Oral History Program Adrienne Gillespie Andrews Interviewed by Cami Sabin 4 April 2016 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Adrienne Gillespie Andrews Interviewed by Cami Sabin 4 April 2016 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Andrews, Adrienne Gillespie, an oral history by Cami Sabin, 4 April 2016, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Adrienne Andrews 4 April 2016 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Adrienne Gillespie Andrews. It is being conducted on April 4, 2016, at Weber State University, conducted by Cami Sabin. Adrienne discusses her life and experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. CS: My name is Cami Sabin, and I am interviewing Adrienne Andrews. She is the Chief Diversity Officer at Weber State University. Today is Monday, April 4, 2016, and it is approximately 8:30 in the morning. It is 8:40. So we will get started. Okay. First of all, Adrienne can you - AA: Am I looking at you, or am I looking at the camera? CS: You can look wherever you want to. AA: Okay. CS: Wherever is more comfortable. So please start by telling me about your background. AA: Well, I am a Utah native. I was born and raised in Davis County, in Layton, and had what for me was a very typical childhood. As we grow up, we sort of think that the experiences that we have are sort of the experiences that everyone has. The unique aspect, of course, is that as a black person growing up in Utah, in East Layton at the time, there weren't a lot of people who looked like me, and I just sort of thought, well, I guess that happens for some people, that people all around them don't always reflect who they see as themselves. But also during that time growing up, I had an incredible family life. Two older sisters, I had two parents in my home, and access to loads of grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. And so I had a lot of strong family support in that way. And I 1 suppose that all of those experiences directly tie to the work I do today because of my extended family, and my Grandfather Gillespie in particular. His name was actually James Harding Gillespie Sr. - my dad is Jr. - and he came to Utah with the military in the 40s, 1940s, and was with the Ogden Defense Depot. He was military police. He came here from Starksville, Mississippi. And he met my grandmother, who was an Ogden High School student and former cheerleader. And they got married and had a couple of kids. And when he was sort of ending his military career, people thought he would go back to Mississippi. And he decided to stay in Utah because he felt that it was important for there to be black people in Utah, and to build community and connections in Utah. That marriage did not last, and so he married another woman who I call Honey, and her name was Betty Berliner Gillespie. And she also was an Ogden High School graduate. And, and they had three more children. My grandfather and my grandmother had four children. He and Betty had three more children. But I guess the, the key point of the story is he stayed in Utah because he felt like he had a responsibility to educate people and raise awareness about cultural differences, and in particular about black people being active, engaged members of the community. He lived here for the rest of his life. He served as the president of the Ogden NAACP for more than 30 years, and really sort of shaped a lot of social justice efforts in Northern Utah. And because he was my grandfather and we got to see him regularly, he shaped how I saw the world, and 2 what I saw as my responsibility for doing social justice work. And that's from the time I was a kid all the way to today and into the foreseeable future. Even as a kid, social justice issues - and I wouldn't have known that that's what they were called at the time - but issues of equality or equity were really important to me as a kid. And standing up for other people's rights was very important to me as a child. And sharing information was important to me. In elementary school I helped to start the school newspaper at Sarah Jane Adams Elementary, because I thought we needed to share information. And I was always working with students who maybe were experiencing some learning challenges, because I was a very engaged student who had to work hard - it didn't all come easily, but a lot of stuff did come easily to me in terms of academics. And so I always felt like I needed to support people who were maybe struggling a little bit more, because there were people who helped me with my struggles. CS: So tell me about your education. You said you started, helped to start the newspaper at Sarah Jane Adams. I love that. What else did you do? AA: Well I started out at E.M. Whitesides, and then my parents, who were living in Layton, and then they moved to East Layton, and changed elementary schools. At least I did. My sisters were four and six years older than I am, so they were already in junior high and going into high school at that time. But I went to E.M. Whitesides, then to Sarah Jane Adams, North Layton Junior High, and then to Layton High School. And my academic experiences were all really, for the most part terrific, in that my parents felt education was a priority in our home. It was 3 not a question of, would you go to college? The question was, where would you go to college? It wasn't, would you pursue a graduate degree? It was, what would you pursue your graduate degree in? And that was sort of the culture of my house, and so I assumed that was the culture everyone experienced, and was a little bit more surprised when I had a lot of friends who were like, hmm, not sure what they were going to do after high school, or maybe didn't see finishing college as a priority. And so I became a very aggressive advocate of education and talking about how when we receive or complete our education, it creates opportunities for us. And the more education we receive, in general, the more doors are opened to us, the more opportunities exist. And helping people match that to where their interests are. And even today, I encounter students who will say, well, you know, I want to design video games, which is terrific, right? But I don't need to go to college for that. So maybe you don't need to go to college for that, but here's what happens when you do go to college and say, get a degree in computer science or graphic design, or multi-media arts, or a combination therein. You start opening more doors, and making the pathway for you to start doing the sort of design that you want much easier and accessible. And you have specialized skill sets that you would not have if you didn't get that education. And so it can go from anything from something like that to people thinking that maybe they don't have the tools they need to be successful in school, and helping them figure out maybe where some of those gaps are and how to fill those gaps so that they can 4 go on to be really engaged and retain the college students and complete their education. I went to college early. I actually graduated high school after my sophomore year at Layton High School, and went to the University of Utah. And I had very much thought that I would go to college out of state. So I did early college pretty much before early college was cool. And, but I thought I would go out of state. And so I first went to the University of Utah in the summer, sort of as a get my feet wet in the college experience. And I had such an incredible time with faculty who were engaging, and I was in smaller classes for that institution. The U had even the early 90s, very large classes. But for that summer at least, my classes were all probably less than 30 students, which was actually smaller than most of the classes I'd had in high school, even having taken advanced placement and honors throughout junior high and high school, the classes were really big in the late 80s going through Davis County schools. So I had what felt like smaller classes and professors who were very engaged and interested, and liked to challenge you. I was a student who liked to ask questions and to challenge. And so it was a really good experience, and at the end of that summer I thought, I don't want to go somewhere else. I don't want to go back East, which is where I thought I would go. I want to actually stay here. And so I did. And I studied political science as my first undergraduate degree. And I completed minors in Spanish and ethnic studies. And during that time period I studied abroad and lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico. And I probably learned more about diversity living 5 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, than I had anywhere else in my life. And it was because, since I grew up in Utah and knew that experience, and didn't have anything to compare it to, I just saw diversity in a very different way. When I moved to Mexico and lived with a family and went to school and was a part of a community, it really felt like what it was to be not a part of the majority population, in a different way. Because it wasn't my norm, you know. I had grown up in Utah. Utah was what was familiar to me. And even though I didn't grow up LDS, I knew LDS history, culture, ideology. And so all of those things sort of existed in my world. But having moved to Mexico, there were not a lot of people like me, but there also weren't a lot of people like the people I'd grown up with. And so we were dealing with Mexican people, for the most part, in this community. We were dealing with a different language as the primary language. We were dealing with kind of cultural observances that were different. Initially when I moved to Mexico, I thought, I really like this country, because they celebrate everything. There were always celebrations happening. And, but the interesting piece is that people tried really hard to educate you on what those celebrations were about. Not that we don't try to do that here, but it was a different experience, because it wasn't what I had grown up with. And I had to, I had to put new eyes on, and you know, kind of refocus my lenses to understand the world I was living in versus the world I had come from. And so it was a pretty powerful experience. CS: That’s neat. AA: And then—I’ve got a lot of education, so feel free to cut me off. 6 CS: No, go right ahead. AA: After I graduated college at 19 with my bachelor’s degree—actually before I graduated, I went to Washington D.C. and did an internship at the U.S. Supreme Court. I did that through the Hinckley Institute of Politics. I really had a spectacular time living in D.C. and meeting the justices and meeting lots of different people and getting to know the history of the court. Which for me, was really powerful because at that time, I was getting acceptance letters to law school. That’s where I thought I would, go to law school. I would come back and be a clerk at the Supreme Court, you know, maybe clerk for a federal judge, get some really incredible job doing social justice work. I was interested in public interest law, so really supporting people who didn’t have access to really strong legal representation. I thought that would be the path that I would go on. Clearly, at the end of the day, it is not the path that I went on. I actually ended up going to the University of Denver College of Law in Colorado and I hated it. And you know, I there had never been a point in my life—maybe I had not liked a class—but I had never hated an educational experience. And that first year was pretty rough. I was 19, it was announced that I was 19. I was the youngest law student on campus. That created some really poor dynamics for me in terms of being able to create friendships. People saw me as the person who was going to wreck the curve. So I was never in any study groups. I was kind of like, pushed out an excluded from those things. It was really a sad two years. I struggled. I struggled with the content. I struggled 7 with not having friends. Denver is a pretty exciting city and I didn’t get to know any of that. At the end of almost two years, I just said, “I can’t do this anymore because it is literally killing me.” So I called my parents in the middle of the night and said, “What would you say if I wanted to come home?” And they’re pretty fantastic people and my dad had answered. He said, “Buy a ticket, you come home all the time.” I said, “No, what if I wanted to drop out of law school and come home.” He said, “Then I’ll be there Saturday with the truck and you’ll come home.” And that, for me, was a really big deal because I always felt like I needed to work harder and to really be high achiever and that I was letting down my family. They were actually really relieved because they knew how upset and unhappy I was. But I had a lot of people who came to me on-on-one and said, “You know, you’re destroying your parents. This is like the worst thing that you could do.” And, “How dare you? You have a Chancellors Scholarship to law school and you’re throwing your life away.” That was really hard for me. I wasn’t sure it was the first time in my life I didn’t know what was next. I had a very big master plan for my life and this put big hole in that plan. I just had the fortune of having a really great family who was supportive and understanding when I came home, and gave me space, and said, “You know, you’ve never had a break. You should go to Europe and backpack across Europe.” Or, “You know, you should get some job that is not challenging at all, that will allow you to just have some money and do what you want to do, but not 8 be stressed.” And of course, that was so not me at all. I was like, “Oh no, I have to get a good job.” And then I realized that I really loved school. I just didn’t love law school. I needed to sort of reconfigure what my life would look like in terms of my future. So I took a very short break, maybe three months. I went to Chicago and visited a cousin for what started out as two weeks and ended up being two months. Then I went to the Amazon with my parents. That’s where I decided, “You know? I really miss school. I just don’t miss law school.” So I went back to the U and got a second bachelor’s in Women’s Studies and at the same time, I started working in the governor’s office for the Utah Governor’s Commission for Women and Families. Which was a perfect match and because I had a political science background it was like worlds colliding in all the best ways. And when I was wrapping up that degree—which I completed in a year. I decided on a whim that I would apply to graduate school in Minnesota. At a place called Minnesota State University-Mankato. At the time, it was called Mankato State University. They had a Women’s Studies master’s program that was very well regarded and ranked. So I applied to go to school there and didn’t tell anybody, and I got in. Because I had applied very late, they had a presession course for student in their program. And my parents had been out of the country and I picked them up and I said to my dad, “So what are you doing in two weeks?” He said, “I don’t think anything special.” I said, “Do you think you can get a couple of days off of work?” 9 He said, “Well sure, Why? What’s going on?” I said, “Well, I’m moving to Minnesota to go to graduate school.” Which created all kinds of chaos because my family felt they had just gotten me back and I was very happy, and you know, back in school, and things were really good. That was big move, but I made it. I did a master’s in women’s studies there and I completed it in one year, which was kind of crazy. I saw that because it was a two-year program and I did the entire program in one year. Which included 54 hours of academic credit. I did comprehensive exams. I wrote my paper and defended it and did an internship with the Minnesota League of Women Voters, all from late July to June window. But it was amazing. The wonderful thing about that program, I started thinking critically about the intersections of race and gender. I had thought a little bit about that in my undergraduate program for women’s studies, but I really got the theoretical framework for thinking about what those intersections mean to how we operate in society. And how there are many intersections at which we operate. Not just race and gender, but sexuality, class, ability or disability. All of those sorts of things. And so I finished there and the immediately got my dad back in the car and drove to New Jersey to Rutgers—the state university of New Jersey—to start another program there in political science, focusing on women in politics. And that was another adventure where I started doing one thing and ended up in the New Jersey secretary of state’s office working as a staff associate as a favor and then became the director of the New Jersey Center for Youth Policy and 10 Programs for the state. That was also really incredible—created all kinds of chaos in my graduate life, and… CS: So at this point you must have been, what, mid 20’s? AA: So by the time I got to Rutgers, I think I was 23. CS: So not even mid 20’s, still early. AA: No, still early 20’s. And so I was at Rutgers and doing full-time graduate work. Started sort of as an intern/filling in for somebody on a medical leave, and when they came back they slid me into an associate staff position. Which meant that I could do any of the things that they needed me to do. So I worked on a variety of projects that on the outside looked like they had no connection, but they all sort fo fit. So at the time, the governor of New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman. The secretary of state I worked for three different secretaries of state, but the one I spent the greatest amount of time with was DeForest Soaries. So I helped with boards and commission appointments. I helped with community conversations, with volunteer organization, and then the creation of the Center for Youth Policy and Programs, CYPP. And we did a 21-county crusade for youth, where we got the governor and the secretary of state and other cabinet members to basically go out to every county and have road shows about youth empowerment. I had a million-dollar budget that I gave away to young people to do program in their community against violence, vandalism, and victimization. And so I did all these really cool things, at the same time I was a graduate student, which you know, has its risks. One of them was a health risk, which was, I just never stopped running. So I literally had a physical collapse where I 11 had no adrenaline left. I couldn’t do anything. We thought, “Okay, give it a month of rest and I can get back on my horse and maybe not gallop as fast.” But a month turned into two months, turned into six months, turned into five years. The State of New Jersey was amazing. They held my job for over two years because I finally had to resign my position. At that point, I actually was on disability and it was not thought that I would make a recover at all. That was very hard for me to go from being a person who was academically driven, socially drive, etc. I was always involved in projects in my community or wherever I was. I was always interested in trying to improve community relationships between people. To suddenly not be able to do any of that—to go from really kind of operating at warp speed, to you know, zero—not be able to drive a car. Not be able to go to the bathroom by myself. And literally have to have people provide round-the-clock care for me was really devastating. My parents actually had to come to New Jersey to take care of me and then reached a point, at sort of the two-month window where the doctors were all like, “We don’t even understand why her systems are failing, but they are. We are trying to do these things, but her body is not responding.” So they brought me home to Utah—and again, I’m very fortunate to have some exceptional parents. They brought me home, and I was just kind of a sad case for a very long time because I couldn’t do anything. A part of the medical illnesses I was facing was a thing called brain fog, which if you had ever asked me—I’m sure anybody watching this is like, brain fog, that sounds so made up. 12 But literally huge chunks of my memory were gone. Like knowing that you’ve done something, but really having no recollection of having done it. For me, one of the hardest things was, I remember that when I moved home, I had boxes and boxes of books. I had taken some books out of a box and I was looking at them. I was thinking, “Oh this should be an interesting book.” I opened it and I had read it. I had notes in the margins and I had highlighted passages. But none of it was familiar to me. It was absolutely devastating to me to go from having this very engaged mind and connecting information, to, “Clearly, I’ve read this book. I’ve got notes. I have a paper outline that goes with this book.” But it’s as if that happened for somebody else. It was a really hard time. There was about five years where I was really sick and couldn’t do much of anything. Then I had a heart attack at 30 years old—and we joke and say that it was the reboot of the hard drive. I had the heart attack in November of 2004—November 10, 2004 and on February 23, 2005, I started working at Weber and I’ve been here ever since. CS: Wow, and I saw on your online profile that you just finished a mediation degree at the U as well? AA: So after I came and got back to work and everybody told me, “Just be better.” I had tons of people say, “you’re one of the few people who nobody would be mad if you stayed on social security and just tried to have an okay life.” I remember the entire time I was sick saying to myself, “This is not the end for me.” Pretty much people were saying, sort of, “This is the end for you. This is kind of as good as it’s going to get.” Because I wasn’t improving. I wasn’t getting worst, 13 but I wasn’t improving. I could maybe drive a car four years in from my parent’s house to Barnes & Noble, but sometimes I would get too tired—once I was there and somebody would have to come out to get me and get the car because I’d be too tired to drive home. And so people were sort of like, “Just sort of be well and roll with it.” I’m like, “No, that’s not me. I know that I will overcome this.” If there’s anything that I can say about myself, it’s that even though I’m not always the best at policing my limits, I’m aware that I can come back and I did come back. Not without issues, of course, but I did come back. Weber was perfect because I came into a ¾ position, working in Services for Women Students at the time. Once I was involved in that office, it reminded me of how much I missed school. I was very interested in conflict resolution and mediation and so I applied to a program at the U and got involved in it. Which was crazy because my family was like, “You’re just getting back to work.” And, “Why are you going to school?” And, “This is too much.” But I did that program. It was a year program where I learned so much about how to work with people and how to listen to people and how to try and build consensus and problem solve. It really was transformative. I think I finished in 2006. But again, you can only go so long without getting more education when you’re in an educational setting and so even right now, I am at the University of Utah working in the Education, culture and Society doctoral program. So the goal is to finish it, but the goal is also not to kill myself, so we’re going to see how this goes. CS: Not in a year. 14 AA: Exactly, exactly. CS: Okay, what would you say are your core values? And how have they influenced your leadership? AA: My core values are probably consensus building, lifelong learning, and relationships. Relationships are probably my primary core value. Whether you’re looking at it from a family, extended family, friends, community perspective, my world is very much about relationships. I really like to know, “Cami, I really like to know about you.” Right? So people that I work with or connect with—I don’t’ just want to say, “Hi, how are you doing?” I actually want to know what’s going on. In part, that’s because I’m a connector. So you tell me you’re passionate about, I don’t know, tell me something you’re passionate about. CS: Well primarily, my family. AA: Okay. CS: But a hobby that I like a lot and I have a little side business is cake decorating. AA: Excellent. So you tell me you’re passionate about cake decorating. Well, it might be three months from now, but I hear about somebody who is having a party and they want to have different cakes, or somebody wants to do a cake walk—There’s something about cakes. I'm going to say, "Oh, my friend Cami loves to make cakes. We need to connect with her because I know she loves it, and here's an opportunity." Right? This is something you need, this is something she loves, here is an opportunity. Relationships are very important to me, and I try to do that all the time. I appreciate it when people do it for me, and they've 15 done it for me many, many times. It has changed my life experience—so definitely relationships. With consensus building, when I was young, I was very headstrong, and I liked to believe that I had the answers. The older that I've grown, the more I realize that there are many answers to the same question, and that it depends on the context and other circumstances that are at play. I try and seek more input, more dialog, more listening, even though I'm talking like a Gatling gun. But I try to find ways to maybe balance the table. So if we're in a room and we're dealing with an issue, I'm going to try and say, "What are all of the different ways we can approach this?” Or, “Are there different responses to this?” Nothing is off the table and I really open up the dialog. Then, I try to find a way to weave the themes that seem to consistently come up, weave them together in a way that nobody is left behind. So, “You're idea was bad, we're not even going to go there.” Instead, trying to figure out what’s the kernel that can connect these pieces together so that everybody is on-board—and sort of seek that sort of consensus. I do a lot of that work with Ogden City and the tech college—and of course the university and our nonprofit agencies and community partners in trying to improve diversity in conversations and connections in Ogden. It’s something that I really enjoy doing because usually there is a way for us to all get what we want or to work together in ways that move us all forward. It just takes a little longer and there’s a little bit more heavy lifting involved. So that kind of consensus is 16 critical to me as well. So I said relationships and consensus building, and now I forgot what my third one was. CS: Lifelong learning. AA: Oh, lifelong learning. Well, hello, right? CS: Which you’ve talked about quite a bit. AA: Exactly. There’s always more. That’s another piece about consensus building for me—and relationships—is people are always teaching you. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. There’s always more to learn and always more to understand. I always have more questions. So apparently, I’m going to be in school for forever. CS: As long as you work here. AA: At least. CS: You’ll be in school, right? AA: That’s right. CS: Okay, name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Why had now did they impact you generally and then speak a little more specifically towards leadership? AA: So I’ve mentioned my Grandfather Gillespie. He was a social justice civil rights activist in this community. I just saw him in that light—it tickles me that one of the people who shaped me is somebody that he mentored. Dr. Forrest Crawford in the Teacher Education Program Department is a faculty member there. He actually came to Utah from Oklahoma and somebody told him he should meet 17 my grandpa. They would go have fried green tomatoes together and they connected. My grandfather mentored him. When I came to Weber, he connected with me and began to mentor me and help me think about different ways to ask questions about student support and student retention. Different ways to figure out how to make sure that we're inclusive in our outreach efforts and in our programming—that we're not exclusive and if we are, that we recognize those things and come up with a way to address them. That we build community through networks, and rather than us making decisions about, “Will that person be a good fit in this place?” asking ourselves, “What work do I need to do to make room for that person in this circumstance?” He [Dr. Crawford] actually was the first special assistant to the president for diversity, which is the position that preceded mine. He did it off and on for more than a decade. Then I was selected for the role and we transitioned it into the Chief Diversity Officer position, which is what it is today. He is sort of that leader, that person who exemplifies what it is to be a listener, what it is to be a change agent, what it is to help people recognize that they can transform their own lives. I wanted to do that—to be like that. He's been a spectacular mentor for me in that way and I'm grateful that he still lets me bug him and ask him questions—pick his brain. He's been wonderful and he's been patient with me, and really helpful. 18 CS: Good. What do you see are the biggest challenges of being a minority leader in Northern Utah, which is predominately white? What do you do to overcome these challenges? AA: That's a big question. For me—because this is where I grew up—it is what it is. I know Utah. I know the culture, I know the dynamics, whether they're political or social or religious. It's all familiar to me. Having lived other places and been engaged politically and educationally and coming back, it gives me greater perspective on how to navigate relationships that we can improve for everybody—versus having it be about what things can happen or what things can happen to improve our community. The challenge is that there aren't a lot of people who look like me in Northern Utah doing this work. But there are some. You go down south a little to Salt Lake and there's more. You keep going south and you find a couple here and there. Part of it is figuring out how far you're willing to go. I like to say I'll always ask the tough questions that people don't want anyone to ask. But I'm not necessarily going to ask them right out of the gate. I'm going to try and see where the conversation takes us, so that other people have an opportunity to ask those questions. Because the real problem is if I'm the only person asking those questions. I've been accused of being the person who only asks about race. I’ve been accused of being the person who only asks about gender, or is always asking about sexual orientation, or, “You're always throwing privilege into the mix”—and my response to that is, “Until other people at the table are bringing up those themes—those areas—then I'm going to keep asking about them, because 19 they're important.” And they're not just important to me—they fundamentally shift the way that we work with each other. With all of our community groups, we think about race in this country and it's really kind of a black/white issue. But the reality is it's so much bigger than that. When we talk about diversity, this is what people think about diversity [rubs her skin to show she is indicating skin color]. And so asking questions that change the way we think about diversity, but also not forgetting that some of those questions are really critical to the conversation as well. It can be difficult to have people say, "Well, you're judging me." I try really hard, if I'm going to judge anyone, I'm going to really judge myself. I'm going to hold myself to a standard that I'm always going to be trying to reach toward. And for that reason, I'm really not focused on judging other people. I am focused on finding ways to work with other people, and to help other people work with each other. I'm going to ask hard questions, and I'm going to ask people to consider that there might be a different way of seeing, knowing, experiencing, living, believing, in the world that we operate in, so that we can be more inclusive in our practice. CS: Thank you. Just a couple more questions. AA: You got it. CS: What advice would you give emerging young minority leaders in order to be successful? AA: The first thing I would say is you've got to have a core network of people that you can turn to for support, for direction, for information, for relief—because things will happen. You will be attacked for any number of reasons, and you need to 20 know you have a place to go to recover. We can all try and fill our own cups, but it's really great when other people fill your cup for you. Having that network is critical. The second piece is move forward knowing that you don't know everything. One of the things I say in workshops is, “I may be the Chief Diversity Officer, but I'm still learning with you. There's a lot of information that I can share with you because this is the work that I do, but it doesn't mean that I know everything there is to know about this work, which is why we have to do it together.” And so knowing that you don't know everything, and being able to articulate that is critical, but the other piece is to articulate your willingness to continue learning, because it is a lifelong learning process. It's not something where you've completed the study of the body of this work, and now you know it all. It just doesn't work that way, because humanity doesn't work that way. People don't work that way. We're always growing and learning from each other. The last thing that I would say is be willing to consider that your own bias is getting in the way. I think a lot of times people believe if you're doing diversity work, you see the world the way it should be seen. But the reality is we all have our different lenses that allow us to see things more or less clearly. We have to call ourselves on things as well—and that's hard at first. Especially when you're new at this work, you want to feel that your passion is truth with a capital T or knowledge with a capital K. The reality is it's truth with a lower-case t because it tends to be your truth, and knowledge with a lowercase k because it's the knowledge that you have versus the knowledge that exists. 21 CS: Are there any other insights you'd like to share about being a minority leader in Northern Utah? AA: It's important to know who you are. It's important to know what your values are— what your vision is because other people will very happily define those things for you. And then you find yourself not living the life that you sought to live. You are living a life somebody else has defined. It's much harder because there are communities that will call your name, and that will even tell you you're not really part of us if you don't do this and that's unfortunate. But that happens no matter where you go, no matter who you are. Which is why it's so critical for you to know, to define for yourself—who you are, to define for yourself—what your vision, what your goals are. Then to turn back to those things, and to turn back to that core set of people who you know will have your back. Make sure you know the people that you support so you can provide that same net for them because that's really critical. CS: Okay. If there’s nothing else, I’m finished. I’ll turn off the recording, or if you have anything else you’d like to add real quick. AA: One thing I would like to say is having been at different institutions, working in government, being in different communities—southern Minnesota is very different than Utah, and very different than New Jersey, than Illinois or Denver or any of the other places I've lived—Mexico. We have a uniqueness here that is, that people are willing to get to know each other. This is the crossroads of the railroads. It's the history we have, so we should enjoy it. 22