DEI Symposium Series - Empowering Underrepresented Students for Today's Workforce

This episode is part of the DEI Symposium Series, developed from the DEI Symposium presented at the 2025 NCDA Global Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Alicia Monroe and Ruben Britt share highlights of their conference session -- No Barriers! No Disruptions! SOLUTIONS!: Empowering Underrepresented Students for Today's Workforce -- which addressed intergenerational workplace conflicts, validating students’ narratives, self-reflection on culture and barriers, and inclusive career-preparation strategies. They note shifting U.S. workforce demographics and distinguish race as a social construct from culture as identity. Emphasizing communicative action and active listening, the discussion includes how social identities, stereotyping, and micro/macroaggressions can negatively impact hiring and student development. Recommended solutions include cultural competency and implicit-bias training, mentoring and shadowing, inclusive internships, partnerships with student groups, and highlighting alumni success.

Ruben Britt, Jr. is an educator, author, lecturer, and nationally certified career counselor with over 49 years of experience in education as both a teacher and career planning counselor. A nationally recognized expert on career coaching and educational issues, Ruben has served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Education, the Educational Testing Service, the New Jersey Department of Higher Education, and several colleges and community organizations. He is the author of five books and has written numerous articles on career development, education, and social issues for publications such as Diversity in Education, Upscale Magazine, Black Enterprise, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Black Collegian Magazine. Ruben is the former Assistant Director of the Office of Career Advancement at Rowan University and the former host of Career Talk on WGLS-FM, a radio show offering tips and advice on career planning and job searching.

Alicia S. Monroe, EdD, is a PK–20 experienced educator, international education consultant, and career development practitioner. She serves as Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives at Rowan University, where she designs and implements equity-centered, high-impact college-to-career initiatives in collaboration with campus partners and employers. Her work includes sustained partnership with the Office of Accessibility Services, supporting collaborative planning, mentoring, career coaching, and internship and employment pathways for students with disabilities. Dr. Monroe is a 2025 inductee of the NACE Academy of Fellows, the CEO and founder of Solutions for Sustained Success, LLC, and national faculty for the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). An esteemed scholar-practitioner, she has co-authored an academic text and published multiple scholarly articles focused on creating inclusive learning environments, career readiness, equity, and student engagement. She is one of the original architects of the Whole Child Framework, a trademark of ASCD, and her professional service includes active leadership within NACE and the National Career Development Association (NCDA).

Transcript

Career Practitioner Conversations Podcast

National Career Development Association

DEI Symposium – Empowering Underrepresented Students for Today’s Workforce

March 10, 2026

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Melissa Venable in CDA, director of Professional Development, and this episode continues our 2025 DEI symposium series with a conversation about empowering underrepresented students as they prepare for today's workforce. I am here with Dr. Alicia Monroe, and Ruben Britt.

So thank you both so much for bringing this conversation to the podcast. Thank you, Melissa. , I am now former assistant director  for the Office of Career Advancement and former adjunct at Rowan University and former host of, of, uh, career Talk.

But I am also the co-chair for the Diversity initiative, cultural Inclusion  committee for the National Career Development Association. . , my also co-author with my  my presenter, Dr. Alicia Monroe, in entitled, um, don't Dismiss my Story, the Tapestry of Colonized Voices in White Spaces.

, I'd like to also now  introduce  my co-presenter, Dr. Alicia Monroe, who will share a little bit about her background as well. Good day. Thank you, Ruben. I am Dr. Alicia Monroe. I currently sit and in higher education spaces. However, I am a pre-K through 20 educator of over 30 years. I serve as assistant director and I am actively serving as assistant director for strategic initiatives, and I serve as adjunct faculty in the Rick Edelman College of Communication.

And social sciences as well as the College of Education. So thank you again, Ruben, for introducing me into the space, and thank you, uh, Dr. Venable for  providing this opportunity for us to share. , The title of our presentation is No Barriers, no Disruptions Solutions, empowering Underrepresented Students for Multicultural and Multi-Gene  workforce.

And before we begin, we just kind of wanna give you an overview in terms of what we're gonna cover.  First, we  as customary in our presentations  we generally    conduct the, uh, land acknowledgement. And then we're gonna examine the intergenerational conflicts within the workforce,

and we'll have the opportunity to validate personal truths and narratives of underrepresented students along with self-reflection on culture, cultural competencies and barriers. Identify best practices. Inclusive and intrusive career preparation. And then we're also gonna provide strategies to support underrepresented students to explore career options.

So with regards to norms, um, I'm gonna have  Dr. Monroe, um, share information regarding norms. So our norms sit as we are gonna go slow in, in order to gain momentum to go fast. And as Ruben mentioned, critical reflection takes time. So as we think about the multi-generational workforce that we serve, we think about  the career trends.

We think about the current climate of, uh. The global economy and the workforce. Let's think about who we are in the spaces where we serve our students  our families, our stakeholders, and ourselves. So we're gonna go slow in order to gain momentum to go fast. We encourage open and honest conversations.

So think openly and candidly  and to th own self be true. Think about shifting your paradigms and your personal positions and how you're understanding and gaining new under, you know, new understandings and insights. And  how will these new understandings and insights challenge mental models that you actually function with and through every day?

Uh, take some risks. We encourage you in your questioning and critical reflection, inquiry process to take risks, uh, to try something new and to think new thoughts. So with that in mind, we always offer a land acknowledgement. And the land acknowledgement that we did  present actually focuses on the territory in which we convened  for our NCDA.

Convention. But what we want to do always is stand and honor  the indigenous nations, that, that occupy the territory first. So please, we want you to honor the indigenous, uh, nations  acknowledge  the contributions and their legacy and really think about how are we supporting the rights of all indigenous nations.

Ruben, how about telling us a little bit about the current de demographic of the American workforce? Well, the, the current demographic of the American workforce  has been changing as we know, and what we're seeing now is  an increase of underrepresented  individuals in the workforce as opposed to the majority  non  non.

 Minority groups, um, such as nowadays, uh, the      the makeup of the American workforce consists of now 65, 60 1%  white, 18% Hispanic, 13% black African-American. 6% Asian, including subgroups such as, uh, east, Southeast  and uh, south Asia. And then there are other  groups including Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and individuals identifying with two or more races.

The other thing that's, that we see that's really truly growing is the representation of women. 40% of the workforce  consists of women. Gender diversity is evolving with. A growing awareness and inclusion of intersectional identifiers. And then we look at the other piece of the workforce involves the gen, the, uh, generation  the generations such as baby boomers  generation X, millennials.

And each generation brings unique perspective, needs and preferences, inclu and influence the workforce culture. And that's so important  as we see this  evolving workforce. So when you talk about  race and ethnicity, we talk about gender and we talk about generations. The generational differences, and we're gonna really start to unpack that.

Um, throughout our time together, let's really  hone in on the differences between our race and culture for the purpose of our listeners to really understand exactly what our target is. The difference between race and culture is important because as Ruben talked about race and ethnicity, we really must understand that race is a social construct of classification.

It's a classification system that is really defined. By individuals to place people in, in, in certain  categories, certain classifications, whereas culture is very different. We all have culture. Culture is who we are. Culture is our de DNA culture, as Ruben pointed to a bit earlier, is our identity.

That's who we are. That's our tradition, that's our beliefs, that's our values, and that is organic. Where race is something  a construct that has been established as part of a system of sorting individuals. DNA is organic, and DNA is who we are, so therefore, that is our culture. With that, we have to understand that organically as humans that represent the beautiful cultures and the mosaic, there are stuff that we carry that is seen and there are things that are in our invisible backpacks that we do not see.

The invisible backpack maps back to trauma-informed practices and relationship building.  I always reference, and I reference in the book that  Reuben and I co-authored a graphic image around the invisible backpack that many of us are familiar with by, at Spoony g.  Just because we carry it well doesn't mean it isn't heavy in talking about that, right?

How are we building relationships with multiple  a beautiful intersectionality of students that represent multiple cultures to really serve their needs and to support them in their college to career journey? Ruben, tell us a little bit more about communicative action. As you talked about  relationships, building relationships, communicative action is, is so imperative in being successful in  in our profession.

And, uh, there's a quote by Stephen Coda says, the biggest communication problem is that we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply. And when you  when you look at that particular statement  it's so appropriate because all too often we generally listen to reply, basically focusing on, you know, coming up with a response to what the person says.

 But we never really  provide full attention to understanding the person's point of view, their feelings, and the message that they're trying to convey. So there are major  cultural factors  and generation conflicts as a result of this because we don't understand each other and we don't seek to understand each other and working style and the use of technology.

 These are major, uh, conflict. Particularly in the workplace. And then finally there's a, there's a failure to share knowledge and experience with each other. Somebody trying to hide something from the other person because they have information on, or there may be, they're more technology sound, uh, than the other person, but they don't really want to share information.

But. The bottom line is you're, you're supposed to be, you're looking at a  uh, a workplace that's supposed to be team oriented. And when you, when you have these types of conflicts, a lot of times production is, is, uh, often stalled. Um, and sometimes things don't get done. And then of course it creates a, a personal conflict between individuals, uh, within that particular department or within that particular workplace.

And then. The thing that's so important is that we all possess social identities that shape how we speak, hear, respond, and act, and race and ethnicity.  It is. So I imperative, and I think about this  as a parent  I always try to expose my children to different types of culture because, so if they would be able to be in a position one day to understand  culture, traditions, beliefs, values, and norms, um, we've gone to  uh, different ethnic  uh.

Programs, some, and of course  we've, uh, visited many, many, uh, different types of ethnic restaurants as well. And then there's also that age and generational  gap that is so important that we understand people from both generations.  Maybe somebody might be from the baby boomer generation  needs to understand people from Gen Z, gen X, uh, millennials.

 It's a two-way street. Then most important under understand people from different, uh  genders as well. Um, and, and the feelings that they may experience because of  their gender. And then of course individuals from sexual  orientation as well, which has  become a, a major issue. But of course, this.

This new administration is  pretty much trying to create a  a, a a a, a even bigger conflict  with  people from different  sexual orientation and then of course the religions.  And, and we, one of the things that that, that, uh, Dr. Monroe and I have done, even when we've conducted workshops, particularly on interviewing.

We, we talked about  appropriate dress and one of the, one of the slides that we show that, you know, we have  candidates who may be Muslims and they, you know, they should be allowed to wear a hair wrap to, to, uh, uh, uh, to an interview or somebody, uh, might, uh, should be allowed to wear a turban, but still dress appropriately.

And then they have political affiliations, which really is. Become a major problem because it's gotten to the point where, um, you know, there's sometimes you see conflict and then of course there are things that people may be able to identify  with sports, hobbies, interests. You'd be surprised. Um, and so a lot of times this all goes back to that communicative action because therefore, when you, when you're communicating  you are able to understand.

Uh, people a lot better, and we know that sports  and, uh, music has always been a, a way to break down b boundaries.  I love this conversation even more now than when we presented it, right? Because Ruben, this is exactly how we discuss this really. Critical work. It's about consciousness. I went back to thinking about  the quote that you shared from Stephen Covey, right?

What is the communication problem is we need to listen to understand. That means we have to process this stuff. We started with norming the space, and that's how we started with our mental model is not everyone else's mental model.  Diversity starts in our minds  and how we really, uh, embrace it.

Understanding diversity is understanding that every individual besides ourselves is diverse. There are things that we have in common. But there are things that could really fortify our community from others if we just open ourselves up for new avenues of learning. So at this moment in time, we're gonna pause for just a brief second so I could share a self-reflection exercise with you.

Let's think about, just because I carry it well. It doesn't mean it isn't heavy.

What are our students saying to us

again, what are our students saying to us? The wonderful students that represent different faith-based backgrounds.  LGBTQIA plus populations, those who have diverse race and ethnicities, gender differences are neurodiverse populations. What are our students saying to us? Are we actively listening or are we listening to reply?

And how are we responding to them? Again, what are, are our students saying to us? Are we actively listening or are we listening to reply? And how are we responding to them? Ruben, tell us a little bit more about communicative actions and best approaches, practices and strategies. Yes. Uh, in response to what you just said, one of the misconceptions that educators have is that students can tell if you really care.

And communicative action is an important element. Being successful as  a school counselor, career counselor  principal administrator is that establishes a common understanding through open and honest communication that Unapolo Unap, uh, unapologetically, excuse me, focuses on truth, justice, and authentic engagement.

And it's so true because as educators it's important that. We also learn from the students. So when we have that    that  important dialogue  a communicative action dialogue with, with our students, we, we are able to understand them. We learn from them as well. Because the thing about it is that we need to know that we, and listen to them.

As I said before, you cannot learn. You cannot learn from talking, but you can learn from listening. You, you and, and in this day and age, students are going through a lot, and that's why it's so important to have  a communicative action, uh  in the process of, of education because now you are able to understand situations that they're going through.

   And sometimes people from different generations  may not look at things that way and say, well, you know, when I was growing up, we did this. And, um, but  it's different.  I can tell you this, from my experience, the students that I've worked with today are different from the students that I worked with even 10 years ago.

And so it's so important   to have that, that, that type of dialogue between  you as an educator and the student and understanding  cultural  and generational difference is so important. There's a quote by, uh, Jesse Jackson that says, we must turn to each other and not on each other. And so that's why it's so important to  to have this type of dialogue and  in the process with your students.

And that's why  with  Dr. Monroe, uh, has emphasized  so often. Authentic, uh    you're gonna talk about  engage  uh, authentically engage communities. Can you shed some light on that? Absolutely. And Ruben, before we do that, we have to really understand who's in our spaces. Right? And I just wanna really focus  and, and drill down on  just the generational differences between the baby boomers, uh, the Gen Xers    and the Gen Y, our millennials.

And then our first digital natives are Gen Zers. We all share in the same space. And with the introduction of technology to the workforce, and we could talk about AI and chat, GPT, the dynamic shifts. It's an automatic shift in the dynamic where active listening and listening to understand rather than listening to reply, becomes an a critical imperative in the workforce.

So authentic engagement is no longer the pie in the sky theory. That theoretical frame that, you know, I tinkered with around my dissertation and has now evolved to the authentically engaged community framework, Reuben, that sits in our book, don't dismiss my story, right? The tapestry of colonized voices in white space.

It's now become. Activated framework where we're looking at the me, the who am I coming in connection and community with the who are we, right? So that's the me plus the others to create this sense of community around a shared meaning. And what connects us is the human quality of empathy. But empathy is, is not implied.

Empathy must be intentional. Empathy must be exuded. Empathy is not just    an indicator, right that sits on the margin. Empathy is a stimulus, a catalyst, and an activator. A shared meaning that means, and we're gonna impact some of this. And Ruben, I'm gonna ask you to uplift and amplify some of these pieces  in the next  area and section of what we're discussing.

But that means there must be respect, there must be acceptance. There must be trust in a community space as we move towards an active understanding. We have to feel safe, and if we feel safe as employees, staff, educators, faculty in the educational space, then our students in turn feel safe. How are we uplifting every voice or is it still autocratic where there are one or two stakeholders groups that dictate what is right for all.

And within that we have to understand that everyone else doesn't understand or accept our mental model. So forgiveness is one of the most critical variables of authentic engagement, but it's the hardest one for us to achieve and really do well. Thank you, Ruben. Next, and when we look at the  the characteristics of authentic engagement in the, in the workplace.

We have to go back to what you just said. Number one, you must establish respect.  You also must be flexible and accommodating, and more important, you must avoid stereotyping. And we, we see Ruben, do me a favor. Stop right there. Let's unpack this stereotyping a bit. You know, we talk about that a lot, micro and macroaggression.

Yes. Could you share a little bit more on that? Yes.  All too often, and I can, I can say this from, from per, I use as a perfect example.  I was, uh, interviewing candidates for graduate  internship  position in my office, and I hired this person. This person was the best candidate, and there was a colleague.

After college, they said, Hey, do you know that she's, she's gay? And I said  I didn't  so what's so, what's so important about that? I said, I didn't put that in the, um, job description. You know, I, I'm, I, I hired her because she was the best candidate. I wasn't  but had it been for him who might have had a position.

He might have eliminated her because of her sexual orientation. And all too often we see that even with  underrepresented students. Um, I had a student  who talked about who was a, a really good writer  and he submitted a paper in class and the teacher  accused him of plagiarism. He, he wrote that paper from scratch.

This is way before ai, and he wrote it from scratch. And all too often we see  individuals who stereotype people, um, and they, and sometimes they even use the, uh, inappropriate language when they're talking about people and some, and I know in my, in my position  I'm quick to correct them. So I'm gonna let you know, Ruben, I, I just wanted to stop here because I know you have stories to tell about this, right?

So think about the exclusion just because of race and sexual orientation. That micro leads to a macro, which could. Legitimately exclude at a highly qualified candidate from a job just because of personal mental models and paradigms. Just because the eye sits in a place of control and power, not understanding or wanting to understand the we authentic engagement says that we have to stretch our own selves.

And be willing to do it first with ourselves before we look outside, to have everyone else do the hard work, interrogate ourselves first. Please go on. Thank you for sharing that, Ruben. And most importantly, you must also honor diversity and be inclusive. As I mentioned earlier, we need to learn from one another.

And when we learn from one another, it encourages employees to accept change and lead by example. We also must identify trends across generations. Seek and establish business norms that suit everybody. And when we do that  we also have to inc create a safe environment where employees can learn and grow.

It's important that we tailor our communication styles to  the different employees that we work with. And I've, you know, you had talked about previously about  understanding students, neurodivergence students and   that I've hired neurodivergent students as graduate interns as well.  And so.

When working with whether it's neurodivergent  under other underrepresented students, you know, sometimes you, you have to tailor your, your, your communication style. And more importantly, because of, um, you have a, a, a better understanding of people from different backgrounds, you know, you, you can approach.

Them differently, but still getting out the same message to  to each and every one of the, the people that I, that you work with. It's just a different communication style. And it's, I I always say sometimes you, you can call it, it's another form of being bilingual by telling you  your communication style.

You know, Ruben, it's, it's wonderful that you say that 'cause I know you're gonna.  Next tell us what is truly career ready. But  we have to really think about, and, and what you're discussing is what is empathy, right? Empathy is developing and understanding and compassion for someone else who is diverse, right?

That's that, that person sitting right next to you, you might have some commonality. But diversity starts with the next person in the room. We could all be from the same family. We could all be along the same lineage, but there is diversity there. So it's to really honor and respect that so that we can have different ways of seeing things, being innovative with thoughts that are unlike our own to really push and move forward and advance.

So thank you for sharing that.

Being career ready is really  important aspect, particularly as as career practitioners because all too often students are traumatized and it    it stunts their development to be career ready because they're traumatized by  dream killers. And some, and then there's, which leaves them  feeling, you know, doubting their, their qualifications, even though they've spent four or five, whatever years in college to, to  to, um, in a particular major to qualify  for a particular career.

But    when these particular    boundaries are  are torn down,  it helps students become career ready to qualify for and succeed in, in post-secondary job training or education  and makes them qualify to be ready for the career of their choice. And unfortunately  for some, there's no through.

 There are guardrails that are up, right? There are obstacles in the way, and therefore cultural proficiency is a competency. It's a skillset. It's something that must be worked on, and it should be intentional. Cultural proficiency is a mindset.  It's a way of being. It's a state of mind. It's a condition that esteems others.

It esteems the person right next to you while positively engaging and adapting and responding. So we're positively engaging, right? Because we're seeking to understand. Steve Vin Covey says, we must understand, not seek to just reply, right? We're seeking to understand, be adaptive and respond, and the difference between cultural  unhealthy cultural proficiency practices and healthy cultural proficiency practices according to the cultural pro  proficiency framework.

Is understanding different worldviews. I really remember sitting down  and, and working on this with many  brilliant educators, working and toiling and asking a lot of questions, gleaning data  doing the research around this cultural proficiency framework. And as we looked at the morality, the  the ethical parameters, we looked at all of that.

But most simply put, and it is a complex frame because it is a human-based approach   the main difference between unhealthy culturally competent practices and healthy culturally competent practices. Are, or I should say, is the fact that we all have differing worldviews. So as we move the who am I into the, who are we thinking around?

The authentically engaged framework, we really need to understand who are we serving? Who are the stakeholders that we serve? Who are our students? Who are the faculty, who are our colleagues? Who are the administrators  who are community constituents? Who are families? Who are we serving? How do we even serve ourselves?

Because what we all wanna move from is we wanna move from a strong sense of our own self-agency. To self-efficacy and self authorship. So if we're looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we're moving from the basic tier of physical needs to, to the higher auditor tiers of our physiological and psychological needs.

The essential elements of the cultural proficiency framework are. We have to assess the culture, so we have to call out and name the differences in our workspaces. Then we have to value the diversity, right? Not put the guardrails up, not silo, not isolate, not thinking that our mental model is correct and everyone must assimilate to the way we think.

It's how are we coming into community? So how are we valuing diversity? Then how do we manage the dynamics of difference? I minute.

 Carrying it well. You know, just be suicide look good. How do I carry it? Just because I carry it well doesn't mean the burden is light.  So how do we manage the dynamics of differences? We didn't even talk about the trauma of our students. We didn't even talk about our own trauma. We can see the social classifications and maybe we can hear it as we develop relationships.

But what about the stuff that's not seen? Some students are unhoused, some students are food insecure.  Some students are immigrants and they don't feel safe. I could go on and on and on. Some students don't feel like they could trust  the space so that they can reveal and come out with their identities.

I wanna let you know it's not only students. What about the colleague that's sitting in the cubicle or the office in front of you or next to you? How are we developing an authentically engaged community? Then how do we adopt the  the workplace environment for diversity? These are questions that we should be asking ourselves.

These are how we should be challenging one another. This is how we should be charging the culture and climate of our workspaces if we are ready to accept a diverse  student population that are fired up and ready to go, right? And then how do we institutionalize cultural knowledge where we are making intentional.

Changes for differences.

And some of the solutions for, um, breaking down these barriers is to provide professional development training on cultural competencies and implicit bias. And one of the, one of the exercises that I use in my class, and it's also. In the book  don't dismiss my story. The tapse of  colonized voices in white space is what is your experience with people from different cultures?

What is your knowledge from people from different cultures? Is it from the media? Is it from what somebody told you or your parents or whatever? But understanding them from personal experiences and learning. Um, the other thing is, is it involves connect students with professionals from similar backgrounds and of career interests that will help them because it, it also helps them in terms of, um, preparing them for the career.

Sometimes organizations or people in these  professions will allow the students to  to do some shadowing as well. So imperative to partner with inclusive employees  to offer internships as I mentioned before, and shadowing opportunities because  if these indi uh, employees  are not the type of employees who are, uh, who are exclusive, then that's not the type of environment, uh, students or  uh, should be looking to, uh, find jobs with.

And that's why it's important to establish relations. With student groups and organizations, and we  we've done that. Uh, Dr. Monroe   we've partnered with, uh, different organizations such as The Divine Nine, which consists of  black fraternities and black sororities, and we've done programs with them.

Um, we've also  attended. Programs that different  organizations  that represent underrepresented students. Host. We have the student  NAACP chapter at Rowan that we, we attended their different events.  And so when they see us in these, at these uh, particular events, they're more apt  to reach out to us.

They're more apt to come to us  for resources  for access to information that can help them in their career journey. And then as a result of these different types of programs, we're able to highlight success stories of underrepresented alumni  and leaders in various professions  professions.

And we've  and as you know, I've had a number of these individuals on the radio show called Career Talk and they, and I asked them candid questions in terms of challenges that, that they faced along their career journey. And so when we look at. A multicultural multi-gene generational collaboration.  The one, one of the, a perfect example of how  cultural and multi-generational    generations come together is  the in 2000.

The album by Santana Carlos Santana, which was entitled, supernatural. Now, this, this particular album  was a result, the success of this album. First, I'll talk about the success of the album. The album won nine Grammy Awards and breaking the record held by Michael Jackson's thriller. The other thing is, is that it was number one in 11 countries, including United States.

For 12 non-consecutive weeks where it was certified 15 platinum, platinum is a million  copies sold. And this album's  success was attributed to the collaboration of three different generations. We had a collaboration of Generation X, which consisted of y cleft John and Lauren Hill. We, uh, we had. The baby boomer representative that can, that included Carlos Santana, and then we had a representative from the silent Generation was, which is before the baby, baby boomer, boomer, generation of Clive Davis, the silent generation, which is where students were  seen but not heard.

The baby boomers. Change that    that, that, that philosophy and said, Hey, we're speaking out. No more war. But anyways, the collaboration of Generation X, baby Boomer and silent generation created a masterpiece.  That  as a result of everybody having a voice, everybody having an input in the album, and because everybody respected everybody's point of view ideas.

The album was a masterpiece. So I love this example  Ruben, which  prompts me to add some thinking around the difference between belonging and mattering. So if we're looking at the authentic, authentically engaged community. And empathy is driving and all the variables, right? Those human elements are sitting within that space to come about shared meaning, right?

Think about this collaboration, right? Because the multiple intersections weren't even identified. You stayed within the generational. The culture is all here and it's wonderfully represented within this collaboration. So it was much more than belonging because they are part of  an incredible music community.

Each one within themselves are icons in the music community. But what made the collaboration so successful is they mattered to each other. They mattered. That means that I value you, I esteem your gifts. I honor and dignify who you are in this space. And mattering also implies that if you are not in this space, you are missed.

So how are we serving our students? We've provided solutions. We said that there are no disruptions and no interferences because it's, we're solution based. As practitioners, I want us to think about how are we weaving our community, thus we land on our final thought for our session. This is entitled, weaving a Warm Blanket.

Also found in our book, I want you to think of yourselves as  a fine thread in a blanket, and you are strong within yourselves, but what is the functionality of a blanket, the functionality of a blanket. It's to bring some sort of layers so that we can become war. So therefore we know that one strong thread is not gonna make that happen for us.

Two won't. Many won't. What we need to do with these threads are start to weave together. A loose weave brings a pattern. But we're still not achieving the functionality of the blanket. It's when we start to tighten, tighten, tighten, and come together as one. Sooner or later we re we reach that tipping point.

We reach that point where we achieve the functionality of the blanket. In other words, we reach the space where we become community. This is important. So I ask you as we think about no barriers, no disruptions only solutions for not only underrepresented students, all students, how do we serve them? And how do you know we are serving them?

Well, it has truly been a joy. Thank you so much, Mr. Britt, Dr. Venable, for being in this space. Ruben, I am definitely going to give you the last word, but I do want and want all of our listeners to think about how do we serve and how do you know that we are serving them well? It's important to note that we are a rising tide, uplifting our students, our culture, our colleagues, and our craft.

 And by doing that, we must have respect for each other, respect for the students, respect for their, uh, their, their cultural backgrounds.  And it's important for us as educators to also be, uh, lifelong learners. And part of being a lifelong learner is learning from each other, learning from our students, learning from people from different generations.

 Because as this, as the quote says  until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero. Thank you, Dr. Monroe, and thank you Alyssa, for allowing us this opportunity to present.