Bridget Burns, Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance, and Doug Lederman, Editor and Co-Founder of Inside Higher Ed, speak with Dr. Kristina Johnson, President of Ohio State University. She talks to us about starting a new leadership job during the pandemic, how to improve public safety on and off campus, and the connection between student success and opportunity. Topics include:

• A year of public health restrictions

• Connecting with students

• Identifying the fundamental roots of increased crime

• Academic excellence with a focus on inclusion and equity

• The balance between team leadership and remaining a team player

• Fostering a climate of partnership

Bridget Burns, Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance, and Derrick Tillman-Kelly, Director of UIA's Fellows Program and Network Engagement, speak with Dr. Bryan Brayboy, President’s Professor in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. As senior advisor to the president, director of the Center for Indian Education, and co-editor of the Journal of American Indian Education, Dr. Brayboy discusses the challenges that indigenous students face in higher education, the efforts and missteps of institutions in addressing Native populations' needs, and the deep history of rights and responsibilities in U.S. democracy. Topics include:

• The burden of history and the misunderstandings that indigenous students are dealing with
• Land grant institutions and 21st-century land acknowledgment proclamations
• Good intentions and how they can miss the mark
• What it means to be in right relation
• How the Haudenosaunee (a.k.a. the Iroquois Confederacy) contributed to the basic structure of U.S. government

Bridget Burns, Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance, and Derrick Tillman-Kelly, Director of UIA's Fellows Program and Network Engagement, speak with Dr. TJ Stewart, Assistant Professor of Student Affairs & Higher Education at Iowa State University. As a researcher who explores college students with stigmatized identities, identity-based student activism, and critical qualitative methodologies, Dr. Stewart discusses unrecognized student populations in need of equitable treatment and faculty and staff passion for student success. Topics include:

• How and why some groups of students are overlooked 
• Sizeism and fatphobia on campus
• Accepting the reality of sex work as a student labor choice
• Perceptions of pathology and stigma as roadblocks to improvement 
• Individual choices as a pathway to changes in policy