Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 561 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Disability is Human, The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life with Stephanie w Cauthen.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. Author Dr. Stephanie Cawthon draws from upon more than twenty five years of experience as a professional educator and groundbreaking researcher to dispel myths and raise expectations about disabled people. In disability is human, she brings the same energy and insights from her popular presentations and workshops to nearly every industry where doctor Cawthon has empowered, encouraged, and supported thousands of people in their journey toward greater access. With relatable stories, real world examples, personal experiences, and actionable tips, Disability is Human is a breakthrough book.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:40]:

Stephanie Cawthon, I am so pleased to be welcoming you to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:01:45]:

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Really appreciate it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:48]:

And we are not alone as of this recording. Would you please introduce the other people who are joining us today?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:01:56]:

Yes. We have two interpreters. We have Amanda Ford and Audrey McCann, and they are here to make sure everyone has access, including myself, to this podcast interview.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:06]:

Wonderful. And I know that part of your work involves dispelling myths. And before we dive too much more into that topic of today’s relevance, would you take us back to when you were younger, a myth that you believed as a child or some kind of misunderstanding that you had as a young person?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:02:27]:

So, you know, I received your question, and as at the time of this recording, the fires in Los Angeles are are still raging. And I grew up in Northern California and was there for the Oakland Hills fire, the firestorm in 1991. And the thing that stood out to me at the time was that they their sort of ground zero for protection was the Clermont Hotel, this big, huge, white, enormous hotel, beautiful old building. And when we first moved to California, I thought that was the White House. We had moved from Canada. I did not know that Washington, DC wasn’t where we were moving to. I was about seven years old. And so the early days of living in California, I thought that was the White House, and president Reagan was in office at the time.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:03:11]:

And I always always say, when are we going to go visit president Reagan? And so, you know, the memories of that building, first, not understanding just how big The United States was and where the capital was, but also the significance of that building in in sort of the the the time of what is it that we protect in the time of fires and crisis. And then just thinking about, all those people who have lost their home. I lost my family home in in the fire in ’91, and it’s just been a very sort of fresh memory. So I don’t know if it’s a myth, but it’s definitely is an icon in my my mindset of what what was that building. To me, it was where the president lived. And so, it took a while for me to learn that wasn’t where Reagan was every day.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:52]:

So how old were you when you lost your family home?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:03:56]:

18.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:57]:

A pivotal time in your life for sure. I mean, I don’t know if that there’s a good time to lose your family home, but just thinking about becoming an adult and what that must have meant to you, that loss at the time. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. I was chuckling a little bit to myself remembering being a similar age. And we I grew up in Oceanside, and so we drive up to where Disneyland is. And at the time, there was there’s a still it’s still there today, but there’s a amusement park ride called the Matterhorn. And I would look at that mountain from the freeway, and I remember so vividly, it just seemed like an enormous mountain.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:38]:

And today, occasionally, we will take our children. We live closer to Disneyland now, and we will take our children there. And it it looks like the size of a house, not the size of, you know, a huge mountain. So our our perceptions can be so different as children and how we take things in. And then looking back on them, I can imagine this Claremont Hotel. Well, I always love the privilege and the honor that it is to get to read people’s books, and I’m particularly intrigued by what shows up in the dedications. Can you tell us about the beloved Karura and how they have earned a place in your heart?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:05:18]:

Oh, for sure. So I had a bucket list trip last year. I turned 50, and I went to New Zealand and went to the Southern island where the little blue penguins have a colony. And the Korora name is the name of the Maori name for little blue penguins. And so we went to go visit them and spent both Christmas Eve and Christmas day at night watching them come into shore, watching them come home from their day fishing. And I had been watching them on the livestream for a year, watching them hatch their chicks, watching them preen endlessly, watching them come and go. And so I just they’re they’re brave. They are delightful.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:06:00]:

I mean, they sort of hunch over. They’re sort of like this their body is sort of hunched over, and they kind of, like, awkwardly go up the hill. And I am not a graceful person physically, and so I felt like those were my little little soulmates just trying to get home every day. And they live in community. They’re very loud. They’re they’re just delightful. Delightful. So, yeah, at the time I was writing this book was the time that of that trip, and I just I felt like those those penguins are my people.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:06:27]:

But so and they are endangered and they are under threat, and I just care so much about them. And I just that’s that was a a a moment of delight and joy seeing them in their natural habitat just being in who they are and how rare we get to see that for the creatures that are, you know, so far away from us here in The US.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:46]:

You quote Yvonne Peter’s memoir in your book, quote, when you focus on someone’s disability, you overlook their abilities, beauty, and uniqueness. Once you learn to accept and love them for who they are, you subconsciously learn to love yourself unconditionally. Tell us about ableism that some of us may miss in our everyday lives.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:07:15]:

For sure. I think that quote really assumes a negative stance towards disability. So it’s it’s like seeing only the things that you feel are deficits. And so when I’m when I’m using that quote in my setup for how do we notice things in the world, it’s it’s also thinking about our emotional register and our emotional response to when we see things that are disabilities in in whatever capacity they are. I do think that there is I mean, we’ll talk about higher education since that’s the context we’re in. I think that there is still a sense of surprise when a request is made for some kind of modification or some sort of, like, can I have extra time? It feels like a burden to us as faculty, and that is something I don’t know how to improve that other than to to encourage people not to be so surprised because there the the percent of people with a disability at any given time is is so high even if we don’t know about it or there’s not an official letter that, you know, an an ask to to have a human response to a person who is asking for some support navigating what is not a not a very flexible environment sometimes. You know? I think that we have sort of a sense of how time is used, how tasks are graded, how assessments are given. Like, we we get into a rhythm, but I think we also get into a rut about what is it that what is it that it means to prove that you know something or to prove that you’ve you’ve done the work or you prove that you’ve gotten tenure or, you know, it’s at all levels of the system.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:08:52]:

It’s not just students. And so the ableism that comes in, just to answer your question more directly, is this assumption that what we’re doing is the best way to do it. And that if we have to be flexible or we have to think about things in even just the smallest different way, that we’re somehow it’s costing us. And it’s it’s it’s not. Like, to me, this idea that accommodations and accessibility is coming at some cost to the abled is is to me, it’s it’s a false pretense because we all have disability at some point or another even if not right now. And it’s just it it it’s a very time bound thing. And so I think that that that to me is where ableism sneaks in is that we think that our experience defines everyone else’s experience. And, well, I didn’t need it.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:09:40]:

You know, one of those things. And it’s just kinda it it it is a is it is a moment when people kinda say, oh, this is better for everyone, including myself, including the people I care about that may not be letting me know that it’s not accessible for them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:55]:

Thank you. And tell us what it means to construct meaning with, not for.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:10:03]:

So that idea comes from what we call helper syndrome. So, you know, often when we see someone with a disability or a disabled person and our first instinct is, let me tell you how we can make this work better or or I will decide what accessibility means and looks like. I’m the gatekeeper. I being the person by power. And what has been lacking, but it’s also being pointed out more and more, is that the disabled people need to be part of the decision process. Most of our systems are non empowering, I will say. You request and you receive. The request is not a collaborative experience.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:10:42]:

It’s not a lesson form and learn from each other. It’s a you ask. It’s a transaction. You ask, I will give. And that’s a power dynamic that doesn’t provide disabled people with decision making opportunities, which ultimately makes them dependent on someone else to to learn what advocacy means. And that that for our young people can be extremely challenging. And so when I say construct meaning with and not for, it’s the idea of accommodations in and of themselves are are great, but if the disabled person isn’t somehow involved in the steps along the way of understanding what’s the best fit, you’re gonna lose something. And you might lose more than you’re you really realize.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:11:23]:

You know, you might lose the opportunity to understand how the learning experience could be more accessible for everyone. You could lose the understanding of it’s not one size fits all. So for example, today, I’m voicing. Typically, I would be signing. And the reason I’m voicing is because I sprained my hand. And I don’t want everyone to be struggling and the our deaf audience trying to figure out what my hands are doing, and so I’ve opted to voice today. That was a game time decision. We made that decision ten minutes before we came on the air.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:11:57]:

I have the the opportunity to make that choice. But if someone said to me, you can only use access supports in this way, I would be stuck. We wouldn’t be able to do this recording today, or it wouldn’t be as well as it could be. So I really think having sort of, like, these spaces where the people using and and thinking about access have some choice. You get to choose who your interpreters are and when and how you use them. It’s not about micromanaging that process.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:26]:

I I will admit, and it’s I’m gonna cringe here for the those of you that are listening only on audio. This is me cringing. I I sometimes know that that helper syndrome can be within me, and I think sometimes our path forward is through naming things. And I just wanted to share a quick LinkedIn story that, Stephanie, you’re familiar with, but, of course, our listeners won’t be until I share it. And then I know you have a LinkedIn story to share from your book as well. So, I in terms of I think what I struggle with is that I don’t want the other person who may need some sort of accommodation for me to be learning from them. I don’t I don’t need them to be my teacher on something super basic. Like, I had not done a lot of video recording on Zoom.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:16]:

It just isn’t something that comes up a lot of my work. And when I have done it, I’ll mess it up. So I’d be like, I thought I was recording both people’s faces, and then it turns out that I had it completely wrong or I mean, I just know I had had a lot of failures. I didn’t wanna waste your time. And so I I I thought, well, I could go out onto my network on LinkedIn, and I could just ask people. Is does anybody have a tip or somewhere to send me? So that because I haven’t had a deaf interpreter, an ASL interpreter on Zoom, and I gotta get this right. I put a lot of pressure in a good way. I I knew this would be a welcome challenge and a way to expand the work that I do and my sense of mission in in this work.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:56]:

So I put up there, does anyone have a resource that you might recommend? And it just kind of made me laugh, but also, like, no. This is not what I was hoping would happen. Someone tagged you, and I’m sure the person I don’t remember who it was. I’m not at all trying to dismiss whoever it was. They were trying to be helpful. I didn’t state in my thing. I am trying to do this myself so that I don’t ask my guests to do what is a really basic thing, technologically speaking. I just wondered if anyone had done this before and has any, like, they don’t tell you this in the documentation, but don’t forget to push this button or, you know, whatever someone who’s done something like this might have been able to teach me, but it did make me chuckle a little bit.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:37]:

So getting to my question for you, though, what would you advise to people who may, much to our dismay, slip into helper syndrome for us to be able to separate in our minds a little bit more what’s more helper syndrome and what is more truly trying to equip ourselves and not asking people to teach us things that they shouldn’t be expected to teach us. We should do our own research and figure figure that stuff out on our own. I’m not sure if I’m asking a very good question here, but any wisdom that you have for us on this.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:15:11]:

I’m laughing because anyone who takes that amount of time and care is certainly not suffering from helper syndrome, but that’s that’s not the challenge in that situation. No. And I do know the name of the person who tagged me, and and I won’t name her either, but she would she laughed on her. She sent me a message directly. I was like, I’m sorry. I’m like, fine. You didn’t know it was me. And so I think, you know, the concept of helper syndrome comes from a place of again, you’ll hear me talking about emotions because I think that is really what drives a lot of our behavior.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:15:42]:

Okay? And so I think helper syndrome, there’s some fear involved, you know, of disability. There’s some distancing involved. Like, you’re trying to create a safe boundary between you and that other person. It is often dismissive, like, kinda patronizing, like, I know better than you. That happens a lot is the I know better than you. I didn’t get that sense when when you or other people are doing research to try to figure out how to solve a real problem. I can’t tell you how many of these things I’ve done. And I get an email a week later saying, oops.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:16:14]:

Sorry. It didn’t work because it’s tough. This is not. Access is not built into our video recording systems well. I’ve rarely seen it work. And so, you know, there are different strategies and things to help, but going and doing that work is actually helpful for me because there’s less time on my hands trying to figure things out. Because I don’t necessarily know Zoom’s ins and outs. I don’t necessarily know what the technology of each person’s platform is, and nor do I need I don’t need that responsibility.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:16:42]:

And so I I do think that meeting people halfway is is the goal. Mhmm. Learning from folks, like, what are your preferences? That’s why I have that sort of green room page on my website that is a little long, but it’s also like, yeah. It depends. What kind of meeting are we having? Am I on a stage? Is it on Zoom? You know, these are the questions I’m asking myself and ask people to ask when I’m coming to be a speaker in a space. But I did that because I kept getting a lot of questions. And so, like, let me put at least a starting point up there. And I think that’s really you know, as as those of us with a disability kind of evolve, grow, and mature, we wanna help people answer their own questions as much as we can and and help motivate partnership.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:17:27]:

And I think that’s you know, you’ve given a wonderful example of what partnership looks like. Yeah. So that that is that is the opposite of helpless syndrome, I’ll just say.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:37]:

Yes. So I know you have your own LinkedIn story, which I was very intrigued by. I could picture I mean, I say you start the story just saying, my finger was hovered over the send button. Tell us about the story from LinkedIn about your finger just waiting to decide. Should you hit send on the message and then tell us what happened next?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:17:56]:

So I think, you know, within the Ally, we talk about being an Ally a lot in different spaces, and we often talk about calling in versus calling out. So calling in is taking a conversation into a direct message or private space. If you see something that’s like, you know, have you it may be not as sensitive as it could be. Like, have you considered this? Have you thought about this? Calling out is doing it in a public space. And social media, if you’ve got comments, it’s public. People can see it. And so I typically go to the first space where if if I’m in a place where I could send someone a direct message, I I will, and say, hey. Have you considered this? I saw this in your post.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:18:36]:

Have you considered this alternate point of view? It happens frequently. Very rarely and on this one time, I thought, you know, I think this is a teaching moment, and this is relates to teaching as well. When do you have teaching moments in a public space, in a classroom, in a meeting where you’re like, okay. I feel like I could frame this in a way that is both encouraging to the person that I’m trying to communicate directly with, but also it it’s sort of for the public good as well. And in this case, this content creator was advocating for sending direct message videos and saying just sent it. And the phrase that they used was, don’t bother with captions. That’s too polished. And I kinda winced.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:19:20]:

And this is before we had sort of the more advanced speech to text capacities in our LinkedIn app. And I went and I thought to myself, it when someone sends me a video without captions, I can’t access it, and I I’m a little kind of ticked. You know? I because it folks who know me would know, but also just this assumption that any video you send me without captions is gonna be accessible. Like, I feel like that that’s a bottom line thing that I’m trying to help change people’s assumptions of what is and what isn’t accessible, around captions especially. And so I I typed out a I thought very sort of trying to be generous. I tried to be generous and say, have you considered those of us who can’t access your direct message video as much as we would love to unless you have captions, at least somewhat automatic. You know, the AI stuff is good. It’s not great, but it’s okay.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:20:11]:

Could you could you think about how you messaged that? And I thought, oh, great. This guy has tens and hundreds of thousands of followers. I’m gonna get I’m gonna get slammed for this comment. And so that’s why I was hovering. And this person was so generous in her response and said thank you for bringing that up. I didn’t even think of that, which is true for almost everything. What I see in access is people don’t even think of it. And that’s fine.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:20:36]:

And I’m not here to judge, but I am here to encourage and and to give people some food for thought. And he absolutely embraced that. And then I switched it to DMs and, like, god. I was terrified to do that. I really did not want to do that. And so we ended up having a really good conversation. But, yeah, that was my first kind of public encouragement of access in a way that was directed to an individual and not just a sort of post for the world.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:01]:

Another thing that came up in the after after after was other people started sharing, and it sounded like gently sharing, calling calling in to the conversation just, hey. Gosh. There’s all these other ways in which captions can be helpful beyond the exact instance being risen, and just once again a reminder of the unexpected benefits to being more, inclusive with our accessibility. So talk to us about some guidance about how when we’re trying something new and inviting feedback, and then what’s often going to come up as a human emotion, those for those of us that are inviting that kind of feedback.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:21:44]:

Interesting question. I do think that asking for feedback from a smaller group than a larger group, like, in the beginning is helpful. It could be you might start with folks you know and then branch out to people you don’t know. One of the things that we learned I’ve I’ve worked in a number of student faculty collaborative projects where disabled students are giving feedback to faculty about their teaching. And a couple of things are really important to make that feel better for both parties. The first, that student could not be in their class at the time. It could not be somebody who needs to get a grade, who’s trying to impress or somehow, you know, there’s a power dynamic there that that is not constructive for giving and receiving feedback. So making sure that there is some neutrality in that relationship and also that the person receiving feedback, if they are at a peep place of power, are able to step back from that and that there’s structure in place to do that.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:22:43]:

And a lot of the work that I’ve done over the last few years is looking at how do you do that within higher ed. I think a second place in asking for feedback is that it’s not a one off, that there is kind of a regular cadence of communication where you don’t have to necessarily know each other, but the cold call feedback is really rare. And so I think that there is a sense of, you know, even if it’s, again, in higher ed context over the course of a semester or some kind of relationship already built and understanding of what they’re trying to achieve is already in place before you say give me feedback on this thing. And so that creates a safety net for everyone because there’s a shared knowledge base of what is it that we’re trying to achieve and where are the places where I’ve actually I’m not sure? And that leads to the third thing is that, you know, there may be some standard questions that everyone needs feedback on, but the the person receiving the feedback has some choice as to what is it they want feedback on and what is it they don’t. Like, you might say, I know you might wanna tell me about my website design. I need to leave that alone because I can’t really respond to feedback on that right now. That that’s not today’s mindset. I need feedback on the copy or I need feedback on how this lecture went or how the assignment how the assessment really captured what it is you can know and do.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:24:03]:

And so I think allowing a person who’s receiving feedback some specificity in what what will be actionable. No. Because if you receive a whole bunch of feedback and you can’t do anything about it, that just makes you feel bad. And so it’s like giving giving people feed a place to have feedback on things they do actually have resources, time, and agency to respond to. I think that helps everyone. And then the last thing I will say is that if you do receive feedback and you are able to make changes, letting the person who gave you feedback know that you’ve followed through. Mhmm. Because oftentimes, and this is true for a lot of disabled folks, is they give advice, so they give in you know, information about accessibility, and then nothing ever happens, and there’s no communication, and it’s just a waste of time.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:24:47]:

And nobody wants to feel like their time is wasted. It’s because that’s a that’s a you’re giving out of generosity and experience. And to have that just go to nothing, it feels very token. And so that’s that’s that’s an icky feeling that we’re trying to reduce.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:01]:

As of our conversation today, we are in I think it’s our second week of the semester. I have no sense of time anymore, but that’s my that’s my best guess. And so it’s still some of these people, they are meeting me for the first time, and I feel so free that that all of my years of mistakes and failures, at least I’ve gotten one thing to be pretty much a default setting for me these days, and that is to assume the best of others. So when I get questions like this isn’t working, you know, I I can’t see the there’s a a setting in our learning management system where students can give each other feedback, peer fear feedback. So when they email me and say it’s not working, I think in my my less experienced days, I would have thought, oh, they’re just trying to get out of the assignment. It’s due in one hour. You know, that it that I would have had a a less than pleasant default setting. The good news for all of us is that I didn’t express that default setting, but I do believe we express those default settings even when we don’t realize it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:06]:

But I don’t have horror stories of allowing that to be written down in any way or or communicated directly, overtly to students. But all this to say, I assume that they want to learn. I assume that they would like to participate in that process, and I assume that there must be something that isn’t working right. But the second thing that I’m hearing you say is that we have to communicate our intent back. So I really am excited about helping working with you to get this figured out so that you can participate, and that’s been an important kind of transparency. I was gonna say one one last thing before I ask my final question in this segment, and and that is that I was thinking as you were sharing, our daughter was telling a story about something bad that had happened to her at school last night. And I thought and I’m gonna have to find this reference because whoever it was mentioned three things that we could offer, but I could only remember two of the three last night when I was talking with her. And I said, are you interested in, you know, some feedback or kind of wrestling with this problem together, or did you just want me to listen? I just want you to listen.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:19]:

But actually, really, what I want is to watch Extreme Home Makeover together. Can we do that? I thought how wonderful. But sometimes that desire to fix or that desire to help that we spoke about earlier, sometimes someone just wants to be listened to. And in the final thing that you left us with, when we close that loop and we say, I heard you, and this is what I have done. It’s just such a wonderful, wonderful thing to show that you’ve been listened to, whether that’s through action or just through kindness and empathy. So before we get to the recommendations segment, one final question, And that is, what do you want to tell educators specifically about the work we can do towards seeing disability as human in our teaching?

Stephanie Cawthon [00:28:08]:

So I think thank you so much. First of all, I just wanna share that I’m just so grateful to have this chance to talk to you. That it’s it’s it’s really it really touches my heart, so thank you very much. I think, you know, as educators and in higher ed especially, we are playing a important role in the lives of young people and sometimes not so young people. And that, you know, we’re not a parent, we’re not a family member, but we are, you know, a potential place of helping people along their journey. And what we’ve noticed and what I’ve noticed is that when and it’s kind of like what you were talking about. When you make those assumptions about people, you know, they really carry the rest of your actions. And so what I was really trying to do in this book is is help us make understand our assumptions about disability, understand our assumptions about accessibility, and what is what is the next little step for us as an individual, but also for the groups that we are involved with.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:29:06]:

So that can be our department faculty. That can be an institution’s accessibility’s office. It can be a lot of different things, but that we don’t do this alone. And so I think that one of the things that I really wanna encourage people is as you think about disability as part of the human condition and something that it does historically have a negative stigma and often does today, You know, and our students feel that shame. They feel it deeply. When we interview students and they talk about what it’s been like for them to go through the transition from high school to college or go to a tech training program, And when you when you ask them, so where were the places where it it felt really hard? They said, often, it was just the attitudes. It’s not the specific accommodation necessarily or even the need for one. It was the implicit sense that I am less than or I am not I’m gonna have to work twice as hard to show you that I am worthy of your grade.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:30:06]:

And that that hit home when I started reading those interviews because those are some of the stories that I remember growing up. Like, that that idea that we have to work as much twice as much, three times as much to be seen as accepted because the assumption is we are less than. And so that, I think, is something we can do something about because that that’s that’s that’s a mindset shift. That is not a class you take. That is not a special training. That’s just a a reflective moment either individually or as a group. And so that’s, you know, the book and and the workbook is really because I’m an educator, applying ideas doesn’t just happen when you’re sitting there thinking deep thoughts. And so a lot of the active learning things that I know that we know are good for students are also good for for people who are teaching or or leading in some way.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:30:53]:

And so the work that with the book is both for reflection, but also how do we, as as our groups, as our faculty, as our leaders, try to apply some of these things in a practical way. So that’s that’s why the workbook came to being. I was almost done with the book, and I realized that I needed a how to, and it needed its own space. So that’s where the workbook came from. Lesson plans, all the things that we love.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:15]:

I so appreciate the way that you phrase that too, and you said the words, it’s the next little step. And we can just get frozen when it feels so enormous, but it’s the next little step. That that if we just focus on that and that we’re not alone, what a beautiful way to end this part of the conversations. This is the time in which we each get to share our recommendations. And I wanted to share a recommendation that does have to do with Stephanie, and it came in my delightful preparation for today’s conversation. I encourage you to visit Stephanie’s website just in general, learn about her book, learn about her speaking. But there’s a section of her website I’d really like you to go take a look at, and it’s it’s partway down on the page. It says, Stephanie, the mentor, a lifelong role.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:07]:

Stephanie’s commitment to being a mentor goes beyond advising students within their undergraduate and graduate programs. She considers it her personal responsibility to create opportunity, promote success, and raise the rigor of their work and accomplishments. Under her mentorship, they learn how to think deeply, collaborate effectively, solve complex problems, and embrace differences and allyship. And I was so intrigued by this. I visit a lot of websites because preparing for more than a decade of every week airing an episode, I’ve seen a lot of people’s websites. And I have seen some websites where they might introduce people who have worked in a lab, and I’m very curious and interested by that to see the people who work in the lab today and then the people who work in the lab before. This is the first time I can recall hearing these stories of mentorship expressed in quite this way, and I found myself being quite moved both by Stephanie’s legacy and all of these individuals that she has mentored, but I also found myself reflecting what would my section of my website look like if I had cultivated this kind of communication, this these kinds of storytelling efforts, and all these faces starting started to come to my mind. I found myself being very emotional in a good way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:36]:

And so I guess my recommendation, yes, go and look and see the example of mentorship that Stephanie is for all of us. But I also encourage you to reflect on what your own mentoring story might look like and consider writing a note of encouragement or or similarly reaching out to a former student and and just letting them know, making that tangible, naming what that relationship has meant to you as they go and they grow in their influence, their careers, what whatever it is that you regard them highly for. I know they would wanna hear about that, and I was just picturing the people that Stephanie has listed on her website and all those ongoing intersections in their lives and their and their stories. It was really a beautiful thing to see. So now I will pass it over to you, Stephanie, for whatever you’d like to recommend.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:34:27]:

Oh, thank you so much for that. I was just thinking, you know, those those stories continue to evolve, and and one of the things on my twenty twenty five to do list is to update them because those those people have moved jobs and achieved different things and become, you know, more full people. And so I’m looking forward to doing that this year. My book recommendation is a book by, Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering. That one has had a significant impact on how I think about community and community building through better meetings. I I don’t know if if you’re like me or if other people are like me. I I probably have hours and hours of meeting a week. And, good meetings lift you up and bad meetings drain you a lot.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:35:13]:

And so I’ve really taken inspiration from Priya Parker’s book in understanding how do we intentionally structure our gatherings as a professional and in the classroom and out of the classroom. And I’ll never be a Priya Parker event planner. She is amazing. I I can’t even imagine what it would be like, what a blessing it would be to attend her events. But I try to do my best to make sure that when I can do something intentionally to make meetings, Zoom meetings or in person, feel like you belong there and feel like you not just got something out of it, but that it it lifted you up and and helps you move forward, both in terms of I now know what I need to do next, which is a really important outcome of a meeting. I can do what I need to do next, and I feel great about doing what I need to do next. Like, those, again, that sort of I I mentioned emotions a lot, but it’s that integrated sense of who I am in this space is is all those things. And so, yeah, her book really got me I read it a while ago, but it keeps coming up.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:36:16]:

So that’s why I’m recommending it today.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:18]:

I read it a while ago too, and I so it always comes back to and I’ll probably get her words wrong, but that purpose should be our bouncer, you know, that if we shouldn’t have the event if it’s not clearly designed toward a given aim. That’s stayed with me all this time. Yeah. It’s so wonderful. Well, doctor Stephanie Cough Coughlin, I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be connected with you, to read your book, to be familiar with your work, and, what a joy to have this conversation with you today.

Stephanie Cawthon [00:36:48]:

Yeah. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you to our interpreters for making this accessible for all of us.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:52]:

Yes. Thank you. Absolutely, Amanda and Audrey. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks once again to Stephanie Cawthon for joining me for today’s episode. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroger.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:14]:

Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve been listening for a while and haven’t signed up for the weekly update, I encourage you to head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes, show notes, as well as some other goodies that don’t show up in the show notes. And thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.