Let's Talk UNLV

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you're listening to locally produced programming created in k u n b studios on public radio k u n b ninety one point five

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welcome to another segment of let's talk you know the on k u n b you're here with tanya and alicia alicia will be filling in for keith this week um... and i'm excited to have her. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

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Thank you kindly.

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So good to be here. Good to have you. So typically we start the segment by talking about what we did on the weekend.

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What did you do with your weekend? Well, so we know that this was Easter weekend for those who celebrate and typically I'm more involved in those festivities. But this week, you know what? I was chilling this weekend I went to the movies to see a really good movie air shout out to those who are Michael Jordan fans really good movie I suggest anyone who wants to know the history and background to go see it

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now you know what about you what did you do this weekend so we decided we were gonna go for a drive to go for a hike and initially we were going to this place whose name escapes me right now but when we got there, it looked like Mad Scat. So we were like, well, if we hike, will we be back? So we doubled around and went to visit one of our favorite spots, which is Rhyolite. Have you ever been there?

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I have not.

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It's a mining town with like really cool and creepy type statues, like white figures representing

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like the Last Supper and like this ghost figure and a bicycle and a house made of bottle caps. No way. Yeah. Okay, so at least you got some type of creativity in regards to the Scarefest or something of that sort. It was super cool. We really like that spot. It's always got interesting things to do and it's got a hike but most importantly

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it had other people. Wonderful. So if we disappeared it wouldn't be like a

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Disneyland. Everybody going together, right? Yeah. Okay, now after this we have to talk about the hiking because I actually like to hike and I haven't found a lot of places in Vegas. Now, I'm not one for necessarily the athletic component. I just like the adventure of it all. So let's talk after this and see if you can recommend some places.

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Yeah, I absolutely got you. Thank you kindly. So what do we have today? On today's segment, we have Egypt Howard, the UNLV program coordinator for the Office of Student Diversity Programs. Welcome. Welcome, welcome Egypt. Hey y'all, glad to be here. Thank you for the invite. So we typically start with your origin story. How did you come to be here in

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Nevada, UNLV, and most importantly, how did you come to this role? Oh well, that is a story. So I'm from California, born and raised in Northern California in in particular, and I started my collegiate career at in the CSU system at Chico State. I got my undergraduate in multicultural and gender studies and a minor in African-American studies, and then I started working my first full-time job at my alma mater as a program coordinator, so in a similar position to what I do now, and then I was like, well, let's wrap it up a bit, Egypt. So I started my grad program within my first year of my professional job, and so I got my master's degree. I finished that in 2020 with a master's in social science, where I wrote a thesis on how Black student leaders engage in leadership and work on higher education campuses that are historically white. And so that really, college, my time at Chico State really drove me into my passion, which is the diversity work that I do, the I, diversity, equity, and inclusion work. And since really starting as an undergraduate student and taking like a lot of sociology classes and multicultural and gender study classes, I got really involved in equity work and wanted to continue to do that kind of work. And so, as I wrapped up my master's degree in CHECO, I was looking for an opportunity to serve black students in particular. I wanted, I love program coordinating. I've been, honestly, coordinating programs probably since high school and BSU and things like that, and I've continued that work throughout my college time and now professionally. And so, when a position popped up here at UNLV for a Black African American program coordinator, it sparked my interest because I wanted to work with that community specifically. When I started doing research on UNLV, it was awesome. I was excited because they had an anti-Black racism task force. They had these identity-based program coordinator roles. We have, UNLV has various designations like MSI, HSI, and a PZ. So, when I was looking at the university overall, I'm thinking about transitioning. It seems like a great place to move on to. Moving from California was hard because, like I said, I'm Cali-born and raised, and so I very much enjoyed trees and greenery, and now I live in a dust bowl. But I was really excited to come here and embrace this role and do some of this identity-based work. And so I've been here at UNLV for two years on May 3rd. It'll be two years that I've been in the program coordinator role and just doing a lot of various collaboration, program coordination, event support over my time here.

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Happy second year anniversary. Well, early second year anniversary.

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Thank you. And, Ijebe, it sounds like, I mean, just hearing all the accolades and things that you've accomplished, that you have a very diverse background naturally, so it seems like this role on working in the student diversity arena, if you will, is fitting for you. But can you share a little bit about, like, what does diversity really mean to you, and why is it important for you working in this department on campus? Like this particular, you said you did the research, you knew that we were MSI campus, minority-serving institution, things like that, but why is diversity important to you,

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and how does it infiltrate or spill over into the department you're working in now on campus? Yeah, so diversity is super important to me. I think because as a college student who was at a historically white college, I didn't have a lot of representation. And so not only did I not feel represented, I didn't feel like there were a lot of students or staff that I could go to to find mentorship, to find connections, to find, you know, those like lifelong friends that you're supposed to make in college. And so, for me, diversity work is really centered on advocating and amplifying the voices of some of the most marginalized communities in our society in particular. And so, in America, that is often our different racial and ethnic groups, whether it's Black folks, Indigenous people, our Latinx community, our Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern community, often folks from marginalized gendered backgrounds, so whether that is women, non-binary folks, our trans community. And so, for me, it's just as I started learning, I recognized just how much the system works against these communities and it was frustrating for me. And so, I wanted to be a part of the solution and I wanted to be a person that helped contribute to all of our communities being uplifted. And so, I got the opportunity very early on. At my alma mater, our DEI Center is called the Cross-Cultural Leadership Center. And so, I worked within many communities there. I worked heavily with our Hmong community. I worked heavily with our Latinx community. I definitely did work within the LGBTQIA community. And so it's just really important for me to recognize that being that we're in a country where the system was set up against folks, to work against people or create obstacles for certain groups, that I be a champion of change or a person that works to help remove those obstacles, because I know how hard it was as a college student just to make it to the graduation stage. And so I want to be able to give back and do as much as possible in removing barriers and obstacles so that we can see more folks from these communities doing the good work that we know that they have been doing and can do.

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Absolutely. It sounds like it's definitely personal. So it's one thing to go study or to pursue a particular arena, but when you've lived it and experienced it and take those experiences to drive impact, I think that's impeccable. So thank you so much for sharing that.

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At the risk of blowing up your spot, one of the things that I think that I believe is also a driving force or that you shared as a driving force is that you're a mom. Like you're a mom to lovely, wonderful humans who are going to have to go into this world and are going to be shaped by the experiences that they have in this world. So in some ways, you're sort of building a bridge for them.

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Yeah.

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You know, I have had the pleasure, the honor, the joy of being a part of a number of the programs that you've done through student diversity programs. But I was wondering, would you mind sharing some of those awesome opportunities and programs that you've developed and also where your space is?

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So our office is located in the Fossils House on campus, and that's the little brown tan house that's right across the street from the architecture building and right next to the Newman Catholic Center. And we are there Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, so folks are welcome to come by, stop by and just hang out and study, have a snack, talk to us, just check in. And then, yeah, throughout the week sometimes we have various programs happening. So, our office in particular works to coordinate some very specific things and then we do outside projects as well. So, we start off the year by doing welcome receptions for many of our ethnic, racial, and gendered communities. And so, usually the first two or three weeks of school, there will be a bunch of different welcome receptions for folks to come, meet community, connect, maybe find mentorship, and enjoy some good food and conversation. And then as we move into the year, our office is in charge of doing identity-based heritage month celebrations. So we, September 15th through October 15th is Latinx Heritage Month, and so we will have various events connected to that community. This past year, we did like a Coco and Loteria where we watched the movie and we played a Coco Loteria game. We've had speakers come in the past. We have done just like kickoff lunches or celebrations. Actually today from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Hostel House, we're having a Bad Bunny and Loteria event, so if you all folks want to come by, feel free. And then moving from Latinx Heritage, we move into October, which is Pride month. It's also Disability Awareness Month, and there are a lot of other weeks that happen in between that. But during Pride, we had all kinds of fun. So we participated in the Las Vegas Pride Parade. We had a National Coming Out Day event. We did all kinds of good stuff, good work. We had a speaker come who talked about queerness and horror and, like, TV shows and movies and things like that. And then moving into November, we coordinate Native American Heritage Month. And so this year we really got to do some awesome things. We had a UNLV All Nations Night where various community members came. There was tabling, there was dinner, and folks shared like personal poetry, short stories, which was great. And then we also hosted a ribbon skirt making workshop, which was really awesome because ribbon skirts are a traditional clothing that is used and created within the Native American community. And so we had someone actually within the community come and teach us. We had sewing machines. We had all the cloth and things to make it. And so folks got to learn how to make those in person. So that's kind of how our fall semester goes. And then when we move into spring, we do Black History Month in February. And so this year, we had a game night, we had a West Side Bus Tour, which was where folks literally got to go and check out the West Side of Las Vegas and learn about the historical impacts of the black community here. In March, we just wrapped up Women's Herstory Month, and we had a speaker come, Robin Oaks, who talked about the gender binary and how that impacts

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us.

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And we also had Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st, and so we had a drop-in where folks could come and get flags and stickers and all kinds of swag and things that represent not only the trans community, but the non-binary community. And now that we're in April, we're in Opime Heritage Month, and Opime stands for Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern. And so we have a game night coming up tomorrow. We had a discussion last week on, like, transitional education experiences of folks within the Opime community. And so we'll wrap up April, and then we host three specific identity-based graduations. So we're doing Lavender Grad, which is for our LGBTQIA plus community. We also host Aafimé Grad, which is for our Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern community. And then we also host Latinx Grad. And so those are kind of our general programming areas, but then we are open to collaboration. So we've had groups come in. Just this past week, we had a Queer Sex Ed Mini Cont event where there were four different workshops that were focused on various topics within like health and safety and sex, non-monogamous relationships. There was all kinds of things. So we're always open to collaborate and work with other groups, whether they're student groups or departments on campus, and then we host our traditional programs on top of

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that.

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Wow, you put the diversity in student diversity programs.

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Awesome.

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Diversity of activities, diversity of populations, diversity of options, and you know, I am personally a fan. I also host a black space on Thursdays from 2 to 3, typically at the Hustle House, and I've been doing, we've been doing a black space for a while, but the thing that I love

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most about your space, well, other than the fact that you always have food there.

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That's a plus.

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Oh my gosh.

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Yes, I'm a foodie always. Mm-hmm always is just that whenever someone walks into that space They automatically feel seen They automatically feel a part of their decor is wonderful. It's diverse. It's fantastic Sometimes, you know, I just go there to bask in the diversity of it all So I really appreciate that you guys are there and I love that you approach diversity from a multitude of different avenues and arenas.

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And I was just going to say, you shared all these wonderful events that have already happened and are coming up. How can students get involved? Can we leave the listeners with letting them know how do they get involved, how do they volunteer, how do they participate in the events? Is there a process?

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Can you share for us?

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Yeah. So there are a lot of ways.

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We don't have a formal way for volunteers at this time, but we are working on it. But folks can always come by the office. So if they want to come by in person, they can stop by the Faustus House 8 to 5 Monday through Friday. They can of course reach out and email us. Our office, like I said, our name is Student Diversity Programs, so our email is svp at unlv.edu. And then we also have social media. So like our Instagram is where we post all of our up-to-date flyers, which will have all of the information you need to either participate or sign up for any events. And so if folks are looking for us on Instagram or social media in general, it's going to be at UNLV SDP, which is for student diversity programs. And so that will have like all of our graduation announcements are up right now. Any upcoming events we have are all up. And so that's really social media is one of the best ways to keep up with our upcoming events, but then if there are some direct questions, they can either email myself, Egypt, or our SDP account directly, and we will make sure to follow up and provide any answers that we can.

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Would you be willing to share some of the feedback that you've received? I know that I've heard good things about the SDP program, but what are your students saying? What have you heard from them in terms of their experiences at the events or just being in that space in general?

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Yeah, I mean, when folks first walk in the house, they love the feel of the space, as you kind of mentioned, Dr. Crabb. It is a home. It's an actual house. And so when you walk in, there's a lot of artwork that is up that is representative of different cultures. There's very, like, warm colors. We have couches, snacks. So folks are always, like, happy to come in and be like, oh, this is such a cool space. And then in regards to some of our programming and the work we do, we've gotten some really good feedback this year. As many of us know, we're still coming off pandemic, and so engagement in programs has changed since then. But all the folks that have come by have been very appreciative that we're doing this work. So, like, for the Queer Sex Ed Mini Con, though that wasn't hosted directly by our department, a lot of folks were just so appreciative that we were having these conversations, right? And we were looking at some of the communities that often don't get addressed when we're talking about safe sex or non-monogamy or things like that. And so we get a lot of feedback from folks in person that they're just very appreciative that people are willing to focus on their community. We recently have a new program coordinator, Miriam, Dr. Rod, who works here and has been doing a lot of work within the Persian-Iranian community and doing work around like the Womanly Freedom Movement and things like that. And so we've gotten a lot of feedback from that community that they're just appreciative that we celebrated Persian New Year as that had not been acknowledged previously to campus. And so there's been a lot of good feedback and folks, at least from what I'm hearing, is that folks are feeling like seen. They're feeling acknowledged. And that, you know, there are folks on campus who are willing to prioritize and or center their community and their culture and provide that educational aspect, but also just an opportunity for community and connection that may not have been happening, especially since we're coming out of the pandemic still.

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Awesome.

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Thank you so much for sharing all that.

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I love the fact that you talk about just being seen and being heard. And I also think, too, Egypt, that there's a lot of space on campus to bring more visibility about the programs. A lot of times we have a lot of great things going on, but students as well as faculty and staff don't know how to engage. So I look forward to personally coming to visit the house and seeing the wonderful decor and just experiencing that feeling that you all have mentioned, that welcome and that you belong personally. So I will talk to you offline about coming to visit. But in addition to that, I also want to ask you, how do you think particular students who are interested in coming to UNLV, when they're choosing a campus, I would like to say or to believe that they're looking for programs such as this, especially minority students, right? Would you say that you've had a lot of experience with students choosing to come to UNLV in particular based on some of the programs like this that are offered, like the student diversity department?

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You know, I'm not too sure about that. I don't have as much engagement with like new or newly admitted students, you know, in the beginning, but we have done some collaborations with admissions office. So like they annually do these various identity-based connect events. And so just in February, they had the African American Connect, which was for high school juniors and their families to come and learn a little bit more about campus. And so they brought us into that, and we were able to share not only a little bit of our personal stories as a black faculty or staff member here, but also share about our office. And so we are getting some opportunities to collaborate and do a little more of letting students know what we do offer on campus to attract them here. But I do think that even for myself, you know, when I was looking at the campus, depending on, you know, not all students are looking at like what kind of designations we have, but I think for the ones that are paying attention, the fact that UNLV is like an MSI and those kind of things are going to push them a little bit more towards this type of campus maybe than some of the others, because there is a cultural transition to going to a college that maybe isn't similar ethnically or racially to what you're used to from growing up your home community. And so I think often UNLV is a destination for folks because of its diversity on campus.

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Well said.

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It's so funny that you should mention that. As you're talking about the junior high school program, I was reflecting back on the ABC conference and what a, first of all, I know that was exhausting because it was like three days long. But just the level of exposure that those students had to the campus was remarkable and amazing. And, you know, as you speak of issues and challenges, what are you currently working on in terms of issues to improve the experience for students of color?

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Do you have any goals that you've set or any projects that you have in mind? Yeah, so there are a couple things that our office overall is kind of working on. One of them, we recognize that our black male students and indigenous students overall have very low retention rates. And so that's one of the or some of the groups that we are focused on a bit more intentionally to see what we can do to start removing more barriers and creating more access so that we're seeing some of these students graduate. And so some of the things that we're working on are we, our office created resource guides probably back in I think 2018 or 2019 that were identity-based. So there's a black resource guide, there's one for our Opiumek community, our Latinx community, our indigenous community, and our LGBTQ one. And we're working to update those to make sure that we're listing resources not only on campus, because often we list faculty and staff that are within the community that are comfortable being identified, as well as community resources. So whether it's doctor's offices, places to go get your hair done, where you can buy, you know, your food that maybe is more culturally relevant, lawyers, just all of the kind of resources and things that folks would need that sometimes it's hard to track down or find, you know, when you're a student and you're working and you're trying to keep up with everything. So we're trying to think of ways that we can provide more resources on campus to help our students make their lives a little bit easier. So we're in the process of updating those and making sure that we have some digital formatting available for those resources. Last spring, we did a small focus group on Black male undergraduate students in particular to kind of ask them, like, what's going on? What is your experience here at UNLV and how can we support? And so we got some really good information about campus and their experience as Black male undergraduate students and have shared that with folks on campus who are looking to create more inclusive spaces and make sure that we're doing, putting in our best effort to make sure all students on our campus feel supported and feel like they belong here. And then I think another big piece is really our office. We've been in some transition over the last two years, but our office has really been and has a focal point for students to come and ask for support. So whether it be they don't know where the food pantry is, or they need some, you know, emergency financial assistance, or they're just looking to process, you know, a situation that happened, we really want to be that landing spot for students. And so we're working really hard to not only rebrand, but to get folks to know that we are here as a resource, and we're willing to help direct them to other resources on campus, but also just be a support system for them in whatever they need. And so there are a lot of different things that we're going to continue to work on. I'm hoping to also bring back the Cultural Leadership Institute that previously was hosted in this office, and that is an important project to me because I think that in my thesis work, I talked about leadership being very centered in whiteness. And so often we see that our BIPOC communities, which are black, indigenous, people of color, often don't connect with leadership in the same ways, and it's more so because they see leadership as a certain way. Like you have to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, be a certain way, right? And I don't believe that. I believe that leadership is universal. We've had leaders way before colonialism, and we will have them way after. And so it's important for us to kind of decolonize the idea of leadership to be able to have BIPOC students see themselves in leadership roles as we continue on, and so that they believe they can be the voices of change and be the action that helps create change in this world. And so those kind of programs, along with just being a support system for students, is my hope in continuing, you know, the DEI work that we're doing and just providing whatever support our students need on campus.

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That is wonderful. So not only build community, be community, is what I hear you saying. And I'm hoping as you consider your expansion, as you consider populations, that one of those populations might be students, black and brown students in grad schools, because I think that's another population that could probably use the support around leadership and support around just comfort in their own identities. But this is where we give you the last word. Is there something you wish we would have asked you or something that you think that we should know that you'd like to share with our studio audience?

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Yeah, something I was kind of thinking about, Alicia had shared earlier, mentioned that like, you know, the work is really personal. And I really want to highlight that because as a Black person in America and a Black student who's been engaged in higher education for some years now, I was reflecting the other day and my thesis was actually dedicated to Mark Thompson, who was a student that I went to school with who was actually murdered during our time at Chico State. And it was a really unfortunate story. He was found on the side of a freeway in a car that was set on fire. And there still to this day have been no answers. There's been no justice for Mark. And he was a huge activist in our community who spoke out about a lot of things. And when he was killed, it hit our community very hard, especially as black folks who were in a very rural white town in California. And there was a lot of fear and concern, but it was that, it's unfortunate that it came to this, but it was also his death that drove me a lot to do the work that I'm doing now, and to remember that it is real people's lives on the line every time that we do this work. And if we can at least remember and, like, continue to humanize ourselves so that we're all real people in this world who are impacted every day by choices And by just the world around us. I think that will help us all be a little more kind to each other And so yeah, I just I will also dedicate this to Mark Thompson in hopes that at some point he gets the justice He was deserved because his life was taken way too soon

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Thank you. That was profound and powerful. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on and sharing your wisdom, your knowledge, and your resources. And that's a wrap.

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Thank you all. Thank you.

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Bye.

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Bye-bye.

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at Let's Talk UNLV Pride.

Transcribed with Cockatoo