Show notes
**Advancing DEI Values** In an enlightening new episode of SA Voices From The Field Dr. Jill Creighton invites Shawntal Brown, an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), to share her insights on driving institutional support for these crucial values. Shawntal emphasizes how integrating DEI into the fabric of higher education is not just beneficial but essential for creating welcoming and inclusive environments. **The Research Journey** Shawntal's research journey reveals a strategic pivot from focusing on staff insights to exploring university presidents' role in championing DEI. This shift underscores the importance of leadership buy-in for effective DEI initiatives **Navigating Complex Social Landscapes** Proactive DEI work is emerging as a priority in contemporary academia. Dr. Jill and Shawntal discuss the challenges posed by today's charged social and political climates, emphasizing the need for steadfast commitment to DEI principles. **Legislative Impacts on DEI** Texas Senate Bill 17's severe restrictions on diversity trainings and resources present significant hurdles. Shawntal offers a poignant analysis of the bill's consequences, exploring the complex task of reconciling legislative compliance with DEI values. **Staying True to DEI Amidst Legal Challenges** Transitioning DEI efforts to align with new legislation while adhering to core values is a delicate balance. Shawntal reflects on her time in the school of engineering, bringing a personal touch to her professional dedication to supporting students. **Self-Care for DEI Professionals** Shawntal wisely advises her peers to prioritize self-care while traversing the treacherous waters of DEI work, advocating for a strong support system amidst the current landscape. **Professional Development and Community Building** Promising initiatives like the NASPA 2024 Mid Level Administrators Conference and the Women's Leadership Institute provide pivotal growth and networking opportunities for DEI professionals. **Resources Against Regressive Legislation** Sharing resources and staying informed are vital for navigating legislative impacts on higher education, as Shawntal passionately discusses. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:01]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts. This is season 10, continuing our season 9 theme of On Transitions in Student Affairs. This podcast is brought to you by NASPA, and I'm doctor Jill Creighton, she, her, hers, your essay voices from the field host. Hey, essay voices. Welcome back for our next episode. And today, I'm very excited to introduce you to Shawntal Brown. Shawntal aims to advance the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion and promote servant leadership through her research, service, and formal academic appointments. In her current appointment as senior outreach program coordinator for initiatives for campus support in the division of campus and community engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, Shawntal builds connections with students, staff, and faculty so the campus community members can experience a welcoming and inclusive campus climate. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:57]: She enjoys a research based approach to community building, including leveraging campus climate assessment findings to develop resources and strategically approach campus outreach to support equitable environments at the university. Her equity lens is also evident in her service and accolades. Shawntal is the co-president of the Texas Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education or TADAHE for short and provides TADAHE administrators with professional and personal development opportunities in alignment with the mission, envision, and equity and inclusive experience of the organization. Additionally, she received the NASPA Region 3 DEI Mosaic Award for her passion and support of diversity, equity, and inclusion through her advocacy and research. Shawntal's doctoral research focuses on university presidents and their commitments to DEI through their organizational perspective. Her work, mapping pleasure and pain of women's bodies, Southern Black feminist geographic interventions in the journal Gender, Place, and Culture. And Additionally, she has co authored with doctor Michael a Goodman in ACPA developments called It'll Be Like Biden and Harris, a Black Woman's Conundrum in Collegiate Student Government. To bridge research and practice across disciplines, Shawntal regularly presents at different conferences, including National Women's Studies Association, the Texas Association College and University Student Personnel Administrators or TCUPSA Group, and with NASPA. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:16]: Hope you enjoy our conversation. Before this episode moves forward today, I want to ensure that we clarify the timeline for the conversation. Shawntal and I had the pleasure of speaking in mid February 2024. This was prior to the layoffs happening at the University of Florida in the DEIB space. So if you don't hear us reference it or you're confused why something sounds a little different than your expectations, it's because that particular action simply had not occurred yet when this conversation was recorded. If you are a person at the University of Florida who's been impacted by the legislation and by job loss, just want to say that I'm thinking about you and hope that you're able to progress forward in a way that is meaningful and also still helps our students feel included, not just feel included, but become included in our collegiate spaces. I appreciate all of the work that you all are doing and have done. Shawntal, we are thrilled to welcome you to SA Voices. Shawntal Brown [00:03:14]: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for today. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:17]: And in our theme of transitions, we're going to be talking about your transitions primarily as a diversity educator and student activist all the way through to professional who's supporting students who are engaging in activism. And we always love to get to know our guests by asking you how you got to your current seat. Shawntal Brown [00:03:34]: Yes. So I think going back, I am originally from Oklahoma City. So transferred to Austin, Texas for my master's in women's and gender studies. And so while I was a master's student, I was just trying to find my way of, like, you know, what do I wanna do as a career? What do I want to, like, focus on? And I found myself being in spaces that primarily supported minority student populations. And so first started out in a center called the Gender and Sexuality Center, supported LGBTQIA students, women students within that space, and led different opportunities like a feminist Friday, where we talked about different topics focused on, like, you know, feminist theory, talking about occurring events, things like that. Just supporting folks who are like in different organizations. And so as I was in that space, I was like, I kinda like this. This is like a really cool space to be in. Shawntal Brown [00:04:23]: I really enjoyed just working along the different program programs that they did, events that were had. And I was like there's there's something about this that I like and so after I finish that internship, I started working at the international office at my institution at the University of Texas at Austin, and I was working with, like, different students from different, countries. So from, like, China, Germany, you name it. We were working with those student populations. And to do that event, I was considered a assistant program coordinator then. And before, I'm not formally trained in, you know, student theory, higher education, and that sends for my master's degree. And so I was like, I wonder how this could pan out as a job in the future. And so slowly but surely continue to do that work, working with different student groups, whether they're international, whether they were, like, you know, minoritized populations, campus. Shawntal Brown [00:05:17]: And then I found myself, like, I think this is, like, the career path that I wanna go down. And so I was applying for positions that are specifically working with underrepresented students, especially women students. I wanted to, you know, continue to do that work. And after a while, I was able to become a student program coordinator in an engineering office that supported underrepresented students, which was an amazing opportunity because I, like, advise student groups, a lot of professional groups like the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. I was able to put on programs to welcome, like, prospective students. I did a lot of recruitment work, and then also did, like, classes, taught, like, research research course, getting students it really interested in graduate school, especially underrepresented students because I was just like, you in this space are so important to have as a potential, like, faculty member, as a mentor for, like, future students that are coming behind you. And so I was really passionate about doing that work. But really in that role is doing, like, a little bit of everything, becoming like a Swiss army knife, if you will, in, the space. Shawntal Brown [00:06:18]: So really getting to know different skills that I was building and helping folks academically, helping folks professionally, you know, all those different realms for those student groups. And so after a while, I was like, this has been a really great opportunity just to really get to know these students, seeing them grow in their different ways. And so that was, like, my first full time position to really see, like, this is a really great opportunity to work with these students. And so now my current role as a senior outreach program coordinator, I work in a division of the of campus and community engagement. It's more focused on the broader campus community as supporting students, staff, and faculty to make sure they have a welcoming and accessible, like, experience at the institution. But really, my pathway kind of just helping support underrepresented groups has been really just like the foundation of where I found myself at the institution and just really enjoy the work that I do. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:09]: And I'll give you a shout out for your work for our listeners. As we mentioned in the bio, Shawntal actually received a NASPA award region 3 for, the DEI Mosaic award supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion. So can you tell us about what work led to that recognition? Shawntal Brown [00:07:24]: Yeah. Oh, goodness. I would just also wanna shout out the folks who willingly nominated me. I was like, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. The it was really like a lot of the work that I have done has really been focused on, just supporting the professionals in my role with the Techs Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. A mouthful I know, but we call it TADAA here, was really the opportunity for me to really branch out and network with other DEI professionals rather in the state of Texas. Shawntal Brown [00:07:51]: And so that was kind of, like, one of the many things that folks saw me doing. I'm currently the co president for that. And so that has kind of, like, led to to that recementing my foundation within DEI. I think just also the support of, underrepresented students, like I've mentioned, has really just been, like, the cracks that people can see that connection building that I really love to just put forth with people. And let me see. I think I'm trying to remember one more. I feel like I'm forgetting one more, but I think folks see the overall research. And I'm also doing my my doctorate part time, doing my research focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion. Shawntal Brown [00:08:28]: And I think people see that that's something that's really just a core value to my, like, higher ed professional life profile. And so I think the folks who nominated me really saw and let that shine through when they wrote those nominations. So I'm really appreciative for them. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:08:44]: And the work that you were doing for that recognition, also extremely important and kind of unique to tie into higher education. Can you talk a little bit about how you found your research topic? Because I know that is a major question for almost every doctoral student on the planet. Everyone's either on this very big mind space of wanting to study everything, maybe a little bit lost on not knowing what to study. Shawntal Brown [00:09:06]: Yeah. That's a great question. I think I really started out with, like, the crux of, like, I'm really interested in DEI in my research, but where do I go here? And initially, I was trying to focus more on, like, the staff perspective of, like, flipping it. Like, what could staff do to make DEI more cemented in their goals and their, like, you know, opportunities and things like that. But then I was, like, really sitting with it's bigger than this because my personal opinion in thinking about the institution, I feel like DEI should be really just linked up into, like it should be fully embedded into the infrastructure of the institution. So I was, like, thinking, how can that happen? What does that look like? And read through, like, the literature that I have gone through at this point. They talked about chief diversity officers as, like, really important people to have in these roles, really important to have in these spaces to really amplify that voice. But then in the case of my research specifically, I was like, you know what? Let's shift it. Shawntal Brown [00:10:00]: Like, what does it mean to have a university president who really supports this? And so that's kind of the perspective I'm taking up. Like, what does it mean for your leadership up above to support the values of diversity and inclusion, whether it be in their state of union addresses and strategic plans. Like what does that mean for them to do this work? And so it was something that it took me a while to get there. I think I kind of, like, was taking the different angles. I think of it as like a diamond. I was like, I'm on this face of the diamond, but I I need to just go over to this face to this face. And now I'm like, oh, I kind of hit where I wanna be. And it's really interesting. Shawntal Brown [00:10:34]: I might nerd out a little bit on researching because I'm really excited about it to really look at one specific, president that is at the University of Texas at Boston who had a really amazing legacy that I've heard so far, who was William c Powers, who just really did a lot of great work and really amplified diversity, equity, inclusion here. And so I'm kind of curious, how did he do this work? How did he get here? And so I'm very excited to start get to the process of, like, interviewing, chatting with folks to kinda hear about the experiences that people may have had with him. So I'm I'm really excited just to see what does this mean for other future university presidents? What does it mean for folks who are, like, aspiring for this role who also love diversity, equity, inclusion, or value diversity, equity, inclusion too? So I'm really excited for this. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:11:15]: I think that's really important work to look at that narrative perspective on what it actually looks like in practice. I know that our NASPA colleagues put out a publication not too long ago about campus statements in response to acts of racial aggression or ethnic aggression or marginalized identity b…
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