population and also within our institutions and the need for conduct and conflict response systems. That role model of full range of conflict management and center community and care rather than policies and authority.

Keith Edwards:
Well, you’re just reminding me about the importance of role modeling conflict. If we were, if we were 2008 and just before Obama was about to be elected, that was also really the beginning of social media and not being a small thing that some people did and the role of social media and the modeling of conflict that I see on social media is not great, right? It is agreeing with the people who I agree with and the people I don’t agree with. I don’t just disagree with it, but they’re awful. They’re terrible. And I cut them out of my life and don’t want to be associated with them and all of this. So, so many things seem to have changed in the landscape in the context, Nancy, what would you add about what has shifted in the in-between space?

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
I don’t know. That was so good. I just want to say what she said, but I guess what I’m reminded of in addition to all of what Jennifer has started us out with is just the cyclical nature of our work. And I had the chance in the context to our present election in the United States to remind myself and some others close to me that the work all of us are doing, and particularly the work in restorative justice and Indigenous peoples are not for us. The work is for the future. The work is for our children and it just helped simmer me down. And remind me that what’s important to our work and where we’re at right now is, is that process. And that reminder that we are contributing to the work of so many others before us and the ones that will come after us.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
So, so that cyclical nature, and on top of what Jennifer said is yes, many, many things have changed and yes, many, many things that stayed the same Tamara will probably piggyback on me. I hope she will, because in our own sphere of influence back some years ago, we worked with a marvelous association. We work with several more of those associations but even in their framework and shared vision to bring conflict resolution and mediation, restorative justice, social justice, all the things that hang with our work into our association, which we were leaders in, we still had to work. Gosh, I want to say every darn day, certainly every darn year to respond to and folks that pushed back against what we had put out 10, 11 years ago. And there was some pushback. We had to be responsive to that. We had to remember and collaborate and become allies together, which was one of my fondest professional lessons and memories to invite our associations, to institutionalize some of the work that we have been advocating for all these years.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
So, as Jennifer said, beautifully, anybody can talk process. Anybody can work within a process option or a practice, but you can’t untangle these different ways of coming at conflict and conduct from our foundations of social and restorative justice. And when I’m really excited to share in our collaborative book with all of our authors across pages and with you today is that one of the things that’s so new to this publication, which is fully revised, which is why it took the time that it took, what we were able to do was not only keep Monita and Jennifer’s beautiful spectrum model in use at the University of Michigan to this day at the heart of part two of our book when we unpack it across pathways, but also to visualize a new rubric to bring these lenses together. So to kind of lift up social and restorative justice from those foundations and make them into a model and an activity and a perspective builder, which we’ll talk about under this rubric of inclusive conflict excellence.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
So that folks have a way to think differently about conduct and justice and con conflict and conduct and justice. And not just hear it from us or read it across our pages, but use the questions and the case studies and the summaries and the activities that we’ve put right into the book to apply those lenses in a way that’s going to lift up their work, whether it’s really traditional adjudication work or whether they’re already testing the waters and incorporating some of the other pathways. This just for, for my way of thinking goes, goes one deeper.

Keith Edwards:
Oh, great, great segue. I love books that are easy to skim and you’ve even done that better. You’ve kind of put the whole thing right on the front. This whole spectrum model is right on the cover. We’ll get some things in the show notes for those of you who are listening to those, if you’re watching on YouTube, it’s just right on the cover there. And then, so that’s the spectrum model. And then there’s also this inclusive excellence model, which folks will also see. We’ll also get some of that in the show notes. Tell us a little bit more about the spectrum model and the inclusive conflict excellence and that framing briefly. And then we’ll, we’ll get other folks in here to talk about how we put these things to you.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
So, so I’ll take a first fly by on the inclusive conflict excellence framework, which Nancy are already touched on and then pass the mic to Nancy to talk more about the spectrum model specifically. And like you said, I’ll just do very briefly, really, as Nancy mentioned, the inclusive conflict excellence framework is about lenses. And it, we were talking about those lenses 10 years ago. And in fact that visual was inspired by some work Nancy, Monita and I had done in some after conversations talking about these lenses of our work. And so it, we found this term inclusive excellence to, to help us wrap words around something that we were still talking about 10 years ago. And then evolving with this conversation we’re having in the country around transformative justice. And you know, I want to acknowledge Dr. Tia Brown McNair. She had come to U of M to campus. We had done some collaborative work together, and that was when Nancy and I started speaking about this term of inclusive excellence as a nice way to, to describe really the solution, the product we’re looking for, not just systemic change or not just observing the oppression and the challenge, but actually giving us a vision on the horizon of what excellence looks like and linking a mission of the institution or the success of an institution to literally how inclusive is that institution.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
It’s not excellent unless it’s meeting the needs of every single student, hence inclusive conflict excellence, being a way to describe an excellent conduct and conflict response system, a system that balances the four lenses. And it, it takes us away from a myopic risk management procedure, blah, blah, blah. Because if you have that lens, then one size fits all works for you. And a more formalistic approach works for you, but if you balance social justice and restorative justice and transformation and education next to not underneath procedure and process and risk management, but next to it creates a balanced perspective. And once you look through those lenses and what you see, you can’t unsee it because then everything shifts the paradigm. Nothing makes sense anymore. A simplistic model no longer makes sense. You need to embrace the mess and and meet the needs of all of the students, all of the culture, all of the identity, all of the developmental stages. And so once you look through that lens again, you see the full spectrum of needs, which inspired Monita and I to create the full spectrum of resolution options and and do the work that we did with colleagues at Michigan. So with that, I’ll pass it to Nancy to talk about the spectrum model.

Keith Edwards:
Let me, let me get in there before we go to Nancy. I just, part of what I’m hearing from Nancy and from you is you had this great thinking, the original book came out and then you even had some conflict about a conflict book and some pushback. And what I love about it is, is rather than fight that you modeled what you’re suggesting and bringing it all in, listening to folks who disagreed listening to folks who has a different perspective, and it helped evolve your thinking, which is what we’re trying to do. And I love this notion of lenses and spectrum and light and vision, right? Cause these metaphors are going through all of this. But what you’re asking us to do is, is look at difficult situations that are emotionally laden with multiple perspectives, which of course we should do. And that’s so hard. It’s so hard. We want simple answers and we love the yes-no, the black and white, the good, bad, the binary. Nancy, tell us a little bit about this inclusive excellence, tying it to the spectrum model and the challenge to think more complexly about the things before us.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Okay, thanks. I might, I may be a one-off, but I actually don’t love that black, white. I like the chaos. So this maybe that’s why I’ve been at this work all this time, because it is messy. I love that word messy. It’s not black and white, it’s learning and it’s learning centered. It’s restorative. It’s meant to be restorative versus we do do the dichotomy, right. To make a fine point throughout the book. And as we’re talking now, but it’s different than an orientation to control. And, and, and we’re educators and we work mostly in education and we all should be learners lifelong, right. Particularly when it comes to social justice and a journey. And I’m, I identified as a white woman and Jennifer – listen we’ve had to learn as we went. We’ve had to incorporate all those lessons, both personally and professionally.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
And so thank goodness for liking the messy, because it is messy work, but I hope that also means and resonates for people as authentic work because it’s really a privilege to do. So then in answer to your question. Yeah. So I think if Jennifer didn’t say she did name Tia Brown McNair, and we were so excited to add her to the book in the front. We have civil rights icons and lifelong educators Eleanor Moody-Shepherd and James McFadden together with her collaborator at the university of Tennessee Knoxville, Karen Boyd, they book in the beginning of our book with voices that we didn’t have before. And I think for us, it has just helped us lift our opportunity and our privilege and our learning to bring all these things together that we’re now talking about with you.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
So with that, and with that bigger than life frame you’ve asked me about the spectrum model and how it all kind of comes together. The part, the book is in three parts, part two unpacks, this spectrum model that you showed our beautiful cover here a couple of minutes ago. We haven’t lost any of the depth and unpacking those different process options across seven chapters in part two, and we’ve tried to be inclusive, right? And we tried also not to be so rigid that folks can’t pick up the book and read it and go, Oh, well, I never really understood how restorative justice might fit at my school before, or I never really could get this mediation idea or conflict coaching to take off the way I wanted it to. But now I have words and tools and resources and colleagues across the country who are doing it in different ways, tailored ways for their culture and climate and institution.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
I get it now differently than I did 10 plus years ago, I can take this material and these voices across the country and build what works for us collaboratively, collaboratively at my institution or my place of work. So the quick of the spectrum model hasn’t changed, but the depth and the heart and the transferability of it, transferability of it certainly has. And the it for folks who aren’t familiar with it very quickly is an integrated approach that hangs perfectly with inclusive conflict excellence because inclusive conflict excellence as Jennifer introduced means that we’re not just doing a bang up diversity training a couple of times a year. We’re just not talking with missions about social justice. Those are important, but they’re not everything because they can go away much too quickly. As we talked about earlier, when things get tight and COVID comes around, hopefully never again, and people are furloughed and the budgets are gone and students are gone, boy, Oh boy, is there a reaction to pull back and all of those nice to have, if they’re not institutionalized, they’re gone.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
They’re just gone. So the quick to your spectrum question is that it remains true to the vision of Monita and Jennifer and the working model at Michigan and now many other institutions across the country. The, it is a spectrum approach that everybody from top down side needs to have capacity about language, about and ultimately buy into. And the, it is providing students and in the workplace colleagues with options and a vision for how we can resolve conflict and conduct at the lowest and most appropriate and effective and sustainable levels. We’re really good at adjudication in higher education. We’re really good at it. And we respect it. We honor it with a procedural lens. We’ll never lose that, but we are also good at looking at communities and the value of repairing harm and restoring trust and lifting up social justice into this new white, newer idea or aligned idea of inclusive excellence.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
And then the it in practice runs from an informal set of pathways that can be applied and considered when there’s conflict and conduct that needs to be addressed on campus proactively in the moment and, and reactively all way to our most formal process options since mediation kind of started this passion for many educators many years ago, 20, 30 years ago now on campus, mediation has kind of right there in the center. And it’s a great place to start. If campuses are looking to bring in some of these ideas that we’re going to be talking about and have talked about it’s, it’s, it’s less formal than adjudication. Mediators are in place to empower parties, not to have others make decisions for them. I think folks can readily see how that is a less formal option than our most formal hearing officer or a panel driven adjudication options on the far left side, the least formal, but every bit is important pathways and skill sets.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
that folks can introduce on campus and that we advocate for in an inclusive model is capacity for dialogue capacity alone and facilitated capacity for sitting one-on-one with somebody and bringing these skills that so many of us now have, or can easily acquire to sit with somebody who, who knows they’re in conflict, or doesn’t have their skillsets built up yet and want some conflict coaching to be able to go back and resolve something on their own. I don’t want to go on and on because we really want to hear from Tamara and Ryan and, and expand this a little bit more. But readers and folks who are listening will hear details about each one of those pathways. They may even come up with some ideas of their own for what will fit at their own places. Inclusion is always at the heart of what we do tailor to institutions and never losing sight of why we put in new practices. So that everybody is heard and honored and justice is served.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah, well, and I love this invitation to readers to share what they’re thinking, what they’re disagreeing and maybe in 10 years from now that will evolve your thinking as well. And there’ll be another one with a more complex, a different analysis. Maybe it’s always hard when a book just comes out to think about the next iteration. So we’ll, we’ll hold off on that. But Ryan and Tamara…

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Jennifer already scolded me because I already said that the moment he didn’t even have the book in our hands yet. And I said, I can’t read it yet because I’m my worst critic. And the minute I see a typo, it’s on me. It’s just all on us and me and where you had the privilege of being editors. But I was going to put out to our authors. We haven’t yet because we’ve been a little busy with something, you know, other things, but I did want to put out, we were planning on putting out to authors along the way. Okay. Be gentle with us. We’re good. And we weren’t perfect. Read your chapters now and get to work because in another, as fast as things are changing in another year to three, we will need to update this again to keep it relevant. So yeah. Thank you.

Keith Edwards:
Scholarship is cumulative and our thinking continues to evolve Ryan and Tamara, you’re both leading complex student affairs organizations in this incredibly different moment for higher education, with conflict emerging related to racial injustice, COVID compliance. Folks have fear about furloughs and layoffs and the aftermath of this presidential election and ever increasing uncertainty. People keep saying, you know, in two weeks, we’ll know more. And they’ve been saying that since March 13th, then we just know, seem to know less and less as these thing go on. How are you putting this into into practice in your student affairs work with students, but also with staff and graduate students, human resources on blood work. How are you putting this, this to work? Ryan, maybe we’ll start with you.

Ryan C. Holmes:
Okay. And that’s fine. And so, so I’m going to go from 30,000 feet to 20,000 to 10, then I’m going to hand it off to Tamara, right? Because I’ll be think about the things in this book and talking about, Oh, we’re going to talk about role modeling, things that, that we need, right. That’s what we’re talking about. And so the same role modeling Keith, you and I got when we were at Maryland together, the same role model that Tamara did when she was the first Black ASCA president, which made me want to be that and I followed her footsteps, the same role model of that Nancy and Jennifer then shown when we went out to Wright State and they had just met me. And we were talking about putting in a conflict resolution and the mediation and those types of things into an association at that point.

Ryan C. Holmes:
And then they saw some raw materials and role modeled, how we can actually put some things down on paper. It allowed me to do that, right. So when we think about where we are now, before we even get to the college campus, because I’m going to say this, we used to say that conflict ended up in just adjudication. That’s what we, we addressed it right now. Let’s go ahead and zoom out a little bit conflict recently, as in like what 12 years ago happened when everybody say we were in a post-race society. Conflict Happened when you had those who were transgender who couldn’t use a bathroom and they had laws against it, right? Conflict happened when, you know, you have those who are dying at the hands of those who are sworn to protect them and the country kind of sit back and watch, right?

Ryan C. Holmes:
So the conflict happens when you have the like oil, like in the lines, they want to go through native lands and you know, and it’s okay to go through later and lands because there’s another group of people who may have had more affluence on what not to say. We don’t want these things over here, some, somewhere else, and those who have no voice have to deal with it. Why am I bringing all of these things up? I’m bringing all of these things up because these same social groups, these same groups people have college-aged people who then come to our universities. Having seen everything that they’ve seen, and then student affairs professionals have to deal with them right now. We have to work with them. So now, if you go to a reasonably conflict occurs, when you have those who support one candidate, you know, who the others can say, well represents the halves.

Ryan C. Holmes:
And it says, okay, this is my base. And the signs that go up and students have to walk past that because the candidate doesn’t represent just the party to them. It represents, you know, sexism, misogyny, racism, all of those, things like that. And they’re forced to be in these particular places. Conflict starts when you have students who don’t necessarily know how to voice themselves, to voice their pains to each other, which may later turn into an adjudication matter if not checked, right? The conflict happens when you have student organizations who may be different from other organizations who may throw an event that another group who may, let’s just say from more marginalized populations may not necessarily be likely event, but they don’t know how to express themselves. And others may say, well, this is my freedom of speech or expression so I can. The conflict happens with the first point

Ryan C. Holmes:
it’s recognized, not from when you get into this case moment is, you know, this conduct matter letter, right? And so when you think of this, this, this is where the transferable skills come here, right? When we’re trying to give students an avenue by which to express themselves, maybe it is conflict coaching. Maybe it is facilitated dialogue. Maybe it is mediation. Maybe it is any of those things that are in the spectrum model, right? This is where this happens. Right? And on top of that, we have to remember, there’s a great deal of students on our campus who just do not trust system. We believe in a lot of times as professionals that, okay, well, I know that I’m an outstanding individual. I know I have integrity and I have a great moral compass. So therefore everybody trusts me. No, they do not.

Ryan C. Holmes:
Because of a lot of cases, the systems that they see us representing resemble court systems and prison systems, and, you know with the police officers and the police departments and those types of things like that. So you have some that enter in conversation with us skeptically and at their best and at worst afraid. Right? And so I’ll give you an example. This is a fresh example to the right involve. My eight year old daughter, we get pulled over yesterday by the police, the reason why he said my tint was too dark. Fine. They didn’t give me a ticket and we drove off, but I had to check in on my kids. Right. And I asked how they doing. So I’ll make a long story short. My daughter burst out into tears because she said she was scared. And when asked why she was like, well, police kill black people.

Ryan C. Holmes:
And I love you daddy. Right? So when you think about it at that level, even as an eight year old, and we don’t disparage police in this house. We don’t speak poorly about police in his house, but even as an eight year old based on the things that she’s seen. She does not trust the police who were sworn to protect her. So these are the students that the kids that we’re going to have on our campuses moving forward. And that’s what this book is about. How do we have those conversations and show people how to have those conversations prior to action happening that will land them in an adjudication moment before it’s too late. And so I know I’ve said a lot Tamara you go ahead and take it away.

Tamara Greenfield King:
I love it. You know, you, you walked right into what I wanted to talk about in chapter 15, which is this inclusive and collaborative leadership. How do we get that? And we look at the complex organizations that many of us work at called a college campus. So when I look at that and your example, Ryan.

Tamara Greenfield King:
Our students don’t trust the system. They don’t trust the individuals that are working the system. And part of that, I think we have to own. So in chapter 15, when we talked about inclusive excellence, it starts at the top. And I talk about this in the chapter, if you’re president and it doesn’t matter where you work, which institution you may be working with, if your president does not come out and say, here are the tenants from which we will operate at this institution. That’s problematic. If they think that they are perfect and know all the answers and don’t invite students to the table, that’s problematic. I have said for years, if you want to know where our problems are, ask some students in a real basic conversation. We walk around our college campuses. We ask everyone students, how are you doing today? Everyone’s natural reaction is I’m doing fine. What we should be asking if we are the system and trying to get at the heart of what is on students’ minds is, “What is stressing you today?” If we ask that of our students, you’d be surprised at the answers you get. So I will just show, I think, I don’t want to say that I’m cursed because I don’t believe that I am. But when I was at Washington University in St. Louis Michael Brown was murdered.

Tamara Greenfield King:
Those students were active or going to Ferguson. We’re calling the administration to come bail them out of jail. When they were arrested up in Ferguson and our police on campus were also deployed to then go work in Ferguson to maintain law and order or peace. Think of the dichotomy. I say to some people, I have a complex understanding of what’s going on. I was a criminal prosecutor. People are shocked when they hear that. I have a very different lens when it comes to the criminal justice system, because of my experience within it. Fast forward, I get to Penn at Penn, we are in West Philadelphia people. The murder of Walter Wallace Jr. has set our campus back on fire. Even though our students are technically not there physically, very, we have been virtual in most spaces. Our students are worried about that. They’re now worried about how our police are going to respond to mental health crisis on campus.

Tamara Greenfield King:
So when I look at all of this, I look at our leadership. I try to model appropriate behavior. And one point I do want to make. So if there are college students listening to the podcast or folks who work very closely with college students, I’m so fortunate and blessed to have a 19 year old daughter in college who knows absolutely everything. So that has given me a lot of experience to work with someone in my home who has all the answers. And what I will say is our administrators have got to meet the students where they are our students, unfortunately, or fortunately have come into what I call that cancel culture. They don’t like one thing that you say, Oh my gosh, Tamara, you were a prosecutor, whoo X, you are off the list of people that we trust. And what I would like us to do, which is how the book in my opinion, really shakes out is how do we take all of our different identities, all of our different experiences, and then overlay that and how we engage with other, with other students and with our people. And I want students to really work on opening up their eyes, opening their ears and listening to listening to all of those different perspectives, because everyone does have some good points in their perspective. And how do we appreciate and understand in that inclusive excellence? Everyone brings something to the table.

Keith Edwards:
Well, thank you for that. I mean, you’re, you’re really making me think about messiness and how we want to avoid or clean up messiness. But messes are a part of life and how do we tend to them and how do we clean them up when they happen. And also Ryan and Tamara you are both reminding me about just how important it is for people to feel seen and heard, seen, and heard in their pain, seen and heard in their fear, seen and heard in their anger and this notion of what is stressing you out. I see a lot of people say, are you doing? And people say fine. I say, I don’t believe you. I just don’t believe you. How are you really doing? Because so many people ask that question, then don’t stick around for the answer. And then also in these times, or the examples that you’re giving how do we, how do we move towards reconciliation?

Keith Edwards:
Right? This, the spectrum model seems to be a whole bunch of tools to move towards that. Adjudication is one, but sometimes that move us further from that and listening and dialogue. So, so many great lessons for campus conduct. So many great lessons for managing – Tamara as you’re talking about what protests might emerge at the macro level, the response to society or campus issues, but also just people feeling hurt or in pain or as Ryan, your daughter afraid. Ao many good things – I would love to go on and on. We are running out of time. Unfortunately. I knew this would happen. But as, as, as we come to the end here I want to thank you so much for this conversation. I’d love to just hear from each of you, we call this, this podcast Student Affairs NOW. I’d love to hear from just each of you real quick. What’s something that’s present for you now, maybe, maybe now in this moment in our culture, or maybe now at the end of this conversation, what is really what is really salient for you? What are you thinking or pondering or troubling now who would like to jump in here first?

Ryan C. Holmes:
I’ll be really quick, really quick. The thing that sticks out to me now is that, and this comes from an experience that I had back at LaSalle. I wish then about the John DeCarlo was there and we were dealing with a situation. And one of the students said that the more I know you, the less likely I am to hit you. Right? And so the more we can speak to each other, I think the better off we’ll be. And I think a lot of times where I mentioned like, you know, pain and fear and those types of things like that. And you said something Keith about those not being heard. I think a lot of times people attach what I’m saying to those marginalized communities only. Let’s remember that Charlottesville happened because there were a great deal of people there who didn’t feel their voices being heard and they, and there was one or two those particular actions. So the more we are in dialogue with each other, what we can actually get a chance to know each other, whatever that means in a local community is more broader. I think the more likely we are to realize the humanity in all of us and we can actually put the work in his book to greater use.

Keith Edwards:
Brilliant, brilliant. Go ahead, Nancy.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Oh, it’s hard to be brief. I guess my, my brief thought as we wrap up is just how I continue to be in awe and appreciative of Ryan and Tamara in particular, always Jennifer, but you know, following their lived experiences and the very personal shares. I just, it checks me every time. And it reminds me of, yeah, I’ll get, I’ll get teary, but it really does check me every time. And it reminds me of how marvelous this work has been with all of these colleagues across the country, in particular, my friends on the today. It also makes me feel like I want to grab back the book and add another chapter. But I know what I’m about to say is already in what we wrote. And that’s the how central trust and being trustworthy is to everything that we’re talking about.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
And what’s always been intriguing to me, practicing across our spectrum, as I do teaching in our graduate programs across fields is, is again, back to – you can’t just be good at the process. We’re good at process. We wouldn’t be in the roles we’re in, if we weren’t good at process, but you cannot untangle those from all the things that we’ve already identified through those lenses. And if you funnel it down just a wee bit more before I pause and say goodbye, is that at the heart of this work, is that trustworthiness the relationships as equally, if not more important than the results, it’s a balance. And we forget sometimes because we’re so results oriented working in good faith, building everyone’s capacity to share those things, those principles and values with us, that is, that is the stuff of building conflict capacity, which we spend a great deal of time talking about across our chapters. So I’ll pause on that, but I’m, I’m, I’m grateful for the reminder and the space to have this conversation. And so appreciate the personal stories, especially in this moment.

Keith Edwards:
I love that the chapter you want added is on trust and trustworthiness. Both sides of that.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Yes. And don’t go writing it. Cause we’re going to go to.

Keith Edwards:
Go ahead tomorrow Tamara. What are you thinking? What are you pondering or troubling?

Tamara Greenfield King:
I have two simple things that I try to govern with. Number one, please don’t tell me you’re colorblind. And that you’re objective because then that means you don’t see me. Second, always engage in relationships with latitude and with grace, the latitude that the other person, or you may be making a mistake and the grace that if they have made a mistake that you can forgive, move on, get past it and continue in dialogue. And in relationship with one another, we were not put on this earth because we are perfect. We will make mistakes. We have to give each other latitude and grace in the work that we do. Thank you.

Keith Edwards:
Really great. And I just want you to say the part about colorblind one more time.

Tamara Greenfield King:
If you say that you’re colorblind, that means you don’t see me. Because as a person of color, I need you to see, appreciate, understand the lens with which I see things.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Thank you. That’s so important. It’s so needed in these times, and I wish we could get a bulletin board in Philly for each of those little nuggets Tamara. It sounds like we’re going to need it. And Jennifer, why don’t you close us out with what you’re thinking, pondering, or troubling now.

Jennifer Meyer Schrage:
So I’m thinking about transformation and and this – we come from this field of conflict resolution, conflict management, peace building. And we often like to use the term reconciliation, but I think we need to shift away from reconciliation to transformation, the truth, racial healing centers that are being built by the Association for American Colleges and Universities with the Kellogg Foundation, really challenged that narrative of reconciling to a dysfunctional foundation. We actually have to take a sledgehammer to the foundation and rebuild and transform. And, you know, that’s individual work as administrators and educators and it’s larger societal work. And, and so I’m thinking about transformation and I’ll just leave with a quote from Eboo Patel who runs the Interfaith Youth Corps out of Chicago. And there’s a quote in chapter five where he says a huge part of what colleges do is model diverse democracy. And so there’s hope there. And there’s a challenge there in terms of higher education really has a lot of work to do, to create broader access to college now more than ever.

Keith Edwards:
Right. Thank you. I love that. Nudge on moving from reconciliation to transformation. I really appreciate that.

Keith Edwards:
Well, thank you all so much. I’m grateful for each of you for your time today as guests on Student Affairs Now. I also want to thank our sponsor, Stylus who also published this book. You can get 30% off and free shipping with the discount code SANOW. That is actually quite a great deal. So go to StylusPub.com, and you can do that with this book and others from Stylus. You can receive reminders about this and other episodes by subscribing to the Student Affairs Now newsletter or browse our archives at StudentAffairsNow.com. This is our 11th episode. Please subscribe to the podcast, invite others to subscribe, share on social media or leave a five star review. It really helps conversations like this reach more folks and build the community so we can continue to make this free for you. Again, I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today and everyone who is watching and listening. Please make it a great week. Thank you all.

All:
Thank you. Thanks everybody.

Nancy Geist Giacomini:
Thanks for listening.

Purchase the book at the link below directly from Stylus with the code SANOW for 30% off and free shipping.

Schrage, J. M., & Giacomini, N. G. (2020). Reframing campus conflict: Student conduct practice through the lens of inclusive excellence. Stylus. 

Chapter 1 is available for free from Stylus.

Afterward is available for free from Stylus.

Reframing Campus Conflict PDF of slides including visuals of the spectrum model, inclusive conflict excellence graphic, and info on all the chapters and all the authors.

Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA)

Brown McNair, T., Bensinmon, E. M., & Malcolm-Piqueuz. (2020). From equity walk to equity talk: Expanding practitioner knowledge for racial justice in higher education. Jossey Bass. 

AAC&U Making Inclusive Excellence site.

Williams, D. A., Berger, J. B., & McClendon, S. A. (2005). Toward a model of inclusive excellence and change in postsecondary institutions. Report published by Association American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).