Oral History Program Robert Steedley Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Kandice Harris 3 July 2024 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Robert Steedley Interviewed by Lorrie Rands and Kandice Harris 3 July 2024 Copyright © 2025 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 Connecting Weber: History of the Cultural Centers oral history project documents the memories and history of the various cultural centers that were open at Weber State University. These centers included the Multicultural Center (later called the Center for Belonging & Cultural Engagement), Women's Center, Native American Cultural Center, Asian American and Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Pan-Asian Cultural Center, Black Cultural Center, and the LGBTQ Resource Center. The centers were closed in July 2024 due to state legislation. ____________________________________ 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: Steedley, Robert, an oral history by Lorrie Rands and Kandice Harris, 3 July 2025, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Rob Steedley for the Connecting Weber oral history project. It was conducted on July 3, 2024 in the Stewart Library with Lorrie Rands. Rob talks about growing up in California and eventually moving to Utah with his wife and beginning his career at Weber State. As one of only a handful of black staff on campus he recalls how important the black cultural center was, and the importance of community. Also present is Kandice Harris and Raegan Baird. LR: All right. Today is July 3, 2024. We are in the Stewart Library, room 122, doing an oral history interview with Rob Steedley. With me is Kandice Harris helping with the interview, and Reagan Baird is on the camera. All right, now that's out of the way, I just want to thank you for your willingness to sit down and share some of your stories about the cultural centers here at Weber State. Let's just jump right in. We're going to do a little bit of background information before we get into that. So, when and where were you born? RS: I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on November 1, 1978. LR: Bridgeport, Connecticut. Wow. East coast? RS: Yep. LR: Were you raised in Bridgeport? RS: I was not. We moved to California when I was three, in 1981, and I was raised there until I moved back in 1995 to Stamford, Connecticut. I lived there until I moved to Utah in 2009. LR: Oh, wow. Do you have any memories of California? RS: Yeah, tons. LR: Okay. I know you weren't very old when you moved, so what are what are some of your fondest memories of—where at in California? RS: It's a town called Upland in San Bernardino County. 1 LR: What are some of your memories of that? RS: Well, that's where I was introduced to the LDS church, which is weird, because I grew up, all my friends were LDS, but none of them told me they were LDS. Until I got into like my junior high school, was the first time I had any interaction with the actual church. LR: Oh, interesting. RS: All of my best friends were all LDS, they were in the same ward. So, like, best kept secret. LR: That's fascinating. RS: Yeah. I was the only black kid there. Everywhere I lived I was the only black kid, so that's been interesting. In California, and especially then being in the church, I was the only black kid there in California, I was the only black kid there in Connecticut, and I am the only black guy there in Utah. Very consistent, very consistent. I'm still friends with all of my friends from high school. Like, my four closest friends, we're all still friends. Four out of five of us all live in Utah now. We'll have our 30th graduation in about two years. LR: Okay. So, you went through high school in California? RS: Up until my junior year. Then my junior year, three days later, I moved to Connecticut. So, nothing like being a senior at your high school you've never gone to. Fantastic. Plus, the border for our school, well the boundaries was the stralidon. So, my parents both went to Stamford High, which was two blocks away. I had to take a 30-minute bus ride because I lived on the wrong side of the street. KH: Oh, no. RS: I worked with a kid on my first job at a drugstore. He went to Stamford High, and I was like, “This mother.” LR: Wow. 2 RS: That’s how it works. LR: So, moving from California to Stamford, Connecticut. What were some of the cultural differences you noticed? RS: Humidity. Yeah, I found that out real fast, because I moved in the summer. I remember it was my second or third day, I got dressed, I went outside, it was 80 degrees. I’m like, “Oh, it’s going to be a nice, cool day.” It was 80% humidity, so it's not a cool day. I remember I crossed threshold of our apartment building, and I went outside and I was immediately drenched in sweat. I ran back upstairs and explained to my dad that I needed to go to the hospital, something's wrong. He didn't even bat an eye and said, “It’s humidity, dummy.” I said, “Oh. What's that?” I don't know, because that's—rain and fog is the only time they're talking about humidity in California. We didn't get very much rain and it wasn’t very foggy, so it was a new word. Also, I went from being in a community that was largely LDS to minimally LDS. I got baptized in February of ‘96, and I invited some of my friends from school. I was like one of five kids in my entire high school that were part of the church. So, that was very different. LR: So, you were baptized in Connecticut? RS: [Nodding] Mmhm. LR: Oh, okay. So, in high school when— RS: So okay, first, for more backstory: My dad's brother died in ’94, and he was taking care of their mother. So, my dad put our house up for sale, which it sold in three months, which was insane. But I stayed and finished out my junior year in high school with my mom's best friend. Her daughter and their family was LDS, all of my friends were LDS, and I was already going to like church and dances. My friends were like, “Come hang out.” 3 I'm like, “Bet, let's go.” That's kind of how they got me into the church. LR: Okay, that makes sense. You mentioned something in the beginning that everywhere you went, you were one of the only black students in your area. I know it's not a fair question, but how did that affect you growing up? RS: It was weird. It's the only way explain it, because my dad was—there's like a generational gap. My dad was 49 when I was born. Fun fact, my dad was born on the same year as MLK, in the South, so I had horrible stories that my dad told me as a kid. He was born in South Carolina. He was born in a barn, because it was illegal for his mother to go to the hospital. He joined the military while it was still segregated. He fought in Vietnam and Korea, and told me very little about that until much later in life. Then we moved to south California on a cul-de-sac full of white grandparents, and yelled at me for not having black friends. Every year I show him my yearbook and I’m like, “Where are they at Dad? No, that's me. I'm the black kid in all my classes.” It changed a little bit. It was more diverse when I got in high school, but not very, because I was taking a lot of college prep classes and there still weren’t any black kids in those classes. I didn't really use slang, and I got picked on by black kids for talking white, so that was interesting. When I moved to Connecticut, Stamford was very diverse, because there's a lot larger range of financial and also ethnic backgrounds. I saw way more black faces in my senior high school than I ever did in the rest of my school in California. LR: Okay, that's just fascinating. There's a question here, and I'm not quite sure what it is I'm trying to ask, so I'm going to stew on that for a few minutes. As you were growing up, were you encouraged to pursue an education? RS: I was encouraged to not fail my classes, because my dad’s different, just different generation. The stories I would hear of how he would punish, and I put that lightly, 4 my brothers for getting like, bad grades, so I really buckled down. My mom got diagnosed with Huntington's disease between my eighth and ninth grade years, and so my dad ended up retiring early. I was a month into high school. I was definitely with kids that were not academically focused. So, I was hanging out after school. I wasn't doing anything. They were, I wasn’t, I was just there, but I think if I’d stayed there, I probably would have gotten into some things and my grades would have suffered. But like, after my first semester in high school, I was on the honor roll every year, like the principal’s honor roll, ‘cause I was too scared of my dad to get bad grades. So, I got really good grades in high school. After I graduated I just, I worked, I just started working. I did a little bit of college, and I was like, “You know what, I really want to be in customer service,” because that was the dream. I liked helping people, and I was good at my job. I worked at a grocery store; I really like that. I've worked in malls, I didn’t always like it, and I was like, [shrugs] “Hmm.” I've learned over the years, it’s who you know a lot of times, like nepotism and things like that. A lot of the reasons I've gotten [jobs] because of the people that I knew. But I wanted to, because I married the wrong person. She had her associate’s when she graduated from high school, and she knew what she wanted to be. I never knew what I wanted to be. I'm 45 I still don't know what I want to be. She got her master's in 2015, in nursing, and she was the first cohort to receive a doctorate here at Weber in the nursing program in 2021. My daughter, who at that time was 11, just turned to me and said, “Wow, my mom’s a doctor.” I said, “Yeah Lilly, yeah you’re right.” She says, “And you just have high school diploma.” 5 I said, “These are concrete stairs, you watch your mouth.” [Laughing] She laughed too, so she knew I was kidding. I was pissed. I was like, “You’re not wrong.” LR: That's interesting. Do you have any questions so far? Okay. In between you graduating from high school and coming to Utah in 2009, you said customer service was your thing. What were some of the things that you were doing during that time to find a career? RS: I did go to community college out of high school. I wanted to be a physicist because I really liked math, and physics is just math in use. Then I realized I just don’t like going to school, so I stopped. But I was like a front-end manager at 18. I was a pharmacy tech for about a year. I worked at a music store, Sam Goody. I worked in the stockroom for Abercrombie and Fitch for a number of years. Sam Goody got bought out, I worked FYE, For Your Entertainment, I was the assistant manager there. Then, the thing I was avoiding, I got into food service. I got hired as a parttime cashier at a cafeteria for GE, one of their many business arms. A lot of their stuff was headquartered in Stamford and they had a contract. So, I was working there. Their turnover was kind of quick, and I don't like to leave jobs, so I stayed with them for about three or four years until I moved. I just kept kind of moving up in different positions. I mean, I really liked it. In ‘08 I met my wife, so we got married in ‘09 and moved out here. When I got here, I didn't have a job, so I didn't have a home. My wife married me, I was homeless and jobless. She needs to make better choices. But then when I found out Sodexo had the food contract here, I applied and got hired. I did, what was my job? Oh, I was the supervisor. Oh, my gosh, it's not retail. Res dining, resident dining services for six years. LR: Okay. What initially brought you to Utah? 6 RS: My wife, there’s nothing else. LR: She’s from here? RS: Yeah, she's from Far West, born and raised. I never wanted to move out here. There's a bit of a stigma of Utah Mormons. I was like, “I don't want to move out here cause it's the worst.” I'm already, like, racism is already bad. We live in a small farming community, and I went to church with her once, and I was like, “Oh, no, I want to live here, this is awesome. I love it and I never wanna move.” LR: Oh, okay. I'm curious, and I know that I'm kind of asking the same questions, but culturally speaking, when you moved from Stamford, Connecticut to Utah, what were those cultural differences? RS: From the world's urban rural? I lived in the city, I lived in a really, really crappy part of Stamford. My apartment that I moved into in ‘09, my first night was bare, I had a mattress and a trash bag with my clothes in it. I didn’t have any—so, I was right on a main street. The first night there was a police raid of the Spanish dance hall next door. That was my first night. LR: Here in— RS: In Stamford. LR: Oh, in Stamford, okay. RS: When I moved out here, I'm 10 minutes away from a street light. KH: You're really out there. RS: Out there. All I saw was cowboys, and I heard twang, and I'm like, “I'm gonna be called the N-word within the first couple of—” That was my thought. I’ve never been called it out there. I was really concerned about it. I was concerned with my physical safety for the first time. Like, genuinely concerned with my physical safety on a daily basis until I started meeting people. LR: So, was it the rural aspect that you were worried about? 7 RS: Yes. LR: I don't know, which is why I'm asking. So, as you're moving into this community, what prompted you to get to know the people in the community? RS: The church, because most of them were. I remember about a year in, I got called as a ward missionary. Like our ward mission leader, this guy named Scott, love him to death, he knows everybody, and he can get into everybody's house. Member or nonmember, they know Scott, they're letting him in. That's how I got in and met a lot of people, and they just got to know me and they accepted me. I'm actually—the date of this is very apropos because I actually host our 4th of July party every year. This is going to be the 13th or 14th year that I've done it. LR: Interesting, awesome, thank you for sharing that. I know you mentioned you applied for the job here on campus. What year was that? RS: 2012. LR: Okay. Wow, that's been a hot minute, but not really. I guess that answers the question, “What is your relationship with Weber?” But it's— RS: It's different. LR: Yeah, what other jobs—? RS: I was a contracted worker here on campus, so I worked at Stewart Wasatch Hall for about six years. Then I took a small hiatus, but not really. I was working part-parttime, like 10 hours a week to help with inventory, just to stay on the books with dining services so I had that tie with Weber State. I worked at Boys and Girls Club at the Marshall White Center, and I ran their teen center for two years. I never wanted to leave. I loved my job, and then I found out they were hiring a new marketing manager for dining services, and I was like, “Well, the money has to be good enough for me to leave,” and it was. I told them, I was like, “If they're paying me this much how do you—” 8 “Go.” I was like, “I didn't finish the sentence honey, but okay.” So, they hired me back and I did that until January 2022. I kind of got—I don’t care if she reads it or not. Me and my boss really butted heads a lot, and I was kind of over it. I kind of needed a change. So, I went to work at T-Mobile across the street. I just like my commute. I've had the same commute for over 12 years, and I was like, “I really like that job.” In fact, I was the salesman of the month in March; I started at the tail end of January. By the time they got my name on the plaque, I got offered the job as the business manager for The Signpost. I said, “If I come back to Weber State I need to work for the university, and if I do I'll go back to school,” thinking that would never happen, and then 90 days later, I was right back. LR: Well, there you go. RS: Yeah. It shouldn’t have been enough, but yeah. LR: The job at the Marshall White Center. Was that a voluntary position? RS: No, I was the program manager for Boys and Girls Club. Our teen center was located out of the Marshall White Center. LR: Okay. What were some of the duties and the responsibilities that you had there? RS: Getting kids off the street after school, giving them a safe place to be after school was one of the biggest things. I had a few kids were in gangs, and I had a lot of kids that weren't going to be graduating either junior high or high school. So, literally getting them to do their homework and to really be proud of themselves I think was the two biggest goals that we had in the club. When I started, I had about seven or eight kids, and by the time I left we had over 30 kids from kids in the Ogden School District. LR: What would you do to, like— KH: Draw them in? 9 LR: Thank you. RS: Food, kids love food. You know, a lot of these kids didn’t have food at home, is what I found out. But it then became, they knew it was a safe space. I was very open and honest with them. I think a lot of them were excited because they found out a black guy was coming, and then I talked and they're like, “You're not black.” I’m like, “No, I’m black. Nope. That's an outside thing.” But I still had different experiences, and I was very open and transparent with them as far as like mental health, because that was a big thing, and I've had issues with mental health. The fact that I was that open with them created a camaraderie with them. In fact, 2022, seven or eight of my kids who were from, that I met at Mount Ogden Junior High, which none of them were going to graduate junior high, were enrolled here. LR: Oh, wow. That is awesome. RS: So, that was fun to see. LR: Yeah. Was it a diverse group of kids in that program? RS: Yeah. We had kids from all over, from Highland Junior High, Ben Lomond, Ogden High, George Washington High, have Mount Fort and Mount Ogden. So, we had quite a decent variety of groups, and then we had more kids coming in when we have summer programing. LR: Right. Okay, thank you. Let's kind of get back to Weber. I just thought that was really cool. Now let’s—kind of getting into the actual cultural centers. Have you interacted with the culture centers here on campus? RS: Yeah. LR: What has that interaction been like for you? RS: It's been amazing. So, as a staff member, we started a faculty and staff group for Black and African-American faculty and staff. Which, for as many years as I've been 10 here on this campus, I never saw anybody outside of athletics. Found out there's about 30 of us here on campus just kind of sprinkled all over the campus, which is very nice and eye-opening. But to see the work that a lot of them did to help keep black students returning to campus. Our retention for black students has not been great, and with the relationships that I created through resident dining, I would talk to a lot of these students on a daily basis. There were students that did not want to come back to our school because they didn't see anybody that looked like them. It doesn’t sound like that's a major thing, like I grew up not seeing anybody, I didn't care, but not having someone else that looks like you pulling for you can be such a big difference. I remember I would do the—At orientation, they would do a special event for parents and supporters. I was the one that did that for dining services. So, they had like the police department, housing, and different programs there. I would go. I remember I came back that fall and a parent stopped me, and it was a black mother. She says, “Do you know that we picked this school because of you and because of that?” I was like, it's not academic. I'm like, “You need to pick better things. But I'm glad you're here.” I got to know the student. I made sure and I talked to him like, “How are your grades? What do you need? You good?” Making sure that they felt comfortable and they liked being on campus. I love Weber State and I’ve had such amazing experiences, but knowing that someone else is pulling for you, ‘cause a lot of these students, like you know they're—I don't wanna say orphans, but it's just them. They're on their own for the first time, and not having those connections can be harmful. For sure. LR: So, you mentioned that your involvement started with more of a staff faculty group? 11 RS: Yeah, what's new? Well, same thing, the Black Cultural Center was only here for nine months. They soft opened it, it was open, but not really. So, the history of that was students, there has been different—I don't know if they were called cultural centers, but there were different ones there for like Asian and Pacific Island, and I don't know if there might have been something for Native Americans. I know there's a need for Latino and Hispanic, I think, little areas, but there wasn't anything for black students. There's a couple of students that were a little more vocal, a little louder than some other ones, and they asked for a space. When they were told that, they're actually offered a space in the library. Culturally speaking, as a black man who is told all the time by my own family, especially my daughter, that I'm too loud, we're not a quiet people. So, the last place you want us congregating in a social space would be the library. Like, we ain't coming in here anyway. We're just not, it's not our thing. Not what we're known for. We fought for a space, and when they finally reorganized the, I forgot, the Multicultural Center to the Center for Belonging and Inclusion, I think it was called. So many names, so many names. They designated these places, and they designated the Black Cultural Center in the Shepherd Union. Was huge. It was a bit disruptive, because I'm also in the communications department, and the radio station was one of our, it was on our list, and they lost a big chunk of their space for that. So, that was a little hard. The dichotomy in that for me was a bit tough to go through. But once I saw it was open and there was a space for that, was amazing. Then I was on the hiring committee for the program manager for the Black Cultural Center. When we first met, we talked about what the parameters of the job description should be and what we're looking for. We talked about, you know, 12 qualifications and education and all these things, and I'm sitting there, I'm like, “I'm the only one in this group that doesn't have a degree.” But I'm like listening to all these things. I'm like, “We're missing one thing, they should be Black. Can we put that in there?” Because I thought it was important. Because if you're going to be the manager of a program based for students who identify as Black or African or part of the diaspora, they need to look like the students they are helping. Which shocked me that no one thought about that, and so we put that in. I think to me that would be important. That's something I've heard. I've heard students say that. So, when they did that, I was like, “Good,” and so it's part of that hiring process. We hired someone that was a recent graduate from the U, and she was the Black Student Union President, so she had the experience and we are very, very lucky to have her. Also, the LGBTQ+ Center, I went to actually three of the presentations for that, and I felt that the person hired, Jessica, was the best person. Out of everyone, I liked hers the best. That's the one that stuck with me, and so I was really, really excited for her to start that program too. I came out as queer in 2022 to a friend of mine who worked in the Women's Center, so I was super excited that they were opening that as well. Those were the only two that I had a real connection and interaction with. LR: Okay. When did the Black Cultural Center become a thing on campus? RS: I want to say fall of last year, 2023, but we had our grand opening in February. LR: Really? RS: Because they had no one. They didn't have an official person in the position. They had a temporary person who was on our backs to get someone hired. LR: I'm just kind of shocked. RS: Yeah. Didn't even get a year. 13 LR: Wow. That's crazy. So, what year did you start meeting with the other—with the staff and faculty? RS: This year, we started it like in March, like barely. LR: Of this year, or last year? RS: Of this year, like, it's brand new. We are technically still haven't—it's Employee Resource something, ERG's what the initials are, but we're still waiting to get that approval. LR: Oh my goodness, I'm literally in shock. I actually assumed it had been on campus for a while. RS: You would think. LR: Wow. Okay. The next question seems kind of silly, but what are some of your favorite memories of the short time? RS: So, for the LGBTQ center, I went to their graduation, the Lavender Ceremony. I knew a lot of the students that were in that and just talked about some of the things that they did while here at Weber. Because I work in The Signpost, there was a lot of kids from The Signpost. One of our editors from our Culture Desk, she's one of the more quieter people out of all the editors. We would chat when I would see her, but I didn't know all, like she got awards for like everything. I don't even know how she could walk with all of the things on her, the cords that she received from just all of the things that she did while she was in at Weber State, which was incredible, and just to see the students’ achievements. For the Black Culture Center, it was the opening. I thought that was a neat thing to see. LR: When was the opening of the Black Cultural Center? RS: February 20th, I think. I'm not sure about the date. LR: 2024? 14 RS: That was this year, yeah. We did a lot. Watching it, especially from being in the paper part of it, I got to see a lot of the things happening. With the Center of Belonging and Inclusion, I was like, Weber State was ahead of everyone else as far as getting those centers open and getting the right people in for the program managers and advertising them and getting those things done and to see the work that they were doing. Another one actually kind of ties in there. The LGBTQ Center during Black History Month spoke about, I’m horrible with names, but he helped start the March on Washington, because he was an openly gay man. I was like, “Oh, wow,” and he had a movie that was out on Netflix, and it's my favorite movie to this day, I loved it. Just all those little things and this intertwining of all these different things and hearing discussions of different senators wanting to work together for special events and then showing up for other people's events like the Pow Wow and other things like that. It was good to see. Having been here for so long, seeing the amount of different identities and how people identify grow since 2012, and just even for myself since 2012. Like I literally, like 2020, great year. I grew because like, I know I'm black on the outside, but I don't ever feel like I really identified as Black. Then after the George Floyd incident, my wife and I, because I know I've been a staunch Republican since I was 16, which doesn't sound right at all, but I was. For my 18th birthday, my birthday present from my dad was to get me registered to vote, cause my first year I could vote in was a presidential election. But we watched in Minnesota, when they burnt down the police station, and I was like, “Oh, they're gonna shoot everybody, and can't nobody say nothing, ‘cause you burnt down a flippin’ police station,” I'm like, “Hands up, that's fair,” at that point. But we were watching a video of a black reporter getting stopped and asked to 15 leave the area. He was leaving, and he was explaining that he was part of the press, and then he got arrested and they arrested his camera man and his producer. He was treated pretty roughly, I feel. Then there was a white reporter couple blocks walk down the road, same thing, asked to move. First thing, “Okay,” and let him go about his business. I was like, “Oh, okay. We do suck. All right. Cool. Bet. All right.” So, that was my come to Jesus moment. When seeing all these different cultural centers and that movement started on campus, I was excited for Weber. LR: This is our first interview with this whole project, and so we're kind of feeling our way through what questions are okay to ask and, you know, how to kind of navigate our way through this. So, thank you for being patient. I'm usually not this disjointed, but I also want to make sure I'm asking right questions. With everything that you've that you've been saying, I wonder if you could talk about why community is so important? RS: Community is everything. With the feeling like you belong, that's not a singular, individual idea. We are, as human beings, we can't be alone. Like, I know that people that are introverted and things like that, but they still have a small circle that they go to or feel like they belong or feel like they can connect with, even if it's on a very small or limited basis. I know that if I hadn't been approached by so many people over the years that I've been here, I would not give a damn about this university or about this college. That's why I'm so passionate about it. My biggest concern with the closure of the cultural centers are where are people going to feel like they belong on campus? Because like, yeah, they're all students, but they're not the same, and I feel like that's what the bill is making us do. I know that Weber, they went hard with the include EDI, and they went the opposite direction with House Bill 261. But, you know, I know a lot of people that are in 16 positions of decision making. I've known them and I’ve known them for years on a very personal level. The people that were in the positions and the cultural centers, the program managers and directors and the personnel for that Belonging and Inclusion. I've talked to them one on one, and I feel strongly that everybody that's in those positions now are the people that are supposed to be in those positions. I feel very strongly about that. I don't know what it's going to look like August 26 when school starts. That's a fear that I have. It's been very stressful, because I feel that if people don't feel like they belong they're not going to stay. This is a great institution. We have wonderful faculty. I'm going to class here and I have had some wonderful professors. I picked classes based on who’s teaching because I know them personally, which did not help my grades at all. But I've never met anybody who wants to go to college, and their thought of the college experience is, “I'm left alone and I'm by myself, and that's how I'm going to succeed.” Here, I’ll even put it this way, I’ll put in myself like why is community important. I would have left in 2009 if I didn't feel like I belonged in my community. The way our community is where I live in my little village, whatever it's called. We're unincorporated, it’s very small. My nickname is Black Rob. It’s a nickname my friend’s two-year-old gave me 12, 13 years ago. It just went from name that his kids called me to the name that they told when they would talk about me to their family and it just grew. I'm like, I own it 100%. After 2020, people were like, “Well, can I call you that?” I'm like, “Yeah, I told you it’s my name. Like, I don't know why you can't say the word black. It's not a bad word.” Everyone has accepted me and it makes me want to stay in my community. 17 Like that feeling of that's why communities important. I stay because of the community that I built on campus. I've had to watch people leave. There's never been one time where I knew someone was leaving, no matter what the reason was that I was—even if it was a good thing, they were going to somewhere bigger and better things for them. I’d say, “You know, I'm happy for you, but also, I want to kick you.” LR: Kind of on that same question, what does community mean to you? RS: It means you have a place that's safe. You have a place where you feel like you belong. You feel like you have a place that is judgment free, that people accept you for who you are. Not in spite of your differences or your past or whatnot. Instead of in spite, because of it. They accept you 100% authentically. LR: Do you have any questions? KH: How do you feel like the students have reacted to the changes? Are they even aware of it at this point? I mean, outside of the summer students? RS: That’s a good question, that's the first thing I thought. Because I have the ear of the editors, whenever we have editors meeting, I go, “So, how are we covering this? We need to voice this, we need to voice this.” I talk to the senators frequently. I was interviewed by KSL on Friday at like, during the closing ceremonies, and now my biggest thing like, there is no student push right now. There’s no students on campus, they're not here. They're not here, and a lot of students don't know, and so I can't not say anything. That’s how important this is to me, because they are part of my community. Someone said something yesterday, and I said, “Because students feel like their voices don't matter,” and I think it's because they haven’t heard people tell them, “No, your voices are the most important, and you need to speak up." Like, if 18 students didn’t say anything, we would have never had a Black Cultural Center. 100%. I still think it'll be a shock when they get here, returning students. I think we are going to lose students because of it, unfortunately. They don't have a voice. In my heart, I'm hoping that wasn't strategic, because, you know, the fiscal year, the 1st of July is the new year. But the timing never sat right with me. It was too fast, because it started before school was out, but no one cares. Like, your house can be on fire, but it's April, “I got finals, I don't have, like, I'll take care of that in May.” I struggle with it because I don't know. Like I’ve seen a couple students post things and they have a good following. I’ve seen some more senators and things like that, and vice presidents and the president, who I talked to regularly via social media about this stuff. But they also have lives and they're doing their things, but they're not here, and in the event they were, how are they going to get a student voice? LR: Okay. Do you have any other questions? KH: I mean, if you're comfortable talking about it, how do you think Weber State could reach out to those students that feel like they no longer have that community, that representation on campus? RS: Weber State has done exactly what they've always done and in the same way. I'm not trying to be negative, but it is what it is, because I also have a student staff and I know that they don't look at the announcements. I know that they don't look at their emails. I'm a student, I can’t tell you last time I actually opened up my student email. Luckily, my student email stuff comes to my work email that I open every day. It's funny because students, we started a group and we say, “Hey, what's the best way to communicate with you?” and they picked two things, they said “Slack,” which is like a texting app, and emails. 19 I wrote my staff in our little group, Slack group, and I said, “None of you even look at this, why would you pick this?” Then three days later, someone's like, “Rob, I look at it every day.” I'm like, “Shut up.” Someone mentioned, like, they didn't put anything on their social media about the closing, because a lot of their social medias for all those cultural centers put all the announcements about it, but they didn't put it on the Weber State main social media. I feel like that was a crushing blow to a lot of the people that ran those programs. Like, if it really mattered then why isn’t it on your main, at all. Nothing. Nothing. I feel like there's been a whole lot—we have all these avenues of communication and we're using the ones that work the worst. Put it on YouTube, put it on Facebook, put it on Instagram, and not a story. That's up for 24 hours, and if you happen to look at it, you do, and if you don't, you don't. Put it up there. If they mattered then they should have done more. I think they were too quiet on a lot of different avenues that they shouldn’t have been. Because you have to remember, there are still people that also agree 100% with everything that's going on and felt that was the right move. You should’ve done it sooner. I’m like, I'll put it this way, when they reorganized from student affairs that whole reorganization, I went to all the colleges in Utah, they all have student affairs. I was like, “All right, cool. Something different,” and they just kind of separated a few things. Center was not in SAS. Yeah, they’re all right back in there now. SAS is student affairs again, it's the exact same thing it was before. It's all the same program, same people, [makes clicking sound with tongue] put right back in there. I’m just like, this is funny. The more things change. 20 It's weird because I have so many relationships and dealings with students. I understand. They're like, “Rob how do you understand us? Like we use different words.” I was like, “Shut up, I hate you.” But I listen. I'm just there and they've always included me, and I worked in res dining and that's just how I am now. I'm locked in with students. I know that they communicate differently than when you're out of college and you're an adult, which I don't want to be mean, but it is what it is. Because like we talk about, “Hey, how is your LinkedIn?” “What?” “It's like Facebook but worse, more boring, and you never look at it. That's LinkedIn.” I have 87 LinkedIn notifications. I don't open my LinkedIn, but I've got the app on my phone, 100%. I can get in whenever I want. I just don’t want to. I'm making my students, like, “Hey, create your LinkedIn page.” Like, “Why?” “Because when you want to get a job, they're not looking at your Facebook, they're gonna look at your LinkedIn first, I'll tell you that right now.” There's groups on campus where if you open their website page, they have a Facebook and a LinkedIn. I'm like, “Oh, you don't want to talk to anybody. That's cool.” I've never met a student in my 13 years here, and be like, “Man, did you see such and such's LinkedIn page? Lit. Slapped. Sigma.” No. You know what? I bet you 100%, they did announce it on LinkedIn. In fact, I guarantee they did. KH: Yeah. I've always thought it was interesting that a lot of their posts are going to be on LinkedIn and Facebook, which is where all the alumni are, not all the students. RS: Yeah. I think that's why they probably didn't. I don't know. That's just speculation at its finest. I mean, if we put it on a Snapchat, a whole lot of kids will seen it then, bet you that. 21 LR: Any other questions? KH: No, none that I can think of at the moment. LR: Okay. I have one more question, but before I ask it, is there any other story you'd like to share? Any other thought you'd like to add about the culture centers? RS: I hope they come back. I don't know when, I don't know where, and I don't know how. I'm hoping they come back because students, which I think is the only way. When I read the bill and I saw some of the things, it was almost like a trauma response, like I could only read so much of it and I had to stop. But they would talk about like, “Well, we looked at the numbers of DEI.” I was like, “What numbers?” Like, I know that we normally do like, a five-year minimum to look at things, to see if things are actually working or not before, but for some reason the words diversity, equity, and inclusion are the worst words ever. I'm like, ’cause everybody, and I’m like, “Do they though?” I am a big believer in benefit of the doubt. I went to this donut and discussions thing that they have infrequently, and a white male student asked about the Women's Center. I saw all the faces, who the group has got probably 85% identify as female, and I was like, “Oh shit, someone's gonna come up missing today.” He said, “You know, I don't feel comfortable going to the Women's Center. Where can I go?” For the first time, I genuinely, I felt he was being genuine. He wasn't trying to, I don't think—maybe he was trying start some stuff, I don't know. I felt that’s a genuine question. Because I know for myself, I mean, I had friends that worked in that Center and I joked about it, say, “Where do I go?” “Well, everyone's welcome.” I'm like, “Cool, can we have signs or something? Something.” They explained to them how it works like, “Well, everyone's available. Like, this is why we have it and all these things.” 22 I was like, “Oh, okay.” He didn’t like, keep going. He didn't know, which is fair. ‘Cause we’re just really bad at telling students the resources that are available. LR: I agree with that. RS: Because I think word of mouth has been the best way, but that is not fast enough for the amount of students that we have coming to this campus. I went to a focus group about student involvement and leadership, and having worked with SIL for years in dining services, they kept dining services afloat during the pandemic 100%. So, that was my favorite department. I said, “Oh I’m a student, I can be a part of this. I want to see what other students are saying,” and they said they never felt welcome there because they felt like that building, that room, was a space for senators and vice presidents and people like that, that’s what it’s there for. Which is funny because whenever we have high schools and junior highs here, they flood that space. I'm like, “Did they ever ask to come in here?” They're like, “Nope.” I’m like, “Didn't think so.” I suggested, just put a sign out somewhere, “All welcome.” Because if you did that, people would know, because they don't know. I feel like I'm a student, but I'm not involved and I'm not a leader, so I probably can't go in there. I think that's just, that was a big thing. But like, probably wouldn't go into the Pan-Asian, cause I’m not. But I knew I could because A, I knew the program manager, we’re friends for years, but I knew I could. Because that was the thing, there wasn't any special resources that only Natives and Indigenous people were getting at their center. There wasn’t any special and different resources that Hispanic and Latino were getting. There wasn’t any special or different things that, at the Black Culture, that students were getting. Half the time it was that they had someone that looked like them, that had shared experiences, could tell them where to go. 23 I sit in a group. I'm like one of the only, as far as I know, that is active in our black faculty and staff group that has no degree, that didn't go to a historically black college. Like, I don't have any type of similar background with them. But we have shared experiences based on the fact that we look alike. It's more than one experience, and no, none of them are good. But like, we just connected, and it's hard to explain. My wife is white, I had to explain it to her and I couldn't. But it is what it is. LR: Well, thank you for sharing that. So, the last question that I'm going to ask is, what do you think we as individuals can do to foster relationships and meet the needs of all of Weber's communities? RS: My initial response to that question is what communities? LR: Say that again? RS: What communities. LR: Oh, okay. RS: Because we're just one. LR: Well, yeah, and here's the thing is, we were trying to ask that question without— RS: Yeah. I understand why, that's a valid question, and I feel it in my heart because that's how I feel. My answer is my immediate response, that's my trigger response. My only thought is, well we know where everyone's going to be, because we're all now in the Student Success Center. Just knowing where the individuals can go to meet those people that can help them, that they'll be comfortable with. I can help a trans student and tell them what resources are available, I’ve been on campus long enough I kind of know. But I feel like coming from Jessica, who is a transgender woman, I feel like that experience might be a little bit better for them, with her. Not that I'm going to give them any different, but like that shared experience is big. I wish it wasn’t. 24 I've had that argument with people my whole life like, “Why does it matter? Like, “Why are you Black Rob, why aren’t you just Rob?” If you're uncomfortable with how God made me, that's on you, that's not on me. Like I wish, I trust me, I would love to be a white man. I would love to be a cisgendered straight white man, ah, I would love to. I can’t. Kim, my wife, would be pissed. I talked to her, I said, “Hey, I live a cisgender, straight life, but when I look at how I act, I look at the things that I like, I look at people that I've been attracted to in my life, they check off boxes that aren't in that category, just straight cisgendered category.” So, I'm being genuine for me, and I see that with students of all ages. They gotta be your genuine, authentic self, and I think that a big part of the college experience is sometimes figuring out who you are. My first class that I took, fall 2022, was Black Experience American History. I went to that class for 16 weeks. Thirty-two times I went to that class, no, more than that ‘cause it was three days a week. I went to that, I sat there and I was like, ‘cause we started off with the 1400s with the slave trade and its ending till now, with George Floyd. The last day I went to the teacher, I said, “There's no good days in this class, is there?” She said “No.” I said, “I should have known that being that I've been black my whole life.” I was really hoping for that one day. No, there wasn't one. So, I'm like, “That's fair.” Letting students know like they can make groups. They can make those groups. We don't have those centers, but we can have those groups. Hopefully there will be some students who have the gumption to go out, because that's going to be a thing. We can't create those groups. But the students start them, we can support them that way. 25 LR: I'm really grateful for your willingness to be so candid and to share. I'm rarely speechless, and I feel actually kind of speechless right now. I mean, in a good way, not in a bad way. I just want to say thank you for your willingness. 26