Bonni: [00:00:00] Dr. Carl Moore and I have a dialogue about proactive inclusivity on today’s Teaching in Higher Ed episode number 102.

Production Credit: [00:00:11] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:20] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:48] Hello this is Bonni Stachowiak and I’m happy to be welcoming to the show today, Dr. Carl Moore. He is an associate professor and Director of the Research Academy for Integrated Learning at the University of DC. Prior to his current role he served as an adjunct assistant professor in the College of Education as well as the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Temple University.

Bonni: [00:01:16] Carl earned a Doctorate of Education in Urban Education from Temple University and a Master’s of Arts from the Ohio State University in Higher Education Administrator. He’s been teaching for over 12 years and has created and instructed a variety of courses in education at Temple Cabrini College and Arcadia University in both Face-To-Face an online formats.

Bonni: [00:01:41] I’m super excited to be talking to him for lots of reasons but he’s a self-described social justice advocate and techie. How does it get any better than that? Carl’s passions lie in the research and development of programs related to inclusion and technology in higher education. Carl, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Carl: [00:02:02] Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction. I’m humbled every time I hear my stuff introduced in any capacity other than hey here’s this this guy.

Bonni: [00:02:10] Here’s this guy.

Carl: [00:02:10] I appreicate that.

Bonni: [00:02:12] Well the thing that I’m going to talk about today the broad theme is going to be Proactive Inclusively which was a subject that is not talked about very often at least not on too deep of a level sometimes when we do these broad brushes but we don’t really dig in. So today I’m just excited to get to have a real candid conversation where I just feel so comfortable talking to you and asking you questions that maybe I might feel hesitant and so just thank you for your time today being on the show.

Carl: [00:02:39] Oh yeah. And thank you for the opportunity. Definitely.

Bonni: [00:02:41] Let’s start right out with your identity. Tell me about your identity.

Carl: [00:02:47] Yeah If I were doing like my diversity including work. You know we have our exercises where I am you know a heterosexual African-American male uncool scholar educator techie. You know all these subgroups actually see where else. Yeah. I think those are some of the you know in terms of my you know social groups and sub groups that I kind of would say that I’m a part of you know American. So those are some aspects of my identity. Would you like me to go into a little more depth with those or you know that’s kind of like hey I can write those down on paper for activity but what depth would you like.

Bonni: [00:03:27] Oh I definitely definitely want to talk a lot more about it. There’s one that’s missing that I think I saw on your bio about your choice of what you what you eat.

Carl: [00:03:38] Oh yes. I’m a vegetarian or you know as I now days I try to say I eat vegetarian because there’s usually there may maybe the vegetarian police around. So if you happen to be eating fish or something. You know my weakness is you know like a you know what do you call it like a chicken you know case or something like that every once in awhile. And some will say hey you’re eating that. You’re not supposed that I’m like where did you come from veggie police so I am a vegetarian but I like no boxes or labels. I like to eat vegetarian.

Carl: [00:04:09] But yes you’re correct in that I did miss miss that.

Bonni: [00:04:15] Which one of the things that you have listed seems maybe either to you or to people that you meet may be the most incongruent or the most surprising.

Carl: [00:04:25] Mm. Interesting. You know what’s interesting about the vegetarian thing I think that may be surprising. Like if you know me for a little while it makes sense because you know sometimes I’m caught you know or referred to it just jokingly by my friends. Oh you’re a hippie you like your tree hugger you hug the earth.

Bonni: [00:04:43] And why do you think it’s important. With all the work that you’ve done on diversity and inclusion Why is it important for us to be aware of these various aspects of our identities.

Carl: [00:04:53] Yeah I think awareness is critical. One. I mean there are so many reasons I won’t say them any specific order but there are so many layers to us and they all inform not only how people may perceive us at that moment. Right. So the lens that other individuals have towards you but our lives so the world so an external lens and then one folks looking towards you.

Carl: [00:05:14] But you know they impact or whether it be internalized impressions that we may have with ourselves being a part of any you know group or socializing or any kind of way where we think this is how I have to be to be authentic within this group. Like for example me as a male you know what I have to do to be authentic. And it might not even be where anyone is like sitting around telling me that. But I may have seen it in Disney movies or something.

Carl: [00:05:38] Two. You know other aspects that we have to really know. And I think I guess I’ll say for for lack of being super long one that it’s kind of like you know health class or at least I learned health class. That’s a better self-esteem that you have the more likely you are to be able to appreciate others and what they’re going through in terms of like you know emotional wellness or what have you. So I think it connects all of those all those layers. And there’s so much with that.

Bonni: [00:06:02] One of the things that has come up gosh over many years about all the way back in college I took classes like black history and had Dean Martin Luther King Jr. hanging on there in my dorm room wall in the hall and really enjoyed standing there either about the civil rights movement the one of the things that really seems to have been changing that. I’ve known some students have mentioned being uncomfortable about is what do we refer to people of that ethnicity as an I have always used African-American but then have sometimes been told no we prefer black. I once referred to a man from France as an African. What were some of the background around what I would call African American.

Carl: [00:06:46] You’ve asked the right person that call that question please bring me back to censor if I you know from off the axis a little bit here. So I would say that the direct answer is that when we’re talking about you know a black person we’re referring to you know race right when we’re talking about African. We’re including like an ethnicity or you know you know in a place of origin with that right.

Carl: [00:07:12] So in different times in this country you know there’s different cycles referring to ourselves as well at least for myself right referring to myself as an African-American. So I classify myself as saying that I come from I recognize and recognizing the diaspora and I come from a long lineage of African people. And I have African roots or roots in Africa. Right.

Carl: [00:07:34] So what’s interesting about that is like the African-American I’m not just American I’m African-American but then I also see that there are arguments on either side that says that when you hyphenate you you I don’t know that the word is dilute but you actually associate yourself with the American and the few African-Americans want to be included included so much.

Carl: [00:07:53] Why do you have the hyphen it etc. but when we’re talking about a legacy of a people who has been you know in some way systematically and you know depending upon person’s argument or historically marginalized or pushed to the margins because you know whoever wins the war tells the story right or whoever is in control controls the narrative. Then you are you know faced with a situation where folks want to reclaim that identity in a very prolific ways right. You know and say hey I’m African-American. So to recognize that and to try to counter some of that oppression.

Carl: [00:08:25] So then the black piece is this is skin color right. And you know and as social construction because some folks in certain parts of the globe may not refer to themselves as black or even white. It’s just more of a you know newer kind of Western thing and your differences may be more so if once a religious or affiliation or group with that you know in terms of how it is otherwise. So it’s funny that you mention your one colleague or what have you you say African-American so person from the Caribbean. They may refer to themselves as black and I don’t speak for all Caribbeans I just know in terms of friends that I’ve had.

Carl: [00:08:58] But some of my friends say no we’re you know we may understand black and connects Africa but we do not associate ourselves with African-Americans because we’re not just kind of like a person of European descent or heritage in America. Not really associating themselves with someone from France is like Hey we’re both you know we have white skin and you know everything like that uplift or European and we know you have real pure roots and we have European roots because we’re in France but we’re not both of the same. So we have a different history and a history a different historical context in which we see ourselves so that kind of as some of the conversation around that.

Carl: [00:09:36] But I really want to circle back to the when you have marginalization of culture through history you know through colonization and domination in history and things of that sort of just the way things the natural order of the way things worked out in a certain part of history that is towed. It’s really important for some Africans of the Diaspora or folks who have that lineage or at least from their skin tone it seems as if they have that lineage. They would say oh African-American is it that’s really contentious I don’t know if there is ever a point in time where everyone is going to agree on that. You know there’s so many layers to that piece there.

Bonni: [00:10:10] One of the things that comes up a lot with my students is this idea of a false idea but this idea that it is possible or maybe even ideal if we could achieve it which I don’t think we ever could of being colorblind. And that’s where you see a lot of oh I’m not racist you know I’m colorblind and all of that.

Carl: [00:10:31] I’m sorry to laugh because I don’t. My biggest thing is no matter what my opinions and thoughts are I never want them to be. And we have to be. Well I guess I’ll say I’m really cost of this. I never want to see my hey my thoughts are superior because I’m so relative and so open minded that my open mindedness makes me judge everyone who’s. See what I’m saying and listen to the same issue. But so I do apologize for laughing but what I’ll say is I’ll give you a metaphor or something in some ways it could be looked at is let’s be colorblind so then you wouldn’t say a garden and you saw all different flowers of a different color of different colors.

Carl: [00:11:07] That doesn’t have much in them in my opinion. It’s much beauty and it’s different many different elements as you know a society to or a garden that has different variation in the color piece isn’t in my opinion the issue and I think that we have to be colorblind in some ways. Some people feel like they have to be like they don’t know any other way to be. The issue is and what is done with being different. Right. If it’s spirit or if it should be oppressed or what the narrative is behind that or the institutional factors et cetera.

Carl: [00:11:38] So I mean I do understand that I think that people in terms of a person’s race or any developed man and there are so many different models and things like you know court right now but that there are stages in which a person can really truly honestly feel and in such a way. But I do think that there’s something to be said about honoring and respecting the difference and it’s a hard thing to juggle right. How do you do that while not doing that. It’s a hard thing to juggle sometimes for folks.

Bonni: [00:12:05] One of the things that’s been so helpful for me in attempting to do what little I can in this area is thinking of cultural competence as a continuum because if I just think of it you either have it or you don’t. I’m going to really first of all it’s going to be assuming that I have it if that’s the lens that I use in assessing other people. And then of course I have it and you don’t or what have you but also to recognize that you sort of eluded to this in how you were sharing about that sort of idea of we could actually be colorblind as a path along the way to someone’s development into becoming more culturally competent.

Bonni: [00:12:45] What ways does being an African-American man mean you can contribute things that I can’t as a as a Caucasian woman and what ways doesn’t maybe hold you back from sometimes you wish you could influence a certain way but you just find that you’re not able to?

Carl: [00:13:00] Because of I’m an African-American male. What I bring to the conversation when I walk into the room is already something of difference because of the perception that others have of me right. So I may be confirming this debunking myths. You know there’s always so many different layers. There may be trust that’s there. But of course on the other side of the coin there may be the you know alternative. All of those aspects and me being able to speak to any of the topics through my lens right?

Carl: [00:13:30] My positionality being someone who I feel as if I’m more so acculturated than assimilated in translation. I have a strong sense of ethnic identity but also a strong sense of identity with the mainstream majority of being American as well which gives me the entry into understanding some aspects of my American ass. But then also my Lind’s of saying hey this is from at least from Karros you know upbringing and experience as an African American. This is how I view this through all those layers and I think that that’s something that’s pretty powerful and it goes beyond hey let’s just hire someone just because of their skin color.

Carl: [00:14:08] But if all things are equal it sometimes brings in that other extra added layer that you may not have otherwise because you know that’s kind of like a frog can only describe to me what it feels like to oarfish to swim right. But I mean unless I’m a fish I don’t know that you know so. But on the alternate side of things I think where it limits me more could limit me or hurt or restrict me wouldn’t be as it relates to. There are certain preconceived notions that a person may have about me because of my position now whether it be male or even like being a seemingly younger male in higher age if I was an older male I think it changes a little bit.

Carl: [00:14:46] They might think oh who is he to teach me or it may kind of make me not as credible have to try twice as hard or seen as if I could be gotten over one more. And all those different layers just because of who I am. And I think that that’s where it when the other side of things that may actually you know work could work a little against me. And then also my lens the lens in which I see things right and and I’m very aware of this being raised.

Carl: [00:15:10] And you know we didn’t talk about class or anything like that specifically. But being raised as an African-American male from a certain upbringing in a certain class group within America doesn’t lend me as easy access to certain you know you know ways of understanding the world or experiences and their language. There’s language in things that you know may have been learned later because of my education that you know just wasn’t a part of my life and it doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence. But some people equate those two as intelligence unfortunately. So those are all different ways in which I think it can impact how learners see me or you know or you know in different settings.

Bonni: [00:15:50] I want to talk a bit about proactive inclusiveness but let’s start with just the second half of it. What do you consider inclusivity and especially in the classroom.

Carl: [00:16:00] What I consider inclusivity that and I have you know it’s interesting you say practical inclusive be proactive inclusive go hand-in-hand. For me it’s like they’re they’re linked.

Bonni: [00:16:10] I can’t separate them. OK.

Carl: [00:16:13] Yeah. So it’s kind of yeah because to be inclusive versus a paradigm right it needs to be present. It’s a paradigm from which a person operates in the form of capacities base. Right. What’s around them. You know with the other otherness whether really any really any aspect of social identity or what have you and it doesn’t mean just race or hey we’re talking about accessibility now. It’s like actually that is where it becomes more important to have more prolific efforts and you know more more powerful efforts and only because of the systematic oppression and factors.

Carl: [00:16:54] So for example in any classroom inclusively or price of inclusivity is realizing that before you even walked to this classroom that that classroom was built with four walls or how many ever was. And it was built with chairs in certain areas and by default it’s not going to meet the needs of the most diverse range of learners. It’s a it’s a given. So there’s that kind of male sense there.

Bonni: [00:17:18] Mhm. I want you to think back to all your years of teaching to a moment that you would like to celebrate where it’s just a memory that you have where you really fostered inclusively and had something worth reflecting on today and celebrating today. Tell me about that memory.

Carl: [00:17:37] I don’t know if this really fits. But one time was when in teaching youth cultures at Temple University as an undergraduate course it counts as a general education requirement. It satisfies one of their like you know racial diversity requirements. And I feel so great I felt so great teaching a class in the class because the students walk in especially this day and age I thought this within the past five years they walk in thinking that their color blindness. And sometimes you know a I listen to music I listen to hip hop and I listen to a little bit of that.

Carl: [00:18:09] So at the end of the course through the curriculum and having them do I have them do a cultural immersion experience where they actually would go into an area you know that they didn’t and that was most unfamiliar to them and kind of taking a majority of their internalized oppression some of their aspects.

Carl: [00:18:24] And at the end of it we were able to all come together and not see everyone’s different you know project from that person’s lens through the lens of the entire class. So it was it was inclusive to be a world view and thought and that those moments were so powerful for me because when the students left realizing like I recognize that people are different in how they look but and what they are interested in but I recognize that some people just think this way. They grew in their intellectual ability to not necessarily agree with Appreciate perspective take. I mean wow. So in promoting that is just so powerful for me and so for me promoting and passivity. I think that. I think I promoted inclusive of diversity of thought which is something that we don’t even know it’s not even spoken about as much which is it like an invisible diversity like people have these different lenses that they see the world from.

Bonni: [00:19:18] I can hear you just reflecting on how positive that was how good that must have felt that you could move everyone along the continuum this amazing this next one may not bring up the fondest of moments but I’d love it if you’d be willing to share the opposite a time when maybe it was due to a lack of proactiveness Or maybe it just emerged some time where you felt that inclusivity was harmed in some way and one of your classes that you maybe today you take lessons from and try to do things different.

Carl: [00:19:50] Well you know and this actually connects and this way I can factor both of them in. I used to do this this experiment where I would sit in the front of my class and maybe other people do this I don’t know if I’d borrowed it and where I would sit in front of my class and in a sweat suit like I was sitting in my class like a sweat suit and a hoodie on the first day of class I would stand up you know after like five minutes.

Carl: [00:20:11] But then when I got up in front of the class and say I’m professor say people looked at me like what. Because you know me with a hoodie on of the black male kind of seem as if I’m not supposed to be in front of the class given the messages that you know folks receive in terms of they wouldn’t see me as like them.

Carl: [00:20:28] The moment this was my first time doing it and actually was like confirming what it was like and it hurts so good. And one of my my hypothesis about why someone said get out of here you’re not our teacher. I’m like wow this is really where we still are you know in a in a and everyone starts laughing I laugh with them. There was not the pain that you would think you know from such a story but it was just when you think about it it’s kind of like. Yeah that’s kind of where we are. And although it’s understood I think that that’s one of the very tangible memories that I have.

Bonni: [00:21:01] This is the time in the show where we each are going to give recommendations. And I actually in do two that are related to what we talked about today. One is there was a Chronicle article that either came out today or I just heard of today and it’s the title of it is “How the Teacher’s Race Affects the Teaching of Race”. And they show notes will be at teachinginhighered.com/102 And if anyone wants to read that article I think it was a really wonderful conversation that happened between a an Indian woman and a Caucasian man and them just talking about their experiences with race in the classroom is very apropos for today’s conversation.

Bonni: [00:21:40] And then another one is in my business ethics class that I teach once a year. One of the things that we talk about is diversity specifically it’s a lot more in the area of human resources and in the business context there’s a great podcast episode that’s part of the series called Startup and Startup is the chronicling of the startup of a podcast company that was started by Alex Bloomberg. And in this episode Alex brings in three different people of color that work for his predominantly white organization. And he talks to them about their experiences working there. And it is so fun. I mean they’re journalists so there’s this natural tendency toward openness. And he’s a very discerning. Yeah he’s a disarming man. So to hear him he’ll just ask really good questions and they seem very candid with him about their experience and they really challenge him in some ways of how he needs to get better especially as the company were to grow one of the women really says hey if you still look like today in terms of the higher management in you know two years from now if we have this many more employees that’s not going to be a good thing. And it’s just it’s a neat conversation because it’s not one of huge bitterness but still a candor that is important to being just having a more inclusive workforce. I liked that a lot.

Bonni: [00:23:04] And then my last recommendation has absolutely nothing to do with this or ethnicity but I did want to mention it. I have talked about before on the show using a references manager called Zotero and I heard about in wordpress that you can install an ad in the add in is what I’m recommending today it’s called ZotPress. And if you install ZotPress on your wordpress site you’re able to access your Zotero library and use citations from within your Zotero library. Create a bibliography for a blog post you had written so on and so forth. And I thought it was going to be way too hard to install I thought oh this might be beyond my capabilities and it was actually quite easy and I had it up and running and super excited to be able to utilize that on my blog posts in the future. How’s that.

Carl: [00:23:52] Oh. Beautiful.

Bonni: [00:23:53] So Car what do you have to commend today.

Carl: [00:23:56] That’s three I have to give 3 now.

Bonni: [00:23:59] You can And you’re welcome to. The floor is yours.

Carl: [00:24:02] I was thinking to myself Bonni I’m like I have to write these down but of course I can get them from you afterwards. So there are so many things I can say. There’s so many books so we’ll have a I have an opportunity to link to some stuff on this so I won’t say any right now you know. And then I’m like Darn it what I will get is a suggestion of an activity and an app recommendation as well.

Carl: [00:24:23] Well activity I would say and if we are back to our conversation and inclusively in the classroom so I wanted to think of something to recommend it will really bring it home for everyone or that we’re really connected. For me a lot of this ties into and I don’t want to sound too. Well our chowders or whatever people refer to that. But I think it comes down to really an orientation to a collective of loving bother’s and being open to others. But I think that that some time is limited by awareness of self and mindfulness and being able to be in the present and just really be distressed because there is a lot of a lot of that oppression and those aspects happen when barriers are put up because of our life.

Carl: [00:24:58] So what I would recommend is an activity and it’s just 60 seconds a day when we wake up and it’s a progressive body scanning. So what I’ll do is out a wake up I’d close just kind of wiggle your toes. Take inventory of every part of your body every limb even your organs. And that’s pretty much it. Just being fully present in oneself and others many other mindfulness or contemplative I guess I would say contemplative practices that we can do to continue to grow our own personal and emotional wellness because I think sometimes that’s the missing ingredient when discussing aspects of inclusion the worst of all other stuff. We have a bunch of hurt people trying to save or alleviate issues of hurt but it’s like we’re still hurt. So that helps with that. And to that end there is.

Carl: [00:25:44] And after that I would recommend for those of you who are interested in the contemplative movement or anything of the sort or isn’t caught inside time or what is really cool. You can meditate meditate. Folks from around the globe and you can set an alarm for yourself every day that you are able to meditate at a certain time. I think it’s been really helpful for me to be able to not only deal with some of the you know aspects of inclusion or barriers but even create more inclusive measures of myself as an instructor or just having my mind at ease and at peace. So those will be my two recommendations for today.

Bonni: [00:26:21] Thank you so much for those. And we’ll make sure and add any books that you want to include in the Schmitt’s at teachinginhighered.com/102. And Karl thank you so much for your openness to having conversations like this and for your contribution to today’s episode.

Carl: [00:26:37] Thank you. Peace and Blessings to you and I really do appreciate the opportunity to share with you so. Thanks again.

Bonni: [00:26:43] To you as well, Carl. Thanks once again to Dr. Carl Moore for joining me for today’s conversation and thanks to all of you for listening. A reminder is that if you haven’t yet given the show a review on iTunes or whatever service it is you use to listen to the show. You’re holding people back from being able to join the community. It would be great if you could do that. And that helps more people discover the show.

Bonni: [00:27:09] And also if you want to check out the show notes make a comment for a car that’s available at teachinginhighered.com/102. And lastly if you aren’t subscribed yet to the weekly e-mail that comes out that will get you the show notes right into your e-mail box along with an article about teaching or productivity on most weeks. You can do that at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for being a part of the teaching in higher ed community. And I’ll see you next time.

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