Welcome to Footnotes: I know, I know... This is long overdue...
For over 20 years, I have been a disciple of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work. My reasoning stems from three areas: 1) my values of always championing humanity; 2) wanting to take a more active role in advancing conciliation for our community as a whole; and 3) my belief in leveraging the power of institutions and systems to deconstruct systemic inequities and to replace those gaps with something more inclusive and embracing of our current realities.
This latter point is actually how I got my start. I attended undergrad in a college town and saw the potential of how one university shaped everything from economics and healthcare to politics and culture. Not just for the students and employees within the institution, but for the city itself. I was so enamored by this amount of influence that I began studying the university as a social change system. Shortly after, I would become involved. At first, I just wanted a seat at the table to watch how decisions unfold. As I got to know the leaders in the space, I began asking questions: “How do you see the world that allows you to do what you do? What are you reading and feeding your mind to give you this special understanding? Can you mentor me?” Those questions changed my career trajectory from someone who thought that the only pathway to social change was through legal means (yes, I just “knew” that I was going to law school) to opening up to seeing the complex interplay of social systems beyond the legal profession. I read every book I was given, beginning with the Autobiography of Malcolm X (foreword by Alex Haley) to college textbooks on leadership, education, sociology, business, culture, and history. I love history, and it’s from there that I began to understand… Everything is best understood from historical context: original motivations, intended outcomes, culture, infrastructure, power dynamics, and more. I start here because it is my approach to conceptualizing my passion for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work. From my observations, I quickly realized that you need a system to address a system. Hence, why I began this work in higher education. It was my readily accessible system that I could leverage to address a wide range of disparity gaps while equipping people with the tools necessary to seize opportunities to increase their agency to ensure sustainability for the communities they represent. As I've grown in my career, I have since applied similar approaches to the broader community and other workforce sectors as a consultant.
What do you hope to accomplish?
Simple. This is my attempt to share everything that I have learned over the years to empower the current and next generation of individuals who are either already doing this work or would like to take up its mantle to continue the push for societal evolution that removes barriers to equal opportunities for all. Also, our information needs to be more accessible, so why not make it so?
What’s next?
Moving forward, I will share reflections and social commentary (#MyTwoPennies), diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging strategies and resources (#FreeGame), and lessons learned (#MentalJewelry). Oh, and all of this will be seasoned with my personality which tends to often lean into cultural references (mainly movies and music), humor, inspiration, and an occasional Blerdism or two. It’s how I authentically show up in the world.
See you around!
