 Again, let me welcome everybody. Welcome to the Future Trends Forum. I'm really delighted to see you here today. We have a terrific guest and on a really, really important subject with a great book. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. We've been talking about anti-racism and racism for several years here in the forum. We've had a whole bunch of sessions. We've had great people, but we haven't had anybody quite as awesome as Dean and Professor Richard Redick. There's all kinds of reasons to be a big fan of him. One of them is that he has published a great book called Restorative Resistance in Higher Education. Here's my copy. If you look on the screen, the bottom left, you'll see a kind of tan-colored button, and that will take you to the page. You can grab a copy, which I strongly recommend. Another reason is that he is a great researcher and practitioner in actually doing and leading DEI on multiple places from Harvard University to University of Texas Austin. A third is if you follow the University of Texas Austin Eyes of Texas story. He was the leading actor in that, and there's an amazing chapter about that in that book, but also he has fantastic taste in music as you'll see in a minute. So without any further ado, let me just bring our wonderful guest up on stage. Oops, there we go. And there we go. Hello. Here I am. Great to see you. Good to see you, Brian. Good to be here. Where are you today? Where are you coming from? I am in Austin, Texas. I'm actually in my office. It's my lunch break and I'm just excited and thrilled. And as I was commenting in the chat, I'm really happy at 63 degrees Fahrenheit here today. So it's a nice sort of semi-overcast day here, but it works for us. So those of you who have snow right now, best of luck. You're a lot of help here. About 63 is lovely to be in Texas. That's why we live here for this moment. Just for this one moment. Yes, yes. And of course, I've been in Austin when it snowed, which is always fun to see what happens. Yeah, but we asked people to introduce themselves here with our own tradition, which is we asked people to explain or talk about what they're working on for the upcoming year. So what kind of projects, what kind of writing classes, etc. are coming up for you? And also, what topics are top of line for you? That's awesome question, Brian. So obviously, the publication of Restorative Resistance, the book was released in September. And because I am a fully immersed academic guy, you know, I've been busy. But in the early part of the year, I'm doing sort of a book tour sorts. I'll be in in Cambridge, Mass. I'll be in New York City. I'll be in Washington, D.C. Talking about the book. So I'm excited about that. I don't. Fortunately, I do not. And I say this fortunately because life can be a blur. I just submit my grades for the semester. So I am not teaching in the spring semester. But I do teach a summer course in the UK. It's called exploring UK education. It's a study abroad one month class. And I spent much of my four minute years in the UK. So I actually like to go back home with a group of students, many of whom are first generation, many of whom are traveling for the first time outside of the state of Texas. And it is the most amazing experience because just as we go to Christchurch College, which for those of you who are Harry Potter fans is where they film the dining room scenes. And so to see my students literally freak out in that space and to be shoot out by the docents, like you need to leave. You've been here for 25 minutes. They can get out and just, you know, getting around and doing all the kinds of things in in in England in the summer is a lot of fun. We did it for a month. And that's a huge as an administrator. I have less personal contact with students. That's my highlight for the summer. So that's what I'm going to be doing. And then we start the machine again, and I'll be teaching my fall course, which is based on the podcast I do called Black Austin Matters. So lots of things going ahead and also the two teenagers at the house that kind of always have something going on. Well, I bet they do. I bet they do. Oh, my gosh. What a what a year. What a life. It's a lot going on. Well, thank you for making time for us. I hope you can consider this to be a virtual part of your unfolding book tour. I think so. The friends, if you're new to the forum, I'm going to put a couple of questions to our guest, just basic questions to get the ball rolling. But what I'd like you to do is get ready to ask your own questions because the forum is all about you like soil and green. The forum is made out of people. And what we'd like to do is make sure that you can have a chance to ask your questions and to raise your topics. So as you listen to our wonderful guests, please think about what you'd like to ask. My first one, I did. Well, first of all, I'd like to ask if you could show everybody your shirt, just just to prove what I was saying about your musical taste. Yes, my class shirt London calls. See, the only band that matters. I told you, this is it. This is it. We're going to rock the Cosby tonight. The first question I wanted to ask is, I guess kind of not the heaviest one I wanted to ask. But I'm wondering about the role of mentoring. You've written several chapters quite movingly on both being a mentee and being a mentor. And I'm wondering right now, in this time period, where we are so conflicted and so challenged, what advice would you give for all of us to either be a good mentor or a good mentee, especially when one is or when is working with a marginalized population? Wow, what a great question. And I just came off of a zoom about mentoring. So I'm very fresh on this. So what I often talk about it, and I derive most of my mentoring, my avatar in the mentoring world is khaki kran at Boston University. And I followed her work when I was very, very emergent as a graduate student. And so we talk about the panoply of developmental relationships. And so mentoring is kind of a one end of the spectrum, which is the sort of full package, but you've got the role modeling aspects, you've got the coaching and the sponsorship aspects, right? So one thing I think is super important is to realize, both for mentors and mentees, that we need to have a culture of developmental relationships all across. So maybe people don't have the capacity to mentor, but maybe you can be a sponsor to somebody, you can help somebody learn a skill or learn how to do something that's important in the field, or you can sort of be a role model and sort of share your story. I was recently at Loma Linda College of Pharmacy last summer. And I was talking to this amazing researcher there. And he has this amazing, you know, lab and grants and everything like that. And we started talking about his journey. And this is a guy who dropped out of college twice. What a story, right? And sharing that story, when you share stories like that, especially with young folks, especially with folks who feel marginalized and higher education, a lot of times the most innocuous thing you drop in the conversation. I'm a first gen college student. I was a Pell Grant recipient. Things like that that you think are just like, it's just part of my story. Somebody will say, you said something in your introduction on your story that resonates with me. And that's my story as well. And it's not always tied to identity. We've been thinking this. So I was in South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley recently, and I was talking to a group of students there. And, you know, these are Latino students, you know, different part of the country. And I had students come to me and say, you know, you said some things in your talk about your experience that connect to my experience. And that's why I think a lot of times for those who work in the academic spaces, we're, you know, very fancy titled and, you know, nice CVs. But we don't often talk about how we got there. We don't talk about a lot of times the hard parts of the experience. And a lot of times when students are trying to experience those kinds of things, they need to hear those stories. So I, you know, my thought is that it's being an open book, you know, sharing vulnerability. And I know we can't always be vulnerable, because we don't always feel safe in that ability. But I really encourage those of us who hold positions in the Academy, whether we are faculty members or staff members or administrators, to really model for our students what it means to be an authentic whole person. Because when we talk about, you know, I've struggled in certain parts of my life, or I've struggled, you know, in the position I have, you know, that really helps students say, I could do what you're talking about, because I feel those same things as well. Thank you. That personally, that that hits me very hard. I have a hard time doing that. I'm a very self abnegating person in class. And so I try to, but I should do that more. I should let them get see behind the beard, I guess. That's that's good advice. And Brian, you know, I think it does require a sense of intimacy connection. So do I tell my life story in front of, you know, hordes of folks all the time? Not always, but like in the classroom setting, where I've set a sense of connection and intimacy, it will come forth. And I'm reminded of my good friend, Tony Jack, this book, The Privilege Four, he talks about this, you know, the importance of just understanding like there's so many things happening in this context, that are hidden. And I always say, as a first generation college student, as a first generation professor, as a first generation administrator, I've still first done everything. So I still like, what are we talking about here? What's that thing you're talking about? Or what's that policy, you know, it's important to sort of share those things. And I think I look at this as a journey and an experience from me. And I hope that I can kind of share and the book is really about that the book is both autobiographical and research based as well, because I think it's important to understand that I'm still on a journey. I don't think I'm experts to speak up, but I've certainly somebody who's engaged in these issues currently. That's one of the pleasures of the book, I find. In fact, here, let me just fiddle with the screen a little bit here. I think that's one of the pleasures of the book is that you are a character. And it's great to read your journey and to learn about it. I was asking, in the chat, P.F. Anderson from the University of Michigan points out the human library project and says that they would love to see a human library experience within the Street True Transform community. That would be so cool. P.F., why don't you email me and we can see about setting that up. That would be a great session to do in 2024. Just send me a note. And I would love to think about that. The, I guess I have to ask a heavier question now, which is, and this is for what I'm about to say is for everybody because you know this all too well, Rich. I mean, we're living in a time of immense DEI pushback. You know, the state of Wisconsin, the legislature of Wisconsin is fighting bitterly with the University of Wisconsin system trying to delete its DEI programs. We've seen state after state, Florida, Iowa, Texas cramped out or clamped down on DEI in different ways. There's, of course, national politics of pro racism that seems to be following movement for anti-racism and so on. And it looks likely that over the next 11 months, as the US presidential election heats up and various state elections heat up, that this may become even more of a charged and endangered topic. So I guess I'd like to ask, how would you advise people approach DEI in this incredibly fraught moment? How can we do this and not, you know, not get wiped out or heartbroken? And that's the last question you're going to ask today, because we're going to take the entire time to respond to that. Somebody else will come in. Yeah, Brian, it's it's that is a profound question. It's something that I am working through every single day. I mean, the interesting thing about this, of course, is that I am a person whose research agenda is in the diversity, equity and inclusion space. And, you know, I was thinking about Du Bois, you know, in the Souls of Black Folk, what does it feel to be a problem? Right? Your research is a problem, right? Your existence is a problem. But here's the thing I can also point to is that one of the things in the book I talk about is that I have been working in this space since I was an undergraduate student in the 1990s. And we have different names. You call it multicultural education, different sort of terminologies about how we talked about this work. And in that time, my good friend, Jeff Miland and Sylvia Tato, we're working in University of Michigan in the 1990s, building a research base about what does it mean to have diversity and inclusive spaces on campus? Like, what is the outcome for that? And there's a robust body of scholarship. I'm sure many people in the call know about this. That's been going on for, you know, back to Gordon Allport, right? It goes back a long way. So the idea that this is kind of a trend that people are sort of harping on. And I think we have to also acknowledge the fact that this is a politically charged moment where people are sort of taking things and saying, well, this is something I want to kind of run with, because I think it can get political capital out of it. The reality is, when I think about what my job as an educator is, which is to help maximize the human potential of every student I have. That is my job. My good friend, Julie Garcia, who is the former president of UT Brownsville, talks about being the first Mexican American woman president of the United States and going to talk to other people about what her job was. And one of the people she interviewed said, your job is to defend democracy. Okay, right? So if that's the charge, I think we have to find ways to ensure that we make sure our campuses are supportive spaces for communities from all walks of life. And, you know, frankly, University of Texas at Austin and other places I've worked, I look across the campus, well, it's empty now. They're all finished with exams. But I can just see these amazing stories of students who socioeconomically, gender identity, sexual orientation, military status, ability status, all these different aspects of their lives that have shaped them. Of course, it's intersecting, right? Right? Nobody's just one thing. And I'm like, what an opportunity to have this space that we support students and faculty and our staff members and our community members to understand these things. And so I think sometimes it's decoupling and sort of lowering the temperature, so to speak, because the reality is, I talk to people all the time and the book talks about this, like, you know, I'm scared to engage in these conversations. And I'm like, well, a lot of ways we've been sort of sanctioned to not have these conversations, right? To not talk about difference, not talk about things where equity and equity occur. But the reality is, how do we function as a democracy for not talking about these things? And we're not working together to engage with these issues. And one of the things is about finding the spaces and the ways to do that work. And it has to be done, I think, artfully, right? We're kind of in a moment where, and this moment is one of the most fraught moments in higher education because world events, things happening in our campuses, things happening in society and the world writ large. But I really think it's about this way of figuring out what is our common touch point in understanding. And I think most people who arrive in a college campus are curious, right? Curiosity about how the world works, you know, Brian, how you live the you'll experience the world, how I experience the world. Yeah. How do we start with that being our sort of guiding principle? Like everybody is here because they have curiosity. And then we have to build connections. I'm going to quote the work from the researchers in Michigan, finding community spaces where people feel I have both relationship with somebody. So now that I have a relationship with somebody, I can engage and ask questions. And I can also be supported in that process. I really believe in the sort of challenge support model where if you're in space is constantly where you feel affirmed and everything is easy, you're not getting enough challenge. But if you're in a space where you feel constantly under attack or under pressure, that's not good either. What's the balance? And so I think part of it is just, you know, a community agreement. When you come into this space of higher education, what we're trying to do is understand the world better. We're trying to really engage and sort of move to a space of addressing curiosity. And I think that's what I really want to have people think about. And, you know, also finding ways for everybody to engage, because one of the I think myths about DEI is that it's something that only underrepresented or minoritized folks engage with. And the reality is, if you're thinking about democracy and thinking about healthy society, we all have to be engaged in the conversation. It cannot just be a certain group. And, you know, thinking about intersectionality, you can think about the fact that we bring both spaces of privilege and advantage in places of oppression and also a lack of privilege. And so that's it, all of us. And so I think a lot of times it's coming to realize those pieces that are super important. And also I think, Brian, most importantly, is the sense of humility, right? I was very careful to state that my work in the space is not from a space of expertise. It's from deep engagement with the topics and the issues. So I think, given all the sort of limitations that may be coming forth from a lot of, you know, bodies of governance across the country, I think it's an issue of reframing and categorizing the work we do as essential to maintaining and supporting democracy. It doesn't mean that, of course, I think it also means that we can be critical friends about how the work is done, right? You know, I often get, you know, what about this approach to, you know, diversity engagement? What do you think about that? And I might not necessarily think it's the best approach, but that's part of being in a space of academic inquiry. We get to challenge things. We go through a peer review process. People tell us that's an interesting idea, needs development. That idea actually doesn't have much water. You know, you have to go through these processes. So for me, it really is about us all finding ways of engaging in space and almost decoupling it from a political stance, because I always say, if you are on any part of the political spectrum, if you are a person who believes in, you know, the importance of a human community, you'll engage us on some level. And I think a lot of times people are surprised to hear me talk about, you know, maximizing human potential and say, actually, that is precisely what the work at DBI is doing. So we've got maximizing human potential, which should be the cause of higher education or civilization as a whole. We've got restoring democracy. We have building spaces for relationships in that kind of Vygotskyan way, right? Spaces that are neither too comfortable nor too challenging. Proxable zones of development. I love it. Exactly. We're talking about that a lot next month. And then and then we also have nurturing that precious flame of curiosity. This is this is terrific that that's a that's a great, great answer. Friends, if you if you have a chance to read the book, the well, this is all about this. But the fourth chapter addressing the privilege payoff speaks to a richest point about if if you feel that you have privilege, how to use it and and how to support it. And the end of chapter three has a has a great a great paragraph, which I'm really tempted to read out loud. It's that's the very marching orders kind of paragraph, which is which is great. Friends, I could ask questions of our of our guests all day. But this is a this is a form where your questions are central. Please feel free to use either the Q&A box. Again, that's the one on the bottom of the screen with a question mark on it, or hit the raised hand button if you like to join us on stage. Again, you know, we we run the risk that if you don't have facial hair, you might not feel welcome. But no, seriously, we're this is this is where we're welcoming all levels of her suiteness. And again, ask questions based on your own thinking about DEI, your own experience, your own work, or if you had a chance to read this book or into it or any of Professor Eddick's previous writings, or if you just want to respond to what he's been talking about. Please, again, the forum stands open for you. So and if you're if you'd like, I'll be in the chat box right now. So I'd be happy to share your thoughts. While people are thinking and fuming and going back and forth, I'm wondering, I've got to ask this, if you could update us on where the eyes of Texas story is now. So if if if I could really quickly for people who haven't followed the story, this is the famous fight song for UT Austin football team. And it's been around for a century and we know a lot more about it because of our guest sport. There was a controversy starting in 2020 2021 about whether or not the song was racist, or if it should be stopped, a commission was formed, created by the president. And our guest was the head of this and he led a deep, extensive, really thoughtful, extensively documented research project into the song's history with the kind of nuance and depth that I rarely see in academia ever. And he published this in full public eye, getting all kinds of attention, questions, abuse. It's a marvelous story. And as far as I knew, it stopped. The story ended once the report came out and the dust settled. But but you're telling me that the eyes of Texas are still on you? Is that what's happening? Oh, well, well, well done, Brian. That's a great pun. Yeah. So yeah, what a I sort of there's a chapter in the book that kind of talks about the experience of doing that work, not about the actual work itself, because we there's actually eyes of texas.utexas.edu. There's actually a website that has the report and archival information and so on and so forth. And we did that work and I want to credit the 25 people I worked with in the committee during a pandemic on zoom doing this work, including my good friend, Don Carlton, who is the director of the Briscoe Center for American History and, you know, digitizing all these materials during the pandemic. So what an incredible opportunity and also an opportunity to work with people across generations. So we had among our group, people who graduate from university in the 1960s, to present students, people who were student athletes, people who played in the band, just different identities and walks of life. So I actually find that we don't often have conversations across generations. So you're talking to people who are your cohort, you know, and that's what, you know, whether you think it's great or bad, you're kind of in that space. And so we had to really find spaces to and I think everybody would tell you ultimately, everybody learned something they did not know in the research process. And importantly, the committee itself, I think, found connections because we were talking a lot of times these are conversations you have with people who you have agreement with. And then when you meet somebody who has this agreement, you kind of say, well, I don't want to talk to you about this, but we actually were doing that. And a lot of people were like, I'm kind of in a mixed space. But what we found, O'Brien, is that honestly, an artifact that basically is the exact, almost the exact same age as the university itself, its history actually sort of tells the history of the institution and the state of Texas. And it's, you know, an environment that was, you know, postbellum, neo Confederate, right, is the origin of this place. And so the evolution of these things and historian H.W. Brands, Bill Brands, committee member that we had was often reminding us of sort of context and history and sort of the the ability for something that is living like a song to sort of go through iterations versus a building or a statue that is what it is, right. And then what ends up happening, Brian, is that you kind of see it in everything. You see how we really grapple with the inability to sort of analyze these things and confront some of the difficult things. Toni Morrison has a great quote about America's need for reinvention and not saying actually, there are some things we can dive into. And I will tell you, one of the things that really was helpful to me is when I was doing this work is that the amazing historian and Gordon Reed wrote on Jim Tink. And as a fellow Texan and a historian, she talks about what is it like to be again, a double consciousness, sort of a Du Boisian kind of experience to be part of this experience, but also realize that experience mythologizes and leaves out other pieces. So that was actually a really amazing thing. So what has happened since is that we've had a number of sort of different sort of, I would say, thoughts about what should happen. And certainly one of the things that was really a blessing to be in the committees of the president made a decision, the song will remain the schools all the water. So we weren't charged with you're going to do a report. And what the report says is going to lead to its either reinforcement or removal. And then we don't want that responsibility. But we were able to inform the discussion and student organizations, alumni groups, folks are, you know, sort of engaged in the conversation. And I'm really proud of the fact that we do have that website and the report. And of course, every single day we learn something new, like the ubiquity of the eyes of insert entity are upon you is pretty profound. It's a pretty commonly used phrase. And the particular juncture of how the phrase came to be part of the university's history and its performance are the parts that really become sort of a flashpoint. But then I think when you read and you engage with the whole story, it becomes incredibly interesting to see, you know, one thing I think a lot of Texans don't know, you might have noticed either is that the song's been to the moon, Alan being the third man to walk on the moon, graduate from University of Texas and took a scroll and a silk pinker chief that had the song on it. So it's been to the moon. You know, and so that we find a lot of times that the story itself is an interesting story. And it's a story that contains things I think a lot of Tory and things I think people would say that's not the greatest thing of life. But you know, one thing that I think is really interesting to think about is this idea of, you know, reclamation in a group came and said you can't reclaim something that's tainted from its origins. But I was thinking about Jimmy Hendrix playing the Star-Spangled Banner would stop. Or Whitney Houston singing the Star-Spangled Banner, Mary Ann Anderson, Mary Ann Anderson singing America the Beautiful, like all these moments were something that was either not really part of how it was originated shifts the meaning shifts the context in a way. And so I think of it that way. But I think it's my lot in life to discuss this forever. And there are times I get tired of talking about it. But there's times where I'm like, I'm really glad to engage it because I think such an interesting issue. And I actually think a lot of times I kind of admonish people. I hope you get to deal with a campus issue on this level, because as you said, it sort of started off as a campus specific issue, very much inspired by activism from student athletes, but became something that was actually ESPN, the New York Times, Texas Monthly became interested in. And of course, media engagement is interesting, because a lot of times there's much more to a story you want to tell, but they want to take, you know, let's just get give me like a 20 second excerpt of that. So the best conversations I've had, Brian, or when people said, you know, I read the report, and I sat with it, and I'm conflicted. I'm like, I think it's probably what would end up happening if you actually did read the report, you probably would end up in that space. And what does it ultimately mean? It ultimately means that you get to decide in place and context, and you get to think about what it means. It doesn't mean that there is a right or wrong way to feel about it. Well, I'm sorry if you're if you're condemned to an eternity of, but what you just said, just for me embodies the report that kind of the kind of depth and richness and nuance. It's not a it's not a simple thing. I love your take on the not appropriation to repurposing and replaying replaying content. In the chat, P.F. Anderson has some has some really good thoughts about this. We have some questions that have come in more than a few questions. They've just been piling in like mad. And I want to just let's give a run at a couple of these here. This is a sure from Rod Friedman who asks what might be the most effective ways to use campus climate surveys with respect to DEI issues? What are suggestions for types of questions to ask and how best to use results of such surveys? That's a great question. So, you know, again, some people can see it. Yeah, so my experience at university here, we did a climate survey and that's based on a number of surveys. So coach the collaborative on higher education careers, you know, has a campus survey. There's the CRU survey. There's lots of surveys out there that are accessible and get some of these points. But sometimes having a specific survey for your institutional context, right? And so what are the things like I said is like, you know, learning to ask a question in a certain way, we have to acknowledge the fact that if you ask a question about DEI specifically, you get some very charged responses because of the sort of the lightning rod status it has now. But questions that sort of ask about curiosity, you know, how, you know, do you wish to have more engagement and conversations across identities, right? Those kinds of things. And also, frankly, I think it's interesting to think about what are we actually trying to accomplish as an end? I think a lot of times higher education is charged with solving problems that society hasn't solved, right? And so going through an evolution of figuring out the answers to questions is often messy. As scholars, we know that, you know, I'm reminded of what we went through during the pandemic. And when we had recommendations to do certain things, and then that changed over time. And people were like, why are you lying to us? Those of us in the scholarly space understand that's the evolution of knowledge. You learn new things, we make changes. And so I think also kind of labeling it that way. What I talked to students, when I talked to students of all sort of political identities, and frankly, I don't always know their identities, because I don't ask that question. I get the sense that they are here because they think that the world is an interesting place, and they want to know more about people in the world. And I think if we start from that space of understanding, that's what we get to do at universities. Regrettably, a lot of spaces outside of universities don't have that same, you know, and I remind my students a lot of times, like, this is a four year window where perhaps you get to disrupt some of the pathways you've been on. So a lot of my students will say I'm from a certain part of the state or a certain city. I've never met people from rural East Texas. And I've never met people from New Jersey or from Indonesia, right? All these things can happen for the first time. And if you get sort of hooked on that, as I did, I'm like, I really like being in spaces where people are different. I'm a military kid. I'm living around, you know, 12 different schools and from high school. I love the idea of being around people who are different and learning about them. But I also want to have a sense of support. So to me, those questions should really center on things like sense of belonging and connection. How am I connected to this institutional space? And then what are the opportunities for me to build a sense of connection and belonging? It's a very important course to ask. Because a lot of times we just assume it's going to happen. You just put people together, they're going to figure it out. I don't think that's necessarily always true. People tend to sometimes convulcanize and go to spaces where they feel more comfortable. But I've often used the challenge support model to say, you know, we're spaces where you feel support. You should have those. Where are spaces you feel challenged? I remember going to a fraternity house, I'm not going to name the fraternity, but one of my students invited me to meet these fraternity brothers. And I said to the students there, I said, you know, this is a space of support and connection for you all clearly, right? And I said, some of you have the ability in being spaces like this fairly frequently. If you don't put yourself in spaces where you are not in the majority numerically or in power senses, then you are missing the opportunity to build empathy, right? And then then you become a person who is disconnected from another experience. And then you start speaking in ways and othering people in very, I think, problematic ways versus saying, it's temporary. But I went to a space where I was not the dominant group. And I understand about the feeling because sometimes I've often taught and reminded people, it's not always a hostile situation. But the sense of like, I'm just different here. Or there's not many people like me in this space, at least initially. And a lot of times when you sit in those spaces and you engage, you get to learn, actually, we do have commonalities. It's not typically apparent. But if you don't have those opportunities, and similarly, if you're a person who feels constantly on the margins, you need to find spaces where you feel supported and connected as well. And I think that's the exciting thing about the potential of a college campus, and especially to answer the question of survey can really get to the bottom of that. But I also would say this. So surveys are super important tools. I think focus groups are really important to a qualitative research. So I'm going to speak up for having focus groups and bringing groups of students or faculty or staff together, community members and saying, what is it like and bringing you know, homophilist groups together where you've got black women together talking, but also then groups that are racially and socio culturally diverse, perhaps. So I think I'm probably entering a little bit, but I definitely think surveys knowing that there's a base of surveys out there coach I mentioned, sir, I mentioned, but also bespoke, custom made surveys for your campus climate in particular. Well, first of all, run, who is a Dean in College of Science at Purdue University, Fort Wayne. Thank you for that really, really good question. And Rich, thank you for that, forgive the expression, very rich answer. There's that's a that's a very practical question and it plugs into a lot of a lot of different things. Thank you. Thank you both. And friends, if you're new to the forum, that's an example of a Q&A question. And we have some more coming up right now for our good friend, P.F. Anderson in Ann Arbor, Michigan, comes this question here. How do we foster both cross movement solidarity, intersectionality and listening collaboration across cultural and cognitive bound? Oops, sorry. Sorry, I cut that out to him across cultural and cognitive boundaries, but still foster critical thinking, assessment and academia. So there's a lot I'm going to put this up again for everyone to see. I guess I need to see that question again. So yeah, so for P.F.'s question, I think it is about questing, right? Like, what are we trying to accomplish in the end? And certainly one of the things that's particularly challenging. I was recently on campus and we had a speaker. You might have heard this person Christopher Rufo, right, and he was on our campus. And I went to go hear him speak. I wanted to hear him speak directly and engage with an audience. And I was actually, you know, surprised to hear, I think, people who perhaps they're ideologically in a place that I'm not engaged with the speaker and say, well, you know, I'm not really feeling that the arguments are making the most convincing arguments, right? People were sort of coming to the space in a critical mindset. And, you know, there's a way of decoupling ad hominems and all the things that make people uncomfortable in the spaces and actually engaging with we have differences of opinion. And I think the important thing to realize is that even we think about engaging in issues that talk about the importance and the value of having different perspectives and different people in a space, there's lots of space for us to think about how that should work best. And, you know, I don't think it requires. I think one of the mistakes that's being made, especially from people who have decided to make this a cultural work issue, is that it's all this way. I hear descriptions of the work and the research I do that don't match what I actually do. And I also know that there are people who engage in the work that I do and the topic areas I work on that do it in a different way, right? And some people, you know, they're definitely more challenging spaces to operate in. And there are places that, you know, I'm believing in that old adage, if you want to go far, I mean, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together, right? And so we all have different approaches to this. So what we should be doing is engaging in those conversations and saying, if we agree that the pursuit of education and part of that is being in spaces where we are curious to learn about each other, we believe that's kind of where we start from. How do we create opportunities and spaces for that learning to occur? And how do we set ground rules in place? And this is going to sound very simplistic. But honestly, when you start engaging with somebody and you're just engaging, and you're like, well, I'm going to convince you, Brian, that you're wrong in your topic. Maybe that's the wrong approach. Maybe the approach should be, let's figure out what we want to accomplish in our conversation. And if you want to vent and you just want to say what you want to say, then if we agree to that, then that by all means do that. But maybe you want to be in a space where the goal is actually to understand why somebody has come to the conclusions they've come to, versus I want to convince you that my perspective is the correct one. And I'm going to suggest that that can happen over time. But a lot of times we just jump into a foray and we don't really think about what we're trying to accomplish in the whole thing. We walk away feeling unsatisfied and frustrated because we didn't get what we wanted because we never actually had an agreement about what we wanted to accomplish. And I think that actually is a really critical point. If you can agree before you start engaging in disagreements, you've already shown there's a connection and a value that you both share. We want to get to this point in the conversation. And also the fact that it's okay to walk away from a conversation without closure, right? It's very unlikely in an hour and a seminar and 15 weeks in a semester, you're going to, well, we got that fixed, you know, no, you're going to probably be in a place of dissonance, like, Oh, I'm partly here and I'm partly there. And I suppose because I am this, you know, I'm a Cold War kid who grew up overseas and lived in the United States and, you know, live in the boundaries of, you know, you know, my mentor, Charles, we would call marginality. I'm so much comfortable with the dissonance in the sense that I'm it's familiar. But a lot of folks aren't. And I think we have to sort of challenge people to, you know, come to a place where dissonance is something that you sort of appreciate as part of the condition. Doesn't mean you were a relativist, doesn't mean you just kind of go with, you know, the flow, but it does mean sometimes things aren't going to get resolved. And like I said, maybe it's over a lifetime you get to a point where you realize, you know, I have these feelings in this context, but the context can change. I can feel different. That's okay. First of all, P. F. Anderson, that's a great question. I admire how much you got in there so elegantly and and rich. That's a that's a fantastic question, but actually answer with so many great pieces of advice, especially leaving things open, which is where we're without closure, which is where we'll probably end this, this hour. Most likely there's a question that comes in for another person that really builds on that really precisely actually. This goes back to your earlier point about curiosity. This is from Chris Jones. And Chris asks, how do we find that touched on that curiosity in the MAGA and QAnon communities? Hmm. Well, let me give an example of this and it's not exactly parallel, but a friend of mine from undergraduate, he and I politically not seeing eye to eye, but liked each other, actually like each other. Like, I think you're smart. I think you're funny. I think you have some bad ideas, but I like you. And we would pass each other, you know, articles and books and read comment on it and that kind of thing. And a couple of years ago, he calls me up and says, Hey, Rich, it's wondering if you're available on a certain date to have a conversation with some friends of mine. And I'm like, Oh, well, you know, yeah, I'm a I'm a scholar. I have no problem talking to anybody. Absolutely. And he's not really being clear about who these people are. So at some point I ask him like, who is this group you're talking to? Yeah. And the group is a political party that I'm not part of. And he is the chairperson of this political party. And he's like, I just think people need to be need to hear some perspectives that maybe are outside of what they usually hear. And he kind of said, look, you know, just kind of keep close to the, you know, just talk about what's historically and blah, blah. And I'm like, and I thought about it for a minute. I'm like, you know, that doesn't sound a good idea. How people are going to how people in my camp going to feel about me doing this first of all, that's why do I personally feel a sense of connection and protection in that space? And then what's going to happen in the space? Well, two things happened that surprised me. The first thing is that somebody tried to de-platform me, which I'm like, what a cool CV line to have de-platform. It didn't work. They created this sort of conspiracy theory that I was a plant. I'm like, well, I think if you look at my scholarship, it's going to be pretty clear who I am. But I went to the space and we had a discourse and we had a dialogue and I talked about the facts and I actually found most people understood and engaged and said, I see that point. Now, I give you all this data and all these sort of perspectives. What do we do next? That's where the differences come up. But the fact that that group welcomed me and respected me and let me speak, I said there's a place for us to engage. And so, you know, I think the problem is that, you know, I like for people, but this is actually true and I find this to be the case. When I talk to people, and usually in modes like this, we're talking about something that we don't often talk about. So I've given you permission to discuss this issue. People want to tell the story. They want to talk about how they came up, their engagement in diverse spaces, and they are at a certain place. So that's actually where I want to start. I mean, I don't want to start with a label that sort of puts you in a certain category because maybe there's more to it than that. And it's hard. And I also think in the book, I talk about the idea of restorative resistance. You don't do this work without putting your mask on first. That's the most important thing. If you know that's not something you're ready to do, or it's going to trigger you in some ways, you don't have to do it that way. But there's all kinds of stripes and ways to engage. And again, it's about ground rules. What are we trying to accomplish? If somebody from a political ideologist different than mine says, I want to try to understand how you see the world. I'm always happy to engage with that. Right. And I think the other thing that's really important is to also understand that, you know, people have the ability to change how they see and understand the world, right? So I don't think people are necessarily locked into things. And this is a very, I live in the state of Texas. So guess what? I know a lot of people are engaged with a lot of people who have very different perspectives than I do. But again, it's about, well, where do we find a space of connection? And then I can reframe the concerns I have. So when I talk about diversity, equity inclusion, I often talk about our place as a competitor in the global marketplace, because I have traveled. I know for a fact, when we go to Indonesia or Malaysia, or we go to Canada, I mean, we have to understand how other people see the world, you know, to just drive capitalist enterprise, right? So that's one reason why people might be concerned. Or my university, we're very proud of the fact that we are a world-class university and very good at football. So PF, I know we might run into you guys at some point in this college football playoff. We'll see. But one of the things we always talk about is as a global competitor, it's our lifeblood to be engaged with different people in different parts of the world, different identities. We can't do our work otherwise. And there are examples throughout history, Alan Turing, of people who, you know, we lost, we lost so much because those people were not able to bring their full authentic selves to the work, right? So I actually think that that's the engagement part in learning to reframe the conversation. So maybe I'm not necessarily talking about this the same way I'm talking to somebody who is my same political, you know, avenue, you know, I just have to learn to talk about this differently. And ultimately, I think I haven't met people who said to me, you know what, I'm not curious about the world, you know, do it like I do it. I'm sure people exist, but I think most people are like, I am curious about the world, but maybe the pace is upsetting to me, or maybe that particular format is problematic to me, but I don't necessarily hear people saying things like, you know, I'm turned off by that engagement altogether. Well, thank you. That's an inspiring answer. And to a really, really great question. Thank you, Chris, for that question. We have we're coming close to the end of time, or the end of our hour, rather, not the heat of the universe. And I want to make sure that we get as many questions in as possible. There's a question from Katie Evans that she wanted me to ask. She says, I'm curious about strategies for DEI organizations for DEI organizational change. From my research and experience, successful change is often limited to programs, offices, individual people are groups. So I'm wondering if you want to tackle that one. It's a great question, Kate. So I think it's about sort of thinking structurally. So I think one thing that is critical in this conversation is, first of all, to engage a broad coalition of folks, both in the institutional context and beyond it. So one of the greatest drivers for DEI is industry, right? It's very important higher education. We want our students to get jobs. Look, I'm a classical liberal arts, you know, knowledge for knowledge sake. But there's also an imperative that this is a expenditure that people make and they want to have outcomes that are. So industry is telling us we need people who, you know, I'll give an example. I can't remember his name now. John Brennan came to this campus many years ago and talked about from the from the CIA, former CIA, MSNBC. He came to campus and expressly talked about the state of the world and how the State Department needed people who understood different cultures, especially the Middle East is critical, critical need. And, you know, it was a weird kind of like, wait a minute, that's not what I would not make that connection normally. But I think about also the Fisher case in 2014, the University of Texas, the Fisher versus University of Texas case that we have these amethyst groups, the Fortune 100, the US military saying we look at universities to produce graduates who can work in a diverse world, who understand and reframe things from different perspectives, you know, because we're like our national security depends on right. It's telling that in the most recent Supreme Court case, the SFFA versus Harvard case, there is a exception for the name for the service academies. Because the military has said we need to be able to have people lead organizations in our in our structure that are not simply based on a cut score. We need other criteria. That's pretty powerful. And a lot of times it's a strange bedfellow, right? A lot of people who think that diversity, equity inclusion matters would not go to the military for support. But it's a really telling issue about how important the framing is, right? That I think looking at other structures and we can actually leverage institutions outside of higher education to help us in that work. To say the US military needs this, you know, industry needs this. And I know people say, well, Rich, that's too much industry talk, you know, you're neoliberal. I get it, right? You can't win. Right. You can't win. But I do think if you truly believe that it's advantageous and better for us as a society to have more voices and to have more people in the spaces, you look for, you know, direct, I would call it interest convergence. Where do we find a common point of agreement? And we might not have a lot of great beyond that, but simply having that experience is super important. So I think structurally, it's about really thinking about the university as a part of community, a community that connects to postgraduate outcomes that connects to what's happening in our community. My city of Austin Texas has a very long and very problematic history when it comes to racial inequity. So that should be part of what drives us to do the work we do in our institutional space. Well, again, that's that's a fantastic answer. And I, Katie, thank you for the great question. Next time, we'll bring you up on stage, Katie, to get you a task in person. Unfortunately, we are at the very end of our hour and we have to wrap things up. We had a couple of other questions left and Rich, I'll send them to you. So if you want to please do friends in the chat really quickly, there's a couple of requests for the chat transcript. Let me know in the chat if you don't want me to do that or if you want me to not use your words, what we'll do is we'll anonymize it to their typical pattern. But just let me know in the chat. And there you have a lot of fans, Rich, you can see there in the chat. My last question to ask you actually is, how do we keep up with you? How do we find out about your work and projects? Is Twitter slash X? Is that the best way or is it? Yeah, yeah. So I'm at Dr. Rich Reddick on X or Twitter or what's called. I'm not doing that much of it anymore. So I need to get better at that. LinkedIn is a good place for me. Richard Reddick, you know, UT Austin, I pop up pretty quickly. And as I said earlier, I podcast, I do a podcast with MPR called Black Austin Matters. And I have actually been told by people who don't live in Austin that they find it very interesting. So my co-host, Lisa B. Thompson is another person that I do this podcast. And then we just talk to Black Austinites about all kinds of things. So community leaders, barbers, people who work in the package industry, you know, it's not like just the luminaries, it's all kinds of folks. And of course, the book for story of resistance is at Harvard at Press, it's at Amazon. And I'm really excited to engage. I will say this, I had somebody read the book and said, I want to engage with this issue. I was like, I'll get back to you. And he got upset because I was able to reach out to him immediately. And I'm like, give me time, because I do want to engage with these ideas. But I do think it's about building a coalition of folks who are interested in our work. And I've just had a blast here, Brian. So thank you so much for this. My pleasure. It's it's absolutely. And in the chat, by the way, Mark Wilson just shared a link to Black Austrian Matters. Thank you. So well, we will definitely keep an eye on you. I'm sorry, I can't resist. But what we'll we'd love to have you come back later on as as your I would love to come back. So please and thank you once again for being a fantastic guest. Take care and be safe and keep doing this great work. Thank you so much. Friends don't leave just yet. Let me just point out where things are headed. And thank you again for the awesome discussion and questions. If you'd like to keep talking about all these issues about how to do DEI and all the different dimensions that Dr. Redick has outlined, please keep talking on the social world. You can see here my handles on Twitter, Bastadon threads, Blue Sky and of course the blog. Just use the hashtag FTTE. If you'd like to look into our previous sessions on all kinds of issues around race and justice, just go to tinyurl.com slash FTF archive. If you want to look ahead to our upcoming sessions, we have community gathering next week, an AI scenario the week after that. Sessions on supporting mental health and campus, AI and college writing in 100 years of ed tech and still more. If you'd like to see the session, just go to form that future of education.us. Thank you all again for being a fantastic, fantastic group today. I've really, really enjoyed and learned a lot from this discussion. Everybody please keep up with the great work. If you're in the northern hemisphere, please stay warm depending on where you are. I hope you all get a chance to earn some well-deserved rest. Take care, everybody. Be safe and sound. And we'll see you next time online. Bye-bye.