Help! We Started a DEI Podcast

When you’re not an expert but need to take action, it’s important to seek advice from trusted mentors. Portia, Tashana, and Ingrid seek some help from Dr. David Graham, Assistant Vice Provost for Student Academic Success at The Ohio State University about how to navigate the complexities of DEI topics on the podcast. Dr. Graham shares his perspective on building community, giving grace, and setting boundaries in DEI work, as well as how his own life experiences have shaped his approach to building relationships and having tough conversations.

Dr. David L. Graham is currently a senior-level administrator at The Ohio State University, serving as the Assistant Vice Provost for Student Academic Success. He joined Ohio State in January 2006 as the Director of Student Athlete Support Services. In 2011, he was promoted to Assistant Provost for Student Athlete Success, and in 2018 he was promoted to Assistant Vice-Provost for Student Academic Success. In this role, he assists the Vice Provost for Student Academic Success with the management of administrative functions and planning strategic initiatives that support undergraduate student success. He also provides direction to a number of university-wide programs that serve undergraduate students and develops, implements, monitors, and revises policies and procedures related to student success. Dr. Graham serves as a liaison to the Strategic Enrollment Planning Office, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Division of Student Life, and the Department of Athletics. He has been recognized for his ability to develop and implement strategic plans to achieve student success goals and increase student engagement. His research is focused on various issues concerning the administration of intercollegiate athletics in higher education and the effects of college on student athlete development and learning outcomes.

Transcript

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You're listening to her RD Higher Education and Real Diversity, a podcast for the Acro community sponsored by Acro. Let's get started. Hi, Acro, welcome to Herd. My name is Porsha Lamar.-- I'm-- Tashana Curtis and I'm in Gretal. In this episode, help. We started AD E I podcast. We interviewed Dr David Graham. Doctor David L. Graham is currently a senior level administrator at the Ohio State University, serving as the Assistant Vice Provost for the student academic success. Doctor Graham serves as a liaison to the strategic enrollment planning office, Office of Diversity and Inclusion Division of Student Life and the Department of Athletics. He has been recognized for his ability to develop and implement strategic plans to achieve student success goals and increase student engagement. His research is focused on various issues concerning the administration of intercollegiate athletes and higher education and the effect of college on student athlete development and learning outcomes. Let's get started.-- Welcome, Doctor Graham. Hey,-- thank you for having me. I'm so proud and privileged to be here with you guys. We are so happy you are here. Um I don't know if you know here's a little background. Um You are our first guest and we are coming to you to seek help in this work of DE I and higher education. Um Can you let us know like a little bitty background of what you have done and how you can help us? Well, that, that's a tall order to help you in this, this, this realm of uh de I because I just do what I do and, and it's, it's based on how I was brought up. I, I grew up in Naura South and, and I think about diversity, equity and inclusion, not as something extra, it's just a lifestyle. Um uh I think about the values that was instilled in me growing up in the community and, and let me just talk about those values. Uh I, I think about community, I think about belonging. I think about LA that, that's how I was brought up. I didn't think about it being, you know, about diversity. I just thought about being seen. I thought about being, feeling that someone that belongs to someone or belong to a community. I just, I thought that's the way you belong. I just thought that's what it was. And I thought about, you know, being in a place where you um you, you provided grace when you need it, when you made a mistake. Mm uh And then I thought about people having you develop into the person, adult, you know, the, there's this thing you raise a child up the way they should go and they, they want part for that. So, so this about relationships and achievement. So, so those are values, so relationships, achievement, you know, grace, you know, and then I think about, you know, community and belonging and mattering and those are things that people talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. Now. I mean, that's just how I was raised up. Hey, how do, how do I create community? Oh Yeah, that's what I, that's what I, that's what I know. And you know, how do I create belonging? That's what I grew up thinking that I belong to a community. And so, so for me, I've been spending my entire career doing these things trying to create community in a sense of belonging. For whatever environment I go into creating rigor with grace, holding people accountable with some grace and then creating achievement with r through positive relationships. As you know, my friend, I will tell you things when you're not even ready to hear it. But at some point, sometimes you will call me and say, you know, that thing you told me-- I get it-- now. He's right. He's right. Everyone. He has helped me through a lot, which is why I know that he is a wonderful uh person to seek advice from with what we are starting. Um II I like how you, you know, laid out those, those uh gems. Um How can we showcase those gems in these podcasts. So, so I don't, I, I think, I think you got to be consistent, you gotta be consistent with what you try to tell people. You know, I, you know, Porsha and I, and I really, you know, I, I really appreciate you bringing me to this, to her cause you know, I like talking so I like to be heard.-- So-- another thing that is true, you know, this, right? AAA. And so, so I couldn't think of a better platform to be heard. And, and, and, and I think, you know, you know, Tashana and Ingrid for allowing me this, this platform to, to, to come here and share this. But iii I think being consistent with your message, being courageous with your message and being willing to be uncomfortable or creating, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable with your message, even a monster, the three of you, if you always seeking to agree with the, with the three amongst the three of you, then you're in the wrong situation because you know, sometimes you and I, and, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a reference because Fortune and I have a relationship. She used to serve as the chair of my uh executive uh uh uh of our Diversity Inclusion Council. And I didn't seek to always agree with her because I think when you seek to always agree, you can never push for greatness and it is only through friction and some level of, oh you know, that's, you know, some level of, you know, friction, you're gonna find your greatness. If it's always perfect, you, you're just gonna stay status quo. And, and so so, so I knew that we had like minded lightheartedness. And so I needed to push ourselves and she pushed me and I pushed her. And so, so to me, you gotta be consistent with your message. You got to find some ways to be courageous about what you're trying to do with your message. And then you got to see to you got to find some comfort with being uncomfortable with the, the message you're trying to deliver. When you say courageous, what would we tell new people coming into higher education that are, well, I'll just say me, I'm not going to say new, I've been doing, I've been in Higher Ed for over 20 something years and I've been at institutions where it, I felt like I just tucked my tail and ran because I could not be courageous because of the environment because of the organizational culture. What advice would you give someone that wants to speak them? Now on the street? I have a big mouth. But for some reason during that time, I did not, I didn't have a voice. I was fearful of that. What would you, what kind of advice would you give? So you say over 20 years you've been in higher education?-- Yes. So-- I, I've been in heritage close to 30 years. I would tell you my voice in the first five years is so different than it is as it is to now. And I would imagine your voice is probably so different than it was when you look at your first five years than where it was. And you just using your words, when you say you took your tail and ran, you probably made a calculated decision that it was time to go. It was probably some things that you uh probably had to measure the situation uh AAA and, and do something that was good for you and your and your and, and maybe your, your family and things of that nature never apologize for that because because that's courageous in itself because sometimes you gotta do what's best for you. So, so, so, so, so I want, I wanna allow you some grace there and allow yourself some grace there. You know, I don't go stand out in the middle of the highway and, and prove you can stand in front of the semi truck. That's not smart. You lose that every time. If you see a semi coming, get out of the way, please, ma'am. Yeah, so sometimes you see that coming and, and there's some things you just not, you just need to know is when it's time to go. And so so, but, but here's what I here's what I would tell you when you can be courageous, be courageous about using your voice and, and, and sometimes using your voice is also sometimes using having finding your allies to be your, to be your voice. Hmm If you don't have any allies in that space, then that might be the reason why you probably need to go. So, so, so let me just tell you I am a relationship. Yeah. When I'm not in the room, the room probably speak for me sometimes cause I spend a lot of time with Porsha Lamar and then I get out of the room. I said Porsha, but I need you to say this, you could be courageous through other people. If you have people, six, you, this, this, this, this thing in terms of diversity, inclusion, diversity, equity, inclusion is not meant to be a one person journey, one person challenge one person opportunity. It's meant to be for all of us to be taken on this charge. So don't never, you know, to try never feel like this is a one woman fight. And if you feel like you're in a situation where you had to go and take your tail because it's probably if you, if your gut instinct tells you that, then you probably need to follow that instinct and give yourself some grace while you find a new place. Great. And I'm at the new place. Well, the new place, the environment, the culture is different. There are a lot more people that look like me. Um So it's a little more comfortable than before. It goes back to. I feel like you went somewhere and found your community, you know, whatever that community was, you found somewhere that was accepting of you. You know. So that's the same way I felt when I and I didn't know I was, I was needing it, but that's what I felt when I went to my H BC U Tennessee State University. Dr Graham, I have a question for you kind of piggybacking off of this because I, I don't have a problem in my work environment finding people that look like me, right? Like that is not the marker for me of um of understanding whether I'm in an environment that supports de I like there's other things I need to look for there, right? Like, so my journey is different um because that's like that particular piece of identity is in play differently. In fact, it's the opposite, right? Like I'm in a lot of spaces and, and, and in a community in like a broader community in Minnesota. Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of white people there. And so for me, it's seeing the difference of like, oh I'm actually in spaces where I don't see people that look like you or look like Porsche or looks like Tashana. But I know like, I know they're here like I know I, you know, they're there. So how like, what would you say in terms of being an ally as someone like someone who's looking to be an ally. What is, what are the things like as a part of this podcast or wanting to be if I want to be an ally to like to Shana and Porsha? How, how do I show up in a respectful way where I'm not over like both overwhelming and being like, hi guys here. I am like, I want like, I want to be with you and I want to be woke and I want to be your ally, you know, like how do, how do, how do we both show up and not, not do that kind of sort of obnoxious, like exhibit those obnoxious behaviors but also like show and listen and show up like, how do we show up? So I don't need you just to show up. I need you to show out. I need you. I need you to make decisions when you have a chance to uh be on a uh interview committee that challenged the inner commu community to go outside of their comfort zone. I need you to think about when people are in the room making promotions decisions saying because a lot of times people make decisions based on their comfort level and typically people go to things that are comfort to, you know, that looks like them because we're guilty of this. I I'm guilty of that. And so so, so we have to challenge, we have to challenge our comfort levels. We have to get comfortable with doing things outside of our comfort level. And so when you have the knowledge, what you just said is that I want, I want to be an ally. I wanna say to you, it's one thing to be talking about being an ally, but it's being an active ally is making decisions that reflect that behavior I'm promoting, I'm hiring, I'm protected if Tashana is not in the room and someone is speaking ill of Shana, you gotta speak up. You got, you know, you gotta speak up about if they're saying something wrong about, you know, any some, you know, transgender person, if you gotta speak up, you can't just rest in your privilege and then come out of that room and said I should have said something and that's, that's, that's what and, and, and for me that happens too because there could be some gender biases going on and I come out of the room and I don't say anything and I was like, II, I failed in that moment. And so I got, I, I have to challenge myself to be better in those moments. The only judge in those moments who's judging you as yourself. So, so, so then you, so you could come back to her and say, hey, I'm a, I'm your ally. But you know, in your heart, when you let that moment slip by, when you're at the grocery store and they, and you saw someone kind of watch a, a black person or a person of color and you're like, that's not right. But you didn't say anything but, you know, you did that and then you come back on, on the podcast and, and you wanna, you know, you wanna be the ally in this moment. But you know what you did? Yeah, I'm glad that you said that because I always say, you know, we can read all of the books and pamphlets on DE I and take all of the webinar courses. But what are you doing about it? And little things like that makes a difference and it shows that yes, I am doing something about it because I just spoke up for this person, right? And for those that are in between though, that because that is, that is a group that is a community. You're going through all these sessions, you're going through all the bag brown bags you want to speak up. But you don't know how is there any uh little exercises or any, any something that can give someone that courage to do? So? Well, let me just say over the last couple of years COVID has revealed a lot of people character to a lot of us. It revealed, I mean, it revealed my character to me and it probably revealed my character to others and, and, and I asked myself all the time, do I like what I see? You know, I feel like Michael Dyson, the man in the mirror. Do I like the reflection that I'm giving to others? And do I like what I'm seeing back of myself and, and I think I've scared some people because I, I, I'm telling people I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not being quiet and I'm telling people I'm holding people, I'm holding myself accountable to real time. I actually, I mean, in my home, you know, there's some things that I just don't tolerate anymore. I don't let me just say I don't accept anymore. Right. Right. And, and, and that's a good thing that you said that because my next question was going to be as we, you know, go through this podcast. Should there be anything that we avoid? Well, I think, I think again, this is where you have to get comfortable. Yeah, we're uncomfortable. There's things that I was comfortable with pre-covid that I'm not comfortable with anymore. Mhm. There's things that I kinda tolerate it because of it was, it was kinda culturally accepted, but I'm not, I'm not so much anymore and I, and I, I've had to go through this, this transformation in my, with myself and, and I think I'm slowly trying to figure out COVID has allowed me to kinda have that when coming out of quarantine like, hey, I'm not, I'm not really with that anymore and I've had to say it out loud if you're able to say it out loud to your family members, to your, you know, to your associates and, and to even people that like, whoa, hey, hey, hey, you know, I mean, and it started with, it started with the George Floyd and I think, you know, you know, Porsha, you know the story the day after George Floyd, I went to a meeting, a virtual meeting like this and I'm sitting in the meeting and I'm one of two blacks and people, I like George Floyd didn't happen. And everybody was like, hey, how was Memorial Day? And, and they were going around the horn and I'm sitting there like I'm hurting and I'm like, what's going on? Are you not going to acknowledge that? We just, I just, we just saw me get murdered on, on national TV. And they keep playing it over and over and, and, and, and COVID get in that moment. I just, when it came my turn to say something, I say, hey, guys, I'm in pain. I just saw a black man get murdered. And that's my daily reality. It could have been me and the faces on that phone like, oh my God, he said that thing. He said it out loud. And then everybody in the room like, yes, David, how are you doing? No, I'm telling you how I'm doing. But how do you guys keep talking like this didn't happen? Mhm oh And then you know, but, but it, it it was in that moment that I was like, I got, I got, I, I, it, it was as painful as it was for me, it was free. And in that moment that I was able to say that thing out loud, Kobe gave me that freedom. Yeah, because it slowed, it slowed me down. It slowed the society down because I think it had, I'm not being quarantined and you know, you, you know, you guys make fun in my basement. I'm sitting here in this basement and I'm, and, and, and you know my TV, and this is nonstop, this, this 24 news cycle. I had to turn my TV off cause every channel was showing it over and over and I was like, oh my God, they keep showing this murder of this black man. And it's not the first time a black man been murdered by the police, but it was the first time I had to sit here in my basement, quarantine already dealing with the health disparities and people of color, poor people dying in massive numbers and people like, hey, we don't know how to stop this. And then this, you know, the political, the geopolitical society. It's like, oh my God. And then here's the thing, I'm OK because I'm OK because I wasn't listening a paycheck. I'm living OK. But it was messing with me. It was messing with my psyche. Yeah. The only thing that was different than George Floyd and I is that I was in my basement. He's a black man that I, I could against, I could have got stopped by the police and, and, and manhandled that way and I could have been the person on the news. So with COVID happening and, and everything like you said, coming to surface, what do you think um would be or is hot topics dealing with de I and higher education? Um So, so for me, the hot topics are, have always been the hot topics. It is holding, see, holding higher education accountable to being accessible and affordable. I it's becoming untenable for a lot of people and I just think we have to figure out a way to keep it accessible and affordable. And that's, that's the hard part. When you look at the last 50 years of higher education, the bottom quartile in terms of uh wealth, the poorest people have, you know, they don't get degrees. Yeah, they don't, the degrees I was in that bottom quartile, the upper court town, they have double in degrees. And so the more money you have, it's just, you know, it's triple, it's triple since over the last 50 years. And that bottom quartile has stayed the same. I think it's only increased, you know, 2% over the last 50 years. And that's a problem. It's not affordable and it's not attainable to the bottom court town-- and-- we leave with a lot of debt I'm fortunate enough that I got out of there and my kids are now be one generation later. I'm in the upper court town and my kids have options that I didn't have. And so the, the, the chances for success are greater for them. But the thing is is that I'm still thinking it's still hurdles. Yeah, so higher education still have a lot of work to do. So, Dr Graham, I want to return to something you said earlier about grace and um giving grace in times that you were giving grace. And Tashana had um had asked for advice about how she could proceed in an institution where she didn't feel welcome and, and there's a time to leave, right? But can you talk to us a little bit more about either how to give grace or moments maybe where you found yourself giving or receiving it. So we can think about as a team, right? As the three of us talking to each other on this podcast, challenging each other, talking about difficult topics like how do we, how do we give and how do we receive grace from each other in those difficult times? What are some examples you have? So let me just, you know, as a leader manager, I offer opportunities for coaching as a portion of, you know, you know, feedback and you know, I take, you know, iii I take great pride in and uh giving, giving coaching and, and, and to my team and to people that I work closely with, regardless of their background or identity, I take great care of, of, of assignments or, or task. And II I try to provide people opportunities to s to stretch their abilities. And also because doing that, it stretched my abilities and, and one, you know, just, and I wanna offer this, you know, and using Porsche and say, because I wanna ask Porsha. So what do you wanna do? Oh yeah, that, you know, I don't know. I'm, I, I don't know. And so, so I'm always saying, what are you looking forward to? What, what, what do you wanna do? AAA and, and I have no malice in that or, or no, but I'm just trying to, trying to kind of stretch her ideas about the future. And so, so for me, I'm trying to, you know, tr trying to be forward thinking and, and so, so I think for me, I'm trying to put ourselves in that forward thinking mindset because everything has a season and sometimes we can't see the see, you know, the future because we're so present mind and, and, and, and so, so let me, let me just tell you what III I think about people always ask me, how do you, how do you, how do you plan for the future or how do you find purpose? And, and I'm gonna get to the grace thing because I think grace is, you have to find grace in when, you know, in purpose. Because in each of the, each you, you should always think about having something to do, someone to love and something to look forward. So if you have something to do someone to love and something to look forward to, you can always kind of think about the future. And so for me, that's, I know that in each season of my life, I always, those three things were always consistent and I'm always thinking about how do I maximize my state of mind and, and, and where I'm going. And when I was asking Porsha, like, what are you, what are you doing? And she was like, well, I'm going to maximize where I'm at today and I'm pushing, I'm pushing her to think about the future and she's thinking about today and the other day when she called, when she text me, she said, hey, I finally got it, what I wanna do for the future. And I'm like, oh, not knowing when that day was gonna happen, but when she called me or text me, like what you, you, you finally figured it out. I said, oh, ok. And, and, and I think for me, II, I just, I wanted, I wanted to kind of have that exercise with her. Uh because I just think when you have that exercise, you could prepare for mistakes to happen. You can allow for your own grace. And, and so So I say that because sometimes it, it keeps you from being stagnant and it allows for you to grow, it allows for, it allows for you to uh help others because that's what I do. I, I'm always constantly, you know, I'm trying to do the best in, in real time for myself and others. But when people make mistakes, I'm easy for me to give them grace in real time. As long as they're trying to do the best that they can for whatever, you know, whatever they're doing moving forward. And so, so I, I know that was a, a long answer, but it's, it's really thinking about how do you do your best while trying to move forward and, and, and, and that, I guess, you know, that's what I would say. You just, you know, how do you, how do you just try to move forward? So can I can I kind of restate what I think I heard you say in the context of maybe how I'm thinking about it with the podcast or with like, you know, the workplace or higher education. So the those opportunities for Grace are also connected to relationships, right? So if you, if we have a relationship, the three of us together on this podcast, and we know that we have a shared objective of being committed to moving the ball, right? To like making change in the future, to getting better to, to whatever it is, then we're sort of laying the groundwork to be able to trust each other, to give each other grace and to ask for it and to give it to ourselves. But if you're in a new environment, if you're right, if you're someplace where you don't, no, you don't know those people. You don't have those individual relationships. You're kind of making a, a choice and maybe evaluating whether or not it's safe to do. So, you know, whether or not it's safe to invest, find allies where you can build that foundation of trust to give grace. So at the end of the day, it's kind of about, it's about who you are and who you are in relation to other people and whether or not whether or not you can do that calculus of they're trying to move the ball down the road. So I know I like, I believe that I trust that. So I in like in this moment, I'm not, I'm either not gonna, um I'm not going to double down on feedback or I'm gonna make sure I provide feedback that is forward thinking because I know that they're committed to the future too. Maybe that was a long winded way of two long ones. Welcome, Porsha. Porsha know I'm long winded but, but James Baldwin said, not everything that is faced can be changed, right? But nothing can be changed until it's faced. And so, so w when I know that, you know, I think for me, this work that you're doing, you wanna, you wanna make a significant change in the area of de I, but you can't change everything. That's, I, I just want you to know that you're not gonna change everything. Mhm. But you can't do anything if you don't do something. So this is the work to do something. You're trying to do something, you got to do something and this podcast is doing something and you're not gonna know how much you're going to change. You know, you can't estimate how much you're gonna change. You can't, you know, you might change, you might, you might hope to change millions and millions of people. You might change them, but you don't know, you might change the hundreds and hundreds of people. But, but you're gonna, you gotta try to do something. This is your attempt to do something with that. What is to be done while we are recording this podcast, while we are, while we have listeners listening to this podcast in relation to the podcast and less launchings what is to be done in the realm of de I and higher education. Oh, I mean, I think I go back to access, access and affordability and I think in terms of IC O the equity, equity, uh, equity lands have to be placed over how we do records and you know, the work that you, th this population does when you and when people are doing their work. Sometimes people, uh you know, we've seen the chart where we say equality versus equity, you gotta be able to do that work with the equity lens and not necessarily uh equality lens, you know, and sometimes depends on where you sit on the privilege scale. You wanna say everybody gotta be equal and that's not what we need. Sometimes we gotta gotta provide, we gotta get some equity to here, you know. you know, like right now I'm saying, I know right now I'm fortunate because I made it out of that lower quartile. My kids don't need the same kind of help that the kids in the lower court I need. Yeah. And I recognize that and uh and, and so it's not equality that my keys. I'm looking at equity now. I, I mean, and it's, it's easy for me to say that because I'm in a different type of school tights bracket. But I'm really thinking about equity approaches to how we do our work. And, and, and, and so, so, so that's what I'm asking professionals in higher education to look at how do we do this because access and affordability is making higher education hard to, you know, to get into it and, and process, you know, matriculate through and the work that the professionals that's listening to this work, whether they're in the missions, whether they're in the Registrar office, whether they're in financial aid, they have, they have a role to play in this. And if they're, if they're, if they're not taking an equity, a approach to this work. And I, I believe you, I know that some of the rules don't allow you to take an equity approach, but they need to be advocating for that equity approach. There you go. Well, we appreciate you, Doctor Graham. This was great, another great session and um-- thank you for-- listening. Thank you so much, Doctor Graham for joining us. We so appreciate it. And can we have you back some time? Oh, yes, yes, please. If you want me, I love chatting with you guys. Thanks for listening to Herd, a podcast sponsored by Acro. We'd love to hear from you. Share your episode, ideas or feedback for us at HD at acro.org episodes are produced by Mayo Inna. Thanks may oa. We'll see you next time.