The Way to College Podcast - Ep 182 - Dr. Vanessa Fonseca-Chavez

Hi, this is Dr. Osasalini. I live in another episode, The Way to College podcast. And, you know, when I created the podcast, I started the podcast. I never anticipated to one the reach. I think I expected I would reach out to my network and get their stories and share those stories because I thought it was important that we share those stories. But that network has since grown exponentially and I'm incredibly blessed and excited because I feel like every interview now is someone new, someone new to the network, but somebody who's story again is inspiring and is important to tell. And today I'm excited about this opportunity. I'm excited about having my guest on today. And as always, I'm going to allow my guests to introduce themselves because I think they do a much better job of that. So Vanessa, would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners out there? Yes, of course. Thank you, Jose, for having me on the program. My name is Vanessa Fonseca Chavez and I am currently an associate dean of inclusion and student success at ASU. And as of this week, also a assistant vice provost of the Polytechnic campus. Vanessa, congratulations. Thank you. On the new title, the new role. Before we jumped on, we talked a little bit about sort of the expectations of what that means. And so I'm eager to get into your story to learn more about your journey, but also about the work that you're doing now and we'll be doing, expect to be doing. Vanessa, I ask all of my guests, if you had to identify a starting point for your educational journey, where would that starting point be for you? I was in listening to the other podcast episodes. I was really inspired by all of the different stories that people had. And so I was anticipating the question, of course. And I think that there have been a number of moments over the course of my education where things have happened. And I didn't realize the value of those things at that moment. And so I'd like to share maybe just a couple of those with you without saying that there was an exact moment, but sort of pick moments over time that makes sense. Absolutely. You know, the very first one was we were in elementary school living in northern New Mexico in a town called Rancho. And we, there's five of us as siblings. And I was right in the middle, but I had a twin sister and then a younger brother, older sister, another older sister. And my oldest sister was in high school. And when we were riding the bus to school, the bus would pick up the high schoolers first, and they would drop them off. And then the same bus driver, same bus would come around and pick up the elementary school kids and take them to school. For some reason, for about a period of a week, we got on the bus with the high schoolers. My mom had talked to the bus driver and said, Hey, we're going to be busy. I still don't know today what they were doing. But my parents were doing something. So they talked to the bus driver. His name was John Walsh, which now sounds really funny because he wasn't on America's most wanted. He was just the nice guy who was a bus driver. And when I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a bus driver because John Walsh was just such a cool bus driver. And so all of us got picked up at the same time. And again, don't know what my parents were doing, but my sister got dropped off. And then there was a little bit of time in between picking up the elementary school kids. So John Walsh would take us to the convenience store just off the side of the road, and he would get us those little little huggies drinks every day, money out of his pocket, so that we could have a nice little snack in the morning as we were waiting to pick up the other kids. The funny part is, of course, when you're in elementary school, sitting in the back of the bus is cool. And so everybody wanted to do that. And I clearly remember the amount of hatred we received because we were in the back of the bus at the beginning of the day. And all the other kids came on and they were mostly, you know, Latinx kids, but they got on the bus and they were like, Why do they get to sit in the back of the bus? I'm the first one that you pick up. And so that really stood out in my mind for a couple of reasons. One, because how awesome was it for my parents to organize us getting to school, right? Because, again, still don't know what they were doing. I might go ask them when I see them next, but still don't know what they were doing. But I thought it was really great that as a community, the bus driver said, I will take care of your kids for the hour that I have or whatever amount of time it was before I pick them up. You know, and so I thought that was really great. The second one that I thought of was when I was in eighth grade and I was always a good student. There were multiple times where things were happening around me that I didn't have the social consciousness for. But I got a C in, I don't even know what class it was. There was like English and then there was like some other class related to humanities. And Miss Carruthers gave me a C in her class. And I know now when we teach our students, we say, I didn't give you anything. This is the grade you deserved. But at that moment, I again, I had always done well in school and I got home and because I have a twin sister who did not get a C in the class, she got an A. My parents said, how come you didn't get an A like your sister did? That set up an entire trajectory of my twin and I being in super competitive mode for everything we've done forever and ever in life. Wow. And I don't know why I got a C. I don't know if I didn't turn in assignments. I don't remember all I remember is going home. My parents saying, why didn't you do what your sister did in that class. And so there were a couple of other moments in elementary and middle school where again I didn't have the social consciousness to understand what was happening. I was in sixth grade and we had just moved from northern New Mexico to grants New Mexico, which is kind of in the northwestern part of the state near the Arizona border. That's where all of my family is from. And we were in a reading group in an elementary school. I don't know if you remember they put the like high level readers in one group and then the other and see like I don't remember what the names of them were but we were in the high level reading group. But there was this disassociation that happened because our principal Miss Miller at the time did not care for us for whatever reason. Again, I didn't know why in sixth grade, but she continuously told us as we were sitting in the high level reading group that we would never amount to anything. And it was so weird to hear because I didn't understand why she would think that way. Of course, now I have all kinds of reasons why as someone who studies, you know, she kind of studies as someone who has, you know, experienced life differently and kind of been able to put things together. I understand it differently, of course, but for many, for many years from probably sixth grade to eighth grade, we heard that a lot. Not from our Latinx community, but from another community. And so it really influenced, you know, and those service sort of core memories for me to think about what kind of job are we doing as we're encouraging our youth to become educated. And I would never ever in my life imagine telling a student, someone who is high achieving someone who is not high achieving whoever they might be that they're not going to amount to anything. And those little like words just kept following me everywhere. And so I am a hard worker, as I imagine many of us are. The number one thing that you can use to sort of weaponize against me is to tell me that I'm not a hard worker. And I think that's true for a lot of us that come from working class backgrounds, people who really take pride in the work that they do, and people who, you know, know how to work in lots of different capacities. Right. So I tell people, I'm like, I dare you to tell me that you don't think I'm a hard worker so that I can show you and I can prove you wrong. And the lesson is not necessarily to prove somebody wrong, but it's just take very big personal offenses to people insulting my work. Absolutely. I mean, why wouldn't you, right? Yeah, so and I think for that, you know, so I have all those kind of moments coupled together but then there were these other moments where people were trying to point at my potential and I wasn't getting it, you know, and so the one moment I'll share for that is when I was in, I was a freshman in college and I was taking my English 101 class and Miss June Chapman was my TA for that class, lovely human being don't know where she is now. But one day, you know, I was turning in my essays and she says, I had my meeting with her and she said, you got the best grade and this is the best essay out of all my students and all of my classes. And I was like, oh, that's so nice. I didn't think much of it, right. And then she did the thing that you don't want your professor to do which is like, Vanessa is going to read her paper in front of the whole class so that you all know what a good paper sounds like. And never occurred to me in that moment that she was saying, hey, you're really good at this. You're really good at writing. You're really good at interpreting texts. Never in my life imagined that that would turn into my current career as an English professor. And had I listened to that a little bit more, I think it would have been, I could have been cultivated differently. But, you know, I went off I was trying to be a pre farm major was trying to be a business management major I was trying to be a human resource manager. But of course, it all came back around to me being an English professor which is what I am now. Wow. Oh man I love, I love all of the stories and so many questions now. I want to go back to, you know, you, you, you remember you remember this principle telling you. What did you do with did you do anything with that information did you go home to tell your parents. Did you, what did you do with it or did you just kind of, well that's an odd thing to say. Yeah, it was again like I said sort of disassociating because we had another professor whose name was Mr ever saw was incredible so encouraging so you know I have projects in my garage boxes now that I did in his class because I just, I was so proud of the kind of environment that he cultivated for students really an environment of creativity, an environment where you know we were using we were writing ads for local newspapers, you know doing you know all kinds of fun stuff we were doing like CAD classes at that time like drafting in sixth grade, you know, all that kind of fun stuff but Miss Miller was, I was still in school in sixth grade when they paddled students and so that feels like something that you talk about within the context of the 60s 70s 80s right but we were over 90s getting paddled in these like rural communities and I think, and again, reflecting back on it and really trying to put it in the context of social constructs. I can't help but believe it was because we were Hispanic students in a majority white community. And again I didn't know this when I was growing up, but a lot of the research that it work on now is in rural Arizona and it's focused on ethno religious conflict and so the conflicts that had arisen in, you know, white LDS communities and Hispanic Catholic communities who settled simultaneously. Right and that was my story when I was growing up although I didn't know that. And so now I'm doing it as research and I'm like, it all makes sense now, right. So, my mom, I got in lots of fights in middle school. Some fights in high school, I'm not a fighting kind of person I'm not trying to fight anybody I'm a patient loving person. So, so, but I remember my mom miss miss Miller was similar to miss James, miss James or miss Jameson and in middle school, you know I got in a fight. And my mom went to the high school to the middle school principal and she said, Why are all these white girls always picking on my girls. Because my mom was like this happens so she was just like what is happening here. So, she knew it right but we didn't again we didn't get that kind and get that context until much later but I was like I don't understand why everybody hates. Wow. And, go ahead. I think especially coming from northern New Mexico because northern New Mexico is very, very Chicano very money to very Chicano. And then when you come to an area that's less so I think it's it was startling for us because so much of what we learned in northern New Mexico was a sense of, you know, cultural pride and heritage. So, we're having pictures with guitars singing the Bamba in class and we're writing all these like I see us in New Mexico kind of like little packets I still have those from fourth grade. And then you come to this area of the state where your Spanish isn't valued, your heritage isn't uplifted, you know, any of these things and it is again really disassociating to have that kind of experience. I think my mom, my mom knew it right away. We didn't realize until much later. You're having these experiences your mother's fully aware, you know, what's going on and understanding sort of the context and everything. The messaging at home. It sounds like school is still very important, right? I mean, from the time from that having that conversation, your parents organizing and having the bus driver pick you all up to questioning, why aren't you getting the same grades as your sister? What were, do you remember something like the explicit expectations that your parents had had of you in terms of school? There were never any explicit expectations. I think it was widely understood in our household that you were going to do well. And we never really talked about it. You know, my parents didn't say, you know, in education is important, you should be in school, but I think we just knew. We knew and I think because from an early age, like I said, we did well in school. That was the baseline expectation. If anything moved from that expectation, like the sea and Miss Carothers class, we would hear it. We would hear about it, right? But otherwise, it was just pretty, you know, like, you're going to graduate. They didn't say, do you want to go to college? Where do you want to go to college? What do you want to do? It was just assumed that that's what was going to be the next step. And I don't know if I felt it more so as like me and my twin sister, or if my siblings also felt that same expectation. But I think, you know, my sister, my twin sister graduated as a salutatorian. It was expected that she was going to go on, right? I was also in our top 10 class. And so we only had one experience when we were younger. My oldest sister did a summer program at New Mexico Highlands University, which is in Las Vegas, New Mexico. And we went and picked her up and we were like, Hey, I want to go to school here. Not because we knew about the school, not because, but it's because I saw my older sister there and I wanted to do what she was doing. We eventually went to the University of New Mexico. And I had kind of a perspective change on this in recent years because my former dean here at ASU shared something with me that I hadn't thought of before. But, you know, I had always told the story that instead of talking to all the students about where they might want to go and kind of cultivating, you know, different college experiences, I said, they corralled all of us into the cafeteria in high school and we all filled out applications to go to the University of New Mexico. I saw that for a long time as a negative and that the counselors hadn't taken time to individualize our experiences. And my former dean shout out to Dwayne Rowan, he said, How great that everyone had an opportunity to apply to college. And I never thought about it from that perspective. And so I appreciate him saying that because I didn't realize that if they hadn't done that that day, who knows where any of us would have been. And so I appreciate that. But, but yeah, so, so went to the University of New Mexico. My son had applied there just a few years ago and it's funny because I think sometimes when you're in close proximity to a college town, you just assume that everyone's going to go there. Right. We also assume at ASU that we're going to get a fair amount of students from Arizona. Right. And that's just sort of, you know, we can bank on that. And then our extra efforts are, you know, bringing in the California students because, you know, the California systems overburden. And so we're happy to serve them. But, you know, going close to home was it meant a lot to me. But again, it was something that my parents were going to be able to pay for. We understood that we were going to have to figure out on our own. And we did. And there was one moment when I was at UNM and my dad came to visit and we were at a Denny's. And I started crying because he was buying my brother a four wheeler and I was like, I can't even afford my chemistry book. And he was like, Ness, do you want $100 for chemistry book? I was like, I would love $100. It gives me $100 at dinner. And that is, that's how much they contributed to my college education financially. Of course, they were supportive, all of that good stuff. They were so proud of us. But that $100 was very meaningful in that moment. Wow. You, so you go, you attend the University of New Mexico. What is it that you wanted to do? What were your aspirations at that point? When I was in high school, there was a woman, don't know who she is. Don't remember her name. She came to our high school class and she said, Pharmacy is a great career for women who want careers and who want to have a family. And I said, sold. That's all I needed to hear from that person. I wanted to do both of those things. And so I chose to be a pre-farm major. And I don't know what compelled me to do that. I wouldn't say that I, I did really well in math in high school, but it just wasn't something that I was passionate about. And you know, I would say to people too, you know, there, of course, for a lot of Latinx communities, there is the practical thing, right? What will support the family? And there's kind of the passion road, right? And I think at that point, I assumed I could be a pre-farm major because I was pretty good at school anyway. But like most of us in that first and second semester, we just get slapped in the face. And we realized that being a college student is so different than being a high school student. There's so much more that you have to do, so much more preparation, so much more personal responsibility. You know, don't sign up for an eight o'clock class if you're not a morning person, you know. And, and, you know, so I was taking these classes and one semester I was in chemistry and calculus at the same time. I had to drop one to try to pass the other. I didn't pass the other one, so I had to take them both over again. And I just, I didn't like it. I didn't like having to try multiple times. And the second time, you know, I took both of the classes, I passed them with a C and I just remember walking out of my chemistry final, feeling, you know, pretty good about my efforts. And I tried as hard as I could and I got a 75 and I was like, hell, yes. I did my best. And this is what it was. I need a different pathway. So I was taking simultaneously some Spanish classes. I didn't grow up speaking Spanish and so it was really important to me to learn Spanish, because, you know, my mom and my grandma would always be talking about us. You know, I felt like it was such an important part, especially in northern New Mexico, who you are and the way that you understand your culture. I would never say to people, you know, I'm not one of those Chicanas, it's like you have to know Spanish to be a Chicana. But I do think that it offers a glimpse into aspects of our culture that are for me anyway are very personally enriching. And so, you know, I took four years in high school had a really great high school teacher, Henry Lopez shout out to him wherever he is, but he, he was so inspiring. And he was the one that really cultivated my love of learning Spanish. And so, you know, I took four years there, went to UNM took Spanish classes and when at the point that I realized I wasn't going to be a pharmacist in pharmacy pharmaceutical anything right a pharmacist. I said, you know, I'm going to follow my love for language, and my love for language attached to my desire to understand the loss of language in my family. And you know what were the factors that contributed to that you know why, why is is every Hispanic surname person in New Mexico, you know, differently abled in Spanish language, because we could all understand what was being spoken to us but like, we didn't know how to respond. Of course I learned later, you know, linguistically what that meant, being a reciprocal bilingual, but I really leaned into learning Spanish, taking classes that had to do more with like regional like normal Mexicano culture Southwest read so many great books. Also, you know, learning about Latin American culture and you know main big literary movements and that was all really exciting but nothing was more exciting than learning about Chicano culture for me. And what that meant for my own kind of personal discovery my own trajectory, the understanding of my own family history and background. And so I pursued then a Spanish major and a business management minor. And so, graduated with those. And then I wanted to then be still still sort of rejecting this idea that I would be a writer professor whatever and I applied to do my master's degree in human resource management, because I wanted to be a human resource manager for whatever reason I love the idea of a hiring people and firing people and everything in between. God knows what compelled me to like even have that thought. It says, you know, says, says the person who says they don't like fighting. No. Yeah, so, you know, before you know I want to backtrack a little bit, you know, we, because I've had this conversation with another guest, and, and this was, we were talking about. I did Chicano studies as an undergrad. I'm from South Texas, but I, I for me, I didn't know any of my history and I always tell people, I had to go 2000 miles away to learn about where I was from. How far is New Mexico University New Mexico for how far was that from your hometown. I weren't 15 minutes. Not far at all. So here you are. You travel nearby. What was it? I mean, you talked about, I would say, can you get into more of the, what was it that appealed to you about this about the subject matter? Yeah, I think for me was putting pieces together and figuring out that, you know, the reason I don't speak Spanish is not because my mom didn't teach it to me or my dad didn't teach it to me, right. They had their own kind of complicated history with language. My, you know, my father spoke it with his grandfather until his grandfather passed away. So everybody has their different linkages and histories to the language. But for me, it was, it was interesting to not only recuperate the language, but understand how hard it is to use it. And New Mexico has a distinct dialect of Spanish. And it was interesting to learn an academic Spanish, but then be told by people that I don't speak Spanish like an old Mexicana. And that was again disassociations all over the place. And so, you know, I think for me it was, there were a lot of really great programs we have. UNM has a Spanish as a heritage language program that was founded by Sabino Li Barrie, who was from Terra Maria, where the like infamous courthouse rates took place. So again, just kind of like pointing out all of these things. And that heritage language program was really important. And I think it really, I wouldn't go so far as to say it saved my life, but it definitely gave me a purpose. And that program is really more focused on the language that you bring to the table. You're not a second language learner. You come from Spanish speaking communities in various ways. And you have an opportunity to not only learn about yourself and your cultural background, but to learn that there is Spanish for different contexts. Right. So everyone almost everyone in that class comes in there like I speak Spanish. I speak mocho. I speak like a pocha. And people get, you know, people seem to feel really down about the kind of Spanish that they're speaking. Right. And what I really loved in that program was that you don't speak bad Spanish. You just speak Spanish and like in the room together, it doesn't matter. Right. Now, obviously, if I'm going to go out somewhere else and speak to a different community, I'm going to learn the register appropriate to that community, just like we do in English. Right. I'm not going to go talk to the provost in the same way that I'm going to talk to Jose Navarro. Right. Like we just don't speak. There's different registers that we're going to employ and bring in when we're having these conversations. And so it was really helpful for me to understand that. And then to also learn from different folks. There was another person in the program, Pedro Torres, who is from Texas. And gosh, I learned so much about Texas in that program as well. Fun fact, no, Mexicanos have a deep dislike for Tejanos because you all tried to access back in the day and it was not successful. But I think we also like no, but he got a pride is probably only second to Texas in pride for one's home state. And so, you know, it's really just kind of fun to be in that environment to kind of look at, you know, how, how similarly we came to be, right? But then I think we are even between Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, for example, right? Like wildly different histories, wildly different formations of identity and culture. But, but all of that, that for me was the most fun part is how do I start connecting all these different things that I'm seeing and noticing and, and, you know, you know, I would all of course be remiss to mention that I got pregnant in my second year of undergrad. And so that really threw through additional layers into the way that I navigated college. But because then it was like, who am I for my son? Not just who am I as a person, a 19 year old trying to navigate the world, but who am I and who am I going to be for him? And that was important too. Wow. You know, I was going to ask, because you talked about getting to college pursuing pre-farm and sort of the struggles with, you know, the math science classes, right? And then, but then finding studying the language, studying the Chicano history. And, and as you said, as you just said, right, maybe it gave you a little bit of purpose. I was going to ask is, is that because you also kind of, you told us a little bit about the limited amount of support, financial support that your parents were able to give you, right? And so, you know, I work with first year students to help them transition to college and help them navigate sort of some of the troubled water sometimes. And so I think for a lot of students, they struggle to find that purpose, that thing that's going to encourage them, keep them going. And so it sounds like I was going to ask if that was it, but it also sounds like, you know, like you said, who am I for my son? Who am I going to be for my son? And so so much going on there, so much complexity. Thank you for sharing all of this. My next question though is, here you are, you've found something that you love to study, you know, learning so much about yourself, but also develop identity development, all of these things. And I'm going to go study human resource management. But why, when I told my father, I was majoring in Chicano studies, the first question he asked me, can you get a job with that? And I didn't know any better, I said, yes, absolutely, dad, yes, I didn't want him to worry. Was that what you were worried about? I honestly don't know. At no point in my life did I ask myself the question, can I support myself? And I, you know, and I think it's such a practical question, right? And, you know, one of the things that now I'm reflecting on, you know, my husband tells me, he's like, you knew when you chose humanity is that your salary was going to be less than all those people around you. And I was like, I didn't know, I didn't know. The only thing that I like to do would lead to like a lower financial achievement in life, simply because the humanities are undervalued, undermine all of those things, right? And of course, we are big proponents for the humanities, but no, I never, I never thought about these things. And I don't, I don't at least, at least I don't have a core memory where I tell myself, can you support yourself? And I did, you know, I think we're part of a generation where it was, it made sense to hustle for everything, right? And I think we're millennials probably more than any other generation are so deeply ingrained in hustle culture, like anything and everything you can do to move forward, keep moving, keep moving fast, don't think about things. So that when I, when I did get pregnant, you know, I was already working, you know, I was working. I had two, three, sometimes four jobs at a time. Again, I don't know how I survived my early 20s with like a child, a marriage, a divorce of jobs, master's degree, all of this stuff. But what really helped for me is that my siblings and I were so close, and we all lived in Albuquerque at the same time, and we all rented houses together. Like every, I wasn't out there like trying to do this on my own, right? I lived with siblings. I first moved in with my aunt when I moved to college. I paid her $100 a month to live in her house. Having a supportive community means so much when you just don't know what you're doing with your life, right? And I've never been in a situation where I've lived by myself except for one year at ASU when I came as a doc student, and it was the worst. I was so, you know, I was so depressed. I was so sad. It was so different from the community like embrace that I had felt for so many years. And that I think, you know, and because you pull all your money together and you make the bills work, but there's always these like dramas because people bring their boyfriends to live in the house and their girlfriends and whatever. Friends who need a helping hand, but it was like that, you know, like you just, we figured out a way to make it all happen. And, you know, everybody had their jobs and people were contributing. And that was really helpful. And, you know, my family is just the best. They're the best because whenever you need them, they're there, you know, and you could always go to my, even if my parents weren't like handing out money, you know, you could always go to them and be like, hey, like I'm having a hard time. I'm having a really hard time with this, you know, and we would all figure out a way to make it work. Um, UNM for years and years and years has had the lottery scholarship and I was able to go to UNM on the lottery scholarship. And that meant that all of my tuition was paid for, for the length of time that I was going to college. So all the way through, all the way through my doctorate, I told people, I have no idea how much college costs. I saw the bills at some point, right? Yeah. But they were covered because New Mexico just has a really great model for, for investing, you know, in, in college, if that's a pathway that you want to pursue. So I was really happy to be able to go to college, essentially for free. Of course, not everything is free because you're paying your books and you're paying your lodging and you're paying, you know, all your food and all of that good stuff. Um, and there was one semester where I lost the lottery scholarship and that was really sad. And that's another core memory because when, when, uh, when I failed my calculus exam and I failed my, uh, chemistry class, I took them again. And because you take them again, they don't count as new credits and I didn't know that. So I lost my lottery scholarship that semester was a very expensive semester for me. Um, but then I took, I think 18 somewhere between 18 and 21 credit hours to get it back again. And so it's all these different kind of movies that you're trying to employ because again, you don't know. Um, you didn't know if I took those same classes again, they wouldn't count, you know, toward my 12 credit hours, but things that you just kind of learn along the way, you know, and just super grateful to my family for being so supportive and, and, you know, everyone just, you know, they're just wonderful. Can't, can't say, you know, more about how great they were and how much we have supported each other over the years. At any point, was there any point where you thought, I can't do this? Yep. Yep. I had a, I just had my son and, uh, I, uh, we had brought him home and it was a Saturday. We got some pizza, had some food, whatever. Lots of people came over that weekend and then when they sent me home from the hospital, they said, call us on Monday morning, you're going to have some appointments. And so I called and they said, you have an appointment in 30 minutes. So I'm frantic. I got this new baby at home. I'm 20 years old. I should like grab all my things and I go down. We lived in some really janky apartments, but that's what we could afford at the time. And so went downstairs, told my, you know, boyfriend at the time, I'd see him later and then realized that when we brought Kendall home, I left my wallet in the car. I left all my things, all that shit got stolen and I have any of my things. The window was broken. My wallet was gone. Added me at the hospital. There's a lot of things I didn't know about being a new mom. Things leak. So all this was happening simultaneously and I was like, oh my gosh, I just have to get to the hospital. You know, and so I rush over, I don't have any of my documents to show anybody about like who I am and why I'm there. And I told again, my boyfriend at the time, I was like, please call your mom, send help. I don't know what it's going to look like, but please send help. And, you know, she at some point, you know, came and picked up my son and then I just went to my sister's house that afternoon and I was like, yo, I can't do this. I was like, I can't be a mom. I can't like take on this just fine. I just remember laying in the bed and just crying for I don't even know how long, but it was in that moment it seemed utterly impossible to take on everything that I was taking on. And obviously I pulled myself together, but in that moment I was just like, it's not going to happen. And obviously I had to write the like, my being in the world that needed to be cared for. But but it was a really, it was an interesting moment because I was like, but most of the time I feel like I can handle most anything people throw at me. And it's almost it almost feels like a challenge, but not that day. No. So then okay, let's one. Thank you. Thank you for that. Let's walk forward then to the human resource management. So what was that? What was that experience like? I, you know, so I finished my undergrad with a business management minor. And so in that summer, I had two Spanish classes that I needed to complete before I moved on to my dream of being randomly a human resource manager. So I went to the Anderson schools of business and you know, I said I wanted to apply for the master's program. And they looked over my coursework and the application and all that good stuff and they said, you're missing a class to apply and it was American studies. And the very first class I took in Chicano anything at UNM was an upper division American studies class and it was Chicano film with Gabriel Melendez. And it turns out that I took an upper division American studies class when I should have taken a lower division and they wouldn't count it for credit for admission into the master's program. So again, that was I don't know. No, I don't remember talking to anybody about what I needed and what I missed and those sort of things. And so I was in a summer class in so that right at that moment, my dreams of being a human resource manager died. And, and I said, well, I've got to do something because they told me well you can you can spend the fall semester and you can take this class and you can reapply and I was like, that's eight months of me doing nothing. And that was not acceptable. And so I was taking these classes in Spanish I had two more to finish up my degree because they let me walk in the spring but I had these two classes. And my professor Kimberly Lopez at the time was also the interim chair for the Spanish department and you know she asked me she's like what do you want to do. And I said, well, what is the deadline to apply for the masters in Spanish because I was like, I got to do something I can't just like not keep going to school. And obviously with my Spanish degree I wasn't like getting a job. So, because what was I going to do with that. I didn't have the potentials to be a teacher. I didn't even know what the job market might look like. So I think I was I was set on just staying in school. And so I asked he said when is the deadline to apply for the masters in Spanish. And she said it's tomorrow and I was. And so then like the little seedlings for another dream dying we're emerging. And she said but don't worry she said, you're really, you're a really great student. We really want you to succeed. We want you in this program. And that was very different from the business schools approach which was just like you're one in 1000 people who are trying to do this go away get your stuff come back later, were a Spanish because I got my undergrad there and because they were, you know, they knew who I was. They believed in my potential to continue. And so that day, she said, you, you're going to apply for the program. You're going to take your GRE, obviously not today, but you're going to sign up for it. And she said that I need you to record a language tape. And submit it so that we can consider you for teaching. I was the first time ever in my life I ever thought about being a teacher was that moment where she said, and do this you can be a teacher. And I said, great sounds great. And so I remember going home and I was like, shit, I got to record a whole thing in Spanish I was like this is really hard. You know, I hadn't in language acquisition speaking speaking is almost the last ability that you'll obtain right you'll learn to read right and listen and comprehend before you ever speak. But that day I had to force us I had to like go and record this like language tape. And I just remember I was at my sister's house and I was sitting on the front porch and I would start the tape recorder and then I would be like shit I messed up. Started over again hours went by or seemed like hours went by and I just start stop start stop and I was like I'm not going to get through this and then I finally told myself I said, let's get in the car and go home, put the put the tape recorder on. So I turned it on drove home it probably took me about 20 minutes and then I got there and I turned it off and it was done. So I sent in what it was. And then I got an offer to do my master's and to be a teaching assistant. And that was, yep. How long was that how long was that program. Two years, two years and they're they're multiple tracks. I was a student before that I was a heritage language student as an undergrad and they did have opportunities to be in the heritage program as a teaching assistant. Because I came into the program so late I was assigned to be in the second language program to teach for the second language program so like Spanish 101 Spanish 102, but I only had a contract for one semester. And my understanding again trying to make sense of the, the, you know, world and opportunities around me was that I had to find my own opportunity for the second semester. Dr. Maria Dolores Gonzalez was overseeing the heritage language program at the time, and she said I would love to have you teach for our program. Can we bring you on in the spring and I said that sounds great I don't have a job for the spring. And little did I know that there was drama there was drama between second language and heritage I walked into a lot of messes, and when I negotiated my own way my own job for the spring. It made the other folks upset because they wanted me to teach over there, but no one had given me any contract. And I thought it was on my own to figure it out. But the short of is that I started teaching in heritage language and it was a really great opportunity not just from the perspective of being a former student, but to also kind of just take everything that I learned and embraced in that program and use it as a T. Let me ask you. Because I think throughout your story and you talked about these moments where well nobody told me that. Right. And I, and I. I'm sure you've had this experience with students that you've worked with where they didn't know any better. Nobody's explained this to them right. We'll call it the hidden curriculum. We're right all of these things these expectations that, you know, for a lot of us for many of us we just don't know because we we we've never done it before and maybe the folks around us have never done it before. What advice would you give a student, particularly a graduate student who's in the middle of their program and finds themselves kind of lost trying to make sense of everything and is dealing with nobody's being direct with me. You know, nobody's right. What advice do you give you give a student like that. I ask questions all the time. I and I think it's okay to come in and say, I don't know this. Does someone have an answer for me. One of my colleagues one of my favorite phrases is she says, help me understand. And sometimes she says it sarcastically because you know she's doing it in jest. And sometimes she really is you know, I don't know what that means I think it's perfectly fine for us to come into a room and not act like we know what's happening. I wouldn't say 60% of the time I know what's happening in the room around me. The other part like I'm like, is everybody else's confuses me does anybody else have the same questions as me and probably they do. And so you know always tell students I'm like ask the questions. If you don't know what that means ask if you don't understand what the consequences of this are like, please let let me help you with that you know and I think in my role now I just I try to be as transparent as an administrator can be. And so when I'm talking to students to faculty to staff because most of us don't know. And that's okay. It's okay to not know these things, because the, you know, the alternate scenario is that we're running through this world with like things that people think that we know and we don't know those things. And then they make assumptions about the kind of work we can do and the kind of people we are when, you know, we could have started from a different place had we been more transparent about like where we're at. Right, so I always try, you know, you know one of the things I really like to do for for grad students is help them on the job market. And a lot of that is just understanding the environment of interviews, you know, knowing how to read a job ad. So many people don't know that all of this is very like it's very structured you know you apply for a job. You have to meet at ASU required and desired qualifications and if you don't meet those things like you don't move through it right so when you're filling out a job application. So are you speaking to the required and desired or are you simply, you know, and I think that for grad students. Life is hard enough anyway they're applying for, you know, 10s 20 hundreds of jobs in some cases. So it's hard to to have those job materials reflect each individual job opportunity, but to the extent that you can it makes such a huge difference. Right, and, and we don't get a chance to work with a lot of grad students here in my program anyway but I, in addition to sort of letting them know like a here's all the things you may not know about I also just want to be a good human being and supporter of them you know and I think that's just like, you know, checking in with them making sure that they're like feeling okay. My good colleague at New Mexico State, Judith, photos, carbon has a really great. She tells people come on that the it's such a great question right because that's just like wrapped up in so many different things so are we are we checking in with our students are we making sure that they're okay I think, you know, sometimes in this nation or multi ultra is and others and so people need to be checked on people, you know, people don't always have the same you know I was very fortunate and continue to be very fortunate to have such a great community you know. And I think a lot of it is because like if I've ever needed to know something I feel like I have cultivated good relationships where I can like just recall call people and be like, a can you help me with this or hey can you support me with this. And because the relationships are good you know like when you have a good relationship with people they're like, if we'll say ask me something I don't even care what it is because Jose asked and who says cool, and I'm here to support him right that's the kind of world I want us to have right we're like the relationships are just so good that you can be like can you help me with anything and people are like I'll be there. You know, when your friends stranded, you know, in your city overnight and they need you to come pick them up and take them to eat. Do it, you know, because they're cool people. But I want I want students to know graduate students undergraduates whatever that, you know, and I think that your podcast really brings to light a lot of these things you know what is the journey that we're all taking to get here and and to really demystify the idea that all professors have had like a very streamlined pathway to education or you know lead us kind of pathway to education, which is the farthest from the truth, right we're all just trying to figure things out. And some some of our pathways are more rough than others right and so but but students owning this I think is really important you know the other day we sat with some students and you know it was two freshmen one from Texas one from Arizona and they just felt lonely. And they said you know I got here and as you as such a big place and it took one person to say hey I think you should come to this meeting. And she said now and I'm meeting these other people and now we're meeting you know professors and but it just takes one person to reach out and say hey like let's let's go create a community together. Like a weird cultish way obviously. No, no, no, of course not no no I get it my. I appreciate that I think those are some valuable words and and I love right I think at the at the heart, you know you break it down, essentially just asking questions. And just kind of putting yourself out there so to thank you for that you, here you are you finish the program and what what came next for you. A bunch of hardship. What you mean it didn't get easier after that. Yeah, yeah so you know my son was five. When I finished my masters and I stayed at UNM for one year, just as a faculty associate because I wasn't again, there I am again I don't know what I'm going to do. I think I should probably you know a lot of my professors said you know you know you have to go get a doctorate now and and I don't I don't know if I did or I didn't need to do that but but it seemed that I tend to be a person who wants to go to the next height of the office like let's go and my. So I applied to a few places I applied to UNM I applied to ASU and then I applied to University of Illinois Chicago. One of my mentors suggested that I apply there because she really wanted me to be a socio linguist and I don't know that's what I wanted for me, but I you know I appreciated her and I really respected her as a mentor so I sit here I'll play to this program in Chicago. And, and I didn't get in and it wasn't surprising and that's okay. And I got into ASU and I remember getting the letter in my mailbox at UNM and just being so excited that somebody accepted me into a program, not ever having met me, just by the things that I sent in the mail. And I don't know if I've ever shared this move for but the the essay that I sent to get into ASU was the final paper that I wrote for my master's degree for Dr. Tatiana Rebollardo. And when she returned it to me she said no is the major job as a show, I think it's simply this that was kind of I get an English it's you know I don't think this is the best work that you've done. You just seem pretty tired. And so, but I have anything better than that right like I was like really over here being a mom, working for jobs like trying to get through this master's degree and then also trying to aspire into a PhD program and so I tell people all the time like those are the worst two years as a student that I had experienced, because I couldn't try harder than I was trying. And, you know, I think sometimes you're in you're in a scenario where, you know, if you would have just done this it would have turned into this blah blah blah. That was just that was all I could give in those two years in that master's program and so I think for somebody saying congratulations you're going to come in, you know we've admitted you as a PhD student met so much to me because there's some pretty bad years as a student, you know. And so, so you know I it was a really hard decision to come to ASU I was 25 it was the first time I was leaving home. My siblings and I at that time we're all living together my parents had bought a house in Albuquerque, because they didn't want to want to drive our houses separately so they said we're going to buy a house. And you're going to paramortgage and we said that sounds great. And it was like a two bedroom one and a half bath we didn't fit. We had to make new bedside it was fine, you know. And that's still the house that they're in now and it's it's just it's great, you know, but I had to make a decision to leave New Mexico for the first time and then to also leave my son which was really hard. And a lot of that is framed in academia as like you know you can't you can't come back unless you like go away and come back and so yeah, it happened in my head that there was no way I was going to get I could get a PhD at ASU or at UNM rather and then get a job at UNM right or in or in Albuquerque and so those were hard to those are really hard decisions I think I'm I'm finally at a point in my life where I can talk to talk about it without like losing my shit. But it was it was hard it was really hard because I was 25 and I was here by myself in Phoenix, Arizona. And you know my dad blesses little heart, he said, when I told him I was leaving he said well who's going to take care of my yard if you leave and I said well I thought about that. But I don't know. And my parents were they were upset also because my twin sister was also relocating to Flagstaff Arizona for a job. And so you know they had invested all this in a house for us and then we left. And so for them, you know I hadn't thought about it from their perspective but you know they were they're a little sad to you know about all the all the children abandoning ship. And so I came to ASU and you know my mom told me she was like, you just have to she goes, she's very like spiritual right she's like it's okay everything's gonna be okay she goes you will do you. And my mom was always the kind of person where you know I wouldn't say that she experienced a lot of autonomy as a wife. She was excellent mother. But she always inspired all of us to just do what we wanted to do. And she was like, don't you let anybody take care of you until you can take care of yourself. And that really stuck with me too. So I come to ASU totally sad and lonely and you know dealing with you know what does it mean to live away from my son every other weekend at five o'clock when I was done teaching I'd get in my car and I drive to Albuquerque. And we'd spend the weekend together and every Sunday afternoon we'd both cry our eyes out because I had to come back right. And there were a couple of things I think in hindsight that I appreciated about it one is that when we were together we were just together. I wasn't trying to do work I wasn't trying to like do anything else other than spend time with my kid. And when I was here at ASU I was just doing my work. You know, and so for the first time in five years I was just a student. You know my son would come and stay with us for the summer. I had to talk to my roommates about that it was okay or I told my roommates I'm like this is happening right so it wasn't like a conversation because you know that was not a negotiable. But we just you know it was it was rough because again every other it was the first time in my life where I wasn't working multiple jobs I started taking out loans because I needed to be I needed to see my son I needed to travel back and forth and my. I think $11,000 a month salary at the time wasn't going to cut it right so I am asked all these student loans and for the travel you know to to cults to keep that relationship, you know where we needed and wanted it to be. And I really thrived as a student today as you I encountered a couple of moments where professors to one professor told me you came from a deficient program at a deficient university. And that kind of hurt my heart a little bit because again I love New Mexico I love everything it offers and so for a professor to just say like. You can you you arrive deficient. You know, yeah. Wow. And my my mentor at the time he told me he's like to know so this to know so this is great in Spanish and I was like well. The problem because I'm here to get a PhD in Spanish and so I am having the language hang ups like they're forever long right and. You know so so I made it a point to to prove that I was not deficient because of perceptions of me coming from a deficient place and then out to prove that I could do this in Spanish and and and I did and by year three my mentor was like. Oh you're doing so great. You know and all these things and I'm like so happy to approve you wrong thank you. But the supportive community think was was harder to find and so in New Mexico obviously I had my family and my friends and you know call my dad and I would tell me I'm sad like I'm sad that you know life is what it is right now and he's like well this is a choice you made and I said I get it I get it but can we still express empathy even though I made like these choices for myself. Yeah. And you know I mean I felt at the time that I made the choices for the right reasons you know and and of course I think as like a young mom and and being like a Chicana Latina young mom there was a lot of perceptions of who I was as like. I can't tell you how many students how many other people are just like well you just left your son. And I'm like no don't worry I was like listen my dad was like not even at home half the time he was out like working and no one calls him a bad dad for doing this but then like when women do it it's like you've a bad your children you're a bad and I'm like so I got tired of that really quickly and I'm like it's not your business don't worry about it. Yeah. And we've got it taken care of you know and so I it was but it was hard it was really hard being away from home. It was hard trying to you know be the best PhD student I could be well also you know being a mom and you know really not wanting to be where I was you know it took me a really long time to embrace Arizona. I didn't think it was a pretty place I didn't think it was like but I only picked ASU because it was six and a half hours from Albuquerque New Mexico. And again I for some reason because I had gotten an undergrad in Spanish tried to get something other than Spanish my master's but didn't. I thought I had to get all of my degrees in the same thing. I did right and I didn't have an opportunity or I didn't know that there was an opportunity to to think about what other kind of pathways there are right like we have people in Chicano literature who got like chemistry undergrads and now they're like Chicano literature you know so so you know that's just to say like there's so many different pathways our students can choose and so many different ways where they can be successful and most of us just don't know what the options are and we don't know like we don't know what we don't know right and so. You know and we don't always know what our passions are and we don't always know like if what we're doing is the thing that we should be doing right and and so I think we should be free to just sort of explore those things and and you know I even going on the I think it was like Spanish departments English departments I guess you know like I don't know and and you know but but I really did I miss the community it took me a long time it in in Arizona to form a community. My husband's from Mesa Arizona which is super helpful because he is like super he super loves Arizona the way that I super love New Mexico the way that I love South Texas. In all their contradictions right and so. You know it's a it was really nice to you know when we started dating and I met his family and it just felt like my family you know and that really helped we started dating about two years after I got here and so so yeah that was it was good it was good you know. So you know you've walked us through the PhD talked about right how different you know some of the challenges and you know with your son and moving to a new place again that theme of community right and finding finding that community and that support but you mentioned something about the job market to tell us about that what was that like for you. Yeah for me it was you know I had colleagues who are applying to anywhere and everywhere right and I think when you're working with. A mentor is they have thoughts about you know where you should go and all those good things I think again at the time I didn't know that. Rankings for programs depend on where you place your graduate students and all of that stuff right so obviously they were coming mentors are coming from a different perspective right they want you to take. The best job wherever it is you know and they want that for you but they also want that for for their. So I get that but I had two kind of lines of thoughts for my mentors one was a professor who said. I took a job in corpus Christi because I had a family and I needed to support them and I didn't have the luxury of you know going anywhere on the job market he said my family was very important to me and I let that lead my way. And another professor who said you go wherever you get a job offer and you apply everywhere and then you go there. And so you know obviously like I like to like I like to get everybody's opinion on things I like to get everybody's perspective. And then just kind of filter those through and see what makes the most sense for you know my life and my situation and all of that good stuff and so my main motivation for the job market was close proximity to my son. And so I had a whole city where there was a column for distance to Albuquerque. How many hours would it take me to drive there what's the cost of a flight there. You know all of those things and I narrowed it down to probably I think 12 or 13 places mostly in California. When in Oregon Wyoming I think the farthest east I went was Notre Dame because what you know what Chicago Catholic doesn't want to go work. And so you know of course you know I didn't get a call back for many of them but I had three interviews all very different places I interviewed in Texas in Oregon and in Wyoming and it was my Texas is it was very Texas I was just telling someone this the other day I got picked up in a big old truck by like a little white woman and we went to my hotel. Which happened to be off the highway across the road from a water burger and then we went to your dinner that night and everybody was like in their jeans and cowboy boots and it was like a checker. Oh my gosh. Yes and fried okra and pickles and I was like this could not be more Texas of them. I think after you know that did that one didn't go well and I won't tell you where it was. Did you know I was going to ask. I'll tell you after the after the recording is over. Okay. But it didn't go well because I felt I went in very very confident and I asked some hard questions and I don't think people liked that very much. And there may have been other factors but you know I think part of it was me wanting to ask hard questions but then the other part was me trying to be professional in the way that I thought I needed to be professional and say the things that I thought I needed to say right not ever having been on a job interview before for that particular kind of role. And so I learned a lot and you know my second one was an organ. Lovely place small liberal arts college. I had a good experience there. People seem very supportive and and then in Wyoming and Wyoming was interesting because I saw the job call and it said someone who does you know literature from point of contact to the present and I said I did that in my dissertation I wrote from the 1500s to now. And at the time of course of writing my dissertation it seemed dumb to cover such a wide range. But you know I went to Wyoming and my dad was the one he told me he was like that's your job. And he said that's where you're going to go and and I kept that in the back of my head and and sure enough you know I happened to be in Wyoming when I got the job offer from or from from the place in Oregon. And told the people in Wyoming and they were just super supportive and they were like this is when our candidates are leaving we're going to call you right when everybody leaves like we're going to have you know you know we're going to decide and we're going to let you know and there was a lot of. I was I was really impressed by the enthusiasm. And so I accepted the job in Wyoming and it was an eight hour drive to Albuquerque on a good day. And on the worst days when there's traffic in Colorado Springs and Denver and it's snowing it takes 11 plus hours. I learned that once I went there so. You know, I was really grateful that he went with me we weren't married at the time and I said hey what do you think about going to Wyoming and I was taking him out of his home state for the first time. And he said I'm your biggest fan I go where you go and I thought that was like the nicest thing ever. And so we went we went to Wyoming together and it was we loved it we were there for three years and I told someone the other day it's a big fish and a small pond. But it's a great place to you know I was you know I told you it was from Grants New Mexico like much of the the altitude the like outdoorsy kind of thing is really replicated there. And had I not gone there, I would not have the research agenda that I have today. So I always tell people I'm like, you never know when the job market's going to take you. But sometimes it takes you to really unexpected places, never on any bingo card of my life would I have placed while the state of Wyoming right but it turns out that there's a lot of no Mexicanos in Wyoming. And they went up to be sheep herders and railroad workers and sugar beet workers. And as I started to get to know that community more that became my major research project which is following the money trail so it looks at the migration patterns of Hispanic New Mexicans who who migrated out of state to do all of these different things who went to California to work in the shipyards. You know all of these things so it became a major focus of the research that I do now, but I would not have done that had I not gone to Wyoming. Wow. You said you were there in Wyoming for three years. And then what came next for you. I really enjoyed being there. I think we both knew that we weren't going to be there for the long haul, but we were, we were having fun and it was a great time and we had a lot of good friends and community and all of that stuff. And there were a few jobs that came up in New Mexico and Arizona and you know my husband was like let's go to Arizona and I was like let's go to New Mexico. And you know applied for the jobs had some interviews had some campus visits. This this job here was advertised as assistant professor of English someone who could do Asian American indigenous African American Latin or Chicano literature and I was like I can do three of those. And I'll do the other two if we need me to. But I remember I was in Wyoming, I got up at five in the morning for whatever reason. And I was looking through the Chronicle because every morning I was looking at jobs, not because I necessarily like to apply but because I was interested in what was out there. And I saw this job and I remember sitting going to the kitchen sitting in my in the chair in the kitchen and just like turning upside down with like a glee wanting to tell my husband at 5am but like he's not a morning person so it wouldn't be nice. I was just excited about it. And I just found the whole process to be super ethical super super fun. And now I'm here, and I've been here since 2016. Wow. So you get there and you're a professor. Right. Now, before we jumped on or even when we jumped on you talked about your role and then your new role. You know, you're at the university. You know, and I think, I think we can all agree, right, we're seeking tenure. Right. And so we're trying to figure out, okay, what do I need to do in order to secure tenure. Did you ever see yourself moving into an administrative position. Yeah. I don't know if it's the Leo in me that wants to like do these things or or the failed HR person. I did you know I am there there was a moment that really you know so a couple things you know I came I came to ASU as a, I wasn't a third year assistant professor I started over again I had a lot to do to get 10 year including writing my single author book. And by the time I was year nine of being an assistant professor I was kind of over it, you know I had been doing this for so long, you know most people get tenure in their 60 year, but because I didn't bring gears with me from Wyoming and instead I started over again it was, I was like man this is getting older already like I've been doing this for a long time. And most people be halfway to full at that point right but I wasn't. And so my former dean, Dwayne Rowan again shout out to him. He randomly emailed me one day and he said, you would make an excellent leader one day, like let's chat. And I was like, what is happening right now is like who talked to him. What is going on. And it was always a point of mine as a junior faculty to make sure that like I was in the Dean's like, you know, whatever his environment right if he was at it. And I was going to the event to say hello, Dean, you know, and, and, and, you know, I'm not, and this is something I had to learn not something I knew, you know, instinctively but I every time I got an award every time something got published I would email my faculty head and I would email my Dean, and I would say, Hey, because if you, there's no way that you know that I'm doing these things unless I tell you that I'm doing these things. So and I encourage people to say that to you know, if like, if you want to be uplifted in some kind of way, let someone know, you know, let and other people are happy to do that for people. And other people want to do that for themselves, right, whatever that looks like. No one knows what you're doing unless you say what you're doing. But you know he sends his email one day saying I think you'd be a great leader someday and and I called my faculty head and I was like why isn't Dean sending me this message. And he was like, I said, did you talk to him and he said, No, I didn't say anything to him. He's like, I have him he goes but I didn't talk to him. And so, you know, I set up a meeting with the Dean and the Dean said, you know, I mean that he said I think he would be a really great leader, you know, he goes I could see you being Dean 10 years from now. And this is probably five years ago that he says this. So in my mind, I'm like, All right, Dean 10 years from now. And he said, you know, you may want to serve on Faculty Senate, may want to serve on personnel committee he's like think about what you can do post 10 year to situate yourself for that. So in my mind, I thought 10 year, you know, I get 10 year, become an associate, do these things like I imagined a ladder of things right or a pathway of things that I would need to do to be able to meet this end goal of being Dean. And I think part of part of what I've learned in academia is that these opportunities come in different ways. And the part I believe that part of the reason I'm in this role right now is one, you know, because I find my, I think I'm a competent person first and foremost. And, you know, my students consistently say she's passionate and enthusiastic and knowledgeable. And I think that those are important things without fail the students say this and I like to be passionate about things. I have a lot of passion about things. And, you know, I was on the faculty woman of color caucus as a campus rep for a number of years. And one year we didn't have a president and the president approached me and said, you know, would you be willing to serve as president next year and I said, sure, you know, that sounds great. Because I also think that when you take from an organization for so long like that reciprocal part of it is really important like I really feel like people need to be given back to things that they're taking from. And that's just the way that I think about the world, you know, so I know that if I'm in an organization for X number of years, I'm, I have to be willing to take on some roles sometimes because that's how these things work. I think there are people that don't and that's fine because they have their own reasons for it but I just, you know, my kids 22 now I don't have a reason like what am I doing other than, you know, going home and enjoying my life which is a very fun thing also. But, you know, say served, so I agreed to serve as president and one of my colleagues said, even I said like I don't know like you're not tenure yet and like you don't know what's going to happen and I was like, it's fine. It's just to hear, and that year happened to be 2020. So, I must have agreed in fall of 2019, and then came into the role, starting in fall of 2020 and it was a shit show. Everything was just nationally it was hard. You know, obviously COVID was was a thing and it was, I found it really difficult to navigate speaking for speaking for or with or in community with an entire group of women of color across the university at different ranks as an untenured Chicana professor. I do think that we showed up a lot that year I think that we did a lot of good work. And part of that role was intersecting with the vice provost who I would have never intersected with otherwise giving presentation giving a presentation to the former provost and and being in rooms that I didn't think I was going to even be in for, you know, 10 years, according to my career. I was in the first year of being an assistant dean, right. And so, I think that the way we showed up that year, opens and doors. Yeah. And I thought that it and so I would say that, you know, before I became an associate professor, I was asked to be an assistant dean. Again, disassociating because I was like, wait, these I need to do this before I do this before I do this and and, you know, I was able to demonstrate some capacities in another way that, you know, allowed for an opportunity. And of course, folks were saying, you know, well, why does she get to do it? She's like not even tenured yet and she's you know so and I don't make the decisions right so I didn't say like, Hey, have you thought about someone better than me like I would not. Why would you do that? Right? Yeah. But I was I was grateful to have the opportunity and and you know, part of that is doing a leadership assessment where they send out a survey to all the folks who identify in a list and they ask about your your aptitude for leadership and across the board people said Vanessa is absolutely able to do this. She just doesn't have the experience yet and they didn't say it as it was a negative thing because they said with experience, her capabilities will be so much better. Right. And so I, you know, I sent it out, I think to 53 people and 50 people responded. So again, like the community, right, the community we're building where they're like, I do want to, you know, I do want to support Vanessa and this and I do want to give feedback and and that feedback was really useful because it's one of those things where you do a self assessment and they do an assessment. It shows you how much your self perception is matched against the way that other people see you and you can do a lot of reflecting in that area. And so, so it's good, you know, and then so I've been do I did that for four years. This is my fourth year as an associate dean. Inclusion work is hard, man. Like it's it's a lot. Yeah, yeah, I imagine so. Yes. And I think the hardest thing is being, you know, the the idea that you alone will carry. You know, there's a perception, you know, that like the associate dean will do this and this and this for us, but really like it's everyone is doing such great things, right. And it's just how do we, how do we amplify all the great things that people are doing how to create opportunities for people to do more. How do we make sure that everybody knows about the great work that's happening, right. And then of course there are scenarios where, you know, we have to do some risk risk assessment and management and all those good things but I would say the vast majority of the job is really just like shouting out people who are doing awesome things. Congratulations. Thank you on the work that you've done and, and I think I think congratulations. More so because. Because clearly, you were exhibiting right all of these qualities you were putting in hard work you were doing good things. And somebody took notice. Right. And I think sometimes I think and and and I. I think every once in a while, you know, in in in in institutions. So all kinds of institutions, but absolutely a university in higher ed. It's possible to do good things and feel like nobody's ever paying attention to you. So congratulations to that. Congratulations on on really, I think, making the most of that opportunity and doing the good work continuing doing good work. You just promoted. Correct. Tell us about this new role. So, um, but you know, I came to campus one day and we had a group of students from the University of New Mexico that were here and the person who was supposed to be giving the welcome couldn't come. And so I don't know how people know I was on campus, but all of a sudden they're like Vanessa, can you come and do this welcome? I was like, I want to bet a call. And, you know, but I did. I did that. And then my Dean was like, Hey, I heard you're on campus. And so, you know, she asked me, you know, she asked me, she's like, Where do you see yourself five years from now? And I was like, nowhere. I'm on sabbatical. I'm not trying to think about these questions. And, you know, so, you know, I think we're always, I don't know how long one stays in a role before new roles come up, right. But my, my, I just want to do the most good wherever I'm at. And, and I recognize that sometimes we're in roles, whether that be a committee or, you know, whatever, where we don't feel like we're doing our best work. Right. I feel like I've been doing good work. And I feel like we as a community have been doing good work here on our campus. But, you know, this campus is great. It's such a small campus. We have about 6500 students. It's on a former Air Force base. So it has a lot of that kind of military kind of history. And people have a lot of really great memories attached to the campus. And, and, you know, I, a couple of colleagues of mine who started around the same time as I, as I did, we're like, Oh, we have all these like great ideas for this campus and one jewel is cool stuff and people need to get on board because it's fun and where we're going places and there's a lot of enthusiasm over like what the campus could be. Right. It has a lot of potential for growth. Now, you know, an expectation of growth, which is a little bit different than just like good feelings and good vibes about it. But I remember, you know, when I first got to campus, it was, it was so small and it was so rural. And I loved it. I loved walk, driving past all the agricultural fields, alfalfa fields, you know, whatever they might be. And just like, it was very peaceful to come out here. And of course, develop is happening, development is happening and more folks are coming out to the East Valley and now it's going to be like a major corridor for innovation and whatnot. And so the needs for the campus are different, you know, so this position came up and in October, November, and I didn't know, I didn't know if it was an opportunity for me. I didn't know if it was where I could do my best work and more over. And I think this is always a consideration. I wanted to make sure that my scholarly identity was protected. And so I remember having conversations early on and saying, whatever opportunities are available, I need to ensure that my scholarly identity is protected, and that there's going to be time to do research because I got another level of professor, professorhood to get to, right? I'm attracted to the pool. And there's just so many stats about not just women of color, but people of color in general who get stuck at the associate professor level. And that's not my intention. I don't desire to be one of those to be like that. But there are good reasons why people made those decisions, right? That's not the decision I'm making for myself. And I don't intend to get sidetracked from that goal, right? And so I wanted to make sure that that was something people would consider and they did. And that was really good. And so I applied for it and I interviewed. And again, these are all these people who have been doing these jobs for a long time and I'm sitting in there. And I think for the first time, I applied for a few jobs a couple years ago and I really felt sort of out of my element because I was applying for these like VP roles. And I was like, shoot, like I'm just barely an associate dean. And but this time I said, you know, I know this campus, I've been on this campus for eight years, all I can do is go in and speak very honestly and transparently about what I see on this campus. And it was the least stressful interview I've ever done in my life. And I met with many people that day. And I left just thinking, you know, I came to the table exactly as I am transparently, honestly, I wasn't sugarcoating of course, like I dressed the part the day of course, because like what was going to do that. But I felt really good about it. I felt really good about, you know, the ideas that I had the thoughts that I had and obviously they thought that I had good ideas too, you know, and so, but I've been running around this campus for years being like somebody should just put me in charge of this campus. I love it here. I want to be here all the time I want to do all the good things and and I'm really looking forward to it I think it's a little different because rather than advocating at a college level I'm advocating on a campus level, and doing the things that I love to do which is like connect people to this is I joke and tell people my associate dean role is really like an operator people are like I need help with this and I'm like okay I got you and I'm like I plug them in and they're just like no no no wrong number and I'm like I'm so sorry, let me grab you a different number and then eventually we're going to get them connected where they need to be connected whatever it's for right. And so I enjoy that kind of role. My job is to get people from like 100 back down to like let's let's all be right here so we understand what we're talking about. And even if we can't do the things that you need I want to help you understand why that's not possible right now at this moment. But what else can we do, you know in the interim right for your success whatever that looks like. And so this is really more like a connector person a people person and I just, you know, I never imagined myself as that right but but I do think it's a little HR you know, you know because it is like listening to people's issues helping them like problem solve all of that good stuff and so maybe at the heart of it it was that was the desire right the desire to be connected to people to know their stories to know what they're going through and to be a resource, you know, and if that's not HR like I don't know what it's but it sounds like a charter me in and if I've learned anything from all of these conversations. It's fascinating how at one point maybe early on we see ourselves doing one thing or pursuing one thing or, and then somehow we end up we may not go down that road we may not fully commit in that direction. But somehow that work finds its way to a lot of the work we do the rest of the way. Yeah, and that's what it sounds like has happened here for you. Yeah, I don't have the title of HR manager but become become to me and I'll help you out like. Yeah, before I let you go couple to last questions. So, do me a favor describe this standalone campus standalone ASU campus telling about the campus itself. You know what's different what's unique about this campus. Yeah, so as you consider itself one university many campuses so it's different from like a UC model or different from a UT model where every campus has its own sort of like thing. So we're all connected to the same university which is 190,000 students the largest R one institution in the US. We have a half of that population is our ASU online population and then the other half is our on ground population of that on ground population you have students at various campuses so the West Valley campus which is on the far West Valley. Then you have the downtown campus Tempe and then the poly campus. Our campus is really focused on embracing kind of applied learning hands on learning approach so it's you know you're learning about it but you're out there doing it and you're making connections to the world outside you're not just sort of in the classroom learning about things but you have an opportunity to go out and practice those things. We just started a Latinx oral history lab on campus so we're really excited about getting out in and hearing stories from the community making that relatable to our students seeing how students can utilize those stories for their own learning process. And there's just one of many examples we have 6500 students on campus. We are an official arboretum so it's a very beautiful campus lots of sort of native floor and font fauna on the campus that people tend to enjoy. There's many different colleges located on the campus the largest is the IRA Fulton schools of engineering and then the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts where I am at as a faculty member. We have nursing we have WP carry business we have a Barrett which is our honors college. We have College of Health Solutions College of Global Futures all those have a presence on this campus. Sometimes programs are replicated across campuses. One of the kind of signature programs we have on this campus is applied biological sciences where you can get a degree in pre vet and pre dental. And then we also have a flight management program because we're right across the road from the Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. And so there's a lot of opportunities and because we're a former Air Force base it just like all of it just you know there's a lot of opportunity we have a flight simulator on campus. So a lot of really just trying to embrace that kind of polytechnic model but making a space for sciences and arts within that. And thinking about how our different programs can kind of mesh together over time we have an agribusiness program we have indoor vertical farming we have sustainable horticulture all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah. Wow. Yeah that does sound like a really cool campus. It sounds like there's a lot going on there. You know Vanessa as we transition out I always ask my guests for you know final words of advice. So what last piece of advice would you like to leave for our listeners. That's a big call. Yeah so first I want to say thank you. This has been this has been really lovely and definitely departure from my normal daily activities. I appreciate it and I just you know I think for. I think for people you know to sort of take away from this is that you never know where life is going to take you right and I think to be open to the opportunities however they arise. And even if you find yourself in unexpected places there's still so many beautiful things to learn from from those places and I think that if we kind of have an attitude of just embracing the places that we're at while we're at them. It can really take us far. I love that. I love that. It's really well said. Thank you. Vanessa thank you. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your story. I really enjoyed listening to it. Congratulations on the role and on the work you're going to be doing and I'm sure you're going to do a wonderful job. They're very lucky to have you. But this concludes another episode of the World's Greatest. It's a great way to college podcast. Thank you to my guests. Thank you to our listeners and viewers out there. Please don't forget to subscribe right. Follow all of that good stuff and don't forget to share the podcast with one other person. I'd appreciate it. Thanks again and we'll see you soon. Bye bye. you