"People will turn the tide" with Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries (AACRAO 2025 Annual Meeting)

In this special episode recorded live at the 2025 AACRAO Annual Meeting, HEARD hosts Portia LaMarr and Ingrid Nuttall spoke with Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries on how resilience can help us thrive in times of uncertainty. Dr. Jeffries is a College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University where he teaches courses on the Civil Rights and the Black Power Movement. Dr. Jeffries spoke with the AACRAO community on how resilience is more than weathering a storm; it is taking action today to build the future we want a generation from now.  As a celebrated scholar, educator, and public historian, Dr. Jeffries provided insights into how higher education and the role of enrollment professionals have created gateways and opportunities for global citizens. This is an emotional, at times funny, and compelling conversation.

Transcript

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The reason why I dropped everything including my kids I don't even know where they are. To come to come out here. It's because you all are sort of like the last line of defense. Like it's it's it's us. It's not it's not it's not gonna be the provosts it's not gonna be our university presidents. It's gonna be our students. And it's gonna be us Hi, Acro Community. Welcome to another episode of Heard. In this special episode recorded live at the 2025 ACro annual meeting, Porsha and I spoke with Doctor Hassan Kwame Jeffries on how resilience can help us thrive in times of uncertainty. Dr. Jeffries is a College of Arts and Sciences alumni associate professor of history at the Ohio State University, where he teaches courses on the civil rights and Black Power movements. Doctor Jeffrey spoke with the acro community on how resilience is more than weathering a storm. It is taking action today to build the future we want a generation from now. As a celebrated scholar, educator, and public historian, Doctor Jeffreys provided insights into how higher education and the role of enrollment professionals have created gateways and opportunities for global citizens. This is an emotional. And at times funny and always compelling conversation that we were so lucky to have. The only thing that would have made it better is if the wonderful Thana Curtis had been at the annual meeting to join us for this. Love you, Tanna. OK, let's get started. Hi acro community. Welcome to another episode of Heard. I'm Ingrid Nuttall. I am Porsha Lamar, and it is our inaugural live episode, one of many to come. These are some for the record numbers here. We are so happy to see you. I'm gonna hand it over to my fabulous colleague Porsha Lamar to kick us out. You're gonna say something else? No, I appreciate that thank you. However, I do want to say that we are missing our third podcast host, which is Tashanna Curtis, so we wanted to give her a big shout out as well. Shout out to Tashanna. Hi Doctor Jeffries, I just want you all to know this man, OK, you are in for a treat and I am really excited to talk. Um, so let me just start off with my first question to say, uh, we would love for you to tell us about yourself in your own words, including an experience that shaped who you are today. Oh well thank you very much um for allowing inviting me to be a part of both the conference and the live park podcast. I really appreciate that the inaugural version of it, um. Who I am, I, I, I'm, I'm a history professor. I'm a teacher, uh, at the Ohio State Ohio State University. You gotta say these on the checks at the Ohio State University. No, it's real, it's real, um, but I'm originally from, and I've been teaching at Ohio State 20 some years, but I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York, um, born born and raised, and the you, you, you, you're from Brooklyn. Uh, every day is a life changing experience growing up, um, but one of the things, and I was asked this, uh, not too long ago by a, by a group of students when they asked why did you become a, a, a history professor? And I had to tell them I was in when I was in high school I was in a magnet program for medical science, Midwood High School, medical science, and I thought I was gonna, you know, solve find a cure for cancer or this that and the other and one summer after my junior year. I had an internship at Columbia University Presbyterian Hospital, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Never forget it took 2.5 hour train ride up to Harlem and I spent the entire summer in a lab watching stuff spin with 3 lab folk who couldn't hold a conversation and I was like, oh my God, I can't see. Like this isn't gonna work, but when you, when I exited the train took the A train up there, um, if you turn to the left. You went to Columbia University Presbyterian Hospital. If you turn to the right It was the Audubon Ballroom. The Audubon Ballroom, for those who don't know in Harlem is the site where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. So every day I'm exiting this train and I'm looking to the, to my right at the Audubon ballroom, this place of significant history where history happened, and I'm not going there. I'm going to the left to watch stuff spin in the lab where people can't hold a conversation and so at the end of the at the end of the summer. I was like no my calling isn't in the lab my calling is to understand what happened at the Audubon Ballroom what happened in New York and that really was the the moment where I decided to pursue history um not just as a profession but as a, a sort of life calling. That is amazing. Like I mean the fact that you can really pinpoint the moment. May we all be so lucky uh to come to a crossroads and make that choice um so this conversation today is about resilience and I think we try to ground what we're talking about in some type of definition so we wanna invite you to share the definition of resilience that you would like our audience to hear as the context for this conversation today. I think. When we think about resilience we should think about sort of the two aspects of of resilience, um, one in thinking about a definition I mean the first is how do you. Um, respond to challenging times and challenging moments, right? Like, like how are you able to sort of hold your ground in the midst of some sort of challenge, some sort of onslaught. And that's one aspect. The first part of, of resilience when I think about it, I think the other part is the response, right? Like what do you do going forward? So on the one hand, when, when, when, when you face the challenge, what do you do to maintain that which uh you've been doing all along. But then when the challenge passes when you weathered the storm, what do you do then? How do you rebuild? What do you create in the aftermath? There's the the there's a reason, you know, resilience is partly survival like how do you survive in this particular moment? But you defeat the point of being resilient if you don't have a plan for once the threat, once the challenge passes, so those two aspects, what do you do in the moment, but then what do you do when the moment passes? So just a little follow up on that there is part of you you you need to respond so that you can be who you are in response, but can you respond unchanged by what you need to be resilient to, you know, I, I think. Challenges change you in most instances. I mean that's that's just the nature of the nature of life and so we have to be flexible and be open to change. But Dependent upon what the challenge is what we are trying to hold the line on. May have to change as a result of the challenge, so it's not just a person why I weathered the storm now I'm stronger and I can do the same thing. Well, if what you were doing in the first place wasn't enough to stand up to the challenge, we lose some ground in the, you know, in these challenges sometimes, then on the back end of it as we move forward, then you have to think about what can I do differently going forward. So I think that's the flexibility and the response that we have to have in being resilient. OK, so using that description that you gave us, what is a story of resilience in history that we can learn from to help us build,-- maintain resilience in our higher education-- work? Yeah. Not just a story. I mean there's lots of stories, but I teach African American history. The entirety of the African American experience is one of resilience, uh, one of holding the line. I mean this is like from the beginning until the present, the Middle Passage, the story of our kidnapping and capture is a story of resilience of people of African people torn from their families kidnapped. They're not supposed to survive the Middle Passage and yet they come out on the other side and. Not only survive but create something new. And pass that on and and you see that from the very beginnings the black experience, the African American experience is one of is one of being resilient one of enduring one of surviving, but then also creating something new on the other end. We can almost look at any moment in time. 111 period that stands out in particular and one specific example. I know you told me be specific, Hassan, OK. At the moment of when the Civil War begins, Civil War, Civil War begins 1861 down in South Carolina because South Carolina is always starting stuff down in South Carolina. And And, and, and there's Hilton Head Island, which we now know as a as a resort, great, great, great golf and all this other stuff. Well, Hilton Head Island was just a, it was just a large slave series of slave plantations and slave plantations, and it's one of the first islands that is actually liberated, um, by Union troops and in the fall of 19 of 1861 free formerly slaved and Africans, African Americans now free are. Given the opportunity. To create their own community. The first free persons community. In the South post slavery, but the Civil War is still going on and, and so at the moment of emancipation they don't cower they don't say oh what do we do? We don't say oh master you'll come back, right? They say, OK, we understand we've been preparing for this moment our entire lives even when we didn't think it was ever going to come and what did they do? They build schools, they build churches, they build they build their own government, mandatory education. Um, you know, divide up, you know, 10 number of acres into plots and you see that they are envisioning what freedom ought to be. To me that's the, that's an amazing example of of the resilience in people who we say and people at the time would say and some of us teach this now that they they didn't know what freedom would be or what freedom would look like or what to do in freedom nobody had a better understanding of what freedom would be than those who lived without freedom in the presence of those who enjoyed it their entire life. Lives and so we see that resilience from the middle passage to the moment of emancipation to the civil rights era to today. I think that literally underscores what the black experience is. And I think about that and I I also think um again talking in the higher education and and that resilience also brought upon the HBCUs in which you know because we were denied education and now we have a whole sector of univers colleges and universities that were built up from that resilience. No, that's a great example. I mean, because it ties to this moment of emancipation. African Americans at the moment of emancipation understood that freedom, uh, was meaningless unless they had access to education. There's no public schools in the South whatsoever before the Civil War. Public schools, public school systems don't emerge until after the Civil War as a result of the demands of African Americans, freed men and women moving into state legislatures saying we gotta have a public education system not just for black folk but for white folk too. But then the HBCUs evolve out of that because it's not just about the basics of of of reading and writing it's about preparing, uh, entire communities for the world ahead. But the resilience of I'm glad I'm so glad you brought up HBCUs. I teach at Ohio State, but I'm a graduate of Morehouse College or a Morehouse man HBCUs, and, and, and, and HBCUs are a wonderful example of resilience, not just in terms of their creation. Right, at, at coming out of that post emancipation period, uh, in, in the heights of Jim Crow where where lynching is running rampant, um, and they, they endure, they survive, they expand, and so there's a measure of resiliency in that creating a curriculum for advancement for for the black community, but then they also have to weather the period of desegregation. When it's questioned whether or not their, their doors should even remain open and so when we look at and thinking about higher education now and the various assaults of the attempts to sort of undermine and change what it looks like, uh, taking a moment and looking at the way, uh, HBCUs have evolved, have responded, have rebuilt, have reimagined over the over the decades, I think is a great example. Just so, so we're clear, Tennessee State University alumni here, the, the realty issue sorry Southern I'm sorry. So I wanna, I wanna ask a follow up question to that to connect it to the keynote that we had in this conference. So Lex Gillette was here talking about vision. Um, and the ability to see beyond, um, whatever is your reality right here and now, and I think and Porsha and I were, we were listening, but we were also texting each other saying like this absolutely connects to the idea of resilience so when you're talking about the community. Hilton Head and when you're talking about HBCUs there is this element of vision there and I'm wondering if you can speak to some of the like durable skills. I brought up durable skills this morning in a different context but like the skills that it takes to cultivate vision when it seems like. The reality in front of you is preventing you from seeing past it like how, how can people begin to imagine. Yeah, that's a challenge right in any condi in any circumstances under any conditions to imagine something that doesn't exist and to imagine something not only that doesn't exist that you're told should never exist. I mean black folk who were in bondage and then in Jim in the Jim Crow were told not only you never gonna be free, even when you're free you're never gonna be equal and full citizens and so black folk have always had to imagine what America would look like America that didn't simply exist. That that takes that takes a kind of belief. And something that doesn't. And something for which there is no evidence to say that it will ever come into being. And That's hard to do. So we have to begin there, right? This is not an easy thing. How come you're not imagining something that doesn't exist? OK, the, the darn thing is hard to do, right? Well, it doesn't exist. It's the reason why. We also have to realize that. Thinking and imagining. The future Is a privilege. Like, like most people, many people, let's say many people, if not most people. In America and beyond, certainly beyond the world do not have the privilege of being able to sit and imagine a future beyond the next day. Beyond the next week, beyond the next month, and so being able to imagine beyond that and then work towards that is definitely not easy but it's something that a privileged few have to do when we think about the roll back that we're experiencing right now with the federal government and the rolling back of certain rights, this didn't come overnight. We think about the Dobbs decision and the rolling back of basic reproductive rights under Roe v. Wade. That was a 50 year project. So you had people who were thinking 50 years in advance about what is this gonna take? So the vision for what will come out of this moment for higher education. Uh, will not be realized in the next 6 months or the next 12 months. What we'll have to be thinking about is what does what does higher education, what does the university look like in 30 or 40 years, because what we've had, but whether we're talking about sort of college and university admissions or diversity equity inclusion that had been built up over the course of 50 years for better or for worse, could have been other things could have been implemented and and strengthened, but this is a 50 year project that got undone in 5 weeks. 50 years undone in 5 weeks. So we're gonna, we're on the right side of this, so we will, we will, the resilience that educators and those who believe in truth and honesty in education that will persevere. I have no doubt about that, but when we come out on the other side, we can't rebuild what we had. Because that was undone too quickly. So we have to be thinking about a 30 or 40 year project. How do we build something new, better, stronger, so that no matter who is in office or in various positions of political power, they cannot undo this work in the blink of an eye. So you get, yeah. Fair. Oh, we don't normally get live claps. We, yeah, we don't want, we don't normally get live claps. I'm sorry, that was, that was super rude. um, you gave, gave the example of HBCUs Porsha mentioned that what are some other examples of higher education resilience, something that has been durable, um, that we might. Call to mind as we're thinking about our vision for the future 30 years from now. you all tell me what do you see that that's been durable. I, I, I'm struggling, right? I mean, Ohio State football's been around, but I mean I'm like, like beyond the fun stuff like what are you seeing? I mean, I mean so we've talked about this as professionals in higher ed. We are the record keepers. We are, we've been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. So how do we improve on all of that? How are we going to continue to maintain the truth, which I know is something that you talked about and I didn't want to get here yet, but I, I definitely will, um, had a TED Talk. It's really good. Look it up YouTube, um, and the TED Talk is why must we confront history. And you had a quote in there it says we must disrupt the continuum of hard history by seeking truth, confronting hard history directly, magnifying hard history by speaking truth, teaching hard history and parents speaking truth to their children to act on that. That's good. That was good. You should know So I, I'm just trying to again going back to our question as the records as as the beginning point into higher ed as the record keepers as keeping all that, but then also seeing the erasure of all of that, how do we maintain this truth and how do we continue to do our work. That's important. Yeah, I, I, I think framing this group, the work that you do as. You know, sort of the record keepers, the, the, the preservers of, of, of history is is especially important in this moment. Because there is so much misinformation, purposeful disinformation. So many untruths, i.e. lies. Specifically about what goes on at college campuses. In the classroom with regard to admissions regard to research. And nobody better understands what actually goes on, particularly as it relates to the experiences of students and those who are not only letting them in the door. But then helping to manage their experiences as they matriculate through the 4 years or 5 or 6. I was a 5 1/2. And so Being able to point to that. Both the data and the stats. But then also the anecdotes. It's really important not only in the moment to push back against those who are intentionally and purposefully misleading people about what diversity, equity inclusion in college admissions is really about and the purpose and intent of it. But also to establish what we need as baselines and targets when we get on the other side of this and are trying to build back something better. You can't tell me. That diversity isn't important. That inclusion Accessibility isn't vitally important. To stand with that is to stand on the right side of history. And so we'll get back there, but when we build back when we build something better, we, we have, we, we already know what what what was working. Despite what they're saying. So we have to, we're gonna rely on you all to tell us, OK, what do we have there? Preserve the records tell us, because this work isn't just about admissions, right? It's just not about a rival. And it's not just about survival, right? I mean, there's a moment in sort of history when we began to open up college and universities when they begin to diversify, then it's about, oh, we're just trying to help these, you know, some, some black kids, some Latino kids, and women, we're trying to help them survive, and then we graduate from survival to thriving, right? We, we're trying to help them thrive, so what programs work. You all know what that is and so we're gonna be turning to you all once we weather this and say OK what do we need to build back? How can we make it stronger? How can we help our kids uh. Succeed and thrive and and and receive the kind of education that we deserve but the truth isn't so that that's sort of the scientific side, right? Like what can be done, right? The literal, the literal preservation as people try to purge records and and and erase this history in in in in many different ways. But then the other challenge is is about truth and speaking truth. And how do we talk to how do we talk to people? You know, I was, you shared, I, I missed the keynote. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to catch it because it sounds very powerful, but you know, I, I, I, I sometimes talk. I'm asked, well, how do I talk to, how do I talk to, well, look, this is a question white people ask me how can I talk to my grandma. Mhm. And she only watches Fox News. I, I knew exactly what you were going with that, yes, and I'm like that sounds like a you problem, that ain't a me problem. But the the truth of that is. It's a challenge. You know it's like if, if we're we're here, we're here in Seattle, we're taping in Seattle, and you know you know Seattle, you know, once in a while you get a nice sunny day, right? And you know if you, if you're walking, if you're walking down the road, the street and with somebody with some really dark sunglasses on. And and you're walking next to them and you're like hey it's a beautiful day the sun is beautiful the sun is really shining and they can see the sun. And they say no, no, no, it's not and they had these dark sunglasses on they're like, no, really, the sun, the sun is out it's beautiful and they have sunglasses on and they can see, but they're telling you they don't have the sun is not out and you say, ah, you need to take sunglasses off and you can see it. And if they do that and they see it great we can talk about it. That's one response. Other response is. You know, I don't wanna take my sunglasses off. We might be able to have a conversation about the reason why you need to take sunglasses off so you can see or leave them on so you can't. But then what about the person? Who you know has sight, who you know could see this. And they just refused to take sunglasses off. They refuse to acknowledge that there's a different way to see. There's something to see beyond the limited vision. They refuse to accept the truth. They refuse to accept a truth. That person Nothing we can say to them. We're spending all of our time trying to educate people who don't want to be educated. who don't want to engage in conversation. WEB Du Bois, scholar activist, African American activist, 60, 70 years working as an activist from 1910, 1901 to 1909, he worked as a scholar at Atlanta University. And he was, he was convinced that if I can just show white people that black people are equal through research, through data, through sociology, they will come around. And they will stop killing black people and they will embrace civil rights and they'll overturn Jim Crow and after 10 years of doing that, he said this ain't working. He said because it's not about truth. So the other thing is, if it's not about truth, if you refuse to accept the truth, then what we're really talking about is power. We're really talking about power. We're wasting our, we're we're wasting our time trying to convince people who don't want who are not just unwilling to be convinced, who are unwilling to be a part of the conversation. At a certain point you're gonna be like, you know what, this isn't about you anymore. And I can't wait for you to to come to this realization and accept truth as something that is real. So then it means working around them. That's about power that's not about kind conversation and I think we're in one of these situations where we no longer have the luxury of waiting for people to sort of wake up. When they're telling you they don't wanna be awoke. They're telling us that. So then this is about power. I want to go back to your question back to us about other moments in history. And, and I said registrar has been around for hundreds of years like enrollment professionals as long as there have been universities, there have been us we used to be very different. We used to be kings we used to be popes, we used to be people entrusted with the ability to bestow faith and credit to records based on power. And through the expansion of higher education um through things like um now I'm gonna go hundreds of years ahead the moral land grant Act, the GI bill, you get a lot more universities, you get a lot more registrars, you get a lot more admissions officers and the role begins to change and it becomes not a king and a pope, but it becomes. A staff member it it becomes um first becomes a faculty becomes part of a faculty role, but then it becomes a staff member and it becomes professionalized in a different way and those same events that caused the expansion of higher education um and created access also took access away from people and they kept people out as much as they invited them in and now we're at. At this conference in Seattle and if you look at the program and you look at these people and you talk to them about what they do, everybody is here talking about access everybody is here talking about how to open doors how to remove barriers, how to get different students in and it's not about I mean sure there's a bottom line because we're we have to. Continue to survive and that's where we live but it is about students and what's good for them so that they can go on and thrive and Porsha and I were talking about this, about the the guy that Lex Gillette talked about it's about running alongside them but getting out of the way so they can take the last step because otherwise they don't win. And so I do actually think that the story of us is a story of not just. Um, it's a story of resilience because it started from the opposite of where we are and that doesn't mean it's perfect and it doesn't mean that we don't have so many challenges to overcome, but I think if we think about the history of just the role of keepers of records and keepers of stories, I like, I think there's a lot of power in that. So now there's a question. Soapbox down and that question for you is if we see ourselves as keepers of stories and keepers of of truth truth that can be interpreted truth that's different from institution to institution and student to student. What are some I'm thinking of like the creative skills that we need like as humans and communities, not just individual humans working alone but communities together to build in order to continue to advance the evolution of our profession that I think has responded to. Some really intentional door shutting um that is happening and continues to happen. Well, when I hear you describe the profession in those terms, two things leap out to two words leap out sort of in terms of evolution and and sort of moving away from sort of admissions professionals as um gatekeepers. To becoming gateways. From holding people out, limiting who can come in, who can participate, who can be a part of, to promoting access. To inviting people in to creating a space and environment so that more people can be a part of and and can excel. I think we find ourselves in a moment where. Being a gateway is being challenged. And what's being asked. Is that you all become gatekeepers again. That's moving backward. And that's not moving forward. So I think as a community, Both in higher ed and the university is missioning professionals but then community as a whole, we should always be thinking about being gateways. About how what can we do to promote access. You know, in, in America we get caught up with this idea of scarcity or scarcity of resources and all this other nonsense. So come on, like this we have everything that we could possibly imagine in human history, and we're running around pretending like we don't have it. That we do so I think in this moment like the like the the there's a set of skills that you already have because you're professionals you've been doing this, you know, you know what to do but it but you have, I think, I think the call now is to fight back to push back against this idea of, of, of becoming gatekeepers again. And say no, no, no, the history tells us that we are all better. When we serve as gateways now the the part of the challenge is not just the reframing of the occupation and what we do in higher education. I think part of the challenge now. Is In higher education is where is the line? Where's where's the line in the sand that you're not gonna cross? And it's not Our university too many of our university professors already. The Ohio State University is one of. I ain't gonna call anybody else's university out, but I don't call Ohio State out. have been saying to us That our values haven't changed. We're still a gateway to opportunity. But your actions have. OK. If your actions have changed. But your values haven't And they're asking you more and more to give up, to become gatekeepers once again. Tell me where your line in the sand is. Tell me when you're going to say enough is enough. Tell me when you're going to stop and push back. I need to know that If your values truly haven't changed. And I think all of us are being asked that right now in various ways and we have to respond to survive and I understand unfortunately that colleges and universities this is a business. But it should be about the business of education first and foremost, not the business of just keeping your doors open. What's the point of keeping the doors open if you're not actually teaching anybody anything that they need to be good citizens of the globe. So I think we need to ask ourselves individually, I think we need to ask those in in university leadership, where is the line? Where's the last where where where is the line before we get to the last stop? Because when we're talk, what we're talking about is not just. Sort of unfortunate policies that will make it harder for people to come to university and get a get a university education. We're questioning, we're questioning people's humanity we're questioning people's right to exist. The assault on higher education is is is is is is is based on untruths and and and and misconceptions for purposeful disinformation for political purposes. Like the the like What they're saying diversity, equity inclusion is, is not true and they're using it to eliminate darn near everything. And seemingly every college university and and that has has given up something. Already has jettisoned DEI programs, diversity and inclusion programs already they're still under assault. So tell me where your line is. Because we're on this train. The train that involves policies rooted in dehumanizing other people. And the last stop of that train, we know what it is. Because we've seen it before. The last stop of that train is Auschwitz. So let me know so I can get off that train. Before we get there. This this is this. The reason why I dropped everything including my kids I don't even know where they are. To come to come out here. It's because you all are sort of like the last line of defense. Like it's it's it's us. It's not it's not it's not gonna be the provosts it's not gonna be our university presidents it's gonna be our students. And it's gonna be us. Who have to pull that emergency brake. Otherwise, otherwise this project, not just of, of, of not just of access to university, not just being a gateway, this project of American democracy is done. Is done It probably already is. We're trying, we need to be thinking about building a new democracy because what we had, if this could be unrolled in 5 undone in 5 weeks, these could be reconceived again as well. But that's, but that's the stakes. Whether we whether we find it convenient to acknowledge or not and the universities are the front lines they're modeling. How to undo democracy. Through the undoing of our higher education universities system and now they're applying it to everything else. So We decide what this is gonna be. Us, you all, we decide whether we choose to to pull the brake now. Or ride it to the end. But with the idea as I as we're figuring out when our final stop is. What do you think the future of resilience looks like for the next generation of higher ed professionals and how do we cultivate the mindset skills needed to face the upcoming challenges in academia, so. You may not know this, but I'm actually a very hopeful person. And I think there's a difference between hope and optimism. Like I'm not a particularly optimistic person because I'm a historian and I'm a historian of American history. I, I, I understand what America is capable of. We gotta understand what America has done. And I'm clear about where we are now. And I think things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better. And yet I still believe That we can create something beautiful here. Because we've done it before. You know we're we're we're burdened as Americans by the myth of perpetual racial progress that things always get better. They have always gotten better in the past simply by the passage of time like slavery was slavery happened but we fought the Civil War. Then there was Jim Crow, then we got Doctor Martin Luther King, and, and he went to jail. We don't talk about why he was in jail, but he went to jail and he wrote a letter and then we got Barack Obama and now we got Beyonce singing country music like perpetual. Things always get better, right? But the reality is. For most of American history, the periods when things get better are actually really, really short. Most of the time it's about holding the line. And actually losing ground. So there's nothing that we are experiencing today. That we haven't experienced in some way before in American history, not necessarily in our lifetime that we haven't seen people whose purpose is to dismantle the apparatus of democratic governance other than the Civil War. But we weathered that Because there always have been people, and this is the hope part, there always have been people who have been willing. To sacrifice to fight back. There is never a moment in American history. There's never a moment in the African American experience there's never a moment in the history of women in America where you have not had people who are willing to put everything on the line to fight back. Not everybody But one of the lessons that we learned from the past and particularly from the civil rights movement is it doesn't take a lot of people to make a big difference. So there's always gonna be people. I, I know that in my core. And as long as there are people willing to fight back. To push for something greater than that which exists to envision something that doesn't exist today. To recover what is lost. Then I know that we will not only weather the storm, but that's part of the resilience that we will win. We're on the right side of this. We want people to succeed, to be there to to live their authentic lives. You cannot tell me that's wrong. And and the fact that you have people historically who have been willing to give up everything because of that, because they believed in that. Lets me know that we can get to the other side of this. But it's not gonna be easy. It's not going to be without sacrifice. It's not going to be without cost. It's not going to be without job loss. But all that stuff is coming anyway. Like if you, if you were a federal worker. Like, well, I don't wanna say anything. I may lose my job. You just lost your job. The same thing in universities. So, so, you know, everybody's gonna be asked to sacrifice something. But if we don't sacrifice, I think the cost is gonna be so much more terrible. That we won't get to the other side. So we can I know we can My hope is grounded in that. We just have to be willing to do it. You said you're a hopeful person, but hope is work, not magic. Hope is work absolutely. We want to open it up to all of you to participate in this conversation. We have time for some questions. We have microphones. We have your wonderful minds and voices, and we have lights coming up. Please, Senator Mike. You brought some tears to my eyes, but I think you know we're talking about professionals, we're talking about the state of higher ed, but being a Gen Xer with parents born in 1940s, it was always drilled in you have to go, you have to get your education, you have to get your education. It's a decline in students in the marginalized community. It's a decline in black men going to school. What can we do? So that our history is not erased, so that we can continue to still give our history and encourage our black men and our black women to continue and press forward. This is so deep in my heart. Yeah, no, I feel you. I I think, I think it is, I think we should find some um reassurance in the fact. That Our history The history of African Americans, the African American experience and and and a core part of that history is a history of struggle for freedom. To secure basic civil rights and human rights, but also to expand those and make those available to all people regardless of race, gender, creed, and the like. That that history Was never preserved in universities, the reason why we know that is because black controlled institutions, black churches, black families share this information. When it was illegal to do so. For 100 years after the Civil War in Jim Crow Sound, illegal to teach this stuff, so you wanna make it illegal again, that's fine. We're gonna preserve it, we're gonna keep it because we're gonna share it because we've done it before we know how to do it. So we cannot Universities are great to have. It's great to to to have African American studies programs and and and and and women's and gender studies programs and Latinx programs and the like. But we see now if we did not know before that we could not depend on those for our freedom. For preserving our knowledge just as we see now if we did not see before that we cannot depend on large corporate law firms to defend our democracy we see now if we didn't know before that we cannot depend on college and universities, college and university presidents to defend our universities and freedom of speech. It's going to take the the it's going to take people in community working together, but we have models for how that was done. We have to draw upon those models. I think now more than ever it is about community and our communities, neighbors talking to one another and coming together with our institutions and churches and social organizations and fraternities and the like. We gotta stop stepping and we gotta start talking seriously about what's going on in our community to preserve this history. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to say in particular before my question that um I am immensely appreciative of the emotional labor, the mental labor taken on in this session and I found this panel to be um. Really incredible, um, but to to the question, I think it is quite thematic of the the previous, but I wanted to ask what can those of us in administrative roles do to help protect and support our most vulnerable students, particularly where one we're in a political environment where that is an act of defiance, and two precedent setting institutions and leaders are signaling appeasement. Yeah wow. That's that's that's a that's that's the question of the moment, so please answer. Just give us a minute. What you wanna do. Please take all your time. Oh, we've got 4 minutes. OK. I can sing a song. I OK, you, so. I think it's what you said of we have to idea with each other and be creative with each other and leave space not just for fear and anger and frustration which is there which we talk about. Um, and self-care certainly, but truly for possibility creativity. I cannot tell you all of the I know people here have fit 100 students into a 15 person classroom. Like I know you know how like I, we know how to do these things, right? um. And so I think it is drawing off of the the creativity that we have every day but stepping outside of it to apply it to different scenarios and backing away from fear as much as possible in order to not put barriers in front of that vision. Right, Porsha, no, totally agree, especially about the creative side, um, because what I see in our current climate is clearly is being created. They're they're creative, yeah, so we have to be just as creative ourselves and we can do that just like you said, the classroom, like we've done so many things. We have done a lot of things. Cs alone, they are creative. So we can continue that process and and I would, I would add to that. There should be no secrets anymore. When, when, especially they have to be, they have to be bridges between staff administrators and faculty between faculty administrative staff, and students, and with the larger community there's stuff that you're gonna see. Now today In your administrative capacity that that we as faculty will not hear about until it's too late. And if you see it going down, you gotta get on get on don't get on the email but you need to go knock on somebody's door. And be like listen this is happening this is the conversation this is the discussion I'm telling you this is what they're gonna do. And, and, and, and, and then, and then in other words, that's, that's, that's sounding the alarm. You know, you, you know, you don't gotta to broadcast it, but then you say, look, there has to be pressure. And what what's gonna save this? What's gonna turn the tide is people. Like that's what we have right now. Like we, we, we'll see you in court. Yes, but what can we do before we get there? How can we apply pressure to make them think twice about appeasing? Like this is not what we want. So, so that, that information, right, like you, you, you have to let us know. I had a, I had a colleague who will remain nameless. She said she would get these Ohio State University is, you know, is a, you know, open to to to public records requests, and she said she would get these public records requests about this information and such, and she'd be like, oh my God, it's the right question, but you're asking for the, you're asking the wrong person. And and so you know I'm not saying she would tell me. Who the right person was. But those are the types of conversations we have to have. Like, like we have to be in communication we have to be politically organizing and strategizing, and the way to do that is to get out of our silos and share that information, that knowledge is powerful so that we can respond to these threats in real time, not when it's too late. Thank you so much. I think that a fire has been lit inside me of all of the conversations that we've been having, but I am worried about coming back home and being fizzled out by fellow colleagues or staff members and wondered if you have any advice about how to combat that. Why y'all look at me? Community is key. And one of the things that we have to, we have to do in terms of reimagining is reimagining who is in our community and where we find that community. Our, our, our community again, it's not gonna be everybody who sees this, who sees the threat, who recognizes the challenges and the dangers and what's going on. It may not be the people right, it may not be the people in our office. It may not even be the people in our university. But they're here in this room. They're in the community, so we have to begin to expand like our sense and understanding of what our community is because we'll draw strength and encouragement for them. That's one of the things I, I gra I, I, I learned in graduate school as one of only one or two African Americans at Duke University in the 90s in my, in my graduate program in history. I'm going through there. I'm like damn, where the brothers and sisters, right? It wasn't until I came out that I realized like oh there was one or two of us in all of these programs around the country we just weren't in the same program so my community was there we just weren't in touch and so the way we've navigated the last two decades of academia is because we created a community beyond our individual institution. And I think this is in these times we have to do that. Find out who's in your institution that that is committed to understand work with them and then reach out and stay connected to the people who are here and the people who are committed to the work that you're trying to do as well. Find your Porsha and your Tshana. We found each other. I had a lot of involvement in the protest scene in my home city of Iowa City, um. And one of the questions that I keep coming across in my mind is how much is it appropriate for college staff to unite behind students who are engaging in protest or other political action. Question mark period. I think it's really important But I think we have to Be clear that there are different ways of showing support. So some of us are in positions and faculty with we have a little bit more freedom. To cuss out certain people Uh it's, it's still risky. We'll still pay a consequence, but we got a few more months before we gotta pay the consequence. So I think it's important that we don't leave our students out on the island. As a as a as an African American at the Ohio State University, I know that I would not be there. If it wasn't for students who protested. To create, to hire black faculty in 1969 and 1970. 30 years before I arrived. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be there if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be here right now. And I see you and other students as heirs to that. I think us as faculty staff as and and and as administrators we have a duty. To support you all, but understanding in this climate that that support can come in different ways if everybody may not be out there with you at the rally, right? Everybody may not be speaking at the rally, but asking if they could support and and for us supporting them in ways that we can. Let him know, OK, well, look, if, if, if, if, if you violate this rule, this is what's gonna happen, right? So you need to be prepared for this. I mean just informing, being in communication saying hey this faculty member is really supportive and you need to talk to them. They've been around they have some institutional memory this is a good person administration to talk to this person you ain't gonna go nowhere with, right? I mean, so there's lots of different ways that. I think that staff administrators and faculty can do it it's not gonna look different but that's OK in social movements people don't support in the same way. There's a variety of ways that people can do some public, some less public, but it is important that we do it so that you're not on the island because you actually have the most important voice of anybody in a college or university. It's the students because the students are connected to parents. Parents are are are are constituents to elected officials, so we have to support you. One of the sad saddest moments for me at Ohio State was to watch students who were engaged in protest in the spring of last year have the university turn on them. With snipers on roofs when all the university had to do was just let it go, what's not happening, graduation was 2 days away. So we have to stand with our students because they're the ones who inherit this mess and they're the ones for whom we're trying to build this future for and so ask for the support, ask for the support. Tell, tell, tell the folks you can we need, we need your support, but also let them know that we understand that the support can come in various ways. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I'm gonna, we're gonna thank you again. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, Doctor Jeffries. We also wanna make sure we, uh, oh, we did, yeah. See, I'm all off my script, you guys. Um, we really wanted to do, we would not, we do not do this work alone, so first of all, thank you to Acro for supporting not just heard but also the other fabulous podcast that you must check out. Please check out, admit it. Please check out Transferee. Please check out for the record, download all of it now, smash that subscribe button, please support the people who are putting out this content and give us feedback about what you wanna hear because we love, love, love hearing from you. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to another episode of Heard. We'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at heard@acro.org with any feedback you have for us or show ideas. This episode was produced by Doug Mackey. Thanks, Doug.