 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to LEAD, Leading Equity and Diversity. I'm Dr. Debbie Willis, pronouns she, her, hers, and I lead the DEI certificate program at the University of Michigan's Rackham Graduate School. We started the series because scholars wanted to hear from real people their experiences leading equity, diversity, and social justice efforts. Thank you all for joining us today. Given all this going on in the world, we really appreciate your presence here. A few logistics. You can enable closed captioning by clicking the CC button on your screen. You receive the prompt that the session is being recorded. Though your audio and video have been muted, we encourage you to engage in a conversation through the question and answer portal. We'd love to bring your voices into the room. If you see a question that you'd like to hear the response to as well, please like or upvote that question. We will ask questions with the broadest interest first. We have a few community guidelines for the webinar. Before submitting your questions, we ask that you consider how it might impact others and invite you to make space for us to hear from a variety of voices today. We also ask that you remain patient with us. As over a thousand of you have registered for this webinar and we received lots of questions at registration, we will not get to all of them in an hour. But we have committed to continue this conversation and have dedicated this LEAD seminar series to address racial equity for an entire year. And we invite you to join us each month. This LEAD conversation will address the need to create a more inclusive environment for diverse communities on our college campuses. Many faculty, staff and students of color have reported feeling isolated, unheard and unseen. How can we elevate the voices of marginalized communities in pursuit of racial equity and inclusion on our campuses? Our featured speakers, doctors, Tabby Chavis and Al Young will discuss successful initiatives and offer strategies for change. We will start with brief introductions. Tabby, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as a leader or advocate in the space of diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice? Good afternoon, everyone. As Debbie mentioned, I'm Tabby Chavis and honored to be here to engage in this series. I would say that my journey started early on before I had any official titles. So I wanna make sure, I think that one of the points that I wanna highlight today is that when we talk about leadership that there's a formal kind of title or roles of leadership, but leadership also means influence and that from all of our positions, whatever they are in our spheres that we have different types of influence. So I will say my journey began as a student and noticing at the University of Virginia as a student, being a part of a community in which I was able to raise questions about the presence or absence of people like me in the community to learn about like how decisions were made that affected those things and to be a part of different committees, organizations and efforts to work on those things. Fast forward to Michigan as a faculty, a new faculty member making one of my first priorities is learning about how my program works. Again, how decisions were made about who entered and how from admissions to hiring and then being a part of my community. I had the audacity of thinking that this was my community too. And so felt as though I could ask questions to be a part of committees from curriculum to admissions to other spaces of decision making and governance which then led to formal roles being a department chair to working with colleagues in RACM as an associate dean related to graduate education because of the work that I had achieved in my graduate program to advance diversity, equity and inclusion and excellence which are interconnected. So those roles weren't explicitly diversity roles but there's not an area of functioning at this university that doesn't engage diversity, equity and inclusion in justice and so bringing that lens to every role that I've been in including my current role as associate vice president for research in our UMOR office, our university office of research and thinking about the inequalities that researchers may experience or participation in the research pipeline to a formal role related to DEI which is my current role as the director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity where we work on advancing research that helps inform diversity, equity and inclusion and justice issues and to apply that research in higher education and more broadly. So I would say just the main kind of threat of that is that I did not have a intentional plan. I did have an intentional plan to make sure that every space that I was in considered these issues and that really led to me being understanding how the institution worked in ways that allowed me to think about how to make impact from those different roles. And I encourage everyone who was watching today to think about where they are and how their voice and perspective could help positively impact the sphere that they're in because the local spheres that we are in or where we live day to day that have real impacts on the lives of students, faculty and staff. With that, I'll pass the mic to Al and look forward to talking more about your specific questions. Well, thank you. And let me also express my appreciation for being a part of this very important conversation. It's interesting to hear Tabby say that some of what she was about was not intentional from the start. This is the perfect panel because I operate from the opposite end of the spectrum. I feel like I've been intentional for almost several decades now. And that's because even prior to deciding to become an academic, I have been very much committed and aware of issues concerning social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion with one of those types that was very involved in student government and in black student organizations or ethnic student organizations throughout my schooling, especially going back to high school. And so I've made it a purpose and a principle to stay involved. Let me just say, Tabby, I'm hearing from people or seeing that they're having a hard time hearing me. Correct, Al. I wonder if I work without... Heard better? At this point? Yes. Okay. So I've actually taken off the portable microphone and rely upon the old fashioned equipment. So as I was saying very briefly, I had a vision of involvement throughout my career, so much so that I was a part of formal organizations and leadership roles and every school environment I've been a part of from high school up until the present. And for me, after making the commitment to becoming an academic, I thought deeply about the relationship but distinction between two different kinds of service, intellectual service and more practical engagement. And I've always thought, how might I combine the two? How might one inform the other? And how might I ground my efforts not just in national or broader issues, but locally? Whether it's where I live, where I work, communities, I engage, that kind of thing. So that's been the vision. Now for almost 20 years in practice. And as a result of my current status, I'm a professor of sociology after American-African studies and a fourth school by courtesy. I'm a faculty director, and I have the great pleasure of working with Taby Shavers, this faculty director of scholar engagement and leadership and NCID and associate director of the Center for Social Solutions. What that means is that I'm in a lot of places at the same time. And again, that's deliberate. I like being a part of a lot of conversations. I'm aware of the risk and the challenges of doing so. But for me, that means being very committed to being overextended to try to get this kind of work done. And I believe that it's important to work, it's busy work, it's tiring, and that's a consequence of investing in it. So a part of my message today will be that, this is no easy pathway and one should assume that it will be. And I've tried to live that out in the way in which I've done this broad outreach. Thank you. Thank you both so much. So I'll start with our first question. What are some of the ways that you found effective to elevate marginalized voices and how did you get buy-in from your department or university? I'll start with you, Taby. Oh, thank you. When I kind of connect with Al's comment about intentionality, I thank you. I definitely didn't have intentions around a specific role or title, but that an intentional focus on like these issues being raised in every space that I was in. So I mean, I really liked the balance that we're providing here. And I continue to learn from Al as a colleague in that way too. In terms of marginalized voices, I guess I will speak from two perspectives. One as a former and sometimes currently marginalized voice. I mean, thinking about like the roles that we occupy in my own identities as a black woman in the academy and then others marginalized voices. So I would say one is that I study issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the educational context and how black students and their identity experiences are supported or unsupported by the climate experiences in education more broadly from K through 12 to higher ed. And so that has helped me garner buy-in around some of the issues that I raise that I'm raising it in the context of having a scholarly grounding in the space, speaking forth that allows me to take an individual story and couple it with kind of the broader literature or the kind of research evidence and data on that topic. So if I'm trying to convince faculty colleagues to engage around a particular topic related to student inclusion or equity, that bringing that grounding has been effective because people love stories but sometimes people discount stories. Like, oh, that's one experience. And I can say, this is a real story and it also aligns with things that we understand to be more systemic. This person's experience is part of a systemic process. In terms of myself being a marginalized voice, I think one of the strategies that I often use, and I say this for students or staff or faculty who are new to systems, I often ask questions when I enter a setting about why we do the things we do, the way we do them. That often, instead of saying, the way we do things sucks. When I entered my program as a faculty member, I was the only faculty member of color and the student population from a graduate student perspective was very low. And so instead of, and I decided, that's gonna change. I was an assistant, new assistant professor and I was like, that's not gonna last here. We're gonna change that. But I started by asking questions about, tell me about our admissions process and why we do it the way we do. I'm curious about why we elevate or value or scores, GRE scores when there's this great literature that shows that it doesn't really predict. And so I just wanna know from the perspective of you who've been here, like, you know, can we understand that? And so by asking a question, it kind of lowers people's defenses. Some, it also suggests that I'm open and then I'm trying to help, can you all help me think about, given the way we do things and we're not getting the intended outcome, how could you think about helping change this? And then I bring in work on effective practices from the scholarship to help support those discussions. So then it becomes not just my idea, but like other people's idea too. And the more that people own something as a problem and feel accountable for the solution, the more that, you know, even if I leave the room, they're gonna keep working on it. So that's one way that I kind of thought about, you know, from my different positionalities, engaging my communities around to Garner buy-in. So I'll pass the mic to Al to see if. Thank you, and I'll say it's a two-fold approach for me. One has to do with scholarship and scholarship in particular. And I am wholly committed to the notion that engaging any set of ideas as a social scientist means inherently being attentive to difference, being attentive to marginalized voices and bring them into conversation. So as a scholar, what I've tried to do quite literally is in my own work, engage so-called mainstream arguments, ideas, theories about social existence and bring to them discussions of different kinds of people, people of color. In most cases in my research, African-American men. And the core argument is that anyone that's trying to make any argument about social organization, about culture, about social patterns, should create a space to discuss diversity, difference. Because that's what constitutes social beings, a range of people from different experiences. So as a scholar, that's been central for me. It's been an effort to confront what is too often and unfortunately still the case of marginalizing voices, of regarding voices and the experience of the touch to the people that have those voices as being marginal to the core mission or mandate of a discipline. I don't believe we can claim to be responsible scholars, certainly across the board, in particular in social sciences and humanities without taking different seriously. And so that's been the agenda there around more practical engagements with organizations, with communities. It's been the effort very much in line with what Tabby said to tie in mainstream agenda with social change agenda. By that I mean that every budget for every organization is a statement about diversity. It's a statement that there are resources dedicated to reaching marginalized voices, marginalized people or if there aren't resources dedicated, it's a strong statement that there's work to be done. So budgets, the organization of entities make statements about diversity and difference. And I've tried to raise that and discuss that and also say quite literally in the spaces that I'm in that my being there and saying what I'm saying is an example of the kind of conversation that needs to unfold over time. Would these questions be raised had I not been in the room? Would these ideas be raised? Would the challenges be raised? And if not, then the onus is upon the organizational entity, the community conduct in which I'm working in to continue to invite and incorporate those voices. Great, great. Thank you. I hear the use of inquiry, the use of scholarship for sure and just having us in the room to be intentional about raising those questions. Thank you for that. So Al, how can we actively engage marginalized students in making educational spaces more equitable instead of imposing our own ideas of equity and access on them? How do we empower marginalized student voices particularly because students are not in roles of power compared to faculty and staff? So the first thing I'll say and maybe the most obvious is to listen to them. And what I mean by listen to them is understand, work hard to understand what the claims, the challenges, the complaints, sometimes the affirmations are and how they speak to the present moment. I think it's very easy in the academy because a lot of us who were established, who were in leadership roles, who have achieved success have done so because we've been at this for a long time. And so students are naturally a younger element, a different element emerging in a different context. And so listen to them not simply around what they say but why they say, what they say. I think it's also critical, particularly in a university context to try to engage them in an educational manner. So there are certainly the practicalities of what they raise and what they say and how you deal with those issues in administration, in faculty, student relationships, in other spheres. But I also think that it's a core responsibility to educate and inform students about patterns and processes for change. In a university context, I think that students often don't understand many of the key players and agents in university governance. May not be aware of where pockets of authority lie and what particular kinds of authority different individuals have. It's important to let them know too often we say misguided commentary or you're bringing your complaint to the wrong party, we'll educate them, where should that complaint go? How should it be better structured? In what ways can there be a more organic relationship so that students who may not always know how to articulate a concern in the right way then learn to do so. Also, but final point, think carefully about how changes happen over time, particularly in university settings. As an African-American, I'm acutely aware of the role that African-Americans played 50 years ago in shaping higher education around the opportunity to study African-Americans, around the opportunities to create African-American studies programs. There wasn't a bunch of intellectuals in a library that said this has to be done. It was students on the ground that said so. And so it's important to recognize how students have played a role in change, but also what lessons were learned over time and how do we make that applicable to the present? We should know if we think carefully about the 60s, this moment of so much transformation that mattered for the day, then in some ways we didn't do appropriate work around gender in the same way that we did around race. What we now understand to be intersectionality was a result of an imprecise and very incomplete way of addressing those issues at that day and time. So learn from history, understand the slow pace of change, learn to develop some degree of comfort, not surrender fully to it, but comfort with the fact that change takes time and not to quit when change didn't happen the first or the second or the third time. History tells us that it takes more than that. Tabby, would you like to add to that at all? I will echo, so what Al just said, and I wonder what I would add to that is that we also have to, in addition to engaging students and listening that we have to do it over and over again, because students are our diverse groups. So when we talk about marginalized students, there are sometimes ways that we group students together in ways that obscure the individual community experiences that they have. So while we talk about URM or underrepresented racial ethnic minorities and in particular ways that, the ways that specific communities have challenges and needs and support needs could be quite different. And so making sure that in our attempts to talk about and support all marginalized communities that the ways that we engage students also take into account the unique experiences. And I would say, and then on top of that within those communities, I'm someone who studies African-American and Black youth development. And I can tell you that there is more within group diversity in how people think about race and equity and gender and social class and many things that impact their lives. And so I think we really have to be kind of more complex in the ways that we engage with students to not assume that groups kind of or should be painted with one brush, but also to understand that even within a group that there's variation in experiences, needs, perceptions and that attending to the needs of marginalized students requires more work for that reason, but it's actually gonna be more effective because it's actually addressing the things that are relevant to people within certain community spaces. So in terms of race, for instance, that we can't ignore the fact that anti-Blackness has specific types of implications for our Black community. Xenophobia has had particular types of impacts on for Asian and Asian-American communities and other immigrant communities. Their indigenous populations have been erased in ways that we have to pay attention to and the ways that immigrant populations across different ethnic racial spheres have been impacted. So I think engaging with students with that in mind, again, helps us do better work to meet their needs. Yeah, so similar along those lines, we had a question. Something my fellow white and non-Black POC colleagues struggle with is how much we should step in during the planning and execution of events meant to support Black students and peers. Stepping in feels like we're taking over even if event planning is specific to our job, whereas stepping back feels like it puts too much burden on the Black community. How do we strive for a more equitable distribution of work? Tabby, you wanna start there? Sure, this is a great question and certainly one that's very timely now. I would say that there's a tension there because I do think that there's a balance between engaging BIPOC communities around action and change and putting the burden only on. I would say the analogy that I thought about was that I'm often in groups, committees, work groups where we have a charge where I don't have certain expertise, so I have to solicit input that's different from asking someone to do the work for me, so in some cases, the input might be a education that I take on for myself to learn about that topic and issue instead of just asking a person from another group, can you tell me about this thing? I've made an attempt to actually learn about it. In other cases, I'm actually asking someone from a different, who's not in the group but from a different group to provide expertise, but I'm also then thinking about ways to credit or support that person, either they're joining the group, so they get the same kind of credit that I do or that their work is acknowledged or in ways, preserved in ways. So I think there's a real tension there too because we're newer at it, so there can also be like mistrust, so the idea of trying to step back, trying to step in could be viewed in ways that when people have mistrust about like how are you actually gonna handle that because we don't have a good history of working on this topic and if you have not been thinking about the topic, then maybe you're not going to approach it in a way that takes into the account my experiences, but I can't be the only one that works on it from my group, so I would say conversation and collaboration, so don't jump in and try to do the work without the input of people from those communities, but also really think carefully about what and how you're asking for input from those communities. Are you asking them to do the work that some of which you could do with your own research and education process? Are you asking them in a way that credits them for the work and it gives them recognition for the intellectual input that they're giving to that effort? I think that's where things break down is where people well-intentioned are asking people to do work for them or are trying to be overly paternalistic or maternalistic, like I don't wanna burden you so I'm going to do the work, but in a way that kind of erases those members' agency. So it's a hard, it's complicated because it requires conversation, it requires like navigating discomfort and tension, but that's because of the history of us not doing that before, it's a great question. So similarly, Al, much of the effective change on university campuses have come from student activists. How can we support and empower our students of color in this moment? Couple of things we need to do and it builds off of what Tabby just explained in terms of the value of conversation, right? Too much of the conversation as I see it is steeped in either a defensiveness when students express pain, frustration, anxiety, or in a service and saying, don't worry, we got you and here's our agenda, right? Everything about what Tabby just said should lead us to have better conversations with students around that, but I'll say more specifically in terms of students of color, right? Recognize, understand moments of pain, anguish, frustration. Critically and responsibly and sensitively engage them to talk about the pain, anguish, frustration. They're different levels and they come from different students in different ways. Some who are less resourced, perhaps have had experiences that have brought them to challenging difficult experiences before they got to Michigan are less anxious about something to Michigan. Others get here for the first time or one of the few times in their lives realize certain tension, certain challenges, and they're in different positions. So the second part of this is to think carefully about what these students are saying and help educate them about the, again, their range of responses for even students in the same category, but then be prepared to admit thoughts, admit moments of weakness, be forward about what one has done in a position of power that might facilitate or exacerbate pain and frustration and then be prepared to develop a library sometimes complicated, sometimes particular approaches that deal with different kinds of pain and frustration. Great, thank you. So I'm gonna bring in a question from the participants. It asks, what do you do when people claim you ask questions in an offensive or aggressive tone when you're trying to be curious or passionate? So this is about the tone police. Either of you can start. I'll go first if it's... Go for it, Al. I know, I'm laughing because they're in the middle of your scenario. I think we've all lived it and the immediate response that doesn't happen is, help me understand why you feel that way about me. Because the question immediately puts the person of color in the place of having to explain everything. But the question is predicated on a lot of misunderstandings of difference that allow one to read people as overly passionate, angry, what have you. People are being people. So my immediate response is, please explain to me why you feel that way. That opens up a conversation where that person must account for the claim and I don't feel that I've got to be wholly defensive and respond to the claim. Whatever they say then becomes their basis for having a conversation. And I inform people all the time that different cultural styles lead to different emotions. Unfortunately, people of color often in positions where they're acted upon by folks that don't get angry in their face. But things happen after the conversation, a certain conversation that identifies their problems. That's the luxury of power. You can take action on people without being angry in their face. When you're disempowered, you express it to what others might perceive to be anger. And so bringing that to the service is part of the conversation. I say in many cases to students and to other parties, you never have to assume the legitimacy of the question, but instead make your first response, a direct invitation for the person to question why they put that to you in the first place. Did you want to add Tabby or that's good? I'm amenning Al's comments and I would even just add that even the same level of anger, maybe red or the passion is red differently. So I totally agree about the luxury of being able to engage without that expression. But even in the context of that expression that who the expression is coming from makes a difference. So someone else is who is not the strongest. So it's an angry black woman if she's expressing a particular stance then someone else is being assertive and passionate and committed. And I think Al's strategy around, help me understand like how my expression, why you responded to it that way, sometimes you're pointing out like, oh, in the last meeting so-and-so expressed a similar level of passion around X and I didn't feel that that was threatening. So sometimes it's also pointing out the contrast with others who have expressed, sometimes they're not even polite in courteous ways and don't get responded to in the same way as when you engage in a passionate but professionally courteous way. Thank you. So how can we work to de-center whiteness in conversations about social justice? What are some ways that white people might center themselves without realizing it? Tavie, you wanna start? Yeah, so I guess practically I would say, and I've seen a lot of it in the past months in the responses to kind of the racial unrest and movements around that and heightened awareness of racism among some communities because of the George Floyd murders and other kind of police violence transgressions that one tendency is to begin to plan things without having people from those communities as a part of the planning. So having an initiative or an activity and you're actually not around anti-racism but without including people from or representing the perspective of that community without including them actually in the planning. We have lots of spaces on our campus that are not diverse. And so the people involved in those units may not have that many people who represent that perspective or they may have them but they still choose to not represent them in those planning meetings with leadership. So I would say that's one space or the opposite and I would say this may have happened. This has happened to me and may be happening to Al is in the rush to act. If you're newly aware of something in the rush to act you call on people of color to be there for you immediately. Can you come next week and speak to my group about X and give a talk and a thing without regard for the fact that you're asking people to do work for you in an immediate way as if they were kind of waiting around waiting to be asked for that service. So in a way that doesn't actually privilege or appreciate the work that they're doing. I would also say another version of it and it's come up in some of the work that's been happening in the space of unconscious bias and implicit bias. That, you know, there's actually a good research backing for kind of this phenomenon is that in the effort to normalize the fact that we all have biases and that may lead people to act or say things kind of in the wrong ways that there can be an over emphasis on the discomfort of the transgressor. Like, oh, you're uncomfortable. You're not sure what to say. You're gonna say the wrong thing. It's okay sometimes if you say the wrong thing because, you know, just as long as you talk about kind of the lens that you grew up with that might help explain why you think about it that way. So I was a child of the seventies and so here's my kind of orientation toward this while those kinds of efforts can help build empathy and can help people have compassion for others and give grace, there can be an over emphasis on the transgressor without, you know and making them comfortable without regard for the harm. So it's not just okay if you are or to if you say something that causes harm to someone else because biases are natural that there's actually attention to the harm done that needs to happen. And so I think some of the trainings and there's actually good research on like bad trainings and good trainings the bad versions of it actually create more sympathy for the perpetrators of discrimination or microaggressions because there's like, it's okay it's normalized, we all have it. And so there's less attention to the transgression. And when I was recently talking about this to one of my colleagues, a group where we were talking about these issues openly and in an uncomfortable way, they clicked with one of my white colleagues who said like, wow, like that made me think about the example of if I spilled coffee on someone like no one would rush to me to comfort me because I didn't mean to spill the coffee or because like I come from a klutzy family and I'm used to kind of dropping things on people. Like the attention would be on the person who had coffee spilled on, the burns that they have and I as the person who burned them would be thinking about how to make the harm to address the harm done. And we're not doing that in some of the ways that we engage around implicit bias or unconscious bias. Again, these are normal, human biases are normal but if the solution is to focus on the discomfort of the transgressors, we're never actually going to get to the space where we're actively acknowledging and making action steps toward the harm that was done and that that's a bigger part of the transgression than the discomfort of the person who was doing the transgressing. Yeah, you're getting a lot of amers and finger snaps and hand claps and all of that. So thank you so much. I'm gonna bring in another question from the audience. What initiatives are you aware of that reflect best practices and positive outcomes for elevating marginalized voices on campus? Al, you wanna start? Yeah, a couple of things. And that's such a general question that can apply to different contexts in different ways but some of the homework to do is be in contact with people before formal activities happen whether it's a staff meeting, a program, what have you. Connect with people, let them know that you recognize they're a part of the community. They should have voice and involvement and access. What's on their minds? What can I, if I'm in the position of an organizational leader, an initiative leader, what should I know before the meeting the initiative unfolds that allows me to give voice to those issues, that allows me to recognize they're critically important. Because too often in these public moments, people of color are forced to feel like they're standing alone and addressing issues or concerns. The leadership should though, going into the conversation, hit us on the minds of folks. I will open the conversation, invite others to engage, be protective and mindful of who has the floor, who has other positions of power and make sure that diversity difference is recognized in those opportunities. So again, every situation involves a particular configuration of those kinds of approaches. But the basic message is voice is established by recognizing before you get a movement off the ground, whether it's a program and initiative, the teacher have a course. Who's in that space? Who might feel silent? Who might feel alone? And leadership has got to take account of that and we pay to address that from the beginning to create a more comfortable space for people operating. Thank you, Tabby. Did you want to highlight a few or? I was muting because my dog was barking. No, I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with Al and we can take up some other questions too. Perfect. How can we ensure our efforts to recruit and empower people of color do not tokenize or exploit them? You want to start, Tabby? Sure. Nope. We should not tokenize or exploit them. So that's the simple part of that. But I do think that, you know, our strategies for recruiting students have to advance a bit in some cases. You know, when I think about our graduate admissions that there's often a focus on the individual student. So individual students versus thinking about recruiting in clusters, thinking about cohort in the context of undergraduate recruitment, cohorts of undergraduates who are in, from the same schools or organizational spaces. I know we have some work underway with programs like Wolverine Pathways where students are not just individually kind of admitted, but that they're coming in as a cohort in a community and they're recruited as such so that individuals actually are not representing only a token in terms of their numerical status, but also maybe coming in where they already have some networks along with efforts to connect them to other networks because we wouldn't want those students to be only connected with their kind of cohort network. But getting more creative about the ways that we're trying to bring in people so that, you know, having one person in your department is not kind of the diversity advancement which is not a whole bunch of an advancement. I mean, it's actually 100% increase for some departments but it's not for others, but that doesn't represent an engaged experience for the student or the faculty or the staff who are being recruited to those spaces. So thinking creatively about bringing people in, bringing people in in ways that are not just for their diversity in terms of their identities. So the exploited part, people, students want to be admitted because they're thought about as contributing to the scholarly and intellectual mission of the university. Faculty and staff want to be hired because they're contributing important skill sets which could include skills around diversity, equity and inclusion, but they're often not framed as skills as much as bringing people here for their diversity and also calling a person diverse which is actually not a real thing. No individual is diverse. There's the diverse people. So I do think the ways that we actually bring people in to avoid exploitation would be to reconceptualize, you know, this notion of diversity as disconnected from excellence to couple those together and to recruit people in a way that signals to them that you're contributing to the mission that includes diversity and excellence. And again, doing so in ways that are not kind of the one drop, you know, approach but being creative and thinking about clusters. Departments collaborating. Departments may be small in size but they could collaborate to bring in cohorts of students that represent greater diversity and make efforts to connect those communities. So I think we, you know, this is not all rocket science and I do think that but I do think that it involves thoughtfulness and strategy to think about like what are our goals? How do we bring people in in ways that don't just increase our representation by drops? And how do we bring people in in ways where they feel as though and we treat them as though that their skills, competencies, experiences are valued as part of an intellectually kind of vibrant environment. Thank you. So I'm gonna bring in another question from the audience. To Dr. Young's point, what are some strategies for discerning power and authority in organizations, higher education and other. I love Dr. Chavis' strategy of asking questions when a new space, when new to the space and the tactfulness process of bringing in research-based best practices. What are some additional strategies to enact justice and positive change? One is you gotta think carefully about your formal mechanisms of authority in any department, program unit and be prepared to change or modify. The very structures in place are often the source of the problem in attracting people and promoting diversity differences. And therefore you don't just simply decide that, well, we'll bring people in and they'll fit in or go along. What kinds of questions, issues, concerns do they have that mandate a different way for committees to operate, a personnel committee in recruiting graduate students or attracting faculty? How might they operate differently? How might they be staffed differently to be able to change a director of a graduate program? What else or more could be attached to that office? Given how it's functioned over the years such that some voices concerned issues are suppressed. How might we restructure that? So I think too often, the feeling is that structures are in place and they've worked well cause they've lasted for a long time. If we're committed to change, it means we've got to think about our structures changing not just bringing in different people. Thank you. So I'll bring in another question from the audience. What does being a leader in DEI look like at different stages of one's academic career, especially pre and post tenure? I mean, I think you, I think El's pathway certainly suggests that it's always salient and I think mine too. But I do think, I mean, I think that it is important at all stages of the career but I do think that they're different considerations. I mean, people have different levels of vulnerability and precarity in their positions and so that can't be ignored. So I think that's where strategies, having networks make a difference. So as I mentioned before, again, I think I was new to the Academy in terms of having families and network members who were part of it. So I was naive enough to think like, oh, this is my community so I'm gonna ask questions and say things. But I certainly was not unclear about the fact that I didn't have tenure yet and that I would be evaluated by colleagues and the like too. That was really not primary in my mind though because my barometer is always like I have to be able to look myself in the mirror. So if I'm not standing for things that I care about is this job kind of worth it? The answer would be no. And I used to say and people told me to stop saying it like I used to say you can get hit by a bus tomorrow. So if I waited until I got tenure to like do the things that I was committed to then who's to say that would happen at my institution? If I do the things that I believe in and my scholarship and my engaged work maybe this is not the place for me if they don't value that but if I do good work is gonna be valued and I'm gonna go somewhere that values that. So I think that orientation helped me feel less hesitant about standing up for things that I thought were important because keeping this job wasn't my main priority. It was keeping a job that I cared about in a space that I thought could move toward the values that I care about. But I did think but I did but as I mentioned there were strategies like asking questions as a new person. So I think you put people off as a new person if you come in in the first month and you've already diagnosed all the problems out loud for them I also had mentors. And I think at every stage I still have mentors. I had mentors that I would talk about talk to about like my strategies like here's how I'm understanding the environment here is kind of how I'm thinking about it what would you suggest? I also had mentors within my spaces or build kind of collaboration so that other people were not I wasn't the only one always saying things that the other people could say some of those things too. But I would say that again this has to be everyone's individual decision about kind of how they want to engage given kind of the stage of career that they're in. But for me it just wouldn't have worked to wait until after 10 year or to kind of hold my tongue. That didn't mean that I don't have what my mother calls home training. So the way that I engage my colleagues in a professional and courteous way unless they give me reason not to I'm going to approach things assuming so I guess I approach things in a couple of different ways and I tell people this out loud I assume that we all want equity but what we don't have always are procedures processes and norms that match that goal. So this is not about you being a bad person or somebody else being a racist person this is about us having a goal but the way that we work actually doesn't match the policies, social norms for how we do things. And so we're all scholars which is in my faculty conversations. And so we know how to problem solve and how can we then take our goal and better our system for achieving that goal. And I think I have honestly approached people with that giving them the benefit of the doubt in mind which I think has helped in some spaces and even in spaces where I've had to push further and push more aggressively that the idea is that it's not Tabby's agenda. This is not my personal agenda. This is about the collective and supporting success opportunity for others who are actually have evidence that we are not showing access and opportunity and thriving opportunities for. So I guess that's a essay answering many questions kind of around that but I would say that everybody has to kind of use their own barometer for how comfortable they feel in engaging certain issues, picking your battle. So I mean, if I were not picking my battles I could say something every day and then I'd be that person every day like, oh, there she goes again. So I also had to kind of think about which battles needed kind of addressing at this moment in time and am I the person to fight the battle or do I need to kind of connect with someone else who has decision-making kind of space over that? So that was all happening at all stages of my career including the current one. But again, everyone has to have their own internal barometer about how real assessments of their safety as well as their own kind of feelings about comfort. Yeah, thank you. Al, I, I know you had to say, go ahead. And it's in concept with everything that Tabby said but in addition to thinking about levels of comfort, security and what have you what battles to pick and choose. Take seriously the particular kind of power you have in whatever position you're in. So that graduate students have the power to be effective peer mentors to other graduate students. They have the power to bring folks together to build a collective agenda and share ideas. Assistant professors have the power to help graduate students understand the transition into academic life and they are more connected to where graduate students are than old folks like me. So a particular kind of conversation can happen there that helps populate the professory in different ways. When you get to the stage that people like me get to institutional change becomes more than one's purview and you can think about that but understand that at every stage in every place you can become relevant, right? Undergrads can be leaders for undergraduate issues in ways nobody else can. So just think about what you can harness where you are and even if you want the whole world to be a better place that's still a dream, that's still a vision you learn how to get there from how you move from every stage you're in but think just about where you are and a little bit you can do there that actually will mean a whole lot to other folks. And I would say that really is at the heart of like the beginning statement about we all have so leaders mean that you're really thinking about your influence in the spaces that you're in and at every stage there is a form of that. A couple with Al's advice about like learning taking the opportunity to learn about how the institution works so that you're pressing the pressure points around the things that you're trying to change in ways. And again, I would say building network so none of us are in it alone or are able to be as effective alone as we are as with a network and a community and that community might not be in your workspace it might be in other spaces of the university. And so I think some of the things that we hope have happened as a function of the diversity, equity and inclusion plan and having leads in different units is there being a cross unit kind of network of people who are working on these issues because we know that within certain spaces there's either not the progress or the diversity to kind of do things as an individual within that space. Yeah. Oh my gosh, time has gone so fast. I do wanna get one last question in from the audience and that is what kind of intervention would be more effective to change the use of DEI as a label or as an opportunity to list achievements in a self-congratulatory context by institutions of higher education. In many cases such language hinders concrete action. Al? First thing and I've said this to many parties at the University of Michigan. I hear you about the default status of celebrating success or listing accomplishments or what have you. The most important work we can do around a DEI agenda aside from supporting, encouraging practical areas of change is document moments of failure. Document where we realize what work we're not doing effectively. Document the problems, the shortcomings in our approaches and then develop agenda to address them. I hear you about too often some of these initiatives become a way of celebrating success or marking achievement. If you're honest about change, these very initiatives should also deliver a statement of what work should be done better, what work should be done differently, will we need to intensify our efforts given the mistakes, the shortcomings, the inadequacies that have happened the first or second go round. And I don't think we often do that enough. So to try to get another one in that's similar what trends have we seen in DEI and social justice work? For example, the trends related to funding, supportive climate, any last words you wanna leave around this space, advice, trends, what to do next? And this will be our parting words in one minute or less. Tavi, you wanna start? Agreeing with Al's point about diversity, equity and inclusion, I think we have to keep the pressure on to be explicit in naming those. I mean, I hear people kind of, I mean, it's quicker to say DEI than what the words are but people kind of then glob them together. Like, oh, the DEI is working or it's not working as if it's a thing like we are the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and to actually actively deconstruct those words to see what areas are we making strides on? Diversity is not just our values, it's actually the representation of different types of communities here. Are we making strides there? Equity, you know, what would constitute an equitable environment, an anti-racist environment here and what are the markers of that? Inclusion, you know, what are the ways that people have opportunities and roles of participation in the process of how we operate to actually actively deconstruct and not let it be co-opted as like a brand but to use it as a guide and don't let the definitions be changed. Like DEI, we can be diverse if we have positive values but not if we actually have the representations of different communities, but not if we don't have that. So I think my comment really kind of leads from Al's about, this is a lifelong work, this is lifelong work in that we are making progress but we have to actively document and deconstruct our goals. We may be making strides and becoming more diverse in some spaces and not others. We may be making strides and becoming more demographically diverse but the systems in place still devalue the participation of people in certain ways or the advancement and we have to deconstruct those constantly and then name the activities that act on those particular things because they're not all the same. And then a justice orientation which is another kind of lens like what are we doing to redress discrimination or inequality which could connect to the others but may implicate a whole different set of activities and action spaces. So we have to be analytical and also persistent in making sure that it doesn't get diffused or lessened as we do this work going forward because there's some people who want to diffuse it to feel good about what we're doing but not actually be able to provide concrete markers of progress. Yeah. Ah. 30 seconds. Everything that can be said. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because you said what I would have said. Given that I encourage everyone to commit to self-care and don't disengage or withdraw because you confront challenges, moments of disappointment, frustration, pain that's embedded in this effort. Every social justice individual that I regard as a hero did not live to see the world they were working to try to achieve, but my life is better because of what they did. So that's humbling, but I think important to hold on to. It's a long journey, as Tabby said. Therefore, don't quit on yourself because you don't come even close to seeing the end. Committing to it helps others realize the end. And that's the most important thing I think any dedicated individual can commit to. Oh my gosh, thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today. Your comments landed well on lots of people, according to our chat and our questions. So we appreciate you spending time with us today. I want to thank our leadership at Rackham, Mike Solomon for joining us as well and for supporting all of our work going forward. I want to thank all of the participants for joining us today and spending this hour with us. There's so many other things you could have done. I invite you all to join us at our next lead workshop seminar that will be on November 13th. And also remind you that our past webinars are on the lead playlist of the Rackham Graduate School YouTube channel. And this one will be there as well. Don't forget the work comes after the webinar. So listen to our panelists today, keep supporting each other, take care of yourselves, take care of each other and stay in the work. Thank you so much. Bye, everyone.