Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
Alright, well welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNLV. You're with co-hosts Keith and Renee. Renee, how was your weekend?

0:00:14
It was great. I had a chance to do some off-roading. Off-roading?

0:00:18
Yes, I did some dune buggy.

0:00:19
You got a little Therese in you? Yes, yes, I thought you knew. I thought you knew. So I went out to the Mojave Desert. I was out there for an hour. So, it was a really, really relaxing weekend. A great time to just take in the sky and just, you know, just a thrill seeker in me. So, what about you?

0:00:37
Well, it was fun, you know, for the first time. You know, my little one, he's five, Landon, he has not been in the snow to play in the snow. So, I actually took him and the older brother who went reluctantly with us up to Mount Charleston and we just played in the snow, made snowballs and snowman and climbed and fell and got, you know, I've forgotten that feeling. I've been in Vegas 20 plus years now, so you know that feeling when you get the snow all down in your pants and in your socks and it's just a miserable feeling. So I sort of overreached doing angels and all those things, but the boys had a tremendous time, so we made some lifelong memories, I think, this weekend. So it was just a great experience

0:01:16
So it sounds like a great family day

0:01:18
Well, you know that's part of you know being in this this time of year in February and one of the things that you know February is one of my favorite months, you know outside of my birthday month, of course Yeah, my wife's birthday month and then Christmas and although but you know, February is a great month and and I'm so excited to have Dr. Kevin right on with us. Dr. Wright is the Assistant Director for Student Diversity and Social Justice Department. Dr. Wright, could you share a little bit about sort of what's entailed in your department

0:01:50
and what your role is in there? Yeah, most definitely. So again, my name is Dr. Kevin Wright. I use he and his pronouns. I serve as the Assistant Director for Student Diversity and Social Justice, which is also known as SDSJ. And essentially, Student Diversity and Social Justice is an office on campus at UNLV that seeks to advocate to better the student experience. So we provide advocacy, we provide safety planning, we provide programming and initiatives, and then we also do financial literacy education and financial coaching. And we have been around since July 1, 2018. And my role specifically is that I oversee recruitment practices for student staff, the website, as well as social media, and I also oversee in tandem with our graduate assistant for program assessment evaluation all assessment initiatives within the department. So Dr.

0:02:38
Wright, glad to have you on our show. You kind of opened up by saying that your personal pronouns are he, him, his. Is that right? Yes. Okay, maybe you share with our listeners why did you choose to open up in that way and the importance of

0:02:54
personal pronouns. Yeah, the reason why I chose to open up that way I do that all the time with any new space that I navigate because of the fact that I don't want people to feel uncomfortable with making assumptions about how I identify. And pronouns are very important because the fact that just because the person may be perceived or may present themselves as a certain gender, it is very important to be mindful of the fact that not everyone identifies within the gender binary. So not everyone identifies as male or female or a man or a woman. So it's very important to be mindful of making sure that we are respectful of how people identify at all times.

0:03:32
Thank you. So you were at UNLV when the Student Diversity and Social Justice Office started, is that correct? Yes. And so what has been the evolution in your time in this department and what is the work that you're most proud of to this point? Yeah, so our predecessor was

0:03:50
student engagement and diversity, which then broke off into student involvement activities, service learning and leadership, and then student diversity and social justice. And that's definitely been one of the biggest aspects of the evolution of student diversity and social justice because of the fact that we wanted to make sure that everyone that came to the department, aside from all of us being new, the exception of two people, we wanted to make sure that we explicitly differentiated ourselves from the other departments because of the fact that we understood that those other two departments have their own specific culture and we also want to make sure that we created one that best fit alongside the mission, vision, and values of student diversity and social justice. And the work that I am most proud of that we've been able to produce is the extensive amount of programs and services. I don't recall anyone ever foreseeing our office to be an office that will put on programming, as well as creating safety and planning measures for students, being trauma-informed, and then even the financial literacy thing. I don't think that that was ever in the primary scope of what people expected or planned for this office, and yet we kind of just took off running and did our own thing because of the fact that we are a student-centered organization. So, therefore, we go to the students. We meet with the students. We hang out with the students. We engage with the students. We don't treat them like a walking tuition dollar sign. We treat them like a human being because that's what they are, right? And our students know what they need, our students know what they want. So we use that as our motivation to make sure that we aren't losing sight of the work that we are producing and making sure that we are within alignment of not only the bettering the student experience, but then also making sure that those experiences complement the top tier

0:05:36
mission of UNLV. Dr. Wright, could you talk a little bit about the identity groups and how the identity groups were sort of selected or what the approach was to identifying what the identity groups would be and how they would be represented here at UNLV? Are you referring to the identity based program coordinators? I know that we do a lot of identity month programming and I just wanted to hear a little bit more about the different identity groups or how we define identity groups here within the Student Diversity and Social Justice Office.

0:06:08
Oh, fair enough. So that dates all the way back to 1990 when UNLV had one of its earliest iterations of what is essentially a multicultural student center or a multicultural identity services office. UNLV definitely has been creating programs and trying to center the identities of historically marginalized communities for quite some time now. And currently, we have five identity-based program coordinators within the office that advocate for specific communities. So, we have the Black African American Program Coordinator, which is a position that is currently vacant, but we are in the process of filling that position with the successor, and we also have the Native American Program Coordinator, which oversees and advocates for our Indigenous community. We have the LGBTQ and Gender Program Coordinator, LGBTQ, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus. So, that's just one of the... Those are the foundational letters in the LGBTQ community and acronym. We also have the Latinx Program Coordinator and we have the APIME International Program Coordinator. APIME standing for Asian Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern. And the reason why we have those groups and the reason why we use those naming conventions is because of the fact that it is all based on how students identify themselves most commonly. So many institutions, say for instance for Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern. Many institutions will say API, so Asian Pacific Islander, or APIDA, Asian Pacific Islander, Desi American, which is all still inclusive, right? It's just that the culture of UNLV, we have noticed that many students don't necessarily identify with just API or APIDA, specifically Desi, right? And then many of our students say, they're like, no, I'm Middle Eastern, or I'm Pacific Islander, or I'm Asian, right? So, then, therefore, we want to be mindful that our naming convention and how we identify communities such as that is relative to how students see themselves. Hence why we say, um, APIME, Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern and International. And same thing with all the other naming conventions in terms of how the identity groups are identified because, again, it's how the students identify themselves, and it's a very common verbiage that's used

0:08:28
among the students that we serve. So what type of difference have you seen in students who have been the recipients of this community that fosters understanding one's identity? You know, how has that shaped their experience at UNLV? What have been some of the the advantages of having this approach that you've seen in

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this role? Yeah, so many of the advantages that I've seen is that many students appreciate feeling acknowledged. It's one thing that's a common experience for students of color to just be lumped up as a monolithic community, and therefore all students of color experience the same successes, experience the same, or have the same aspirations, and also experience the same hardships and struggles, when that's actually not the case at all. That's far from the truth. So many of the advantages have just been students feel appreciated, they feel seen, they feel acknowledged, they feel safe, they feel like they're actually being cared for, and they actually feel like their concerns are actually being addressed and heard because of the fact that we don't want to address people with the same approach. We're very big on intersectionality, and we understand that many of our students navigate privilege, but then also navigate oppression from different type of infrastructures. And we're not a cookie-cutter office. We are here to make sure that we are providing a customized experience for those that we advocate for.

0:09:52
Dr. Wright, could you speak a little bit about that particular effort and how you customize or target your services based on the unique needs of the different identity groups and perhaps how that approach has changed during the pandemic.

0:10:08
Great question. So at least from my purview, I don't want to speak on behalf of all 30 plus folks within our office. The way that I've been able to provide a customized experience is that I essentially try to be mindful of what is the pulse on campus. So formerly, I was the Black African-American program coordinator, the very first one. I'm a UNLV, and within my first year of working from 2018 to 2019, it was very interesting to see the various needs. So, I had...there's a lot of sub-communities within the African diaspora that had various needs. So, specifically, my Black, queer, and trans students, their biggest focus was safety and financial aid because of the fact that there was a lot of nuances in regards to like, oh, you are using your current name versus your dead name on documentation that is going to the federal government in order for you to get your financial aid, and then making sure that your dead name isn't exposed out publicly because of the fact that you want to make sure that you feel safe. My black veterans, they were student veterans, they were trying to be more mindful of how to navigate back to civilian life and also develop more empathy within their own character because of the fact that many of our black student veterans, they felt disconnected from other black students because much comparison bias was popping up. So it's just like, oh for this country no more than like a year ago. So, why are you stressed? So, it's one of those things where it's just like, so how do we find common ground knowing that people identify struggle or trauma or crisis differently? And then our Black first-gen students, many of them are just trying to figure out, so how do I get connected to campus? How do I stay connected to campus? Specifically, how do I build community with other black students? So it's one of those things where within my first year, I was trying to address. All of that as much as I could, because of the fact that I knew that if I only focused on one thing, it was only going to benefit a pocket within the community and as opposed to the entire diaspora. And in terms of how that has shifted, um, through COVID, I mean, there's a lot more overlap, um, nowadays because many black students across multiple sub-communities within the diaspora have... Their biggest focus has been safety, food, housing, and financial relief, and mental

0:12:39
health.

0:12:40
So, I mean, in my efforts, until the position is filled by my successor, has been focusing on, so how can I make sure that I am creating services and programs that contribute to their financial wellness, financial relief, as well as mental health and other concerns that they've brought up. And as for other sub-communities, I have been trying to figure out what does that look like in terms of making sure that students feel comforted and supported at the institution, knowing that there is a lot of political unrest overseas, because a lot of times when people think of black students, they only think of black domestic students. So therefore, there are a lot of things happening in the Caribbean as we speak. There are a lot of things happening within the continent of Africa as we speak. There are a lot of things happening anywhere where blackness is located right now because anti-black racism or anti-blackness is pervasive and it is global, right? So we have to be mindful of the fact that at least from my purview, formally advocating for folks within the African Diaspora, black students are navigating multiple

0:13:39
pandemics, not just COVID-19. So part of the identity piece is looking at your identity heritage months, and so talk to us about these very months of programming that you do and talk about some of the upcoming programs that are happening,

0:13:55
particularly in Black History Month. Oh yeah, most definitely. So the identity months and weeks that we recognize within Student Diversity and Social Justice are Latinx Heritage Month, which is half of September and half of October. We have LGBTQ Pride Month. We recognize that in October, even though it's primarily recognized over the summer nationally, and that's mainly because of the fact that since our students are not typically here over the summer, we want to make sure that we still acknowledge that community and that identity at some time throughout the academic year. We also recognize Disability Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month. Disability Awareness Month is in October, as well as LGBTQ Pride Month. Native American Heritage Month is in November. We also have International Education Week in November, as well. And then, for the rest of the year, February, Black History Month, March, Women's Herstory Month, as well as Multiracial and Multiethnic Awareness Week, and then April, Asian Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern Heritage Month, which is typically celebrated and recognized nationally in May. But again, since many of our students are preparing for finals and summer vacation or other obligations and responsibilities, we want to make sure that we still provide some opportunity to properly recognize that community as well throughout the academic year. So for Black History Month, yes, in the beautiful month of February, we have been blessed by our campus and community partners to submit, I believe, 15 different events throughout the month of February, and specifically for student adversity and social justice, we've already executed an event last week with President Keith Whitfield, which was actually talking about coping strategies with stress within the African diaspora. And then later last week, we had another event that was about healing through spoken word poetry where we had Miss A.V. who is a local scholar, activist, advocate, and social justice warrior and she's also an alum of UNLV and she led a workshop about how we can heal just from the expressions of our own voice. And then every Thursday, we have Black Students Matter, which is a healing space that Student Advocacy and Social Justice hosts alongside Dr. Tanya Crabb and Dr. Brittany Alford from UNLV. That is every Thursday, no matter what, not just during Black History Month. And essentially, that is a healing space for students who identify within the African diaspora to learn about more coping mechanisms, about things that are impacting them still to this day. So, in previous sessions, we've talked about the pandemic. We've talked about the COVID vaccine. We've talked about the terrorist attack that happened at the Capitol. We've talked about how, even in the present day, slavery still exists and still impacts people within the African diaspora. And yeah, it's just a free-flowing, come as you go, choose your own journey, and at the end of the day, you're going to get that healing. And then for some upcoming events that we have, later this week, in collaboration with the Office of UNLV Career Services, we had this event called Thursday Thoughts, which was an initiative that was started last summer between both offices. And now we led into this academic year to do one for every specific identity month. So the one for Black History Month, Thursday Thoughts, is this Thursday. And basically Thursday Thoughts is where we have a panelist of prominent professionals from different industries in the workforce talking about navigating the workforce from their specific purview and their lens, navigating as a person who has historically marginalized identities. So for this week, and this month in particular, we have four prominent Black professionals. They're going to talk about navigating the workforce as society identifies within the African diaspora. And then next week, we will be doing a video presentation of the main event for Black History Month, which is the Black Carpet. And it's actually going to be the third annual Black Carpet. It's going to feel a little weird because, you know, we're used to dancing, we're used to being in community, there's a lot of great food. But because of COVID-19, it's just going to be a video presentation through Student Adversity and Social Justice's YouTube channel. So, you know, we're going to have a little bit of music. We're going to still distribute our awards. The award recipients have already been selected, so we're going to get those awards made very soon. We're going to be contacting everyone that was nominated, because just even being nominated is still a great honor and a privilege, and we also want to recognize folks that were nominated. So, we'll be getting ready for that as well, and then there's another event that I specifically will be doing alongside UNLV alumni engagement. They have an initiative called Rebel Recharge, and sometime this month, I actually believe it's this Friday, I'll be giving a lecture on an aspect of my research from my doctoral studies.

0:19:00
That's exceptional, the amount of programming, the diversity of programming, and the relevance of the programming to sort of what's going on today. Could you speak a little bit about how do you get the word out or promote that these great activities are and events are available? And how do students connect to, and the university community connect to these opportunities to participate and engage?

0:19:24
Right, most definitely. So all of our events are virtual, free, open to everyone, right? And we just try to blast out as much information as possible. So we send out information through our social media. We have a YouTube channel. We have an Instagram account. We have a Facebook account. We send things out through Rave. As a matter of fact, do we still have Rave? Like, is it still called Rebel Announcements via email? I'm not sure if we still follow that acronym, but we send out through that. We have our own newsletter. We have email with serve you and I'll be today you and I'll be official and then we also have community-based listeners as well that captures all the students within a specific community so we send it out through there as well and then our student workers are our dope individuals so we also understand that many of our students engagement comes from word of mouth so it's kind of like that typical like oh I'll attend this event if I know my friend is attending this event, even if it is virtual. And we always try to bank on that as well because again, we understand the nuance and the sheer intimidation of going to an event by yourself, whether it's in person or alone. So we always try to get folks to bring a friend or bring multiple and just try to engage with us for an hour to an hour and a half about some type of program to either drop some facts on you or just to further empower you and uplift your spirit.

0:20:54
And, you know, you mentioned that SDSJ is like three years young and, you know, you all are doing outstanding work. Could you speak a little bit about sort of where we are today and where you still see opportunities for growth in this space and what we as an institution can do or where there may be gaps in what we need to do as an institution to support this type of work and these identity groups.

0:21:18
Yeah, for sure. It's one of those things where, as I said earlier, many student populations, not just the African Diaspora, because many folks with the African Diaspora have worked with me, but I also know that there is some overlap from other communities where mental health and financial relief have been two very big hot topics. So, you know, there can be another investment made from the institution towards financial aid. That would be great. And then with mental health, I understand that mental health services, you know, with finding psychologists and therapists and, you know, utilizing the services and providing the services and then finding people to, you know, do this work, to do that healing, to not experience burnout themselves, I understand is a very tedious task, and at the same time there could be some additional investment towards mental health. That'd be great as well because many of our students are going through it pretty hard right now. Additionally, student diversity and social justice, we are one department with two working spaces. You know, it's not a bad thing, and at the same time it would be great if we had just one space, but I understand that there's a lot of political conversations happening right now in terms of space allocation, space distribution on campus. So, we're just trying to figure out, like, so what could that singular space look like, and what would that, where would it be located, and how would it be, you know, student-facing, and how would it still be marketed as an inclusive space, et cetera, et cetera. And then also, I know that with everything that we're doing, we're still a fairly small department. I mean, we have one director, two assistant directors, five program coordinators, four graduate assistants, and we have, like, over 30 student staff, which is great, right? And even then, sometimes we are that office, like many other offices that have experiences, sometimes we do hit that level where it's just like, man we want to do that or man we want to be a part of this or man we want to take that on too, but man we are also at capacity and we do not want to experience burnout because we do not want to overextend ourselves because then that's going to be detrimental to the students that we already serve and advocate for, which is why we try to maintain honesty and transparency with our students 24-7 because we tell them, hey, we are always here for you. It's just that we also got to be mindful of how much we can do for you at the same time because we're taking on a lot because we do this work not just for our paycheck. We do this work because we care. This is hard work, but it's also heart work, okay? There's an emotional investment in the work that we do. So I definitely foresee SDSJ growing bigger than it already is. I definitely think that we need to get approval for some more additional full-time staff members because of the fact that at UND we produce so much and our students need so much and the fact that we've been able to keep up with that demand to a certain extent has been great. And even then, as this institution gets bigger, as this campus expands, as our student population expands, that demand is going to expand. and therefore, hopefully our office can expand with that continuous growth of the institution itself.

0:24:30
And we'll get you out of here on this final question. You know, we heard our new president deliver the first state of the university address. And, you know, we heard that he you know, he rolled out the new top tier two point focus. And there is a new core to that top tier around promoting and supporting a culture of social justice, equity, and inclusion. How excited are you to, as a unit, to hear that the university is raising the visibility and the importance of this type of work, and certainly your office will play an important role in these efforts moving forward?

0:25:06
Yes, most definitely. I'm very excited to see that it was acknowledged and made more visible, so to speak, and at the same time, I'm very curious to see what that will look like for faculty and staff, because one of the things that my office continuously, you know, needs to remind folks is that we are student diversity and social justice. We are here for students. We are here because of students. Literally, we are here because of students. Like, if students weren't here, we would not have a job, right? So, as we love to collaborate and connect with campus and community partners, we also try to be mindful of the fact that we were created as an office to serve and advocate for students. And when it comes to that education or the advocacy for faculty and staff, which has happened before where faculty and staff have come to us, you know, asking for advocacy, it's one of those things where we try to be mindful of like what we are able and not able to do. So I'm very curious to see how faculty and staff that struggle with diversity, equity, inclusion work will develop that competency and more of that acceptance of doing this work. Because social justice is everyone's job, not just in diversity and social justice, or not just the Multicultural Student Center, or not just the Jean Nitish Care Center, right? It's one of those things where, yes, through diversity and social justice and the care center are often looked at the most, and that's great, and at the same time, we can only do so much for the entire institution unless the university can back up, you know, their praise with an actual investment that leads to bigger infrastructure, to bigger systems, and more resources, and more access to shift the culture of this institution to make it more equitable, more inclusive, and more of a just community for the students at UNLV.

0:26:58
Thank you for that, Dr. Wright. Renee, this was very informative. I learned so much from hearing Dr. Wright speak. Some of my takeaways from this segment is certainly appreciating the approach for identity group naming convention, being based on how students see themselves. I also appreciated hearing the customized approaches to how services are identified and delivered by identity groups' needs. And then, you know, the common theme I heard from Dr. Wright was just, you know, really a strong focus and philosophy on making students feel heard and making students feel safe. What were some of your takeaways?

0:27:36
Yes, the comprehensive programming from, you know, advocacy to the safety planning to programming, but then the financial literacy are the key components of their programming. How this group has taken what was conceptualized as a break off from student involvement activities to now this new vision where all these pieces are coming together and, like you said, with a relatively small staff for a campus of, you know, 31,000 students in the midst of the climate that's happening at the national level, the global level. But even right here at UNLV, you mentioned that we have a new president. He has raised the bar and visibility of the top tier 2.0 with diversity inclusion being at the top. And so it's going to be really interesting to see how this SDSJ, Student Diversity and Social Justice, take this up a notch. In conjunction with the campus community, but what will that look like? What will their top tier 2.0 look for them as this mandate, this new direction for our president is going to come down? So I'm sure they will be ones to lead the way. And so looking forward to see what is in store. So glad to have them ready to go for Black History Month. They're already off to a good start. I look forward to attending at least one or two of the programs this month. Same here. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Renee. Tune in next week, Wednesday at of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Renee. Tune in next week, Wednesday at 12 on KUNV 91.5 Jazz in the Middle. That's a wrap!

Transcribed with Cockatoo