Barbara Love
Look at the world that we’re living in. How do we take into account the world that we’re living in the communities that we’re living in the organizations in which we are embedded, recognize the realities, the current, the existing realities, and hold on to a vision of liberation, not become cynical about it, not to become discouraged even about it. But recognize this is the current situation, this is the vision that we’re moving toward, and figure out how to organize ourselves in whatever position we find ourselves to steadily move ourselves and the people around us toward this vision of liberation. So that is a piece that I’m working on now. That I’m supporting, encouraging people to put a focus on.

Keith Edwards
Well hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Social Justice Education program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This program is truly one of a kind and has led the way in elevating scholarship, teaching and practice around social justice in many contexts, including student affairs. I’m joined by one of the founding faculty members and two graduates applying their learning in different contexts. I’m so excited to have all of you here. And for this reflection, and celebration. Student Affairs now is the premier podcast and 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 find details about this episode, or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by LeaderShape, go to leadershape.org to learn how they can work with you to create a just caring, and thriving world. And today’s episode is also sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life and technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. My pronouns are he him his, I’m a speaker, consultant coach. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation and meet our group here for today. I’m so excited to have each of you here. Let’s begin with some introductions. Dr. Barbara Love. We’re going to begin with you.

Barbara Love
I’m delighted to be here. Thank you for the introduction. I am in Western Massachusetts, the land the traditional and ancestral lands of the Penobscot people, unseeded and uninvited. I am one of the founding faculty of the social justice education program and in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Keith Edwards
Well, that’s a brief introduction. We’re gonna hear a lot more about you in a little bit. So thank you. I’m glad you’re here. Tanya, go ahead.

Tanya Williams
And I am a graduate 2011, graduate of the Social Justice Education program. I am in Brooklyn, New York. On the unseeded and uninvited, land of the people. I right now do full time consulting and coaching work. I’ve spent 25 plus years in higher education and specifically in student affairs, and I’m so glad to be here and honored to get to talk about this program.

Keith Edwards
Wonderful. And Michael?

Michael Vidal
Well, good afternoon, I’m Michael Vidal. He, him, they, them pronouns. I currently reside in Storrs, Connecticut, at the University of Connecticut, which stands on the territory of the Mohegan, the Mashantucket peoples and I currently am the Interim Director of the Puerto Rican and Latin American Cultural Center. And I am also a graduate of the 2014 master’s cohort of the Social Justice Education program. And also again, super honored and excited to be with all of you and chat more about the program.

Keith Edwards
Well, I also want to give a shout out to an unnamed guest here to actually Jamila Lescott was attending to be here current faculty member in the program, unable to be here due to some family conflicts. So and then also Rachel Wagner is responsible for saying these are the people you must have. And so Rachel has been on the podcast numerous times and I really appreciate her sort of behind the scenes help in orchestrating this event, and and all of you for being here. So So Barbara, you were one of the founding faculty members. As I mentioned in our pre conversation I have been hearing about your wisdom and insight and the way you have reframed people’s thinking for 20 years and so excited to have you joining us. I wonder if you could just give us a little bit about how this program came to be kind of the origin story. 30 years ago what happened?

Barbara Love
Okay, tell me when this is too much detail. I have have been, I was in the School of Education now College of Education at UMass, beginning in 1970. And was part of a couple of programs before the birth of the Social Justice Education Program, the Center for Urban Education, and which was involved with teacher education, and with leadership development, and then later the staff development program. At the time that the social justice education program was formed, the School of Education was going through a massive reorganization. The School of Education had been recognized nationally and internationally as an innovative and exciting place. It was non graded. We were non departmental. We were student led, we were faculty led, people who had a good idea could put that idea into practice. We were centers, we were just a variety of innovative, interesting projects, programs and people, then, you might recall the kind of movement that was occurring across the nation in higher education around 30 years ago at the time that our program was formed. And one of the consequences of that was some changes in the university and a movement to ask the School of Education to organize itself along more traditional lines. So the School of Education moved from centers and programs into departments that were then made up of concentrations. And then Dean Bailey Jackson talked to several of us faculty who had been involved in different parts of the college, but doing related work that was broadly connected to issues, ideas, connected to social justice. So there had been the social issues training project, there had been the multicultural organizational development concentration, there had been various pieces that were occurring in different parts of the School of Education, now College of Education. And so he invited the five of us to come together and put together a proposal put together a concentration description for the social justice education program that included myself and we were all in different parts, as I said, of the School of Education at that time. And I’m Katya Han, who was a graduate student who was connected with the social issues training project. So we came together and over a period of time, put together the conceptual theoretical foundations for the program, designed a program description designed a course of study went through a process that the entire college of education was going through at the time of getting this program concentration approved by the Faculty Senate. And that’s my recollection of how justice education program came into being, you might have noticed my little pause there, because what I need to add is that there are many recollections, the various pieces and parts and people who were involved in bringing together the program, and I named those five faculty and I need to add to that Dean Jackson, Bailey Jackson was also one of the founding faculty, though he was Dean, and not so intimately involved in the design and development of the program. But as a founding faculty, he was there right from the beginning. And when he left the Dean’s ship, he did indeed return or come come to the Social Justice Education Program. Wonderful.

Keith Edwards
Thank you. Tanya. Michael, anything we want to add to that, that we may have missed about sort of the beginnings or anything from your perspectives. Looks like no, that’s cool. That’s fine.

Michael Vidal
Well, I could just jump in and just add just one piece, I think. And I think we’ll get to sort of this piece maybe later on around the impact but no, I came in At a time where I think the body of work and knowledge that had been produced in the program had gained a level of, of notoriety within the fields, but even just among practitioners and so really just as as a way to give kudos to Dr. Love and the founding faculty, I think sometimes faculty produce work and it goes out into the world. And sometimes we don’t know really, you know, outside of you know, that, that publisher or perhaps within your, your, your, your network, or amongst, you know, particular circles that you may find yourself in, right, but thinking about the power of a text on a shelf, in someone’s office, which was my experience, where I am walked into a staff members office, and he said, Oh, this is where we get the pedagogy for that program that you really enjoyed, right? And the curiosity of reading the BIOS and being able to learn more about who are these people, right, that have created this framework, or who have created this, this body of work. And so, you know, I really got I think, you know, I joined the program in 2012, but really had been a recipient of the work long before I even knew what it was right? I just knew that I felt something awakened in me, and I knew as a result of this experience I had so yeah, just as a way to give, you know, kudos, and shout out to Dr. Love, and, of course, the other founding faculty.

Keith Edwards
Well, let me let me build on that something that I shared earlier, which is, you know, I never went to UMass. I never went to the program. But I learned from so many. And I think I was a new professional in my first one or two years out of my master’s degree, and came across the teaching for diversity and social justice book, which is sits right here on my shelf, I think I’ve got like three to maybe three copies of the teaching for diversity for social justice, which when I read that, it just took all of these things that were messy, and confusing, and opinions and perspectives and feelings. And all of this stuff that I was thinking about, and hearing about learning about just seemed kind of very personal, and very individual perspective. And then it was like, No, here’s how all of this functions. And I just remember just being so clear, and just like, oh, this, this totally makes sense. And it’s simple, particularly that matrix of oppression, and all those like, Oh, yes. And it just organized so many different things for me, so powerfully helped me understand, which then helped me better explain it to other people and communicate with other people in different ways helped me learn new things. And oh, this is how I can make sense of this. It was so helpful. And then going to many Incore conferences, and being in a session with Bailey Jackson and Maureen Adams, I might as well been there with John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. Like these are the people that wrote the book, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing. What a nerd I was, and still am. i But learning from them, and so many others. And then the readings for diversity and social justice. I described as sort of like providing the watercolours to that concept and understanding that organizing the richness and the fullness and the voices of all of that. So So is you’re talking about sort of the notoriety, these products of sessions and books. And then graduates like the two of you coming in, Tanya, what would you like to add?

Tanya Williams
I want to highlight and, and I appreciate, Barbara, you saying that it’s your recollection? I just want to offer that the organizing that you all did, like those are the pieces that I think we miss, I know I missed. When I went to our 30th anniversary celebration in September, we got the history. And so what it meant was that we got the start of the program in the context. And the like, history of what was going on in order in I said organization, in at UMass in higher education. And so I just want to hold up if this program was 30 years old, I’m only 50. So thank goodness, it came along. In enough time when I was graduating, and out of my master’s degree. It was like those faculty was waiting for that point. Yeah. There was, we’re still in the context of oppression. And these folks had to organize and organize intentionally and there were some some really clear examples. I’m like This is textbook organizing that these faculty members did these grad students these that they did together so that it could actually surface in a way at it in higher education. surface in a way that we could still do work could produce graduates who are going out and doing work. And in really impactful ways. And so I think that’s what I really, barber. You said it all really clearly. And, and succinctly, there is a whole bunch of story around that, that I think we cannot miss. That folks, we’re really the organization that. And these folks are coming from across identity. And so they’re having to discipline. Yeah, there have lost discipline, having to practice what they actually are learning and teaching. So that to me, and we’ll get into this a little bit better. That, to me is the the brilliance of what Social Justice Education Program has been the magic.

Barbara Love
There’s a few things. Just thinking about the diversity of spaces and places that came together to build the Social Justice Education Program. Maryann Adams, who was a key founding person had been involved in residential life and Residential Education, and working with Student Affairs to train people in student affairs around issues of oppression and education. And I and also Bailey had been working both in multicultural organizational development on racism and education, Bailey had been working with the social issues training program, Pat Griffin had been working with the phys ed, teacher education program building in components related to social justice. And so there were all these different pieces coming together. In the beginning, around organizing this program, and one of the things that seemed really important, we spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of meetings, hashing out what we could all agree on as fundamental principles, theoretical foundations for the program, conceptual foundations for the program, we all had the work that we had been doing. And we had to come together and agree on all these things. Which of these are the key things that we want to be included in the program? This was a graduate program, not an undergraduate program, but we did end up with an undergraduate component. But let me say more about that in a moment. We were trying to figure out so what are the key things that we think any graduate student any person who graduates from this program should be familiar with? We don’t think anybody should graduate from this program, and not know something about racism and not know something about sexism not know something about heterosexual sexism, not know something about anti? In other words, what are the key things that that people need to know about it? And and what are the conceptual foundations that come together to make up? What’s the body of knowledge that people need to be familiar with? What about Freya? What about pedagogy of the oppressed? And so on? So we ended up with these core courses. Okay, now, how much can you stuff into a graduate program? A master’s program is 30 credit hours, and then a doctoral program is 45 credit hours? How much of this? Can we stuff into a three, three credit hour or a six credit hour course? And how many of these have to be required? And which of these can be? Electives. Yes, yes. So there were all these things that we were trying to think about. And we ended up with this sequence of weekend courses. You know, we weekend seminar on racism, a weekend seminar on sexism, a weekend seminar on heterosexism, a weekend seminar on gender oppression, a weekend seminar on anti anti semitism and so on. We can’t require I think we ended up I don’t know how many there were at the time that you came along, Tanya, or that you came along, Michael, maybe 8 10 12. I don’t remember exactly how many seminars but we can’t require every student to take all of those courses because they won’t have time for anything else in the program. So there was just a lot to be figured out and lot of coming together, meeting talking over late evenings, long evenings pots of chicken stew. Just trying to figure out these basic things. And then I was talking about the weekend seminars, I think we ended up, since I don’t trust my memory, I won’t say how many we decided we’re required. And which we decided people really must take these and the rest are electives. And then it’s okay, the the undergraduate seminars, on these issues can be a training ground for graduate students who are learning these issues to then teach them to others, our students were, the people in our program were in student affairs, they would social work, they were in higher education, they were in school leadership, they were in just you can’t imagine the huge range of backgrounds that our participants in our program came from, and that they ended up going into you will find them in government, you will find them in higher education, you will find them as school principals, the school superintendents, you will find them in state legislatures, you will find them in social work, you will find them in philanthropy, you will find them in just a great variety of places. And they’re figuring out how to take this understand these basic understandings about social education, social justice, education, and figuring out how to apply them in this huge diversity of places, including did I say business and industry? I did. As well to business and industry.

Barbara Love
Well, let’s, let’s hear from some of the people who are doing this. So Tanya, Michael, you have this degree, this training this background. And I’d love to hear how you how you see how you see it and value it and utilize it now that you’ve been away from the program for a little bit. So So Tanya, tell tell folks a little bit about how you’re bringing this to the work that you’re doing and the value seeing the we’ll hear from Michael as well.

Tanya Williams
Sure. So, um, I’d say here Dr. Love talk about, you know,

Tanya Williams
I’d love to hear, like what the program offered and how I smiled at the, you know, long conversations over chicken soup, because it was the energy of the classroom that spilled over. Absolutely. I had more potlucks, during that program than I’ve ever had in my life. I know what a potluck was until I went to that. But same conversations in the classroom and outside that made the difference. I often talk about and I promise you, Keith, I’ll get to your question. I have to talk about how this program to Barbara’s point about we as graduates are everywhere. The program was not teaching it was teaching a discipline. So the discipline was education. What it gave us was a lens. And so I always tell people, when folks would ask now people know, social justice, when folks would say, Well, what are you getting your doctorate in? I would say social justice education. And they would say, what are you gonna do with that? And then we have the world that we have now. All those people who asked me probably like, oh, that’s what she meant. But what I would tell people is that if I came into that program, an accountant, I would learn a way of understanding, you mentioned that matrix of oppression Keith, a way of seeing the world that would make me an accountant, that not only would like be working towards social justice, it would be also what’s the lens of that I bring to my accounting work. And so as a person who was in student affairs, when they entered the program, I worked in Residence Life, taught some classes while I was there. Did my role in professional roles has had always been directors of diversity, education, associate themes of inclusion, all of those roles. But while there’s a graduate student, I worked in residence life. I had some knowledge of, you know, identity. I didn’t get it though. I didn’t it didn’t fit together. I didn’t make complete sense. And it was just as you were saying, Keith, when I read when I set in my classrooms, and it still blows my mind, I learned from Dr. Lov,e Dr. Jackson, Dr. Griffin, Dr. Morgan Adams. I learned from those folks, it wasn’t just the content, it was the process of, of how they did it. That was transformative. So now to make the connection to how I use the work, how I have used my, the education that I received to do that program, I absolutely have tons of content knowledge. And the really interesting thing is a lot of people now because of the world that we live in, and the number of books being produced and all these things, lots of folks have content knowledge, and can read the book, and can have the words and we know that the shallow level of experience that people bring to this work. It is also married, though, in my mind forever with the process. And so that’s I can consult on and coach on topics, people, I was reading an article today in The New York Times folks are going to start sharing it around about how diversity trainings are not useful. I have opinions about that. And what I know is, I don’t do just diversity trainings. I am actually working with the whole human in the context of an oppressive system. And I’m making meaning and sense and helping people to understand all of that better. That’s the education part to me.

Tanya Williams
Right? They reminded me, Jimmy Washington saying, and this was 15 years ago, a lot of people have learned the words, but they ain’t done the work. Right. So here’s what I’m hearing from you is that I learned the words. Yes, I did. And I learned the work. I did my own work. I did that. And now that’s also what you’re bringing to people, right?

Tanya Williams
Absolutely, absolutely. And to the point of doing the work, it’s, yes, I did my own work. But I also learned how to hold that work with people, as they do their own work, as they do their work in systems that either support their identities, or might not support their identities or marginalize their identities or privilege their identities. So it’s a it’s a really, it’s a combo package. Yes, I’ve done my own work. And this program allowed me so much time to do my own work. It gave me information about like, what might be occurring, what’s the process that might be occurring? How do you teach that process to the concept piece? And so I, you know, from a consulting place, yes, I help organizations make meaning of what might be happening, organizational development, if you will, through a social justice lens through an identity and power lens. I know the program though, gave me information experience, practice, in being able to do that in any role or job that I might have.

Keith Edwards
It sounds like, not only did you learn how to use the lightsaber, but it also taught you how to use the force.

Tanya Williams
There is some Star Trek people out there, they’re like, Yeah,

Keith Edwards
we’re not getting into the Star Trek versus Star Wars. We don’t have to. That’s a whole nother episode.

Tanya Williams
But I think you’re right, it really. And I what I often see is that if we can stay with this metaphor, a lot of folks are wielding this lightsaber without understanding the power of the Force. Yeah. And that is a dangerous wielding of the lightsaber.

Keith Edwards
I love this metaphor. I just made it up. I love it. I might be coming back, though. We might be doing something with it. We’ll see. Michael, you are working more directly with students, you have a very traditional student affairs role on a particular campus. How are you bringing this to the work that you’re doing? And how’s it shaping the work that you do and who you are?

Michael Vidal
Wow, um, yeah, I mean, I just want to underscore some things that Dr. Williams talked about that I think are I want to make sure that we center because in terms of the uniqueness of social and social justice education program, it’s certainly I think Dr. Love talked about this to have the interdisciplinary nature of how you’re talking about education is something that I think really drew me to the program and I think draws a lot of folks and drew a lot of folks to the program. I think this piece of, Where do we, as individuals fit within the context of the conversation. So I think centering reflexivity, and talking and being able to bridge the content that we were learning in class to our lived experience, how it shows up in our relationships, in rooms, that we find ourselves in on a day to day basis. I also think the piece that Dr. Williams talked about in terms of, you know, I think traditional programs in education, look at equity issues in education, where I think the the SJE program really shifted the paradigm to say, how can education be a facilitator for justice? How can education be a facilitator for liberation and for freedom? And so I think that the orientation of the program in and of itself, I think, is the sort of the nuance that I think folks who go to the program or have been trained to the program really get that they wouldn’t necessarily otherwise get another, you know, educational experiences. So, and to me, that, that that’s how I learned best and I again, I think that’s where a lot of the magic happens, is really understanding where we fall within that that discourse. A quick example, and I always use this because it kind of speaks to how the faculty sort of, you know, put America here I have to I was in first semester, I was in a curriculum and instruction course with Dr. Credo Mayfield. And I think theinstruction was to design a three hour workshop, and off the gate, I remember saying, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna tell them about oppression and privilege. And I remember her saying, Why do you work so hard? Let them do the hard work, you know? And it was, it was just sort of this, this shift. I’m like, Well, what are you talking about? We’re here to talk about education and oppression. And isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? And she’s like, well, let them get there. Like, why do you have to, yes, guide them, but you don’t have to be the person to necessarily pull them there. Right? They’ll, they’ll get there eventually. So just even thinking about my pedagogy, and I practice, that was a huge lesson. And the question of how am I implicated? I remember taking the weekend seminar on sexism, and also Dr. Mayfield, who was again, a big support for me, you know, she was she asked me the question, how are you implicated in this conversation of sexism? You’re talking about male privilege, but there’s nothing in your design that tells me that you have done some work around? What does it mean for you as a, you know, Puerto Rican, Dominican? Latinx, you know, queer man, right? Like, how are you implicated in this conversation of sexism. And if you’re not able to articulate that you’re gonna really struggle with this design. And so again, just that relationship, that engagement, that process that even the faculty really offer to the students, right, these were questions, these were considerations that I feel like my peers and other programs really weren’t getting, right. I think they were doing the work right to tenuous point, right. Of they were doing the thing, they had the language, they were putting things together. But the omission of the self in the context of that process, I think, really was a disservice. And so, for me, just to answer your question, Keith, you know, I bring that in my practice every single day, you know, you know, ironically, most of my roles have not been student facing, they’ve really been sort of organizational work in the context of universities have recently taken on this role of doing more student facing work. But what’s powerful is that, you know, I’ve worked in a community setting, I’ve worked with people in a row where I had the police officer, the teacher, the 12 year olds, be in a room talking about pressing topics and issues that affect them, right. And the fact that I’m able to do that in that setting, but also go to a senior leadership meeting, and sit in that space, right. Again, that just speaks to the how the framework I think, really speaks across contexts. And really across identities and experiences.

Keith Edwards
I was you’re talking about

Barbara Love
Let me highlight three things before we get away from it that Michael and Tanya have talked about.

Keith Edwards
I got my notepad out I’m ready.

Barbara Love
One of them is the focus in the program on content as well as print assess. And the piece that Michael has just noted, our focus on the self, the self as instrument itself as part of the teaching learning enterprise. So I don’t want that to be lost because that I think was a key part of what we in the Social Justice Education Program was about. The second thing I want to mention on this piece about self is a huge emphasis on self awareness. In fact, we had a course on self awareness, the necessity for social justice educators to as Tanya said, do the work to do their own work. Because you can have the words you can have the content, you can have the information, you can be completely literate in the information. But if you haven’t done your own work, what you are going to teach or what you are going to extend to others is going to be limited. So a an emphasis on self awareness or focus on the self. And the third thing I want to make sure it doesn’t get lost is how best to say this. We were thinking all the time about what what is the content, there were no textbooks that were suitable to what we were trying to do. So we always ended up creating a book of readings for our students. And this book of readings is what became published as The Readings. And the textbook that we didn’t set out to write a textbook about how to teach, we said, this is what we have figured out so far. And we’re steadily figuring it out, there is no endpoint. But this is what we have figured out so far. And it might be how do we put this all together so that others who are trying to do this work, have the benefit of what we have figured out so far about how to teach this, what is important to teach and how to teach it. And so I wanted to put that note in there about how the two books came into being. First theteachings, this is what we teach, and this is how we teach it. And then the readings book was, these are the readings that we use. And these are the things that we think are important for people to it gives examples of the kinds of things that we think people ought to be familiar with if they are trying to learn about these concepts. Yeah,

Keith Edwards
I love that your your first point because I was hearing same thing I was hearing content, for sure, we would all think that. But then the process. And the pedagogy, I think processes things were pedagogy is what Michael use, but really that part of it. But then the thing I’m also hearing from both of you is there’s also a being right, we might call that the self awareness, but I don’t think you all leave it when you leave the gig or when you leave your campus, right. This is about how you were taught to show up and be in the world. Whether you’re in conversation at dinner, whether you’re at a potluck, whether you’re leading a session, whether you’re on a walk by yourself, this is a part of, of the being. And I think that’s that’s part of the magic here about making it different, different than other programs that are teaching content, and maybe processing pedagogy. But I want to go to where you began to lead us, which is the teaching for diversity and social justice, the readings for diversity and social justice, I want to ask all three of you What do you feel have been some of the biggest contributions of the program and you can think about that in any way. I think about those two textbooks, which, which I read and changed me, which I taught and used for years and years and years in designing a 30 minute workshop and a full semester long course. So so useful staff trainings, I also think about the multicultural organizational development model. But I think it’s just been so helpful in framing my thinking and my understanding to help move groups not from good or bad groups, but how do we take where you are and make it better? I also think about so much Intergroup Dialogue work. But what are some of the contributions that you really think came from the program from the teaching from the classroom, the students from the intellectual property, what do you what what jumps to mind for you?

Barbara Love
I was hoping you were gonna start with Tanya and and with Michael. But you started with me. So I’ll say this piece, there’s so much that has been central that has been, I was gonna use the word fertilizing and I realized that’s a farmer’s term. But seeding seeding ideas, and the piece that I am working most actively with now, that comes out I think, as a result of my years of working with the program, is the work around liberatory consciousness. And right now I’m working with people in a wide range of places and social work, schools of social work and corporate settings and executive coaching and so on, focusing on liberatory consciousness, which ultimately is about bringing, how do you bring a gestalt of these ideas together to help frame Tanya said earlier the lens through which we view the lens through which we view our work the lens through which we create a vision for the world, the organization relationships, the lens through which we ultimately decide what it is that we are marching toward, and how to hold notions of liberation. The program for many, many, many years was focused on oppression. And coming to the understanding that we don’t learn, we dont study oppression for the sake of knowing about oppression. We study oppression so that we can figure out something about liberation. So let’s turn our attention directly toward liberation. And see how we use all of what we have figured out all of what we have learned to help marshall our energy, marshall our focus, marshall our relationships, marshall our teaching, marshall our learning, so that it is moving steadily and directly toward liberation. And how do we change I love the way you kind of did this, look at the world now, look at the world that we’re living in. How do we take into account the world that we’re living in the communities that we’re living in the organizations in which we are embedded, recognize the realities, the current, the existing realities, and hold on to a vision of liberation, not become cynical about it, not to become discouraged even about it. But recognize this is the current situation, this is the vision that we’re moving toward, and figure out how to organize ourselves in whatever position we find ourselves to steadily move ourselves and the people around us toward this vision of liberation. So that is a piece that I’m working on now. That I’m supporting, encouraging people to put a focus on,

Keith Edwards
Michael, please try and follow that in some way, shape or form?

Michael Vidal
You know, I can’t so I’ll just do my own thing. But, you know, I, I think for me the way that in turn in terms of the contribution, I really think so I’ve seen it in two ways. It’s really interesting to see people engage in the work again, without necessarily knowing origins, right. And it’s not necessarily having to know while this practice is rooted in this theoretical framework, but I think it’s really interesting and really powerful when I witness community organizers, activists, educators, utilize right some of the practices and the principles of social justice education within their respective space. So I think in terms of the contribution, I do, see folks across again, a variety of roles, experiences identities context, really use the text really use the literature as a reference point. And in fact, I think for some people very much as a North Star, you know, sometimes we do need something to go back to, I know, myself, or at least professionally, I’ve, you know, have had moments where I’m like, let me just go and like, what like, why, why do I do this? Because it is taxing and it is hard. So I’ve seen as sort of in that space of seeing people engage in the work in ways that I that I can identify is really rooted in in this in a social justice education framework. And then I also think in terms of, I think, thinking more future wise, I am often struck by spaces that I’m in that care about justice, work that care about education, where who have people, they have questions about how do we bring people together to talk about these things. And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, there’s a lot out there in general, but also we have, again, a program we have literature out there that has been speaking to this for quite some time. And so in a way I’m having to, in my in my work, having to introduce or reintroduce the contributions of SJE, even with my colleagues, right, who maybe have heard of it or maybe have you know, because they come from disciplines that are a lot more classical or traditional, and so they are looking more for that interdisciplinary work. They are looking for some of those practice models and some of those skill building pieces. Write that I also think SJE offers. It’s not just, there’s content, there’s process, there’s self, but I wanted to add the skill building piece. Because I think that often that seldom does that actually happen in learning spaces where it’s, we also, we also want to give you tools. So it’s not just about, okay, we want you to get an experience and think about yourself and learn some content, we want to make sure that before you leave this space, that you are equipped with language resources to be able to continue your own learning, which is I think, again, you know, some of the planting of the seeds that Dr. Love has mentioned. You know, when I find myself questioning, I go back to what have I been given us tools to be able to continue the work. So those are just some some broad points for me. But I think the the skill building component is something that’s also very powerful that folks talk about is I haven’t, I wasn’t able to be able to talk about this, but now I can, or I feel like I can take what I’ve learned and apply it in my respective role or my relationships or my community.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Tanya what contributions do you want to highlight or add to here?

Tanya Williams
Well, I definitely, actually, Barbara and Michael hit on two things that guide my life liberatory consciousness, no doubt, underline highlight bold. It is such a powerful way of understanding, experiencing and living in the world. And to have more people understand that I hear it more often than I used to. And so for us to have that as part of our future, I think is extremely exciting. I also want to underline highlight bold, the idea of skills like having that having it be that content is not like enough content knowledge, like stuck in the brain, I have the words not enough, can you practice those skills and so the, that hasn’t been a contribution of this program. I think the other one, and this is probably it’s both connected externally, but also internally, the ways in which we held relationships. It has it to that point of sustenance and sustaining. It has allowed for, I think, us to do the work longer. And so it has more of us out in the world still doing the work as opposed to, oh, this was too hard. And I’m gonna go do something else.

Keith Edwards
This was a phase when I was younger. Exactly,

Tanya Williams
Exactly, exactly.

Keith Edwards
Well, great. We are wandering running out of time. So I just want to end our with our last question in the podcast is called Student Affairs. Now, just love to ask each of you What are you troubling? What are you thinking about? What are you pondering now? And I think that troubling came from Craig Alamo definitely got it from the UMass Social Justice Education program. But what is just on your mind right now, maybe something we’ve talked about? Maybe unrelated. But Michael, if you want to share where people can connect with you, please, please do, Michael, what’s what’s kind of on your mind now?

Michael Vidal
Yeah, my, something I’ve been thinking a lot about, has been ethics of care, critical ethics of care around identity based teaching and learning. I think we’ve developed. So I think in about SJ II as a field of study, I think there’s been really beautiful ways that ethics and care have been modeled. But I am sort of thinking more broadly about is there a growing body of literature? Or is there a need to really start to articulate? What does it mean for practitioners to have a critical ethic of care? And when when the people are the content, right, when we’re talking about living human beings that we’re not just reading about, and studying and researching that, you know, what does embedding an ethic of care in that process mean and look like? And so, professionally, I’ve been thinking a lot about that, particularly in the last decade, we’ve had a really intense and continues to be an intense time in our, in our society, and I’m seeing the things surface in communities. And so that’s a that’s a big area of interest professionally, but also academically, you know, really thinking about what does an ethic of care meaning look like in the context of social justice education, and how are we continuing to equip, train and support leaders in that space, so that it doesn’t, we don’t want to continue to cause further harm in the name of justice, right? That’s actually the opposite of what we want to do. But I think that’s something that is worth exploring and really looking into as a community.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Tanya, what’s what’s on your mind now?

Tanya Williams
Oh, my goodness Keith? That is quite a question. I will say a couple of things that are on my mind, I am always, always always thinking about. And this is where I did my dissertation work, the ways in which to Barbara’s point, we understand how oppression has been internalized in us. So that we like it is in service of our liberation. And I’m constantly thinking about how whether people have engaged with that level of work so that they can have a vision of liberation that is broader than the one that they have, like that they’re working from an internalized place. Other I’m always thinking about liberatory consciousness, I always and, and thinking about practice, but also how to help people understand it, how to bring it as a way of being in organizations. Constantly, I’m always also thinking about the nature of oppression, and actually trying to understand the nature of oppression,

Keith Edwards
Both and right, need to understand what’s happening, and how you create something better. Absolutely. Barbara, what’s what’s what are you pondering now?

Barbara Love
Well, many things. But let me say this, I was in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt in November, at the UN Conference on the climate. And it was fascinating to hear to be in rooms with climate change activists. And here occasionally people who were familiar with these concepts. So one of the things that I’m concerned about is how to extend and understanding of these concepts to broader and broader areas of work. The second piece about being in Sharm el Sheikh is that you if if you kept up with the news about that conference, people were so excited that the one thing that came out of the agreements amongst Nations was something about loss and damage, that so called privileged nations would provide funds for a loss and damage, support for less privileged nations. Nowhere in the entire conference, except in those session workshops that I led sessions that I talked about, was the concept of oppression was the concept of racism was the concept of colonialism and internalized colonialism mentioned. So in all that excitement about loss and damage, and nobody mentioned that the nations who have funds got them through colonialism, through theft, through taking the resources from those nations that are now not now not privileged. If they could talk about the funds as charity from the privileged nations, then the concession then the discussion could move forward. If the word reparations was ever mentioned, the conversations went to a dead end. I want to get social justice concepts into the minds of people at that level who were thinking about these issues, because it is ultimately a matter of the future of all of the people on the planet. And I’m convinced that until and unless people get those concepts, they will never come up with agreements, that will actually work that will actually make a difference.

Keith Edwards
We’ll just leave, we’ll just end on changing the world.

Barbara Love
We’ll just change saving the world.

Keith Edwards
Saving the world creating a new world and liberatory world. Well, thank you. This has been awesome. Awesome. And thanks to all of you for your work and creating a program and being a part of it and moving the work forward in so many of the ways that you do. It has been a gift to me today. And I really appreciate it. So thanks to each of you for being here. And thanks to ours.

Barbara Love
Thank you for having us do this.

Keith Edwards
Thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode LeaderShape and Symplicity. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtually and in person for students and professionals. With a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers engaging learning experiences and courageous dialogue integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more, please visit leadershape.org Or connect them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. And also Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers ers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution’s Symplicity supports all aspects of the student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being, student success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit symplicity.com or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. As always, a huge shout out to our producer Natalie Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make us all look and sound good. If you’re listening today and are already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list. While that while you’re there, check out the archives. And Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guest today and for everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.