The Anti-Racist Marketer

Full Transcript

Jaime Hunt: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm a higher ed CMO and I have a confession to make. You're about to listen to a conversation about being anti-racist, but it's a conversation between two white women who are struggling with how we can be better allies for the people who work for us, who work with us to people we don't even know or intersect with on our day-to-day lives.

And I'm confident that there are things that we do or say in this conversation that miss the mark, and we really, really want to hear from you about those things because we both want to grow and change and become better allies.

Welcome to Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo, the podcast design for Higher Education marketers. I'm your host, Jamie Hunt, [00:01:00] and I am so excited to have this opportunity to share insights and inspiration with Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo. I'm designing a different kind of podcasting experience. With each episode, I'll be bringing in a guest for a deep dive into the challenges and joys we all face in higher education marketing.

After each episode, you can join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag higher ed C M O. I would love to see this become like a book club, but for a podcast. And be sure to follow me on Twitter at at Jamie Hunt. Im C, that's j A i m e H U N T I M c for more opportunities to connect.

So today I have with me my friend Liz Gross, who's the CEO of Campus Sonar. Hey Liz, how are you? 

Liz Gross: Hey Jamie. I'm doing well. I'm glad I got all my tech figured 

Jaime Hunt: out. . Me too. We listeners, we had a little bit of challenges where I sounded like a [00:02:00] robot, but those have been resolved hopefully. So Liz, tell us a little bit about your higher ed 

Liz Gross: journey.

I think my higher ed journey starts when I was a student, cause I was one of those people who learned that you could work in higher ed while I was an over-involved student. So I started my higher ed journey in student affairs. You know, I was an RA for three years on campus, and then I did a little bit of work with a non-profit association for student organizations and then jumped back onto on-campus life and worked in student housing for five and a half years.

Although, I want to be really clear, I never lived on campus as a professional, and I have. So much respect for people who did that and then realized that what I was doing well in that role was the marketing part of my role and switched to a campus down the road. These were both public Wisconsin campuses and was a marketing communications director for two years at a two year school in the University of Wisconsin system, [00:03:00] which due to centralization and mergers no longer exists as an independent campus.

And almost exactly 10 years ago, as of the day of this recording, I went higher ed adjacent. And that started as becoming a social media strategist for a student loan servicer, morphed into doing some market research work and then five years later through entrepreneurship founding Campus Sonar. And I think that's the shortest I've ever made that journey story, and I'm gonna stick to it that way.

Jaime Hunt: I like it. I like And Campus Sonar. How long have you been in business now? 

Liz Gross: Oh, I should have the calendar up so I could count the exact days, but it's about five years and depending when this comes out, a handful of months. 

Jaime Hunt: Awesome. Well, congratulations. Thank, thank you. Liz, you might think is gonna be talking about social listening, since that's a big piece of what Campus Sonar does, but instead we're actually gonna be talking today about [00:04:00] anti-racism in higher education, and Liz has been really vocal on this topic, so I'm, I'm excited to hear her thoughts.

So, Liz, what does being anti-racist mean to you? And for our listeners, how is that different from being quote unquote, not. 

Liz Gross: I am really glad you worded this question as, what does it mean to me? Because I wanna be really clear with anyone who might be listening to this, that I'm not a professional diversity educator.

Uh, there are people who know a lot more about this than I do, but I'm gonna be speaking from the perspective of, you know, a white woman in leadership who has to figure out what the heck they're doing with this. So for me, anti-racism means recognizing the, the racism and white privilege and frankly, white supremacy that exists systemically in society, in our organizations, absolutely.

Within the industry of higher education and [00:05:00] actively working to take away some of that systemic racism or white supremacy and move more towards equity. And that how it seems different to me than not being racist is it's, As a white person, uh, I was taught as a, as a child and a young adult that not being racist meant essentially being tolerant.

Not saying slurs, not, um, overtly discriminating against people because of their race or ethnicity, but for me now it means recognizing how much our society has put forth normal or, um, professional or acceptable to equal things that are prioritized in white culture. Mm-hmm. . And I'm thinking about things like timeliness and hairstyles and, um, moving [00:06:00] very quickly through things.

I actually have a whole list that I didn't have pulled up that I've thought about, like how, how whiteness shows up in the workplace. For me, being anti-racist is really. centering the lived experience of all races and ethnicities, and if you are a white person, particularly de-centering whiteness so that we have a more holistic and inclusive experience for frankly what is becoming the majority of our country at this point in time.

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Why do you think that's important? 

Liz Gross: Because I care about people honestly. like, yeah. Yeah. That, that's why I think it is important, particularly if you wanna be forward thinking. caring about people is recognizing that more than 50% of the under 18 population in the United States is not white.

And it's important that they are also centered and lifted up. But also that [00:07:00] historically we have marginalized non-white communities in this country in so many ways in terms of where we got our land from, uh, how we built the economic foundation of this country through slavery and on and on and on and on and on.

It is important to just begin to write those wrongs. And I don't think we got very far in the civil rights movement in terms of writing those wrongs, right? But it comes down to, because I care about people and it is important that we honor the identity and the experience of everybody, not ask them to have their experience or identity.

be more like what the historical majority, the white majority has expected it to be. 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. When, when I think about it, it's like, imagine how great the world could be if everybody had the opportunity to participate in the decision making, in the innovating, in the leading and [00:08:00] all of that. And it's like when we leave out, you know, a rapidly growing 50% of the population in those conversations, we're missing out on all of that experience, all of that wisdom, all of that, um, life and, and the world is such a tapestry that we've sort of like, no, but we just want the white muslin.

Like, you know, we just want the plain white fabric. We don't want anything woven into that, and we're missing out on so much 

Liz Gross: and we're, and we need to give credit where credit is due because we've also appropriated a lot of what makes our culture great from. other races and ethnicities and really recognizing that certain things we love and enjoy in this company, in this country related to culture and history and art and music comes from non-white populations.

But it, once they become majority, we, we've tended to take [00:09:00] away the heritage from where, where that came 

Jaime Hunt: from. And that's really unfortunate. Like that's, I guess it's even more than unfortunate, that feels like a, a poor choice of words and such an understatement. Um, and I, and I think about our campuses and the young people on our campuses and their, um, feelings around racism and inclusion and belonging and all of that.

And it's, I think it's something that high school students are demanding. Um, gen Z is demanding that we have this anti-racism approach. . 

Liz Gross: Absolutely. And I just wanna throw out we're you and I are gonna say the wrong words so many times Yes. During this interview. Uh, and, and that is part of what a journey towards anti-racism looks like.

And I'm, I'm glad we're being a little bit brave to share our experiences and conversations in this, but for folks who are listening, they're like, oh, you said this wrong. Yep. I'm probably gonna say 15 more things wrong in [00:10:00] this conversation. 

Jaime Hunt: I think that's an important caveat cuz we are listeners, um, we are both white women.

Well, I am a queer woman. You know, still my queerness is not necessarily evident to people looking at me exteriorly or even, you know, reading what I write and that kind of thing. So, We're probably like very, very ill-equipped to have this conversation in a lot of ways. But I also think that it's important for us as white women to acknowledge and recognize the role that we play in the structures of oppression that exist for so many populations in this country, right?

Liz Gross: We're not gonna be the ones that are the folks at the forefront of solving this problem, but we need to not be complicit in maintaining the structures that have existed for hundreds of years. 

Jaime Hunt: Well, and we have privilege, both of us in our roles helping to shape policies and [00:11:00] practices that guide hiring and interactions with a whole bunch of different groups of people.

And so I think having. Those, for those of you listening, like you do have a lot of power and privilege and you do have a lot of ways that you can affect change. And so hopefully you'll listen to this and be a little bit inspired. And I think, you know, both Liz and I would be open to hearing from people who are like, yeah, you've got, this part is great what you're saying, but this part, like, think about it this way.

I wanna know, 

Liz Gross: yes. That, that is one of the many things I have had to learn as I work towards more of a place of anti-racism is that when somebody, particularly someone of color calls me out, or, uh, even someone I don't know online comes at me and tells me how I have caused harm. Not, and it's not like how I've said the wrong word, it is [00:12:00] how I have caused them harm.

I need to listen and not come from a place of being defensive, and I can always learn something from those interactions. So I suspect we'll have some, mm-hmm. and I look forward to learning and growing a little bit more. 

Jaime Hunt: Uh, likewise. And I think about defensiveness and my personal philosophy around defensiveness is that when you feel defensive, it is very likely that the person is saying something that's ringing true to you.

Um, because if it's just totally false or totally, um, something that has no, no merit, you kind of can brush that off a little easier. But when you start to feel defensive, that's a time to pause. Check yourself, listen, ask yourself, why am I reacting this way? And in most cases, I think you'll find that the answer is because there's some truth in this.

That's my advice. As you, as you listen to this, this [00:13:00] episode, and as you engage in dialogue around this,

Hey all. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed C M O. I wanna take a moment to thank my friends at mindpower who are making season two of this volfi podcast. Possible. Mindpower is a full service marketing and branding firm celebrating nearly 30 years of needle moving, thought-provoking, research, fueled creative, and strategy.

Mindpower is woman founded and owned, W B E N C, certified nationally, recognized and serves the social sector, higher education, healthcare, nonprofits, and more. The Mindpower team is made up of strategists, storytellers, and experience creators from market research to brand campaigns, to recruitment to fundraising.

The agency exists to empower clients, amplify brands, and help institutions find a strategic way forward. You can learn more about their work in the world by heading on over to Mind Power, Inc. That's M I N D P O W E R I N [00:14:00] c.com. And be sure to tell the crew that Jamie sent you their way.

So Liz, this is, I've seen you in your hiring practices and in the kinds of topics that you talk about. Tell me how you're putting anti-racism into practice in your life and in your organization. 

Liz Gross: Yes, this, uh, before we hit recording, before we hit record listeners, I said, you know, I did not prepare for this as a PR statement.

So I have first, um, done a lot of learning and will continue to do a lot of learning. I think it is really hard. So let me start by saying you don't just wake up someday and say, I'm gonna be anti racist. Today, and I've actually worked with a coach, which is one of the ways I've worked to put anti-racism in a practice who told me, don't have a goal of creating an anti-racist [00:15:00] organization.

Hmm. You need to have multiple goals that you've reached prior to that before you can jump to. And now we're anti-racist . And I think that one of the first things, uh, that, that occurs when you move towards putting anti-racism into practice is developing an understanding of context, history, and language.

And particularly language. Because language can hurt people very, very easily, whether it's intentional or not. So for me, it's been a lot. Um, reading and, and surrounding myself with media that does not come from a white centric perspective, so that I start to, um, like literally I've been thinking about this, I start to normalize in my ears, voices that don't sound like mine.

I like to listen from people from different backgrounds who [00:16:00] are not code switching and help to help, to teach myself to appreciate and value. All of those other approaches to language. Uh, I've also made a concerted effort and will continue to do so, cuz the more you do, at least in my experience, the more you wanna do more to learn about the history and the cultural stories, particularly from the historically marginalized populations in the United States.

So right now what I have been focusing on are stories of the Black American history as well as stories of the indigenous populations history and. , my reading list will never be done because I did not get enough of this through my, however many tens of years of schooling I went through. Uh, but really getting that cons, that, that context of wh why are people talking about colonialism or why do we talk about not wanting to have people [00:17:00] complete additional emotional or mental labor?

Like those things don't make sense until you start to unpack things. And using that word unpack makes me think that the very, very first place I think folks should start is from an art article called Unpacking the White privileged Sack, I think is, is what it's called. I read it in graduate school. I don't wanna say how long ago that was.

It was, it was a long time ago. Um, but Icontinue, to go back to it, to remind myself of how many things I have. experienced in my life as a upper middle class white woman that I've considered to be normal, that were actually white privilege or white centric or white normative. Uh, and then there's this idea of just understanding language and, and why it matters and it's not about being politically correct.

I really, really, really do not like the phrase politically correct. It's about understanding the roots of language and how some words [00:18:00] or phrases are either rooted in. , um, harmful practices or metaphors or how they cause harm to other people. And frankly, if people are harmed by my words, I don't wanna use those words.

So that's, that's where I start. And then in terms of putting it into practice in an organization, um, that is frankly something I'm. Still working on, there's, there's first a level of comfort of even talking about these things because there, there are schools of thought that you should not talk about anti-racism at work, uh, or that you shouldn't talk about racism or sexism or, or any of the isms at work.

So getting, getting a, a culture in place that can talk about. that are not particularly comfortable. And then starting to build that shared language within the team. And frankly, I think that's where Campus Sonar is right now as a company is getting to that place of shared language. But then thinking as, [00:19:00] as you move forward, again, are we, are we working on representation?

Are we working on inclusion? And are we working on really dissecting the expectations, the practices, the structures in our organization to understand how they do or don't benefit folks? Uh, so I have a reading list. I'm turning around on camera right now. That's all about. Inclusion in corporate culture that I need to embark on in 2023 to do a little bit better.

And I think where we started in terms of structures and what was most important for us was related to hiring. So I can get more into specifics on hiring and we'd be happy to talk about that. But then the thing I'll add for me as a leader is that I have literally sought out experts, both through training of our staff, but also professional coaching on becoming a culturally competent leader to pay the folks who are [00:20:00] experts to walk me through this, hold me accountable, ask me tough questions.

And I don't think it's, I imposs, I don't think it's possible to work towards anything close to being an anti-racist organization without the senior leader of the organization being willing to do that work themselves. First, you'll never complete it first before you, you bring your organization along with you, but you need to get to a place where you're, you're comfortable and willing to have the conversations that are going to be necessary to do this sort of 

Jaime Hunt: work.

What prompted your interest in doing this? Like what, what sort of sparked it? Because this is a big, uh, homework assignment that you've given yourself, and I'm telling gauging by your, your visible reaction that there's a story 

Liz Gross: here. There is, and I've never told it publicly, but I will, I have always put into practice having open feedback, conversations [00:21:00] with my employees, and we value transparency as a part of our culture.

And I think, you know, campus owner has always been like a, a good slash nice company since we started, but we. have definitely taken a turn in the last couple of years of being more purposefully inclusive and equitable in the work that we do. And I, I let myself get comfortable thinking that because I had, quote unquote done the work in graduate school and as a good white person to say the right words and understand what systemic racism was, I thought I was good.

I, I, I did an entire doctorate program that had a year of work on the, the role of oppression and leadership in organizations. So I was like, yeah, I'm good. Everything's good. Um, and then, I, two things happen. So this is the story , uh, [00:22:00] one I was doing skip level interviews with, with our team. So a couple of times a year I make sure to have meetings with everybody who doesn't report directly to me.

And I ask very pointed questions in order to evaluate our culture and my leadership. And one of the questions I said was, what could I be doing better as a leader in this company? And one of my employees looked me in the eye and said, hire more black people. Hmm. That was, that was the answer. And I'm looking now at my reflection, which said, because it's.

Effing simple. At the end of the day, I could do this if I made it more of a priority. So that was the first time I was like, what do I have to, it took me a long time to figure out what that meant. And, um, you know, is it reverse discrimination and, and all those sorts of things. And then the second part was a few months later we did a culture [00:23:00] audit with an impartial third party happened to be a black owned firm.

And one of the things that I love about my employees is they're not afraid to share their, their thoughts and opinions and their experiences, and they care about our culture. So we had a 100% response rate to, uh, very in-depth qualitative culture audit. People spent time on it. They answered every single question.

I never saw the the person by person responses because that would've definitely, um, Threatened their anonymity and they, they meant to have anonymity. The firm came back to us and shared their, the responses. And overall we had really great ratings in terms of, is it great to work here? Do you feel valued?

All this sort of stuff. And they're like, these are great. We've never seen ratings like this. But then they got into the, the qualitative parts of the survey and there was one question that said, how would you describe the campus [00:24:00] sonar culture to somebody else? And they showed us a word cloud. Now we work in social listening.

We're very used to word clouds. I understand it's not a statistically significant thing, but it was the actual words of, of who answered the question. And one of the responses that was larger on the word cloud of how would you describe the campus owner culture to someone else was culture of whiteness.

Hmm. And then other comments that made it really clear that that was top of mind for folks. And that started to come out when, frankly, if you were to look at our numbers, we didn't have a particularly large non-white population of people working with us, but I suspect darn near all of them wrote something like that.

So we, we talked it through as a group, which was probably one of the most difficult conversations we've ever [00:25:00] had as a team. And, uh, we talked a little bit about some possible pass forward. There's almost only so much you could do in a day. And again, I kept hearing from the non-white employees about their perspectives and their emotional labor that they were not compensated for in order to try and make us a more.

Equitable and inclusive company. And I consider both of those interactions, the skip level and the culture interview to be a gift that my employees gave me by responding honestly. And at that point, I had absolutely everything I needed to diagnose the problems in our organization. And now it's become my job to, to design and implement solutions.

And both of those things occurred, uh, both of those, those instances occurred in the second half of 2021. So if anyone who's known me for a long time noticed a shift right around that time, that would be why. [00:26:00] So it, yeah, no one's ever actually asked me that question before. 

Jaime Hunt: I, I really am grateful for you being willing to share that because that's, um, you know, a moment of vulnerability in your, your time as a leader.

And you, I, it's, you're inspiring me to ask that question. or ask those questions as well. Um, and to build a culture, I'm new in my organization and, you know, been here for two and a half months, but we can build a culture together. That just off the bat, I think, has that framework. But my, my question to you on that is did you find yourself running into any resistance?

Are there any people who were like, you know what, I don't come to work to think about this. Um, again, I'm gonna use the word unfortunate, which would be an unfortunate attitude, but it is, you know, something that I have certainly run into in the past when trying to have these types of conversations [00:27:00] that there's some pocket of people who are like, look, I just, I'm comfortable in my whiteness and this doesn't impact me on a daily basis, so I don't need to know more about this.

And I'm curious if you had to overcome any of that or. How you would overcome any of that? 

Liz Gross: Yeah, I'm sure I will at some point. Um, but in terms of getting any sort of feedback like that from white employees, I have not. Um, and I think it's because again, I didn't turn around, get that feedback in 2021 and then January 1st, 2022, be like, okay, here's our journey to anti-racism.

Let's go. Uh, it has been a long process and the first thing I did after, after that last culture audit was pull together a bunch of other artifacts. I had all my skip level notes from other things and, and we actually documented our culture for the first time. And we have four culture statements, and the fourth one is really.

I set the stage for what it was gonna look [00:28:00] like for us. And our fourth culture statement is that we aspire to be an inclusive and equitable workplace. And there is a note in here that it was my, my hope and desire at the end of 2021, that within five years we can reword it to say that we are an inclusive and equitable workplace, but I am not willing to make that claim right now.

And then there's, there's a lot of description that explains why this matters to us, what we do about it, and a very long list of how we need to improve in this area. the last time we all got together, I had folks read through it and all four of our culture statements, what we need to do, what we need to improve, and they're all providing me with written feedback.

And now as I enter the end of this year, I like to be really reflective at the end of the year . Um, I will be going through that and seeing, you know, where, where are they happy with what we've done, what, what haven't we [00:29:00] accomplished yet? So we've been taking slow steps to get there. Um, I will say the, the interesting feedback I got that I think is particularly important to white leaders is that at least one staff member at the time who was not white was like, I, I wanna know more in advance when we're gonna have conversations like this and I wanna be more equipped for the conversation like this.

And I also wanna know what my expectations and what my roles are for this. So I actually think for me now, one of the more difficult things is considering. , how do I bring the whole company along on this without creating harm or stress for folks who already know they've been marginalized their entire lives and just want me to do something about it?

That honestly is, is the bigger challenge for me. And part of how [00:30:00] I'm doing, part of how I'm addressing that is whenever we bring in an external facilitator, facilitator to work through some of these things, I make sure that that is a non-white facilitator so that I can have these conversations with them very clearly and they can help guide me into how I can set expectations and, and do things differently.

Um, but I am very thankful that in our organization, which is fairly small, I mean there's. 14 of us right now. I have not gotten from my employees any sort of, uh, pushback that we shouldn't be doing this, but definitely some things to consider about how to do it. . 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah. My first exposure to anti-racism was, um, through a organization that I was on the board of directors of, and they wanted to take this, um, anti-racism approach, their organization.

And part of the mission of that organization was giving grants to very small non-profit organizations, almost [00:31:00] micro grants, but things that would help them do, um, projects in the county in which we lived that would benefit women. Specifically. They were finding a lot of the small non-profits that were coming to the funding organization that were led by people of color.

The feedback on the voting forms where we were voting for, for which organizations to fund was they're not very professional or, um, they aren't articulating themselves well. You know, things like that. And that's sort of what sparked this. Like we have really centered whiteness. To such a degree that we are actively harming and not surfing these groups.

And so we did this massive shift, but the reason I mentioned this is that we started this work, we brought facilitators in, we started these conversations. And there, I remember so vividly, I had recently read about white women tears. And I were like, does that really happen? [00:32:00] Like, is that really a thing? And I was in this, this meeting where we, they were first bringing the idea of anti-racism forward and said, um, you know, The, the executive director of the organization was a, a black woman, and she was saying, this is, these are some of my experiences.

And one of the white women started to cry and said she felt attacked, that she felt like you're trying to make her feel bad because she's white. Make her feel guilty because she's white. And um, God bless one of the other members. Cuz this was, honestly, this was my first meeting actually as like a board member.

I'm like, what am I doing here? Um, and one of, i, I, you know, I kind of was a deer in the headlights and one of the other members was like, you are crying white women tears and this is not appropriate. And, you know, kind of called her out on it in a loving but very firm way. But for me that was like, okay, there, there's definitely, um, that defensive response that can often come up, um, that came up for this [00:33:00] woman.

Like she felt defensive in her reaction to that was, was tears to try to like, you know, turn center the conversation back on her, to be quite honest. But I, I think that there's so. . Like, we can't be afraid of that happening. We can't say we're not gonna do this work because we're afraid that somebody's going, um, to be uncomfortable when the person that's uncomfortable is white.

Like, we don't wanna make our, our employees or our staff, or our colleagues or our friends who are already marginalized, feel more marginalized and hurt by these conversations. But I don't wanna say it's like, okay to make white people feel not good. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I think it's okay for us as white people to feel uncomfortable and to feel, um, hurt and, and to feel sort of some anxiety about the privilege that we have.

I think that's okay. 

Liz Gross: If you don't feel uncomfortable often [00:34:00] while doing this, you're probably. Not getting very far in the work. And what I have had to learn and what I'm still learning because it, it is so tempting, is as you. as you get a little bit further along in becoming more equitable, becoming more anti-racist as as a person and you engross yourself in more non-white media, there is also a, a potential for you to begin to have more, um, real relationships with non-white people where not everything is coded and, and the conversations feel very different.

And what I've had to learn is in those relationships, it is not the place for me to start dumping what I've just learned about my whiteness or how, um, surprised I was to see how something played out. That's frankly why I'm excited about us having this conversation because that's the point of this space [00:35:00] and I'm actively trying to find more white people doing this work that I can process that sort of thing with, because.

Explaining to someone who's been marginalized their entire life that you just realized, I'm 40 years old at age 40. How completely harmful something you did was it's causing them more harm again. So just don't, yeah, and I still do it. I'm learning. 

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Jaime Hunt: I, I know I screw up a hundred times. I mean, I know I screw up all, all day every day. I, I absolutely know that, and I feel like a very deep, um, sense of, um, I don't know if regret or, or is quite the right [00:37:00] word that I'm. that I didn't get to this journey until I was in my late thirties and, and I'm in my mid forties now.

Um, it, it's just, you're right. Having this conversation with a, a marginal, a person who's a, in a marginalized community or a person of color, like, they're kind of like, duh, . I mean, like, I can't imagine how you must feel. Um, it, to me it would be like mansplaining. Like it's, it's like whitesplaining or something.

yes. You know? Yes. So, in, in higher ed, do you think that higher ed has a deeper responsibility to start having these conversations? 

Liz Gross: I'm just gonna say yes. , um, I mean, everyone has a respons. to have these conversations, but in higher ed. Absolutely. Yes. And I'm actually not gonna take the philosophical high road here and say, because it's the right thing to do [00:38:00] if you value humans, which is also true, um, it is the right thing to do from a business perspective if you want the organizations in higher education to survive and thrive.

Because as, as we already mentioned, if you're most higher education institutions, um, unless they are actively working against this, which some of them are, are going to be serving more and more non-white people every single year as demographics change. And normally when we talk about demographics in higher education, we're talking about the demographic cliff.

And I am so sick of the demographic cliff. Um, my, my colleague Lauren Branch wrote very eloquently that it is a shift, not a cliff , let's get on board with the shift. and to, to your point about Gen Z. Gen Z is less white than any generation before it, and that is only going [00:39:00] to get more and more prominent.

And this generation does not have the tolerance for embedded systemic racism and embedded white supremacy that the wider generations before it did. So higher ed has a deeper responsibility to have this conversation and do this work if it wants to survive and serve the people who are going to need to be educated moving forward.

And there's a lot wrapped up in that, but I, I think that's the most basic way to 

Jaime Hunt: get at it. . Well, and now I'm gonna be asking the, the million dollar question, and I think I know what your answer is, and my answer, uh, is probably the same. And that is, does higher ed have a racism problem or a white supremacy problem?

Liz Gross: Yes. And I am not gonna start [00:40:00] quoting statistics. I, I can share just personal anecdotes and what I've been seeing in the media and what I know to be true. So, yes. Um, historically, higher education institutions were built to serve white men. . Mm-hmm. , I think most of us know that. Um, and the women have found our place some way, shape, or form, but they are still built on a lot of structures based on whiteness.

We talk about elitism, uh, in higher education, which is largely, um, valuing the things that are much easy to attain when you come from a multi-generational white family. And I cannot turn around right now without reading an article about how 0.7% of students at x, y, Z university are black students, or 3%, and that hasn't changed in forever.

And then if you look at the comments or you talk to people about [00:41:00] it, you learn that the experience, and I'm, I'm gonna specifically talk about black students because that's what I've been reading and learning about most recently, the experience of black students in higher education. is at predominantly white institutions, particularly is not good.

It is harmful around every corner. There is a sense of just racial exhaustion from showing up and having to fit into the structures of the campus. And this does not only apply to students, it applies to almost darn near every single black higher ed staff member or former staff member that I have ever talked to.

They do not feel welcomed, valued, or supported on our campuses. And I don't think I've ever said that so strongly ever, but I absolutely know it to be true. So yes, we have a racism problem. , it is often overt [00:42:00] actually. There is so much overt racism, vandalism, graffiti acts of hate happening on campus, but it's also embedded deeply into the structures in higher education.

And that is what I desperately want to change and see evidence of in my lifetime. 

Jaime Hunt: Yeah, that's when I think about some of the policies and practices that we have in higher ed that are so centered on whiteness, like it is so many of our HR policies and, um, practices just really exclude people of color in a lot of ways.

Exclude women, um, exclude people with disabilities, you know, the postings where you are going to HR and you have to start checking the boxes, like you have to be able to walk and lift and carry this many pounds and do all of that. Like that's. , do you really need to be able to lift 50 pounds to be a receptionist at the front desk or to be an editor or to work in payroll like n to be a professor?

No, you don't. Um, [00:43:00] things like listing when great, great, great detail required qualifications when we know that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs that they don't feel quote unquote qualified for than white men will do. Um, and that is, that's one of my pet peeves right there. Um, and just everything from professionalism, and I'm putting that in air quotes and, and dress codes and all of that, what we, what holidays we give as, um, paid time off.

You know, it's all very centered on a Judeo-Christian. Notion and honestly male in a lot of ways. You know, some, most schools I think now have like at least acknowledged that, you know, men can take paternity leave or, you know, men can be child caretakers and stuff. But, you know, it's just really, really appalling when you actually start to lift up [00:44:00] the, the rug and look under it and see and start to think about all of these policies and the harm that they do.

And, and they're ultimately doing harm to our organizations. Like more voices at the table make us stronger, more, um, perspectives, different insights from people from all over the world. Like I have loved having, um, international staff people and the perspective they bring into the conversation and how much that benefits all of us.

But, you know, we we're really com white people are real comfortable with being around other white people. I mean, when I worked at, 

Liz Gross: and they're. and they're kind of okay being around non-white people as long as those folks, you know, work to get their proximity to whiteness. Yeah. Really, really close. Um, I, I think about some of the, uh, some of the very basic things that we do that exclude people that, um, if we wanna talk about, like, how have I started along this journey in my organization?

Very [00:45:00] basic things like making it explicitly clear that you can wear your clothing and your hair, however the heck you want in the professional headshot that we're gonna put on our website. Like that is, I, I said it four times at least before we did it, that was really important. Making sure to hire a photographer who has a portfolio of work that is not all white, because I wanna know that they can accurately capture skin tones, particularly in group shots, um, before we go to a conference talking about, you know, , the what, what the conference tends to look like.

And I'm using air quotes on video in terms of attire and those sorts of things. And what we are comfortable with, because this is one of the things I am trying to, to, to ally myself on is, is changing the definition of professional dress because it is not inclusive of other cultural, um, approaches to frankly mm-hmm.

[00:46:00] Really great looking style, but Right. Quote, not professional for a confidence. Like these are very basic living things that make someone feel more comfortable in their jobs or in their professional communities, and that that is just the tip of the iceberg. But if you, if you're not thinking about those things as basic procedures in work, that means you have not started.

To consider the ways that whiteness has shaped what we believe to be professional, normal, good, et cetera. 

Jaime Hunt: One of the things that you have really inspired in me and, um, I have, I have been interested in recruiting diverse employees for a long time, and, you know, working at a historically black university that that wasn't an issue, right?

Because it, it, it was easy to attract, um, people of color [00:47:00] to the organization. But, you know, predating that time and now have, having left there, you know, I'm really interested in recruiting a much more diverse talent pool, but I have often struggled with how do I get in the right spaces to be able. Even make people aware of the position.

But then too, I think getting in those spaces and having an offer that's enticing and that tells a person that they'll have a comfortable experience working in the organization. And I would love to hear, cuz I know you have done a lot in this space, what you have done to try to recruit a more diverse talent.

Yeah. 

Liz Gross: Um, so I will say it starts with doing the work internally with culture because many perspective non-white employees are going to go to the team site, see what the group looks like, uh, or other groups on campus. They're gonna look at the marketing materials, see does it do those center whiteness. If they see [00:48:00] folks who look like them on, on the team and they're very interested, they might even proactively reach out and be like, do you like working here

So if you haven't done the work already to. be able to honestly say you're working towards some equity. You can't just start re recruiting diverse populations. That in itself is a word centered in whiteness. Cuz when we say diverse, we mean not white. Yeah. Um, you can't just go recruiting non-white populations and expecting that to.

Diversify your staff, because if they show up and then they feel marginalized or harmed or, uh, pigeonholed, they're, they're not tokenized. They're, they're not going to stay. So that's the first thing. Um, and then some things we've done have been really, really structural. So there are a lot of structural things I think we can do to, to diversify our applicant pools, particularly in terms of race and ethnicity.

So you, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but one of the things we do is we make really, really clear explanations of what the job is expected [00:49:00] to do, why and why we require certain parts of the application. So there is a lot of folks, particularly Gen Z, who don't wanna do cover letters anymore because they're under the impression.

No one reads them, they don't matter. They're extra work. We still require them for multiple reasons, and we make that very, very, In our, uh, job postings of we need you to write a cover letter, but here is why and how it's gonna count. And then we prove to people in the process that we actually read them.

So just making that more open and, and, um, accessible and equitable. Uh, we publish our hiring managers contact information so that they can reach out with any questions that. This is potentially a huge thing for higher ed, hr, uh, yeah. Organizations to consider because they often will put up a wall between the hiring manager and, and the folks accepting job applications.

We don't have that wall. We will answer those questions in advance. Um, during our interview process, we make sure [00:50:00] that we have multiple methods of interactions so people don't have to be on camera all the time now that we're in a Zoom world. Uh, so at Campus Owner, we actually do a 100% virtual. Interview process always.

Uh, so we do a phone screen still as a phone screen. Uh, and we tell people, you know, here's how long it's gonna last. Here's the types of questions we're gonna ask you. We're gonna be done at this point in time. You're gonna be able to ask us questions. We proactively share what the hiring timeline is gonna look like so people aren't worried and feeling like they're not being valued.

Um, and then when things are gonna be on Zoom, we let them have breaks in between conversations. One of the things I've started to do that I believe is an, is an equity play, is share many of our finalist interview questions in advance. Mm-hmm. , I aim for a, I aim for a week in advance of the interview. Oh.

Because how often do we actually put someone on the spot like that in their job? Mm. without [00:51:00] asking them, without giving them a chance to prepare. Yeah. So, and I have never had a candidate read us their answers, I think. Uh, so there, it just gives them time to think. Um, we also have, uh, built in written parts as well, because some folks just like to think so if, if we know we wanna do like one more round with folks and we need to really like narrow it down from five to two or something, we'll do written parts as well, or like a little bit of like a skill assessment.

But we keep those as short as possible because we don't want people doing potentially free work and we figure out a way for that to be very, very clear and upfront that we'll never use it as work without pay. Um, and then I think the other, the other thing that we do is we have worked really hard to recognize that.

Um, all, all of the stuff we do, being transparent in job postings, all that sort of stuff, um, was still not [00:52:00] necessarily getting us, um, a a, a diversity in terms of race and race and ethnicity of what we wanted in our pools, which we also assess the demographics of our applications on a weekly basis.

Whenever the, the job is open so that we know if we have a, a pool that is diverse enough for us to start the interview process. Um, we recently have also started posting with organizations that are focused on sharing job opportunities and growing black and brown talent. And it actually took me a while to, to do that.

And, and I'm not proud of this, but I'll share it because some of them are very expensive in comparison to, you know, I can get a large applicant pool just from sharing on LinkedIn and Twitter, but some of the organizations that we post with now include Hugh, h u e, uh, and if it's a marketing role, black Marketers of America and BMA isn't as expensive.

But it's not [00:53:00] cheap and Hue is definitely not cheap. And one, one morning I was looking at the budget, looking at like, can I really pay like over a thousand dollars to post this job? And then I realized, , I was completely discounting the value mm-hmm. of reaching black and brown populations. And I was not recognizing that what they were selling at an appropriate price was the ability to authentically connect with a group that I had a desire to connect with.

And it should absolutely be worth that much money. I was not valuing it because I was so used to just being able to pull in 50 applications for a job for my personal network. Yeah. Um, so I, we also have to pony up some money as well and, and prove to folks that we're, we're willing to go [00:54:00] to them in the areas.

Where they know they'll be valued. And for Hugh, at least, you have to prove that you're not just playing lip service to recruiting. Oh, really? Black and brown employees. When you submit a posting, um, you've gotta attest to a couple of things. It's the same with bma. If you've got a culture statement, they wanna see the culture statement.

Uh, Hugh says, put the salary in the posting. That's, that's another equity thing we do is put the salary Yeah. In the posting. Um, they will ask you to post in very different ways than organizations. Uh, job search organizations that center whiteness. So there's a lot to learn, uh, from them as well. That was a really long answer, but it's been a long thought out process to do this, and it's taken a lot of time.

I'll also say I proactively reach out. regularly to, uh, folks of color who I wanna build a relationship with professionally. Uh, sometimes when we're hiring, [00:55:00] sometimes when we're not, so that I'm not saying, oh, I have a job open now. How do I find some non-white people to apply for it? Like, that's a garbage way to approach it.

Yeah. And in doing that, I've also prioritized the, the mentoring and professional conversations that I have with non-white individuals. And honestly, that's been so. I don't do it for, for me , but it's been so valuable to me in this journey to get more of those perspectives and to learn more. And this is why I keep saying in our conversations on Twitter, like there are black marketers in higher ed , we're just not seeing them.

And the more I proactively look and search and talk to people, the more I'm realizing like there are a lot of really fantastic talented black and brown folks in this industry who just don't wanna spend the time to show up in what has historically been a really white space because they're protecting their own personal boundaries and their mental health.

And we need to do the work to [00:56:00] show them that it can be a place that honors them and is proactive about not causing harm. 

Jaime Hunt: I think that that proactive about not causing harm peace is so critical. And I'm on, um, the planning committee for the AMA higher ed symposium and after the AMA conference in November, we had a debrief meeting.

And I was like, y'all, there's something wrong here. Either there's not enough black and brown and, and also disabled. You know, I didn't see anybody in a wheelchair at that conference. I didn't see anybody with a guy Kane or, uh, I didn't see any, um, sign language interpreters or anything like that at the conference.

And it. To your point, it's not that, that these people aren't in the business necessarily. I do think that there's still room to grow that, but why are they not coming? And [00:57:00] there's also issues a around, um, with many conferences, childcare and conferences that start on weekends creating additional childcare challenges for people.

Um, but you know, what can we do as people who have the opportunity to have a voice in how these conferences, um, come, come to play and how they roll out and how we do things in saying the way we've been doing it. is excluding people and how can we create an experience that is a lot more inclusive? I'm very heartened, um, by the rise of the virtual track for in-person conferences cuz I think that helps a lot for people who have kids, people who have travel mobility issues, um, you know, all of that.

But, or ins are from institutions that just can't afford the travel expenses. But there's gotta be a real intentional, uh, look at the things that we do and the practices that we have to [00:58:00] see how we're maybe excluding people completely unintentionally. Um, and not. Who, what voices are we bringing the table to have those conversations.

And one, one last thing I'll say about that is that I have decided, I get asked to be on a lot of boards and I get asked to be on a lot of planning committees and it's, I am so honored by that. Like that is fantastic and I love it. But I've started to send, um, a response that says I need to understand your organization's commitment to diversity, um, equity and inclusion.

Belonging. I need to understand what you have done to recruit, um, people of color to this board in this planning committee. Um, other marginalized groups. You know what, what, what's your diversity plan? You know, I wanna know all of this before I sign on, cuz what I don't wanna have happen is to be the only voice saying these things in a group of 20 people.

Cuz one voice can be really hard to be heard. But if you have a whole group of people who are like, yes, let's talk together about how we can make a different [00:59:00] world and a different experience for people, then I wanna be part of those organizations in those groups. And as you know, people listening to this podcast, if you're, if you're a white person, think about that.

Think about where you are and where you spend your time. And if you're spending your time in organizations that don't care about this and you do, maybe they don't deserve your. Um, and then if you're spending your time in organizations that have not made the effort to make sure that there are voices in the room that are different from the other people in the room, it's not a click of a whole bunch of people who are all the same with all the same backgrounds, but that it's a wide diversity of, of experience, race, ethnicity ability, um, gender expression, orientation, all of that.

Um, if that group is like that, maybe give up your seat as a white person and say, you know what, I'm not, I'm not able to be on this, but I like to recommend this friend, this colleague, this peer, this person I [01:00:00] know in my network, um, who can bring a valuable voice to that table. And I'm committing, um, you know, verbally on this podcast to doing that whenever I can.

Um, and, and make sure, and you and I have talked about this, who we mentor, who we choose to invest our time in, as you know, senior leaders. Um, That makes a difference. That is, is helping people get exposure, helping people get mentorship, helping people get connections and a network and doing that, that stuff.

Um, even if you don't sit in a place of privilege where you can lead an organization in an anti-racist way, like Liz is able to do, you still have the opportunity to make a big difference 

if 

Liz Gross: you are a white person doing this work because you feel like you have to, I would really encourage you to get to a place where you care before [01:01:00] you start to lead work like this in an organization.

If you're doing it because you feel like you have to and you have not yet found. Personal connection to why anti-racism is an imperative, it will become performative. Mm-hmm. and it will end up being harmful to the people you are proclaiming to be trying to honor or help or whatever that might be. I, I've been, I've become keenly aware that now when I hear people talk about George Floyd as if it was a point on a timeline Yes.

That I, I, my stomach drops. Yeah. And I know that that is only a minuscule part of what a Black American feels when they hear the same words. So I would urge the white [01:02:00] people listening to, Do the work enough until you care. And then when you care as a person, you will be so much more effective than if you're doing it because you have to, or it's a bullet point on a strategic plan or whatever that might be.

Jaime Hunt: Before we wrap up, I just want to end my thoughts on this with, um, an apology. If I've said anything that's been harmful or hurtful to anybody, um, particularly, um, you know, people who already deal with a lot of marginalization, I'm confident I've said wrong things. I would love to hear what those wrong things are so I can learn and grow from it.

And I'm, I'm sure Liz feels the same. I'm sure 

Liz Gross: at some point you say, Hey Liz, how can people find you? And if that finding me includes educating me or calling me in to be better on something, I am 100% okay about this. And I'm, we are doing this interview knowing that we're not. [01:03:00] holding ourselves up as experts or exemplars to people who wanna be better and have made a little bit of progress in that 

Jaime Hunt: way.

That is so true. That is, I really, really want people listening to not feel like we're like, Hey, we're gonna tell you how you need to be. Um, I think we're just here to share what our journeys have been, um, and hopefully inspire people to. Be on that journey, um, with us. I really hope you do wanna be on that journey because they're, we just need more people doing this and we need more white people doing this.

Um, so, so on that note, Liz, where can people find you if they wanna, you know, throw eggs at you or look for a job? Yes. 

Liz Gross: Yeah. Uh, also depending on when this comes out, we're hiring right now. Um, so I am most active on a network that I hope still exists when this podcast comes out. Um, I am Liz Gross, [01:04:00] 1 44 on Twitter.

Uh, you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm fairly active there as well. Liz Gross should pop up, but it's like LinkedIn slash in slash Liz Gross. and those are where you're going to find, uh, most of what I have to say on this topic and where you can connect with me as an individual. I've also very slowly been working on a completely personal, separate from campus donar, uh, newsletter called Elder Millennial Leader, and that's a elder millennial leader.com.

And this is some of the stuff I will be talking about in 2023 in that newsletter. So if you wanna connect with me there, it comes from my personal inbox, and you can have an email conversation with me through that as well. 

Jaime Hunt: That is lovely. I, I'm glad you chose elder millennial, not geriatric millennial , um, because that's the other option there.

Um, , 

Liz Gross: yes, elder has a much more pristine ring [01:05:00] to it. 

Jaime Hunt: Yes. Makes you fe feel like you have wisdom. Um, and listeners, uh, I really do want to hear your feedback on this episode. Um, and you can find me at Jamie Hunt i m c on Twitter, which, and that's j a i m e h u n t i M C and my parents, uh, spelled that name a little different.

I'm also on LinkedIn, which I'm trying to use a little bit more in case, uh, Twitter goes the way of the Dodo bird. Please use the hashtag hire ed CMO to continue this conversation both on Twitter and on LinkedIn. Um, I, I love seeing when people use the hashtag and have conversation around this. I often organize book clubs on Twitter, and I'm, I'm hoping to organize one.

Early 2023 around this topic, um, to just continue this conversation. And those book clubs are really a lot of fun. You know, we usually have, um, wine if that's not your jam, you know, seltzer, whatever you, you wanna have. [01:06:00] Um, but it's usually a really good, fun conversation. You get to know people across the industry, um, from a variety background.

So I hope that you'll find me there. And, um, Liz, anything you wanna add as closing thoughts? 

Liz Gross: It's okay to not know where to start if you're a white person listening to this, but the important thing is, is that you do, 

Jaime Hunt: that is, that is a fantastic, um, ending note for us. So with that ab, absolutely have a fantastic rest of your day.

And as always, let's go bust some silos.

Zach Busekrus: Hey y'all. Zach Here from Enrollify. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO with Jaime Hunt. If you like this episode, do us a huge favor and hit that follow and subscribe button below. Furthermore, if you've got just two minutes to spare, we would greatly appreciate you leading a rating and a review of this show on Apple Podcasts.

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