A Toolkit for What Resists Fixing: Creating a Culture of Care
By Risha RaQuelle, Chief Strategy Officer
I most recently had the privilege of presenting a beta version of our TLC GRAM toolkit at the 2024 GFDA Department Leaders workshop with Dydia DeLyser of California State Fullerton and Daniel Trudeau of Macalester College. The TLC GRAM Toolkit is a compressed, operationalized approach to the AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee’s strategic plan. I was excited to share this newest version of the strategy, which we piloted with our JEDI Committee working groups, as a potential tool for geography departments and program leaders at a time when such tools are very much needed.
Briefly, I invited the participants to walk through the toolkit and consider their own justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion strategies in one of the seven domains: Training, (Focused) Listening, Communications, Governance, Reports, Advocacy, and Membership. Although created for use by geography education leaders, we hope that anyone could adapt these tools to a wide variety of settings. We have also taken care to prepare this for many contexts, knowing that some campuses and states are pushing back against JEDI programs in explicit ways. For program leaders in states where JEDI work is being challenged, the TLC GRAM framework provides a universal outline to consider how to do the work within these limitations, by emphasizing management and training approaches that have broad relevance for good governance and student support. For example, in the workshop, participants were invited to match existing and planned strategies with the TLC GRAM categories the activity aligned with.
This “inventory” approach is helpful for identifying a range of strategies and approaches that are already in place, viewing them through the lens of TLC GRAM “best practices,” and then identifying new methods they’d like to try.
The TLC GRAM inventory is a process designed to encourage leaders to identify and build on the JEDI practices they have planned or underway.
The TLC GRAM inventory is a process designed to encourage leaders to identify and build on the JEDI practices they have planned or underway. This approach also leads the participant to round out their JEDI practices by developing strategies within each of the seven domains of the toolkit. Through this process, a participant will begin to see opportunities for alignment, areas that overlap, and gaps in planning. When a team co-creates this list, it can be even more powerful, as they refine their brainstorming into clear and actionable steps, celebrating the opportunity to collaborate in accomplishing their identified aims.
In other words, the toolkit is designed to take the guesswork out of identifying the “perfect” strategy.
Why Seeking the “Perfect” Strategy is Not the Best Way
The request for a toolkit often comes with an expectation of highly specific steps to take, and this is understandable. Who wouldn’t want a quick and straightforward way to identify actions to take, find clear categories we can get right the first time, and co-create strategies that are seamless and efficient? However, a toolkit is just that: tools. Try as we might, we can’t make the tools themselves into the end. They are only the beginning of an intention toward change. Uncertainty, learning, trial and error are not only unavoidable, but necessary to facilitating change.
The work we do to intentionally create opportunities for systems change is not a short game. This work is deeply systemic, unpredictable, and requires long-term commitment. The temptation is to identify ALL the strategies that anyone has ever taken, listen to how they utilized them, and consider if those strategies may work in your own context. While there is value in considering many options, you as leader and your team are the best candidates for identifying what you want to accomplish and what might motivate you.
Knowing that this work requires patience, we can still motivate and energize ourselves by engaging in quick exercises to jumpstart our thinking.
Knowing that this work requires patience, we can still motivate and energize ourselves by engaging in quick exercises to jumpstart our thinking. Doing so allows us to become time delimited, listing activities that might be possible in each domain. Of course, fear and anxiety might emerge as the pressure builds to find the “perfect” strategy. The purpose of this exercise is to identify “a” strategy. Carving out 10-15 minutes together with your team will jump start a process to co-create and refine each strategy, as time permits. The goal is to see what might be possible. For example,
- In the Training domain — I might want to identify what training courses are available to support faculty and staff or students in undertaking justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work. An inventory of what exists in the department is a first step toward finding out who is already doing the work on our team. In states where constraints are being placed on many kinds of DEI programming, I might think creatively about ways to strengthen existing mentoring and leadership training programs and faculty development.
- In the Focused Listening domain, a participant might say they will create opportunities to have discussions about a justice, equity, diversity, or inclusion strategy that the department might want to undertake. This could be during a staff meeting as a quick exercise. Again, this can take other forms, like a special listening activity for students to talk about their needs and experiences on campus. You could also regularly assess the departmental climate to ensure that it is ideally free of tensions and hostility and that it fosters a healthy, constructive and inclusive environment for all groups — students, faculty, and support staff.
- In the Communications domain, one might identify who is represented on our website and why. Who is missing? Developing a strategy around gaining stories from scholars that you do not see on your website, personal testimonials, and narratives about their lived experiences in their research journey, could be a first start.
- In the Governance domain, one might start with adding a justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion item (or a similar item focused on creating a culture of care, addressing full student needs, etc.) on every agenda to discuss opportunities for alignment and support. This way you will be certain to address this topic each time you meet.
- In the Reports domain, you may want to identify what demographic reports exist for your department, who may have access to this and what might the trends be that you see as you disaggregate the data by demographic categories. You could also pair the demographic trends that you see with lived experiences of those that may not be represented in the data. What do we want to accomplish together and why, could be a first start.
- In the Advocacy domain, you could identify what your advocacy aims are for your department, how you might support them and who might want to get involved.
- In the Membership domain you might want to identify who makes up your department, team, or classroom, taking an assessment of who is missing and how you might find new opportunities to engage or recruit those that are not present.
While we can quibble over aspects of what is represented in the toolkit — and this matters — the first attempt is to take the first step, write something down and commit to doing the work. Pull the list together, with your team, co-create and consider the possibilities and limitations, with others, and start somewhere. You will be surprised at what you will accomplish when you take this first step. Please contact me so that we may celebrate your success. I am rooting for you!
The AAG Culture of Care column is an outreach initiative by the AAG JEDI Committee. Don’t forget to sign up for JEDI Office Hours. The current theme of Office Hours is An Ethos of Care in the Research Enterprise.
