Advancing Women in Leadership 2021

[Music] so [Music] hello everyone i am shirley hoekstra and i'm the president of the council for christian colleges and universities and i am delighted to welcome you to this year's advancing women in leadership events as you know march is national women's history month and that is a great time to join the national conversation and efforts to continue to support advancing women and girls through education first and then with programs and opportunities to inspire and encourage leadership at all levels welcome everyone to our 2021 advancing women and leadership virtual event we're so excited and encouraged that so many of you have been able to participate in this year's events both on march 5th and today march 26th on behalf of the cccu i want to thank westmont college in santa barbara california for serving as our host what an opportunity westmont has provided us to keep the momentum of this event going even in the midst of a pandemic because we've had to connect virtually this year hundreds more across the country as well as around the world were able to connect together during this women's history month our theme this year is lead with action i'm so encouraged to hear how many cccu campuses have gathered and started groups and activities to support to recognize and to celebrate women through education let's keep this momentum going so today it is my honor to moderate a discussion on inclusive excellence leadership in action today i am here with my amazing sister warriors also known as chief diversity officers they are the prophets they are called to speak truth they are the teachers called to educate and they are the healers called to bring the ministry of reconciliation in the midst of a pandemic the murderers of george floyd briana taylor and others hate crimes towards asian americans the metoo movement and the importance of validating women's voices january 6 christian nationalism white supremacy and so much more they have led with truth and grace and so today we are honored and privileged to hear from them hear their stories but also some of their freak frank ideas on where we are at with christian higher ed so today put on your listening ears open your heart ask god to reveal to you what you need to hear today i hope you will gain insight information ideas that will cultivate further discussion and action on each of your campuses so with that let me introduce you to our amazing panelists literally if i if i went through all of their bios i could have spent this entire time just talking about who they are the accolades uh the the background the expertise the knowledge that they bring to our campuses on cccu campuses but because of shortness of time i'm just going to give you snippets for each of them so first we have dr sheila caldwell who is the inaugural chief intercultural engagement officer for wheaton college welcome sheila just wave we also have dr sandra mayo who is the inaugural vice president for diversity equity and inclusion now vice provost for inclusive excellence at seattle pacific university welcome sandy and then we have dr lorna hernandez harvest um sorry uh lorna trying to get your name right is the chief diversity officer and associate vice president for diversity equity and inclusion at whitworth university next we have miss tamara malone our chief diversity officer at biola university welcome tamara last but not least we have the reverend doctor no i'm not talking about martin luther king but we've got the reverend dr lina crusoe she is the inaugural vice president for intercultural learning and engagement and chief diversity officer at southern nazarene university so please join me and again in welcoming these amazing women leader scholars all right so let's jump right into our discussion and and some questions today this is like a fireside chat just want to hear your thoughts on some some things that we've been ruminating on what is inclusive excellence uh part of our theme today is inclusive uh excellence and leadership so what exactly is inclusive excellence and why does it matter who'd like to start us out i can start us off for me inclusive excellence means a community that engages all of its diversity with the purpose of enhancing the educational experience of all of the students that are part of that community it really is it's i see it as an approach a framework that is designed to really enhance the educational experience of every single student in our community and why is it important because if nothing else because that is the world we live in it is a diverse world world in which we all need to benefit from that diversity from that knowledge from those experiences so to me inclusive excellence means having the ability to be open to learn from each member of my community and if i could uh build on what lorna said i would also think it's it's part of the recognition that it takes everyone in the organization to be excellent um oftentimes when we think about contributions and who's giving credit you don't always see everyone equally receiving a credit uh for the work they do i think about women's history month and black history month and we we we we're sometimes shocked by these known facts that oh did you know a woman created this or african-american created that and we're not surprised by that but we're often not given credit for building up organizations for even building up america when we think about who created the stop light or who created technology for the cell phone i mean these are women of color oftentimes who are contributing um in these spaces so i think just one that recognition and then with that i also think the recognition that you have to uncover inequities um to be inclusive and excellent and then you also have to create those infrastructures and and be able to sustain because if we're going to talk about inclusiveness we have to recognize that there are people who have been excluded historically like higher ed wasn't created with all of us in mind and so if we're going to be inclusive we have to recognize those historical challenges that really kind of kept people out of the system and think about what does it look like to actually recreate and build a system or add to that system that's going to help all individuals flourish and thrive so i think that's what inclusive excellence means creating infrastructures for all to flourish and thrive great that's great i might add to that just very briefly i would say that inclusive excellence to me is a mindset i mean do we really believe that diversity equity and inclusion are important to our institutional effectiveness and if so how do we demonstrate that on a day-to-day basis so how is it shaping our curriculum how's it shaping our policies how does it show up in our budget planning how is it informing our hiring and what does it prompt us to say do and be in the midst of tragedy like tuesday's shootings in atlanta and are we as campuses ready to support those in our midst who are fearful and grieving and suffering and if it's not reflected in these areas what is standing in the way and so i think an inclusive excellence framework really demands that we would um have some honest reflection as well and thinking about the ways that we've either integrated um dei work across the campus or how we really expected it to come from one office um has it been a siloed effort how has it become part of our strategic planning how is it embedded into the core aspects of the institutional functioning so sandy to your point and i really appreciate this these are great points um just being honest what what is the pulse on campus are you finding that people are welcoming of this inclusive excellence mindset or is there resistance or is it a combination yeah i can i can start there um it's it's a combination you know and i think there is i think there is stated support for the work of diversity and inclusive excellence and to a large extent i think there's a real desire to see our campuses grow in this area but i think that what it actually takes to make significant cultural shifts within our institutions means that there's going to be um we have to give up some things right and so that sense of loss i think is really challenging for people to grapple with and when we think about um you know how are we going to uh really broaden who is brought to the leadership table and that they might actually make some changes and that that might be uncomfortable um when we think about the curriculum and really interrogating what our curriculum has been and whose voices have been represented are we completing about that differently we're comfortable thinking about how our scholarship might be shaped are we comfortable even thinking differently about what counts as metrics for success and we know that a lot of dei work is not very measurable and so sometimes it can be sort of relegated to the less important can we even reshape our thinking around that so i would say that it's it's sort of a mix there's an espouse sort of set of values around this but what it will take to get us there um often uh is is sort of reflected in people withdrawing from the work or or actively being resistant to the work yeah you know i i appreciate one of the things i appreciate about what's happening here i think and i know tamara you will probably jump in too which um you can even see the essence of the modeling right the actual living example of what inclusive community looks like even as you listen to how we are engaging together as sisters you know the level of not just being at the table but that the voices matter so even as you know it it feels really natural for us but we are behaviorally being culturally responsive as we talk about let me build off of that let me reflect that you know they're not just periods after what each one of us says we are listening and building off of and giving agency to and giving honor to the value of what we are all sharing together which is inclusive community it's an example of what if we were to see inclusive community lived out it would bear qualities of what we are experiencing in real time here and it's not to say oh look how great we're doing this but it is important to sandy's point too that you know we we tend to think of this as aspirational well we could never measure that because it's just so out there up there and i think that that's where we get short uh sort of um short-circuited because then people people just say you know rally around this illusion of inclusion right that we all want to be you know loving and we're all there but when we start to have to dissect it and start to actually go from aspirational to start to see the behavioral change the cultural change then we have to start measuring and then it becomes very much oh examine me oh lord you know as we evoke the theological construct of i am part of what god is doing we are communally part of what god is doing and then we start to get you know really um it gets real tension oriented and so inclusive community creates a mutuality where the discomfort allows for for a space to live in the discomfort as people together you know the imaga day being being really reflected into how we live with each other not we will live with each other and so i think that some of these things that we've already been sharing together as sisters and really looking forward tamara to you jumping in as well there are so many gaps of of thinking about what we have to lose it really is a question of what shouldn't have been there to begin with that's the deconstruction and then the reconstruction into something good and better so that's how i kind of look at that inclusive excellence and then thinking about that really important question kim that you posed thank you tamara what would you say yeah how did you add in here i am just loving this it's good to be in community and in conversations uh with sisters in christ who live and brief the work that we do and i think that um as i'm hearing the conversation go on and even as we talk about inclusive excellence um a big marker that i feel that as chief diversity offers that we have to uphold is really managing change change change management so studying that and seeing that and i agree with you sandy that um that we get stuck so i think idealistically we're in a new season so having been working in this area of diversity for 15 years um there's a different conversation happening now than it was a decade ago and i would agree that many people are are have the philosophical or cognitive understanding of diversity but when you actually get to that point of actually changing and so i do exercises where i ask people you know to change change something about themselves for about three or four rounds and without a hesitation um as soon as this activity is over they go immediately back to what they were doing what however their hair was or their necklace or their earrings um and i go i didn't ask you to change um and so that's something i think as chief diversity officers that we consistently have to push up against is that we are literally called to be prophetic um and to create that vision um but yet we're pushing we still have to continually push against status quo and that gets tiring um because at the heart of it um i think people are afraid of change they're afraid of loss they're afraid of being able to actually shift and not be uncomfortable um and so that is i feel the space that god has called us to lead into but that's also very hard um as we do the work of inclusive excellence on our campuses now several of you have mentioned this idea of pain change in pain i can tell you that's that that doesn't sell well people don't want pain we don't want pain even as christians and even as we're in this lentil length season um where we are reflecting on the sacrifice of christ and it should help us reflect internally uh of our role vertical relationship with god but also horizontal role with each other um that seems to be a key stone in this conversation am i willing to to suffer so that others might benefit and do well am i willing to give up some space so that others can be included i mean what what are we willing to give up i mean that is a you know talking about from a privileged perspective in the western world that's not in in our theological lexicon oftentimes this idea this notion of others first i don't know if you want to speak to that or we can keep moving on i i can speak a little bit to that i think the pain is real absolutely and the the fear of that change and that loss absolutely is real but i also wonder often in my what 20 plus years working on this as well is how much is it about how we present and how we call people into this work in terms of are we doing a good job in terms of showing the value and the value not just to the institutions and in more kind of broad universal way but individually right that it it may not even be frame us as a loss but frame as a change as as an asset as a gain in different ways right from and that's what change is right so sometimes i i wonder if a lot of this conversation uh some of the issues that we focus so much on that on the pain and the loss instead of thinking about the transformation and really focusing that the transformation the change and and the gains that we all receive so it's not that you're going to lose something because i'm going to gain something but that we are all going to gain something out of this collectively and it's a new way of being together and it may not be you know i think i said that that you know now we're all going to love each other and it's all kumbaya right it's about we're going to know how to engage with each other truly in a way that that respects our dignity as human beings and and respects us christians for sure for all of us that of god that is in each of us so how do we gain there it's not about taking something away from you but it's about all of us i mean i i keep saying specifically in terms of racism racism is something and it's true for any of the isms that hurts only some people it hurts everyone right so it's how do we make that shift that i've been honestly just struggling with in my role how do we move people away from that mindset to this growth mindset to this idea of all of us gaining when we look at this change in transformational ways that's really good really good all right so so keeping with this idea of scripture and since um i'm i'm with these uh powerful women of god what scriptures actually inform your views on equity and and justice and racial matters and looking at this beautiful mosaic of diversity that is a value added not um not a a loss and so can you talk about uh kind of your biblical views and how that informs what you do i actually start with that i think oftentimes um in these spaces as racialized uh ethnic uh peoples uh it seems like there's this assumption that it's natural that we would actually do this work and i actually if we look at the scriptures i that's not really true and so as you asked for a scripture that informs this isaiah 1 17 and and the call from god is that everyone should learn to do good it's an assumption that that we're actively uh working towards doing uh good work he says to seek justice so it's not natural it doesn't come to us we actually have to seek it out in the same way that god tells us that we have to seek him out and that will be found by him in our proverbs and he says to correct oppression so there's this assumption in the scripture that there are people who are being oppressed and that we're doing god's work because that's what our role is really defined as how do we correct oppression how do we look at marginalized ethnic groups or people women um economically disadvantaged individuals uh students on our campus and what can we do to correct oppression and that could be maybe offering scholarships for example to make sure that people who don't have the money that they can actually go to college and not just go into complete college so the bible says that that's those are things that individuals and institutions to do and it also says to plead the case of the fatherless and the widow recognizing that when people don't have certain things already embedded in their household that they're going to suffer more and so it's not for us to look at those communities of people and judge them but say how can we come alongside and help correct those particular areas and then the other scripture that i think is also very prominent and top of the mind for me it's also in isaiah 61 and then it's fulfilled in luke chapter four when jesus he actually started his ministry with people from marginalized groups he said you know i am here to bind up the brokenhearted to preach the good news to the poor to release uh the the the prisoners uh from captivity and so those are all groups that are on the margins that people don't highly esteem but jesus says he started his ministry sin this is who i came for and and i think again that those are the people who again are sometimes despised um in society but when we look at our savior he came to rescue them he came to love them he came to show and reveal god to them and so i think again the work that we're all called to do not just as individuals of color is that is to represent christianity and to imitate christ and so i hope that as we have this conversation as we look at the scriptures that other people feel more compelled through the bible and through the scriptures to do the same i love that and i not to to cut anybody else off because i want to hear others but so often it feels like um chief diversity officers are having to explain uh the reason for being there um being that if you know people equate it i've heard others because i've had the opportunity to serve in your role and i tell you that is god's work because you you get it from all sides but people saying that it's marxist ideology that it's anti-christian and and all these different things so really appreciate the biblical context for for your frame of reference as you do this important work i think it's important oh go ahead sandy lina go for it well i i'll just just say that so for me the framing is about genesis to revelation and i know that seems like overly simplified but i think when when we decide that diversity inclusion equity and justice is um kind of piecemealed into the biblical text then we lose sight of the trinitarian formation of god and that diversity inclusion equity and justice was intended from the beginning through the trinitarian understanding of god the father son and holy spirit and so because of the beginning it was already in place it was already in place but when sin entered the world it all went as you shared earlier kim from vertical it all went into horizontal but it went into horizontal corruption and so now division enter the world and so i think we really have to study the scriptures in a way that is appropriately from a using the term hermeneutical approach where we are interpreting the scriptures rightly not independent of how we live out what it means to be reconciled people to god and to each other and to his created world and so i think to to take that out of context we begin to think that it's it's kind of like only certain people's jobs right to do this work and so we need chief diversity officers we need um you know people in student affairs for um international students we need somebody focused on multicultural this and that you know and so we establish these little roles and you know they'll wake up thinking about it when it's really a larger context of all people who follow christ we just get to have the joy of waking up and thinking about it where chief financial officers wake up and think about what they do and enrollment you know it's kind of like we all have our lenses but we all as followers of christ get to fulfill the gospel mandate of love and until we decide that we're all part of god's story of reconciliation we'll always be thinking of it as a very small minute little whose job is it and i think going back to lorna to your point i think that that's why we don't see the participation that it's everybody's work right and so when we want to shift it from a from a what am i going to lose i think we perpetuate that because i don't think we're willing to do the both hand and so we either keep it as a we're all going to love each other which doesn't work or we're going to focus on the pain and suffering of who's being oppressed and then quite frankly we create white saviorism right we have to begin to build that space that liminal space where the via media of christ moves where it's the both and drawing people towards this space of walking in unity and tandem so for me it's the biblical text through the theological lens of the trinitarian god that compels us all so you know we're the prophet and the pastor and the you know all the different kinds of people that are just drawing people into that fluid dynamic love of god and tamara yeah it's it's it we do get tired that's a heavy lift so sandy go ahead i know that you were ready to share something too thanks lena i'll just share briefly i mean i think for me first and foremost this work emanates from an understanding that racial justice racial reconciliation those are kingdom issues and we're called to live as citizens of the kingdom of god so as a foundation for this work i i turn to matthew 6 and luke 11 2-4 it's it's really about using that vision of the kingdom of god as a starting point and because racism dehumanizes it inevitably prevents us from fulfilling our call to reflect the kingdom of god on earth so i don't think that this work is optional for our campuses i don't think this work is optional for the church big c throughout the bible we see examples of god working through individuals to bring about justice we see this with joseph we see it again with moses we see it repeated in the narrative of esther and nehemiah each of these individuals being used to bring about god's vision of justice and so i think the bible is clear that we too are called to carry out god's redemptive work and again i think just centering this on the vision of the kingdom as a starting point is essential and our understanding of this call should create a sense of urgency wow well that's that is great i mean just rich context i love that so moving us along because there's so much more i want to ask you guys um how how i'm looking at amazing leaders who happen to be women and i would love to hear how really the intersection of who you are what you bring to the table race gender and other things how that informs your work of advocacy and being a voice for the voiceless and championing the cause of those who feel invisible so can you speak to that a little bit as well or not no feel free anybody yeah i can jump in here um there it literally is so much um i think especially um coming off of the ways in which scripture informs the work that i do um and so i often find jesus uh i often say to myself like jesus they're not they're not living up to what you've told them to do this is your word and we say we're people of the word um and so um i think especially as the intersection of racism um and sexism and even just um who we are as christians um as we're living out and advocating for inclusive excellence um it's something that um is a consistent reminder for myself and so i recognize that i lead differently and i'm often reminded of that um in who i am and i think for some time i really struggled with um i'm sorry am i answering your question it's about the racism one i was going to my notes oh that that's fine too um but i'm just thinking with the mantle that you guys carry i'm sure that you're in many of meetings where you're the only yeah and uh there's so much research about only being leading to only a loneliness and what that carries i mean you're carrying this added weight of not only being the only woman in maybe some meetings but also a person of color in that meeting so uh but go ahead tamara okay i was answering your question about racism and sexism and so i realized like oh okay um i i think being the only or especially one of the few in spaces in which we lead um i can recognize how i internalize a lot of um the culture in which that i work in that actually has not been a space that has people like myself and so they're not used to me um and so i'm very mindful in how i lead um and how i have to show up and so um i i told him mentee recently i said i always show up in pearls and a blazer it's just what i do but you see today i don't have on pearls and so i'm also trying to be authentically myself um as i leave but that's just my my natural um way in which i show up in spaces because i recognize um i knew we can see it in in our society um in our in our everyday life but also in society how people respond to female leaders um especially women of color um i think about our vice president um uh harris right and as she came on the scene and how people were interacting and dialoguing about um what she was wearing and how she was talking etc and i'm like this is eerily familiar um and as i experienced my own experiences on our campus and so i'm very mindful of what i internalize whether that is you know trying to fight against stereotypes like the angry black woman um and so being very intentional for example not to really show and express anger even when i'm angry my sister will often say like tamara you should have just said and she's like i know how you feel i said but i can't do that and so i think that is something that is that is something that we all have to balance as we're especially representing um not only ourselves but other women that we ideally would love to see around the table as well and when people are not familiar with your leadership style again they point it out and they actually say but they see and i really thank god that um he's granted me so much favor for people to see that it's actually needed and it's refreshing again as we talk about inclusive excellence that this is what's needed in our organizations as we think about the future uh becoming um increasingly more diverse especially as more women are entering in different spaces in leadership that this is what is needed to take us to where we need to go and so i think definitely as women um there are the challenges that we face um in every sector um for from students who are also not used to us being in these spaces or have expectations about us um to also our colleagues um who are who are senior leaders with us who also are just simply they're not used to the way that we lead um and then again getting back to that change conversation and maybe not ready for the change in which we're leading them into as well thank you i would like to jump in and build off uh what tamara said and um and i'm actually gonna offer a little different perspective because sometimes i feel like stereotypes are used to hold us hostage and to kind of keep us in check as far as behaving a certain way so i actually will sometimes come in a room and kind of let people know that my job isn't to fulfill or deny any stereotypes that they have of black women i've sent people videos on the angry black woman trope um white men to let them know that again i'm not going to be held hostage by those stereotypes and when i look at the data specifically as it relates to assimilation um it shows that if we can't be our authentic selves as women as um women of color specifically that the organization isn't really benefiting um from who we are and why they hired us so if i have to somehow conform or assimilate or transition to somebody else to be accepted it's like what's the point of me if i can't be a holistic full black woman in every space so when we talk about stereotype threat i i feel that but for example imposter syndrome i don't feel that because oftentimes we have to be in spaces again as tamara spoke about as you talked about um him as the only person of color and but oftentimes we don't get to see for example a white man go into a space of color and i've actually seen those spaces when they have to go and present consistently in front of people of color they can barely articulate a word but we expect to show up every day and be articulate and to be polished and to not stumble even though we do so i'm not saying that we're flawless but it's that expectation that we can somehow always be the ones code switching and so i said that to say that i just reject all of that and you know um the last thing i want to say with that i remember talking to a colleague and he was saying you know well this group doesn't do well with emotions and i kind of said well you know i'm not going to allow the men without chest to dictate my emotions and that's a c.s lewis reference and we love mere christianity and we love c.s lewis in these spaces but he specifically says that christians men specifically who don't have right order emotions who never can respond to anything emotionally he calls them men without chests so it's just another way to dehumanize us i actually consider it violent to tell me when you are creating harm against a community that's already been marginalized and you want me to do that without any emotion that's a form of violence to me like you want me to somehow show up and not be fully human i absolutely refuse to do that so whatever you get in that moment you get in that moment if you and i tell them sometimes i need to be an angry black woman based on how you acting and i don't apologize for that so that's my response to that thank you for that yeah i think that's i'm sorry tamara go ahead i'm sorry go ahead i was just going to say thank you that was that was beautiful and and expressed a lot of my own uh sense and experience as well um one of the things that i've opted for you know and i i have like as you describe i have felt at times that imposter syndrome and i have to kind of stop myself like wait a minute no i'm here for a reason just as you described this is my place at the table and it is okay and one of the things when i've encountered those those resistance or those reactions from others that question it is to actually challenge them in in a learning way if you want to by just asking those questions right by okay well i just heard you say this or i got this sentence tell me more about it well what makes you think that right to challenge them in a place for them to actually uh face their own their own thinking their own biases their own issue making the invisible visible and sometimes that and again it's another burden that we carry because it's often of us as leaders to actually do that and it is a burden and it is hard but you're absolutely right if we can't claim ourselves who we are and why when that space then we're defeating the purpose of why we are there so what i was going to jump in and say is that often what is experience is often not stated and so often what we're fighting i feel is very um invisible unconscious and um not really people are not forthright and so i just want to make sure we make that clear as well but you can see a difference in their body language in their language um in their interaction it hinders the work getting done so there is real implications i believe um for how we navigate these spaces and i love obviously yes teaching and engaging and also keeping others accountable um but that in itself is a whole other job and so sometimes you have to pick your battles to say this is what i'm going to deal with today and i'll absolutely we want to live and be our authentic self that's what the bible calls us to do that's why and god intentionally created us the way in which he has um but yeah the challenges i think that we face are often again um invisible and really hard um to always often put our finger on it um and for others to actually own it as well yeah so so as i'm as i'm listening to my sisters and you know we're all sharing i i think it speaks to the spectrum of how we all sit in our places and spaces and bring even our intersectionalities of our own life um you know as a daughter of asian indian immigrants um you know i remember vividly the storyline you know trying to not be indian in the early 1960s working really hard to not sound indian growing up in the public schools all the different things that wove into my being you know being hindu um you know having my journey into christ later in life not growing up in the church you know all these all these distinctions in the immigrant story of the 60s which today there's a different immigrant story the immigrant story is is distinctive but in the different time frames of history it's been experienced differently you know i i i can share that my my own daughter's adult daughter said you know why why didn't you teach us hindi i said because my parents made it very clear to never speak hindi be american do not speak hindi they didn't even let us speak it in the home because they wanted us to be distinctively you know speaking english of course we spoke english well because as is indian immigrants you know english is a distinctive second language even even a first language because of colonization and i don't have time to go into that i'm sure that nobody needs me to explain that on this panel but i think that we bring ourselves to the spaces that we live in and we we think about every single space we're in with such minute detail what and how ought i ought i be right now not be in terms of our authentic selves that is aligned in us but how do i express that right now and who are the people in this space you know often people will say to me you always sound very calm well that's because i've learned to stay calm my voice you know stay calm but when i'm in other certain spaces i'm highly animated and people like oh wow you know like we have an affinity group for people of color it goes a little differently we're we're at a different little level of it animation and comfort you know what i'm saying and so i'm always wearing a chimney for me this is a chimney this isn't just a scarf to accessorize because for me it's like it's me saying i'm indian and i'm going to always have my chimney on it's the way i maintain my eastern context in very western places and spaces all the time right and so i think we all find ways to every day are heavy lifting the spaces that we walk in and out of um and so i think it's a lot of both and that i'm hearing you know we want to live every day exactly who we are and yet we always pause and think what if i actually said exactly what's going on through my head i mean i confess to you right now i'm glad people can't always read exactly what's happening in my head i don't know about you sisters but if i'm if i'm confessionally honest i i'm glad that god gives me the capacity to make those decisions quickly in real time i think i might hold my tongue right now [Laughter] so so let me switch into a kind of a follow-up to that what do you guys wish people understood or knew about all that you're carrying as the cdos of your campuses you're bringing who you are your authentic self but that you're also watching and gazing you know research talks about the second eye you have to look at everything double you have to assess internally quickly but what do you wish others understood whether it's the leadership and or students because you're you're you're walking this tight rope and i'm seeing you because i i understood in my role as cdo as well that you're you've got this um ever changing constituent base um some who think you should be doing more of this others that you should be doing more this everybody's the expert and they're all telling you how to do your job um so i would love for you to speak more to you know even what nada he is saying that this is an official this is a profession uh what what uh bylaws and guidelines and research um so i'd love for you guys to speak however you want to address that i i can go first just i have two things that i would like people to know about this this position or this role one is i wish people would really understand the complexity of the role right uh as we've been describing throughout as you know we're pastors we are administrators we you know you name it whatever it is uh we are uh trainers right with students with faculty so it's very complex and what we're really trying to do is to as lena describe right it's the whole journey as the whole package is about the framing of the entire working of the institutions that we're trying to engage with so the complexity of that position is one and the other one that i think is really critical is that we are not the work right that we as individuals are not the ones that are responsible or the unique or the only ones doing this that is the entire institution that needs to be engaged in this work and that it's not about us changing everybody it's about everybody engaging with us as we help frame and facilitate this work so those would be the two things that i would want people to know that's great yeah a couple things i i would want people to know as well um this work is not crisis response and i think it's been treated that way for far too long you know we usually wait for something to happen either externally or on our campuses and that everyone sort of you know form a committee we formed some action plans everyone's really hyped up we're going to address the problem here our set of plans over the next year and then once the crisis subsides it's sort of like you're tucked away again and we'll call you back out when we need to to you know deploy those resources um this is strategic work and we need to be engaged in the conversations early we need to be integrated into the core functions of the institution all the time um and not just sort of brought out to to be the voice um to be the ones to sort of address when there have been difficult and challenging circumstances and i just think we need to shift that framing um secondarily i think a lot of times we are called to sort of be activists at the same time people want us to sit at the table for decision making and those two things are intention and so i think we play a distinct role i think that we are activist oriented in terms of we are working and working to interrupt the usual practices of business but we have to do that strategically so it can't look the same as it might for our students or good for our faculty or staff and so um i like to think of this and i i wish that we could move to this point where institutions are sort of a coalition i need faculty because their voice is essential i need to be able to work with faculty governance to move things forward i need students i need them to agitate but i can't play either of those roles and so uh i think just respecting the different um the different places that we sit in and what that means for what we're going to be able to bring to the conversation and to bring to the change efforts and finding ways to work effectively together but instead it tends to get into sort of these you know sort of polarized and well if you're not doing this you're not for us if you're not an activist then we're not seeing your presence you're not really pushing the work forward and it's like no we we have line of sight differently and um we yes it's great that we're at the table for decision making if you want to stay there then you have to recognize that we're just going to have to navigate it differently so i think that awareness would go a long way because i think there's so much more that we could accomplish if we really sort of worked as a coalition i love that i would like to build on what sandy said too as far as as she was speaking to strategy so the scripture that i actually referenced uh for the work that i do and i think that we do it's in first corinthians three verse ten and it's actually you know um paul talked and he says by the grace god has given me i lay the foundation as a wise builder and someone else is building on it and so i think about what does it look like for us to come and be diversity architects like that's actually how i like to describe my position as a diversity architect and you actually are building shaping transforming something um again in spaces that may need to be corrected and so oftentimes it is a lot of as you talked about kim all of these different ways that people want us to build our position and sometimes programming that could take a lot of priority but you really can't build on programming that's not a foundation you can't build on dialogue because dialogue didn't get us here so i think about what does it look like to create policy so oftentimes the strategy part is that we're coming to do a diversity strategic plan we uh had a campus-wide buy-in and we have 90 diversity strategic plans that have been submitted by 63 departments at wheaton college we have a diversity vision statement we have a policy a biased policy a biased incident report form and it kind of goes back to conversations earlier that was a lot of pushback um with some of that initiative because when it was time to hold people accountable and not just talk about inclusiveness but what does it look like when we fall short and when people can exercise agency and report how they haven't been included and loved and respected in the workplace it was like whoa because people don't count the costs and those kind of things they just think that we're i don't know that we're all like smurf fats and we're gonna just sing while i lie you know i would not actually do things but we actually have to do things that are concrete and so one of the questions i asked myself is if i leave here today what can someone else come and build on and that means that you're actually creating a solid foundation and so i agree with nala natahi i tell people that there are professional practices and standards in my role there is research you don't have to invent the wheel we have uh sound research robust data that informs the work that we do and i think oftentimes people think we're trying to experiment that's another thing we're this is not a pilot we're not doing pilot programs we have a lot of things that are proven in our fields and we're experts and we should be listened to i mean this is not just a recommendation or suggestion we're looking at the scriptures we're looking at the research we're looking at best practices high impact practices and so those are the things that we build to bring to our field and i said that to say that oftentimes people feel like their opinion is equal to the research and the expertise we have and that's not the case so i think those are a few things that i would want people to know because we are really trying to build a solid foundation to carry our institutions forward in a way that is meaningful that's inclusive that's diverse that's excellent i mean that i mean that's just you know just spot on and i think for me we are professionals we are experts in our field we are credentialed we are researchers we are scholars and we ought to be able to be the ones who can guide the building process but i do want to also say right here i think there's something very unique as we think about women and this is research supported this is not opinion there's something the way that we are knitted in the ways that we have also had to engage in being raised right so the cultural context the the roles that we've been kind of trained up in but we have this contextual understanding of bringing people together and building coalition capacity for ways in which people can find themselves participating in the work that transcends dozens of diversity task force strategic plan sitting in binders over decades at institutions because women have ways to really build and getting back to the word build really really well and skillfully with high capacity leadership right leadership expertise and that's why i think you see exactly what you find is happening on campuses today and i think it's important that we remember that that this is professional work with expertly credentialed leaders and in this case women like us who are leading and moving the work um i don't i don't want us to miss that i love that and i just want to add one more piece amen to what you all said um but i think especially as women um who are also christ followers and the work that we do i want people to know uh i don't know people know how much i pray how much i actually lean on the holy spirit to lead and to guide me he says he will empower us he has anointed us and i do feel that this work is not for the faint of heart and so knowing that especially is that yes i have my professional um understanding best practices yes i am a scholar yes i understand and i'm being strategic and intentional in what i'm doing and i love what you said and i have a different vision and a different site because we're building onto something and we're going to move this thing forward but absolutely not without power of prayer and i think being led by the holy spirit i believe it's not by accident that we're able to do the work we do in the context in which we do it and i can go on and preach about that but i just want to make sure people understand that too about the work that we do that's that's powerful i again uh applaud you and the important role that each of you plays on your campuses in fact i think it would be void to omit the spiritual element of it in fact i wrote a chapter about the spiritual aspect of diversity work in our diversity matters book and uh how important that is uh it literally is a spiritual warfare because you're battling with again not flesh and blood there are all kinds of principalities and issues there and so again um it's powerful work it's important work um and it's it's a professional work i want people to hear that loud and clear um with that and our time is almost up how would you care how would you say you care for yourself you guys are and and these uh literally what i would call pastoral roles on your campuses and you know jesus he cared for uh his disciples but he also had to flip a table over as well so how do you care for yourself as you're caring for so many and speaking truth to so many on the daily basis well i'll jump in probably because this is the one i struggle with the most and um you know i have a list of things that i could tell you right now that i do um like exercise and cook and you know listen to worship and pray and you know be in community and i do those things but i don't do them often enough and it wouldn't be authentic for me to say that i actually have a regular practice of self-care this work is all-consuming and if you are not intentional the self-care suffers and i you know tim i reached out to you last night and i i told you that you know i'd be stepping into this space having carried a lot yesterday and i knew that many of you had as well and so this idea of responding to this question about self-care uh if it wasn't for the women on this call and others within my network this work would not be possible for me personally i i need community and i think that um the dei community cdos i think it's one of the most generous spaces i've ever been in um i think we all understand what this work entails and so i've never felt as though i didn't have someone i could call on the prayers of this group the wisdom of this group the um modeling the example of who they are on their campuses but yeah i i actually am going to refrain from listing the things that i theoretically do in the moments when i think about caring for myself i don't do it enough and i want our campuses to know we need support i actually wish that i would have negotiated upfront the need for a mentor someone who could really be a sounding board an honest space for me to dialogue with and i would say to all campuses don't bring anyone into this role and leave them to be on their own yes we're parts of leadership teams yes we're parts of committees across campus there are some conversations we have to hold in such confidence um there is no place to unpack it and when you think about that in the context of us bringing all of our identities into this work this taps into our past wounds and in ways that it's not healthy it's it's not um i don't think it's actually fair to ask of anyone and so i think that we need to fundamentally rethink these roles in the ways that we ask people to show up in them so self-care is possible but for me personally it wouldn't happen without community it wouldn't happen if um lorna didn't ask me what are you going to do on saturday to make sure you take a few hours and she has asked me that question and the same with sheila and the same with nina it just that's what we need from each other sandy thank you for that i think you're right on and i think that that is true for probably all of us if not all of uh many of us that we could do better and i think part of of this is what we were talking about earlier with the previous question right and what do we want our communities to know that the work is not just on us and for us and that's part of why we feel this way often that it is we carry it so much just on our shoulders because we don't always have that community to share in the work that it becomes very very difficult to find those spaces where we could actually take care of ourselves so the more that we can uh have the community in our institutions that can share in the work then there be less need for us to carry that burden and more opportunity to actually take care of herself so that we can continue to help those in our community so yeah thank you for what you share absolutely yeah it was just beautifully stated sandy and some of the some of the most um healing moments are with women like you and they're not planned or strategic or figured out what i'm gonna say you just are you and you just sit in that space and sometimes you just complete my sentence or you just look at me and i i just know that you are i mean i'm getting healed like just the way you look at me i mean lately because sandy you and i are working on some things with the diversity i mean just you just look at me and i'm like i'm healed because you're just the way that you are and sheila the things you've done and i could just go around this zoom room right i mean kim the way that you have just been so engaging even in your emails to me just enveloped me in this process of a healing healing wounds right and um you know i haven't said this out loud but i'm i i was thinking about doing this and and and passing it on to people but i i think that we need to forge text champions that sounds really odd but you know and i'm going to do this today actually this is this is this i i i hope this will be important but i'm going to reach out to those that i know are my um i know they're my champions on this campus because they tell me and i'm going to collect them in a group and i'm literally going to say to them will you text me regularly and tell me something good and make it random i don't you know of course it may not be random because god's prompting you because when i get that little text i'll know that god is watching me and when you're one of my favorite passages is you know zai is on the sparrow um and we don't have time for the backstory but you all probably know that precious story of how even that song was written um but i think self-care can be strategic but i also think self-care for this work comes through the the way in which jesus demonstrated being moved to compassion and i think that we as women who do this work as leaders who do this work we also ought to feel a comfort level to be receivers and to receive the compassion that we long for to be healed right and healed is a fluid and dynamic thing to be healed daily so i'm just really um just feeling a move of the spirit even now as i'm communing with all of you and tamara even what you said about and i i i could hear it in your voice that you pray and the holy spirit compels you in the work um yes we spent a lot of time on our knees yeah beautiful beautiful things that are happening here in the spirit right now amen and i really am thankful for um this honest response to this question because i feel a lot of times like i feel like i'm doing the worst when it comes to self-care but yet i encourage and promote others to do it and call them out and even those on my team um but absolutely yeah i think um leaning into and i think sheila said this earlier being an authentic leader and so i let people know i'm struggling or i don't have the words to say or i'm about to cuss um and just being straight up honest about it i think i said that yesterday i'm like i don't have no more words or you don't want me to have any more words but authentically leading it to me is a sense of self-care for myself uh and allowing people to um to deal with the weight in which that we carry as well and the work that we do at the moment i have to balance that obviously because there's some things i obviously can't share um or i want to hold because i know that it would really burden those around me as well but whenever i have able to authentically um express my emotions so i don't apologize for crying i don't apologize um for just being who i am and how i release my emotions to me is a practice of self-care and not internalizing those things i agree with you all as well just having um a group of professional women to be yourself and not apologize and not explain uh is something that just fills me up to the top and it's like if i can just get to that time like if i can just get to jesus uh that is literally um something that and then i think we often say there's nothing new under the sun and i'm inspired by each of you and what you do and your testimonies and i also look at history and sometimes i know that's what i need to do is go and educate myself on other women who are leading um during crisis who are leading in tough spaces and that fills my cup as well because i see again god's work and the spirit working in them that carried them through as i think about our history as well so kind of those are just a couple of things that i like i love what you said i do not enough um and so uh self-care is something i definitely need to grow in well i'll follow up i i do agree with um the strong network i would actually like to say this is a new jacket from white house black market so i do shop as a form of self-care i don't mean to sound shallow but i do that i think i'm a platinum member so you get discounts a lot but no that is part of it i'm gonna be honest so i do things that make me happy after a long day i'll think about having a good meal somewhere um and like i said um i would i would like to reinforce it because the women i'm on this panel and even beyond have been such a short source of strength in the sense that you know sometimes as we do the work and we have challenges i always feel like this is a judgment-free zone so rather you're like saying i'm not sure if i can make another day or you're trying to get advice you just again uh to use the word that uh sandra uses it's a generous space um i would even like to specifically think of the community at wheaton college um and i and i would say it's beyond its past different ethnic groups but the the communities of color were very intentional uh from day one with inviting me in letting they have my back that they wanted to see me sustain in the position and and to really offer those resources sometimes i'm having bad days and i might just send a little note and they'll be like praying right now you know i get those texts praying right now and so i just um i think that's been a sustainer sometimes i feel like you know uh king nebuchadnezzar who just don't even understand his own mind because you just get disoriented in these faces sometimes and so the bible has been like a really big saving grace um for me but i would i would overall just affirm that this work is very consuming um it's a lot of long hours so you don't always get a chance to practice self-care so we're kind of like stealing moments to do that when we can and um yeah and so i i would agree that it does need to be some intentionality as i listen to dr mayo speak about mentorship i mean she's been a mentor to me you know so i just want to say i appreciate that i came in working from non-faith-based institutions and wanting to see how i could operate specifically in this space and so um her uh rebecca hernandez at george fox uh was she actually was in chicago and specifically came to visit me on campus so i mentioned those things because i just appreciate that those are not things that people have to do we're called to love each other but that doesn't mean a person has to directly love you all the time so i just don't take those things for granted and i just appreciate it and i do hope um that we can carve out time for more self-care because i could even think about pre-covet um how i would have certain pains in my body um that actually i think not even going in the office every day that have subsided and i just kind of chalked it up his old age so i can actually think about the different ways that this has impacted me and um you know physical ways emotional ways uh because it does weigh um oftentimes we're like the keeper of stories at our institutions people are always telling us things in confidence and like you said you're trying to keep a confidence where do you go with that you know unless we all hire therapists which to college maybe that would be something that they should pay for and this role is that every diversity officer actually gets a a therapist that the college pays for because we oftentimes don't have those people that we can share this information with so it could be a burden but the bible does say cast our anxieties on god but it's a lot to carry so i i have some things to do but i would agree with everyone else it's it's it's insufficient and i know that it's insufficient and i feel that um and just grateful for the things that that we can do in those moments thank you wow this has been um amazing and powerful time to to hear from you and your voices you know my prayer used to be lord guard my heart because we are caring for so many that and we see so much beauty but you can also see a lot of darkness and i did not want my heart overwhelmed with bitterness because of some of those dark things and so i think again self-care is so key and and we need you all we need you to to lead as we move into this next dimension dimension of post covet so thank you for caring for our campuses but thank you for also caring for yourselves um we are out of time unfortunately i know we could we could talk probably another couple of hours here um but i want to thank each of you uh for um just your your candidness your transparency um and no way are we trying to make this uh pretty with the bow this is just as it is and this truth provides healing within itself so thank you again thank you for the spaces you feel and the truth that you bring and clarity um before we end our time today i want to make one quick announcement the cccu has joined in collaboration with the interfaith youth corps to offer a grant to each of our campuses here in the u.s and this this grant is really there to focus on religious literacy and promote interfaith bridge building because as we all know right now cooperation across differences is needed more than ever before and so with that i just want to encourage you even as you've heard uh our discussion today as you've heard these amazing and inspiring leaders talk about how they navigate working within the body of christ but also working across differences we hope you'll consider this grant there will be a webinar on april 8th you can go to the cccu website to get more information but the grant is for faculty and staff who want to work with students on christian leadership in a multi multi-faith world so again thank you um thank you for joining us today and wishing you all um to take these pieces that you've heard today and and go back and search yourself but also apply them to the work that you do on your campus shalom and god bless [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Westmont College

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Id: fDb9K2tdfew

Length: 75min 44sec (4544 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021