Changing the Reflexive No

One of my favorite moments of this year was a phone call with Sara Goldrick-Rab a couple of months ago, and not just because of my excitement that she wanted to talk to me. I had reached out to her in January about starting an emergency fund on our campus that I wanted to model on her FAST Fund and wanted to use the name. She had graciously allowed it, but now we found that we hadn't quite done it the way it was intended, and our faculty union was also applying to start a fund that we hoped to merge with. I'm glad to say that we found solutions, but what I remember from my conversation with Sara was at one point she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't actually realize you were an administrator." (or something close to that) It made me laugh and felt like a compliment, but it also made me think. What was I not doing that made me seem less "administrative?" It made me think about what I have come to call the "reflexive no." Changing it has probably been the biggest personal change for me since our commitment to poverty informed practice.

This era of austerity tends to make many of us in higher education risk averse and even if you were an envelope pusher early in your career, it's hard not to get more careful as you get more veteran. That had certainly happened to me; I had defaulted to being "reasonable." In practice that meant that if you brought me an idea that was outside of the box I had developed, my instinct was to start with "probably not" instead of "why not" or "how." It was an insidious change because my position and veteran status gave me some status and an air of authority which made my reflexive skepticism seem wiser than it was. It also rewarded comfortable, policy and procedure-based thinking, which is not as person-centered as a poverty informed approach should be. All with the best of intentions, I had developed a reflexive "no" to new ideas and novel solutions. It seems very stereo-typically administrative. I'm not so reasonable anymore (our little movement) and let me tell you how I got there.

First, I was lucky to be surrounded by some excellent colleagues who believe (as my friend Cara Crowley from Amarillo says) that "no is the beginning of the conversation." I've talked about Tonya, our Project PROVEN guru, and Mandy, my associate dean, before but it's hard to explain how hard they have had to work to bring me back to my senses. They are the brave souls who got me to understand the irony of advocating for FAST type funds and then having a GED fund that required students to meet with me for approval. (read about it here). They also have a standing joke about the day I told them they could not bring me "anymore new ideas." I remember saying they couldn't hit me with new ideas first thing in the morning, but they are pretty sure it was a permanent ban, one they didn't follow by the way. Over time, I started to see that their tendency to say 'yes' and 'why not' led to really good results for students. In fact, my best "management" of either of them was to marshal resources to support their ideas and tendency to have a reflexive yes and not my reflexive reluctance.

So, with that experience I started to see things differently and that meant information was processed differently. Once I dropped the reflexive and "wise" initial no, I could see flaws in thinking more clearly and particularly in our lack of poverty informed practice. So many of our rules were based on this notion of "readiness" that doesn't seem valid through new eyes. To assume there is such a thing as being ready also assumes we have decided that there is a thing called college and we know exactly what it is and exactly what it takes to succeed there. It seems farcical to me through that lens. I work at an open admission institution in the division that is supposed to embody the promise of open access. If we define "readiness" as anything else than entering our doors, I think we are doing a disservice. One of our tenets of poverty informed practice is that we examine policies and procedures to find ways to support students, not punish and exclude them (credit to Dr. Donna Beegle). Dr. Beegle recently shared on social media that without poverty informed supports, a student in the crisis of poverty has roughly an 11% chance of succeeding. That is awful and requires us to default to yes when thinking of ways to support them and eliminate barriers. But, before I shifted to yes and why not, I did not have the courage of my convictions. In fact, last winter, I helped craft a student success document for our college and one of my statements was "every barrier that can be removed, should be removed." I predicted it would get pared out and it was... It seemed reasonable. Now that statement is the fundamental premise that guides our poverty informed work within my division. That's a shift and it's important. That statement has driven more change in my division in six months than in the prior 6 years.

I don't like stories about me, but I am a great example of the mind-shift needed to move toward poverty informed practice. 12 months ago, if you would have asked about me, people would have told you I was an advocate for students in poverty and really made them think. But, thinking was about all that happened. Defaulting to yes instead of a reflexive no changed everything. It made me see that our students with barriers teach us how to improve like other students never could. It made me realize that most barriers at the college are human constructs and therefore subject to change. I have become fond of saying just because a decision was made a long time ago, it doesn't mean it's any more valid or well thought out than one we could make today, so why not make the one that goes toward access and support? At the #RealCollege convening in September, Dr. DeRionne Pollard challenged us to show "raw courage" and be willing to experience "good trouble" on behalf of students. Defaulting to yes and losing the reflexive no seems like a good way to meet that challenge.