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In this episode, DMP founder Amanda R. Martinez hosts a conversation with two guests, who are Latina women of color in administrator positions, Dr. Shantel Martinez, Director of the First-Generation Programs and Enrichment for the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Bianca Zamora, Associate Director for Stanford University's School of Humanities and Sciences. They discuss how they found their way to their current DEI-centric roles within higher education, as well as their own positionality and how they choose to go against the common individualistic grains of academia that privilege an expectation of neutrality and objectivity to instead theorize and write from the flesh where identity occupies a central foundational space. These administrators work to create scholarship and applied policies to transform organizations and institutions of higher education in the spirit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Other topics they discuss include the systems of power that are inherently messy and how well-intentioned activist efforts that bridge community-based organizations and academic institutions' agendas to do better and improve the quality of life for diverse populations can still include ongoing learning and growing pains to improve over time. They prioritize being trauma informed, healing, joy, connection, community, and ultimately being guided by a principle of centering peoples’ humanity. As women of color in high power administration positions, they express what it will take for advocacy work to be taken seriously, how people can thrive (and not just survive), the trials and tribulations of managing changing laws, policies, and the goals and expectations of colleagues and students. How can we continue to dare greatly in this work? Social justice is hard work because it’s heart work.
