This two-part conversation with Dr. Fredrika Cowley, explores the intersection of lived experience, scholarship, and the current state of higher education. Dr. C is a Black feminist scholar whose research focuses on Black women professional staff and how they engage in acts of everyday resistance. 

In Part 2, Policy, Power, & the Dear Colleague Letter, we expand the conversation to the structural level, exploring policy, institutional response, and the impact of the Dear Colleague Letter on Black professionals and the work they do.

Together, these conversations highlight how individual experiences are shaped by broader systems, policies, and power structures.

In this episode, we discuss:

• We examine scholar-practitioner identity and what it means to navigate higher education through that lens.
• We center lived experience as a legitimate and critical form of knowledge. 
• We explore the tension of responsibility without power within institutional spaces. 
• We name how institutional neutralism and language shifts reshape the work. 
• We consider how policy, power, and structural change are shaping the current state of higher education.

Resources & Links

Podcast website: thediscoursewithdrshea.com
Instagram: @dr._shea
TikTok (personal): @Dr.Shea-GenX
TikTok (podcast): @discoursewithDrShea

Explore the Episode 10 Toolkit and additional resources forthcoming on the website.