0:03

Welcome to the Cohort Sisters podcast, where we give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of Black women and non-binary folks with doctoral degrees.

0:12

I'm your host, dr Jamal Kola, and in this episode we're honored to have Dr Naya Grimes, with a doctor in education and a focus on college student affairs administration from the University of Georgia.

0:24

Dr Grimes is a passionate advocate for social justice, mental health awareness, access to higher education and the prevention of sexual violence.

0:32

Dr Grimes received awards like the Mary Francis Early College of Education's Research Award, and her research has centered on addressing campus sexual violence and dismantling systems of domination in higher education.

0:45

As an assistant professor in the Department of Advanced Studies, leadership and Policy at Morgan State University, her mission is clear to shine a light on African spirituality, explore the unique experiences of students with intersecting minoritized identities and work relentlessly towards a more just and equitable higher education landscape.

1:05

Welcome to the show, dr Grimes.

1:08

Wow, I mean I feel like I don't even know how to introduce myself now, because that was so comprehensive and thorough.

1:15

I'm so glad to be here.

1:18

Well, we're excited that you're here, and so the introduction that I want to ask from you is because we know who you are professionally, or a little bit about who you are professionally now, but tell us a little bit about who you are as a person.

1:28

Where are you from? Where do you live? What are some things that you like to do outside of work?

1:34

Right. Well, I often say like I'm an artist moonlighting as a professor, because I have this right I have this strong value of security and art, artists and art just aren't valued in so many ways for us to create and really secure ways.

1:55

And I have a chronic illness.

1:57

It's something that I talk about, I research and so I just needed like insurance and benefits and a job and like any paycheck and I was like what you know?

2:09

like what can I do that will afford me that?

2:13

But also allow me to be an artist and I originally started off in counseling, so I feel like as a professor.

2:20

It's just all the things I love creation, education, empowerment.

2:25

You're constantly learning and so, yeah, it's been great.

2:28

Me personally, I don't even know where to go.

2:31

There's so much to say. I'm really just a spiritual person, so I love being in nature as much as I can.

2:37

I grew up in South Jersey near the ocean, so like as much as I can spend time in water.

2:43

I was in water yesterday because I was in a really bad flare up and needed some attention.

2:49

So, yeah, I just am constantly trying to find ways to just reground and recharge in nature and then, because of that chronic illness, like I pampered myself to the upteenth extent.

3:01

I'm just like we work hard. We need to play like harder, you know, or heal harder, whatever that looks like.

3:08

Hobbies include. I love cooking.

3:10

Right now I'm taking up this initiative to learn as many of my family's recipes as possible.

3:17

It's just really been hard, especially after COVID, recognizing the existentialism of just like we're not always going to be in this moment together and so I just want to hold on to them in the recipes.

3:29

So I've been learning and cooking and that has been really just soul filling.

3:33

And then I really love our new restaurant.

3:36

So my partner and I will try, you know, different, exciting cuisine that we've never had before.

3:42

We go to the museums a lot. We just went to this dope exhibit in Baltimore and it was solely black artists, so it was like for the culture and that was like beautiful.

3:54

So things like that that really like ground me and energize me and then you can just catch me like resting to just prepare to do this work that we've sort of signed on to do.

4:05

But I think that's like a little bit about me in a nutshell.

4:07

I could say a lot more, but we have a lot of questions.

4:10

So yeah, so I am astounded because I've actually never heard anyone come like up front and say that you pursued being a professor, as like that wasn't not that that wasn't the dream, but it was like a means to an end.

4:28

And I appreciate you saying that because that's actually just real and I think it's.

4:33

It's really real and I wish that more people would talk about, like the security and the stability.

4:38

And you know, especially if you get tenure, it's like lifetime of a secured job and the expectations are very, very, more or less pretty clear.

4:49

There is some instability built into the profession with tenure and like with having to kind of like hop around If you don't get tenure, or even securing that first faculty position, tenure, track faculty position, which some people, it just takes a really long time to do so.

5:05

But if you're able to hack it like, it actually is a very stable, secure career that affords enough flexibility for you to pursue other things.

5:16

So I just like never hurt anyone, come out like outright and say like that I just really appreciate you sharing that.

5:24

At what point did you realize, ok, I have this passion for art, but that's maybe not the the way that I'm going to be able to sustain myself financially.

5:35

So let me also pursue this other thing Like when do you feel like you have that realization?

5:41

I was really young so I remember this was an elementary school back in like the 90s, before they were putting art programs left and right for STEM and stuff, like we were just learning how to type things like that and I remember being like poured into by the art programs in my school and that was really fun, and I think one of the things that I've been grieving recently is that that didn't continue, because I would have loved to have seen where I would have been on that trajectory Before going into undergrad.

6:15

I very much knew, like OK, I'm probably going to go into some sort of service oriented field.

6:22

I like working with people.

6:25

I always had a sort of sense of, like the injustices going on because even right, like I'm even thinking about this idea of security, like there isn't any security and capitalism, and so it's really just trying to find as much security as I can garner until we're free.

6:43

And so I was like I know I can't work a nine to five, I will be bored out of my mind.

6:48

Don't have me typing doing no reports.

6:51

I can't use my creativity to help these corporations do more harm to my community.

7:01

So I didn't feel comfortable doing that and so I was like what can I do?

7:06

I was interning at the time working with displaced mothers with mental illnesses and their children and homeless, neglected and foster youth, and I was like this is where my energy should go, like in the community, with the folks who needed the most.

7:23

So I noticed in that organization and I tell my students this too like even if you're not in your dream role, pay attention to the organizations you're in and the roles, the various roles.

7:34

Are there any that you really identify with?

7:37

I identified with the LPC, the counselor.

7:39

I was like she's real, she's helping people right at the heart.

7:44

I was like this is what I'm trying to do. So I went and got my degree in counseling and in counseling I always just ended up getting like drawn towards these higher ed student affairs counseling roles.

7:56

So it would be like sexual violence.

8:01

That's how I started my sexual violence work and then clinical community counseling, like in a college center working with students with disabilities, and so it just I loved it.

8:14

But I realized that like oppression was trauma, and most of the folks I was working with were oppressed.

8:22

They weren't, it was nothing wrong with them.

8:24

And so I said, well, talking about it is not Fenefix, none of it.

8:30

So now I got a pivot, because I'm like deeply empathetic, so like thinking about just all of it like it can bring me to tears, and so I was like I need to have purpose in a way that I feel like is moving us forward.

8:45

Because if not.

8:45

I could all just wallow, like, just thinking about it, like I'm tearing up now.

8:48

And so I still went to get my PhD because I figured I'm working in these institutions, maybe they'll listen to me more if I have a PhD, because I would be coming up with all these great policies, program, programmatic initiatives and things and no one was taking it seriously or they would just sort of be like not your job, sweetie.

9:11

So it was pissing me off.

9:14

So I went and got my doctorate. My mentor, dr Chris Linder at the time, she was like you would be so good at faculty life.

9:22

Like your discipline, there's time freedom, you get to do this, this and that and you're good at teaching service.

9:30

Like you do those things naturally and like want to do them.

9:34

And I, being dyslexic and dyscalculic, neurodivergent, you know, having a chronic illness, I'm like I'm just trying to end oppression.

9:44

I don't really know about this faculty life.

9:46

You know I'm first gen in all the ways.

9:48

So I was just like what in the what? Like I didn't really understand it.

9:52

And my parents are just like what are you doing?

9:55

Like, aren't you? Well, my mom I should say my father he was just like shouldn't you be in college to get money and you're not making any money, they're paying you less and you're doing like it just didn't make sense to them and I was like I have a vision.

10:09

Yeah, so really through, just like half instance, following the path of least resistance, really listening to myself and not settling for what I didn't want, knowing my strengths, all those things, and then I end up here and I love it.

10:25

I mean, it has its qualms, like anything, but there are so many other situations I could be in that are harder that I have been in, that are harder, that aren't sustainable for someone with my identity.

10:36

So yeah. Yeah.

10:39

I love how you said that you chose to follow the path of least resistance, and I think that that's also very powerful for folks who feel like they are just like fighting against a lot of things, and sometimes the best way to fight is to as you said, is to get yourself to a point where no one can argue with you when you've got some letters at the end of your name, right?

11:09

So I mean right, right, and I also feel like that point is interesting, because someone who I've spoken to recently also had a similar path to the doctorate, in that they were working and they really felt as if they weren't getting the respect that they deserved, because until they saw the doctorate as a way to earn that respect and get that respect.

11:33

And I'm just curious, and I'm only, I'm only asking you this because you seem like a very introspective person and like self reflexive person so how do you, how do you navigate, like pursuing the doctoral degree, pursuing a PhD, so that others could respect the policies, that all the ideas that you had in your workplace, without externalizing, like without having an external reward for the PhD?

12:00

Does that kind of make sense? Because I feel you have.

12:02

You get to a point, especially like when it's when it's hard and I'm sure we'll talk about some of the times that it was challenging for you where you really have to like do it for yourself and it has to be internally, that the motivation for the degree has to be internally driven and like driven by some larger purpose.

12:19

So I'm curious as to how you balance like the internal and that's the phrase, I'm looking for intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for getting the doctoral degree.

12:30

I see. So for me it was like a few different things right, because at the end of the day, even if I'm credentialed, some people are still not going to listen, like some people are dedicated to misunderstanding, not listening into, being oppressed, because even those in power, like you're oppressed to, like your block two.

12:49

We're not all just living to our highest potential.

12:52

And so I think I knew that it was more than a credential, but that with the credential I would get power and access, like I saw the gatekeeping mechanisms and I knew, with those letters I would be able to just break through, like regardless of identity, regardless of who is upset and doesn't want me in the room, at the table, writing policy or what, that there were certain places that I wouldn't be kept out of just simply because I had the doctor.

13:22

You can't do human subjects, research, really, unless you're rich or you're connected to an institution.

13:32

So, like all of those things, we don't respect people as epistemic knowers, and so for my knowledge to be seen as knowledge, now it is because it's going in journals, Like I was like I'll just work the system to liberation, and so that was sort of like I was like, okay, I'm doing this very intentionally with a purpose.

13:58

I know that. You know, this isn't really going to change much as far as how I'm perceived, because I'm not going to live the culture that we're in, but it will get me access.

14:10

It will get me access to power and I can use that, you know, in love.

14:14

So that's what I've been trying to do.

14:17

Yeah, yeah, you are doing the damn thing.

14:20

So you mentioned that you were first gen in several ways and so you know, once you made the decision to pursue a doctorate, you know where did you find the tools, the resources, the community, the order to prepare a strong application and then make the decision to go to UGA.

14:42

Right. So spirit holds me down 1000%.

14:47

I don't know if others feel that connected, but like I can see that my life is divinely ordered.

14:54

That's why I follow the path of least resistance.

14:56

Because, you know, in my belief system, god and ancestors see things that I just can't see, and so I have to listen.

15:04

In certain ways I would end up in situations just because spirit put me there, not realizing like I would need it later.

15:11

Prime example I choose George Mason because I initially wanted to be in close proximity to DC without having to go like a military route, and then I ended up not even wanting to go into government and politics.

15:30

However, mason at the time was an R2.

15:32

There was all of this undergraduate research funding.

15:35

My professor saw just intrinsically that like I'm a researcher and an educator, so they were like pouring all of this undergraduate research into me, which primed me later to get a PhD.

15:52

And again, like with my identities, had I not had that?

15:58

But that wasn't intentional, that was just because people were like hey and I was like, yeah, you get money for it.

16:07

I like I'm doing it anyway, you know. And so it was really good mentorships and that's why I love hiring in affairs, because I am a product of good faculty, good student affairs, good policy, like it supported me in so many ways through and through, and I could say that for most of the institutions that trained me, even if there were a lot of issues still right.

16:31

So I then end up going into career counseling and so I was training people and counseling people how to get into PhD programs, how to get into do right, all of these things I was then going to have to do.

16:48

So then, when it was time for me to get into a PhD program, I was surrounded by and connected to all these resources because I was helping students get into the best PhD programs in the world.

17:00

So, yeah, I was able to like write a personal statement and then have someone in my office who reviews personal statements for a living review it you know, privilege because of spirit, you know, just putting me in those places so that I could access those skills that I didn't have.

17:18

The fourth thought to go and seek out because I didn't know anybody, right right, yeah, love such divine placement and order in your life.

17:26

We love to see it. So let's talk about your time at the University of Georgia.

17:30

What were some of the highest points for you, like what was aside from getting the degree over some of their major successes, and then what were some of the challenging aspects of your doctoral journey?

17:42

Of course. So shout out to Black Cassar.

17:44

Black Cassar was this homegrown community, because I love Black people and our ability to find joy, to create community, to create really what we need in any situation.

18:00

Like you can put African ascendance in the most dire straits and we are going to be like, all right, but I'm still gonna laugh and we still going, you know, could get in and support each other and, you know, in healing I just love that about us.

18:15

I don't. I don't know if, like people really see the magic that we are.

18:21

And so Black Cassar was.

18:24

Basically there were just a bunch of these Black Docs at UGA.

18:29

Uga isn't an HBCU, you know.

18:32

There was no really real reason and typically you don't see a concentration of Black Doc students in one place.

18:40

And I was curious about it. I was like what is going on here?

18:44

What is UGA doing? It recruits, sustain and matriculate these Black students.

18:50

I was just enamored and so I was reaching out to the community there and that's sort of how I got situated there.

19:00

And they're also the community that helped me matriculate, just supporting me through, helping me with, like, the hidden curriculum and still helping me with the hidden curriculum.

19:10

It doesn't stop right. So that was definitely a high my mentor, dr Linder.

19:15

So I think it's so important, especially if you're first year and you're trying to figure this higher ed crap out like what do they call it?

19:23

I'm doing a study now where it shows up, but I'm blinking on the language for it.

19:29

But basically, like the familial aspects of like who trains you, and Dr Linder, she did some hell of a training like she made sure that I was equipped to do the role that I wanted to do and so you know, without her I'm just not, I'm not an assistant professor and it's just important to name that.

19:51

So it makes me think about how important my role is now to do that same thing.

19:59

Lo's, I mean I was in the southeastern United States like I was in Athens, georgia, as a queer Black femme from the Northeast.

20:08

It was a wild mess.

20:11

I remember the first time I got there and I was just like culture shock.

20:15

So I lived in Atlanta but then commuting was so hard and I feel like I missed out on having community like in Athens because I was always commuting.

20:25

I had a chronic illness so I was always sick and in the doctor's office more than I was kind of in a community with my, my peers, so that really was hard.

20:35

I didn't have much family in Atlanta or in that area, so I think, just like those things.

20:42

And then institutions aren't built for folks who are in daily chronic pain, folks who have disability.

20:50

We talk about our blackness and you know our racial ancestry.

20:57

We'll talk about, you know, being queer or gender fluid.

21:03

You know we'll talk about those things and these other identities, but I feel like folks who are disabled don't get that same platform and it's not until, like I specifically mentioned it, which is why I'm always talking about it.

21:15

People will then be like, oh yeah, me too, or I have that or so, and so you know and you see how it's impacting us all.

21:23

And so, because there weren't any like true structures for me, I had to navigate and create the structures.

21:30

Thankfully, I was in a higher ed program with folks who knew the research and we're like, amenable to that.

21:38

Had I been in a different field, a different program, a different institution, like that might not have been the case.

21:43

And I know for a fact, even though it's not widely studied but based on my anecdotal data folks with disabilities are not matriculating, especially at the doctoral level, at the same rate as folks without.

21:57

So you know, so that's hard and so, yeah, just thinking about like what is my role in trying to to fix that?

22:06

Right, right, yeah, can you talk a little bit about your dissertation?

22:11

And I want to now start pivoting towards your work as an assistant professor.

22:17

So I would love to know. Two-part question I feel like I'm always doing two-part questions because I just have so many thoughts and so many things in my mind.

22:25

Part one is what was your dissertation about?

22:29

In part two, do you still study any element of your dissertation as an assistant professor and in your current like, where you currently are in your career?

22:39

Okay, yeah, so from my dissertation I pivoted because I was really just focused on sexual violence work on campus.

22:47

But as I was experiencing what I sort of just spoke about, I wanted to interrogate myself more in my experience of navigating higher ed with my identities.

22:57

I had the privilege because we had a qualitative research department at UGA of taking a lot of strong qualitative research classes and one of them was auto ethnography, and it's like I found the methodology for me you know as someone who really believes in, like the power of story and narrative.

23:16

And as you mentioned, like just self-reflection and introspection and critical self-accountability, right, auto ethnography was a methodology that valued all of that.

23:28

I felt so seen. And then from that, because you have these brilliant theorists who like right, take something and make it better, you have now like a whole field of self-inquiry data.

23:40

So I did a spiritual ethnography, which is like a type of auto ethnography or a type of self-inquiry, but it's center spirit and it was developed by Dr Dillard, cynthia Dillard, and so that what I did was I ended up using life note data that was longitudinal over the course of four years of getting my degree, and then with a research team and myself, we combed through it in like all of these different ways, so coding for spirit and coding for just like what's happening in our bodies and coding for power.

24:15

And then I recreated sort of in the style and lineage of Octavia Butler, this like reimagined Afrofuturistic future, where they found my data in the future and like used it to make better policy or to make sure that they weren't doing those harmful things or that's being harmed and higher ed and yeah.

24:44

So that was sort of my dissertation. What I'm doing now is I presented I had made it into like a manuscript-length dissertation which is like a whole different study.

24:55

I just took the data and then wrote sort of about how to heal, instead of thinking about like descriptive data.

25:03

This is what's going on. I feel like we know the pain and violence and trauma of living in oppression.

25:09

And so now I want to think about, okay, how do we heal, how do we liberate, how do we dream, how do we create?

25:15

So that piece I hope to submit soon to a qualitative journal and then I want to submit grants to start doing larger big studies focusing solely on folks on campus with chronic pain disorders like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, diabetes, you know a bunch of different disorders under the sun.

25:40

So that will be like my next focus.

25:43

And then I'm always always doing work around campus sexual violence.

25:46

So it kind of has become, I guess, my dissertation work and that, like love for that methodology, has become like its own line of my scholarship and I keep that same line for campus sexual violence still.

26:01

That is the most interesting dissertation approach that I've ever heard.

26:08

It's like I feel, like as soon as now, that I know if you hadn't told me at the very beginning that you are an artist, I like would have come to that eventually because it's such a creative.

26:21

Literally I did not even know that was possible to be able to what I'm not I'm not familiar that familiar with qualitative methodology but to be able to do an auto ethnography I think you know that I've heard of but to then like the Afro futuristic piece, like part of, like what that is, just like my mind is blown and to be able to do.

26:44

I think why my mind is so blown is because you know you were able to do that in a, an education program.

26:51

I think I would have assumed that that is a kind of study that maybe would have been okay in an English literature program or something like fiction or that was more writing based or like creative thinking base.

27:04

So I just love that you were able to really bring your full self meaning, your experiences, your identities to your methodology, your preferred way of presenting the work, even to your scholarship, and like kudos to your department for allowing that to manifest so cool.

27:23

I want to read it, so cool.

27:26

Like I mean, it's still a dissertation, so it's probably a hot mess, but you know, it was fun to be able to begin dreaming and thinking and exercising like my scholarly muscles in that way and and learning right directly from the folks who were writing in this methodology, creating this methodology.

27:46

It's just an honor, a true privilege, and that's why I'm so dedicated to like spreading this knowledge and like trying to inspire and, like you know, really get this out there.

27:57

Because of the privilege that I had to learn it and receive it and, like you said, for a committee to be like, yes, go and do that.

28:04

They really were like we see the vision and again, it was like very qualitatively rigor, like we had over, you know, hundreds of life note data.

28:16

I think they all averaged almost 350 to 500 words.

28:21

So I had a research team and there were like several themes and sub themes.

28:28

So, yeah, it was, it was fun and I learned a lot about myself, which I think is so important If we're going to conduct scholarship, especially around vulnerable populations, topics that kind of press or empower, like we really need to understand how we're socialized, because I was interrogating myself in that as well.

28:51

And I don't. I'm trying to think of if there's anything that I learned about myself in in my dissertation process.

28:58

I'm sure, if I dig deep there probably is. But I do think it's really special to be able to use the dissertation as not only an opportunity to research something that no one else has researched or to kind of like ask new questions, but to really be introspective and learn about yourself and learn about your positionality as a scholar and as a researcher, because you know, as you mentioned, like the more that we understand our own identities and perspectives and biases, like the better that we can show up, especially those of us who do work on marginalized and oppressed populations, right.

29:34

So if we can better understand where we're coming from and the different things that are shaping even the questions that we ask, the ways that we ask, the ways that we ask those questions, hopefully our scholarship can be better and approach liberation more clearly and more not more clearly, but yeah, just be more liberatory in our research practices and our methods.

29:54

But we can't do that unless we really know who we are.

29:57

So you give me so much to think about.

29:59

I'm just like in awe. I want to talk about one aspect of your work that you brought up earlier, which is spirituality and African spirituality.

30:12

How do you see spirituality intersecting with higher education and what benefits do you think that it can bring to campus environment and student experiences?

30:24

I think the fact that we even have to ask that question just shows how separated, splintered, we are from our humanness and our spirit, because spirit should be the foundation for which everything is built in.

30:42

I think when people say indigenous, that's really what they mean.

30:47

When I research different indigenous, tribal African ways of knowing, being and what I've just encompassed as a cosmology or spirituality, I've just found these inherent patterns, over and over, that you don't see in the Abrahamic organized religions.

31:12

For me, the major things that come across that I talk about in my writing are just God, and not God-gendered or God-based out of whiteness, but just source.

31:27

We all are living and we come from a living source.

31:31

We all are connected. This idea of separation is an illusion that we experience in this world, in this life, but I think if we were to remember our spirituality, remember our connectedness, like gun violence, sexual violence, like are you going to shoot yourself?

31:51

No.

31:55

And so that is sort of what I come to and think about.

31:59

I also think about just nature, like the actual land that we embody and encompass.

32:04

We have to respect it, we have to honor it, we have to build and live with it and not make it bend to our needs and will, because, as I think we've all seen this past summer, the world will, like nature, will bounce back and push back and show us who really is in control and then, just like the spirit, like our spirit guides, like our ancestry, like we're connected to something greater than ourselves, this long lineage of love and karma and all these things.

32:37

So I just try to think about that and that is what I feel like makes me human, and how can we just make sure that that's infused, that that is like the grounding upon which we then learn and grow and love, because that's where it all stems from, like that is our foundation.

32:54

And I think once we really start to look at the roots, our shared values, our connections and what's really going on underneath these systems of dominations, these interactions, we can begin to really make choices, critical choices as a collective, about what we're going to tolerate and what we will not tolerate.

33:13

Yeah, yeah.

33:16

Well, the point that you made about if we have a fundamental understanding of interconnectedness, then we wouldn't do harm to one another because we would be doing harm to ourselves, I found that really, really powerful.

33:28

I've never thought about that, but that's yeah, that was compelling, so me.

33:34

So I want to talk now about your transition into becoming an assistant professor.

33:41

Can you walk us through what that was like for you?

33:44

Did you go right on the market as you are finishing up your dissertation?

33:48

Just what was the process for you?

33:51

What was reflect on that time a little bit?

33:55

So I knew myself and I knew I wouldn't be able to desertate, apply for jobs and just like be well so and I had to get this major surgery and I wanted to have time enough to heal after the surgery to then go into teaching because I wanted to try to be as much as I could like my best teaching zone.

34:15

So I finished my dissertation and I actually got surgery like while I was finishing my dissertation and then I just made sure that I was committed to writing and staying on writing projects, staying on research projects while I healed and recovered from surgery, and I found a job that would basically allow me to write and then for a year I just wrote and applied to jobs after I'd dissertation.

34:43

I had also been particular in wanting to be in a specific geographic location.

34:50

So my family is predominantly in Maryland and like the DC Virginia area and I didn't want to be far from them anymore and I didn't want to build a family far from them, and so I also knew that not every institutional type would value my values or me as a scholar.

35:10

But you know, being at HBCU and specifically being at Morgan, it's just such a great fit and so I was just really lucky that like that cycle, that timeline again spiritual, like alignment, it all fell into place.

35:28

But I had sort of watched the market for two years and even in the first year, while I was dissertating, I didn't really see a lot of positions that would have fit with where I was trying to go and yeah.

35:40

So that is how I sort of planned it out.

35:42

And it's not traditional, it's not what all of my peers were doing, but I sort of knew, because of what my peers were doing, what I was going to need to do differently.

35:50

Yeah, that point about and I don't think people realize this, you know, especially depending on it can really depend on your field.

35:59

But there are some years.

36:01

It just depends on the year, right? So, like as you mentioned, you know, like we said, that there was a year you were looking and there weren't a lot of jobs.

36:08

I felt the same way that, like this, when I ended up getting my position happened to be a year that there were positions, that was really just this one position that was a good fit for me, and the prior year I had like poked around just to kind of see what was going on and there I don't think I saw like a single historian of medicine role that I would have been a good fit for.

36:32

So I think that's hopefully encouragement for anyone who's on the market this semester this fall.

36:39

Is that sometimes it really just boils down to timing and your divine purpose and that's where you will be for you, yeah so.

36:51

I want to ask one final question about your work before we start to wind down.

36:56

You've worked in higher education in a variety of capacities as a counselor, as a professor and different kinds of institutions small liberal arts schools.

37:08

You went to a very large school for your doctoral degree and now at an HBCU.

37:12

I'm curious how do you adapt your counseling, as well as your teaching and your mentorship, to meet different kinds of student needs across different kinds of campuses?

37:25

I think to do this work, or to be in service of people and healing and learning, you have to be able to work across diversity and difference, and I thrive in that because I think, the more that I can be introduced to new perspectives, new ways of being, thinking and doing, I can dream better, I can think better, I can be freer.

37:55

So I really enjoy institutional hop.

38:00

But I also know that that's what ultimately has shown me what institutions are best for me.

38:09

I think something that allows me to pivot or just meet people where they are is recognizing that there's always something that connects me to an institution or a person or a group.

38:20

I usually can always find some sort of connection because we just have a lot of, we share a lot of similarities and I think sometimes we focus on the differences and I just try to focus on the similarities in instances where I feel like I could be othered or it's new.

38:41

And then I also think all the time about what are my strengths?

38:45

What do I bring to any given community or situation, especially regarding what might be missing because other people have strengths, other people have got this covered.

38:57

How can I help the gaps? Wherever I'm at to be useful in the space and I think when you just have that mindset you can flow in any environment or kind of with anyone.

39:10

I'm open to feedback all the time, so knowing that to do this work is to get it wrong, but that wrong really just shows you the next direction, what's right, and I learned that in counseling because clients would be like no, that's not what I said, I'd be like, of course, let's run it back.

39:34

I can't understand.

39:37

I thought I was tracking and I wasn't, or I thought when you meant, and so I just find that, yeah, I just accept that I don't have it all figured out and that usually, whatever institution I'm learning from or joining, and the people involved will help you learn, and if you're open to listening and then showing up where you can, that's always sort of worked for me.

40:04

So that's been kind of how I navigate it.

40:07

I'd be curious to hear other people's answer to that question as well.

40:11

Yeah Well, if I can think of anyone else I can't think of anyone at the top of my head who has had a similar experience, especially as a counselor, but if I think of if I come across, if we interview someone soon, I will be sure to let you know.

40:27

So, reflecting back on your doctoral journey, if you have to do it all over again, what is one thing that you would do differently?

40:37

Sometimes I think about, like should I have gotten a doctoral degree in something else, since I am a transdisciplinary scholar.

40:43

So my first degree was in sociology, then counseling and then education.

40:47

And because I'm so artistic, you know I'm like should I have done communications or creative arts or something that would allow me to just go straight into media, because I would love to make, like, tv and film.

40:59

I feel like I have these TV shows and movie ideas constantly running in my head and before I leave this earth I just want to see them on a screen.

41:08

I don't care if no one else likes them, like, I just want to see them.

41:11

So I don't know how to figure that out, but I wish I feel like there might have been a degree that could have been a better fit for that.

41:22

However, I love education.

41:24

I love the creative possibilities in education, I love being able to write and work with students and, yeah, just everything that I'm afforded to do because of this degree and the time freedom alone.

41:39

I mean time freedom is priceless, right?

41:42

So, like in the middle of my day I get to have this conversation with you because I think this is worthy and I didn't have to check in with anyone about it.

41:48

Like I get to really have autonomy over that and you can't find that nowadays.

41:54

So, yeah, I would always do it all over again, but maybe think about if there was like a more intentional program that would better fit like my needs.

42:07

Yeah, makes sense. So what is one final piece of advice that you have for prospective or current Black women and non-binary doctoral students?

42:16

I would say whatever you need, you know, get clear about what your needs are and be unapologetic about getting them met, like meeting them yourself and getting them met.

42:27

We don't have to wait.

42:31

We don't have to wait. Oftentimes we know exactly what we need and if we're creative, if you know, we kind of look around at what's out there we can get those needs met and I feel like being able to reclaim that, like empower myself in a world that tries to disempower me constantly.

42:52

This just allows me to survive and meet my needs, which allows me to survive.

42:58

So I just want us to survive and thrive out here.

43:01

So that would be probably my largest advice.

43:04

That's what gets me through, I think.

43:07

Thank you so much, dr Grimes, for joining us today on the Co-Operative Sisters podcast and for sharing your story, your journey, your research, your introspection, your reflection on how the rest of us should be thinking about life and the world, and your wonderful advice.

43:23

Thank you so much.

43:26

Thank you. This has been such a great honor and I'm so glad that I got to sit down and I hope that whoever is listening to this, it really just inspires them to live more authentically and just live in their divine purpose.

43:49

Thank you again for listening to this week's episode of the Cohort Sisters podcast.

43:53

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44:07

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44:11

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