{"id":10632,"date":"2017-03-07T14:43:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T20:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/?p=10632"},"modified":"2017-03-16T13:29:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T18:29:18","slug":"conversation-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-58\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversation #58: Marcia Chatelain on Connecting with Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Download <a href=\"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/podcast\/audio\/tlee058.mp3\">Conversation #58<\/a><\/p>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-10632-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/podcast\/audio\/tlee058.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/podcast\/audio\/tlee058.mp3\">http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/podcast\/audio\/tlee058.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"9953\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-55\/follow-the-arrow-original\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Follow-the-Arrow-original.jpg?fit=1097%2C1097&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1097,1097\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;5.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;E990&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1122638260&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;23.4&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.009532888465205&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Follow the Arrow\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Follow-the-Arrow-original.jpg?fit=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Follow-the-Arrow-original.jpg?fit=625%2C625&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright wp-image-9953\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/podcast\/images\/marciachatelain.jpg?resize=144%2C216\" alt=\"Marcia Chatelain\" width=\"144\" height=\"216\" \/>A conversation with <a href=\"http:\/\/explore.georgetown.edu\/people\/mc899\/\">Marcia Chatelain<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/georgetown.edu\/\">Georgetown University<\/a> on connecting with students.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dr. Marcia Chatelain, previously on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma's Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College, researches a wide array of issues in African-American history. Dr. Chatelain writes and teaches about African-American migration, women's and girls' history, and race and food. Dr. Chatelain has served on the boards of the Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma and the University of Missouri's Student Affairs division. Dr. Chatelain is a member of the British Council's Transatlantic Network 2020, a 2000 Harry S. Truman Scholar, an alumna and honoree of the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life, and a 2011 German Marshall Fund of the U.S. Fellow. In 2012, Dr. Chatelain was awarded an American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined) and a Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her second book, which examines the relationship between communities of color and fast food, has received grants from the Duke University Libraries and the Frances E. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama. In 2014, Dr. Chatelain created #fergusonsyllabus to encourage educators to discuss the national crisis in Ferguson, Missouri. Dr. Chatelain hosts Office Hours: A Podcast (available on I Tunes) in which she talks to students about the things most important to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Links for this episode:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/officehourspodcast\">Office Hours podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Transcript<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> My name is Marcia Chatelain and I\u2019m an associate professor of History and African American studies at Georgetown. I started my career in the honors college at the University of Oklahoma and I think that for me I take, very seriously, the idea that in my role as a faculty member I need to be as committed to my research \u00a0as my teaching and as committed to my teaching as I am my research. One of the things that I think is really important for scholars is the ways that we think our research on a trajectory as something that evolves and that we always have to recreate and push ourselves. I feel very much about teaching. I really try to think about practices, whether it\u2019s with technology or changing the ways that I connect with students or even revising the kinds of assignments that I generate in the class. I really think of my teaching as part of a professional evolution as well as reflective of the different ways that students understand themselves in the context of which they are in college.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a member of our faculty and administration here, Sister Monica, who talks about how you have to meet the students where they are, which I think, is a really important thing. And to that, I think your podcast does an incredible job of doing that. Your podcast office hours, which I\u2019ve been listening to. I\u2019m trying to catch up with all the episodes. Not quite there yet, but I\u2019ve listened to quite a few and I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit more about how that came about and what really drove you to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Office hours is a pure labor of love. It\u2019s not something that is really prominent on my CV or I can use it for my annual review. I started the podcast. I live in Washington, DC and I don\u2019t really drive anymore. I walk most places or take public transportation, so I listen to a lot of podcasts. For one time, I was just a fan of public radio and public radio streaming casts of shows that I missed the first time. I, like a lot of people, spent more and more time listening to things like Serial and Startup and the stuff from give-up media. I actually just really appreciated the form. The fact that in a moment we can be so stimulated visually by the things we have on television and online that this is something about letting people into an intimate conversation, the tad among people, and I thought was really nice. I kind of just wanted to experiment with the genre and I was also developing the idea for office hours during the time where I thought a lot of my students, particularly the students of color, were feeling invisible and not legible to a lot of people at universities. I wanted to give my colleagues the opportunity to get to know students in a different way and to really model the importance of creating trusting relationships with students outside of the classroom as a way to build your own teaching and mentoring practices. I think it\u2019s a great opportunity for students to talk about who they are at a very specific moment of their lives and it kind of starts as a time capsule for students who appear on the first few episodes. I think when they listen back and they think, \u201coh, I sound so young\u201d or some of the students talk about some goals and some were able to achieve them and others found a different path. I really like capturing why I love teaching so much and why I love students so much and be able to share that with people who are on either side of that conversation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, I think that really, really comes through. Both, the students having this opportunity to talk and to share, but you being able to expand upon what you love about teaching and your love for the students and their success is really kind of contagious. I imagine this must take a fair amount of your time and I know you said it\u2019s a labor of love. But, what are some of the biggest challenges you\u2019ve encountered keeping up a podcast and keeping motivated to do it every week?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, the way I do the podcast, just from a practicality standpoint, is from the first season when we were experimenting, one of the things that we do is that we record a lot of content and then we make the shows. That helps a lot with maximizing free time. For season two, I focused on students who were entering Truman scholarship program. I\u2019ve been a mentor for Truman scholars for a really long time. They were all here this summer. So, I decided x amount of time would be spent on interviewing and I would interview four students back to back in the sound booth. With those interviews, me and the producer, Alex Tyson, we can do the content around it where it\u2019s us bantering, whether it\u2019s advice or just from a practicality standpoint. Because our podcast is so thematic and not so responsive to current events, you can kind of hear it sometimes. Sometimes a podcast will come out in December and we\u2019re talking about how hot it is. I get less concerned about that as long as I hit upon the issues that I think stay consistent in the college experience. You know, navigating relationships with parents, shifting expectations of yourself, success, transferring. So, just from a time standpoint, we make a lot of the episodes in advance and then release them. The shows on Highatis because I will be joining the team of another podcast that comes out in a few weeks. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Full disclosure, I have a little bit of a problem with Law and Order and I first heard you when you guessed it on These Our Their Stories podcast and I was like, \u201cI really need to listen to her podcast.\u201d So, has this brought you into a world of podcast in a new way? What\u2019s that like? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so it\u2019s kind of funny. When you talk about how we spend our time, I think we first started, I think I really just wanted to do something with my students that was fun and it actually had two unintended outcomes, which were really positive. But first, as a lot of people listen to Office Hours, it has helped me create somewhat of a platform of my work in terms of helping faculty do implicit teaching. Some people say to me, \u201cOh, I heard your podcast,\u201d and I get invitations to work with faculty and I love that. I love that I get to use the podcast as a starting point to do workshops about difficult dialogue or inclusive teaching. I have this professional element that was really exciting. People who like podcasts listen to a lot of podcasts. The first podcast I did was before Office Hours where I did a podcast about equity that Kansas State University does and then I did \u201cCall Your Girlfriend\u201d which is kind of like a Top 100 podcast. I only got it because my best friend from college knows the people who do it, but I had an opportunity to appear there. What was funny is after, all my students were like, \u201cOh my gosh, Professor Chatelain, I heard you on Call Your Girlfriend. That\u2019s so cool.\u201d Based on the Office Hours I did around the criminal justice system, some of our students who did a prison program, I got invited to do Addendum which is a chat show that is associated with Undisclosed. Undisclosed was a podcast that you\u2019ll see around season one and the wrongful conviction case and that season. That created this entire platform to investigate wrongful convictions. They would do the episodes on Monday and on Thursday they would do a discussion show. It was my favorite podcast and when one of the producers asked would I like to be on the show, I was like, \u201cOh my gosh, this is the greatest thing,\u201d because Office Hours had a very low listenership but Undisclosed had 140 million downloads just to give you a sense of the stone. I did two episodes of Addendum and that\u2019s how I got meet Rebecca Lavoy who does the Law &amp; Order podcast which is just pure fun because it\u2019s such a ridiculous TV show and it\u2019s really good conversation. Shortly after that, I got invited to join season three of Undisclosed so we\u2019ll be launching a new season of Undisclosed in March around a criminal justice issue. That\u2019s a fifteen-episode commitment. Talk about genre. I\u2019m used to doing a podcast where I just talk to students about stuff. Office Hours I do very little planning for. I just invite the student. I try to save the conversation for when we get in studio so we can start talking. It\u2019s a student I know so I know what questions to ask. For Undisclosed, it is investigative and scripted and it is very difficult. It\u2019s challenging to me as a scholar to write short. People don\u2019t hear footnotes. In the episodes, I try to make sure my attribution is correct. I\u2019m part of a narrative storytelling and there is a team of four of us. I\u2019m the historian on the team and I\u2019m really proud of the work were doing, but boy is it difficult. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wow, that sounds amazing and super challenging. I think that public facing scholarship is something that we\u2019re necessarily encouraged to do and yet is so important. It seems to me that we\u2019ve started a new initiative here at Xavier as part of a larger core curriculum enhancement on digital humanities. Would you consider your podcast and the podcast you\u2019re working with digital humanities?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0I think so. I think it\u2019s this idea of bringing a discipline, like history, to a larger audience and helping them imagine the different things that they can do with history. The topic of this podcast is a pretty contemporary topic, but I\u2019m able to connect it to the 19<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century or trends in the 1940s and help people understand that history is really the entry point for the origin stories of a lot of the contemporary problems that we find so daunting. I think it\u2019s digital humanities. I like to think a lot about platforms. I\u2019ve written museum exhibits. I\u2019m really engaged on Twitter. I like the idea of using my classroom assignments as a way of thinking of how to engage with these forms in order to distribute history as widely as possible. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> That\u2019s really great. Can you talk about that a little bit more? The class room projects that you do with your students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> One of the things I\u2019m doing this semester for my African American Women history class instead of the traditional writing assignment. After every book, I ask students to the knowledge from that book to solve problems that could occur in the workplace. We just read <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Incidents From the Life of a Slave Girl. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have four opportunities to use history to solve a problem. So, they pick a scenario. One of the scenarios I presented was a ninth grade teacher is using the book and parents are upset about exposure to the history. The second one is there was Russell Simmons production company did a joke, like satire, on Harriet Tubman and essentially suggesting that she gained her freedom because she blackmailed a slave owner about a sex tape. It was really, really poorly received. I asked the students, \u201cUse the knowledge you\u2019ve learned from this text to explain to people why people are upset by this and why certain things are inappropriate.\u201d We just read a book about the convict labor systems in Georgia and African American women, a great book called <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Change in Silence<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. One of the assignments is if a private developer wanted to redevelop the land where one of these prisons were located in the early 20<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, what are some ways to think about this choice or what are some ways to think about popular culture that makes references to chain gangs? If you were in the position to market these products or decided whether these products go through or not, how would you use history to form your decisions? It makes for some really interesting projects and the ways students really see the practical application of the knowledge they have. I also think it allows them to strengthen their cultural literacy skills. In an age of which there is this charactering of academics and people who are overly sensitive, I think it\u2019s important for students to understand that outrage is grounded in a lot of history and a lot of masking of the past. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right, right. I teach history as well. I\u2019m a historian of the Caribbean of women but it\u2019s so important that we teach students the implacability. Otherwise, they don\u2019t see history as anything useful to them in their contemporary lives. Do you feel like students are big part of your audience? They\u2019re coming at your perspective and how you\u2019re coming at teaching through these conversations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Yeah, I think that for me I don\u2019t need students to think that I\u2019m the smartest person in the room. I need them to think I\u2019m the most human. Having this opportunity to talk to students, it\u2019s key. If you think about the content that I teach, it\u2019s all difficult dialogue. It\u2019s not like the one class period where we\u2019re doing something difficult. We\u2019re always engaged in a process that\u2019s informed by struggle and being informed by so many difficult things. If we don\u2019t have any relationship where any were poorer, it won\u2019t just be successful. The podcast is an opportunity for shy students. Regardless of the size of my class, I insist that we talk. For some students, their voices will never emerge. I think the podcast for some students, even if their afraid to come on Office Hours, lends them an opportunity to kind of get some insides on the ways that I\u2019m thinking. It also has some real application for things that they\u2019re trying to decide, whether it\u2019s transferring, or changing majors, any of the different things. If not put with a little insight, it can really hamper students\u2019 success. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Do you get a lot of letters? I know on some of the episodes you answer letters and do you get a lot of those? Are they growing in number? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0We get a lot of tweets. Some of the letters we write just to fictionalize the people who are having these challenges. They\u2019re based on challenges that students have brought to us. Sometimes, I think more letters than advice, we get a lot of ideas for shows. Someone suggested that next season be devoted to mentorship where I ask people about the influential people in their lives and how they shape them. I think that would be a really nice way to switch up the tone. I\u2019d like to devote a season to life after college experiences like, what is it like to be in a PhD program, what is it like to go to medical school, what is it like to go to law school? For students who are on that pathway, I think it\u2019s really interesting to hear from people who are in the middle of it who aren\u2019t that far apart in age. There are just a lot of different directions. Increasingly, I just get to learn more and more about the students I teach here. I have the network of the Truman Scholarship as well as students I meet on campuses that I visit. I felt like what I liked about season two was it was students who all went to different schools. They\u2019re really coming onto their college experiences, having on to large publics, small liberal arts, the military academy, just a real diverse perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, As much as I love your Georgetown students, I love it when you talk to Howard students because in many ways I think that their experiences are enlightening for those of us who teach at HBCUs and Xavier being a small and Catholic HBCU, both same and different. Coming into the particular political challenges that we may be facing in the next four years, where do you see HBCUs playing a role? What do you think our challenges are going to be? This is a huge question but I know it\u2019s one that is on everyone\u2019s mind. Everyone that is connected with HBCUs is really nervous but also wondering, what can we do?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that, and this is coming from someone who doesn\u2019t teach at an HBCU, as someone who is familiar, historically, with some of the unique challenges from HBCUs, I think that what the next four year are going to surface is that HBCUs are going to have their entire history come together at one moment. Meaning, I think that HBCUs are going to have to negotiate some of the relationship they did in the 19<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the first half of the 20<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century about negotiating like power brokers who might have a vision of what these schools are supposed to do that might be contrary to kind of what is needed now, because of this current White House. They\u2019re also going to revisit a lot of the struggles that were very present in the 20s and the 60s in terms of the students reimagining what their college education should look like and some of the messages of tradition will cause tension on the campus. For black students today, because of social media, because of the world which students are cultivated into college, their context isn\u2019t just the school they go to. It\u2019s all the schools. Students were really connected to the struggle that was at the University of Missouri and you have students at Yale in solidary with Mizzou, Howard in solidary with Mizzou, and Georgetown in solidary with Mizzou. I think students are thinking of themselves as kind of like a pan student movement and it has to do with Black Lives Matter and constant struggle. I think, depending on the environment, HBCUs are going to have to, perhaps, manage a student population that is acting out politically in ways they think might actually harm their status in a number of ways. I think that history is going to come to bare. I think that the larger questions about sexual violence and feminism, all of the things I think all campuses deal with, will also surface a series of questions and challenges. I don\u2019t think these issues are unique to HBCUs, but I think some of the management of the politic and the funding and the leadership, all of the history is going to come together at one moment. The question of survival and the question of being able to thrive might feel even more embattled because of these forces. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Right, and how do you think we as faculty can best support our students as they navigate through this? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think just be aware of the spaces and context they\u2019re coming from. I think that sometimes I do an inclusive teaching workshop, a professor will say, \u201cWell, if I have to keep up with students, I would have to be on social media all day.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWell, it might be a good use of a day.\u201d If it means you\u2019re spending four hours looking at Twitter and buzz feed and Tumblr and that and it allows you to be more successful in reaching your students, it is time well spent. \u00a0I don\u2019t think we can take for granted that students are entering our campuses understanding fully what they\u2019ve committed to. In light of the conversation about student debt, about the future of the economy, about where jobs are, students, I don\u2019t think, are demanding consumers. I think of them as anxious investors and just like we\u2019re not sure what happens when we get a mortgage and buy a house, they\u2019re not sure what the outcomes of this are supposed to be. I think the more patient with that and we try to learn the conversation and dialogues that they are having the better we can know what to do for them. I think that, for me, teaching them the history and teaching them the capacity of college students to really effect change and change the direction of the institution is really, really important. I think that it not only inspires them but that they have more power than they can imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I\u2019m definitely moved by the specifics of the content of the message and how change occurs and how it can occur. I think it\u2019s really interesting in students in the kind of ways they put themselves out there. I think that being attentive to that social media and to the ways in which they communicate is a huge challenge for some of us, but kind of an important one. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It\u2019s also not designed for us. Half of it just seems so weird. It seems strange and foreign to us. I think the more and more we become convulsive in it or at least curious about it. We were talking about dating apps like Tinder in class. I asked the students, \u201cDo you know what people used to do before these apps?\u201d Everyone just blankly looked at each other and someone said, \u201cCraigslist?\u201d I said, \u201cNo, not craigslist.\u201d I was teaching them about personal ads in the newspaper. They\u2019re like, \u201cWhat?! This is so creepy\u201d I was like, \u201cHow is that creepy and Tinder is a lot less creepy?\u201d We can engage in a conversation and, again, it is not because I understand Tinder, but it\u2019s because I know it is something that is in their lives in a way that then opens up a conversation about respectability politics. We don\u2019t have to start in 1890. We can start in 2017 with their dating apps and we work backwards. Then, they\u2019re engaged in this conversation about sexual propriety in a way that they wouldn\u2019t have been before. It shows in the quality of the writing and the thinking in the papers. Ten years later, students say, \u201cI don\u2019t remember anything from college, but that conversation about Tinder really got me into thinking.\u201d I think we have to claim those small victories in a time that is so discouraging and so overwhelming. Every day, someone says, \u201cDid you hear the news?\u201d Nine out of ten times, it\u2019s not good news. I think that making the classroom a place where students can feel human is probably the most pressing need at this particular moment in our nation\u2019s history. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I cannot agree more. I do think it\u2019s about those little victories and how students connect the present to the past. I want to ask you two final questions. The first one is one you always ask your students. You ask them, \u201cIf there is one thing that all of their professors could know about them, what would it be?\u201d I\u2019m wondering if you had any answers that really stood out to you or were kind of exemplary of what you were going for there. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s an episode I did with a young woman named Alexis. We were talking about race in the classroom. From the perspective of a student who doesn\u2019t get involved with protests, I think that\u2019s the critical massive students. Most of our students will not chain themselves to a bridge. Most of our students will not buy a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. We forget about those students who are trying to carry out a political identity that applies to them. I asked her, \u201cWhat do you wish professors understood?\u201d She said, \u201cWhen I enter a classroom, I\u2019m coming as a black woman. If you could just acknowledge that, I\u2019d be more open to learning. Even if it\u2019s a math class, if it\u2019s a way of acknowledge that I am who I am, then I can do the learning.\u201d I thought this was really helpful. Sometimes students surprise and say, \u201cI would just like to express my gratitude for all the things that my professors have done for me.\u201d I think that\u2019s great. A lot of students express, \u201cI wish you knew how much I cared and sometimes I can\u2019t express it. Sometimes I can\u2019t. It doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not engaged.\u201d I did a talk with a student who wants to be a TV writer and she said, \u201cI wish that professors understand what all students have going on in their lives. It\u2019s not that we don\u2019t care. It\u2019s just that we have so much.\u201d I think that, in talking to students about the complexities of the life that they have when they get to college, it\u2019s also a nice reminder for professors to remember that they are in a evolutionary process, similar to the process that we had to go through. If we understand that, perhaps we can be more accommodating, not just in the amount of reading or assignments, but even in the approach of what learning is going to do for them. I love that part of the show because I learn so much. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That resonated with me because I often tell my students, \u201cLook, college is about making priorities. My class doesn\u2019t have to be your first priority. You just have to acknowledge that it\u2019s there and you\u2019re making choices. I\u2019m not going to be personally offended by these choices. You just have to own them.\u201d So, if your students could know one thing about you, what would that thing be?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Marcia Chatelain<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: I would say how grateful I am for them. I don\u2019t think students realize just how much they do for me just by being themselves and telling me things. The ways that I think about it, especially now, are how my husband and I just moved onto campus in faculty and residents. So when we made this choice, everyone was like, \u201cOh my gosh, you\u2019re going to live in a dorm with kids. It\u2019s going to be awful for your work\/life balance and what about your privacy?\u201d and it has caused no problems. The students are respectful. I feel like it\u2019s better for my work\/life balance, because when I\u2019m at home, I\u2019m at home and when I\u2019m at work, I\u2019m at work. I don\u2019t think I could express what it means to be part of a community with them. After the election, I was incredibly depressed, incredibly anxious, and incredibly disappointed because I saw the rise of the form of extremism that I often told students we move away from. It might shift, it might change, but we chipped away at this edifest and to see it rise with such clarity was heartbreaking. There is no other way to say it. I was heartbroken after the election. To be able to be in community with my students and to see them when I\u2019 m throwing out my trash or to see them on the way to my car or just to know that our home is a place for them, I feel like it has saved me so many times. I think that it\u2019s a really hard thing to explain to them that their presence has made all the difference in a very, very difficult time. Me and my husband are also in the process of adopting children. I think that when you\u2019re an adoptive parent, just because of the curriculum requirements, you\u2019re forced to think so much about parenting in a way that perhaps, other families don\u2019t feel like they have to have an answer to because no one asks them explicitly. There\u2019s no social worker asking them questions. In thinking about making the choice to have children, my only reference point is my students about what happens after 18 years of great parenting and wonderful support like who they become. In many ways, they help me make a very personal decision just by being such a great example of what\u2019s possible. I think that it\u2019s just so hard to express to my students just how grateful I am to have them for helping me shape so many personal and professional decisions that I\u2019ve made.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dr. Elizabeth Manley<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Well, from everything that I\u2019ve from your podcast and talking to you, I think a lot of that does certainly come through in your commitment to them. I am going to keep listening to the podcasts and telling people about it, my students as well. I think they would really benefit. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download Conversation #58 A conversation with Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University on connecting with students. Dr. Marcia Chatelain, previously on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma's Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College, researches a wide array of issues in African-American history. Dr. Chatelain writes and teaches about African-American migration, women's and girls' <a href=\"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-58\/\" class=\"more-link\">...continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \"Conversation #58: Marcia Chatelain on Connecting with Students\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[304],"class_list":{"0":"post-10632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-podcast","8":"tag-students","9":"h-entry","10":"hentry","11":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1920%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82MQk-2Lu","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10350,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-51\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":0},"title":"Conversation #51: Maureen Powers on Student Life","author":"Bart Everson","date":"November 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #51 A conversation with Dr. Maureen Powers on student life. Dr. Maureen H. Powers is a respected international speaker on risk reduction\/management, diversity and inclusion, student issues, retention, safety, and legal and international issues in higher education. She has delivered influential presentations on student safety, FERPA, diversity and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10124,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-47\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":1},"title":"Conversation #47: Anne McCall on the Future of HBCUs","author":"Bart Everson","date":"September 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #47 A conversation with Dr. Anne McCall, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Xavier University of Louisiana, on the future of HBCUs. Prior to coming to Xavier, Dr. McCall served as Dean of the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at Binghamton University, New York\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":691,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":2},"title":"Conversation #12: Reading Across the Curriculum","author":"Bart Everson","date":"May 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #12 A conversation with Dr. Alice S. Horning of Oakland University on teaching, learning, and reading. We really need to help students with reading in every subject. It's not just for English teachers; it's not just writing teachers; it's not just in composition classes. It's in history and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11672,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/making-new-orleans-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":3},"title":"Making New Orleans Home","author":"Jeremy Tuman","date":"February 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"New Orleans celebrates its 300th year as a city in 2018, and as part of the festivities, Xavier history professor Dr. Sharlene Senegal DeCuir is leading her Freshman Seminar class in a special service-learning project. Part of the city's planned activities for the tricentennial includes a four-day symposium called \"Making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"New Orleans\"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/tag\/new-orleans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-LOGO-FILE.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-LOGO-FILE.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-LOGO-FILE.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10593,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-57\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":4},"title":"Conversation #57: Kim Vaz-Deville on Core Curriculum Enhancement","author":"Bart Everson","date":"February 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #57 A conversation with Kim Vaz-Deville of Xavier's College of Arts & Sciences on enhancing the core curriculum. Kim Marie Vaz, Ph.D., LPC, received her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees from Tulane University and her doctorate in educational psychology from Indiana University in Bloomington. Currently, she is a professor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/background-313415.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9437,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-42\/","url_meta":{"origin":10632,"position":5},"title":"Conversation #42: Marybeth Gasman on HBCUs","author":"Bart Everson","date":"March 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #42 A conversation with Dr. Marybeth Gasman of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education on teaching, learning, and HBCUs. Dr. Gasman's areas of expertise include the history of American higher education, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), minority serving institutions, African American leadership, and fundraising and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10632"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10656,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632\/revisions\/10656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}