"I can make a difference." Voices from the 2025 AACRAO Leadership Meeting

This episode features a series of brief conversations at the 2025 AACRAO Leadership Meeting. At the end of June, members of AACRAO staff joined volunteers from the AACRAO Board, Program Committee, Community Liaisons, and state and regional leaders to kick off another year of content delivery. HEARD asked attendees how they were feeling, what they were taking away, and if (and how) they could make a difference. This episode also honors Dr. Whitney West, former AACRAO leader, community member, and HEARD guest who passed away earlier this summer. 

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Hi Acro Community, it's Ingrid Nuttall, and you're listening to Heard. At the end of June, I attended ACro's leadership team meeting, which brings together members of the AACro board, program committee members, community liaisons, state and regional leaders, and ACO staff to kick off another year of content delivery. I spoke to folks from around the country at that meeting about how they were feeling, what they were taking away from the meeting, and if and how they felt they could make a difference. So this episode features your colleagues from across the Aro network sharing their thoughts on those questions. And there is another voice featured right at the top of this episode. The world lost the beautiful and powerful Doctor Whitney West, former Acro leader and member who passed away much too soon earlier this summer. Whitney was a guest back in season 2, episode 3, with Aman Riddick when they spoke about disability justice. Whitney spoke about the power of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the role of intersectionality in fighting for justice, and the importance of disrupting cycles of injustice. So that very first voice you'll hear in this episode is Whitney West, speaking about the importance of action in the fight for equality. We honor her, we love her, and we miss the heck out of her. For me, um, as the disruptor, I say is that you have to interrupt the cycle at some point. Um, and also as the academic, like I am developing like a framework of the cycle of ableism, and the key to stopping that is interrupting the cycle. And I think one of the best places to do that is Uh, one of the second steps in there is like complicity for me. Um, well, the first step is complicity, um, before it becomes inculturated into the society of wherever you're working or your life, and when you're complicit, it's like you're just letting things happen around you. You see them, you may recognize they're wrong, but you refuse to say something. And I feel like that's one of the strongest. Places to interrupt, to just say, hey, you know, I don't think what you said is right. I may not be sure exactly how, but I think we need to educate ourselves on um this thing because if not, we're just gonna continue the cycle um making everyone feel like it's OK, um, and I, I have a, a love-hate relationship with allyship in most forms because people like to come to you on the side and say, hey, I'm an ally. I'm here to support you. But if you're not doing that interrupting in public, you're not an ally, you're just scared. Um, so if you're just coming to me on the side, that is nothing but, you know, whispers and gossip, if you can't say it publicly. Hi Ingrid, it's Chris Torsten, associate VP for enrollment management at University Registrar at Kent State University. And how are you feeling, uh, the second day of the leadership team meeting? Excited and also. Thoughtful and thinking of how to engage membership and how to grow involvement of our membership, um, as I sit at this meeting and think more about like the future of our association, what members want. Um, how do we continue to evolve and meet our members where they are in times of reduced budgets, um, the ability to not travel. So how might we as an association do a better job of taking care of our members, and that's something that I've really been thinking about while I'm here. Can I ask you a follow up question. What are you thinking about your role at your institution and just approaching your work with some of the things you've heard and experienced here? I think here with my role as I think about at home, I think it's something that even I think about for my team, like how would I motivate my team when we aren't able to travel in this space. And so I think this is something that leaders are. Struggling with where we have limited ability to attend professional development or compliance training or any kind of. Um, that space. And so how do we take what we learned here and go back. So when I think about, um, the government, the, um, update around everything that's going on, um, in our higher education environment. So to take that PowerPoint back and share, it's something that my staff have heard me talk about, but I think it's more. You know, where the struggling for the word, but like where you can road meets the pavement, tires, rubber meets the road, that's the analogy I'm looking for, where they can see it from someone else's perspective, right? Because you hear, like as a leader, you talk to your team about things and they're like, yeah, I've heard it from you, but to see it or hear it from someone else, I think really is where rubber meets the road in our work. Absolutely. Reed Coleman from the University of Colorado Boulder. And what are you feeling today? 2nd day after the leadership meeting, what have you been reflecting on? Yeah, um, I think the conference has been really good. Uh, it's, it was great yesterday to get some of those government updates, although a little overwhelming. Um, and it's great to see how everyone interacts and and learn more about ACR as an organization. Do you think that you're able to take what you learned here today and go back to your institution and make a difference? Yeah, I think so for sure. I think it helps sort of refocus uh some of your priorities that help to go over the strategic plan and learn more about uh what ACR is doing and how to apply that.-- and-- you work a ton in the micro credentialing space. I don't work a ton in the micro credentials, but we do have a micro credential leader in our office, and so I work closely with him. OK, what do you do, Reed? I'm an associate registrar. I manage enrollment and record services. So with your domain specifically, is there stuff related to your day to day job that you're thinking about in the context of like the federal update that you want to? Well, definitely I oversee tuition classification or residency at CU Boulder, and so one of the bullets there is how we treat undocumented students and seeing that some states have been sued by the federal government over that. So thinking about how we want to approach that, what we want on our websites and things. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mike Billfinger. I am the assistant director of public policy for Acro. And what are you, how are you feeling today, Mike? Uh, candidly exhausted. Uh, I was just having a conversation. I normally commute via bike into the office, so my day starts with physical activity, get the heart rate up, and now on the train it's the opposite, so I'm kind of coming in sleepier than I typically do in the day. What are you thinking like what have you reflected on since the meeting yesterday, um, that you're kind of bringing into today? I know. What do you think we need from you? It's a good question. I, I'm struck. So a lot of what was expressed yesterday about the feeling of being overwhelmed, the pace at which news is coming out, uh, I experience that all the time, but I think I've kind of gone. Cold to it to some degree, right? It's, it's part of the job. I chalk it up to it it's I've almost grown like a callus as a result, but hearing it, I think it's really important for me to hear the human side of this because I'm sitting in an office reading a news article and I think wow, that's gonna have impacts but I don't put a face to it and seeing yesterday like Monse stand up and talk about her identity as a Latina and her experience. That really like that's the the human aspect that I think I sometimes lose when I'm just reading news articles all the time so it was really refreshing. I think important for me to kind of refocus that or put it back in the context like this is why I'm I'm not just spewing news, but like I'm I'm contextualizing and I'm putting it for these people. This is who I'm serving. Uh, it, I think it's an important reminder to come back to that. It's why yesterday I shared leadership for me is kind of like homecoming. Uh, it was my first ACR meeting, but for this reason too, it kind of does center for me the work like this is who I'm serving. These are the people who I need to listen to and be responsive to. Do you think you can make a difference? Oh, absolutely, yes, I feel very strongly it's part of speaking of public affairs and public policy. Part of why I, I chose this career path because I want to make an impact in the world and I do feel like we are doing that at Acro. Uh, we have Hill Day coming up that's gonna be a particularly important event for GR but also a really impactful one I I that is our opportunity to speak to these congressional members and and. The experience I'm having here, I kind of hope that they have that there where they can put a face to well if I cut pal, it's this person that I will be impacting. Um, well, you kind of just answered it, but do you think I can make a difference? Absolutely, yes, please get involved. Um, we have our advocacy center uh on ACR's website. You can send letters to your congressional representatives. I know it's cliche we say send letters. That really do these days congressional members are so information on that form is required by congressional offices because they have to track that and they use that to decide how they vote. If I'm gonna vote on an issue, I want to know are my constituents gonna be upset by my votes thinking about re-election there it doesn't feel right as impactful as like if I speak to someone or if I pushed the boulder up the hill did. physical, but it really does make a difference to send those, uh, send those letters and to be engaged. I think it's important to, although it is overwhelming to still tune in to still show up, to not, to not let that kind of exhaustion overwhelm you and to reach out when you are feeling that way because I, I think more so than ever this is a proof we need community. Yeah, thank you so much. Sarah Reed,-- I'm from UC Berkeley-- and what are you feeling today? What are you thinking about? I'm thinking about the opportunities to get involved. There are so many and I feel like I normally know a lot of them, but even here I'm realizing there's many I don't know and there's more to research about how to get involved, thinking about how to get my team involved. I'm thinking about how to. I've been thinking about how to, you know, build a professional development scale in my department, like everyone, and that's a goal of mine. And so yeah, I'm just thinking about understanding more of the framework so that I can do some of it for myself and-- also where can I plug people in how can I build that that scalable-- future? Do you feel like you can make a difference? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's so much that I can do just within my department that I don't even have to send anyone anywhere. I just have to build it and then additionally I can send people and I can uh connect. I feel like I can also work the network and bring people to my campus remotely through Zoom like I really feel like there's a lot of opportunity that. I don't know that everyone's doing, but I have an idea of how to do it and I want to do it for my team. It's really important to me that every single person that has a strong professional development plan and and a in a like a scalable future. What motivates you to do that? I just remember not ever having that and not knowing how to get it and then I got it eventually and my entire world changed and I want that for other people. What was one of the first experiences you had that, that lit you up like that? I became assistant registrar after managing orientation. I basically ran the entire department without the title and I was just out of college, so I had no idea doing three people's jobs, running a program, doing the admin, like doing everything was totally not appropriate, um, and, and then I moved over to the registrar side moved across the country and. I was terrified. I knew how to do admin. I was like, it's a new role. I'm managing people. Some people who have been here for 25 years. I'm 26 and what's this FERPA thing? Like I don't wanna, I don't wanna like lose my job because I don't know how to do FERPA. So I went to a regional conference. I remember I met Leroy Booker and I like stayed in that session and then I felt like, OK, I have enough to like get through the next 3 months and I have somebody to contact. Um, if I have questions, and I literally called him like I don't know if you're not supposed to do that. I called him. I even now when he's retiring, I was like, you've changed my life. Like you you as an individual, um, so it's just. That was the first and then just being at that conference and knowing that there's this thing, there's these people like it just totally changed my, yeah, it made me feel connected. I didn't know anything about Earth Star's office, so it immediately made me feel connected to the community. And I was alone. I like I was alone in my hotel room. I didn't know anyone. It wasn't like people weren't super friendly, they weren't not friendly. I was still very alone, but I felt like there's a resource and that was important.-- I-- really appreciate you sharing that with me, Sarah Reid. You're welcome. Thank you. Luis Alarcon, Lincolnland Community College in Springfield, Illinois. And what are some of your reflections or thoughts now that the leadership meeting has pretty much happened at this point? I think this meeting, it's vital, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to be here as part of the nominations and elections committee. I think there's a lot of synergy, collaboration and engagement and that the attendees really come together to continue to drive the institution, the organization forward to continue to inspire one another and to see ways to see growth and how we can continue to be relevant and beneficial to our membership. And you gave uh read a quote of something that inspires you when we were in the room just now that you see and you said it in Spanish and then you said it in English can you repeat that for us here? Sure, it's all about service so the quote in Spanish says that. Sinnovive para servi. No spar which translating it literally means that if you in your life you are not serving others, you're not experiencing life to its fullest and I think that is a very important thing in life that we should be, uh, you know, really modeling, uh, uh, behavior, a mindset that it's all about, you know, with action. Uh, empowering, uh, lifting other people up, uh, paving the the the the pathway or the road for others because at some point I think we're gonna have to have other individuals who can continue to, uh, do this important line of work and that it's so beneficial and it continues to transform lives. Do you think you can make a difference? Uh, I make a difference. Tell me how. Well, from the results that I see when I interact with either students that I mentor with my direct reports or with the amazing colleagues that I have had the pleasure of meeting through my engagement at Accra, you know, I'm part of the, I'm an alum from a same program Coor cohort 5. I'm also having in a pack as a committee member. And I often get asked to, you know, provide feedback from different webinars or workshops that Accra is, you know, providing to its membership, and I'm seeking to, to, you know, to continue to grow now as part of the, uh, SEPP, uh, endorsement program. So I know that through testimonies, through anecdotal evidence that, you know, the work that we do, uh, has a purpose, has a meaning, and it's really impactful. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity. Can you tell me your name and the institution that you're from? Joni Krueger, and I am with Antioch University. And uh what are you feeling about what you heard the last day or so, Johnny? I am feeling encouraged to Continue to be a member and um a volunteer and a leader with Acro because of the support in this uncertain time to be able to have people that get it and understand and can just rally together about a common. Understanding of like the terrifying world we live in. Yeah, yeah, say more say more about that. Yeah, so there's a lot going on, as everybody knows and to be able to have people who can just like talk through it with you and help you feel at peace with that they're feeling the same thing and strategies of how they're dealing with things on their campuses and with their universities and then just to really encourage and support each other. I'm excited about talking about volunteerism and how we can get more people involved in this amazing organization. And uh what are you gonna take back with you? I am so I'm part of the program committee and I'm learning a lot about how to encourage people that I've met through various um ACros and regionals and just to find different people that I can encourage to become more involved with ACro and volunteering for professional committees and to pre. at our at our conference and just submit those sessions so that we can have a really full robust diverse group of sessions that are presented so that we can meet our members and our attendees where they're at. Do you think that you can individually make a difference at your institution in your job in the ways that you want to? I can I'm new to my institution. I'm not new to the profession. But I've already felt and a lot of it is because of the things I have learned and the people I have met with Aggro that I have a voice and people look to me as the expert in some of the changes we're making on our campus and I attribute a lot of that to my colleagues and the work that I've done with this organization. Harrison Johnson,-- Lincoln University of-- Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, not Lincoln University of Nebraska or there's so many Lincolns out there. Uh, what are you feeling after, uh, what you've heard the last day or so? I would say I feel empowered and when I say empowered too often, the information is not necessarily shared with the office of the registrar we have to kind of go out and get it on our own and many of us, I won't say unfortunately but we report to enrollment managers so any information that we get is always gonna be triggered or or tied directly to enrollment opposed to policy or you know things that relate to academics and degree completion in that matter. The only time that comes up is when it comes to retention, right, when you work for an enrollment manager, so I feel empowered. Was there a particular piece of information that you heard that made you feel that way that you're taking back with you? I would say the policy piece when we cover what's happening with the federal government because clearly everything that we do is undergirded by public policy, right? So to get that information and then not being in the dear colleague letter, it's not sensationalized by the media and what we. new media, which is someone interpreting things on YouTube. I remember someone misinterpreted what FERPA was when Dos went to the Department of ASN. Now you can get your student loans wiped away. So just really being in a place to get accurate information is timely and it's relevant to everything that we do opposed to having filtered or either watered down by someone on our respective campus, I think that has been the most beneficial section that I would take away from here. Yeah. And what do you do um in at Lincoln University? What's your job? University registrar. So of course anything I think that's kind of self-explanatory because of what we do. No, tell me what a university registered. Actually I kind of want you to tell me what a university, pretend I don't know. The, the easiest aspect is anything that relates to the academic record, um, anything associated with that. I, I managed that process. I managed any office, not office, excuse me, um, any processes as it relates to maintaining the academic record. I think that's the plainest way. To to make that clear for anyone that has never heard of what that is. If you think of the academic record, that's me.-- And-- do you feel like you can make a difference? I do make a difference.-- Tell me how-- I have, um, you know. I'm not the traditional registrar, number one by me. I check a lot of boxes in regards, and I'll use the word different, um, what I'll say is it's, it's, I like to think of my approach as reframing a lot of times I'm, I'm on my 4th institution. So you know you don't always throw out everything right when you come in. So when I say well what is working well for us and what is working best for the learner that we are serving today? and I take that and we make it work. It happens magic happens, so I do make a difference. Magic happens. Thank you so much. Absolutely, thank you. Can you tell me your name and what institution you're from? Sure, I'm Dan O'Driscoll and I'm from Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. And what state or regional are you representing here today? the New England Association of Colgate Registrars. And what do you think are going to be the important things to talk about at the NAC meeting this year? We are going to be talking about federal updates, um, compliance changes, but also growing our network and trying to Have our members see value in coming, so we're bringing in NetSI, which is our regional accreditation board, to talk to us about the accreditation process, um, and we're identifying the schools that would be going through the accreditation process so that they're they're, um, and we're diversity equity inclusion always part of our conference, but mostly we're focusing on, um. The governmental updates and accreditation updates. What are you, are there any challenges in kind of planning that content this year that you're trying to navigate or opportunities even that you see? Um, it's an opportunity to be here because I'm connecting with some folks at Acro who have agreed to come to our conference and speak to these topics and sort of have open table conversations, um. As well as we're reaching out to a couple of other people like Netchi is going to be there and they serve as a resource and support for all of us. Thank you, Dan. OK. My name is Caroline Kinney and I'm with Des Moines University. And what state or regional are you here representing? You macro,-- so the Upper Midwest-- acro, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota and Minnesota and and part of and part of Canada and OK, so what are some of the session's topics? What's the content you wanna make sure you are covering at the the next annual meeting for you, Miss? I think something that we are really helpful for state and regional leaders is to know that there's a wealth of knowledge and information in the ACR website. Uh, so there's a whole community for state and regional leaders. um, there's also like a map of like all the different regional and state organizations, um, there's a handbook, um, so I think knowing that the resources are out there and knowing that other people are in your position, so knowing that you are not the only president elect who's trying to figure out how to put on next year's conference for your state or regional organization, knowing that there's a ton of people who are willing to help you. Um, and willing to give feedback and willing to provide advice and you just have to be able to reach out to them. So I think we're gonna work on putting together like some webinars or some Zoom meetings for the leadership of the state and regional organizations so that we can start to connect and share ideas and foster those networks. What about at UMacro? What about at the UMacro annual meeting? What do you think you guys need to be talking about? So one of the things that we are gonna talk about at the coming. is we have our keynote speaker is gonna talk about AI so using AI in the workplace, not just how do we manage AI with our students and um issues of academic integrity, but also how can we as staff people leverage AI to make our jobs easier. We are all trying to do more with less like there's so many budget cuts coming down, um, the state of Iowa has um been. Difficult recently, um, so trying to do more with less and we're all always doing that so I think using getting some information about how to leverage AI to help us do our jobs better and more efficiently, um, but knowing that we need to have some guidelines in place for using AI and we can't just take it everything it says at face value, if you could do more with more, what would you do? Oh, that's a really good question. You can think, I think. If we could do more with more, I would love to see more people to be more people able to go to the national conference, the Acro level conference um I just shared with my table that I have never been to Acro because my university just didn't have hasn't have the budget. And now that I am president elective you macro, there is some budget available and we are making that happen and I would love to see more opportunity for people to get to go to that national level conference, so maybe instituting some scholarship programs, um, or just fostering school people from schools who have smaller budgets or smaller teams to be able to attend the state and regional and the national level conferences, getting people more involved. Thank you so much. Tiffany Robertson, can you tell me your name and what institution you're from? Hi, I am Doctor Tiffany Robertson. I'm from Governor State University where I'm the director-- of academic services for the College of-- Business, and you have an acro role. Yes, I'm the vice president of Leadership and Management Development, and we were just chitty chatting now about I told you all the questions I had asked people. These are kind of like, here's behind the scenes, everybody. I like plan the questions with the people in advance, but. Um, we ended up having a conversation about how you have made space for yourself because we were talking about some of the feedback that came up in the leadership team meeting and so I'm wondering maybe if you can reflect a little bit on some of the stuff you heard and that response that you had for me yes so. Um, you know, I, I heard a lot of comments, um, based on some of the surveys that have gone out and just general comments, um, about how things are going, um, within Acro and a few people got up and, you know, made comments on what was missing, um, as far as like session, um, diversity in sessions really and you know I. I understand that people feel like they're only one person, um, they can't like change. The whole this whole issue by themselves, however. I encourage everybody to take action when they see something missing. Yes, speaking up is a great first step, absolutely, to let it be known that um you feel this is missing and why you think it would be beneficial for it to not be missing, to be added, um, but sometimes you have to take further action besides just speaking up and and make it happen. Um, session proposals are open. And um and even if they're not open when you hear this. When they do become open, if you feel like this has been missing the years I've gone to Acro and I needed to be there, submit that session proposal, ask somebody for help, ask somebody to present it with you. It could always be a panel so that you're not doing it by yourself, you know, so I just say if you feel like something's missing. Make it not be missing anymore. Go ahead and submit that session, um, ask for help or if you really aren't comfortable with presenting, bring it up as a topic idea for somebody you know who's really good at presenting or comfortable and and go from there, you know, just talk to people and and see what you can do to make it, make it happen. And can you tell me about a time you did this for yourself? Yes, so I actually did it first at my state level. Um, I joined my Illinois Acro and Aro around the same time, um, but I presented first at the state level, um, and that was because my first year attending the state, um. Which is mostly registrar um heavy as far as members. I went to the conference. I went to a few sessions that applied to me just more generally, but there wasn't a lot of admissions related, and I was the supervisor of admissions processing, so the behind the scenes folks, and there was nothing at all pertaining to those people in that office setting, so I noticed that the first time. And, and I, I thought about it in two ways. I wanted to see more admissions and admissions processing related sessions, but then I was also like I need to justify why I want to go to this conference. And so one, yes, if my session gets approved, I'm usually gonna be approved to go to the conference, but I can justify and say hey we're We have these um sessions that are more applicable to my job and my team's job because I would encourage my team to come to the state um annual meeting too so it was one year I think I presented 3 times. Um, because all on admissions related or systems related like our CRM just because I felt like it was missing, so I just encourage people to kinda take that initiative. It might be a little scary, but um if it is to reach out and talk to someone who you. You can obviously see is not afraid to step up or can help guide you. We are here at the board, staff, ACO staff and other members who have that history of presenting will help you if you have an idea if I'm moving forward. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you. Uh, my name is Jennifer Beal,-- and I am from North Central Texas-- College. And what state or regional are you representing today? TARO. So what are some of the things that you anticipate topics you anticipate being front and center at the TARO conference this year? This year at the Tro conference, uh, we're anticipating. A large engagement in uh legislative issues that are coming down with the state of the United States from a federal um level all the way down to a state level there's been a lot of changes and a lot of things that are really. Potential things that could disrupt how higher education functions um how we're engaging our students and and getting the students through the educational process so it's it's really big in Texas right now um they just uh put out a law that denies our undocumented students in state residency, um, tuition wise and so now we are and they're asking us to give them information. Um, the state is asking us to give them information of all of our undocumented students which not only, you know, could be FERPA compliance issues, there, there's, it's just a whole gamut of it and so I think that in Texas, you know, our main. Focus really is to make sure that the students of Texas, regardless of if they are born here or not get a valuable uh education and have the the ability to go through that education system. Do you feel like you have support? Like, do you feel like you have people or resources or things that are helping you navigate that because that I mean that's intense, right?-- So where are you getting yourself-- I think well, currently it's so new I mean it just came out that I think that we are trying to. uh, figure out how is it going to look, what is it gonna how is it gonna work, um, I think that the one good thing about Texas is that even though we are all our own institutions, you know, we're not a centralized state organi or all the colleges are not organized just together through the state. Um, when things like this that have potential catastrophic effects come out, we all can band like we all band together and we're like, OK, like what are we gonna do? So I think that a lot of the large institutions in Texas, um, the large community colleges and 2 years and the private and the public, they all have kind of banded together to say what are we gonna do about this, you know. We're talking to our coordinating board like we're not moving until we get a little bit more information because we don't want to jump the gun and then it'd be the wrong step but we also we're here to protect our students I mean that's our that's our biggest thing so um is there a lot of information and and resources out there? I think there will be. I don't know if there is quite yet, but I think we're all trying to just figure it out. Do you feel like you can make a difference? um. I hope so. I'm gonna be hopeful. um, I think it's too soon to tell. I think, you know, it's hard when you're dealing with government, whether it be at the state level or the federal level, you know they have there's different agendas and there might be some, some reasons that they did this that that makes sense to them, but they're they're not in the field of higher education so they don't really see their boots aren't on the ground in the higher education. and so they don't see what the consequences of what they were trying to do. They're trying to you know make sure that the state budget is good they're trying to do this, which is all valiant I get that, but what are the, you know, drawbacks that happened because you made these decisions so it's definitely, you know, the political climate. In Texas and just in the United States in general is a really sticky road right now so it's it's hard to say. Thank you so much for talking to me. Molly McDermott Fallon, the University of Cincinnati. And um can you tell us a little bit about like, how are you feeling? How are you feeling after a day and a half of uh what you've been doing here at the leadership team meeting? I have a couple of feelings. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful with the collaboration of the space that's happening and the conversations that are taking place, but at the same time reserved with everything that's going on in higher education throughout the nation, so it's a mixed feeling at the moment. Is there something that would make that reserve feeling tipped towards hopeful? I think we'll see in the next couple of months. I think we'll see in the next couple of months if I tip on TOEFL, um, as we gather and discuss things like that. What's happening in your state? Can you tell me a little bit about that? Our state recently passed a legislation where the public schools in Ohio have been asked, and we are closing our identity centers, um, we're being restricted on. The information that we can display, so at my institution we are no longer able to display race, ethnicity or gender identity, nor are we able to pull like data around it unless it's in an aggregate form. So it's really and then we're being required to take our American civic literacy course for our students where the state of Ohio is kind of giving us guidelines around it. So we really are just kind of wrapping our head around. in the downhill impact of what it's gonna have. Have you been thinking about your own individual role? So maybe tell us what what do you do at the university? Sure, I'm the university registrar, so thinking about your role as registrar, are you thinking about what you individually outside of your responsibilities of your job and your job description, like how you wanna approach navigating this? I have uh right now my concern is with my staff because they're being asked to do things that they don't agree with and that's a really hard space for folks to be in because what they feel like they're doing is wrong which we we think it is wrong. We don't we understand the value of what what we had and we understand the significant. Impact our identity centers closing are going to have on our students and so they just are trying to deal and and absorb and figure out those emotions on how to help our students but also what it means for them because many of them went to the identity centers and found a sense of community at the identity centers that are no longer there for them. Are there, is there anything you're thinking about of, OK, so you wanna support your staff, um, how might you do that in ways that are, I don't know, creative, yeah, I make sure that they know I'm a safe space. Like I think that's really I need to be clear and transparent. I am a safe space. You can come to me, we can talk about it. I also remind them we are better institution open than we are closed so that if we close we're still not able to help serve the community in which we need to serve and so just kind of always try to go what we can do, what can we do, and not always focus on the what can we do try to go in the in the can direction. Is there anything that you need from a community to support you? What, what do you need? I think we were talking about it actually yesterday and it would be really helpful at times for Acro and at Acro for while they don't get into the state like what we can do like to help coach us or to help navigate this space because we're all in. Pretty uncharted waters and we're trying to do the best we can but having a sense of community to help guide or have a sense of community to even just vent is a great is a great thing that would be helpful. I wanna say that I think that you just sharing that is providing that kind of support that you're looking for to other people. Thanks for listening to another episode of Heard. We'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at her@acro.org with any feedback you have for us or show ideas. This episode was produced by Doug Mackey. Thanks, Doug.