Emanuela Kucik, May 14, 2021

Dr. Emanuela KucikMay 14, 2021

SAMANTHA BRENNER: OK, perfect. So my name is Samantha Brenner, and I'm here with Dr. Emanuela Kucik to talk about her experience at Muhlenberg College.

Our goal is to collect oral histories of peoples' unique experiences during their years at Muhlenberg College, to preserve the information for future generations to access. The oral histories are an integral part of our course, The History of Diversity and Inclusion at Muhlenberg College. We are meeting on Zoom on May 14, 2021. Okay, so to start, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me today. Can you please state your full name and spell it for me?

EMANUELA KUCI:: And what was the last part?

SB: And spell it, your full name.

EK: Oh, yeah, sure, so is, hi, I'm Dr. Emanuela Kucik. It's E-M-A-N-U-E-L-A and is my first name and my last name is K-U-C-I-K. And I'm an Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies and the Co-Director of the Africana Studies 00:01:00Program at Muhlenberg.

SB: Thank you so much. Do you consent to this interview tonight?

EK: Yes, I do.

SB: And do you consent to this interview being transcribed?

EK: Yes.

SB: Do you consent to Muhlenberg College and researchers using your interview for educational purposes?

EK: Is that the--?

SB: Yeah, I just format-- I have to go, so we can skip this part.

EK: Yeah, so we just talked about it. I will review the interview after we're done and then figure out whether it'll be public or private.

SB: Perfect. And then do you understand that you were not receiving any monetary compensation for your time tonight?

EK: I do. Yeah.

SB: OK. So to start with some of the questions, I guess going back to what drew you to come to Muhlenberg? Why did you decide to come work at Muhlenberg and what year did you start working here?

EK: Yeah. So I came here in 2018. So my first week was in August of 2018, and I 00:02:00came right after graduating from my Ph.D. program in June of that year. And I came, I really wanted to work at a liberal arts college. I really, really wanted to be able to have the kind of relationships that you can have with students at liberal arts colleges, the small classroom space, the individualized attention you can give students, the emphasis on creative teaching and creative pedagogy. I really wanted all of those things, and I knew that liberal arts colleges placed a heavy emphasis on teaching, on faculty-student relationships, and that was what I really wanted. I think you have a great opportunity to get to know students better when there's smaller classes. You also get to know them really well outside of the classroom because there's a lot of faculty involvement in student extracurricular activities. I'm also the faculty advisor to the Black Students Association, for instance. And I wanted all of those things. I really 00:03:00enjoy cultivating relationships with students and being able also to have classroom discussions that are really in-depth because they're small groups. So I was looking for that.

I also really wanted a joint appointment between English and African-American Studies, Africana Studies or Genocide Studies. My work looks at race, literature, human rights and genocide and the intersections of those areas and, a lot of the times, what would happen on the job market is that English positions found my work too far outside of the spectrum of kind of standard English curricula and then Genocide Studies programs or Africana Studies programs found the work too literary based. And so I really wanted a joint appointment that would allow me to explore both aspects of my interest in terms of the English component and then the race studies component. And Muhlenberg's position was English and Africana Studies, and it was perfect. So that was why I 00:04:00applied and why it quickly became my top choice as well, and I'm very grateful that worked out.

SB:Thank you so much. And I was just thinking about your time at Muhlenberg so far. Has there been anyone in particular that has supported you and or been a mentor towards you over the past few years?

EK: Yeah, so many people. I've been really fortunate to have so many people who have just looked out for me in a million and one ways. So, when I came in through Africana Studies, Professor Roberta Meek has been absolutely incredible for shepherding me into the directorship, helping me just develop as an Africana Studies professor, and just looking out for me as a Black faculty member, as a Black woman, as I said, as someone in Africana Studies. She was the director of the program when I came in and she just helped me adapt and acclimate. And then 00:05:00when I ended up being asked to step into the directorship, which is earlier than anticipated, she helped me make that transition and figure that out. So she has been absolutely phenomenal. In the English department, my senior colleagues have been so wonderful. In particular, Dr. Barri Gold whose been the chair of English, has gone so far out of her way to make sure that I feel welcome and supported to make sure she, along with Dr. Francesca Coppa, Dr. Dawn Lonsinger, they have all, in particular, really gone out of their ways to make sure that I feel supported as a junior colleague, but also as a Black colleague. All three of them identify as white women, but they have really tried hard to make sure that I feel seen and valued as a Black faculty member. They've gone out of their way to ask how they can make sure that that happens, how to make sure that my work doesn't become invisible, that I'm not overextended. When I was asked to 00:06:00step up into the directorship in Africana, they reached out to ask how they could help reduce some of my responsibilities in English. So they have been wonderful and also just as senior colleagues and helping me navigate the tenure process and all of the senior colleagues in my department have been really supportive and wonderful.

There is Dr. Brooke Vick in administration, who is Associate Provost for Faculty and Diversity Initiatives. She has been incredible. She came in the same year as me, and so I have benefited from kind of being here throughout the era of her and wonderful, wonderful work, and she is at the helm of so much work and diversity and equity and inclusion. And she has done so much work to make sure that Black faculty and faculty from marginalized groups are seen and heard. And she's also just been a wonderful friend, a mentor to me in the academy. She's been in it longer than I have. Like I said, I started this right out of 00:07:00graduate, longer than me, and so they've been just so wonderful and supportive. Dr. Maura Finkelstein, in anthropology, has been a wonderful source of support for me and Dr. Connie Wolfe and Dr. Margo Hobbs, both of whom have worked with me as co-director. I was really touched by the ways that they stepped up to do that as senior colleagues, even though they're not fully in Africana Studies. They did that to make sure that I felt supported, so Dr. Wolfe did it first, and then she's on leave, and Dr. Hobbs stepped in to do it with her. And then, I mean, while she was gone and Amy, Dr. Amy Corbin is also-- she's in Media and Communication, and she has also been a wonderful support system for Africana. So there-- there are so many people. I'm leaving out a lot of people who have been really, really wonderful sources of support for me, and I really appreciate it and then a ton of staff members. And also, I mean, the people who came in with 00:08:00me too, a lot of them, like I said, have been doing this for longer than me. So they were also mentors. Dr. Ellie Sifford in Art. So, yeah, I've been really blessed to have a wonderful support system around me.

SB: That's like really promising to hear, just like looking at my own personal research and thinking about how the climate has been at Muhlenberg and like what professors have been here and even listening to alumni speak and just their relationships with professors that, that is really amazing. And I guess even thinking about the climate at Muhlenberg, did you know what Muhlenberg was like prior to starting or did you only know that it was a liberal arts college?

EK: No, mostly what I knew about it was from visiting and from the-- I mean, the research that I had done when I was applying for the job. I mean, I knew certain things about it, but they were more general in terms of it being a liberal arts 00:09:00college, you know, the programs that specialized in and what it was known for academically and those types of things. But I didn't know anyone who was-- who worked at the school. So in terms of having like-- or any students at the school, also in terms of having any sort of insider information about campus climate, I didn't have any of that. Everything I knew was just more from a national and local reputation.

SB: Amazing. And I guess even just thinking about your role at the college. During our research, we were talking about like pioneers and you really are like someone who has changed Muhlenberg for the better and really has changed the environment over the past, I want to say-- like you're so really, like has changed and created new programs, I guess. Can you talk a little bit about your inspiration in starting a book club and starting your series? What went into that, and why did you decide now is the time to start it?

EK: Yeah, well, first, I just, I mean, thank you, but I feel like I have just built on the work of so many incredible people who came before me and who made it possible to do this type of work. I mean that thinking about an Africana professor, Roberta Meek, for instance, and how hard she worked for so long to keep Africana Studies going and the energy and love that she poured into that. And you know, so many people. Robin Riley-Casey in Multicultural Life. And so, I feel like I've just-- I've been really, really blessed to come in on the backs and stand on the shoulders of people who have been doing this work for a long time and made it possible for me to do work that I'm interested in too. And working alongside people, programs would not be possible without collaborating with so many amazing people across campus doing this work like the "From the Ashes" series. As you saw, there are a ton of contributors and so, Dr. Leticia Robles did the Latinx community's event. Dr. Purvi Parikh did the ASA and Top 00:11:00Naach event. Professor Roberta Meek and I did the genocidal medicine one, and the Office of Multicultural Life helped with the whole thing. So it's very collaborative and I'm grateful for all of that.

In terms of what inspires me to do them and to start these things, so the book club, well, in general, I should say I'm a huge fan of-- I think like extending education beyond the classroom, so I think that so much important learning happens outside of these spaces where we meet twice a week, which are great, but they're also, you know, they're constricted to what we can do in that time. They're constricted to the material every day. And I always learned so much in undergrad and grad school from events I went to outside of class and I found it so rewarding to be able to link those events to things I was learning in class. And I just, particularly regarding current events, I was always kind of hungry for more information about context for what was happening in the world around 00:12:00me. As someone who was always interested in race and social justice, I was always really interested in like, what is the relationship between this and what I'm reading in class? And also like, what is the larger context for what's happening in the world? How can I contribute to positive change? You know, I'm just one person. I'm a student, like, what can I possibly do? And I just had all of these questions swirling around my head. And so, as a faculty member, I wanted to try, and I figured students had similar questions. And particularly as someone who teaches courses on, you know, literature and racial justice or literature and social justice, genocide and literature, my classes always are intersecting very heavily with life or death issues that are happening in the world, and students always have questions about it. How can we take these great conversations we are having in the classroom and apply them outside of the classroom? And what are some of the larger histories of some of the stuff we're talking about that can't really be covered just in, you know, this class? And so 00:13:00I decided that I would create the programs that I thought could be helpful and or proposed them and work with-- There's so many people, like I said, already doing such amazing work and I thought, so maybe now in this new role as the Africana co-director, I could partner with people and bring some of these programs to life, and I'm also really interested in, groups that are doubly and triply marginalized, that are left out of conversations, so thinking about Black cities, for instance, the "Blackness and Disability" series for Black History Month. The reason that we did that was because we were thinking that even in conversations about Blackness, which you know, focuses on a marginalized group, Black disabled communities are often left out of those. And the events focused on Black transgender communities. Same thing, they're often left out of these conversations. And conversations about Black liberation tend to exclude Black transgender communities and Black disabled communities. And so I'm always very 00:14:00interested in how can we center the experiences of these groups who are often further marginalized even beyond like, OK, we've gotten to the place where we're talking about Black Lives Matter. That's good. But there is still a certain type of Black life that's privileged above others. And how can we do work to make sure that doesn't happen? I'm also really interested in solidarity and cross-cultural solidarity and linking various groups that have been marginalized in a ton of ways. And so thinking about the relationship between what Asian students are going through right now with the violence that they've experienced and what Black students are going through based on the violence they've experienced and how and what Indigenous communities are going through and how how can we all come together to make really effective change to challenge these systems that oppress so many different groups? And so those are some of the threads, like current events, solidarity and groups that have been doubly and triply marginalized that I wanted to bring to the forefront.

And so those are the reasons behind some of the different series, so the 00:15:00"Blackness and Disability" series, like I said, the "From the Ashes" series also came out of, that was kind of a merging of all of those things. We really wanted to figure out how to speak to the COVID moment and also to the fact that within COVID, a lot of racialized, marginalized groups that were marginalized racially were struggling in disproportionate ways. And how could we center that experience and give students from those communities the space to really talk about that? And then also to get some larger context about the histories of that and what was actually happening? That's another thing I'm interested in doing is providing a merging of spaces for students to share their experiences and to get some academic background to it. So, for the COVID series, the "From the Ashes" series, we divided it up into these four groups. So Asian communities were being 00:16:00targeted because of racist propaganda and then Black and Indigenous and Latinx communities were dying at disproportionate rates because of systemic racism in health care systems and systemic racism period and access to health care. And so we wanted to put on programs that spoke to all of those events, spoke to all of those experiences. And so, yeah, those are some of the ideas behind all of those types of things. And the book club, actually, came out of my first global Black literature class. And at the end of the semester, there were just so many books that we had not gotten to do, of course, because of global Black literature, there's a massive thing to pull from, and so a couple of students had asked me if they could stop by my office if they read some of the books on--I put up a list of other recommended texts--and I said, sure, and then more and more students asked. And then some students from previous classes asked, and I 00:17:00thought, What if we just opened this up to everybody? And we did. And then it was great. We had I think, like one or two in-person meetings. And then the pandemic hit and I decided rather than canceling it, to turn it into an opportunity for further connection. And so we've been doing it virtually. And that's another thing, I think we are all struggling. I would have wanted to do the programs anyway, but I felt particularly motivated to do them in the midst of the pandemic because I think we were all struggling with isolation. There is also the intersection of the pandemic and these killings, for instance, of Black communities and the Black Lives Matter movement, and then not feeling you even had your community around to process that. And so I wanted to try to create spaces that allowed the community to come together in the midst of, in the midst of all that. And that also really addressed what was going-- what was going on.

And in general, I try to keep in mind how hard it was as a student and still as a faculty member to try and create these kind of false distinctions between your 00:18:00academic and professional life and then your other life. And OK, so I'm a student in this moment, but I'm a Black person in this moment, trying to grapple with seeing George Floyd be murdered on camera. And that's just not possible. That's-- we're just people and it's not possible to compartmentalize like that. And I have the privilege of my work revolving around these types of things, so I don't have to compartmentalize in the same way, but I know a lot of students don't necessarily feel that way because they're trying to fulfill all their requirements and different things. So, I wanted to create events that allowed them to just kind of be present as a full person and grapple with everything that they were dealing with and to acknowledge that these are very real events and there are people whose entire communities are being wiped out by COVID, you know, and there are people, you know, Asian people are being spit on in public because of this racist propaganda. And how do you juggle that and then go to 00:19:00class and act like everything's fine? Like, you know, a lot of us on campus just wanted to create spaces where we said, we know everything isn't fine and here is something that's dedicated to allowing you to talk through that and then also providing some larger, like what are the larger historical-- what is the larger history behind anti-Asian racism in the US, for instance, a lot of people don't even realize that that's been something that's been here for centuries. So, yeah, it's a long answer for there's a lot of reasons that I do the programs, and I'm clearly very passionate about them and love doing them. And I will keep doing them.

SB: Thank you so much for that. I mean, you fill the gap that needed to be filled in like, I'm sure a lot of people didn't even realize that there was this void. So thank you. And even just like thinking about how these programs are advertised, like what goes through your mind and, like, are you the one making the posters? Like, what about, how are these pictures chosen? How are you, how 00:20:00are you advertising it to get people to come in and just like making sure that people know what's happening?

EK: Yeah, that's a great question. So, I'm going to try to think of-- so, in general, I pull together all the information for the posters. And so that means if it's an event that I am participating in, I write the description, write the date and the time and all of that type of stuff, pull it together into an email, and then I send it to Brooke Porcelli, who is Muhlenberg's graphic designer, and she's incredible. She makes the actual posters, and the photos that she uses are, Muhlenberg has, I think, a pool of photos that we have copyright access to, and she pulls from those. So she'll ask, like, what's the theme? And I'll say it's for the last event we did on "Liberation Requires All of Us". That was about Black community leaders. We said, OK, you know, it's focused on famous Black leaders and their partners and the roles that their partners and 00:21:00communities had. So, you know, Frederick Douglass, MLK, Coretta Scott King, do we have images of these people? Or sometimes we'll say, OK, this is focused on an, racial justice generally, what type of images do we have for that? And she'll give us different options. For the "From the Ashes,", I wrote that description and created it around the idea of a phoenix rising from the ashes. So she used phoenix imagery. So basically, she asked for the theme and then she'll pull images from a pool that she has and give us different templates. And so that's where those come from. And then the descriptions, like I said, if I participate in it, I will write the description if it's something I'm facilitating. If, like "From the Ashes" series, whoever is facilitating it, will write the description and then I compile all the information and send it to Brooke. So, for the "Latinx Communities" event, Leticia and Comunidad Lantinx 00:22:00wrote the description and sent it to me. And then for the ASA and Top Naach one, Purvi and ASA and Top Naach wrote it and sent it to me. The genocidal medicine one, Professor Meek and I wrote it. And, yeah, so for all of them, I collect information from whoever is doing it and/or I make it if I'm in it and then send it all to Brooke. She makes the poster and then I distribute the posters. So I send emails to, there's an "Everyone" listserv that we have access to as faculty that includes all faculty, staff and administration. So I send it to them, inviting them and also asking them to share with students.I send it to my students as well as the Black Students Association as their advisor. And then we don't have access to emailing all students at once as faculty only the Dean of Students can. So I email the Dean of Students, Alison Gulati, who's wonderful and she sends it out to all students. Jon Dymock is the person who facilitates 00:23:00registration, which is wonderful, so I will send him the information for the events. He creates a registration link and then we do that. And then Margo Hobbs or Connie Wolfe, depending on who's here, sends out the, you know, the Zoom link, and I post it on the Muhlenberg Africana page, Instagram page and things like that. So, it's a multifaceted plan to get the information out there. I ask students to share it and we try to share it at least two weeks in advance or so, and then just kind of send reminders every couple of days. Students usually get two total emails and faculty get maybe three or so. And then a lot of social media posts.

SB: Wow, I did not realize how many people went into planning one event, that is so crazy. Wow. So I guess even just thinking about like initiatives and how that is like, you know, educating people. In June 2020 there was a letter written, 00:24:00I'm sure you were very involved with that. And I guess just thinking about like, why this letter was written and what led to this letter being written? And then my follow up question like, did the college react appropriately to the letter, and just like if you would mind talking a little bit about that letter that was written.

EK: Yeah, sure. Yeah. So the Black Faculty Letter and Action Plan was written and it builds on the Diversity Strategic Plan that the college already has in place and is continually working on as well. And the reason that we wrote it was in response to what was happening across the nation. So, the Black Lives Matter protests were happening in response to all of the killings of Black individuals, and a lot of people in academic spaces were taking this moment and the national 00:25:00attention that was being focused on racism and on anti-Blackness to try and use our positions in the academy and in higher education to really push for more equitable institutions and to make connections between anti-Blackness and the ways that racism plays out in these killings and higher education, and thinking about how can we inform our students better about the origins of these crises? How can we make sure that we get requirements for classes that will make sure that we're graduating students who are fully versed in this? How can we make sure that we keep pushing for an equitable campus climate for students, for faculty, diversifying the campus, but not just diversifying it, making sure that it's a genuinely inclusive space for everyone who's coming in?

And so we, you know, Black faculty just got together and talked and said, you know, we're seeing a lot of schools releasing statements or plans. And, so, what if we did both and used this as a moment to ensure lovingly bring up some of the issues in higher education and ways that we think Muhlenberg could continue moving toward becoming a more inclusive space and propose some concrete steps for that. But, like I said, a lot of them build on the Diversity Strategic Plan. And so that was the idea behind it. So, we got together and we did that and it was, you know, it was a, it was a difficult emotional time because there was so much happening in the country. And you know, you want to both get it out quickly so that it's timely, but you also don't want it to be rushed. And we were also trying to process everything that was happening. We also wanted a big part of 00:27:00it, and I should've said this in the beginning, a big part of it was also wanting to make sure that our Black students felt seen and felt heard and felt supported. And we know that there's not a lot of Black faculty. And because of that, we're spread out and a lot of students don't realize that, necessarily, that we're here and we wanted to come together as a mass. And even though there's a small amount of us, we wanted to-- we're here and we wanted to stand up collectively and tell the Black students, we're here. We're going through this with you and we stand with you. And so that was actually the number one reason behind it. And then the other things came after that, and we had one letter that was an action plan that was just signed by us. And then we had one that was open to solidarity signatures from our colleagues and allies, faculty, staff, administrators so that students could see how many people stood with them. And that was massive. We, I mean, I think almost everyone signed it. So that was really beautiful and we were really touched by that. And in terms of 00:28:00the school response, yeah, I mean, I have been-- I don't want to speak for anybody about myself, but I have been pleased with the response. There's a lot of things that are still in development. You know, a lot of these things are not-- they're not immediate, but the school has responded well. Also, for instance, we're doing two hires in Africana Studies in the fall. And I think that was something the school is actually already approving, but it is still approved. I think the timeline worked out that it happened to be after the letter, but it was something they were already going to do. But we'll be able to do two joint hires in Africana Studies, and we were authorized to do them this year, but we opted to, Connie and I, opted to hold off because of the pandemic and do it in the fall. And also we wanted to build up the Africana program a bit this year. And so that was-- we've done that with the programs and things. So, we'll have the two hires.

One of the things that we requested was a course requirement in racism and race 00:29:00and power and anti-Blackness, and that is currently being pushed through. So we've been really thrilled with the quick response to that. The curriculum, there's a lot of different committees that work on different things, which I don't know how much students know, but there is like a curriculum committee. It's not just, oh, we want to change, administration makes it a different faculty committee so that power isn't concentrated in any one area. And so the curriculum committee responded along with other committees as well the Academic Policy Committee. They responded; they reached out to the Black faculty authors and asked us what we wanted in the requirement. We met with them multiple times, and they're currently working on finalizing, alongside us, finalizing some of the language. But there will be a requirement. And students will have to take a course that in order to graduate from Muhlenberg, that engages with race and 00:30:00power and that talks about anti-Blackness as foundational to how the U.S. functions, the relationship between that and Black Lives Matter and how we got here, the relationship between that and other forms of racism, and of how white supremacist structures have affected all marginalized groups. So, we're really-- that's exciting that that's going to be happening. There were also I know multiple departments are trying to do searches for faculty who work in areas of race and anti-racism. Different departments have also revised their curricula to completely change the major and have it incorporate anti-racism and diversity and equity and inclusion. So the music department totally changed theirs. The English department, we totally changed ours, and now it incorporates social justice. You have to take a course that centers on Black, Indigenous or other writers of color. And other departments are doing that as well. So, that's been, 00:31:00yeah, all of that has been really great. There's been some increased funding to BSA and student groups. And, yeah, so all that's been really great. Dr. Cuadra in Biology and I started a new graduate school preparatory program for students from underrepresented groups, and we mentioned that in the letter and that has been wonderfully supported by the administration. And we've gotten a lot of help and a lot of support with that and that will be launching in the fall. So that's exciting. And then, another, the Roberta Meek scholarship there. Professor Roberta Meek Africana Studies Award was something that was proposed in the letter too, to honor her work and also to show a commitment to Africana Studies because there isn't an Africana Studies Award given. And prior to that-- and yesterday was the first we got announced that Gio Merrifield won the first 00:32:00award, so that got fully supported by administration. So, yeah, a lot of this stuff came to fruition pretty quickly and other things are still being developed. But the response was definitely, in my opinion, a positive one. And I know that's not the case at a lot of schools. So I'm grateful.

SB: That's like incredible to hear, like, truly incredible because there's a woman who graduated from Muhlenber in 1972, Diane Williams, and she wrote in the Muhlenberg Weekly; she had these columns called ABC. And one of the columns was like talking about, just like calling to say, this is what we need and nothing really happened. So it's kind of, it's hopeful to hear that this letter was put out and all these things are changing because of it. So that's like amazing. You 00:33:00mentioned the Africana Studies program. Is that different than a minor or--?

EK: No, it's the same thing. So a program-- the Africana Studies program is the Africana Studies minor. We are hoping, and the school has been supportive of turning it into a major, which would make it a department. But the thing is, in order to fully staff a department and have enough people to teach a major, we need some more people who are fully appointed or jointly appointed in Africana Studies. So what a lot of students don't realize is that right now, I'm the only person who's jointly appointed in English and Africana Studies or in any department and Africana Studies, other than Professor Meek, but she is retiring. So what that means is that I'm the only person who is contractually obligated to teach half of my courses in Africana Studies every year. There are a lot of affiliate faculty who are affiliated with Africana Studies. What that means is 00:34:00that they're in whatever department they're in. So I'm making this up. So let's say you're in art and then you're also affiliated with Africana Studies. That means that your courses can count for the minor, and you might teach something like African art that can count for the Africana Studies minor, but you're not contractually obligated to teach in Africana Studies. So, if you decide one year, like actually, I would like to teach X, Y and Z courses and none of them have to do with Africana, or if your department decides, hey, we have a shortage this year or someone's retiring, we need you to teach European art. We need to teach Asian art. And this is a horrible example because no one would be doing-- I don't think-- all of these [laugh] I'm sure people in art are like "what the hell" is this? No one would be doing all these, but you've got the point. So if your department says, Hey, someone's retiring and we need you to teach X course and that means your schedule does not allow you to teach Africana Studies, you don't have to teach it. And so what that means is that those courses are not 00:35:00taught in the minor that year. So we need more people who are jointly appointed, which means that they're contractually obligated. Because right now we have three guaranteed courses from me. All of my courses count for the minor, but we have three that will have to be solely Africana. And if, with the two other hires we'll get, those will be three more from each of those people because everyone is required to teach six courses total. So that's nine instead of three. And, even if you have a course release, so I teach two courses while I'm directing the program, but still two a semester.

So that's still two in Africana, two in English. So even if we got them to do two, three, whatever, it's a lot more than just mine. And so in order to get it to a major, we need more staffing because what we don't want to do is set it up as a major and then not have enough faculty to actually teach the courses because then it will crumble as a major. And it's a lot harder to resuscitate a program that-- a major that failed then to just take a beat as you're trying to 00:36:00build it. And also, we don't want to happen is that, you know, the faculty are, if you are here, feel that they have to try to fill this gap that they're not really able to fill. So, we have a ton of incredible affiliate faculty and we're now hoping to get some more jointly appointed faculty. We're also trying to think about new ways to maybe structure the affiliate program and see if we can get like, OK, we can't get half of the courses. But maybe if each affiliate faculty could teach one course a year or one course every three semesters that still, you know, with 15 and 20 affiliate faculty. And so a lot of courses that would be guaranteed. So we're working on revamping the program in a lot of ways. But the ultimate goal is moving toward a major, moving toward a department. And we're also working on-- I'm very interested in community engagement, and I'm sure-- we're trying to come up with a component to the minor or major that involves some sort of community engagement. So in addition to curriculum work, 00:37:00students who get the major or minor would do some sort of project that is involved with the community and not just like a one weekend thing, but some sort of long term thing or something like what you're doing right now. There's something that's beyond the scope of just classes. And so we're also working on developing that. So the next thing on the docket, though, is Dr. Hobbs and I are crafting the ad to try and advertise the position for the job market. And then, yeah, we, the search will begin in the fall.

SB: Wow, that's, that's so cool to see this all fall, like happening. Wow.

EK: I know. It's exciting.

SB: And as you did kind of touch on my last question, but what do you see? Is there anything else you would see for the future of the Africana Studies program or for students of color at Muhlenberg?

EK: Yeah. I have lots of things planned for Africana Studies. I'm like, my brain 00:38:00is just a constant wheel. But yeah, so one, of course, is trying to get into a major and that's something that people have been working on for a long time. That is not just me. Professor Meek worked on this. Dr. Staidum, who was in English before me and Africana Studies worked on this. Professor Kim Gallon, like, there's a lot of people who've been here long before I got here who've done work to try and turn it into a major. And so that is a big thing that we're trying to do, working on the community engagement component as well. And we'd really like to just continue making Africana a central kind of hub or vehicle on campus for current events, programming-- for social justice programming. We'd really like to continue to partner with various groups across campus and groups that we might not have partnered with before or departments we might not have partnered with before. Dr. Jessica Cooperman in Jewish Studies. I'm also an affiliate faculty member in Jewish studies. We've talked about trying to get 00:39:00together and find ways that we could link our programs more intimately. And what are some, not just joint programing we could do, which would be great and we'd love to do that in particular. And speaking of marginalized groups like what would an event or some kind of a theme look like focused on Black Jewish experiences and things like that, but also thinking about just like, how could we intertwine the programs in different ways in long term ways? The relationship between Black populations and Jewish populations is a long one, and there have been a lot of solidarity movements between them. And so we've been talking about what are some ways you could do that? Dr. Coppa in English is also in Women and Gender Studies, and she runs Women and Gender Studies. And we've talked a lot about how can we intertwine those programs. So working on continuing to partner with various groups, both in terms of short term events and programs, which is exciting and also long term partnerships and like, are there certificate 00:40:00programs that we can maybe develop that we're interested in for those students who are in the major and minor, but also for students who aren't but might want to do say, like a short series of kind of a burst of classes in a specific topic. Could we do, I don't know, I've thought about like flash subjects each year. Is there a different theme and or maybe it would just be like a series.

And each year there's kind of a different theme that involves a class and a couple of extra curricular events, those types of things. But I really want Africana to continue to remain a very vibrant source of programing and thinking about partnerships with, with various groups. The community engagement thing is really important to me. So trying to work on what that would look like, we're very interested in, along with Multicultural Life, in partnering with local schools in Allentown. And so we're trying to figure out, the pandemic halted 00:41:00those conversations. But we've been trying to think about what are some ways that the Africana and Multicultural Life could partner with some local schools, particularly that serve students in underrepresented groups? And how could Africana students work with students in those schools? What are some ways that we can foster partnership with Muhlenberg and with those schools? So that's something that's on the horizon. The grad school prep program is jointly housed with Africana, Multicultural Life, and the Career Center. So that is another thing that will be a big part of Africana going forward. And hopefully, that program will continue to grow. But the idea there is also, you know, bringing Africana into conversations around graduate school and programs and where underrepresented groups are broadly defined. So that applies to a wide range. Africana is part of that. We're also-- the book club. I'm going to continue that permanently. So that has been really exciting and I want to keep going. I'd like 00:42:00to get more students involved if we can in that. So, yeah, there are a lot of different, different things on the horizon, from the hires to programming. Like I said, to short-term event programming, long term programming and intertwining with different departments and offices and then also their community engagement and really thinking about, I think, post-pandemic.

One of the first steps that-- or maybe it'll be post once we hire, do the hires--but reaching out to some of these schools and Allentown and saying, you know, what do you think about potential partnerships and what are some of the ways that we might be able to do this and merging some of these ideas? So, for instance, for the grad school prep program, one of the things we want to do is have students who complete the program, go to local schools in Allentown and tell them about it and have it be an incentive for coming to Muhlenberg, but also for starting conversations with kids young about grad school, not that they 00:43:00have to know what they want to do, but just putting it on their horizon because a lot of the times we kind of like stop at college when we're talking to younger kids. And if we, since the program is housed in Africana, that might be a way to establish a partnership with those schools, too.

So thinking about how we can use these different initiatives to link to each other as well, but just continuing to grow the program as both an academic department, but also as really a service to the Muhlenberg community. I mean, a service is as an entity that serves the Muhlenberg community beyond the classroom and the Allentown community. And, you know, Africana really comes out of a commitment to intertwining scholarship and activism, and that's something that we really want to foreground, moving forward. I think that kind of sums it up well is that we wanted to intertwine those two things, intertwine scholarship and activism, and both be a powerful force on campus for the classroom, but also 00:44:00outside of the classroom and in these local communities, and continuing to expand our national reach too. I mean, we like the Blackness and Deafness Communities event that we did that was open to the public and we had a lot of people who came from Gallaudet University and D.C. and from different places who knew the speaker, Michael Agyin. And you know, that was cool because they were talking about Muhlenberg and talking about this programing. And so we'd love to establish, you know, reach out to people in different schools too and establish partnerships with them as well.

SB: Wow. That's like the future, so great for this program, and it's really amazing. Those are all my questions. Do you have anything else to add any questions for me or anything else?

EK: No, I don't think so. I'm sure there are people I left out that I should have thanked for things. But . . .

SB:If you ever think about it, you can. You can always email me if you like everything, OK?

EK: There's so many wonderful people. So yeah, but I think that's . . .

SB: OK. Thank you so much for this. Like, it really does help so much here, I'm going to stop recording. Do I just pause it?

EK: Yeah, if you just . . .