Let's Talk UNLV

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Welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNLV on KUNV. You with co-hosts Keith and Renee. Renee, this weather is, I mean, this is, they talk about San Diego's weather. I mean, you can't beat Vegas weather right now. You know, this beautiful weather.

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How are you enjoying yourself?

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I'm enjoying the weather. It's nice to be able to go outside and walk and have that cool breeze. You don't need your umbrella. But this past weekend I was in Memphis. I was in Memphis visiting a friend who had their homecoming and so it was cold there. But good experience, a lot of excitement around their homecoming and went to a few basketball games, got some good barbecue, and heard some good down-home blues. So a great weekend, but excited to be back in my city, and glad

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to be here with you. How was your weekend? See Renee, you just set the stage for my

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lunch for me today. You know what? I got to get me some beef brisket. You know I would have

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brought you some burnt ends, but I don't think it would have made it. You know I got a weakness for the burnt ends. And you would not have enjoyed it, but I did think about you.

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Well, I was on the receiving end. I had a high school friend here in Vegas. You know, it's like whenever you live in Vegas, there's always someone coming in town, right?

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Absolutely.

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So I had one of my good high school friends visiting this weekend for the first time in Vegas. He and his wife. So I entertained them and did the good host and bared the strip and, you know, did those things. So it was good overall, though. You know, we sat outside, just talked, caught up. So it was great, great weekend. But you know, I'm excited, Renee. We've had a few members from Student Diversity and Social Justice Office here with us, but I'm excited we have today Egypt Howard, who's the Black African-American Program Coordinator for Student Diversity and Social Justice Office. Egypt, welcome to the show. Hello, thank you for having me. Welcome. Egypt, could you share just a little bit about your background, how long you've been at UNLV, how you came to be at UNLV, and maybe just a very broad overview of what responsibilities reside under your authority.

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Yeah, so I am new, still at least I consider myself new. It's been about six months since I came to UNLV back in May. And I moved to Las Vegas from Northern California where I got my bachelor and my master's degree at Chico State. And so, when this Black Program Coordinator position popped up, I thought it was a great opportunity. It's my passion area. I wrote my thesis on leadership and Blackness when it comes to students in higher education, and so I really look forward to being able to be in a role where I could program specifically for Black students and really continue to do the work around leadership that I really like. So, my role overall as a Black Program Coordinator, my goals and my hopes are to really just be able to get to know students, connect with them, and to be able to highlight and amplify their voices so that the things that they want to see on campus, whether it's programming or they have concerns or things that they want to talk with leadership about, that I'm here to support them along the way, help coordinate programs, make sure folks are getting resources and access to things that they're interested in. And so I do a lot of different things, whether it's making up assessments, coordinating programs, supporting students looking to go to conferences, all those kind of things that fall into my area.

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Wonderful. So I understand that word has it that there was a multicultural mixer yesterday that was sponsored by the University's Social Justice Office. What role did you play and what were some of the

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highlights of the mixer that you can share? Yes, the mixer went really well and that was actually coordinated completely by Dr. Doyle, our interim director, who's been wonderful. And I was able to attend and we got to meet some new faculty and staff, got to network, and then we had some students come in at the end and we all got to kind of share. We did like, you know, where you pull the questions out the bucket and kind of get to sit around the table and just share what our favorite holidays were, what our names meant, just all kinds of different things. So, it was really great to meet new folks and especially for myself as a person who's still new to the community and looking to get to connect with new folks on campus. It was a great opportunity for folks to meet and we got to share a little bit about what SDSJ's plan is and what our hope to do for the rest of the semester and some of the current projects that we're working on.

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Wow, that sounds amazing. And I know that just being in person in and of itself can be a celebration. And so I'm just curious, what was your takeaway being a new employee, new to Nevada, and new to so many students? What was it like to participate in that multicultural mixer and meet all of the students and staff that you mentioned and faculty?

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It was really great. You know, we got to meet folks from different disciplines. I had a really great conversation with someone from religious studies about how we can bring conversations of like interfaith to, you know, a more broad area on campus. And so it was really great. You know, I definitely understand that we're still processing through a pandemic and folks have concerns and I respect that and I think, you know, where we have the opportunity to meet in person and where folks feel comfortable that we can, you know, take advantage of those opportunities. So, I look forward to having more of those as we hopefully continue to get better and healthier as a society and then have those opportunities to connect in person because I think that in-person connection is something you really can't replicate. You know, social media and virtual meetings are all great, and it has sustained us for some time, but I think the in-person connection is a critical component to being able to really get to know people, feel connected to your community, similar to our students, you know, when they come to campus. It's really about getting them connected to the people here so that they feel like this can be their home, and they feel supported here. And so I'm looking forward to continuing doing that on my end as well. Now, Egypt, before I ask you the real interview question, I got to peel back a few layers like we've known each other for a while, right? I need to I need to better understand just a few personal things. I see you are a video gamer, so I have to know what type of games are you into? What what what games do you tend to play? Yes, my whole family. I have two daughters and a partner and we all play video games. We're a video game household. Some of my favorites would be Minecraft, I love Overcooked, I love Stardew Valley, and I'm also an avid Just Dance player. So me and my daughters, we compete very highly at Just Dance. And we play on a lot of different systems, whether it's Nintendo or Xbox, PlayStation, we're kind of all over the board. But I really do enjoy video games and I think there's a lot that kids can learn from it. I think there's a lot of great team building opportunities from video gaming. So it's become a really big part of my life. And then my second personal question is I hear, I see that you enjoy watching basketball. Who's your team? Okay, well, my player is... So I know which bucket to put you in.

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I gotta know who's your team.

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Of course, supporting Brooklyn right now, but I also supported Golden State and the Thunder when he was there. So I'm very attached to my player. I love Kevin Durant. He's my favorite player. But Giannis Antetokounmpo also is one of my second-place players, and he just won a ring, so he's been big talk this year. But yes, we are a big basketball family. My partner actually loves LeBron, so we've been in very big competition the past couple years when it comes to championships, but it's all in good fun.

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She said no Laker love. She said my partner loves LeBron, but no Laker love. She's not giving in to that.

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I see that. Go ahead. But I have a similar strategy with basketball. Now, I follow Dwayne Wade, you know, from Marquette to Miami, from Miami to Cleveland and Chicago and back. So that, you know, Dwayne was my dude. So I feel like I'm in this weird space when it comes to who's my team, you know, now that he's retired.

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But I digress.

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Right. You saw jazz.

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Yeah, I mean, LeBron might try to bring him out of retirement,

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add him to his Lakers team. They're stacking up over there.

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They better have, they better up the medical staff in there. They bringing all these players from retirement or close to retirement. You know, Dwayne's my dude, but you know, we know that he's, you know, got some challenges with his knees.

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Yeah.

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But I wanted to, you know, maybe just piggyback from what Renee shared. I know that you say you're new to campus, like last, like six months ish. And so like, now that we're sort of transitioning

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being the back in person,

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like what has been your strategy for getting to know the students, getting to know your fellow colleagues, and your approach to some of the programming that you've developed or proposing be implemented or offered this semester?

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Yeah, so when it comes to getting to know new folks on campus, I did get some connections early on, and my previous supervisor was able to connect me and allow me to have some one-on-ones with some folks on campus that were already collaborators with SDSJ, so that was great. And so I've tried to continue some of those relationships and see how else I can connect. And when it comes to students, you know, honestly there are times when I'm like riding in the elevator and I'm like, hi, I'm Egypt. I'm the new Black African-American program coordinator. So I do try to step outside my own comfort zone a little and introduce myself to students and then also just getting to know the students that we have in our office has been really important to me and hope that, you know, as I connect with them, I'll be able to connect with the student orgs that they're connected with and the other folks that they know on campus. And so, yeah, I really enjoy getting to know folks, but I'm also not pushing too hard because I respect that folks, you know, still have some boundaries and things right now in terms of being able to do that in person, but when it comes to programming, I think that I've worked with my... I do have a program assistant and she's been very good at like kind of sharing with me some of the thoughts and interests that folks that she associates with in terms of her student group and then we've brainstormed a lot based on past events that have happened and some of the hopes that folks had for us to continue things. So, like for Black History Month, the Black Carpet event has been happening annually for a couple of years and so we're looking forward to putting that on this year and doing it in person in February as it was virtual last year. So, right now, as I'm kind of easing into my time, I'm looking to kind of uphold some of the tradition that has already been created here and then looking to see what students are interested in so I can build in some new programming. I did take some time to send out a survey to students on campus just to kind of see like what kind of programming were they looking for around, you know, Black programming and there was a lot of responses around mental health awareness, leadership, and Black media. And so, I'm looking at how we can incorporate some of that into our spring semester programming and then looking, you know, for further into the fall and next year how we can create something that maybe would be a semester or year long that students can have to regularly engage in.

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So Egypt talks to me about advocacy, because we hear that word a lot, especially using the context of student diversity and social justice, what has been ways that you've been successful either at Chico State, or that you foresee is needed on this campus regarding advocacy, you talked about programming. But programming, but how do you define advocacy and in what ways, specifically does student

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diversity and social justice and in your role, do you play a role in advocacy? Yeah, I mean, I think advocacy for me is about pretty much speaking up, right? When you see things that are unjust and unfair or even things that are harming someone, there's a lot of ways that you can advocate. It can be speaking up in person when you're in a space and you see something happening. It can be sharing information so that you're passing along that learning to other people and I think that using multiple ways of advocating for folks is important, because we don't want to try to pretend like we know exactly what folks want, right? So, it's important to be able to really check the pulse of the folks you're trying to serve, the students in our case that we're trying to serve, and understanding and asking them, like, what are your concerns? How can I support you? And that how you can support question I think is a really big piece of advocacy because sometimes we jump ahead of ourselves and are like, oh, I'm going to do this to fight for this person or I'm going to go make these moves or these steps. And sometimes that can come off in a way that the person you're trying to help doesn't feel like you're advocating for them, right? And so, I think being able to really check in about what support or what advocacy looks like for that person or that group can be really important to having, like, that whole relationship and being able to successfully advocate for them. And for SDSJ, our goal is to amplify student voices across the board and so we, you know, try to do... We try to advocate for students in terms of having students come share their concerns with us and being able to process and think of solutions and help prep them to go have those conversations with leadership on campus. When it comes to some of our programming, we just did like something small that we did with the past program in October as October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and so we were highlighting some of the statistics and facts that impacted Black women in particular when it comes to breast cancer awareness, right? And even just sharing some of that information can, you know, push someone to go reach out and get some support that they may not have known that they had. So, I think there are a lot of ways that we can do that and I think SDSJ is continuing continuing in our transition and as we continue to grow as a department and kind of revamp ourselves, we'll look at ways that we can continue to do that and new ways that we can advocate for students that makes them feel like

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they're really heard and that we are supporting them. So I know that sometimes students come to campus and you know they have learned certain things that as you said it can be harmful or can be very concerning because it impacts another student's experience. And so maybe share with our listeners, you know, what are ways that you go about helping students understand another point of view, or that you help students understand why a certain type of behavior can be sending the message of being intolerant. You know, how do you take that approach in helping our students unlearn some things that they might have thought was just normal from their environment or from what they learned in high school or what they learned from a family member? Yeah, I

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think the first thing I always try to keep in mind when in general when I'm trying to process with a student or anyone is to approach the situation with empathy and having an understanding that a lot of the time kind of just like what you're saying, most people aren't intentionally trying to be harmful or rude or triggering, right? Like they've grown up a certain way, they have a certain understanding of the world and so they're living out their reality and their perspective and so approaching the situation with empathy I think helps me in particular not you know be angered or frustrated or start to be too judgmental right and so recognizing that I need to come from a place of empathy and then being able to have a conversation. I think it's important to take the time to understand where that person is coming from and so being able to sit down one-on-one and process or however the person likes to you just understand and ask them questions and be able to provide or share some information that they may not know and not put it in a sense where I'm trying to correct them or tell them that they're wrong, but just share information. I feel like having an environment where you can share learning, share perspectives, creates more room for people to understand one another than trying to teach them what's right or what's wrong. I think it's really up to everyone in their own lived experiences and realities to define what's right for them. And so, for me, I just want to have sympathy and share as much information as I can to show them perspectives they may not have thought about previously.

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Yeah, I know Egypt, you said you had recently sent out a survey and got responses back. Could you talk about some of the programming that is being put forth based on the feedback from the students of what they want or where there are gaps for maybe services and programming that may be happening for the remainder of this fall and maybe that be planned for the spring or even, you know, revamping existing programming based on the feedback that you received or even just based on your experiences and observations being new into the role at the university?

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Yeah, sure. So the biggest response that I got in that survey was mental health, right? Mental health was a big area, and I think that is true across the country, especially in our higher education system, like students want to work with their mental health. And so in response to that, well, and this is something that was already created, so I do want to be clear there. I believe it was last year, Dr. Crabb and Dr. Kevin Wright created the Black Students Matter space, and it's a weekly virtual space on Thursdays from 12 to 1 on Zoom, where Black identified students, faculty, staff, folks can come into the space and connect. They can share concerns they have, they can share, you know, if something came up and they're looking for resources where they can just talk. You know, last week I know I was in the space and there were folks that were kind of just talking about life. There wasn't anything particular that had happened or that was wrong, but it was that space for them to share with other folks that they identified within the same community. And so, the Black Students Matter space will continue to go. I think that it's a great opportunity for us to provide that space virtually too for folks who are maybe not on campus from the 12 to 1 hour or non-traditional students who, you know, have other responsibilities and things that may impact them from being able to show up. So, keeping that virtual space I think is a really great opportunity for us to continue to connect and provide a somewhat safe space for students to process from the Black-identified community. That's one area. Another area that came up was leadership. Leadership is one of my big areas. So, I did write my thesis on leadership and blackness in terms of students and their experiences with leadership at historically white colleges. And so, for me, leadership is a really big piece because I think often that word and that idea of being a leader has very, like, white-centered ideas about it and I really want to de-center the whiteness from leadership. I want folks from marginalized communities to feel comfortable identifying as a leader and being an authentic leader where that represents their culture, identity, their heritage all in one and they don't feel like they have to assimilate to be a certain way to become a leader. And so my hope is to in the spring do some more focus groups and get some more information from students on what they would be...like what kind of topics around leadership they're really interested in talking about, because I would really like to create a type of leadership institute that's for students to help them learn some tangible skills, but then to also learn and process and talk about, how do I show up as my authentic self in these roles and how do I navigate some of those conversations when I'm potentially challenged in my authenticity. And so, my hope is to be able to get more information and roll out a leadership institute or a leadership seminar for Black identified students in the fall. So, I want to continue to work on that. And then another project that my program assistant and I are working on is creating a Black Lives Matter newsletter that would go out to folks on campus that highlight a bunch of different things. So we want to have a section that of course talks about events on campus in the community, looking at news, not just in the US, but globally, because I think that sometimes we underestimate how much things that happen in other countries, especially black and brown countries, impact our students. And so keeping up in that information, we wanna talk about mental health. So have a mental health column and do like a mental health word of the month or something and be able to connect students more and get them more comfortable with the idea of mental health so there isn't so much of a negative stigma anymore. And we're looking to highlight more black media in that because media was the other thing that came up in the survey that students really wanted to look at. And so I want to find ways to highlight some of the movies, the shows, the producers, the directors, the black folk in our world that are doing really great things that sometimes we just don't know about, or that we can expose students to so that they have more media options to look to than sometimes just what, you know, is like most popular and what's going on. So yes I'm hoping to build a lot of things as I continue my time here but I'm very big on getting to know the lay of the land and understanding you know what folks want what students really want from this versus prioritizing the things that you

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know I'm most interested in. Okay we'll get you on this last question out of here. Talk to us about the for the culture resource guide for our black students and what are some of the important resources that you can highlight and share with us that are found in that

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guide? Yeah, so we're actually in the process to updating that so I'm glad you brought that up. Our goal is to update it and release our newest edition during Black History Month and yes the resource guide is a great opportunity. It has so many things for students in here whether it's specific faculty and staff contacts. We have a lot of the registered Black student organizations listed in here, but then we also have like hair salons, we have just businesses, Black businesses in the community. There's scholarships. So, this is really like kind of a collection of everything that folks could need if they're looking for some stuff all in one little book and it's virtual as well. So, that's a really great opportunity when, you know, we have new students here. Even myself, when I first got here, I was handed this and I was like, cool, but I need to find somewhere to get my hair done. So, it's a really great opportunity when, you know, maybe you don't have a lot of time to talk or you're just trying to find information that folks can go to this resource guide and anyone can use it and access it and find, hopefully, some resources that would be beneficial for them. All right. Well, Egypt, thank you for sharing with us.

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Renee, what were some of your key takeaways from the session?

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Well, really confirmation that this work is needed and confirmation that there are a host of resources that are available that students have access to, and I'm so glad that she touched upon the mental health, as we have heard that this has really been a very trying time for our students. And the fact that we still have the support group for our black students, they can come to a space and just talk about life, but receive resources, but also find a community where they can feel trust, but also be vulnerable, I think is very important. I think that she's adding a new dimension and dynamic about this leadership piece. I haven't quite heard that. I know that, Keith, I think we can be transparent that as we have climbed, you know, various parts of our career, it's been hard to operate in that authentic space that I think she's hinting to. And so I think it's a very, very important topic and for something that students to hear about and learn about at this time. And the Black Lives Matter newsletter, that's also exciting to hear about what can be shared in that venue. So I'm glad to see that she is at our campus and has energy and excitement for these new programs that are on the horizon.

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Yeah, and I agree with all the things that you share, Renee. And in addition to that, I really think the leadership piece, it also will have some application for, I think, the professional teaching and non-teaching faculty on campus, too, because, you know, those are things that haven't received a lot of attention. You know, so I think that as Egypt is building out this leadership track for the students, I think that, you know, as she bring in different professionals, I think it also be a benefit to, you know, the the professionals who are working on campus, too. And I also like Egypt talking about, you know, their approach to making the adjustments to programming is just based on student feedback and inputting what the students determine are high priority areas for them. And then lastly, just, you know, just her approach to, you know, how do you sort of position yourself to be an effective communicator in these difficult conversations and just, you know, showing up with empathy as a starting point, I think, is important. And I think resonated really, really well with me. So those are my key takeaways. And I'm looking forward to us having Egypt back again as we maybe get closer to February, Black History Month, to talk about some of the new and exciting things that may be underway and being planned through her office.

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And I would challenge, you know, faculty and staff that can to incorporate these resource guides. And it really just takes away the guesswork. I mean, you can add to your syllabi. You can add it to your tool of information that you have when you're in a meeting and you're advising students. Or, like I said, you're just having a regular conversation. The student says, you know, hey, I've had trouble finding hair products. I've had trouble finding scholarships. It's just a great tool and you know, it's not just for black students, but there's one for every ethnicity that we have.

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That's the key. What you just said is for all identity groups. Yeah. And I and I know I'm looking forward to working with Egypt as we begin planning the African-American graduation celebration this upcoming year. OK. And the student recognition event. That's a part of it. So I'm looking forward to hearing her thoughts as a new employee, how we can make it bigger, better, especially as we are going to be coming out of doing it virtually, maybe a hybrid or in person. So looking forward to working with Egypt in that capacity.

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Did I just see a smile?

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I think I just saw a smile.

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You saw a smile, right? You saw a smile.

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Wow.

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Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. I'm my co-host Keith. I'm my co-host Keith.

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I'm Renee. Tune in next week, Wednesday at 12, on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. That's a wrap.

Transcribed with Cockatoo