the uplift
elevating and amplifying women's voices and issues in higher ed.
the uplift
Summer session with Susi Keefe
For our summer session we’re running a fan favorite playlist: a combination of the most-listened-to episodes as well as listener favorites. Our Summer Session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while or even to listen to episodes you might have missed.
Today we're replaying Episode 20, A Bodacious Question, with Susi Keefe. Here's your link to the episode's original show notes.
If you're enjoying the podcast, enter a chance to win a free book! Head over to Apple podcasts (or your fave platform) and leave a review on the uplift page. Once a month I'll randomly select one of that month's reviewers to receive a $20 gift certificate to bookshop.org. You get more summer reading, and I get to help you build your library! It's a win for us both.
So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair or grab your hammock, and enjoy a few moments of summer, on me. I’ll be somewhere doing the same. 😎
Let's connect! Come find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
I also coach women leaders (individually and in groups) and facilitate campus workshops. Learn more at the website.
Have a question about whether I can help you? Just ask! I actually love getting emails from listeners. 🧡
Hey there, welcome to Summer at the Uplift. For our summer session, we're running a fan favorite playlist a combination of the most listened to episodes as well as listener requests. Our summer session gives you a chance to revisit episodes you may not have heard in a while, or maybe even to listen to episodes you might have missed. You'll notice, at the end of each episode I tell you how you can be entered in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate to bookshop. org. That's for real and that wasn't part of any of these original episodes. I added this giveaway because I was thinking what would summer be without a good reading list? So grab a nice tall glass of your favorite summer beverage, pull up your favorite outdoor chair, or even grab your hammock and enjoy a few moments of summer on me. I promise you I'm somewhere doing the same. Hey there, welcome to the Uplift podcast, where we talk all things leadership for women in higher ed Carole Chabries I'm and I want to help make your leadership path a little easier, a bit brighter and a hell of a lot more fun. Here at the Uplift, we mash up real stories, real feelings, real theory and occasional eff bombs, all to help you become the kind of bleeping, awesome leader you would love to follow. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump in.
Carole Chabries:Welcome to episode 20 of the Uplift. It's kind of hard to believe I'm at 20. Anyway, in today's episode, I'm continuing my conversations with women leaders at all levels as we explore the question that's been on my mind since the election season of 2016. What do women leaders of college campuses believe is their role in educating for citizenship and democracy? Today, i'm talking with Dr Susi Keefe, an associate professor of public health sciences and sociology at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota. I got to know Susi in the last year that my family and I were living in the Twin Cities, which, for the record, the kids still consider home. And, in case you're wondering, no, they have not forgiven me, even six years later, for making the move.
Carole Chabries:Anyway, in the fall of 2015, I decided that I wanted to be a coach for Destination Imagination. I did this partly to get more involved in my kids' school and also partly because DI was pretty cool and it fascinated me. If you're not familiar with destination imagination, let me just read a little bit from their website. Here's my best commercial voice. As parents and educators, our most important goal is to prepare our kids for the future. In destination imagination or DI, students work together in teams to solve open-ended STEAM challenges designed to teach the creative process. Why is that important? The creative process is a step-by-step approach that helps students better understand problems and ask better questions, come up with solutions, learn from failure and celebrate their achievements. In going through this process, kids learn vital life and career skills creative thinking, critical thinking, public speaking and collaborative problem solving that help them feel empowered and set them up for success in their future. I mean totally at my alley right And my kids were really excited to be on a team and I adored my son's teacher who'd introduced me to this idea, and so, like you know what the hell, i became a coach. As it turns out, coaching DI is one of my most favorite things I've ever done ever in my whole life. There's enough material there for a whole season of podcasts, but it's relevant to today's episode only as a side note. One of our DI teammates was the young son of today's Susi, Keefe. During our DI Susi, and her family graciously gave over their basement to us for carpentry, painting and the general chaos of seven nine-year-olds. At the time I was super grateful for those contributions, but over time I've been even more grateful for the chance to get to know Susi and her family a little bit better, and I'm very excited to welcome Susi to the show today.
Carole Chabries:Susi is a medical anthropologist and an associate professor of public health sciences and sociology at Hamline University. She earned her PhD at Brown University, where she was a trainee at the Population Studies and Training Center, which led to dissertation research in Tanzania that was funded by a Fulbright Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Award. Susi has spent more than two decades in fieldwork and research, studying issues surrounding healthcare, family life and Islam in Tanzania, Kenya and the US. Her interest began while she was an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke, where she self-designed her major in culture, health and science. Now, at Hamline, Susi teaches a variety of classes, including Introduction to Public Health, Epidemiology, Health and Environment, Global Health, Health Rep roductive Justice, and Senior Seminar. Her primary goal at Hamline has been to bring together academic and applied approaches to public health research and education and to develop a model for Hamlin's undergraduate public health sciences program that is rigorous and transformative and that trains students and opens up new avenues for research in the most important public health problems society faces today.
Carole Chabries:Two things define Susi's pedagogical approach to teaching public health. The first is centering social justice and the structural roots of health inequities, and the second is giving students practical yet transformative learning experiences. She does this by providing students opportunities to translate theoretical knowledge and classroom content into an applied experience that is not hypothetical but that makes a meaningful impact on actual public health problems in the St Paul community, and you are going to get to hear some of those stories today. Before we get to those, though, I have to confess the thing you're about to hear I had no idea how to open this interview. Susi and I had been chatting for about an hour before I hit the record button, and so I was literally saying blah, blah, blah, and then suddenly we were in it, and you can tell Susi is a gifted teacher because, basically, she read the room and went with the flow. So, with no additional formal anything, i invite you into the in-media-res opening of my conversation with Susi Keefe.
Susi Keefe:And then we'll skip that now though.
Carole Chabries:Yes, I think so. Because I'd rather jump into this really interesting question, Susi of how you came to be a public health professor who educates for equity. Can you tell us a little bit about who your students are and what you do when you work with them?
Susi Keefe:Yeah, i'm so excited to be able to talk to you about this. I started my career as a professor of anthropology and my background and my PhD is in cultural anthropology and medical anthropology, and I was hired in my current role as a professor of public health And I noticed a number of things about what was happening at my institution in that program and more broadly in terms of who attends Hamlin and what brings them there. One of the first things I really noticed was that students who come to Hamline are interested in Hamline in large part because of what they see as the social justice mission and vision and promise of the university, and I wanted to create and contribute to a program of public health that really centered those values, and part of that was not just teaching students about public health through an equity and anti-racist lens, but also creating opportunities for the students that were equitable and anti-racist. So students in my program tended not to seek out opportunities that other students have access to, and I started really noticing that that was because they were first generation majority. They are first generation college students, first generation Americans, low income students of color and students from other marginalized identities, and so did not feel entitled to claim those resources on our campus and those spaces. And so for me, implementing a framework of health, equity and anti-racism in my curriculum didn't just mean teaching students about it but also creating pathways that they got to experience these things and then be able to do something with that in their future. So I did redesign the curriculum to reflect those things. But then I also wanted to shift that student mindset, not just while they were at Hamline but beyond.
Susi Keefe:So a little bit about Hamline. We have seen, i would say, since I've been a faculty member there, but I would say in the last two decades, a real shift in the demographics of our institution, which I think are mirrored in the demographics of the state of Minnesota, and so we have more first generation students, more students who are Pell eligible, who are BIPOC, and so that has meant that our institution has had some challenges as a result of that shift, and I could talk at length about what those challenges are, but I won't. But one of the things I'm really proud of is that when I started at Hamlin, for example, the public health program was less than 6% BIPOC And by the time I went up for tenure we had seen a shift to greater than 65% students of color in public health, and I know this not because I'm tracking it, but because for our expedited program review last year we were asked to demonstrate how we were meeting the needs of our diverse increasingly diverse student body. And many programs on my campus can't show that, and I'm also a program with one faculty member and around 60 majors at any given point in time, so I'm really under resourced. But sort of knowing that that's what I am achieving, that it is my express purpose not only to deliver that content around equity and inclusion and anti-racist structures, but then also to reach those students. I'm a qualitative person, i'm an anthropologist by training And so for me stories are where it's at. But those numbers are really compelling, right. Going from 6% to 65% in a five-year period, and when I asked students about it they really named that my intro to public health class was the first time they saw someone ever not just at Hamline but ever show up in a space that wasn't ashamed of talking about structural racism and that they felt supported as students of color, around that not being negotiable, that I begin every semester in every class by outlining what equity means and what the roots of health disparities are by naming racism and structural racism as a major contributor to that, makes a huge difference to them, and so then I think what happens is those students then share with their people. This is a place where they're going to get that, and so then more and more students come to participate in the program as a result.
Susi Keefe:So I'm really proud of that, and I feel like that was a decision I made at the time, not knowing that that would be the consequence, but I just taught last spring my Global Health Class, which is usually for juniors and seniors. It's a required course And that's my favorite class to teach. I had 20 students, 17 of whom were students of color, first generation, american, first generation college students. I don't know very many people who get to teach global health with such a global student roster, and that's special, and I feel really lucky that that is the situation in which I get to teach and work with students.
Carole Chabries:Susi, that is really special And it reminds me of one of my favorite things about Minnesota. I mean, people have, I think in my experience people have such a misconception about Minnesota as white people farmland. But I'm always astounded by the diversity, especially in the Twin Cities, and I think it's one of the things that make the Twin Cities such a hidden gem. I think of Augsburg as a campus in your area that has a rich, diverse group, and then I'm really excited.
Susi Keefe:We are officially now a minority serving institution. They've qualified federally. That's fantastic.
Carole Chabries:Yeah, Yep. So tell me a little bit or I guess, tell us a little bit how you came to be a professor who cares about equity and social justice and anti-racism.
Susi Keefe:Yeah. So this is a question I get a lot, I would say. As a white woman, I've had a number of people say to me we don't hear many people who look like you talking about things in this way. Before I came to Hamline, I was at institutions that have a lot more privilege, both as a student and as a professor.
Susi Keefe:I come to this work not just intellectually, but also by way of my own personal path. I grew up in a context with a mother who was a single parent, who was an immigrant to this country, who did not have citizenship until I was seven, and we survived on public assistance for a large part of my childhood, and so I have been personally impacted by the challenges that women and immigrants without citizenship and those who are made to feel they don't belong experience, and while you can't see that history on the color of my skin, it has absolutely informed my commitment to making sure that people don't experience those things in the way that I did. So I'm really motivated around wanting people to feel they belong, and this is, Ii think, the way in which I can best do that in today's world at this time.
Carole Chabries:I'm just kind of sitting here silently in that, like thinking of you as a little seven-year-old girl. I also grew up with a fair amount of poverty and hunger, and so my heart goes out to that little girl in you.
Susi Keefe:Yeah, it's interesting because I ended up going to Mount Holyoke for college. I had a mentor through the Big Brother, big Sister program who is still in my life, who was the godmother of my oldest child and was essential in my pathway And I would have had a good life and I would have improved my circumstances, i think, wherever I went to college. But when I was applying to colleges, i didn't even know about the East Coast. And she said she took me to an alumni event and I met all these incredible women And I was so amazed And she said I will pay for you to apply And if you are accepted, i will take you to visit. And she took me to visit and I couldn't believe it. And I think now in hindsight I probably could have gone to any liberal arts college on the East Coast and felt and had an amazing experience.
Susi Keefe:But there was something about being at a women's college and about Mount Holyoke in particular. But I always felt that I had to hide that part of myself And when I went to Brown for my PhD, that was I never talked about that. I have one moment where there was a scholar visiting from Notre Dame who had us all introduce ourselves. And when I said my maiden name, she immediately knew my background. I didn't share this part when I said my background, but my mom married an American GI who was from a Mennonite community, and if you don't know about Mennonites, it's a religion that is often from people within the community. It's sort of like an Amish light, a lot of this similar values and expectations, but not quite as strict around technology and advances. But anyway, she knew my last name And she was like are you a Mennonite? And I about fell out of my seat because that was a source of shame for me And because of my experiences, we're so bad in that community And nobody nobody at Brown knew that about me And I felt immediately terrified of what it would mean for me if people knew that I grew up for that.
Susi Keefe:I grew up in this religious community that treated me so horribly, and so Hamlin has been the place where I realized very early on that I had to share this part of myself, because my first semester a student said to me like you're the perfect J crew, mom, and I said ha, ha, ha, whoa, this is my armor right.
Susi Keefe:This is how I signal to myself and others that I belong here, and hearing a student say that to me made me realize that if I don't tell them this about myself, they don't know that I come from similar circumstances and they don't know how to see me as an ally and as someone who understands their challenges. And so I have now made a commitment to just naming that as I enter into spaces and into conversations, because in today's world, you know, frankly, i do have the privilege of being white and I have benefited from that. But if I don't name that I have come from that background, then people don't know and it matters. So that is something that I have had to really work at, because it is sort of counterintuitive, given all of the things I have experienced in academia the hierarchy and the way in which we value expertise of a certain kind and not of others, and centering people's humanity is one way I try to do that.
Carole Chabries:I love that you come to this with intellectual and research oriented training and also with your heart and with your gut. your whole body is just in this work, it is true. So I'm dying to hear some stories about what your students do, what they do as they encounter and work with a faculty member who brings her full self and asks students to bring their full selves, and what that means for them as they learn and grow and become active in community in some way that might be different from how they would have been active before they had this educational experience. So tell us some of the things your students have done or that you've worked on together that give us a sense of how this work transforms students' ability and willingness to participate as advocates in a community setting.
Susi Keefe:Yeah, so I think initially when I started at Hamline, i thought of this as like this is work I have to do to create opportunities for students and live my values authentically and bring them with me and have these experiences. And I think I always sort of thought of that as connected to my identity as an anthropologist And our methodology is community engagement, participant observation Like people are the experts of their experience. And it's interesting because your first question for me, or your second question for me how do I come to this work? I think more recently I'm starting to realize that my desire to center the experiences of the people who are most impacted comes from my own experiences of not feeling like that mattered, and so I see them sort of really intertwined. But as I develop opportunities, you know I'm one faculty member and have 60 students And I can't provide independent research opportunities to all of them right That individually. But I did see that I could craft courses where those experiences were built in so that everybody who took the course would have that opportunity, and that to me felt also like living my values around equity, right. So I wasn't just taking students who sought me out for a research opportunity, i was seeing every student who comes through my program will get this training, will get this experience, and my not so secret goal or ambition with that is that, you know, when you look at, for example, the state of Minnesota right, we already talked about how we are such a rich and diverse community But when you look at, let's say, who are the employees of our government So we could talk about the Department of Health, because I teach public health The vast majority of the people who work there are white and they are from educated backgrounds, and I think that is often reflected in the nature of the programming and the paths forward. And in some ways, Minnesota has really shown some leadership around equity in terms of thoughts, but not in terms of actions. And so my hope is that students who come through my program and who get this awesome equity training and research and community engagement then get to go get jobs working for our state because they have the skills and the capacity and the training, and then also they bring their lived experience as first generation college students, first generation Americans, students of color, students who have experienced poverty. So then you know, my master plan is that we will infiltrate all of those positions and that people who have those lived experiences will be in positions to do something about it. So that's sort of like my master plan.
Susi Keefe:So from the very beginning I thought out partnerships with community partners, where our goals aligned, where I thought I could bring the capacity of a team of awesome students and myself to a particular challenge that they were experiencing and be mutually beneficial. But with that overarching strategy or goal in mind, the very first class I did this with was we partnered with the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. They're sort of this mini epidemic of mercury poisoning due to the use of skin lightening products and communities of color in Minnesota And really it's a global phenomenon. It's a $25 billion industry that capitalizes on racism and colorism And most public health approaches to this sort of ignore that. But you can't really address people's use of skin lightening cream if you don't address the fact that there are benefits to being lighter skinned And that's a conversation that public health has historically been really uncomfortable having.
Susi Keefe:And so I had met with folks in this working group, this interagency working group, and I said what's informing your outreach strategy to these communities to convince them to stop using skin lightening creams? And they didn't have research. They didn't have community engagement, they didn't have resources, and so I offered to have my students do focus groups with one of the communities that was impacted, and the Hmong community at the time was the community that they felt needed the most injection of resources, and so, interestingly, six of the 19 students in that class had a Hmong background, and so it was my very first time teaching this course in this way, and, as you can imagine, students were terrified about this big responsibility. This is not a hypothetical situation. The work that they would do would influence our state agencies to take actions, and it would influence this community, and there were some bumps in the road along the way, and a huge part of teaching classes in this way is managing student emotions, because they go through all of them, as they are nervous and worried and lack confidence And they're aware of what they don't know, and so part of it is helping them to learn what they need to learn to do the work, but also helping them to claim their identity as a person whose perspective matters in this work.
Susi Keefe:So the students, at the end of the semester, presented our findings to about 100 people between the Department of Health and the Pollution Control Agency And it was a pretty I didn't get goosebumps just remembering it because it was this incredible group of students who stood up there in their professional best And they owned that presentation. And during the Q&A people said this is amazing work, that they are astonished that a group of undergraduates did this. And one person stood up and said I don't think this is better than a master's or a graduate student. I think this is better than what we at the Department of Health have done and are doing. So the students got that direct feedback from people who are working at these institutions that they would like to work at, that their work matters And it was rigorous and transformative.
Susi Keefe:One woman asked the students the question.
Susi Keefe:She said I understand that you want to know why people who are dark skin want to become lighter, but my daughter and my niece they go tanning And could you talk about why white people want to be darker and how that fits in?
Susi Keefe:And I was so tempted to take the mic and protect my students and answer that question. But a young Somali woman grabbed the mic and said from the beginning we made a decision with our professor to de-center whiteness in this project And so that is not a question that is relevant to the project And this woman, who had been so shy at the beginning of this work, feeling like she could say that in that moment, in that way to this room and to that woman in particular, felt like the biggest achievement for all of us. That's a big thing to say. And it was really, I was really proud of her, proud of myself, proud of the work we had all done collectively, that she understood that lesson, that I felt that I had spent so long trying to inject into the class and that she didn't feel that she had to answer that question And she could say why.
Carole Chabries:That I'm sitting here with my mouth open at that story. I'm just envisioning an undergraduate confident enough to say that and to say it with that kind of clarity. I mean that's, we talk about transformative, student-centered work all the time. but, girl, that's it Right there. That's amazing.
Susi Keefe:So, like some outcomes of that whole project, a team of students agreed to work with me. After this, the class had concluded to write a manuscript which was published in the Journal of Mung Studies We presented at conferences. The Minnesota Department of Health, along with Amira Adawye, who is the founder of Beauty Well, which is a local organization, successfully advocated to our legislature for an injection of funding to support community organizations doing this work. Using findings from our work, the Minnesota Department of Health has implemented some of the strategies that we recommended. Students created deliverables around how to do outreach, and so some of those have been implemented. And the best outcome is that my student, Mike Zhang, who is Hmong American, was hired at the Pollution Control Agency as a mercury expert to do this work. So he is now working for an institution that is predominantly white, but it is serving our state, and I know that that is not easy work to do.
Susi Keefe:When he was preparing for his interview, we were doing some mock conversations And he was so humble. And there was a moment where I just said when someone calls me to ask me for a recommendation for you, I name you as a leader in our class.
Susi Keefe:I outlined all the ways that you showed up and took on extra work and did things from beginning to end. That demonstrated your leadership qualities And you need to also make that part of your narrative as you navigate this process. He just looked at me and he said you saw me as a leader in that work, And you know, it was astonishing to me that, like he hadn't claimed that or owned that or saw that, i saw that in him So I was grateful that we had the conversation, but how important it is in closing that loop, making sure that he and others in the class sort of understand. So now that's part of my practice right where I communicate to that to students, so that they don't undervalue how big this experience is in their future, and that they weren't just passengers or in proximity to it, it was also theirs. I think that you know that then has the potential to really for the rest of their lives. They are people who do these things in these ways and it's not something that happens with other people or outside their sphere.
Carole Chabries:There are so many little tangents. I want to follow in that. But one of the things I want to say and kind of then set aside your story about helping somebody understand that their curiosity and commitment is a form of leadership. I feel like that's a message that does not get shared enough with young people. It rarely gets shared with young women. I feel like that's such an interesting and credible way to help somebody see that this thing that motivated them is actually also a form of leadership. I love that you have now taken that on with all of your students.
Carole Chabries:One of the things I do want to follow up with was I loved earlier when you said that you have a master plan. I wondered, i wanted to ask you but I wanted to hear your story. But I wanted to ask you if your students are on board with your master plan. But your story answered the question right that they are. I wonder do you see your students jumping eagerly into this arena as leaders and as advocates with full knowledge of that kind of transformation of the Susi Keefe master plan for changing the face of Minnesota? I'll just pause there and let you respond to that.
Susi Keefe:I talk to my students about this. There's full disclosure. They know that what they're getting with me is different than what they're getting elsewhere at the institution. Students at other institutions are getting like they articulate that right.
Susi Keefe:I mean my course evaluations absolutely reflect it and also the conversations that I have with them absolutely reflect it.
Susi Keefe:I think they are.
Susi Keefe:This feels weird to say, but I mean I think they're grateful.
Susi Keefe:Even though sometimes it's really stressful, i think, to have a professor expecting this of you, they recognize that they're not unsupported in it And so I think it could be both true that they're somewhat terrified of the big responsibilities that I put in their pathway, but I think they are also really grateful.
Susi Keefe:And I mean the best is when students graduate and get these awesome opportunities because you know, they take a class with me and they get two or three entries for their resume that talk about their research, their community engagement and their advocacy that they have actually implemented and applied and can demonstrate outcomes on from my class right, not just from an internship or a job that they've had, but the classes that they take with me all result in entries on their resume and that then they get to harness. And then they get to show up to an interview and speak confidently about being a member of a research team or a community engaged action team that got to do these things. So I think very quickly they realized how they are benefiting from this approach and from this master plan.
Carole Chabries:I love that. Yeah, i'm like imagining all these acolytes running around campus. And I don't mean to diminish your students. I know what it's like to see a group of students who love what a faculty member is bringing to them and want to absorb it and enact it and how much it really changes their future, and I think you especially. It's sometimes you don't really hear students talking about that in the humanities per se, but I love it in, you know, in public health, in political science, in places where students actually get into the work, not just through books, right. But through.
Susi Keefe:I think you can teach public health and political science with no applied opportunities And I mean, that's what was happening before I showed up to this position And I think it happens all over the place that it's a lot easier, i will say, to teach a class with no applied elements. But and I get, i get pushed back around like that I'm establishing an unrealistic or an unsustainable approach to my, my teaching. But I think we all benefit, even though it is more work. I benefit, i think the students benefit, i think our communities benefit. It energizes me and it makes me feel like I'm contributing just beyond teaching people. But I can't imagine doing it any other way at this point.
Carole Chabries:We could have a whole different conversation about why that's so essential for the workforce. I'm actually wondering how you see that contextualized by and then affecting students lives at Hamline in the context of Hamline's civic engagement and its role in its role in preparing students and kind of getting them to vote. I would love to hear you talk about the work that you do in that specific educating for democracy context at your institution.
Susi Keefe:Yeah, i wouldn't say that it is an explicit goal of my teaching or my relationship with students to get them to vote, but I think that a consequence of the way I teach is that students feel more called into the civic process. You know Minnesota is well known for leading the country in voter participation. Hamline has been recognized nationally for a number of students who participate in voting. Two years ago, in a virtual class it was the first time I was teaching a class called Health Justice in Law, which I have since changed it to be Health Justice and Advocacy because there was so much advocacy happening and less law. And that was that class sort of evolved out of my directing the Center for Justice in Law at Hamline for two years. The class partnered with the Association for Non-Smokers and they had heard about the way in which I do these community engaged participatory courses and they wanted in And so the class coincided with Minnesota State Week of Action for Tobacco Prevention and Minnesota has been long a leader in sort of tobacco prevention work And the folks at ANSR showed up to class once a week for a month and helped deliver the content and then also created opportunities for students to take that content knowledge they were gaining and turn it into applications. So one of the first things they did students had to do a tobacco store audit where they would take a set of questions that had been prepared for them and they would go to a place that sold tobacco and reflect on what they were seeing and share and sharing that information. And I think tobacco store audits are part of what a lot of these organizations do to hold places accountable to the new laws and ordinances and policies that get developed at the local and state level. So we were contributing to that process of accountability.
Susi Keefe:And then students were invited during the Minnesota Week of Action to take meetings with local lawmakers where they are lived, and part of the support we did was teaching students how to show up in those spaces, both in terms of the content of tobacco prevention but also like what makes an effective advocate with a lawmaker. And they really learned the power of their story and their identities and their role as a citizen in the district where the lawmaker serves. They received a lot of training on how to show up and how to do that work. And I was excited about that opportunity because I wanted students to see how that civic process unfolds. And as we debriefed those meetings the following week, I was unprepared for how deeply meaningful this experience was for students. I've shared that in the public health program we've seen a real shift in who is majoring in public health. But in my classes it is regular that the majority of students are students of color, first-generation college students and students who are grappling with the realities of poverty.
Susi Keefe:Students were honestly, they were emotional as they described and debriefed the experience. A number of students shared with the class and with me that they had never felt entitled to take up space of a lawmaker, that they didn't feel that they would be welcomed, that they didn't feel that they would be listened to, that they didn't feel that they would be taken seriously. And when they showed up to those meetings and they were listened to and they were welcomed and they were a part of a conversation that had given take, they didn't expect that. They didn't expect to share their story and then to have the lawmakers respond specifically to what they shared and have follow-up questions and promises made in the course of that meeting. And so I don't love the word empowered or empowering, but as the students described that moment for them, there was a true sense of empowerment for them, that they had never thought that they would be a person who could be welcomed into that space. And in their reflections they talked about that for the rest of their lives.
Susi Keefe:Anytime they experience an injustice that they want to advocate for, that they won't be intimidated to take up that space and claim that opportunity that they understand in a way they didn't before, that those lawmakers are working for them to.
Susi Keefe:I think that's one of the you know, when you look at the flip side of that, when you think about how structural racism works like, when you don't see people who look like you in those positions of power, you don't feel welcome to take up that space. And I think that experience I know that it transformed these particular students' relationship to civic process. And when I taught the class a second time I really named that I didn't know when I designed the course that that would be such a big outcome of the course for students. And as I taught it the second time, i really, really wanted students to sort of understand that that was part of what I was hoping for them and how they claimed it going into it would be proportionate to the outcome that they would get. I don't think people often expect a public health program or course or professor to be a place where sort of civic engagement or civic process or democracy is sort of on the agenda explicitly. But somehow I have fallen into that being a really part of what I'm doing, you know.
Carole Chabries:Listening to that story, I'm finding that I really appreciate this idea of civic engagement as taking up space. I have so often thought of it as using your voice. They're really different. Right, you can use your voice and be a little bit more abstract and be a little bit more intellectual, but taking up space is like bringing your whole body. I started working the polls during April of 2020 because I couldn't bear the thought that people weren't able to vote, and I regularly help new voters register for the first time And I always think about them as expressing their voice, and I think you know I'm going on November 8th to work the polls. I'm going to look at those people really differently because they're literally bringing their body into a space to take up space. I don't really have anything amazing to say about that, except that you've shifted my thinking and I'm grateful for that. That's it's a. It's a really great way to think about it.
Susi Keefe:So I want to just reply that quickly, because I feel like what I'm hearing so much from students there's sort of this critical feedback on sort of performative allyship or performative civic engagement in ways that are just you know, social media this or social media that, and there's something about really powerful, about showing them that there are ways to do this that aren't extractive, that aren't leading the charge, as it were, but like taking a meeting with a lawmaker is is a half an hour of their time. It's way more impactful than resharing a post on social media.
Carole Chabries:So I agree with you, agreeing with me, I'm wondering if you can OK, actually, Ii have this other question I want to ask you about, course, evils but I'm going to ask that in a minute because I'm dying to hear how those go for you. But kind of sticking with this idea of the experiences students are having when they study with you and when they work in and research with you, and thinking about the Susie Keith master plan, it sounds to me like your way of being as a professor models for them some very basic democratic principles of equality, of participation, of justice, and it's really different from saying I'm going to have, like, a voting day. I'm going to do something that like have a get out the vote day, which I think is super important, and what you're doing is also super important and really different. I'm wondering is I think about what people could take from your story if they want to increase civic engagement on their campus. And there's more to do, as you're showing us, there's more to do than having a get out the vote day right, like that's super important. And there's also these transformative ways that you can redesign your curriculum and rethink things like what bullet point students can add to their resumes that are also modeling civic engagement.
Carole Chabries:And so I'm wondering if you can. This is a big ask. So sorry ahead of time, but can you give us some advice if someone wants to listen to your story and take away a thing they could do specifically to enhance civic engagement? And let's just take, like, the next two years, right? We've got this presidential election coming up. We want 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 year olds caring enough to vote. What can people do on campuses in keeping with your way of doing this work? What could people do in the next couple of years to help make that shift for the elections of 2024? It?
Susi Keefe:It is a big ask. It is.
Susi Keefe:It's a bodacious question, right? I mean it feels really radical to even think about how to answer it in some ways, but I'm guided by the principles that I begin with in all of my courses and what sort of motivates me in general, and that is just continuing to show up in ways that are centering our humanity and centering the lived experiences of those who are closest to the pain, whatever that pain might be right.
Susi Keefe:So on a college campus, whether you are a staff or faculty or a student, really working not just to get people to vote but to show students how centering their lived experiences and challenges in our efforts is a way in which we show that they belong, that they are included, that they are welcomed, that they're suffering and their challenges matter to us. I mean one of the things I've really learned in my time at Hamlin, particularly in the food justice work that we do to address student food insecurity students don't expect institutions to fix their problems. They don't expect that the institution can solve their poverty or the racism that they experience, but they really don't want it to contribute to that kind of harm. Right.
Susi Keefe:So, all the small little ways in which we signal to students that we don't get that matter to how they experience these things.
Susi Keefe:And so for me personally demonstrating that in all of the actions that I take and in all of the approaches that I implement and in the spaces that I occupy I really want people to know that when you center people's lived experiences, the pathways forward look different and the potential solutions or the potential supports or resources that are provided shift and expand, and the way in which people receive those efforts that are influenced by their lived experiences are also qualitatively different And, i would argue, improved and better. So it's not really like an action or a set of actions, but really it's. I think it's an orientation towards how we think about, how we engage students and communicating, both in our words but also in our actions, that we understand, they know, they know what they need, and we're here for that to walk in partnership with them, not impose our ideas of what we think needs to happen or, you know, making assumptions about what would improve or influence them in positive ways.
Carole Chabries:I'm so taken with your starting point of centering the person closest to the pain. When I think about that as a teacher, it makes total sense. I have always thought of teaching as an act of love. It's an act of caring for a person who's in front of you. But you've made me realize that democracy is also an act of love And I don't think I've ever had that thought Like loving loving your community and the people you live in community with enough to participate. Yeah, that's amazing. Agreed, can I take a class with you? Yes, awesome, i'll call your registrar and sort that out. I have loved this conversation so much. I feel a little emotional and I feel touched. I feel expanded. I feel grateful that you shared. First of all, i feel grateful that you exist in the world and that I even know you at all, and now, triply grateful because I have this window into why you love what you love and do what you do. Thank you so much for sharing it Well.
Susi Keefe:Thank you for asking me to share it, And I also am appreciative of the opportunity.
Carole Chabries:You're amazing.
Susi Keefe:Thank you.
Carole Chabries:Okay.
Susi Keefe:My dog is barking now, thank goodness.
Carole Chabries:Time to go. Okay, bye-bye. It's been a while since Susie and I talked and I'm still sitting with a lot of what we just discussed. I'm thinking about what it means for women leaders to model civic engagement through things like compassion and love, things like listening and giving attention, things like simply valuing somebody's presence in a room. I recently heard a story on our local public radio station about Milwaukee's history with immersion and bilingual education, and the general gist of the story was how essential it is for language learners to feel that their heritage language is valuable, for those students to feel that education is not about silencing them, but it's about expanding their ability to think and communicate in multiple languages, while recognizing that they bring something valuable to the room. I feel like there's something of that at play here in this conversation with Susie, that her approach is not simply about being student ready, which is a handy term, and it sometimes means we'll meet students where they are, but we really understand that we want them to be somewhere else. I feel like Susie's approach is more genuinely if I can say this it's more genuinely giving a shit about who we engage with and seeing what they bring from an asset-based perspective, not as a deficit needing to be filled or corrected. I'll be thinking about that for a while. In the meantime, i did ask Susie about course evaluations and I've added that conversation to this episode as a little post script. So if you're curious, keep listening. After the closing.
Carole Chabries:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Uplift Summer Session. I am picturing you listening while swinging in a hammock in the shade with your favorite book nearby. And speaking of books, can I buy you one? Here's the deal I'll make you I'll enter you in a monthly drawing for a $20 gift certificate at bookshoporg If you will head over to your podcast platform and leave me a review.
Carole Chabries:Once a month, I'll choose a winner at random and if your name is chosen, i'll thank you on air and send you your gift certificate. This way, you get some great summer reading and I get to help you build your library. After all, i'm the granddaughter of a librarian, so sharing books with people is one of my great joys. So head on over to your podcast platform or even Apple Podcast, where it might be easier Scroll to the bottom of the page for the Uplift and leave your review, and I want to send you a book. Okay, so we might not keep this part in, but I have to ask you about course evals. Okay, okay, so like women suffer all the time, right, so tell me about your course evals.
Susi Keefe:So, it's been a journey. And it's not always. I mean my memories of my first semester. Mostly people were so excited about my work, but this is before I really even implemented my strategy. This was my very first semester. But my speaking about structural racism, the different types of racism, health disparities, health inequities, health equity framework, all of that, most students were just astonished and excited and grateful. There's always a handful of students who are like you know, Professor Keefe only has her opinions and no other opinions are available or allowed. And you know, of course in my head I'm screaming health disparities aren't an opinion, those are facts. You know I'm not making that up And so like that they are so entrenched in this polarization that we see in our democracy right now makes it really hard. But I have made a decision and a commitment from like those very first course evaluations that like I was not deterred in my commitment to teaching in this way And that I could. I could weather that type of course evaluation and I trusted my institution to see those course evaluations for what they were.
Susi Keefe:And I have done a lot of things in my teaching to sort of improve my approach to how that's how that comes across. I mean so in public health I would say health equity is like the single most important driving theoretical influence of this time. But there is still, i would say, like a lag between that, that theoretical framework and practice. And so, like course textbooks still sort of avoid real conversations about racism and its influence And so oftentimes I would be teaching something and then I would like the textbook would sort of shy away from it in a way that I was sort of hitting harder and students would. That would show up in my course evaluations, that sort of like contradicting the textbook in my teaching Right.
Susi Keefe:And so I mean on my long term to do list is to write, write a public health textbook from an anti racist framework. But when you're at a teaching institution the capacity for doing that is somewhat diminished. But one of the things I've done is bring in folks from the Department of Health, folks at community organizations from around our state that center health equity and their approaches so that they're not just hearing from me that health equity is so important and a framework for getting through this. So I'm kind of bombarding them with all the ways in which this is happening and is true and is valued and is the path forward by voices other than my own And then I just live with the, the, the, the continue to disagree with me, but as I have implemented sort of my community engaged approaches and my this is a bit or a action research projects, which I've so many, I feel like I could tell you so many more cool stories about the things I've done in classes, but I won't.
Susi Keefe:But students, students write exhaustively in the course evaluations about what this is meant to them, what it why this shouldn't be just in public health, but that every major should have this kind of opportunity. They understand that it's valuable, important, and they will also say this is the hardest thing I've done in my college career and it wasn't easy. So they can, they can be pushed and it can be hard and rigorous, but that doesn't mean that they don't like it. So sometimes people are like we don't want students to, this is too hard and they're going to. Not, they're not going to like it because it's too hard. But I'm seeing that students. And this is a bit of a tangent, but there's a narrative that students in the natural sciences end up in public health because they can't cut it in the more rigorous natural sciences. And of course, embedded in that are a lot of unflattering assumptions about an anthropologist teaching public health.
Susi Keefe:From a social science perspective, and also as the students who major in public health are increasingly diverse, I mean one can deduce that that kind of comment is the such that students of color are not worthy or able or capable of doing rigorous things. And so I take I take comfort at that on lots of levels, but I also I thrive in saying look at these students that you devalue, look at these students who you pushed to the side, look at these students who the institution or the world has said are not capable of doing these things. And not just showing the students that they're capable of rigorous, transformative work, but like showing the naysayers that they are capable of this. And and when the students write about it in their course evaluations, when they say this is the hardest thing I've ever done and it is the best thing I've ever done, you know, I feel, if it will be, I have a moment of joy.
Carole Chabries:For sure, and I'm guessing the growth in your majors just in the raw numbers is testament to the power. I mean. You said at the beginning that you think students came to class and then told their friends and that that doesn't happen with a class. That isn't meaningful.
Susi Keefe:Agreed.
Carole Chabries:Susi, I know you gotta go, but wow, I'm so grateful for this time together.
Susi Keefe:Yeah, me too, thank you.