How racism works. When I joined DH a prof told me that our grad students wrote comp exams & that faculty all knew they were "not great, but held their nose & passed them anyways" another one said, "Oh the grad program is the cash cow, they admit everyone."

Most of the grad students where non-traditionally aged, URM students, working folks. Unless you taught the courses or knew students from undergrad they rarely talked to other faculty. Some students took 8 years to graduate from a 2 year program.

The administration told students, apply to soc, they let everyone in, then transfer.

Everyone basically kept passing the buck.

People cared about the one or two PhD bound students, or favs. But no real interest.

This benign neglect was racist, sexist, ageist, elitist...

Students where largely working class, URM, women, older, first gen...from CSUs....

I was voluntold to become the Grad coordinator. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. I still make mistakes. BUT I saw our students for who they were, who they hoped to be, what they wanted to do in this lifetime. I enlisted anyone who would listen to help & to got work.

Today, our grad students graduate in 1-3yrs, they leave our program & work in unis, city, state, fed gov, nonprofits, own businesses, get doctorates. They get major awards on & off campus They present research.

They SHINE BRIGHT!

Can I tell you what changed? The racist, sexist, elitist, discriminatory dept. policies, practices, & procedures.

Are the racist PPP totally gone, NO, BUT now there is someone willing to call out the dept, college, uni on their BS.

Our students are doing AMAZING!

I say this also to remind students that if they feel like something's off, if they're not getting what they need, look at their institutions/organizations. What is it doing to support you? How does it treat you & others like you?!

We internalize challenges, barriers, setbacks that we face, instead of holding our institutions/orgs accountabile for how they treat us.

Stop doing that. These places have racist roots they can't always shake.