Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

I apologize for not writing in this space for the last two months. It's been a remarkable time. For those of you who have followed these articles over the last year (thank you for that), you know I have not only been describing the evolution of my division (and college), but a personal evolution as well. I don't really have a more accurate way of describing the change than saying I've just decided to accept the reality that for the world to be a little fairer, people like me have to get a little more uncomfortable. For me, it meant leaving a place I was very comfortable, and accepting the challenge of taking my message to a bigger platform. So, tomorrow is my first day as Vice President of Academic Affairs at Minnesota State College Southeast. It's a big change after seventeen years at my prior institution, but it's time to take Toni Morrison's challenge and be uncomfortable enough to embrace an opportunity to do more for those who have been left out. To be clear, this is only stress in the middle-class sense, but I could stay where I was and do the things I was doing and be "successful", or I could challenge my middle-aged comfortable self to do more. I choose B.

The transition has been eased by seeing signs of momentum and future success at my prior institution. Not only did they immediately (and wisely) appoint my partner Mandy to my old job, I was pleased with a few clear wins in my waning days, including a beautiful moment at a final planning retreat I attended to be with my colleagues. Just a year or two earlier, the Academic Dean's Council at my college would have smiled and looked at me when the word poverty came up. But now, I heard them discuss "barriers" and "flexibility", and the power of knowing our students. The ultimate moment was a discussion of a health science student who was about to be disciplined for being late to clinical a second time, but instead the instructor and Associate Dean asked deeper questions and found a homeless student who couldn't miss an appointment to get housing... feels like winning. There was also a discussion about providing free hygiene products in our bathrooms, and when it was questioned because of a perception non-students might use them, there was a resounding chorus of "So What." I also leave knowing the HOPE Center survey will be administered at Western this fall, and knowing I will be back to provide two last days of training around this idea of poverty-informed practice. These ideas that were once discussed as "welfare" or as "too much too soon" are now mainstream topics in the college conversation. I can't wait to see where they take it.

Last week was a great chance to remind myself of what is important, as I strive to broaden our focus on those who have been left out. I took the time to travel to Amarillo and spent two days training with the amazing Dr. Donna Beegle. In addition to becoming a certified Beegle Poverty Coach, I was reminded of why what we are doing is so important. Dr. Beegle reminded me that without significant support and a poverty informed environment, students from generational poverty have an 11% chance of graduating. That is just not ok. She also reminded us newly certified coaches that advocating for people in the crisis of poverty can be very lonely. We live in a unique country where we tend to blame poverty on the poor, and they in turn blame themselves. So, when you try to help people think about it differently, you can be seen as challenging assumptions that are held quite deeply. That can be uncomfortable, but embracing some discomfort seems reasonable in the face of that awful 11% statistic. Between the time with Dr. Beegle and her team, and a visit to Amarillo College, it was hard to not be recharged, and I was reminded once again poverty is an urgent and treatable issue. Ask the folks at Amarillo College, who have tripled their graduation rate in 5 years.

Part of getting comfortable with discomfort is remembering who you are. I shared a podcast earlier this week (listen here) about myself and the topic. Complacency is the enemy, and this is why change is important if you are really trying to make a difference. I remember talking to a fellow teacher when I was new in K-12 twenty years ago, and she told me she was working with the "most unmotivated students she'd had in 30 years"... they were first graders, 6 years old. I immediately called her on it and told her six quick ways I could think of to engage children in their learning. She didn't talk to me the rest of the year. I'm embarrassed to say I "toned it down" after that and tried to fit in better. In hindsight, I was dead right, and I think she was just dead wrong. I'm guessing most readers think so too and can't believe someone would talk that way about children. I hope those readers would also think it is inappropriate to talk that way about college students. But I didn't always live up to that conviction, because it was more comfortable to go along. I hope I stopped doing that about the same time we re-committed to people in the crisis of poverty.

So, I'm getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. You don't have to change jobs, although for me that made sense, but you better avoid getting complacent. How could complacent ever be the answer when that 11% statistic remains? How could you be comfortable when you hear students called dehumanizing things like "Last Minute Larry's" when they come to register shortly before the term starts. How different would the world be if that student had a name and a story? How different would our colleges be if we admired the courage it took to come to us at the last moment and ask us to help change your life? The world is in a difficult and divided place in many ways, and I have been fortunate enough to reach a place of stability and a little bit of influence. So as Ms. Morrison said, it is now my responsibility to empower somebody else. I can't wait for day one tomorrow. I can't wait to find the kindred souls who know that our technical and community college can truly change our community and world. If I'm honest, I've got butterflies, a headache, and I'm sure I won't sleep tonight. It's pretty uncomfortable, so I know I'm right where I should be. Can't wait!

The Power of Purpose

August 1st will mark 17 years for me at Western Technical College. I had no idea I would stay this

long back in 2002, when I thought this was a one year stopover between teaching jobs. It's been good and rewarding work, but I feel like I've accomplished more in the last 12 months than in the prior 16 years. In the last year, I've offered a variety of training on and off campus, and I've had the opportunity to present at conferences across the country on this thing we call poverty-informed practice, and I've watched the discussion at my college shift in the same time frame. Last fall we rolled out a college strategic plan that discussed equity and inclusion, but did not contain the word poverty. In contrast, this fall will feature a keynote address and two days training on poverty-informed practice. The keynote speaker is me by the way, which is unusual. My college typically brings someone in for our all college day. I've also been invited to lead training at one of our sister colleges in October and January in addition to our State System Office giving me an opportunity to present at a large conference in December. In fact my speaking schedule has gotten full enough to have to turn down some opportunities. In this last year, I commonly get asked the same question, and it usually takes on the form of "what's changed?" This week I'll try to explain by going outside my comfort zone a little and talking quite a bit about myself. I've always believed poverty was the problem, but in the last year, I've stopped saying it softly or apologetically. I don't compromise much and being less "reasonable" has accelerated the pace of change here and made connections across the country. It's been a little over a year since I changed my approach to talking about poverty on my campus, and I want to share what has occurred since making that choice. Maybe it will help people be brave and find the power of having purpose.

Last June was an interesting time for me. I had applied for a Vice Presidency at my college (I thought I could help) and had made it to the final round of interviews, an all day affair on a Friday. I spent the two days prior to the marathon interview day in Springfield, Illinois learning from Dr. Donna Beegle, and I'd had a bit of an epiphany while I was there. I was always an advocate for students in poverty, but if I'm honest I didn't go all in, because I was afraid I would lose my influence if people thought we were doing too much too fast. Instead, I was very reasonable and compromising and told myself incremental progress was better than no progress. But I woke up that morning before day 2 of Dr. Beegle's training with this persistent thought "our students with poverty barriers teach us like no other students could." These students make us get better in ways all students benefit from. After literally years of raising awareness that poverty was the obstacle to student success, I now had an affirmative case for removing that obstacle. 36 hours before the biggest interview of my life, I changed my whole presentation and inserted language that said I would lead my college by making it the most poverty-informed college in America. I spent the whole interview day telling anyone who would listen what I believed wasn't just right, it was smart and was good business. Now, I'm a pretty good presenter, and I think I'm a pretty good interview, and I was on fire the whole day, but I didn't get the job. I was pretty sure I was winning until toward the end of the day, one of the key decision makers said, "I'd love to know what poverty-informed is, I don't really understand it." My heart sunk because I knew I hadn't been effective enough yet to make it obvious what that meant for the college.

I received the rejection call early the next week. It hurt a little because I had laid my heart bare, and at the end of the day, my college wasn't ready to go where I wanted to take them. Strangely though, I wasn't that upset. Poverty has been my issue since Day 1, and now I had a way to talk about it that could change things. I've been fortunate through my life to have an ability to change people's minds even on difficult topics. Preparing to make the case had given me clarity of purpose, and purpose is powerful. I sent out my first "Poverty Informed Friday" email that same week and decided to do what I could in my own sphere of influence. My staff was incredible and responsive, and we started identifying barriers to success we could remove as quickly as possible. These included changing policies and physical spaces to work better for students in the crisis of poverty. In July, I was procrastinating on some graduate school work and decided to write a short article on LinkedIn about what we were doing (read it here). I wasn't sure anyone would ever read it, but I liked telling the story, and it helped me coalesce my thoughts about what we were doing. I shared it on my Facebook page, LinkedIn, and eventually on Twitter. Much to my surprise, it started to get shared and has been read thousands of times, all over the country and world. If I'd known that was going to happen, I probably would have edited more carefully, but people seemed to connect to the amateur and authentic nature of what we were doing. None of this happened immediately, but I enjoyed the writing and began to try to do it weekly.

People are drawn to purpose, they just are. First it was my co-workers who were friends on social media and said they were inspired by what we were doing and wanted to participate. My family started to tell me the stories mattered too. My cousin is a 6th grade teacher in Missouri and started to share the articles with her students. And when I shared a story about a student named Emmie (Emmie's story), my cousin said one of her young students was inspired to share with her classmates that her family had experienced homelessness, and what it was like. When I shared the story with Emmie, she said she got goosebumps, and I realized that our little project was also allowing people who had been traditionally left out to have a voice. Our purpose had expanded. We didn't just want to get better outcomes for students in poverty, we wanted their voice to be heard and count. We were becoming partners. Now I started to look for kindred souls in the larger world. I had read about great work happening at Amarillo College (article in the Atlantic), and my newfound courage (purpose makes you brave) allowed me to Tweet my first article at their president, Russell Lowery-Hart just to say thanks for inspiration. I remember when he responded and re-shared the article, because I took screen shots and sent to my partners at work like I was a 47 year old fanboy. And then he shared it with Sara Goldrick-Rab, someone I'd admired for a long time, and she said "we need to get him (me) to Real College." I'm pretty sure I signed up the next day. All of this happened within 2 months of writing that first article and less than 3 months after the failed interview. I hadn't really increased my expertise or even come up with something terribly innovative. I just stopped protecting others comfort when I discussed where we were and what we should do. I'm less fun than I used to be and perhaps less popular, but I know I'm more effective.

Purpose is a powerful thing. In less than 12 months, from a place of limited influence, I have accomplished more than I had in years. Don't let me give you the illusion this stuff is easy, because reality is I meet overt and covert resistance on a daily basis. Even this week, I was challenged on the GED Assistance fund we have made more accessible and poverty-informed (read more here), an issue I thought I had put to bed a long time ago. Since increasing the access to support, the usage has gone up 500% (a good thing), straining our donor resources. This led someone to push back and say we needed to reestablish screening criteria... Very frustrating, but being poverty-informed says we hold our ground and identify more resources rather than ration them. My partner Mandy and I talk endlessly about our right to be comfortable when others do not have the ability to be comfortable. We have never settled on the right answer (agreeing 100% isn't our best thing), but we both generally agree that most of us need to be a little less comfortable, or we run the risk of moving too slowly or not at all. Dr. Beegle uses the phrase "living in the crisis of poverty", and crisis is exactly what we are responding to. When we accept the truth of students being in crisis, it makes us more assertive and willing to put ourselves out there for them. I suspect many of you were like me and advocated in gentle, compromising ways to try to win people over. I'm asking you to rethink that. I'm asking you to make the affirmative case that we don't throw people away. I'm asking you to explore being slightly less comfortable, perhaps less widely popular, but far more effective. If I've learned anything, it's that a watered down version of purpose gets watered down results, and we don't have time for that.

From Gangs to Graduation, Dio's #RealCollege Story

A little more than a month ago, a student asked me how come I had told other students' stories but not his yet. I was thrilled to take him up on his offer. I was grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with a student I've come to know pretty well, and who has a great story to tell. His name is Eldioju, but we all call him Dio. He's a recent graduate of Western and is back this summer pursuing a second degree. On a personal level, he and I have bonded over our shared love of basketball, although he was a much better player than I was. Dio was kind enough to share his experience making the transition from the South Side of Chicago to a college graduate. I thought I knew him pretty well, but I learned a lot that day. It is interesting to see the level of personal accountability he takes and to see the transformative power of education. I could say more, but I'll let Dio tell his story. As always, forgive the amateur video editing by yours truly.

Dio said a lot that stuck with me that day, but I was particularly struck by his  refusal to blame circumstances or "make excuses" as he said several times. It was also great to hear the power of relationships as he pointed to people on campus who made him feel welcome, wanted, and yes, loved. His grit and determination are to be admired, but I would argue they shouldn't be required. It's not an excuse to acknowledge the structural barriers of poverty, it's just a fact. We have to design our college so someone without Dio's remarkable resilience can make it too. So as we become poverty informed, we strive to do just what Dio said at the end of the video. We strive to look at people as individuals and not be afraid of them or of differences. When we remember that people come from a context and poverty is a circumstance, not a character flaw, we start to treat each other differently. And sometimes treating people differently means you get to meet "a nice guy who tries to help people." Our students teach us how to improve every day and I'm glad Dio took time to help me.

Amarillo Reflections

"Don't be afraid of being the 'poor' school, be the 'problem-solving' school." That simple but powerful takeaway was part of my learning last Monday and Tuesday as I attended the Amarillo College Culture of Caring Poverty Summit. I was lucky enough to join a team of three from my college, and the summit did not disappoint. We met a humble, inspiring, hard-working group of people who are open to sharing their mission and their successes and flaws in the name of ending poverty and changing the world. We learned about the theory of change which drives their planning on campus. It is pictured above and is so simple and elegant, it almost hides the effort required to execute such ambition. As I said to my colleagues several times during our visit, this isn't complicated, it's just hard. Anyone who has been reading these articles (and thank you for that) knows we have been deeply inspired by the work at Amarillo College, so being there was invaluable. At this point in my career, I can be pretty crusty about conferences, but this one was everything I hoped for. Let me share a few things I learned in hopes you will be inspired to move down this path as well. But first, I'll share some local news video featuring Amarillo College's dynamic leader, Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart.

At Western we talk about increasing the sense of belonging and self-efficacy for students as part of poverty-informed practice. Making those things concrete enough for others to implement can be a challenge, so I love it when someone else says it better than I do. Early on day 1, someone asked Dr. Lowery-Hart about potential abuse of the support they provide for students and he responded simply, "If you need it, we are going to believe you." Bingo! That is creating belonging in a nutshell. Our assumption is that students in the crisis of poverty are already apprehensive about being on campus and the odds of someone providing help and judgment at the same time in their prior life is pretty high. We must choose to simply believe them. It isn't easy to seek help, particularly when people not in poverty have invisible help built into their everyday lives. The least we can do is simply believe the person who has the courage to be vulnerable and ask. I texted the quote to my partner Mandy and she immediately replied believing in students is the number one place we fall down... We can start fixing that on Monday. We need to normalize help because everyone needs it whether they see it or not. And embedded, easily accessible help creates belonging. Let's help with no questions asked (except what else do you need) if possible.

Dr. Donna Beegle (who I actually got to talk with in Amarillo) reminds us perceptions of scarcity often drive our policy and practices when in reality there is enough for all, it's just a matter of choices. Amarillo's Advocacy and Resource Center (ARC) is evidence of that truth. What's pictured is a small part of their "overflow" storage which they use to stock the five (yes 5) food pantries they run across their campuses. This picture reminded me there is enough and it also reminded me there is tremendous need. The amount of food and supplies the pantry goes through is amazing. It is also amazing the staff of the ARC have built such excellent community connections that all of this comes from donors... Amarillo has invested in staff to build relationships and those relationships have paid off exponentially in support for students, increased retention, and graduation. This in turn breaks the cycle of poverty and changes lives for individuals, families, and communities. As I keep saying, it is not complicated, it is just hard, and it is a choice. The ARC is led by a remarkable woman named Jordan Herrera (pictured telling the ARC story) and a team of social workers. The value of social workers is another lesson we are bringing home. You don't have to be one, but you better know one, or better yet employ a few. I will admit to being happy when visiting the ARC and seeing their "grab and go" table, which is modeled on The Bowl at Western (The Bowl) and I was doubly pleased when Jordan and her staff said the no barriers snack table gets filled frequently and the amount of food students take rivals the pantry... If they need it, they believe them, and so do we. We will challenge ourselves to prove resources are scarce instead of starting with that as untested assumption. There is enough, we just need to choose what we do with it.

Part of my own personal evolution has been to move from thought and planning to a bias for action. As someone who really likes context and history, I can get stuck in a loop of looking at options and possible drawbacks to the point of not acting. Dr. Lowery-Hart described a similar shift when he said Amarillo strives to be data-informed, but not necessarily data-driven. I was pleased to talk to him about this idea over lunch because "data-driven" is a pretty ubiquitous term across higher education. He assured me I heard him correctly, and he also explained why he chose that term. He said his observation is too frequently people are searching for the piece of data that will absolve them of ownership of a decision. His vision of leadership is to get data that helps and then move on it realizing he may get it wrong and remaining accountable for doing so. This vision of leadership struck a chord with me as I have suffered from occasional paralysis by analysis and perhaps failed to act. I think being data informed means you are iterative and brave. I think it means being brave enough to own your theory of change and pursue it relentlessly and fearlessly. I was struck by the common use of language and imagery among the staff at Amarillo College, and one of the phrases they used was not to "higher ed" things too much. My reading of that phrase is we need to resist our urge to make the routine look impossible, and we need to be ok with uncomplicated solutions that are simply hard work. I'm not sure I'm as fearless as Russell, and I know I'm not as fearless as his VP Cara Crowley, but I'm inspired to move my team in their direction. This stuff is urgent, we must act.

I didn't expect to cry at this gathering, but I did. It happened when a student named Steven stood up and told us his experience at Amarillo College and said this: "I used to see people that looked happy, with jobs they liked, and nice cars, and I thought, that's nice, but that's not for me..." It wasn't a plant; he was giving an impromptu talk at a session about building the ARC and was sharing about the help he received in the most genuine way. Steven was amazing and such a good example of the amazing work happening in Amarillo. I left the conference with a renewed sense of mission and purpose. I am certain this is the right work, and it has been the right time for this work for longer than I care to admit. The Stevens of the world have a right to see their possibilities just like my children do. It's been almost a week, and I still get tearful picturing him saying "that's not for me." That is messed up, and we have the opportunity to be a solution. The things we will learn serving our students with the largest barriers will teach us how to be great colleges for all of our students. On my last day in Amarillo, I got word we will devote our fall professional development days to poverty-informed practice, and I will have an opportunity to deliver the keynote address at our college day!! If I learned anything last week, I learned about the power of passion and purpose, and I will bring every ounce I have to our campus. Game on!

Amarillo by Morning

Four years ago I fulfilled a promise to my then 10 year-old son. He read a book a couple years earlier about Route 66 and wanted to do a road trip. I said something like "maybe when you're 10..." He forgets some things, but he did not forget that. That's him in the picture on the day we left for our 8 day road trip to the Grand Canyon via Route 66. It was an amazing week. In preparation, we made a road trip music list, trying to associate songs with landmarks. We enjoyed living on 'Tulsa Time' and we stood on THE corner in Winslow, Arizona. And of course we made it to 'Amarillo by Morning'. I remember Amarillo well actually because western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle seemed to consist of mostly wide open space, so we were grateful to hit a city and take a break from our travels. We got lunch, checked out the local zoo, and visited the Cadillac Ranch. After that we set back out on our road trip, and I assumed I'd never see Amarillo again... Fate is funny. I'm excitedly heading back to Amarillo next week for the Amarillo College Culture of Caring Poverty Summit. I've been working a long time, and I've been to a lot of conferences, so to be this excited to travel on a Sunday is not normal. But this opportunity is not normal. It is a chance to be together with a group of people who think like I do, that poverty is the single greatest obstacle to student success. It is a chance to bring a team from my college to learn and return to our college to expand this work I believe in so much. Attacking poverty barriers is so important, and I remain committed to it at my core. Let me help you understand why.

I'm excited to go to Amarillo on behalf of my friend Emmie (Emmie's story). Emmie is currently not in school, but I saw her the other day, and she is working on a return plan. She is working at a local restaurant and gathering herself for pursuit of her dream. We have to build structures to help Emmie pursue her dream of owning a bakery. We can't require heroism, we just need to create a system that allows her non-linear journey to end in success. Emmie continues to overcome barriers that would floor most of us, and I want us to be the college that includes her and learns from her. She is counting on us to be the place that helps her have the life she dreams of. I think we have to be worthy of her trust.

I'm going to Amarillo on behalf of my friend John (John's story). John used his HSED and college credit to start our precision machining program. John, and the team of people who care about him, made a choice to shift to welding in the spring, and he continues to work hard at it. Math doesn't come easy for John, but he is here in our department for the summer term, brushing up his math skills to pass Math for Welding. The welding certificate he will acquire when he is done will give him access to better jobs, better wages, and a better future. I'm going to Amarillo because the world needs people like John to have opportunity. One of our premises of poverty informed practice is that our students with barriers teach us more than other students ever could. John is always so positive and grateful, but in reality we should be just as grateful to him. John doesn't know it, but he's showing us how to get better every day.

I'm going to Amarillo on behalf of my friend Andrea (Andrea's story). That's Andrea on the left, alongside her friend and my associate dean, Mandy. Andrea's story continues to grow. Not only did she use her HSED and college credits to start pursuing an Associate's Degree in Human Services, she's actually working for me (hence the desk and computer) currently as part of our office team. When we had the opening, I remembered a story I heard Dr. Donna Beegle tell about her friend Shariff telling her it was nice her car had a house (aka garage), when so many people didn't. She put the car on the street and made temporary housing in her garage. If she could do that, the least I could do is provide a student with an opportunity to work and build stability. I'm a bit repetitive, but Andrea has taught us so much already, we would be foolish not to have her as part of our college and team.

So I'm going to Amarillo on behalf of some heroes of mine and to meet some other heroes of mine. But I'm also going to Amarillo for the kid in the ancient graduation picture. As oddly gleeful as he looks surrounded by his grandparents with his 80's quasi-mullet, that was actually one of the toughest days of his life. Just a few short hours before the ceremony and this picture, the police were at his house to deal with a stepfather who had too much to drink and was violent to his mother. He glued a smile on his face and played a part, and he kept the secret of what happened in his house, even though it happened pretty regularly. I often think about that day (more so lately because my daughter is graduating in a week), because it reminds me there is always more to the story. No one at my school ever asked me about my life at home. I just smiled and got good grades and built up my defenses. Now I know, we must love our students and we must assume our help is not optional. Now I know, we must strive to get past the surface and find the barriers that are preventing them from having the lives they dream of. I can't wait to get to Amarillo (by morning or midnight as the case may be), and see what we can become.

Filters vs Pumps

The power of language has always been a true love of mine. It is probably a bit of rationalization on my part since I'm not a very visual person, but I've always loved when I (or someone else) says

something that simply and succinctly makes a point in a way that anyone could grasp. It's even better if the point is so good, no one can disagree, but that can be too much to ask. Strengths and weaknesses always seem to be two sides of the same coin and my verbal strengths have always been balanced by an inability to represent my ideas in pictures, charts, sculpture, painting, or any other visual medium. As I've gotten older, I've become more comfortable with my weaknesses and find myself drawn to people with the gift of capturing ideas visually. One of those people is my friend Mike (pictured). Mike has a gift for capturing my sometimes random ideas visually, often on a piece of paper towel:) A couple of years ago, I was trying to capture our switch from an old model of developmental education, where we "fixed" people and basically never let them go, to a "just-in-time" model that helps people where they

actually are and need to be. I was drawing stick people on a board and Mike just watched. Later that afternoon, he handed me a paper towel with this character drawn on it. Our old model was the Abominable Snowman and our students were Daffy Duck just yearning to be free. One picture said it all brilliantly. I've included the picture above, but this video also gives you the idea.

A few days ago I was trying to tell Mike about a shift I think a poverty-informed college must make. I was working on some tortured analogy about Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat (I called it tortured here too), but it wasn't capturing the idea I hoped for. I wanted to show we weren't here to eliminate the unworthy, but rather to create opportunity for the widest group possible. This hit a chord with Mike and he described a conversation he had been in where someone had said, "we are a filter, not a pump" in an attempt to justify "weeding out" as a college practice. Mike and I agreed if filtering had ever been a good idea, it certainly wasn't now, and I left to go back to my day. The analogy stuck with me and the next day, I thought I would be funny and tell him I had extended the analogy to me being a plumber breaking up clogs. I even joked I was going to come to meetings with a plunger from

now on to unclog the system for students. Later that day, this picture showed up in my email. On one paper towel, Mike had captured exactly what poverty-informed practice should be doing. My admiration for visual people grows.

 

This filter versus a pump mentality is worth calling out. As we move toward the most inclusive poverty-informed environment possible, we need to identify our filters and see if we can remove them. One of the toughest changes my college has made in the last two years was a de-emphasis on placement testing. As I've noted before, if you try to change an entrenched system, the resistance will be huge, and this was true with our assessment and placement work. It was common knowledge we weren't doing placement very effectively, and that was mirrored across the nation at colleges like ours. However, there was a deep level of attachment to the testing system we had. The reaction to the changes seemed almost personal, and that always confused me because the people involved were generally reasonable and would consider themselves advocates for students. I think the real subtext of the discussion was the change from a filter mentality to a pump mentality. We had used placement tests to filter students or protect them from themselves. The latter seems almost noble until you really start to unbundle it. One of our premises in our poverty-informed work is what students know on day one is not a very good indication of what they can learn. So, instead of filtering them out at the beginning (which was reality because the transition from remedial coursework wasn't very good), we were shifting to a mindset of building structures that helped our students successfully move through... you know, like a pump. Protecting students from themselves seems paternalistic to me. Eliminating unnecessary barriers and walking beside them seems like a partnership.

The pump is a great analogy because it isn't one size fits all. One of the persistent questions I get about the students I advocate for is, "shouldn't we treat them the way we treat the rest of the students?" This is a loaded question because the assumptions behind it are everything. If people meant we try to give all students what they need, then this makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, most times the question seems to imply we should just give everyone the same thing. This thinking is flawed on two levels. First, there is a difference between equitable and equal, a huge difference. Most people understand this. I think the more insidious flaw in asking people with significant barriers to access the system other students do, in the same way, is the system was not designed for them. Does that make sense? Because I think it's a big deal. College systems are built on assumptions of who they will serve. It seems natural those assumptions would not be about students with the greatest barriers. So, until the day we start building our systems that way, let's build effective pumps to help them navigate plumbing that wasn't always designed with them in mind. This is different than building separate systems. It is adding appropriate support at points in the system where students have historically struggled. Essentially we are installing a pump with the appropriate pressure to move them past a potential clog. These are poverty-informed supports, and if we built our systems with students from poverty first in mind, they might not be necessary, but I don't think that is likely or practical. So, we build in supports to navigate an inherently flawed system and use what we learn to improve it. That is poverty-informed in my opinion.

Filters, pumps, and plumbers seem like a great way to represent a technical college learning to serve its students in new and more effective ways. Perhaps there was a time where deciding who should be in college and who shouldn't was ok, although I doubt it since it was instructive to see who was excluded. But even if that time existed, it has passed. My father told me when his high school class graduated in the late 1960's, a number of his classmates moved to southern Wisconsin and took jobs at an automotive plant. Those were the kind of jobs a high school graduate could build a life on, a life that provided for a family. That layer of employment has essentially left our economy, and we have told young people post-secondary credentials are the key to success in the new economy. I believe that to be true, so I also believe filtering students out is a process of picking economic winners and losers, and we do not belong in that business. In a "post-secondary education for all" world, it is incumbent on colleges to adapt to the new world as well. We need to get out our wrenches, and yes our plungers, unclog the filters, and install pumps wherever we need to. It took me five paragraphs and Mike got it in one drawing...

A Tale of Two Weeks

With apologies to Charles Dickens, in some ways the last week felt like the best of weeks and the worst of weeks all at once. The week started with frustrating meetings that felt like they were impeding what we are trying to do. What seemed like straightforward simple steps to helping people and normalizing help were getting caught up in the web of bureaucracy. I was convinced if you try to disrupt a system, the system fights back, and the system probably wins. I believe I even vented that frustration on Twitter. What's hard to understand about opposition is it comes in the most insidious ways, often from the nicest, well-meaning people. My industry tends to be a little risk averse, so if you are "out there" on an idea, people will search for precedent to justify it, and if they can't find it, the pace of change can slow to a crawl. I've been the risk-averse person in the past, so I don't get upset with anyone personally, but I do have new empathy for people I've held back. It is very hard to see a problem so clearly and have to navigate others' hurdles to solve it. Social media has turned out to be a great place to find inspiration to continue in those low moments, and my friend Cara Crowley picked me up in the most succinct way. She seems to be sort of gifted that way and reminded me "We are their (students) advocates & they are our inspiration. The rest is silliness & frustrating nonsense." Just what I needed and so perfectly said...

Navigating systems is challenging, but it was also the best of weeks. I had a chance to present on our work at the local library to an audience of library staff and parent-educators. The parent-educators emailed me to say they are meeting this week to discuss how to implement some poverty informed concepts in their world, and I can't wait to hear back where our ideas took them. Our library was already doing cool stuff like the video above, but they were enthused to find like-minded folks, and I hope we can reduce barriers together going forward. Public libraries are pretty poverty-informed by definition, and ours serves as a de facto daytime homeless shelter, so I am excited to learn from them. I also got to co-present on campus with my colleague Kirsten Daykin (pictured here) who is doing amazing work about trauma and education. Our feedback was quite positive as well, but the week was topped off by organizational good news. Our Vice President (my boss) shared my division would be taking on new responsibilities in our Learning Commons, which I'd been advocating for and was thrilled to learn, but more remarkably her college wide email said this: "(Our Division's) passion and progressive work with poverty informed practices will help guide just-in-time supports and reduce barriers to student success." It was the best week indeed!

Our college strategic plan is very focused on equity and inclusion, but if I'm honest, I'm not sure the word poverty appears in it. In less than a year, our steadfast, unapologetic commitment to students in poverty and their potential has made reducing poverty barriers a linchpin of our equity efforts. So, even the parts of the week where it felt like an uphill climb are easier to take when I see that in action. It's funny what an email can do. Use of that simple term was affirmation our movement is taking hold and now we have a few more levers to push to make it happen. If there are lessons to be learned from our efforts, I think it might be as simple as a bias for action. Start doing things. Be brave and unapologetic. Maybe it was the safety of the library space and so many like-minded people, but I closed on Wednesday by telling that group we do not have to apologize for helping people get what they need and deserve. I often think of Dr. Donna Beegle's challenge to think about what someone must do to be worthy of your help. It's such a good way to find your own bias and root it out. So often, I hear well-meaning people basically require a ridiculous amount of gratitude for simply getting what most folks get. I wonder why that is? Who is that for? Doing what we are doing isn't charity, it's smart business with the benefit of being just. Let's stop apologizing for doing things that are correct and smart.

My speaking (for free:)) calendar is starting to get fuller. I love the chance to talk about what we are doing in part because I think it's important, but also because it helps us hone our message. We have tried to simplify and have really boiled down to two big concepts. The first concept is about a mindset shift that puts us in awe of our students who live in poverty and choose us anyway. This frame stops us from feeling sorry for people and activates our need to assist them in this audaciously courageous pursuit. The second concept is a commitment to reducing barriers at every opportunity. Barriers can be large or small, but any barrier can be a deal-breaker when even basic needs are tenuous. We also believe this work requires an intentional choice to love the students we have. We put love in the action category because we want it to be something we choose intentionally. You do things differently for people you love. It's just different than "caring about" and certainly far different than "feeling sorry for." In my most recent presentations at our college, I said our work boils down to helping change economic reality for people we love. It's hard to have a bad day at work if you frame it like that.



In one week, it was the worst of times and the best of times. It was the age of foolishness and the age of wisdom. Before my graduate school instincts kick in, and I start creating APA citations, let me close. If you choose to advocate for those who have been traditionally left out, you can expect to hit a point where you are no longer cute or admirable and are actually a threat to entrenched systems. That is the point where you will make a decision. You will either retreat back to pilot projects and small impact, or you will be brave and persevere. As someone who has been on both sides of that equation, let me reassure you that you will feel safer and more comfortable if you retreat. But, if you are like me, this safety and comfort will eventually feel unearned. It will feel like undeserved privilege, and the safety and comfort of your own life won't bring you the relief you seek. You will begin to wonder if it is ok to be this comfortable when others do not get a comparable choice. You will remember the seemingly random turns in the road which put you in your situation and not theirs. And if you persevere, you will remember poverty is a circumstance, not a character flaw, and get back to work helping people you love change their economic reality.