spk_0: 0:05
Hello and welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here, and I hope that you're having an amazing week. I wanted to give you some of the highlights from this conversation that I had with Tory Svoboda today because we covered so much ground. We talked about so many different topics, and Tory kept it real and authentic. And that was something that I know many of you have asked of the guests to just have a conversation from the heart and not to edit it and not to censor yourself as a guest on the episodes and that people want to hear your true story. You're really authentic experience. And so I truly believe that's what Tory brought today. And I hope that you appreciate some of the vulnerability that she demonstrated as she shared stories that many of us in higher education fear sharing because will be outcast or marked and stigmatized for various reasons. And so I hope that you get a lot out of this episode. Some of the resident themes that Tory shared was her experience of speaking her mind and biting her tongue, and the spectrum on which that exists within different contacts and different environments and different roles as an administrator as a faculty, So I hope that that resonates with you as well. She also speaks to many of her social and personal identities and shares insights and experiences as someone who was the first in her family to go to college to get various degrees to navigate these different professional career opportunities, and that she continues to be the first in many regards and what that's like when we're occupying all these different worlds in which our family, our friends, our communities, our colleagues, etcetera, they they embody these different environments, these different ecosystems of which were members. And how do we navigate that when they may seemingly be growing vastly apart? If that's a way that I might synthesize that I encouraged Tory to give us the RAV vulnerable stories, and I hope that that is what resonates with you. There are curse words in this episode, which I think in previous episodes has not been something that guests, for whatever reason, have shared. So if you're in the car or in hearing distance of little ones that you don't want to hear these particular words on this particular day, feel free to bookmark this episode and return to it, cause I chose not to edit them out. I wanted to keep Tories. I wanted to match Tories integrity and vulnerability with the justice done in the editing process. And so I chose to keep those in. I look forward to connecting with you. Please email me. If you have questions, connect with me sabot resilient campus dot com and look forward to connecting with you in person or virtually very soon. Welcome to the resilient campus podcast, amplifying the voices of college inclusion innovators. I'm your host, savvy labor founder and CEO of Resilient Campus. Join me each week as I interviewed professionals on the frontlines of campus and community movement building. For more information, please visit resilient campus dot com forward slash podcast. This is episode number 30 of the Resilient Campus podcast. Today we're speaking with Tory Svoboda Ah, formerly low income and still first generation students, staff and faculty person. Tory worked in student affairs for 20 years before changing lanes to full time faculty life five years ago. Tory now directs the master's program and teachers in the doctoral program in Student Affairs, Administration and higher education at the University of Wisconsin lacrosse. Tory has a chapter coming out in the book Social Class in the Academy, edited by Becky Martinez and Sandra Arduin, entitled I Could Always Go Back to Being a Bartender. Musings of an Ambivalent Academic If you meet Torrey, ask about her family, including Stella, Hannah and Millie. The three dogs who rule the roost. Tory, thanks so much for being with us today. How are you doing?
spk_1: 4:10
I'm doing great savvy. Thanks for having me.
spk_0: 4:12
Yeah, so what? Listeners don't know his story, and I just work through a plethora of technical issues and we persevered. We are resilient indeed. D cool. Totori and I have known each other for a few years now. I can't remember our first meeting, but I'm so glad that you're in my life here in my network. I know that you mentor a lot of folks that I that we have in common. So But what do you want people to know that are listening in today that may not know all these amazing things about you.
spk_1: 4:43
Oh, that's nice of you to say, um and the feeling's mutual. I love that you are in my network. I'm so honored and humbled on a little intimidated by your awesomeness. So thank you for letting me join you. Um, I think the parts of my life that people may not know our that I, um Haas, former foster kid. I'm adopted. Um, I come from a very, very, very blended family with, uh, two moms, four dads and seven siblings, only 1/3 of whom are still walking this planet. Um, yeah. I mean, I think that I'm kind of an open book, at least, I hope so. People tell me that, and that often has gotten me in trouble, but, um, we'll see where it takes us today, I suppose. Right?
spk_0: 5:26
Yes, I love that. And, um, Tory, which identities feel most prominent or selling it for you today?
spk_1: 5:32
Yeah. So I don't know if, um, we said this in the intro, but my problems are she and hers. The identities that are salient for me tend to be the ones where I'm rubbing up against some form of, um, hardship. So I try to make sure that, um where that's not happening, I pay as much attention and make those identities as salient just the ones where they are, if that makes sense, um, my gender as a CIS gender woman is very prevalent for me today, especially as we were talking about gender differences in the 10 year promotion process and the ways in which, um, folks who are not CIS gender men are penalized by the current system. Um, I would say my ability is very prevalent for me today. I'm somebody who lives with severe anxiety and major depressive disorder. Uh, sometimes managed better than other times else, have a neurological stability in a physical one. But I think, um, that's a good example of how my what people see about my identities is not necessarily the fullness of thm. So I'm white passing, but also by racial. My biological family is native and white, but I was raised white and received by most of the world's that way. Sex orientation on by and I'm married to a man, um, so benefit extraordinarily from heterosexual privilege. And that's not the whole story. And I share that not because I want to be like I'm not like the rest of those white people are heterosexual people. I mean, I really feel like my work is about connecting the folks who share the dominant identities. I cold so that we can show up differently than we have them, Um, as well as supporting those who have shared, marginalized or minority. That makes sense. I guess the biggest one for me in terms of salient identities right now is is the family role as the eldest living daughter with all of those biological and adoptive families. Um, I feel a great deal of responsibility now for caring for ailing parents, which is, um, channel a real challenge for me. And I think my role as adoptee is very present for me now, too, which is so different today than it waas back in the day. You know, one of my one of my family members gave up a daughter for adoption, and I'm Facebook friends with the adoptive mother. Now I've been able to see her. Aziz. She grows, and I think I ran into her in the supermarket, which is a possibility because we live in the same area. I might run up and hug her, even though she doesn't know who I am, which gives me a little bit of compassion for what happened when I first met my biological family and they were like the baby. And I'm like, Who are you? Get off of me. So I guess those are a few that are present for me now,
spk_0: 8:16
Thank you. And even noticing how they change over the lifespan rate is and with context and potentially changing from all the different even geographic and physical space locations that you navigate as we've got on this. Kali were like, Yeah, three different places in a given 24 to 48 hour period teaching and doing your thing. And so we talked a little bit about the work that you're doing today with the chapter that you have coming out and some of your research interests. What's at the top of your mind in terms of the issues and the topics and those initiatives that you're pushing forward today. What's that work look like for you that you're trying to move forward?
spk_1: 8:55
Yeah, and this is kind of like practice for my tenure and promotion meeting. That's gonna be happening next month, right where I have to figure out how to say that in six words or less, and I don't know that I got that town yet. I mean, I guess I would say that, Ah, a list of things that are in my mind. Number one, we've I've been trying to play a part in reducing an equitable outcomes in higher education for over 30 years now, and and I don't know that we've made as many games as I had hoped we would. So I'm trying to deal with cultivating some optimism when I know there are things, that complaint to the arc of justice being long and things will get better. But that's hard to sustain. When I feel like every few years I buy into the latest greatest newest like Here's the solution. You know it's inclusive excellence. It's the equity scorecard, its campus culturally engaging campus environments. It's this latest program policy mentoring initiative, and yet we haven't seen gains, especially around race, ethnicity and income, and that kind of disappoints me so I don't want to come across as a pessimist, and yet I am, and I think there are additional manifestations of equity that don't get talked about as much in higher and student affairs as I wish they would. Many of which have to do a social class, and a lot of it has to do with interrogating. Our practice is to see how we're contributing to the problem rather than transforming it. So I spent a lot of time talking with practitioner colleagues, and I did this when I was a practitioner to about you know, so well, it's always been this dump has been done this way. Or this is a great program initiative, spending a lot of time trying to help folks kind of step back from that to say. Really? How do we know that? How do we define success? How do we, um, you know, be is critical about the work that we do as we can be about what everybody else is doing? You? No, I'm saying Yeah, like, uh, I have certainly participated in judging everyone and their mother for what I perceived to be their level of woke nous and how they show up in a space. Um, I'm less good at saying, Oh, my gosh, I do things that still contribute to inequity. So maybe if I started there, um, that's maybe going to get us farther than if I just judge other people for what they are are not doing.
spk_0: 11:18
Yeah, I can't help but think about also how we might be more inclined to confront more readily or more assertively or more directly in different regions of even the US like in the Midwest. We need people around us to hold us accountable, right? Like I say, Tory, you know, our that practice that you just did that's very class driven. Let's talk about it and calling people into that conversation as opposed to the passive aggressive nature or the indirect communication, and that that gets very challenging even if it happens here in this region. Whereas on our coast we might be more readily able to say, Hey, I'm your colleague and I noticed this thing. Let's talk about it and calling people in interrogate those.
spk_1: 12:06
Yeah, and there is that you're so right on. I mean, I've not lived on the coast, so I don't know what that experience is like, but it has certainly been my experience that what I perceive as calling in and a gentle invitation to connect others perceive as outright attack. I mean, I remember when I moved from working at your view Madison. Um, and being part of what I thought was a fairly progressive community moving to a new place, and all of a sudden people were like your way to a brace of your problematic and like what? My zip code changed, but what is happening here? I didn't get it. And over time really had to stop in my voice at my new institution, Um, which meant biting my tongue so often that I was drowning in the blood of it all. You know, it's just like hoof, the amount of tone pleasing we do of one another, especially women, um, and non binary and trans folk of all genders. In other words, not CIST under its its extraordinary. And yeah, we were just having a conversation today about that with our those who supervised the graduate students in our on campus master's program. How when somebody says I feel attacked? Um, on the one hand, I want to validate that the impact of somebody being taken aback and harmed by something another has said whether or not it was intentional. And also what I notice is that it's often folks from privileged, dominant identities who who are like I'm attacked. It's I know that you know what's the phrase like when you're privileged, Discomfort feels like oppression when it's merely discomfort. You can sit with that a little while, you know, And that to me is different than your talking with somebody who says this racial slur was used in my work environment or this homophobic incident occurred in my hall. Or there's not a restroom I can use in the building where classes held like to me, That's not somebody's fragility showing up. That's like you have a right to be treated in a humane fashion. Absolutely. Um, that's different than I said something. Somebody called me in kindly and gently, in my estimation, I don't know. It's like I had the opportunity take a healing from Toxic Whiteness course last year through Sandra Kim and compassionate activism Love, um, the work that happened there, and I'm a big follower of Robin D. Angelo, and her newest book on White fragility came out, and I do think, man, those of us who are white, we sure have a way of re centering conversations on our comfort and expecting other folks toe soothe our egos. Whether were the focus person in the room or not yet there, right? Yeah, I could go on. But
spk_0: 14:50
we have some things that I've been resonating with me recently in the work that people have been asking me to come to their campuses and help facilitate dialogue around is this idea of discomfort versus, you know, being unsafe and and, you know, really noticing how are dominant and minorities identities may lead us sort of into traps sometimes that make us assume that we're not safe because we're being called in our privilege. But in fact, we're just uncomfortable. But because of adult learners, particularly adult learners, people that are in professional staff and faculty roles were so uncomfortable with not having the answer with messing up that it becomes harder and harder to recover from fumbling and failing and right. And it's like no human being human. Yeah, and so I think that's the piece for the I think to myself, if I have colleagues around me that aren't holding me accountable than I think, that's what I worry day in and day out, as I, you know, just turned 35 I'm like, sort of making my way on the earth. Um, over time, I think if I don't have people around me that hold me accountable on that call me into these conversations, I think that would be the biggest loss for me. And the biggest regret ago. Yes, I would be. So I would be so upset and disappointed and feel like I failed in sort of building a network of friends and family and colleagues who we can actually talk about these things, Um, and not agree. And it's that's okay, Um, so I don't know. I do. It's easier than it sounds toe decider between discomfort and feeling unsafe and our conversations on campus right now around gender pronouns are exactly the same thing that you're saying around privilege, like the attention is now on the comfort and the academic freedom of those who are privileged, right? Like, um and And what about our students, who are Trans and GNC traveling our campuses and our queer students who who think about their pronouns all the time? Like what? We're redirecting our attention from them and their feeling of thriving and being celebrated belonging on campus, And it's It's a really slippery tool that's being used here's a real slippery slope. Um, but yeah, So I I definitely appreciate that you're bringing that up, because I it's coming up on multiple campuses that I'm even involved in.
spk_1: 17:35
Well, and I think there, you know, um, having spent a few more turns on the around the earth, you know, I've seen this pattern have participated in it, not realizing I was colluding with this pattern of something starts as a way to transform an exclusive space and make it more inclusive, but quickly then becomes adopted by those who have maintained the status quo in their service. Right. This is what critical race theory is telling us that if you think you're making progress, watch out because it will be taken and co opted, transformed into something else. So my so yes, I hear you on that because my worry on our campuses that the there a lot of folks to talk about PDP's and some who still say prefer gender pronoun, and then they now realize like it's not preference. So they'll say personal, gender prone out. And I'm like, OK, first of all, enough with the acronyms. Don't say to a new student what your few cheapies. Well, I don't know what that means. Well, now I just need to feel like an idiot. So let me tell it my superiority, right? Can you just say what I could see? Her pronouns Are there pronounce you like me to use yet enough with PG? He not because I don't want people to have name them, but because I feel like it gets used as a performance by CIS gender folks to be like I'm woke. You know, I'm always gonna say she her because it costs me nothing to say that in fact, it, um it is a performance to make me seem like I'm a little bit better than the a little bit less transphobic or sexist. Or Lord knows all of the other act assumptions people could make about someone who doesn't start with that right. I very much want folks to be acknowledged for who they are as they want to be acknowledged, period. And it makes me nervous when it becomes less about as you said, What are the needs of thes trans Genc students on how are they being displaced by the need of the CIS gender folks to perform their ally ship.
spk_0: 19:36
Yeah, and I even want to break down when I say Gene. See, I'm referring to gender non conforming, right? So that's something that even I cognitively short cut it. And I had this moment Tory I went to I spoke to two incoming classes of first year students, and that was really cool to different campuses. But both I was helping to facilitate a dialogue around their social identities and some of the questions that I think that we have proceeded to move forward at sort of lightning speed in terms of talking about racism and sexism and transphobia. And you know, all the ISMs and the ways oppression manifests we we have failed to bring people along in terms of what is race. What is ethnicity? What is gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, right? And so when I was pulling together, um, we had a great question come up from one of the students who was leading our discussion on that campus. And they said, Well, how are you defining race and how are you defining ethnicity and are they the same? And can I get some help with the kind of one? 01 language before we move on to talk. And when I had to go look for it, it was nowhere to be found in one place where we're defining what we mean by all these different social identities. Yeah, and I just had this epiphany. Like I've been disregarding people a little bit when they say, I don't know what you're talking about. You're speaking all that jargon and kind of telling us we didn't bring them along. And I'm like, No, you know, you should be here
spk_1: 21:13
even living under Iraq and how there's so much in touch, we left
spk_0: 21:17
them behind. Yeah, there is, And I fall into and I am not proud of it. And when I went to go find those definitions one. There's definitions all across the board of what each of these are. So if you have someone that takes Google, you know, search as like the number one truth, they could stumble onto some set of identity based definitions that have no relevance toe like the context of what we're speaking to. So I don't need to take about much time. I guess I'm just thinking about how we do leave people behind with language. And if we actually truly listen to their concern about you know, you left me behind. How are you defining this? Sometimes we take that as, Oh my God, we're defining diversity or a defining inclusion again before we can do the work. And it's like there's something there, although I don't think it should take the two hours that you set aside for the work but may be paying attention to that as the precursor To allow the work to go on. Is building some sort of general definition or general common language that we can move forward?
spk_1: 22:23
And I think that's true. Certainly true around all of the identities do you mentioned. And it's another manifestation of social class and first Gen status to where even the word first gem. I didn't know I was first gym until I had been in a career 10 years like that. They're just wasn't. If that language had been used, I would have been thinking about first generation first generation immigrant, not first in your family. Go to call it like I didn't know that. Right. Um, so one of the one of my platforms, if you will not feel like I'm running for Miss America. One of my platforms would be Hasting affairs folks, I love us, and, uh, we do. We speak in terms that none of my family would understand if we were at a family gathering, like a sister's wedding or something. You know, um and I don't And I've heard people talk about how inaccessible some of our languages, but in a very patronizing way and talking about like, I guess we have to dumb it down or we have to do these things, like, you know, it's not a sometimes it's a willful ignorance thing, and that is problematic. You know, if I have a colleague who's been doing this work with me for 30 years and they haven't heard what is gender, you come on, you had more than ample opportunity. Um, but for an 18 year old, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Maybe this is evident. I wasn't ever planning on going to college as a young person. I did it so I'd have a place to live. Um, because I was emancipated at 16 and I sure didn't think I'd be in college longer than just getting a piece of paper to get a job. Um and so to be where I am now, I'm still like that. This is all gonna end tomorrow. It seems ridiculous to me. Ah, and I wish I could say, Oh, that was true 20 years ago. But it's not true now, but the the rampant elitism that happens between, like, the prestige associated with different schools And do you know the right language and Oh, my gosh, it's just It's a little too much, you know? So I know that you would ask something later on about like, where do you find community? And I got to say, like, the first time I went Teoh an academic advising conference, people were talking about first time in low income students like we were just damaged goods. And, um, it was so offensive to me, and I couldn't figure out why nobody else in the room was offended like, Oh, because none of y'all are those things. And it's assumed we are all not first, John, um, or for something which Monash Conference people look down at your name tag. And when I had a UW Madison named Take on, people were like, Oh, do you know so and so, But every name, take have had sense. It's been like, Oh, you're not worth my time. I'm gonna keep moving on. Um, and I've experienced that in every single student affairs organization I've been a part of, which is nearly every one of them. Which doesn't mean that there aren't also some great things happening. I mean, a CPIs serves ah, secure comparative for racial justice. And decolonization is so exciting. That's amazing work. Um, and yet there's still quite a bit of that. Like, Where did you go to school? You went to that program. Will you have a needy instead of a PhD of your from the Midwest instead of from the coast? There's a lot of, you know, I don't know something down. Ah, folks who are less than that. We do each other all the time, and that's a little harder. I think toe own were in student affairs. My experience has been were really quick to say, like faculty treat us like shit. Well, we treat each other like shit. Like how about we start with that? You know,
spk_0: 25:53
I think it's one of those pieces of if people are open to being called into that conversation, then we can have it. But we have so much ego as human beings as adult human beings in the US that
spk_1: 26:06
was challenging. It does. And I think, especially when you know, if I were ambivalent about the how I showed up and you said You're causing harm you know I could take it or leave it But when I think I'm actually the solution and you're telling me that I'm the problem, that is hard because I have so much invested in what is it? And LaMotte says, helping is the sunny side of control. Um, that we who joins student affairs to help others, can jump straight into, like being saviors being needed. You know, whether that's the person who is known for being the validator and affirming and opens their arms and lives on campus 24 7 So it's a really piss poor role model for what life work integration could be. But it feels really good about themselves because they care and everybody knows they care. Or maybe they're the badass activists like I waas like, you know, it's an undergraduate student participating in protests against the dean of students and then within a span of a few short years, being on her Cabinet, having a pat me on the head and say, Look who's going up and become the man now, like Oh, yeah, um, yeah, I feel like Ah, you're right The ego is threatened because I came to do this work to help, and now you're telling me maybe it's not helpful, and I think it's that that maybe is one of the things I've learned over time. I grew up being taught to think and more binary terms. Stuff is black or white. It's good or bad. It's useful or not useful. And I have since come to realize that most things are, you know, there are multiple truths happening all at once, and and so if I think I'm being helpful by sending out early alert notices to students who might be struggling in classes, that is one truth. And it is also true, perhaps, that I am perpetuating a cycle of putting under surveillance minorities, populations and pointing out every flaw um, that folks react to out of a cumulative impact. My sister would slap me in the face for what I just like. Could you just break that down into regular people? Terms is her response to me. So I did a research study here where we talked. Teoh, Um, folks who identify students of color who got either positive early alert messages or negative earlier alert messages or no earlier alert messages and said, You know what? Your experience them cause a lot of the administration here was saying, You know, early alerts its high impact practice and advise It's we oughta It's the latest trend were on board, and what students said is it didn't feel like a helping hand. The vast majority of students, especially um as students got further in their educational career, said It's shaming its public shaming. And I got the message from five different offices that I'm a failure. Uh, and I knew that walking in that you would see me and think that I'm going to be a failure, and that's exactly how you treated me like, Oh, you're being successful here not because of these early alerts, but in spite of them because of the way they're done. And again, it's another example of That's something that every campus I've worked at started as an initiative out of a multicultural student services office to do outreach to students of color, to celebrate successes and provide a safety net. That then gets co opted by the full institution and then becomes as um, like racial profiling of students who are transfer low income first done students of color, which, by the way, that's not all the same group. If you couldn't get that out that we talk often as if it were, Uh, yeah, so practice that started as a really meaningful good thing, I think, on a lot of campuses has transformed into another extension of educational control. That actually doesn't help folks persist. But in this current environment, where people don't want to hear stories, they just want numbers. It's like, Look at that, Uh, I was at another private institution, only started the scholarship program and look at these amazing graduation rates. Uh huh. But did you see the campus climate survey? A person can persist and still not have a positive experience, So if your only definition is getting folks into the door, that's a problem, or even if it's only getting them out of the door you're missing the lived experience in between, you know?
spk_0: 30:26
Yeah. I mean, I think about how early alert works when in the faculty environment and with my students, I think about if I am in relationship with them on going and it's not some transactional like I just great papers and show up to teach And like, you know, I'm the sage on the stage. If I'm building relationships with them, I don't have as much of a need for an early alert as is used at other institutions is like a, you know, realizing that students haven't shown up for a few classes like you're in conversation with, um so that you know when they're not arriving and you should be concerned and you reach out to them first, as opposed to copying your advisor, copying this person talking about it's like, Wow, you just put all my business out there. And now I feel like less inclined to tell you. Actually, someone passed away in my family or my parent lost their job, and now they're on disability. And can't you know, be the breadwinner in our household anymore? So it's Yeah, I think that there's something assumed about how, if you combine those faculty those high impact practices of faculty, student interaction, rain and those increased numbers with something like an early alert. Early alert just means we're kind of catching things before our academic calendar says we need to have a final grade for a student. It's like sometimes a simple is that? But we're trying to help be as relation ALS we can within these very rigid policy timelines.
spk_1: 32:00
Yeah, and the relationship piece, I think, is what gets missed most, um, particularly you having been an administrator for most of my life. Although I have been an assistant professor for five years, I feel like you have to let me do it for 30 years, and then I'll tell you which one I like better, you know? But, um, I'm shocked at how much I didn't know about what it would be like to be a faculty member. Like I remember sitting in the new faculty orientation. I'm you know, 20 years senior of everyone else in the room. And they're like, I am an expert on this really Merrill topic and English literature. But I don't know how to teach. I don't not advise. I don't have to do any of this stuff. And now you're telling me the student feedback about advising is pretty low. I want to fix it, but I don't know how. And I'm trying to get publications which matter more in 10 year, Even though you say you're teaching on campus and blah, blah, blah, it's like, Oh, this is really stressful and hard work for people and the stuff that seems logical to me. Like, you know, if Fred is missing class, I'm gonna email or call Fred and you like, Hey, we're everything. OK, so I'm going on that I can assist with, um because I took the time to get to know the person's first name like it. Doesn't everybody do that as an instructor? No. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay, shocking to me. So I think that's then, if the first part of my life as a soon affairs administrator was about trying to figure out how can we change policies to create more equitable outcomes? Now I feel like my job is about how do I prepare student affairs practitioners to enter environments that are designed specifically to reproduce inequitable outcomes and create kind of more folks who are willing to be disruptors in that at the same time that I'm also practicing what I preach, you know? So we were just doing a review of our bylaws that talk about what? His scholarship. And, um, I love that I'm in a department where, as an example, I had a new article and Naspers conference publication last spring about we do these things and advising that a problematic Here's some ideas about how to do it better. Uh, and I got emails from colleagues at two research intensive institutions saying, This just got spread out to an advisor network of over 300 people. Cool. And I love that. I knew the author and like, Oh, that's a speed. That's 600 people who saw that if I had it published in another academic journal, it would not reach 600 practitioners. It might reach one, knowing what we know about the readership there. So in our department, while the rest of the campus is saying the journal impact factor matters, the more selective, the better. We're saying no, we are a practitioner based program. And so if we can get scholarship into the hands of practitioners and reshape the way they're doing things that actually matters far more than, um, how many articles you published or where they were published Because there's no guarantee that producing that knowledge is going to result in any actionable practitioner change, you know, And that's what we're after is like the point of the degree in student affairs is not to get a credential so you can get a pay, bump its toe, learn some of the skills to be resourceful and sally and innovative and your work, Um, and to keep doing that, not like across the stage. And then we like peace out. I've never reading another book again, you know?
spk_0: 35:22
All right, so and I know if we've talked about this has been a definite threat. As we've been talking today, Tory, in terms of how you arrived to the work that you're doing today, what do you think was that? That driving force that brought you to either the particular rule that you have or the particular passions and the topics and issues that you're pushing forward today? What do you think drove you to do the work that you're doing today?
spk_1: 35:50
It's really interesting that you ask that question today of all days because, um, in one of the classes that's being taught right now, another instructor asked students to reflect on that. What it what, right here today. And, um, what sometimes happens is that becomes, like a Well, I was an array and the student body president and of this and this and this and all these mentors told me I'd be perfect in student affairs. Which leaves those of us who worked in, like, food service and, um, other overnight work, study jobs, feeling like Oh, well, should I don't belong here. Um, and and sometimes what brought us to the work is actually is really traumatic. And so yeah, so I mean, the asking that question. What brought you here? I don't know. I feel like the right answer is supposed to be Oh, all of these wonderful mentors mentors and, you know, Yeah, I know it. I think I got here. Um, because I saw a ton of violence in my home and was like, Ah, I am not for this. I gotta figure out how to make a different world and has probably makes me seem really simple, but like the best way to motivate me is to tell me that I can't do something. So I also was like, you don't think I'm smart? Let me, you know, get a perfect score on the Jerry F U um, third grade teacher who made me re taken honors test because she assumed that I cheated because we were from the poor white trash family in town or the early school days when we're gonna get it most. I don't know where the solicitor is coming from, but I'm gonna be okay with that because it's really I remember, um, being in third grade and being told like, uh, that I never amount to anything from the teacher because I had sworn in class, and that was a sign of a stupid person because I didn't have a big enough vocabulary yet in third grade, are you serious? Uh, are standing in a different lunch line because the free and reduced lunch kids were so greedy with the food we needed to let the paying people go first, and then we could have what was left. It was very shaming or standing in Ah ah being posed for a photo op to show that we were wearing the clothes that the other kids in the school had donated to make the church members feel really good about that, Um, and being shamed or the fact that I wear the same dress and my school photos four years in a row because I hadn't grown because my parents were abusing alcohol and drugs. And, um, I was, you know, not fed like and it scared to say all of this stuff because it's not just my story, right? I'm like, you wanna talk about putting my secrets out on the street? This is really scary. This kind of reveal stuff that I had been taught to keep secret. And yet, I think if more of us don't, um, start sharing those truths. It does become this weight that you keep dragging behind you. And I want my past informing, but I don't want it. Teoh, um, control me in the same way, you know? So and I know that you've recently had Sanja on your podcasts and she had a lot of conversations about this. Like what happens when your first and you and you keeping first you know, first to get undergrad first. Get the masters first to do this 1st 1st 1st a lot of people assume Oh, well, then life is grand, and you and your assimilated and all is good. It's like, um, I actually still go back to that home all the time. So it's not like I tried to escape. I mean, maybe when I was 15 I was about trying to escape. Now it's about trying to reconnect and stay grounded. Right? Uh, identity is not this. Whatever the identity, it's not like a This is the one thing, and that's true for your lifetime. It can shift over time. And when you shift, you don't necessarily abandon what came before you. It's more like residue. You know, it's like, um, it's still part of your psyching. So I still do things like every time the phone rings, I think it's a debt collector or somebody calling to tell me that one of my family members is dead from a drug overdose or somebody calling for bail money. Um, so I don't like phones, um, or when we're what I've done my review meetings. I keep hearing where you need to brag on yourself more. Yeah, I'm not willing to do that. Sorry. Your process ought to change to accommodate folks who are not all about setting up. You know themselves as expert. That's not quite, Um, yeah, that should really gets under my skin. But then what tends to happen? Because because of the way that I physically present people assume that I'm continuing generation that I'm professional, middle class, whatever, whatever. And then kind of when they find out that's not what my lived experiences. Um Then I become, like, the object of pity or scoring, like always. Isn't it amazing that you survived all of that like, aren't you? Don't you feel grateful to be here? Well, maybe I do, but I'm not gonna perform that for you assholes. A move over, right? Um, or the scoring. It's like, Why do you have to keep bringing those things up? Um, because eventually you need to start doing that to, you know, it's like the which one of these things is not like the other when they realize I'm not like the other. Necessarily. Though I still am the other like them and also the other. I don't know that it causes this discomfort that I've been able to navigate sometimes by being written up a subordinate and having to lose jobs, sometimes by biting my time. Um, because I felt like I needed to have the security of health insurance for my health issues or to provide for family members even though I don't have kids. Um, And I think, you know, we all choose different strategies at different times in our lives that work for us in that moment, but don't have to be the one we go to for forever, if that makes sense, um, so sometimes when I've said to people like that should is toxic. You need to leave their like I can't leave. And I got all these things like, I know I've been there and I've had to suffer through some things that I wish I didn't have to. But some of that was me feeling like like I don't belong here, and I should have to suffer that stuff like that's the price I should have to pay for being here. So I have adopt this like martyrdom piece of work that I'm not proud of, but it's still in me because it's all I know. You know, like a I was talking to my sister about this the other night. Um, we were up in a working class community first bouncing from house to house the house, Uh, when my mom was still drinking and dating a drug dealer. It's like no security at all. And then we moved to the country to try and escape some of that on a farm where you were when the sun comes up and you work till the sun goes down and that's how you get ahead. Right? So my first postmaster is advising job. I got to the office at six. Every morning. I stayed until eight or nine at night. I saw, like, double the students and everybody else. And I was work, work, work, work, work, work. Um, and meanwhile, other people I want to grant school with are getting promoted left, right, and everywhere, like what is happening? The rules I got taught about like hard work is look at you had is not the environment I entered. Not like people who get ahead don't work hard. Of course, you too. But they invest in the relationship and I have not been taught that that was a value. I've been taught that networking is like taking a fake bullshit. And you know, that's what people who don't have, who don't know how to work, just smooth each other. And it's a manipulation. It's not riel. So that's one of those kind of advising practices, like Stop telling people to do networking for me and that working as a four letter word and it associates you with slime balls. But if you say to me you need to invest in community building, I can get behind that right? So, um, I mean, I kind of circles back to some of those multiple truths. I think what's hard is when I say to folks, you know, and I did this. Why do we hire a really diverse orientation leader crew and then make them dress exactly the same and say exactly the same thing? Like what? What was that? Oh, I think what folks here is like you're saying I'm a horrible person like No, no, I'm not. I'm just asking, like, even though we've been doing it that way, is that the best way to do we know kind of in some parts of it be useful and maybe other parts of its shift. I have the answer. I'm not, um I was in my twenties. I thought I had the answer to everything. Now, something you said earlier about, Like, we're human. We are going to fail. Yeah, I feel every day. But that's not in my bio, is it? Like Tories and F up, Um, which is problematic, I think, for our future profession. Because people feel sexual, such extraordinary pressure to get it right. Always, Um and especially if you feel a responsibility to make this place better than it was, perhaps for you. It's like, Oh, my gosh, we're so hard on ourselves. Um and think I remember talking toe Kathy. Oh, bear about this once where I said, Oh, you know, if I f up, you know, I'm so afraid of that That just makes you human, You know, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. I'm like, No, I really think I'm a bad person. You're telling me that that's not true, is not hopeful to me in this moment. Uh, it is more than just my ego Can't handle somebody calling me a racist. I am. I was raised racist. How could I be anything but, uh, but I do think underneath it all and this is where the adoptee comes in. And, um, that I wasn't wanted, but I don't deserve to be here.
spk_0: 45:27
There's so many messages about who deserves to belong. Who, who is who is us and who is them, if that makes sense, Yes. Yeah, um, and that we participate in those, right? Those mechanisms, like we allow those to perpetuate by saying, Oh, yeah. What, what university or what college are you from? Okay, you're worth this much of my time or not at all, right? Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that, Tory. And I do think that that truly is essential for us to be highlighting and making visible in our field is that we? You know, our bios and and biles are strange manifestations, aren't they? I mean, I feel so uncomfortable with any bio that I have to put together and what we think is right or appropriate to put in a biography, right? Um, yeah. What's what's too long? What's too short? What needs to be in there? What's important what's not, um, about our our personhood. And so I appreciate that we've spends quite some time thinking about kind of what? What Your pathway has been moving in this direction. What drives and inspires and motivates you to do the work that you're doing today. I know that one of the questions that in their big questions that I like to round out our conversation with is around guidance and insight that you would provide others doing this work kind of, I think of it, is looking into the rear view mirror. Um and so what are those? What are those lessons? Those pieces of guidance that you would share with other folks that are doing this work that come from from your heart from your experience? So far,
spk_1: 47:20
I would say a couple of things. One lesson I've learned is that the work is more about being than doing. Um, I think a lot of us get caught up in how much we program or Hominy. What numbers can we produce around our events and, um, meetings And what love, Uh, and that's not really what matters at the end of the day, like, because when we're so focused on the business of the work and participating in that awful game. Like who stayed up later last night who work more hours this week. I hate that. Could we please stop doing that? Student affairs It's not. It's not a good look. It's not cute. Um, and it feeds the wrong part of our egos. Right to say, uh, this is This is It's a Gemini or Hegemony are, however, that's supposed to be pronounced when when we when we embrace like whoever's here the longest is the most committed to their work. We're basically saying I need to kill myself in order to have worth year What? That's so sick. And yet we keep doing it anyway. Um, So instead of thinking that, um, about like, am I a valuable contributor to this community based on how much I teacher, how many students I advise or whatever else maybe I could say a my acting in ways that are congruent my values to the best of my ability in the spaces I inhabit, right. So to those who are listening to this who identify with more, um, majority ized identities, you know, like to my to my white family do more do better. Stop saying you're going to try to and just start making mistakes and get over yourself, right? I have to tell myself, Get over myself every fucking day. Um, and to folks who are hurt because they're trying to navigate spaces that are about silencing them. Um, you know, so self care is radical if it is done so that you can survive another day, right? So find community. Um, I'm not a huge fan of like, it's funny that your work is called resilient campus, because when I hear result, like, you need to be more resilient and like f you you don't know what I have to do to get here today. But the way you frame it for me at least, is I am reselling it. And so I'm gonna do what I need to do. And that's what it is, right? So, um, sometimes I have felt guilty when I don't speak up about every gender issue, but I'm tired. And so, like folks who are identify as male, could you please step up your game so I don't feel guilty for not saying something or get labeled a bitch for saying something that we will. Nice. Sometimes, you know, um, so, yeah, being in doing being is doing this one. And I have to credit Becky Martinez with that. You know, I've heard a lot of your podcast guests talk about the importance of the Social Justice Training Institute, and that was huge in my own life. Huge. Um, and it's not just S j t I. It is Jamie Washington. It was Cathy O Bear was backing Martinez. It was foreign wall. Now salmon Carmen it up. Like folks who are affiliated with that, I think get that you use yourself as the instrument that it's not about creating the best program or reshaping policy. It's about getting clear the work you need to do to heal so that you can show up in assist others in their process. Uh, yes. Of being is doing and embracing mistakes as just a feedback about you know, what's not as a dismissive like my bad, uh, mawr as Ah. Oh, shoot. Didn't I'm gonna commit to not making that mistake again. Um, I'm not saying people could be careless, but that like being paralyzed for the fear of people finding out the secret about you. Whatever that secret is, you know that that, um, battle Kolya and I want you share toe keep transforming these spaces, right.
spk_0: 51:22
I love that you mentioned that being is doing because that has come up for me. I'm trying to retrace how many times of that might be the fourth time in the past seven days that I've had conversations with people. That's a lot. It's definitely a theme that I talked to someone who we kind of veered into more of a spiritual conversation, Um, and talking about higher education, and but it's shown up with other folks in this space as well. Um, to to be able to just focus on how we can be in a space in a role in, ah, environments around certain people. And rather than being measured in our value and worth on how much were doing or what we're doing.
spk_1: 52:07
Yeah, that like that, I'm not enough. Oh, my gosh. I don't know a single person who doesn't carry that with, um um constantly. And I'm like, if life were about who did the most tasks at the end of the day, wouldn't we get more done if we weren't carrying the psychic energy it takes to answer that question of Is this enough? Am I enough? Jeez. But somehow it gets holding us, and it's easier said than done to drop it, especially when there are other people in the world saying, No, you're not. You're not enough. You don't deserve this. Teoh radically claim your space. That's that's pretty. It's pretty special, knowing that how much you can take up is a manifestation of all of these other systems we've been talking about. Um, because my bio might have said things like Watches way too much, Netflix or, um and and I was trying to get caught up on orange Is the new black Oh my gosh, so much problematic there so much otherness there. But when tasty says to what's her name? I just so dislike Piper. Um oh, you're used to people liking you. You're used to things going your way and that, and that hasn't happened for you. Oh, fine. Welcome to this world. Yeah, you know, I sometimes I'm marching around saying, I want to wear jeans store. I want to be able to swear, because that's my That's how I feel most comfortable. Like there are other folks who are just trying to be to not get killed. Literally. Eso I don't know. Take some perspective, I guess, is the other thing. Like, um, I've had a lot of folks in my life who helped me realize that as much as I was trying to do a lot of gender activism that I wasn't doing the necessary work around my race. Ethnicity? Uh, so can we spend as much time healing are the supremacy we learned as well as healing the oppression we learned, Um, and focus more on what we're doing instead of just judging other folk.
spk_0: 54:12
Thank you for sharing those those pieces of guidance. I know that that will resonate with people listening in, Um, because they, you know, echoes sentiments of carrying those messages lifelong into our professional roles into our personal lives that we learned early on. And so I know that that will resonate with a lot of folks. Um, so I know that Ah, you know, you create some of the scholarship that people are reading that informs their approach to their work. Tell us about what some of those resource is our that that informed the way you approach your work. Um, are they isn't like core books or authors, is it? Ah, um, some podcast. Like what? What comes to top of mind for you?
spk_1: 54:55
I mean, when you had said that, that would be I mean, I having been a fan of the podcast for a while, I knew that question would be coming. And and often I think people start dropping off their names. And if this were a master's level class and we're talking about your capstone project, I'd be like, Why are you citing so and so, um, and I feel like a lot of them have been said So like, there's a new new directions on student services about social class that came out this summer co edited by Becky Martin Nature Janna, our Georgina Martin Mbeki Elkins that I think it's pretty exciting. There's, ah, the book that I sent you the quote from difficult subjects teaching excellent book. I can't wait to read the debunking the myth of job fit in student affairs from stylist that supposed to come out this fall. Okay, Um, yeah, There's so many authors whom I have read And yet what I remember is a practitioner is I really had time to consume scholarship in the field, and it wasn't packaged in a way that was accessible to me. So I also want to make sure I don't become the doctor who Onley reads academic journals. Right? So this summer, I bet a lot of, um, more autobiographical stuff like, um, the mother of Black Hollywood by Jennifer Lewis or Calypso by David Sedaris or educated by Terra or Tarawa Terra Westover. Horrible with name pronunciation. And because I do travel between several UW system campuses, I listen to our podcast, too, and yours is first among them, but code switch scholar T uh, I'm being, um I try to mix it up because I think if you'd asked me this maybe 15 years ago, I would have very narrow answer. And I think that's another problem in student affairs Is that if this is our work and all of our friends are also in this work, uh, we don't step outside of it to realize there's bigger conversations going on. I like to talk to my friends about what's happening at a conversation at the farm where they are a migrant worker or game farm employees or where they work on the marina docks. Or my sister works in a hospital like what's happening there. So I don't get into this. I remember a family holiday gathering where I think my mom said, So what's new in your life? And I said, Oh, I'm reading about feminist counter hegemonic, pedagogical like I had lost them when I said, Um, the context of their like context is a fancy word. You think we're gonna listen to any of the rest of that nonsense? Um, yes. I try to get sources outside of the academic literature to and would invite others to do the same.
spk_0: 57:37
That's awesome. Yeah, And I, um, I appreciate that, and I What I'll do is I'll include the links to those sources in the show notes so that people can also be engaging in those sources if they choose to. And they'll have access to those books and those works. Um, so Tory, as we conclude our time together, I know that you're an amazing part of my network, my community. And how can folks add you to their network? How can they connect with you.
spk_1: 58:07
Oh, yeah. Um, they can call me. I probably don't want my phone distributed on something that I don't know what kind of nasty grams I might get packed. But most of what? I'm not on social media as much as I should be. I'm on Twitter. I'm unlike Teoh. Email Second Cheryl of that with you. But I would love to connect with people and hear their stories because I do think this narrative of what a traditional student affairs person is or should be is changing and has to change. So, yeah, I would love to talk with folks about how that's happening for them or those they know or what not.
spk_0: 58:43
So what I'll do is I'll include your Twitter and your lengthen information in the show notes so that people can click on that link directly to you. And I encourage people listening to this podcast to connect with Tory and send her those positive grams, those inspirational grams. Um,
spk_1: 59:02
not that she doesn't belong in higher ed. That sometimes appears in some of my teaching you battles because I swear once. Yeah,
spk_0: 59:08
yeah. I mean, if if you get any of those nasty grams. I think that folks are truly didn't listen then to what? You shared their health episode. And they're only proving your point, not rebutting it. So, Tory, thank you so much for being with us today. I know that as we concluded episode I like to close out with an inspirational quote to send people back out into the world. And today I'm so glad that you came. You found a quote. Can you be the one that reads that for us today?
spk_1: 59:38
Yeah, sure. Um so this is, uh I'll read the quote. The ideal is to promote the transformation of rebellious consciousness into revolutionary consciousness, To be radical without becoming sectarian, to be strategic without becoming cynical, to be skilful without becoming opportunistic. And to be ethical without becoming puritanical. From Apollo for air in the text. Letters to Christina.
spk_0: 1:0:03
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Tourney 12 was listening in. Thank you so much for all that you do. I truly appreciate you stay resilient. Are you looking for ways to support the resilient campus podcast and the work that we're doing to build and bridge campus social movements? Join our online patri on community of other social justice. Educators like yourself to develop connections, get guidance and resource is from other folks engaged in this work and get access, the bonus episodes and behind the scenes footage that is Onley available toe our patron community members. For more information, visit patri on dot com Forward slash resilient campus that is P a T r e o n dot com forward slash resilient campus
spk_1: 1:0:53
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spk_0: 1:0:59
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