Desirée Anderson
For me when I really think about the complexities of restorative justice, when I’m really thinking about is how holistically Are we really thinking about how we’re integrating this stuff? Because when we talk about the Justice aspect of it, right, there’s all of these things that have to be happening kind of simultaneously, justice to to be taking place. And I think beyond that, sometimes what happens is people see like, oh, restorative justice, that’s this is fun, right? Even though Patience already made it very clear, it’s not new, but it feels new for a lot of people. And it feels innovative. And it feels like this, like, great tool that we can just use. And it’s like, yes. And right, there’s we want to maintain the integrity of what we’re sort of justice is and can be in spaces and communities. And I think too often sometimes people are like, well, let’s just get in a circle. Like what what does it mean to be in circle?

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re talking about restorative justice. I’m joined by a special co host, Jessi Benveniste from UC Berkeley. We’re joined by four guests who have practice restorative justice written about it taught it and helped evolve restorative justice and restorative practices. We’re so excited to learn from you. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and an online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Dind details about this episode or browser archives, it’s student affairs now.com. This episode is sponsored by LeaderShape go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create a more just caring, and thriving world. Today’s episode is also sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner simplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your co host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, consultant and coach and you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. I’m joined by my co host, Jessi who helped organize this and it’s helping to host this Jessi, please tell us a little bit about you, and a little bit of how we got here today.

Jessi Benveniste
Great. Thank you, Keith. Hello, my name is Jessi Benveniste. I use she and her pronouns. And I currently serve as a conduct coordinator in the Center for Student Conduct at UC Berkeley. Additionally, I’m a co chair of the conflict resolution community of practice with ASCA, or the Association of Student Conduct administrators and work and work closely with Dr. Zack Ritter. on strengthening the network of student affairs professionals utilizing restorative justice and higher education. The community of practice has been has been hosting a number of conversations on restorative justice and student affairs, and how one may implement restorative practices in an educational environment or organization. I have a graduate degree degree in conflict and dispute resolution, and a background in educational leadership and policy. I am currently and I’m currently broadcasting from Berkeley, California, sitting on the territory of the ancestral land of speaking of the Aloni people.

Keith Edwards
Awesome, I’m so glad you’re here to help us navigate the conversation. Let’s get to our fabulous guests. Thanks for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about you and your connection to restorative justice. And Léna, we’re gonna start with you.

Léna Crain
Thank you, Keith, and Jessi and thank you for bringing us together and for highlighting this topic. I am really excited to be with these brilliant folks who I happen to very much admire beyond this space as well. I’m Dr. Léna Crain, I use she her pronouns, and I work with Student Wellness related programs and services at Bucknell University. Bucknell is located on the unseeded ancestral homelands of the Susquehanna people here in central Pennsylvania. At Bucknell, I provide leadership for wellness related programs and services, which includes student health counseling, nutrition, interpersonal violence prevention and advocacy and Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution. And my connection to restorative justice came primarily through incident response. And specifically in Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution. I have been a major advocate for the integration of conflict resolution practices, such as RJ into campus responses to harm and I have worked with about a dozen campuses at various stages of their RJ exploration and implementation journeys, everything from facilitator training all the way through policy development that and I chaired the most recent ASCA gearing Academy track related to restorative justice. Thank you.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, we’re glad you’re here Desirée. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Desirée Anderson
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me here. I echo everything that Lina just said. So my name is Dr. Desirée Anderson, and I’m on the unseeded unchartered Land of the Choctaw in New Orleans, although technically, I’m in Baton Rouge right now in a hotel. But that’s besides the point. And in my full time capacity, I serve as the Associate Dean for Diversity and Student Affairs at the University of New Orleans. And I’ve been there since 2018. And I come to this restorative justice work very similarly, and trying to think about how do we think about harm differently? How do we meet the needs of students, specifically those who have been impacted by incidents of bias that we don’t have other pathways to address often in institutions of higher education because they’re not policy violations. And that really, really drew my interest into how can we think more holistically about addressing the needs of impacted people, and have been really engaged in that work for the past six, six years ish. And that time, I’m very excited to be in community with all of you all today to one learn some more from you all as well, because you’re all brilliant minds. And it shares a little bit of knowledge that I do have. So thank you for your time today.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful. So glad you’re here. Patience. Tell us about you.

Patience Bryant
Hello, my name is Patience Bryant, I use she they pronouns. I currently serve as the director for her black and African American equity at San Jose State University, which is home of the Mothman Allahu tribe. My office is in a narrow position that was created the demand of the black community. So Jose State in summer 2020, I got introduced to restorative justice, through our doctoral studies where I was studying conflict resolution, and sort of justice was introduced to me as a concept. And so when I switched to do Student Conduct work, I will have had opportunity to fuse it into my practices in my offices, supporting other campuses and infusing into their work. And now as a comment, adjacent campus partner, I use it for my office, we were part of the buyers and sellers resource team. So we do for buyers response, but also have found myself in supporting our housing department and creating RJ process for them as well as working with particular black students as they’ve been navigating working with our University Police Department and other things throughout the community. Putting more sort of practice into work around campus.

Keith Edwards
awesome. I’m noticing how well represented we are here geographically. Valerie, go ahead, round us out. Tell us a little bit about you.

Valerie Glassman
Thanks. Keith, Thanks, Jessi. I too am very honored to be here seated among my colleagues. My name is Dr. Valerie Glassman. I use she her pronouns. And as of July 18 of this year, I am the Senior Director for Student Affairs and the offices of Medical Student Education at UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, North Carolina is home to the nations along with many other indigenous peoples. And I also want to take this time to acknowledge and honor the crucial role of enslaved people and the early days of our campus. Enslaved people were sold as it’s cheated property to help fund the establishment of UNC and the labor of enslaved people built UNC Chapel Hill and undergirded its operations until emancipation. I acknowledge and give thanks to the enslaved people who built UNC and their descendants. My experience with restorative justice is similar to the pathways that my colleagues came into understanding I’m working with restorative justice. In a former role, I served as an assistant dean of students in the Office of Student Conduct at a university not too far down the road from UNC Chapel Hill. And over time, I began to understand and really notice how students were having different experiences with the Student Conduct system. Even though the conduct system asserts itself to be equitable to all students, I noticed that students from diverse backgrounds were experiencing the disciplinary process in many different ways. And so I started to think more holistically about how we could really make this experience inviting inclusive and equitable to students who are accused of misconduct, I also began to think about how we could use restorative practices, when, as my colleagues mentioned before, there is no allegation of misconduct that really addressing conflict between and among students.

Keith Edwards
Great, I love that, as you all are talking, we’re we’re sort of framing this in terms of sort of beginning learning about restorative justice in the conduct realm, but then expanding it beyond that to bias protocols, hate incidents, things like that. And then I’m hearing more and more talk about folks talk about it as a proactive approach, how do we use circles to build community to kind of prevent some of the harm from being done? And some of those things? So maybe that leads us to where we’re gonna go next. Léna, we just want you to get us started here with some basic understandings of restorative justice and restorative practices. And then I have no no worry, that will make it more complicated from there. So help us make it simple and then we’ll mess it up.

Léna Crain
Okay, well, I’ll do my best. At its most basic when we say restoration, restoration is the heart of restorative philosophy and practices and justice. Restoration just means repairing harm and healing and building community and relationships. This is a very relational community centered practice. And a restorative philosophy is that framework and it’s something that centers the collaboration and relationships and also things like truth sharing, as the means of building those relationships are sometimes repairing relationships. Restorative practices are the tools that facilitate the repair of harm and the building or healing of community relationships. And that could be anything from a conversation that could be the physical reconstruction of of a space that is damaged and the list goes on. In some spaces when people say restorative justice or RJ they they’re referring to education that espouses a restorative philosophy or uses restorative practices. But RJ true RJ is also a unique conflict resolution practice. And that is a process of repairing harm by bringing together folks who initiated or caused harm and those who were harmed or affected so that they could mutually decide and CO-create what’s needed to repair the harm. As part of that basic understanding, I think it’s important to to emphasize what Valerie shared, which is what is distinct from other forms of justice or injustice, frankly, approaches that tend to be more procedural or transactional, retributive punitive in their approach. And notably, those systems. Those approaches are also those that reproduce elements of the criminal justice system, that we know a lot of things about that system, notably that it disproportionately harms marginalized communities. And so retributive approach is also in moments where we have opportunities to transform harm, we’ve actually been compounding it. And so that that distinction that by contrast, RJ is centering the voices of of those involved in a situation, it’s focusing on their sense of how to repair and it’s re situating the power with those who are involved. So it’s also in that sense, a decolonizing. practice and student conduct that RJ is more aligned with, for example, transformative justice and social justice, that plants some some seeds, as we do get more into our component,

Keith Edwards
I guess what I’m hearing is the restorative philosophy is sort of this big, broad idea, then we have restorative practices within that. And we can use a very specific restorative justice process in that, but then other things we can bring along. Desirée, I know you want to complicate it from here. So please help us think about this more complexly and with some more nuance and expand this, and we’ll keep going from here.

Desirée Anderson
Yeah, I mean, I think thank you for what’s already been shared so much. And I think that definitely sets the groundwork for what were sort of justice and restorative practices can be. And I think, as you start I’ve already alluded to earlier, it’s really thinking about the relational model of that right? And really thinking about what restorative justice can be in terms of, right, this idea like, well, what are we repairing to right? So I think that that’s always the thing that that comes up. And so part of this work is about how do we actually build relationships, so that we then have something to like, attach it to, because if I don’t have a relationship with you, then I don’t really have a desire to repair anything, I don’t have a desire to be committed to the act of work, of holding myself accountable, and offering some type of grace if I’m on the receiving end of that impact. So I think so much of the work, and I especially in the work that I do I really, really emphasize the value and necessity for the community building aspect of this work. And how do we think about the very small things that we could do, right, we think about restorative justice and restorative practices as a spectrum, there’s a spectrum of things that can be done. So all of these things kind of put together is the justice part. And like the, the other pieces are like these practices, the small things that you could be doing with the way that you ask questions, you know, how you’re embedding kind of community building, or as some people might say, like the tier one stuff, right? So there’s these different layers that I think add on top of each other that really start with that baseline of thinking about what exactly is community? And how does that community plays a role in the outcomes of that. And I think that that’s also very different from comparative to other models is that you’re really thinking about harm beyond just the individual people as well. You’re also thinking about the community aspect, and what role and responsibility do we have from the outside in that process,

Keith Edwards
And then the people who are directly harmed or the people who are indirectly harmed, right, and all of those. I really love that we’re centering relationships and community, I think many folks in student affairs beyond conduct really are focused on that work. And this can be a philosophy and practices that can help us do some of that and really appreciate you mentioning, you know, asking people to offer accountability can be really hard and asking people to offer grace can even be even harder. So all the work that goes into helping people get to that place where they could do that and want to do that. Patience’s take us from here. Well, what else would you like to add to this?

Patience Bryant
I think it’s important also to acknowledge that this is not new. This is not a new concept. Indigenous communities, tribal communities, they’ve been doing this for centuries. We just the western world is put a label on it called restorative practices or justice. So I think it’s important to honor the fact that we didn’t create this. This is something that has been around forever. And so it’s important to know that community for folks who are communal living this is not a new concept. It’s Just as a name, that for many, for many communities and communities of color, this idea of the communities, the community holding each other accountable is not new. At the most basic level kindergarteners are doing this work, you’ve hurt my feelings, I’m apologizing, I want to fix it. And so it’s not hard. I mean, just so sometimes depending how complex we get into it does take it does take work. But it’s not a hard concept for individuals to get grasp. And as one of my folks, this is not new. We just put a name on it, and took it and took it and took it and took it for a spin. And so this is nothing new. There’s regular concepts I haven’t gone on for centuries.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love that you’re bringing back to the roots of that. And as Lena was talking about is kind of a decolonizing process and going back to some of those other communities, which I think so many people are really craving and wanting. And I think we want to honor that and integrate it in rather than appropriate it. And yeah, I love you mentioned in kindergarteners, because I watch little children, they do this so so I don’t know that it’s easy for them. But it’s just like it’s natural. It’s it’s a relationship. And when you step on someone’s toes Oh, I’m so sorry, and, and repair and how do I make it better. And then it’s just another great reminder that I’m more and more convinced as I get older, and particularly watching little children that I’m less interested in being smart and knowing things and more interested in being wise and unlearning things right and getting back to some of that brilliance. Valerie, what did we miss? What do you want to add to this?

Valerie Glassman
I really love. You just mentioned the word unlearning. And for me, it really took a while to unlearn policies and code. Right. I think that in a traditional sort of system of training folks to do Student Conduct conduct education, you look at policies, how to weigh information, how to weigh credibility, and then decide whether or not somebody’s behavior based on what information you’ve shared, you know, violates that shared agreement of what behavior is, but I began to think a lot about who contributed to that shared agreement of what our behavior should be. And so as my colleagues have mentioned, it’s really about decentering, the policy, the code and putting the individuals as Desirée shared before in the center of the conversation, as you mentioned relationships before, it’s a mutual agreement for folks to talk about the harms that they may have caused one another or one party to another. And in my mind, it’s a lot harder to do that than it is to talk with a conduct administrator about the policy that you might have violated, to sit face to face with the person that you have caused harm to, can be a transformative experience. I mean, above and beyond restorative, right, it can transform both of the individuals in that room by sort of a facilitated conversation on authentic feelings, and harms, and community impact. And so I really just think that we can incorporate practices of restorative justice and restoration in almost any conversation that we have with anybody at any point in time.

Jessi Benveniste
Thank you so much, Valerie, I really appreciate what you have to say around how these restorative practices can transform relationships. And I think even there’s opportunity to transform organizations and how we move on to incidents of concern or harm in the university community. And so I think might even goes back to some of our goals, that’s conduct folks are, for some of us, some of us, and I think we’ve all had some experience within conduct. You know, through these restorative practices, I think you speak to how we can reach those goals or facilitate that transformational experience for students. So we have another question for you all. I’m gonna transition us. So our next question is, what are some some of the ways restorative practices can be integrated in Student Affairs in Higher Education? And Valerie, we’re going to start with you. If you can kind of share some of your thoughts on this question. We would love to hear from you.

Valerie Glassman
Yeah. To me, I think there are very few situations where if the parties are interested and willing to participate, that we cannot apply restorative principles in any kind of conversation or conflict resolution. So I’ll start there by saying it’s got to be a mutual agreement. It can be very difficult, and there are proxy ways of involving, for example, victims who might not want to face a perpetrator or something like that. But in I would say the majority of opportunities where restorative justice would be applicable, it can be done. And I’ll start with, you know, very basic spaces that you know, I think the typical entry point for a lot of folks and understanding restorative practices and where we can insert them into community life on our campuses is through Student Conduct. One of the more common ways is thinking about whether your process has a deterministic point of view that sends students directly to a conversation with an administrator, or a conduct board based on, quote the nature or allegation that the student is alleged to have violated of the policy. But if we think about possibilities of what our colleague Jennifer Meyer Schrag and Mooney Thompson call the magic real estate, which is that space that happens after the incident has occurred, before we send the student a charge letter, we might think about what are some reflexive practices that we can involve ourselves in and the community so that we’re not automatically sending the students to a kind of board hearing for suspension? Right? How do we intake the incident in such a way that allows us to get a greater understanding of the holistic context of the incident. And so thinking about pathways for conflict resolution within a formal conduct process that allows the student the opportunity if they’re willing to engage in restorative dialogue, and repair harms to the community, which is actually a structured format, right, if you’re really thinking about it, but in such a way that allows them to be confronted by the harms that they’ve caused. And I’ll just add another thing here, I’ve seen models where restorative practices can be introduced in academic integrity cases as well, where there’s not necessarily a direct community member who’s been impacted by a student’s cheating, or stealing or something like that. But having a student speak to a faculty member or a peer, about how that student’s academic dishonesty has impacted the greater community abstractly can be a great contributor to reducing recidivism for academic misconduct, and also help the student really want to learn scholarly procedure and engage in better academic writing in the future.

Jessi Benveniste
I appreciate that. Valerie, I really appreciate you highlighting for me, or at least what you highlighted for me is the importance of the work that we do like once we’re made aware of an incident or once we, you know, kind of on the out front of the intake, I think you also spoke to kind of the conversations that we have with maybe the reporting party or whoever brought the information to us. And so that really sets sets us up for a restorative or successful restorative process, and greatly appreciate that. Patience, I want to turn it over to you.

Patience Bryant
Yes, Valerie kind of opened the door, kind of what I want to touch on was the academic side. And so my previous role as a Director of Student Conduct at Long Beach State, and a lot of our work was on classroom management with faculty who are just like this helped me manage his classroom. And so I started working with them on basically creating community standards, which is part of restorative practice. And they said, well, rules, is it No, these are not rules. This is community agreements that the entire class is going to agree to do for the entire for the entire semester. It definitely increased once we went virtual, because we had to tweak some things. In the zoom setting, the chat could sometimes get a little activated. And so this allow for the faculty member to include their their students, and community standards say how do we want this class to run? What do you all need from me? This is what I need from you. How do we show up for each other in the space, whether it be in person or virtually, I’ve also worked with faculty on how to infuse it in their group projects. One thing I’ve found a lot when students are allowed to select their own groups. So some groups in particular, certain demographics are always left out. But however, when the faculty assigned it, the group projects went a lot better. But even within that, I said, How are you setting this group’s up for success? How are you saying this is expectations for groups. And so once again, is building that community that allows not just a faculty member have to hold students accountable allows other students to hold other students accountable, say, hey, as a as a, as a class, we said, we weren’t going to do rude things in the chat. And I see you doing this, so allows everyone to be part of how they want to be treated. And that’s part of sort of practice. It was a simple concept. It was so interesting to see the wheels turning on faculty members, like oh, I can do this. I’m like, you can do it. And trying to figure out how to do with a large class when maybe you have 300 people, I say, let’s create some mini cohorts. And therefore they’re checking in on each other. But it’s still creating those concepts within those expectations for each other, even within our many groups for the entire semester. And so once again, it’s a community being built, we’re holding each other accountable. And if someone fails to uphold Desto standards, now the entire community can say, hey, remember what we talked about at the beginning of semester and this is how we’re going to move forward.

Jessi Benveniste
I’ve learned, I guess through my experience, I’ve learned the importance of the curricular approach as well and kind of implementing it within a classroom setting and not just in specific, you know, responding to, as we spoke to earlier responding to an incident, I think, in the classroom, we have the opportunity to practice those skills, model that for our students, and also create an environment where restorative practices can be implemented throughout campus. And so I appreciate you adding that patience, Desirée, do you have anything to add?

Desirée Anderson
Quick, so I think just exactly as Patience just mentioned around agreements and thinking about how you might do that process and other spaces, so thinking about and in residence halls, right with your either roommate agreements or floor agreements, I’ve done some stuff with athletic teams, with, you know, having the coaches kind of involved in that process, I think any space that you can get, you know, where there’s pockets of communities already built, that they’re already there, getting them to do stuff, and that you know, it through the agreement process, because it’s about that shared decision making, and it makes it a lot easier to hold each other accountable for the things that you all said, you’re going to do, like I didn’t tell you to do it, you said you were going to do that. So in doing that, and I think one of the, I always say it’s like the easiest places to start all that sometimes it feels weird to start there would be in reentry processes. So really thinking about, especially in higher education, where students had to leave for medical reasons, you know, they were suspended, or, you know, whatever reason, it wasn’t, they had to leave the institution. And they’re returning back, often, they’re required to meet with so many different departments to get things going, and be kind of come back into the community. And so that’s a great way to kind of start where you can just get all those people together into kind of one space to figure out how we’re going to support this individual as they’re returning to campus. And also, especially if they had to leave for some type of disciplinary action process, how are we you know, communicating to the people that they’re returning, you know, who’s, who may have been impacted that this person has met, all of the things that they were they said they were going to do when they left, you know, you’re going to be seeing this person on campus. So it’s not a shock that this person has returned. So there’s a lot of spaces there. And particularly with reentry, that also is easy. It’s not the right word. But it’s, there’s systems already kind of in place that are much easier to attach a restorative process to, than there might be in some other spaces. So I wanted to add those two things in as well.

Valerie Glassman
can I jump in for a second and just echo that Desirée? I think that’s so beautiful, because when we said with a student who’s reentering the community in a circle, it’s a visual representation of their circle network, right. So they have everybody in one space, who’s able to contribute, and welcome that student back in and share the community expectation. So it visually portrays this circle, which is a strong structure for the student to come back. So I really appreciate that you showed that.

Patience Bryant
And I would like to share one of the things that reintegration did I used it was mandatory for all student organizations that were separated, would they be honest, I did it, it was a mandatory for student organizations for me, who are either cease and desist or suspended because we want to show our support for them. In particular, they still want to run our fraternity sorority life, but also want to remind them expectations that the university had for them. And so it was a great I think was was a great way to show as a conduct director are partnering with student life and their director with with the advisor. It is show we support you here, we want you here. But here’s some kind of like that, like, like, there’s always some tools and things to get you to be successful as a student organization on campus.

Jessi Benveniste
Great. Thank you so much for introducing the reintegration process. I think that’s critical to the work we do especially within Student Conduct. Léna, I want to hand it over to you. So many things have been said. But I know that you have all these wonderful things to add. So

Léna Crain
I mostly just want to zoom out and frame what Valerie and Desirée and Patience have have given us some examples and say earlier on desert, you mentioned tier one. And when we say tiers, RJ has applications and what sometimes conceptualizes as three tiers where that first tier is, is that relationship building community development, setting of expectations and also really powerful in prevention education. And so that’s what we think of as tier one. Tier Two is is some of what we’ve touched on in terms of response to harm and so in, for example, a conduct setting like those restorative responses to an incident of discord or harm. And then that third tier is what we’re starting to discuss now which is reintegration support. And so I think by framing it in those three tiers that helps to illustrate that that RJ has a place in every department in every setting, whether you are in the business, so to speak of, of building a relationship setting an expectation, onboarding students or responding to incidents or to providing support, you know, whether it’s support for for a forced separation or a medical leave and anything so it has utility In Conduct and Conflict Resolution, yes, but res Ed, orientation advising like, like every, we’re social beings. So RJ has a place and all of our spaces.

Keith Edwards
I appreciate you all sharing that because I’m hearing from so many folks who want to talk about restorative practices process at the very first community meeting at the beginning of the year or with orientation groups or things like that. Because if we can get this right from the beginning, then that can eliminate a lot of the harm and eliminate all the conduct cases and eliminate some of these things because they get cleaned up in between. And that to me, is, I think, a really exciting place to go the proactive ways of integrating this in the build community, how are we going to it also normalizes that difficulties are going to happen rather than when it’s all going to be rainbows and butterflies, which we know is unrealistic, but they all they all think at the beginning,

Léna Crain
it also means that the muscle memory is there, it’s not as weird, it’s not as new to sit in to do the practice of a circle or to have a tough conversation if you’ve already been present it doing the the early, you know, investment of building the relationship.

Valerie Glassman
Alright, starting the culture offer. When we do it in our first residence hall meeting where we have a circle, then the next couple of times we do it, it’s not weird or awkward, right? It’s part of the expectation.

Jessi Benveniste
And I do know, there’s a lot of practitioners who believe that a responsive process cannot work with we don’t have that proactive community building process in place. And so I really appreciate that perspective. And I think there’s a lot of truth to that, like, and kind of just echoing what everyone else has already shared. Is there anything else, folks like any other thoughts that folks have for this question? And we’re ready to transition to the next one. So we’re going to dive dig a little bit deeper here. What are some complexities related to restorative justice that we want to make sure it doesn’t get missed in this conversation? And Desirée will start off with you?

Desirée Anderson
Yeah, I think, you know, earlier, Valerie had mentioned like, you know, there’s not really a space where we can’t see restorative justice working. And I agree. And at the same time, I’d say, although we can use restorative justice for everything does not mean we should use restorative justice. And I think, you know, Valerie was kind of alluding to in that in that in that conversation, or that part earlier was really that right? We we can set the stage for it to work, or we can actually set the stage for it to work, then we shouldn’t be doing it right. And so I think that also kind of echoes what Jessi was just saying no to around, like, you know, so a lot of practitioners, and I’m sort of in that camp of like, if you’re not really doing the proactive work, then doing it responsive work is not going to be as effective. For me when I really think about the complexities of restorative justice, when I’m really thinking about is how holistically Are we really thinking about how we’re integrating this stuff? Because when we talk about the Justice aspect of it, right, there’s all of these things that have to be happening kind of simultaneously, justice to to be taking place. And I think beyond that, sometimes what happens is people see like, oh, restorative justice, that’s this is fun, right? Even though Patience already made it very clear, it’s not new, but it feels new for a lot of people. And it feels innovative. And it feels like this, like, great tool that we can just use. And it’s like, yes. And I’m right, there’s we want to maintain the integrity of what we’re sort of justice is and can be in spaces and communities. And I think too often sometimes people are like, well, let’s just get in a circle. Like what what does it mean to be in circle? Right, like art? Have you set agreements? Have you? Have you practiced, you know, things? Or have you, you know, gotten to community have your facilitators really thought about how they’re showing up with their positionality with a group of people that they’re going to be working with? Right? There’s, there’s all of these kinds of little nuanced kind of themes that I think people are often just so quick to rush in to, you know, start, which I’m like, Yay, I love that for you. But can we take a step back? Can we do some assessment of ourselves of our institutions of the communities that we’re going to be doing this work in, so that we can be really thoughtful about how we are implementing it, how we are kind of unfolding these practices in this space, so that it doesn’t get watered down so that you’re not doing pre conferencing, if you’re going to be doing responsive stuff in a way that you’re now creating more harm, because you’ve not done the work of ensuring that someone actually was ready to take accountability. And also to make sure that the person who has been impacted was ready to hear both the intention and the impact, right, like being able to hear both those pieces not saying they have to forgive, but they’ve got to be able to understand, you know, why this person did what they did from their understanding their perspective, and if they’re not really ready to hear that at that session is not going to go well if that person is not ready, because they’ve decided that this person needs to be suspended, and you just move forward and knowing that suspension is not an option, well, you’ve set that person up for failure. So I think a lot for me when we think about the complexities of this work is, how much of a step back do I need to take for myself? And how can I do really well at communicating with those, especially those in positions of authority who are telling me that I need to do this work? Like? No? Right? So talkin? How comfortable can we get saying no, I think as well, or at least not yet. In some spaces.

Jessi Benveniste
Yeah, thank you so much Desirée for highlighting that I think it’s critical to, I guess, assess and spend time with the situation to make sure it’s it’s folks are ready, like the involved parties are ready to engage in the process. I think you also speak to like, who’s holding the space? And I know, I’ve heard some folks speak to kind of, you know, who’s facilitating what’s their role? And? And how in their training, but you know, are they a third party? Are they connected to the university in some way? I think I think you touched on all those pieces. And I think it’s critical that we think about what we need to do to set it up. So there’s not additional harm caused because it is possible that these practices can cause additional harm. I want to hand it over to Patience to share your thoughts that you might have.

Patience Bryant
No, I’m so happy that you said that everything should not go through restorative justice. Because we can’t cause more harm than necessary. But I think also people think it is like the bow it is the band aid is like this, it is not the all is gonna go perfect. I am here to say that’s not how it works. I’ve been part of some filled circles, in conferences where I was like, Oh, this was horrible. As a facilitator we’re getting, we’re getting nowhere. So it is not a perfect process, because we are human beings who aren’t perfect. And so sometimes there is no resolution, or sometimes the resolution really is just separation, we have decided that we won’t talk to each other for the rest of the year. That is what they resolve. And we have to be okay with that. Also, sometimes your form of process might need to be necessary, they may need to go through your form process. And there’s some adjacent restorative work done as part of the outcome, or part of that reintegration. Or we have to separate you from housing, if you can still remain a student, let’s look at what does that look like? Sometimes it is not appropriate. And sometimes it’s not gonna it’s not as there’s no guarantee at the end that everyone’s gonna walk away holding hands and skipping on the rainbows and butterflies. That is not why we do this work. That’s not really the link to it. But I was hoping I think people think that’s what it is. It’s like, no, that’s not, that’s not at all. And I will say I’ve had some personally, I’ll fail circles and I was like, Oh no, I didn’t do that. I didn’t say I took ownership. I didn’t set it up right. Had I done my homework ahead of time, I would have known that they weren’t ready for that space. And so as a facilitator, you really have to do the pre-work by Desirée said before even bring people together in some one space.

Keith Edwards
I love we’re talking about this as natural to human beings, but also complicated and can do harm and can be used anywhere but not necessarily should be used. So I really appreciate this.

Jessi Benveniste
So I would like to invite Léna to share any additional thoughts or questions that you have for folks who have already shared

Léna Crain
Thinking about complexities, I guess I’m thinking more of nuances and certainly like suitability or like the prerequisites of RJ is is an important one also what Valerie said earlier about emphasizing the letting go of power, the redistribution of power by us as educators, particularly those who are in positions of responding to reports incidents, we have this this constant problem solving lens where we are holding the power of decision making of assigning meaning of perscribing a solution. And it can be it can feel unnatural or challenging for us, for our colleagues to let go of that power. Sometimes that reluctance sounds like well, what policy violation is it if it’s RJ and I want to emphasize like this is the opposite, like let go of the power of transformation come from the people whose experience this is about but I want anyone that has like a nuanced complexity challenge. The other thing is, I’m often asked about emotional labor as connected to emotional harm. And specifically if we are asking people to participate in emotional labor, you know, by inviting them into RJ and so I want to distinguish what is emotional labor versus emotional work. RJ does not require emotional labor in that like harm parties are not asked to do the educating or give of themselves to make the person who caused the harm feel better. We do often ask that, that they share their personal perspective, I’m not to, like, represent or speak for, for example, historic or systemic harms that might have contributed to the situation. But rather, I think the facilitator should be doing that. And then that helps people to learn perspectives around the circle and sees, an opportunity to explore intent and an experience and, and helps to situate an individual’s actions as a product of systems and then heal the local very real harm. And so, that is distinct from emotional work, which is that it is hard to it also to Valerie’s earlier point about just being present with people who caused you harm and like navigating discomfort, which I think as a as a society, we are a little bit dicey, especially now about navigating discomfort but but by participating in RJ people who have been harmed can invest that emotional work into the reclamation of their healing of agency of power of those things. And they’re not asked to labor with a goal of fixing things is that labour kind of rest with others in the circle, but but there is emotional work as part of the the relationship.

Jessi Benveniste
Thank you so much for speaking to like all the components are that one that I guess that is required and creating the space? And I think it’s important to for all of us to remember. Valerie, can you close this out with this question?

Valerie Glassman
Yeah, I just want to underscore everything that everybody has said in saying that you can’t turn around and say tomorrow, we’re going to start an RJ practice in our office. RJ requires time it requires training requires training. It requires personal and professional reflection. And I think it also requires the community in the institution to be ready for this right. There are probably some institutions out there that are really stuck on a formal adjudication process. And I think that restorative practice can really be helping this community question, why we’re doing things the way that we are, and why we can’t start thinking about alternative pathways to addressing conflict on our campus, right, it’s not something we can jump into immediately or lightly, because as my colleagues have shared, we cannot create more harm in this process. Right? Our goal is the opposite. And so in order to do justice, quote, unquote, to restorative justice, we must sort of slowly inquire within ourselves, the capacity, and the interest of our community members in starting this journey, because it’s a journey, right? It’s not like, Okay, we’ve started this process, and everything’s gonna go great, and we won’t change anything. Right? Restorative justice, and the practices respond to the national and global landscape and the local landscape. And so we need to be adaptive as we develop our restorative practices on our campus to respond to the things that our students or in our community members are interacting with, right, whether that’s right here in our hometown, or across the globe, right? I mean, I think there’s lots of opportunity for healing thinking about the impacts of the pandemic, right, you’re just as a place to start, right? There’s there’s different entry points, but all of them require the work of setting us up for not creating harm.

Keith Edwards
I find that so important, because I’m constantly reminded that the campus borders have never been as porous as they are now. Students are getting texts from their parents, between classes, they’re in class reading the news on Twitter. And they’re not just reading the news. They’re watching videos of the news. They’re watching videos of fathers singing and holding their daughter’s hand as they die in Ukraine. They’re watching and reading about police violence of black people. They’re watching it happen. And it’s a different embodied, visceral experience. So we don’t leave that at the gates of campus. We’re bringing that to this class discussion. We’re bringing all of that emotion and context to my interpretation of what this person put up as their door deck, right? Impacts of me and so I think, bringing that full context. Not doing it just seems a little silly. But I think back to all the student conduct, I really liked the rules and the policy and the formal structure because I was in charge and I was familiar, and I certainly knew that better than students. So that was comfortable for me. And this is just another push to undo much of that. So well, we are running out of time, and I knew we would and we always do and we always like to end on this question. So the podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. Get So what are you thinking? troubling, or pondering now? And if you want to share where folks might want to connect with you, we would love to invite that in as well. So Patience, what are you troubling now?

Patience Bryant
I will say troubling is the word I say, what’s given me pause is that summertime 2020 was an awakening for many people from pretty much probably all of us on this journey wasn’t awakening within this world kind of world was living. And it still gives me pause that so many of our institutions have really have not done the work to review their systems of oppression that they have more campuses, they want to say they want things like we’re sort of practiced in restorative justice, what is your system set up to welcome this work? Is your system showing grace to your students, also, not your students, your employees who may who may make a mistake, and who may be needing some some extra support and extra left. And so I still feel like the past couple of years have happened, but we’re still stuck. And that is, that definitely gives me pause. As someone who tries to live restoratively, he tries to infuse in the work I do daily. And so my hope is that if your campus if you’re listening to this, if you have not had a real conversation about systems, the barriers that you have, when you’re on your campus, I’m part of a buddy system, a campus Fitness System, even having those conversations I encourage you to do so. You can find me I’m the current president for the Association for student chronic administrators. And so I’m easy to find ASCA is website ase.org. If you have concerns or complaints, or you want to join ASCA, please reach out to me. My Twitter is PDB underscore PhD. I am the only Patience in the California State University system.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful, thank you Patience. Léna, what are you pondering now that people will want to connect with you,

Léna Crain
I’m doing a lot of pondering, I’m pondering a lot about wellbeing. For for the well being of our colleagues, like of our of our teams, I’m thinking about being appropriately recognized, acknowledged, and and compensated for the ways that we build environments and then learning and development. And so how I, as a leader can can advocate for our people, and thinking about students wellbeing for specifically for students to realize that feeling discomfort, feeling feelings, having existential moments, and certainly even experiencing conflict, like for them to know that those things are very healthy parts of their growth and journey and encouraging them to invest in themselves in ways that are not just clinical transactional. And then in general, I’m pondering and maybe troubling about climate change and human compassion and, and peace. And also microplastics. I would be happy to connect with folks over email. My email is LKC007@bucknell.com. That’s just a coincidence. And I’d be happy to find time to chat.

Keith Edwards
While we’re just dropping casually here a double Oh, seven email address as a president. No big deal. And yeah, so email, Léna, if you want to talk microplastics. Valerie, what do you pondering now?

Valerie Glassman
Yeah, I’m really just to follow up on what Léna said. I’m pondering student wellness of our medical students. I had a really wonderful conversation with some co chairs of our student wellness Task Force, and they share with me, their discomfort and their existential dilemmas of brain cutting, they had just finished their neurology lab. And it was the first time I think that they had interacted with actual body parts of actual humans. And they were really trying to reconcile sort of this clinical aspect of dissecting human brains versus the really compassionate human side that these are these were real people at once. And how do we treat them and their bodies with their respect? After they’ve given their their brains to us, essentially, and I have been thinking about how can we help these students heal from that sort of internal dilemma and really honestly thinking about how could we circle in a way to allow them to speak their feelings about about this real clinical experience that many of them will continue to engage in after they become physicians? So that’s what I’ve been pondering. You can find me at Valerie _Glassman@Medakado..unc.edu I love the Medaka do. You can also find me at resolve-ed.com. I’m working with several of our colleagues on training and elevating innovative voices for campus climate and social change. I’m really excited about the work that we’re doing in helping folks do some of the work to prepare their campuses for restorative and transformative practices. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Desirée. What do you troubling now? All of that?

Desirée Anderson
Yeah, I mean, I think the the big thing I keep coming back to really is this idea, like compassion, fatigue, you know, kind of based off but you know, what everybody else has said is that I think we’re all, especially those if you’re doing this work, because especially as, as practitioners, we’re also carrying the weight of everything that we’re hearing from people. You know, trying to engage in this work, trying to hold space for people can also really wear us out. And you know, being really tired and exhausted, but still trying to show up for people. So really thinking about what is what is wellness look like for us practitioners, so that we can continue to hold this type of space for people so that we can see the larger healing. And I’ll you know, in there because I could talk forever about things that I’m pondering. But I, you know, find me on LinkedIn, but also you can email me ddander3@unl.edu.

Keith Edwards
Fabulous. And, Jessi, thank you for co-hosting with me. What are you pondering or troubling now?

Jessi Benveniste
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for, you know, it’s been an honor to be part of this conversation and being community with you all. I’m pondering a lot of different things right now currently. In apologize for ringing in the background. But I think, you know, we talked a lot about accountability today and what the systems and processes look like on our campus. I think I’m thinking about kind of as campus representatives, or some of us who serve as campus representatives, how can we be accountable to students, as well and help transform communities and organizations. Not only do I want to be a practitioner who provides space for students to participate in a restorative process, but I think it’s critical that as leaders, as folks who help universities function that we also be accountable to our students. And so kind of thinking through like, what that looks like and what that means for me and what that means for my institution or, you know, all of our institutions. It your folks, you know, are more than welcome to reach out to me if they would like to, I’m always interested in having a conversation about restorative justice. If you are interested, my email address jessibeveniste@berkeley.edu. So, if you ever find yourself wanting to just kind of examine this type of these issues further, I’d be really interested in so thank you again, Keith, and everyone here for joining us in this conversation today.

Keith Edwards
Fabulous. And what I’m pondering now, I just yesterday, listen to a podcast that so many of you have connected on with Father, Greg Boyle, who started Homeboy Industries in LA helping former gang members transition and so much what he talked about 30 years of doing that, is the complexities of accountability and grace. And I think that’s what I’m sitting with is the the dual halves of the circle of accountability and grace. And I think sometimes we want one of those without the other. And you all have reminded me of how important those are to be in partnership with each other. And he’s booked to that as well. So we’ll get a link to that in the show notes and some other things. Thanks to all of you for being here. I’m so appreciative. Really great, and you’re given me and I think so many of us so much to think about. So thanks all so much. And thanks for our sponsors of today’s episode LeaderShape and Symplicity. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences both virtual and in person for students and professionals. With a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. Please find out more at leadershape.org or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. And Simplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institutions Symplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being student success and Accessibility Services. To learn more about Symplicity, connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And a huge shout out to our producer Nat Ambrosey who does all the work behind the scenes to make all of us look and sound good. If you’re listening today and are already not already receiving our newsletter, please visit our website a studentaffairsnow.com. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list. While you’re there, check out the archives. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guests and our fabulous co host today and to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

• ASCA Gehring Academy
• Conduct & Community
• Student Conduct Practice (2nd Edition)
• https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781642670493/Reframing-Campus-Conflict
• https://studentaffairsnow.com/reframing-campus-conflict/
• https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/father-gregory-boyle-489
• http://www.resolv-ed.com