The TOP 5 Ways Faculty Can Support Student Activists

You want to jump up and shout because the students on your campus or the individuals in your community are calling out structural bias and even protesting, organizing, and making real headway against it.   Or you’re wondering what the hell is going on. Either way the young people need to be supp...

“Are We Being Transparent?” The Top 5 Questions Every College or University Should be Asking Itself (Part 5 of a 5 Part Series)

Last week, while answering the question: “With Whom Must We Collaborate?” I responded by using the five levels of learning (Bloom’s Taxonomy) to move to a deeper commitment to a collaborative Diversity and Inclusion plan.   For this final week of the series, I’m answering the question: ...

“With Whom Should We Collaborate?” The Top 5 Questions Every College or University Should be Asking Itself (Part 4 of a 5 Part Series)

Last week, while answering the question: “Whom must we hire?” I talked about the ways organizations can revise their job announcements or admissions requirements to ensure a more diverse applicant pool.   This week I’m answering the question: “With whom must we collaborate?”   Collabora...

“Whom Must We Hire?” The Top 5 Questions Every College or University Should be Asking Itself (Part 3 of a 5 Part Series)

You have just finished making love to your beautiful third wife, who happens to be a 20-year old Sports Illustrated swimsuit model when you feel it. The unmistakable stutter thump of heart palpitations. You break out in a cold sweat, and a bracing pain in your lower left jaw strips you of the abi...

The FEMININE PRONOUN series # 16: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

This episode finds me moving from my various roles of artist, daughter, and mother. What’s cool is I get to inhabit all of them at the same time! From a multi media poetry reading with my father for the nine network, to Cinco de Mayo on Cherokee Street, to a wonderful Mother’s Day breakfast with ...

Who Are We, Really? The Five Questions Every College or University Should Ask Itself (PART TWO OF A FIVE PART SERIES)

Support and love are interchangeable words. And like love, support is an action word. Love without action is empty. It’s just fondness. Or maybe the absence of intentional harm. To this end, many organizations think support means to have good thoughts about, or good feelings toward, or not to b...

Are We Racist? The Five Questions Every College or University Should Ask Itself (A FIVE PART SERIES)

I have taught at colleges and universities for 15 years — art schools, community colleges, universities, even college age students in a prison — and what I’ve come to realize is that the U.S. system of colleges and universities or “The Academy,” as we like to call it, operates as a citizen in...

The FEMININE PRONOUN Series #14: #blackpoetsspeakout

The #blackpoetsspeakout movement was started by Jericho Brown, Mahogany Brown, and Amanda Johnston in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri. This episode finds me traveling to participate in a #blackpoetsspeakout reading in Columbia, Missouri. The reading featured poets from the...