Monuments of American Sorrow

Journal of Clinical and Translational Science

This version may be subject to change during the production process.

ADVANCE Journal, 2021

The summer of 2020 yielded unprecedented hostility for my lifetime as the COVID-19 pandemic escalated and Black Lives Matter protests intensified around the country. Due to a global shutdown, our now undivided attention was forced to deal with the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism, not only socially and politically but within the confines of historically White institutions with their racist legacies and lack of inclusive infrastructures. As such, I was invited by various leaders and stakeholders to participate in conversations and to take on extra projects that addressed institutional bias and racism on my campus. This reflective essay recounts my experience having taken on extra tasks, both by obligation and by choice, particularly as a Black woman pre-tenure faculty member. In doing this work, I show how my experience aligned with the intersectional reality for Black women in academia; I reflect on this season of now, as an extended presence rather than a fleeting moment; and I c...

Journal of interactive media in education, 2021

The disruption that resulted from COVID-19 in 2020 impacted the ways in which higher education faculty lived and worked. Earlier literature describes how faculty members' experiences during the early months of the pandemic included emotional impacts such as stress and anxiety, with little support to manage these impacts. In this paper we report on a thematic analysis of interviews with Canadian faculty members which revealed that the sources of impacts on Canadian faculty were both the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as racial tensions. These impacts revealed themselves in both the personal and professional lives of participants. With regard to their professional role, participants reported that the additional time and care that they put towards learning new technologies, implementation of new teaching practices, support of students, and efforts to sustain their perceived obligations as a scholar carried an emotional burden. With respect to their personal lives, participants noted that emotional impacts emanated from increased caring responsibilities for family and friends, reduced inperson connections, and news reports and social media. We conclude by presenting support recommendations for individual faculty members, teaching and learning centres, and university administrators.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2024

As research continues to dissect the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the teaching profession, the experiences of teachers of Color remain overlooked. Thus, this article explicitly centers the lived experiences and insider knowledge of six secondary teachers of Color who taught virtually during the pandemic to answer the question, "How do teachers of Color describe the change in their practices and pedagogies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?" Their narratives described how they cultivated humanizing relationships with students in a virtual context, how their teaching practices and pedagogies shifted to prioritize students' needs, and how they rejected deficit, neoliberal discourses of "learning loss" espoused during the pandemic. Collectively, their actions embodied elements of authentic caring that prioritized and sustained the humanities of students of Color during a time of immense upheaval. Their narratives underscore the importance of cultivating and enacting authentic caring to challenge harmful schooling practices during times of crisis and beyond.

2021

The COVID-19 pandemic upended things for everyone across the world in so many ways, including at universities and law schools. In switching to online teaching in the mid-semester last spring and continuing to teach first-year law students online this past fall, I have witnessed the strength and compassion of my students even in the face of the challenges of the pandemic, online learning, and political unease in our country. I have been heartened and bolstered by their deep commitment to building community with one another

Coreopsis: Journal of Myth and Theatre, 2020

From the perspective of a white mental health counselor, artist, and mother, Denita Benyshek offers a personal narrative that weaves together the experiences of individuals, families, and society during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing awareness of systemic racism and police brutality, and the upsurge of Black Lives Matter protests. Multiple data sources are integrated, including online news, research websites, social media posts, clinical research, drawings, graffiti, photographs by community members, and observations by psychotherapy clients. Social stressors and symptoms of stress, loss, grief, and post-traumatic stress disorder are considered, while adaptations of individuals, couples, families, and communities demonstrated everyday creativity that resulted in personal growth, strengthened relationships, heightened resilience, and contributed to needed social change. The author provides an insider view of events from March through June, 2020, using creative nonfiction and arts-based inquiry, towards illuminating the experience of this time to offer validation, meaning, inspiration, hope, and connection to contemporary readers as well as information for future researchers in the social sciences. Keywords: coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic, Seattle, King County, police brutality, George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, BLM, post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma, PTSD, grief, protest art, dance, hedonometer, journaling, everyday creativity, resilience, social justice, change, creative nonfiction, arts-based inquiry.

Fordham Law Review, 2021

2015

Neoliberalism, a business-oriented ideology promoting corporatism, profit-seeking, and elite management, has found its way into the modern American university. As neoliberal ideology envelops university campuses, the idea of law professors as learned academicians and advisors to students as citizens in training, has given way to the concept of professors as brokers of marketable skills with students as consumers. In a legal setting, this concept pushes law students to view their education not as a means to contribute to society and the professional field, but rather as a means to make money. These developments are especially problematic for minority students and faculty who wish to remain grounded in their communities. In the face of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner shootings and their aftermath, academics are challenged by events and by their own students to rethink the connection between law teaching and the needs of the community at large. This article considers these dilemmas and encourages faculty to respond, organizing to strengthen their own role in university affairs so they can freely work with their students to re-engage with social movements and marginalized communities. In this re-engagement, the article recommends that teachers use experiential learning techniques developed at CUNY Law School, grounded in the community collaboration and respect proposed by Prof. Gerald Lopez in his "rebellious" lawyering approach.

Journal of Clinical Investigation

2021

There has never been a time like this in recent history. In the last year, educators have been building new paradigms as they teach. In this article, we inquire into our experiences teaching race at a PWI during the historic times of protests against the killings of Black men and women at the hands of the police and others, COVID-19, an election year, natural disasters, and changes in the Supreme Court. This article will reflect on the strategies and pedagogies used to support Faculty of Color teaching multicultural education/diversity classes at PWIs, and how the authors handled cultural taxation caused by the racial incidents that occurred during the pandemics of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism. The authors use duoethnography, a collaborative and reflective research methodology that engages both researchers in a multi-dialogical process to better understand the phenomenon under investigation. This article focuses our reflections on the following questions: How do we create supporti...