We are indeed (back) in Dangerous Times.
The danger primarily targets our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color colleagues, our Queer and Trans* colleagues, our undocumented and immigrant colleagues, our disabled colleagues, our colleagues who are all of the above. The silence and surrender of our institutions shows us–the people who make up our professional community–that we can only survive if we survive together.
BIPOC faculty have always lived under threat of exclusion, whether informal or structural. In this study, there is a concurrent trend of disappointment and pain as a result of the ELOP segment of academia; and a sense of potential and beauty in individuals and small moments, a commitment to public education, and a feeling that leadership runs in and through all of us.
Leading is a practice. A practice is a set of actions that are repeated until they are expert and unremarkable. Leading is a practice that is required of all of us in our own capacities. Leading adaptively and expertly takes empathy, imagination, love.
If this Art Immersion Experience, catalog, or research-creation as a methodology have inspired you to take some action or look into the topic, here we share: a) discussion and reflection questions that can be considered individually or with your departments; b) creative-ish ideas for getting started, whether you are trying things in your own teaching and leadership or considering an art-ish outlet for yourself; and c) articles and other resources.
Discussion Questions
- How often do your colleagues go beyond knowing challenges in your work and personal life to actually doing or offering something supportive?
- Do you feel held and cared for at work? Where or by whom? Is feeling held something you would never expect from work? Why or why not? Do you wonder what “feeling held” even means?
- Does your department, college, or institutional leadership model the use of structures and collective for care? How or how not? Why or why not?
- What actions do you feel safe engaging to influence conversations about tenure expectations, scholarship definitions, mentoring, and teaching/service loads?
- How are you interconnected and interdependent with your colleagues?
- How often do you learn the histories of your university’s land, our ELOP field’s resistance to change and inclusion, or the current challenges of non-dominant, minoritized faculty?
- If you are part of one or more of those “minoritized” groups, how often or consistently do you learn about other groups’ histories and our shared struggles for freedom and humanity?
- What work schedules or deadlines impinge on the structure of your time and internal capacity?
- Whom do you feel responsible for? Whom are you accountable to? Why or why not?
- Who feels responsible for or accountable to you?
Creative Activities to Get Started
Note: No one on the research teams is affiliated with the two organizations below. These are useful compilations of common exercises and activities in the visual arts and theater arts. There are so many more! Feel free to adapt them!
- The Art of Education: 5 Visionary Games for Art Students of Any Age
- Drama Notebook: Drama Games and Theater Activities, especially the sections “Ensemble Building” and “Creativity & Imagination”
- Take a walk around the block and take photos or audio record things that catch your notice. Watch the changing light or listen for unexpected wildlife. Share your photos with someone in the office.
Research and Resources
- Anzaldúa, G. (2015). Flights of the imagination: Rereading/rewriting realities. In A. L. Keating (Ed.), Light in the dark/luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting identity, spirituality, reality (pp. 23–46). Duke University Press.
- Bloom, S. L. (2000). Creating sanctuary: Healing from systematic abuses of power. Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal for Therapeutic and Supportive Organizations, 21(2), 67–91.
- Boveda, M., & Bhattacharya, K. (2019). Love as De/Colonial Onto-Epistemology: A Post-Oppositional Approach to Contextualized Research Ethics. The Urban Review, 51(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-018-00493-z
- Brosi, G., & hooks, b. (2012). The Beloved Community: A Conversation between bell hooks and George Brosi. Appalachian Heritage, 40(4), 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1353/aph.2012.0109
- Byrne-Jiménez, M. C., & Yoon, I. H. (2019). Leadership as an Act of Love: Leading in Dangerous Times. Frontiers in Education, 3, Article 117. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00117
- Ginwright, S. A. (2015). Radically Healing Black Lives: A Love Note to Justice. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2015(148), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.20151
- Haga, K. (2020). Healing resistance: A radically different response to harm. Parallax Press.
- Hersey, T. (2022). Rest is resistance: A manifesto. Little, Brown Spark.
- hooks, b. (2001). All about love: New visions. HarperPerennial.
- Loveless, N. (2019). How to make art at the end of the world: A manifesto for research-creation. Duke University Press.
- Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Vintage Books.
- Venet, A. S. (2024). Becoming an everyday changemaker: Healing and justice at school. Routledge.
Do you have other ideas or resources?