We are starting a new series called “Stories of Hope and Resistance” which will be featured in our newsletter and on our blog. Working to eradicate and mitigate inequality and injustice can be tiring and demoralizing. In addition to minding self-care, we also need to listen and share stories that remind us of why we fight and how we can fight future battles. We hope this series offers you a renewed sense of purpose, hope, and commitment for your work.

Note: We received so many entries for this first round that we have decided to replace this issue’s scholar-activist entry with half of the stories we received. We will feature the other half of the stories in our next issue.


The rain and gloomy weather seemed appropriate at the start,
as students first huddled together outside Campbell Hall.
But as our voices echoed,
as we made way to Storke Tower –
our unity,
our community,
caused the sun to break the clouds.
We walked out of class and work this Friday January 20th 2017,
joining hands, arms, steps and voices,
as we made way through our campus communities.
United against Trump,
against racism,
against xenophobia,
against Islamophobia,
against gender violence,
against the intolerances.
Our faculty, staff, and students together chanting,
from our hearts,
from our minds.
From our brilliance, our intelligence, and our power,
the chants were loud,
our anger, our resistance, and our hopes ever roaring.
And as I stood and listened to my community,
my brothers, my sisters,
my student family,
express fear and concern for our lives,
I heard snaps, loud claps and witnessed many raised fists to the sky.

We students, we social justice advocates,
we share our dedication and hope for equitable futures,
for dismantling the injustices,
for resisting the racisms.
Today, tomorrow and the next,
Me, we, and UCSB will not rest.


 Written by Jenny Sperling – University of California Santa Barbara

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At my institution, it would be an understatement to say that many of us have been shaken this year – not just by events during the presidential election, but also by the constant stories of violence against Black and Brown faces.  While many faculty members felt as though the divides are just too much to overcome, some of us felt otherwise.

With this in mind, and feeling a bit brave, we organized an event called “Bridging the Chasm: Social and Political Dialogue that Matters”.  While we initially wanted to have an event that honored those who feel frightened by the events in our country, we instead decided to have a more inclusive event, with voices around the table that may not ever share a room normally.  This conversation included a student of Muslim decent; an advocate for those who are transgender; a pro-life advocate; a leader from the campus multi-cultural and diversity organization; a feminist; a retired US colonel; a student who represented Black Lives Matter; and voices from a variety of political affiliations.  We were hopeful that we might have civil dialogue, but worried that the event would devolve into more acts of hate speech.

At the end of the conversation, I can say that we were proud to have had two hours of civil, thoughtful, critical discourse.  While we certainly did not solve any problems during that time, we did bring together viewpoints that are often difficult to hear, depending on your own beliefs and values.  We stripped away some fear of the “other” and hopefully broke down some barriers to healthy, productive, hopeful conversation.

Written by Dr. Danielle T. Ligocki
Assistant Professor, Teacher Development and Educational Studies
Oakland University
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The Morning After

The morning after –a space in which one finds themselves after a rough night.  The morning after requires a “thing” to cleanse away the remnants from the night before. But for this morning after…there’s nothing to take.  Nothing to do or say. On this morning after, as I prepare to go to work, I know the person who shares my space also knows it’s the morning after. She knows there’s nothing to say to a person like me from a person like her who said they voted for HRC – but secretly, she knows she didn’t.  She and the other women know today is that morning after when 53% of them and a percent so small of women who look like me are responsible for this morning after space…And now we’re wondering…Now we’re cautious and suspicious.
This is not that, “I thought I knew you and you knew me and even though you live in that skin that says regardless of your credentials or mine, you’ll win, and we’re okay anyway,” space. No…on this morning after, we’re not okay. An unexpected line’s been drawn. And since it’s that morning after, we’re silent because we know what morning after today is. It’s a morning after that’s brought a heaviness for which there are simply no words. We’re silent on this morning after and when we get to this day’s end, we sigh, knowing we’ve survived.

Written by Tanji Reed Marshall, PhD Candidate, Curriculum & Instruction, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
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It is nearly impossible to find silver-lining amidst the fear and uncertainty that the election of Donald Trump and his cabinet have aroused in the hearts of many educators. Yet, we know as critical educators, it is our work to persistently navigate that trying terrain that lies between hope and despair. In the days following the election, 26 members the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Texas at Austin gathered together without a plan, but with a sense of urgency to address the threats that this election poses to the well-being of many of our students and community members. Within the course of the meeting we, professors and graduate students, formed what is now known as the Coalition Against Racism, Hate, and Violence. Together, and in anticipation of the dangerous and uncertain future, we drafted a statement in order to be clear about what we stand for and what we stand against. Most importantly, we collectively made the decision to stand in solidarity as concerned educators and with those who have been historically harmed and are presently targeted by emboldened violence and hateful rhetoric. Our work will continue to be amplified, to be unambiguous, and to move in a direction of hope for a more just society, as we stand alongside one another in sustained and active resistance. The community, trust, and solidarity we are working to build inspires hope – a silver-lining of sorts – that reminds me of what is possible when people choose to engage in unified resistance.

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Killing Their Souls

This past spring I attended a session within an academic conference on Women of Color in academia. The theme of the session was how academic institutions advertently and inadvertently, through both policies and procedures, impose racism, sexism, and other discriminatory ‘-isms’ onto their students, faculty, and staff members. The women of this session discussed how their intersectionality of identities was at odds with the dominant culture of their professional institutions and this schism caused not only personal distress but also trauma. They boldly proclaimed that many of their ‘souls were dying’.  These provocative claims have resonated within me for months. As I sat there, in that cold conference room, I asked myself what is killing their souls and were their souls really dying?

The idea of the slow death of one’s soul has haunted me for months. I have asked myself repeatedly as an educator, who colludes in the killing of one’s soul? Have I ever played a role in the killing of a student’s soul?

This school year as the presidential election has transpired; I have taken this opportunity to make not only history but also civics come alive for my students, their engagement in this year’s election process was extensive and they greatly enjoyed it. But the as the ballots were cast and president elect was named, I saw the lights in their eyes start to dim. This was not the outcome that they expected, but more importantly their new president seemed to be in direct opposition to who they are as young people of color. Some cried daily, as what were believed to be idle threats about the ‘building of a wall’ or ‘helping the blacks’ or ‘grabbing women by their genitalia’ became more real.

On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, I could feel the tension within my classroom boiling up. My students were on edge and their nerves had gotten the best of them. Their eyes were low and their spirits were noticeably crushed. In that moment I understood what it meant to watch one’s soul die, it was happening right in front of my eyes within their little bodies. Before I could even start their day of learning my administrator came into my classroom and asked why I wasn’t showing the children the inauguration.

I was appalled. I did not think it was necessary to explain that for this population of students, who did not possess the skill sets need to situate this event in their lives, showing the inauguration was grossly inappropriate. It became my job to protect their souls.

How could I, not only as their teacher, but also as someone who looks and feels like them, allow them to watch someone who has said racist, demeaning, discriminatory, and obscene comments get promoted to the highest office in our country. Although this act of resistance was minute, on this day I could not play a role in the killing of their souls.

Written by Martha Ann Wilkins Ed.D
Educator

So long as White Supremacy (and people who want to fight it) exists, racial conflict will always manifest – and it is perhaps in higher education where this should be most welcomed and nurtured. It should not be feared. More specifically, racial protests should not be ignored – they are in fact the very awesome phenomenon that occurs when injustice meets knowledge.
 
Racial conflict is a product of a system that continues to fight racial hierarchies. Racial conflict also signifies discord between beliefs, values and practices within a group or between two or more constituencies.  If we consider the various groups that currently coexist within our universities, we must learn to accept racial conflict as a natural part of a diverse system. If we consider ourselves defenders of justice and as stakeholders in the education of global citizens, then we should accept racial protest as a form of racial conflict that attempts to correct injustices committed against under-represented and under-served minoritized groups in higher education.
 
White Supremacy is a system in which beliefs, values, and practices are developed, maintained and upheld to preserve social and political dominance of one racialized population over all others When non-dominant racial populations contest those beliefs, values, and practices, racial contestation – a type of organizational conflict - arises. Thus, racial conflict should be taken seriously on college campuses – whether it is a racist verbal interaction between two students or larger more structural forms of racial conflict (e.g. stating that diversity is an important value of the university while overtly or subtly resisting the hiring and promotion of People of Color in faculty and senior administration). These incidents of racial conflict suggest that there are clashes in racial beliefs, values, and practices within the institution. The outcome of these conflicts reveals the interests of the institutions of higher education.
 
My research on campus racial conflict reveal important information about racial conflict (some which are included at the end of this piece) but among them is that students do not trust administrators to do the right thing when it comes to campus racial conflict.  Some students admit that they don’t trust administrators because they believe they represent and protect the institution and not them.
 
Additionally (to my surprise!), my research also reveals that administrators felt that they had a sense of how students were feeling about the racial climate on their campus – until their students were interviewed and their thoughts recorded by the media.  They felt that students often gave a different opinion about the racial climate when the representatives from the media asked them about the same issue.
 
Drawing on over a year of qualitative research involving 35 interviews with students, faculty, and administrators, I examined the perceptions of campus racial conflict at two types of institutions of higher education: a minority-serving institution (MSI) and a historically White institution (HWI). Based on the data, I highlight several strategies below that can be employed by colleges and universities seeking to understand students’ experiences with racial conflict:
 

1. Be clear about campus racial conflict policies and consequences
2. Be honest about the kinds of incidents of racial conflict students have experienced at their particular institution. Part of my research agenda includes a typology of incidents that may occur at different institutional types.  This typology can then be modified to each institution that desire to delve deeper into this topic.
3. MSIs (Minority Serving Institutions) can suffer from incidents of racial conflict, too. MSIs should do regular investigations of the kinds of institutional and structural forms of racial conflict that may be more likely to occur at these institutions.
4. HWIs (Historically White Institutions) need to re-evaluate and study the effectiveness of their diversity mechanisms.
5. Racial conflict can’t be addressed in one training day.  In fact, some of my respondents desire a conversation that goes beyond punitive practices. If racial conflict is only addressed when something “bad” happens, we tell stakeholders that racism isn’t a part of our daily lives and it occurs only at “bad” institutions.
6. Employ people who have the skills to study the aftermath of an incident of racial conflict is important to study. According to my respondents, these incidents often spur an interest in learning about the history of the institution, an increased desire to take classes that address race and racism in society, and know who allies are.
7. Take care of those affected by racial battle fatigue. If some stakeholders are tired of “diversity talk” on their campuses, there are a whole other group that are tired from always being called upon to do the work that ends up as a study on a bookshelf. Addressing racial battle fatigue is an important part of addressing campus racial conflict. This especially should be emphasized among those who participate in racial protests.

 
Campus racial conflict is a daily occurrence at all our institutions, whether it makes a headline or not.  Campus racial protest, a form of racial conflict, is an active type of racial contestation that opposes a White Supremacist regime. Diversity politics, then, is an important tool but not sufficient in the battle against White Supremacists beliefs, values, and practices - with some study these could be identified on our campuses.  Our job as student affairs administrators is to be honest with ourselves and figure out what role we play in this kind of environment: do we want to maintain the regime as it is? Do we want to be the band-aid with the hope that these incidents of racial conflict will heal on their own? Or do we aspire to temporary peaks of progress and employ mechanisms that truly combat White Supremacy 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been wondering what exactly I want to say in this post. I’ve psyched myself into thinking that this is a big deal for me. I am, at least in the field in which we work, a “nobody”. I have done nothing of note. I have neither won any prestigious awards nor published in any journals or books. I have not earned any fellowships. As a matter of fact, were it not for my advisor willing to take a risk on me as a student, I would not even be continuing my education - at least not in this formal sense.

Needless to say, writing this has made me nervous because I have perceived it, rightly or wrongly, at my first shot at finally doing what I have always wanted to do: be heard. And now, in my first moment of triumph, I find myself, poetically, at a loss for words - or at least having trouble in finding the right words. Ironically enough, I think that “finding the right words” perfectly encapsulates my evolving concern with the way that justice is spoken about.

Anger served as a key motivation for coming back to grad school. I was angry that my student’s brilliance would not be recognized because it could not be quantified on any state test. I was angry because I succeeded in a system built to foster talents like mine while my older brother, eternally wiser than I could ever wish to be, was deemed a failure by unfair measures and, after serving 8 years in the military, was discarded with no assistance, job prospects or preparation for reentering the education system. I was angry that while my younger brother made it into all his dream schools, he was barred entry because of finances. I was angry that my sister was being provided a criminally bad education and that nothing was being done to change that. Most of all, I was angry because unless I or one of my siblings succeeded in this education and financial system, my parents would never have the better life they were promised when they moved to this country.

I am not alone in using anger as my motivation. I would venture to guess that most people do. The anger in the room at the Critical Educators for Social Justice group meeting in Philadelphia this year seemed palpable. We spoke in terms of “sides” and “battles”. We spoke about what we had to do to “win this fight”. I listened in on conversations about finding allies and ignoring those who push against you. In much of the writing about social justice in education, authors use the same violent, military metaphors.

When we speak about justice with such vitriol, what are we really talking about? The answer seems to be vengeance.

When we use terms such as “warrior”, “the right side”, “battlefield”, and “war”, we fall into the trap that education is a place where there should be winners and losers. We too quickly equate ideas and forces with actual people and in doing so strip them of their humanity.

This language of violence and battle implies a lack of love or, at the very least, a lack of confidence in the power of love, compassion, and forgiveness. Especially within the field of education, we need to move away from framing anything we do in terms of battle, in terms of winners and losers, and especially in terms of vengeance. I am not claiming that every idea has some intrinsic value or that everyone should be allowed to do what they want, but every opinion must be heard. I think peoples’ default response to this claim would be to bring up hate speech and the terrible effects it has on people, both emotionally and physically - but even hate speech contains value in that we learn from it examples of how far the human spirit can lean in the direction of evil, how easily corruptible we are and provides opportunities to show how far the human spirit can lean in the other direction in response. There are lessons to be learned from all speech and all examples and if we truly claim to be seekers of justice, then we should also, as educators, model what that justice looks like.

Far too often, I find myself speaking in terms of battle, war, and violence. At times, I yearn for debate and argument because I want to show “the other side” how much smarter I am. I want to embarrass them through logic and I want them to submit to my ideals. Other times, I want the opposition to win because I want something to fight against. I fear that if I don’t have something to fight against, then my life will have no purpose. And occasionally, I want to fight to silence the people who disagree with me. Still, is it just to silence any voice or does that set an unwanted precedent?

We should be careful, then, to not make the mistake of attempting to silence the voice of others as our voices grow stronger. We cannot brush aside the opinions and thoughts of those who disagree with us. We cannot mock them or treat them as an enemy or speak of them as though they were ignorant. There is a sense to their thoughts. For example, I used to feel intense anger when I argued with my father about politics. He would speak to me about my youth and tell me that I would eventually change my mind as I grew older. He would tell me, and at times still does, to worry about nothing but making enough money. That money should be not the only but at least a principal guide in all my career decisions. I felt like he didn’t understand me and was not listening to my thoughts. I came to realize that while he may or may not truly listen to me, I never really truly attempted to listen to him, at least not what lay behind his words. He lived through a time of dictatorship and disaster in Central America. He saw groups come in and promise democracy and power for them only to rescind on those promises and promote their own well being at the expense of the people. His world is one where money equals power and choice - two things that were actively taken from him for most of his life. When I came to understand this, I was able to better understand and communicate with him when we spoke about politics and the future and solutions. We should focus not on our differences but on our similarities and start our search for justice from that place of compassion, cooperation and love. 

I think many of us, myself included, simply want to be heard, to have a voice in the matter - and I think that is no different for those people whom we are so used to considering our enemies.

This is not easy and I do not claim to have it figured out. I reside as far from my own ideals as any other person, and it is still difficult for me to not think or write in terms of vengeance. But we must at least try to think and write and live by words of love, acceptance, compassion, and, most of all, forgiveness. We must be careful with the words we use and not allow our anger or our flesh memory to get the better of us. I would never suggest that we should forget and move on without dealing with the past, but rather that we should forgive and learn, the same way we as educators or parents would want our students or children to act if some ill befell them due to another.

The power of words is that they create feelings and stir actions and if we do not rectify the way we speak and write we will only succeed in creating a world where we constantly hate one another.  We should seek to build alliances across ideology and resist the temptation to stick to any dogma.

I believe James Baldwin said it best when writing to his nephew on the centennial of emancipation; “The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them, and I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it”. Acceptance, cooperation, and understanding are key, especially in our roles as educators. If we simply seek retribution, that will only lead to another group seeking more vengeance on us. Revolution is cyclical by definition – what we need is evolution and the acceptance of the idea that we can all move forward together as humanity.

Daniel Vivas is a PhD student at the University of Maryland, College Park. His work revolves around redefining justice using teachers' and students' voices. Originally from Miami, Daniel was a public school teacher for several years in New York City.

I always crack a joke with all of my students, from high school to graduate school, that I am fearful that after having class with me they will either feel ridiculously angry, ridiculously depressed or both.  Continuing my unrest, I often tell them I fear them running out of class yelling, “We’re all gonna die!”  

Even though this is more reflective of my irrational fear, I have to come to grips with something:  these are serious times we’re living in.  From the low-level extortion known as the Educational Teacher Performance Assessment (EdTPA), to the school-to-prison pipeline, to other forms of structured state violence, it’s not all good in our respective locales.

In the same vein, I also do not want to offer a collective eulogy to colleges of education or the work of the scholar-activist.  Instead, I think this current moment is like having a bare-knuckle fight with an adversary in a phone booth:  there is little room for error and explicit, unfettered human will is the most precious resource at your disposal.  While some may think this viewpoint to be extreme, I offer the collective educational narratives of New Orleans (chartering an entire district), Chicago (150-plus school closures or turnarounds since 2004), and Philadelphia (almost 50 school closures in two years) to provide the potential to be victorious in the conflict.  Low-income/working class families of color are fighting for their collective lives in the aforementioned places. 

Because they are, as people who make the claim of “scholar activist” or “warrior scholar,” I think there are a few things we need to ponder moving forward.  Again, the issue is not to offer a “how-to” guide.  In order to support community-driven efforts through listening, engaging, and then our research, the following points suggest a return to the practice of the organizers, peacemakers and freedom fighters that come before us.

Be humble. This is often understated.  If you are coming into a space where people are unfamiliar with you, do not assume you know anything about the conditions in that particular locale.  Instead, operate with the understanding that you probably don’t know a damn thing. Because you don’t, the best you can do is introduce yourself, ask for permission to ask questions and be quiet afterwards.

Seek support and be willing to support.  The unmitigated abuse of graduate students must effectively end.  The façade of neoliberal, competition-based research is more prone to further exploit populations than it is to bring them equitable opportunities.  If you know of a grad student that’s suffering, reach out to them.  For grad students who are experiencing this dynamic, understand that there are those and those like you that will affirm your sanity.  The simple practices of writing, eating and talking together as graduate students are critical for a healthy existence moving forward.  The challenge is not to forget this when you become a faculty member.

Build political clarity. By political clarity, I mean the ability to analyze, understand, and move based on the work we do in solidarity with those experiencing injustice.  If you are making the intentional effort to work with communities that are engaged in a fight for their right to quality education and to live free of persecution, you have engaged in a deeply political act.  It is nothing to run from.  It should be embraced.  Struggle is not an empty verb.  It is reflective of the real-life conditions that people engage along the lines of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.  Instead of a ‘lone-ranger’ mentality, we need to embrace one that is collective in nature, taking to heart the suggestions of Audre Lourde, Gloria Anzaldua, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and Laura Pulido.  In their lessons is the challenge of thinking about research beyond the accolades of the academy.  For my own work, political clarity comes about through an intentional attempt to answer the questions “Why” and “For What?” To some, this may appear simplistic.  In the end, however, these simple questions allow us to make the necessary informed decisions as to whether or not we will continue the insidious practice of research “on” communities.  An intentional interruption to the White, Western-European colonial narrative is part and parcel of the political act centered in justice instead of personal gain.

As always, I hope this makes sense.  If it doesn’t, I take full responsibility for my mistakes.     

Check out Dr. Stovall's interview "The Facts and Failures of Education" with The Nation. 

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: We invited Beth to write the inaugural post for The Scholactivist because her dissertation, "Raising Citizens or Raising Test Scores? Teach For America and “No Excuses” Charter Schools in Post-Katrina School Reform” was honored with the 2014 CESJ SIG's Outstanding Dissertation Award. Her work represents the newest wave of scholars hoping to link their research and their activism in powerful ways. As a recent PhD graduate, Beth writes about her attempts to code switch among her "many voices" - an experience that will ring true for many of us. Please read her full post and take a moment to share your own stories about using your "many voices" in the comments section below. 

MY MANY VOICES
II originally came to academia not because I necessarily wanted to be an academic but because I was angry and confused. After about eight years working in public education, it had become increasingly clear to me that schooling for low-income, students of color had become a numbers game. Standardized tests, ostensibly developed as a proxy by which to measure student learning, seemed to have become the purpose for schooling itself. I could not understand how seemingly well-intentioned people were willing to trust in and play along. I returned to graduate school in hopes of developing the language and framework to understand and speak to this problem and to hopefully gain the credentials that would allow me to be heard by people who are making policy decisions.

For context, I first entered the field of education through the organization Teach For America (TFA). I applied for TFA in 2002 because as a college student, TFA recruiters convinced me that they would prepare me to be a highly effective teacher in a school and district that greatly needed the expertise of people like me; inexperienced, untrained, recent college graduates. I was young, disturbed about the education inequities I had recently been made aware of in a college course, and looking for something meaningful to do after graduation.

Over my two years in TFA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I developed a number of lasting concerns. While this was before the charterization of urban school districts and prior to TFA’s conjoining with market based reforms, there was intensive pressure in these early years of NCLB, to produce test scores at any cost. These pressures came from the school in which I worked but even more so from TFA, whose training focused primarily on classroom management, assessment, and an ideology that conflated my students’ test scores, my own self-worth, and the rhetoric of social justice. It was difficult to implement these pedagogies while still developing meaningful relationships and honoring my students’ culture, identity, and humanity. I grew wary as I watched a number of my peers misrepresent or inflate their students’ successes in ways that seemed both conscious and subconscious.

Through my subsequent experiences working in schools and in my graduate studies, I came to realize that TFA is not only an ineffective Band-Aid effort, but is also deeply implicated and central to the neoliberal overhaul of public education that all but suffocates the social justice and democratic purposes of schooling. The organization has done an unparalleled job of recruiting recent college graduates, capitalizing on these grads’ passions for ending educational inequity, and training them to believe that market-based policies and pedagogies that increase test scores are in service of social justice.

I realized that I had a particular privilege and responsibility, as a former TFA teacher, to speak out and investigate further. In my dissertation study, I spent a year researching TFA affiliated, “No Excuses” charter schools in New Orleans, a city that has become, since Hurricane Katrina, an experimental laboratory for market-based policies and a campground for TFA teachers to develop.

Throughout my research, I met a number of people who, like me, had deep concerns about neoliberalism, market-based reform, and the role of TFA. As a graduate student, I had organized a number of film screenings to encourage public debate about current trends in education reform. I wanted to do something similar on a national scale specific to people’s growing concerns about TFA. Along with my friend and colleague Kerry Kretchmar, we decided to hold the “Organizing Resistance to TFA and their Role in Privatization” at the biannual Free Minds Free People conference, a national event convened by the Education for Liberation Network. We invited parents and activists Ashana Bigard and Ruth Idakula, veteran teacher Stephanie Anders, and TFA affiliates Hannah Sadtler, Derek Roguski, Hannah Price, and Rebecca Radding, most of whom I had met through my research in New Orleans to collaborate in organizing the event. We hoped to bring together the voices of all of those who were concerned, raise public awareness, and hopefully shift the conversation in the media. [For media coverage of this event, check out Valerie Strauss' blog in the Washington Post, this article in Popular Resistance, an article in The Progressive's Public School Shakedown series about the TFA Truth Squad, and this Truthout report. For updates on the group's work and additional resources, check out the Resistance to TFA Facebook page.]

I learned a lot through this process that I will continue to reflect on. In simplest of terms, I learned that I had, in fact, learned the academic language too well. As scholars, we have been trained to speak with authority, construct soundproof arguments, reference empirical research, and show up with a structured agenda. Those with whom I collaborated helped me to realize that this language, in fact, silences people, disenfranchises the voices and experiences of those who are most deeply affected by neoliberal reform, and ultimately limits the potential impact of an event. Instead, they reminded me of what I had known intuitively before enrolling in graduate school and in fact came to graduate school to explore. Relationships matter, relationships take time, people appreciate and connect more to stories than data, and are more able to engage in conversation when everyone is using language that everyone can access. As a scholar activist, I want to push the academy to shift their language to that which is accessible to everyone, and in the meantime, I will continue to learn how to code-switch between the multiple communities with whom I engage.

I have just moved to North Carolina for my first faculty position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at North Carolina State University. I am excited about my new position and the promise of continuing to explore my research interests. I am also anxious about how I will balance the publishing requirements of a tenure track position with my commitment to publishing for mass consumption and the community collaboration that fuels and fulfills me. I am committed to continuing to work alongside the incredible and inspiring people I have met in New Orleans, but I also hope that I will begin to develop connections and learn from the many people who are working to challenge the issues that ail my new state, one which has waged a war on public education, assaulted voting rights, and continues to contribute to the school to prison pipeline by being one of two states that prosecutes 16 and 17 year olds as adults.  

I am still finding my many voices. I can only imagine that this will become increasingly more challenging as the pressures of the academy intensify and as I engage with more people. I hope to do this by continuing to stay connected to and work alongside those who are most directly affected by educational policy decisions; teachers, parents, and students. I hope that in doing this I will not lose the voice that feels the most natural for me to speak about the things that concern me the most; educational equity and social justice.