Notes:
1) This interview in the Scholarship to Practice Series originally aired on October 22, 2020 as part of the University Innovation Alliance’s Innovating Together podcast, appearing live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
2) This transcript is intended to serve primarily as a guide to the full conversation. We apologize for any inaccuracies and encourage you to listen to the podcast.
Click here to access our summary, along with helpful links and audio from this episode.
Richard Reddick:
I'm not really considering the empathetic issues that are involved, so if you think an organization or a movement is problematic in some way, if you don’t take the time to actually empathize with the folks in that movement and how they feel, you can see how that’s incredibly psychologically taxing. Right? To be on the defense constantly to make sense and make meaning of all the things that are happening –
Bridget Burns:
Welcome to Innovating Together, podcast produced by the University Innovation Alliance. This is the podcast for busy people in higher education who are looking for the best ideas, inspiration, and leaders to help you improve student success. I'm your host, Bridget Burns. Welcome. Today we’re having an episode of Scholarship to Practice. And as an administrator, I don’t know about you, but for me, I’ve been part of far too many conversations where I hear things like, "If only we knew," or "I wonder if..." and later on I find out that most of those topics, there’s actually relevant research that we could’ve been drawing upon that already existed. Too often, limited time, capacity, or even academic writing can get in the way.
At the UIA, we know that we need to bridge that gap between scholarship and practice if we’re going to stand a chance to improve student success. We all need to be working together leveraging research in the field and identifying where we need more research to support greater innovation in higher ed. So this show is designed to help bridge that gap by elevating relevant research we all could be using in our daily lives in a short and conversational format. Welcome to Scholarship to Practice.
Derrick Tillman-Kelly:
I'm Dr. Derrick Tillman-Kelly with the University Innovation Alliance, and I'm delighted to co-host this episode of Scholarship to Practice. And today we’re joined by Dr. Rich Reddick, professor and inaugural Associate Dean for Equity, Community Engagement and Outreach in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Reddick conducts ethnographic research on the experiences of faculty of color in predominantly white university settings, mentoring relationships in higher ed, Black families in American society, and work/family balance in junior faculty fathers. Hi, Rich, welcome to the show and thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today.
Richard Reddick:
Derrick, Bridget, great to see you both, great to be here. Hopefully technology works with us, but this is exciting, I can’t wait to get started.
Bridget Burns:
We are so thrilled, and for those who are at home, University of Texas, Austin is one of the UIA schools, but Rich is someone who we had invited to come and speak to all of the folks in the UIA a couple years ago now at [unintelligible 00:02:39]. You really woke people up to the idea of cultural taxation, and we’re just so grateful to have a conversation about that today. But first we just wanted to get a sense of how are you holding up right now? And just ground ourselves in the life of Rich Reddick today.
Richard Reddick:
Well I will say this, Bridget, it’s great – it’s a Thursday, I teach tonight, so shout out to my history of higher education class, I will see you at 4:00 Central. So it’s kind of a down slope of the week, but I have this last class today, so I'm excited about that, which has been really nice, I like having class at the end of the day, I mean end of the week, it keeps me buoyed. But it’s challenging, Bridget, all the issues about work/life balance and our kids, going to school; it’s been tough. But I find being in community and talking about how tough it is has been really helpful, that’s been a good thing us having conversations about that.
Bridget Burns:
Wonderful. So one thing that I think if you asked my family what I do for a living, they would say I'm still a student because they – I’ve just never left college, apparently. I'm just wondering, for those who are at home just trying to keep things as conversational as possible, how do you describe what you do if you meet somebody in an elevator or if – one of your family members, perhaps?
Richard Reddick:
Yeah. Well that’s it, I'm first gen, right. So since the age of 18 I’ve had to go home and translate, what am I doing exactly? And so the nice thing about being a professor, at least in name, the professing part's obvious, right, so I often talk about the fact that I have three jobs, I have the teaching part of my job, which everybody understands, I'm in class, I have students, I grade papers and so on and so forth. I have the piece that is the research piece, which is I'm writing, you know, and the writing can be either writing something I’ve already done work on, or analyzing data, or collecting data, right, any part of that process. And then finally the service part, which is the part that my associate dean role is really about, which is the idea that the University of Texas is a state-flagged university, is constitutionally mandated to serve the citizens of Texas.
So whether I'm running op eds, or I'm visiting schools, or visiting community members, or working in community agencies, that’s a big part of what I do. So it’s like you’re a gadfly in so many different things, but we try to be more applied. And so again, as a state-flagged university, much of the work that we’re doing is not simply showing up and hey, how’s it going, [unintelligible 00:05:00] but it’s actually lifting up the hood, getting our fingers dirty, and getting into the work. So that’s generally how I describe it, because you’re talking to me today I'm a teacher, tomorrow I’ll be doing a lot of the community service or stuff that we do at U.T. Austin.
Derrick Tillman-Kelly:
That’s great, Rich and super helpful, I think, for all of us to think about our jobs are not just one thing, but might be multiple things, and you aren’t all of them all at the same time. And so, as Bridget mentioned, when you joined us at Purdue, you talked to the group about cultural taxation, can you share what that is for administrators who might not be familiar?
Richard Reddick:
Sure, and I want to give a huge shout out to both you and Bridget, because that opportunity was really important, because it’s something that’s been going on for quite some time. It’s not a novel concept. Amado Padilla, 1994, came up with a concept, and basically it’s the invisible labor done by folks of color to support diversity missions at universities, particularly predominantly white institutions. So whether it’s serving as a translator for folks who are coming, speaking different language, whether it’s sitting on diversity committees to make the university more accessible and more appealing to people of color, or it’s doing some of that mentoring and advising that happens so often. But the issue about the taxation is that it’s happening either invisibly or it’s in the way that’s not being compensated or recognized.
So often people who engage in work that’s culturally taxing, are not getting the hikes in their salary, they’re not getting the promotions in their job positions because of the work, it’s invisible. So we’ve heard Geneva Gay call it problematic popularity, the Black tax, the brown tax, the women tax, the gender tax, those are all variants of cultural taxation.
Bridget Burns:
That is super helpful. And I know that for many folks, they might see that, but they didn’t have the language to really describe what was going on. And I'm just curious about, now you shared a bit about what we might see as administrators or faculty, but I'm curious about how this might show up for students. How might students be experiencing cultural taxation, particularly students of color, in predominantly white institutions?
Richard Reddick:
Bridget, that’s a great question, and think of this incredible tumult, right, we have uprisings, and we have conversations on race and equity that are moving to the highest level they’ve been in quite some time. And so those students are often in spaces where they’re having to explain, or justify or make sense of things. So think about some of this tweet first, think later moment we’re in where people are often spouting off ideas and thoughts and not really considering the empathetic issues that are involved. So if you think an organization or a movement is problematic in some way, if you don’t take the time to actually empathize with the folks in that movement and how they feel, you can see how that’s incredibly, psychologically taxing, right, to simply be on defense constantly, to make sense and make meaning of all the things that are happening.
And also serving, what we call native informants, right. The idea that because you have an identity, you obviously think for everybody in that community, and obviously I can ask you anything or ask you to justify anything that happens in those communities. So this moment in particular, I think is particularly taxing for students of color, because we’re not having, unfortunately, productive conversations on a large-scale, national level. The modeling for that is not really happening. So a lot of times, the most responsible and responsive people [unintelligible 00:08:40] pertain the issues of equity are students in classrooms, in dorm rooms, in Zoom meetings.
And my gosh, I see this happening every single day, incidents where students feel I'm trying to learn to do physics and something happened in the chat where I'm having to make sense, or justify or defend people of color, those are examples of cultural taxation. And the worst thing about that for students is that they don’t have the protections that faculty, staff, administrators have, right. They’re trying to earn degrees, if I raise an issue to my professor, I have to worry about, will that professor have an issue with me or about me differently on my assessment because I provoked or raised an issue that maybe they didn’t want to hear? So it’s really, I think, perceptive to think about students also experiencing cultural taxation and not just limiting it to faculty and staff.
Bridget Burns:
That’s super helpful, especially as we are thinking about ways that we can better step up, and serve and support students of color in this challenging moment. I think being aware and cognizant that there, in addition to the challenges that are in the news, also understanding that they’re being expected to really step up and do much of the work to try and rest. And all these committees and all these task forces that are formed, that’s just extra work, and most of the time, unpaid and they don’t get credit for it.
Richard Reddick:
Exactly, exactly. When I was a graduate student we did work with the National Campus Diversity Project at Harvard, and we were at Yale and a student – I’ve used this quote a million times, I wish I knew the student’s name, she says, “Look, it’s like we’re adjunct faculty members in the college of diversity and we’re not compensated.” So all the cultural work that’s done, all the education that’s done, all the benefits that students get from diversity is borne disproportionately of the shoulders of these students who are taking the time to explain, or invite or make statements about what’s happening. And it’s, like you said Bridget, it’s not compensated, you don’t get graded on your cultural contributions, perhaps you should, I don’t know.
Derrick Tillman-Kelly:
And so thinking about that very piece, I know that you’re helping to lead the reimagining of "The Eyes of Texas" song for U.T. Austin, and so I'm wondering how do we determine the difference between necessary and participation of marginalized folks and that that is cultural taxation?
Richard Reddick:
That’s such a good – first of all, good news travels fast, right. Second of all, you’re exactly right, Derrick, that’s the point. The point is we have to make very fine-tuned decisions about participation and activities. Now as alumnus, as a faculty member, as an administrator, somebody’s who’s deeply involved, who teaches a history of higher education class, it’s really in my wheelhouse to do this work. But I do draw a paycheck from the institution, so it’s very different for me and very different for students who are different places. And many times I’ve worked on diversity/equity issues and students – and I always respect that when they say, “Dr. Reddick, I have so much going on, I don’t know if I can take the bandwidth.” And I try to advocate for resources.
Sometimes we can’t give them a stipend, but we can we give them something, or some recognition or some kind of leverage so they feel that the time is being valued? And one of the biggest, I think, crimes in higher education is the fact that we benefit so much from the diversity and experiences that students bring, our queer students, our Black students, our Latino students, our Asian/American students, student of color, international students. But we don’t really think about how to ensure that, OK, so now you’ve finished doing this thing for us, go back to your physics homework. What are we doing to help you with that?
And like I said, we always talk about money as being one of those things, but I think recognition, I think acknowledgments, I think, as Bridget was saying earlier, academic credit for some of the work that’s being done, will be really meaningful. And those are the kind of things you don’t figure out, Derrick, until usually you’re in grad school, you’re like, oh I could do an independent study on this. So I think part of our job is to make sure that we recognize that we’re asking students to do above and beyond what they’re expected to do and we creatively think about ways we can inform that and assist them.
Bridget Burns:
We are already getting comments down below from folks who are super engaged, and folks at home, if you have questions for Professor Reddick, we are happy to ask them. So all you have to do is elevate them in the chat in either Periscope, Facebook, LinkedIn, or on YouTube. So thanks for that. What I'm curious about is that for folks who are just now being aware of this and they’re seeing just how much extra work is – right now we’re trying to – yeah, there’s this recognition of racial injustice in higher education in a way that there has never been before. And I see task forces and groups forming and that’s so awesome. And then I look at the composition, and I see who’s having to do the work, and so it’s almost like we’re putting folks of color in the position of doing the work to address racial injustice.
And what I'm wondering is, if I'm in a power position, what kinds of things can I do to address this? Is it, you mentioned payment, you mentioned credit, recognition in the tenure process perhaps, making sure that people are actually getting time away from a normal teaching load, perhaps? I'm just curious about, for you, you’re taking on this huge effort that’s going to be really important for the future of U.T. Austin. Not saying that your new president is watching in the audience, perhaps, but if you had a magic wand so that this could be a model for how we address cultural taxation at U.T. Austin, what might that look like?
Richard Reddick:
Well, that’s a great question, and if President Hartzell’s watching, hi. The one thing I think is really important, and I’ll talk about something we do at U.T. Austin that I think has been really helpful in this area, is the recognition piece. So last year we launched the Distinguished Service Academy, and that is an academy, it’s literally a recognition that is compensated for the work that myself and my five other – my four other colleagues who’ve been recognized; we call ourselves the “Fierce Group,” that we’ve done over the years. And we’ve had this longstanding commitment to community engagement, mentoring and service, right. And most of us imagine the university as not being a place where we just put out books and articles, right. We actually engage in our communities. And the engagement looks very different for all of us, and so the fact that that happened in the last year was amazing thing.
I think that kind of elevating of the work, because you now have a title, you now have compensation, you would now have recognition, right, and that’s why I’ve been trying to be really upfront to people that I'm on the Distinguished Service Academy, not because I'm bragging. But because I want it to be known that the university has recognized my contributions in this area and there’s so many other colleagues that are doing this work as well. And of course, one of the big pieces about this is making sure that it’s not, “Well, Rich and his colleagues, they’re really good at service, but they kind of suck at everything else.” Like, no, you’re brilliant at all these things, the research, the teaching, and you’re exceptionally brilliant when it comes to service.
You made the point, Bridget, I think it’s so important, it’s about recognition and tenure promotion. To really leverage the fact that institutions, particularly [unintelligible 00:16:03] institutions, are often working from deficits when it comes to community of color relationships, right, they’re longstanding inequities and problems. And faculty of color often – and students of color, and grad students of color, and staff of color are often bridging that divide, they’re the ones in the community building credibility for the institution, that’s worth something – literally, it’s worth something. And I want people to see their merit pay increase because they’re doing this work. And frankly, a lot of times these are the only people who can do the work.
How do you make amends or build bridges to communities that have already had their trust broken? Somebody from that community is often the person to be the one to say, “Let’s start it again, let’s start anew.” So I think that’s a really important piece of the conversation. But the last thing I would say is really critical – I'm going invoke Marybeth [Gasman] one of my mentors – white faculty need to step up, white faculty, administrators, student leaders. Understanding this issue of equity inclusion is not simply the domain of people of color or people with marginalized identities, it is everybody’s work. And certainly there’s a position for everybody to play, so the idea that, well, that seems like something that people of color should be working on, maybe it’s important people of color lead, but it’s certainly important that all folks, especially white folks, are involved in the process. And that allyship, that co-conspiratorial effort is super appreciated and super needed.
Bridget Burns:
Oh, it’s definitely the responsibility of white folks to address racism. I mean – and I think that it’s important also to uplift and amplify great models of white allyship because I think some people feel uncomfortable with race and they want – they don’t want to be racist and they’re worried about how things are perceived, but then they also sit on the sidelines. And so I think folks who step up, folks who are really out speaking and who are side by side or stepping up and using their privilege for good, is the kind of stuff that we just need to see more of and that’s should be normal.
Richard Reddick:
Yeah, I – you nailed it. I mean, I think – I talk about equity and inclusion work as being – it’s risky work because you’re constantly – you’re mostly public facing. You’re often operating spaces, not only frame my work as being a humble learner, I am learning in the space, still to this day, and I never want people to think that Rich is the diversity expert, so would he make excuses, or misspeaks or doesn’t announce his pronouns or whatever, those are things that are problems. I'm always open to that kind of feedback, and I always encourage colleagues to lean into it, lean into this comfort. It’s like going to the gym, right, you – it might hurt a little bit, but you’re building capacity. The more you do it, the more you engage, the buffer you get.
But the first couple of times out, you may be disappointed with the results because you’re not seeing anything happen, and you might be a little bit achy, that’s part of the process. So to really just engage in this process is so important to me, and I think I’d rather have people engaging and getting a modicum of success versus, I tried one time, it didn’t work out, I felt bad, I'm not doing it anymore, that’s the absolute worst thing that can happen.
Derrick Tillman-Kelly:
Yeah, and so listening to you, I think a lot about the fact that we would desire for department chairs, promotion and tenure committees, vice presidents to be intentional and recognizing where cultural taxation may occur and then mitigating it. That’s not always the case, and similarly it’s not always the case that our white colleagues will throw themselves in front of us to take the brunt of pushback when calling institutions out on their racist ways. I'm wondering how you might encourage someone or coach someone who is feeling taxed, because of their racial identity or other minoritized identity to help them get their supervisors to understand that taxation, one is real, and that they are the ones who need to address it?
Richard Reddick:
That’s great, Derrick, I always talk about the importance of literature, right. There’s a body of literature, and back to Padilla, 1994, that has examined cultural taxation, and we’re academics, so listen, we all want to see the data. It’s out there. So there’s plenty – I'm just thinking about the fact that I was reading the book Written/Unwritten not too long ago, which is narratives of people of color in the tenure promotion process. And there’s already a considerable body of work that Inside Higher Education yesterday had the article about Black souls of – the souls of Black professors, which really encapsulates my good friend, Kimberly Griffin, is quoted, I'm quoted in it as well, about just what does it look like and what are the lived experiences?
And one of the examples they talked about is the Dean of Architecture at the City University of New York, who resigned her position and said, “This is not a space that’s conducive for equity and inclusion, and therefore I'm not going to put myself through that physical, emotional wringer of engaging in that work.” And that’s a wakeup call, right, that’s what needs to be done, so I would also point out KerryAnn O’Meara has done some great work on faculty workloads, right. So there’s work out there to actually assess and quantify how service is distributed.
And that’s a question that leaders should be asking themselves: Who’s mentoring? Who’s advising? Who’s [leading] dissertations? Who’s sitting on committees and actually laying it out? And being able to advise about, OK, this service you’re doing, like you mentioned the "Eyes of Texas" work I'm doing, that’s high visibility and, let’s hope, it’s high reward, right. Let’s hope. So that’s the kind of work that you would say, if you have an opportunity to do that, absolutely. But being on the scholarship committee where you have to go through tons of work and very little outcome, that needs to be distributed across, so nobody’s working in that space. And one of the famous things we do in the academy, is that our colleagues, who are really great at producing research or drawing down grants, are somehow exempt from that work.
And then we rely on others, and we create this perpetual inequity where there’s some high performers, when it comes to grant writing and publishing and folks who do a lot of service. We need to make sure that’s not happening, and even if you are a magnificent grant getter and a magnificent publisher, you need to be doing this work as well, and so that sharing of the responsibilities, and also understanding how it’s not just race, but gender, right. We often talk about the fact that women of color, in particular, often serve this nurturing role because, quite frankly, my male colleagues and I, we often opt out and say we’re not going to do that. Right? We don’t do the emotional stuff, but the work is emotional, right.
So I want to also encourage us to think about our gender identities and how that impacts the work that’s being done. So nobody is walking around feeling like, OK, I’ve got this – the issue of my racial identity, I might have a disability, I may be a person who identifies as queer, and then I’ve got the gender issues as well, so now I have all these weights to carry around, and there are people walking around doing less. And that’s, to me, that’s amazing that most people, when you unpack faculty lives, you’re really surprised to see how much some of your colleagues are doing that you don’t know about. You don’t know about the fact that they’re mentoring students in different parts of the university, or they’re doing community service, or they’re bringing some more incisive aids, or they’re fixing the messes you’ve made, right.
So those are all parts of this. So I think let’s lean into the conversation, let’s look at the Inside Higher Ed article, the Nature article that came up this summer that talks explicitly about cultural taxation. So nobody can walk away and say, “I didn’t know what that was.”
Bridget Burns:
And I’ve just listened; it’s going to be harder, I’ll only get below in the comments on our underneath the videos. But folks can reference the article that Rich is talking about that was published yesterday on Inside Higher Ed, so it’s super timely that we are broadcasting on Inside Higher Ed, thanks for referencing that. And we also are getting some shout-outs on the comments, man, I know you’d be – I knew people would love having you on the show, and they do.
Richard Reddick:
But Dr. Phyllis Smith is a good friend and colleague, former student of mine from advisory at Prairie View A & M University doing wonderful things, so it’s great to see her in the chat. And I see Porter as well, who shouted out early this week that he’s so excited about being here, so this is great, I'm so glad that we’re having this conversation.
Bridget Burns:
So, Rich, if folks want to connect with you, where would they go? And I want to ask that, but I also want to flag one thing that’s I'm thinking about in terms of cultural taxation is, all of this effort around D.E.I. and trying to address racial inequity and people trying to really put effort in right now, making sure that you are compensating the people who are going to be doing the work, that is one of the many ways that we, as practitioners, have some power. Budgets are tight, it’s COVID, I get it, but not always assuming that folks are going to just be volunteering their efforts because, remembering that they are choosing not to do things, take care of their family, they're choosing not to do academic research, and then that does show up later on in life.
And we were talking about tenure. We’re talking about who’s going to get promoted. So making sure that if you're going to be creating anything around diversity, inequity, and inclusion right now, to be going through the door that allows you to compensate them, and that’s one of the ways that we can try and at least make some steps towards addressing cultural taxation. So – but I did want to ask for folks who are interested in, perhaps maybe even compensating you, Rich, how can people connect –?
Richard Reddick:
I'm going to declare email bankruptcy, I'm having a really hard time. And anybody out there in the world knows how to manage email in huge volumes, that’s next episode you should have. But usually Twitter’s the best one, because I can usually just jump back. But it’s at Dr. Rich Reddick, all one word and of course at U.T. Austin, which is richard.reddick@ut – at austin.utexas.edu is how to get hold of me. And I tend to keep a high profile when it comes to public scholarship, that’s something again, I mentioned Marybeth Gasman, my colleague David Matthews here at U.T. Austin, people who I know, who have said we want to make sure that our work is not simply in pay wall journals; we want to make sure people can access our work.
So I’ve been writing with Fortune, I’ve been writing with CNN, I’ve been writing in some of the Texas dailies. If you do a Google search, you’ll be able to find me. But yeah, let’s continue the conversation, and I really do think there’s a whole bevy of scholars who are doing the work that I'm doing. I mentioned Kimberly Griffin-Haines, at University of Maryland, who’s a good friend of mine, collaborator, who’s also very insightful in these issues. So you’ll start figuring out there’s a community of scholars doing this work, and more importantly, one thing you’ve done, Bridget, is really amplified what this concept is and how people understand how critical the work is.
Bridget Burns:
Well, I appreciate that and I know that Derrick, you have another question. But I also want to just add that for folks who are at home, now you have cultural taxation in your language, you can use it, and I recommend that you do. One thing that you could consider doing is actually inviting Professor Reddick to speak virtually to your campus. Or one of the many folks that he has shouted out, which I always appreciate when scholars are not just promoting themselves, but promoting the work of those who they are in partnership with. But you could have a conversation then, you could have a short presentation and then have a conversation on your campus about how is this showing up for us?
And what kinds of changes could we think about to ensure that folks on our campus who are being culturally taxed, who are helping us try and address the wrongs of the past and who are trying to promote diversity, inequity, and inclusion on our campus? How can we make sure that we’re not also culturally taxing them? So that’s one thing that could be a positive, and it’s a good conversation for folks, because it makes them aware of stuff that they didn’t even realize was happening.
Richard Reddick:
Yeah, and just as you said that, I just realized that Dr. Phyllis Smith at Prairie View A & M University was when I co-office, and some of the first work I did on cultural taxation, so Dr. Smith is definitely a person who is knowledgeable and we were in the trenches together doing this work, collecting data and analyzing it. And also my colleague Beth [Pokaski] who’s another colleague of mine, who’s done this work. So yeah, the opportunity to bring it to the attention of folks that this is actually a concept. And more importantly, to bring leaders in the conversation to say, “You actually run things, you pull levers, you control budgets, address this.” And that’s the kind of thing we need to do, we need to make this structural change in the academy to be able to say, “You know what, I look at your publication or I look at your grant writing activity and I see an opportunity for me, as a leader, to say, I want to make sure that’s recognized and not dismissed, that’s critically important work. You’ve done work that makes it possible for your other colleagues to do work. So not only is your work important, it’s generative.”
Bridget Burns:
Yeah, and don’t just spread the work around, spread the love around. So if you see an opportunity to say, I don’t know, select an interim role, look to a person of color or a person who’s been doing some of this extra work. Look for ways to amplify, and there are plenty of – if you get invited to speak, ask – send it their way instead. Or if you’re going to start a podcast, have them co-host it with you. There are all kinds of ways that we can use our privilege for good and try and address some of the challenges that cultural taxation might create.
Derrick Tillman-Kelly:
Yeah, and so to round us out, Rich, and in the spirit of sharing, to encourage others to take better care of themselves, can you talk to us about what’s helping? What does self-care for Rich Reddick look like today?
Richard Reddick:
Well, that’s a really good point, Derrick. So I would say the self-care and the balance piece – it’s an aspiration, right. You’re working constantly towards it. The name Carl and Katherine, my son and daughter, they’re pretty good at alerting dad to the fact that OK, we need to do something, hang out. We need to go to the park, we need to play ball, and most recently, we need to print out something in the 3-D printer, that’s what we’ve been doing lately, which is fascinating, by the way. It’s like this thing can create things, it’s really cool. I have been watching a lot of television, obviously because of what’s happening in the world politically; that’s probably not doing a lot to diminish my stress levels, but I have found just vegging out in this moment is so important.
So many of my colleagues, we have this constant sense of having to produce and do things. I'm much – usually pretty much exhausted by the end of the day, which is, first thing, is helpful. But the second thing is that I literally just have to sit there and just veg out and look, which is fine, right. And the other thing, of course, my love – and this is the great thing about my particular way of de-stressing – is going in the kitchen and cooking something. So I probably advise, if you’re looking for a way to de-stress, do that, because when you do that, and you do it well, people like it. So you’re letting your stress go, and then people are clapping and applauding for you and “Oh, can I have some more?”
That is absolutely something that I’ve done a lot of, so America’s Test Kitchen and Alton Brown, all those places you go to get these perfect recipes and you cannot screw up, that’s what I do. So – and it’s been fun and I think that’s something that’s so important to do in this podcast, to talk about, it’s not just about grinding it out, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, we’re all stressed, it’s OK to not do anything. And it’s OK to do things that give you joy that have no academic product. Here’s the article on my cooking I did; no, just cook.
Bridget Burns:
I love it, because that’s super accessible, and Dr. Constance Iloh, who we had on earlier, she talked about gardening as one of the ways that’s de-stressing. And I love that these are things that are practical, they’re accessible, anyone can try them and that they’re also both places that you get, as she mentioned, learn about failure and be OK with it. Because I feel – last night and here I am standing here today, I'm fine. So just –
Richard Reddick:
– yeah, too much salt, you have to figure out how to make that work, Constance does the gardening, so Constance, shout out to you. Bring me some of your produce and I’ll cook it up, see.
Bridget Burns:
Perfect, love it. Yeah, [unintelligible 00:32:29] partnership. Well thank you so much; this has been great. Thank you Derrick for being a fantastic co-host, and Rich, we just could not be more grateful for your time, and we just want to amplify your work, and for folks at home, if you want to connect with him, please don’t send him an email. But you can connect with him apparently in his [unintelligible] on Twitter. He’s been linked on the show notes, as you’ll see, and we hope again, appreciate ways that we can create more of a dialogue between practitioners and those who are conducting research on the front lines, so that we can actually leverage the insights that are already known. So thank you everyone, we hope you have a wonderful week.
Richard Reddick:
Take care, everybody, this is great, really enjoyed this.
Bios of Guest Luminary and Co-Hosts
Richard J. Reddick, Ed.D. is the inaugural Associate Dean for Equity, Community Engagement, and Outreach for the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin, and Professor in the Program in Higher Education Leadership in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy (ELP) at U.T. Austin, where he has served as a faculty member since 2007. He is the faculty co-chair for the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) at Harvard University, and teaches in the Institute for Management Leadership in Education. With a background of teaching in Houston public schools and working in student affairs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and Emory University, Dr. Reddick currently teaches graduate courses on the history of higher education, multicultural modes of mentoring, social and cultural contexts of education, and qualitative research methods. He also teaches undergraduate courses in Plan II Honors and the Signature Course program in Undergraduate Studies. A winner of many teaching and academic leadership awards, Dr. Reddick earned his B.A. in Plan II Liberal Arts Honors at U.T. Austin, and master's and doctoral degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1998 and 2007. He has published articles in the top education journals, as well as co-authoring and co-editing four books. Additionally, he's a Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! champion, husband to Sherry, and dad to a 12- and 10-year old.
Co-Host: Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
Dr. Bridget Burns is the founding Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). For the past decade, she has advised university presidents, system chancellors, and state and federal policy leaders on strategies to expand access to higher education, address costs, and promote completion for students of all backgrounds. The UIA was developed during Bridget’s tenure as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellowship at Arizona State University. She held multiple roles within the Oregon University System, including serving as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor, where she won the national award for innovation in higher education government relations. She was a National Associate for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and has served on several statewide governing boards including ones governing higher education institutions, financial aid policy, and policy areas impacting children and families.
Co-Host: Derrick Tillman-Kelly, Director, University Innovation Alliance Fellows Program and Network Engagement
Dr. Derrick L. Tillman-Kelly serves as the Director of the UIA Fellows Program and Network Engagement for the University Innovation Alliance. He previously served in multiple roles at The Ohio State University, including as the inaugural UIA Fellow and special assistant to the director of the Center for Higher Education Enterprise. Dr. Tillman-Kelly earned his Ph.D. in educational policy and leadership with a specialization in higher education and student affairs from Ohio State; a master’s degree in higher education and student affairs from Indiana University; and a bachelor’s degree from Illinois Wesleyan University.
About Scholarship to Practice
Scholarship to Practice is an event series that happens live on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also becomes a podcast episode. We interview higher education scholars, researchers, and academics that distill how a practitioner or administrator could apply learning in real-time to improve student success. At the UIA, we know that we need to bridge that gap between scholarship and practice if we’re going to stand a chance of improving student success. We all need to work together leveraging research in the field and identifying where we need more research to support greater innovation in higher ed. With its short and conversational format, this show is designed to help bridge that gap by elevating the relevant research we all could be using in our daily lives.
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