From the movies we watch to the books we read, societal issues present themselves everywhere. Brandi Douglas, assistant director of outreach in the Office of Institutional Diversity, is exploring this connection and how it inspires us to start conversations. Read on to learn more about this and her vision for Oregon State’s future.
Q: What brought you to Oregon State?
A: I came to Oregon State to be a resident director with University Housing & Dining Services (UHDS) in July of 2011. I’ve worked in housing at other universities. When I finished my master’s program at UMass-Amherst, I wasn’t tired of the job just yet so I came out to Oregon State. I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest and I wanted to check it out.
Q: What are your responsibilities as assistant director of outreach?
A: My responsibilities can be sectioned into three categories:
- Bias response: I co-lead the bias response team and coordinate the response protocol for all incident reports.
- Diversity and social justice education: I facilitate, either with colleagues or alone, diversity and social justice educational workshops across the university. Currently, I organize workshops for student leaders, dialogue opportunities for the Board of Trustees, and I am lead coordinator for the Dialogue Facilitation Lab.
- Signature events: I head the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Planning Committee. I’m also the lead coordinator for the We Have Work to Do Campaign, Breaking Barriers Ceremony and other events.
Q: Could you describe your social justice work thus far, including the development of a curriculum?
A: In my seven years at OSU, I have facilitated large dialogues, supervised (and hopefully mentored) student leaders and activists who have a strong passion in social justice. I have created/co-created and implemented social justice education-based curriculum for the following:
- Halsell Hall Gender Inclusive Programming
- Foundations of Social Justice Leadership – a course designed for social justice student leaders
- Faculty and staff intergroup dialogue
- Building and Place Name Community Engagement Workshops
- Board of Trustees and student leader dialogues
- Bias intervention training
- Dialogue Facilitation Lab
Q: What does an inclusive university look like? And how can we get there?
A: What it looks like and how we get there are not always in the same universe. An inclusive university is one that recognizes the value of every single member of the community and does their all to welcome them. This looks like giving opportunities to develop, grow and cultivate understanding and appreciating the identities that we all bring with us into this community.
How we get there is naming that we have created barriers, consciously and unconsciously, for people from communities who are academically called underrepresented. Once we have named this, we need to modify our approach. We do this by asking our students, faculty and staff from target social identities, globally and domestically, questions in which the answer will be difficult to hear. Such as, what has been your experience here? What barriers have we created that stand in the way of feeling welcomed? Lastly, we need to commit to this inquiry and subsequent modification. It’s not a one and done. It’s something we do consistently. It’s a process and a goal.
Q: Could you describe your interest in the exploration and connection of social justice through art forms like science fiction and fantasy books, television and movies?
A: Social justice is like the Force…it is all around you. Sci-fi and fantasy at first glance could seem to have no connection to social justice. Especially since the majority of television and movies do not feature people with a lot of melanin. However, it’s the content that matters.
The majority of sci-fi imagines the future of our planet, and those with good imaginations are able to weave in the societal issues that we’re facing today into those worlds. Star Trek is probably one of the best examples of this. Just about every episode no matter if it’s from “The Next Generation” or its latest endeavor, “Discovery”, social issues are a part of the plot. Doctor Who also does a good job of weaving social issues into their storyline. When one is imagining other worlds, you’re imagining new civilizations with a new species and within that species there are differences. These differences could be in race or class or gender; sci-fi and fantasy bring this up big time (Lord of the Rings anyone?). However, that is just the connection to social justice and the issues it raises. The exploration is different. The exploration comes predominately from authors of color like Octavia Butler and Nnedi Okorafor who write through the lens of their identities and write themselves into these worlds. I would recommend the book “Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements” to everyone.
Q: What do you envision for the future of OSU, as it relates to social justice?
A: I envision a future where more and more members of the community have the skills, capacity and courage to have the difficult conversations we need to have with each other. We need to build a better understanding of what dialogue will do. Dialogue, at its core, creates moments of conflict. In those moments of conflict we must listen out of curiosity, recognition and acknowledgment. Dialogue is not asking you to agree. Dialogue is asking you to hold up two truths that are different and asking you to see them both as valid.
Now, I’m not talking about members of our global community who don’t believe oppression or certain groups of people shouldn’t exist. Dialogue cannot help them. No, I am talking about all of the members in the middle who believe there is a way to create a better world for everyone. It’s those people that need to come to dialogue, create a space where we stay in those tough, thought-provoking and emotionally raw conversations, come to a moment where they can see the truths represented as valid and we can put that energy into an action. When that happens, change can and does occur. Sometimes it’s very small and other times it’s earth-shattering — but it happens together. That future for OSU is not as close as I would like it to be. But as long as I am here, that’s what I am going to strive to accomplish.