Your Shadow Advisor

Thanks again for listening in to
Your Shadow Advisor, a weekly

program about navigating higher
education from a first

generation person of color
perspective. I'm your host,

Professor Darrel Wanzer-Serrano.
Welcome to Episode One of the

podcast, I want to start by
offering a special thanks and

shout out to everyone who
listened to all the many

episodes over the last couple of
months, it's been nice to know

that people are tuning in. And
it's even nicer to know that

I'll be building an audience
with full episodes going

forward. So today, I want to
talk in a bit more detail about

the scope of this show, my hope
is that you'll leave here today

with a better sense of who I am
as your host, why it is I'm

doing this podcast, what general
perspectives inform what I'll be

up to each week, and what's
coming next. Now, I've addressed

some of these issues in some of
the mini episodes. But you know,

I want to, I want to tackle them
with a little bit more detail

today, to give you that, that
full episode experience. Plus, I

mean, honestly, you know, with
the topics that I'm addressing

on the show, like things are
changing, and new information

comes out new articles come out
all the time. And so, you know,

the the nice thing is that even
if even though I've talked about

the hidden curriculum a little
bit before, and a little bit of

detail, you know, new things
come out and I'm able to talk

about in more detail and with
more specific specificity in a

show like today's and so that's,
that's my, that's my plan here

today. But to start with, want
to talk about, you know who it

is that I am, and why I'm here
talking to you on this on this

podcast. So I'm a first
generation Latino college

student. Well, I'm not a college
student anymore. Now I'm a

tenured professor at an AAU
research one university. But

when I started, I really did not
know what to expect about

college or university
environments. I'm the first as

far as I know, the first in my
family on either side, going as

far back as I can figure out, to
go to, to go to college, to go

to university. And to and to
finish with a four year degree.

You know, I don't want to go too
far back in my education, I

mean, I could go back to, you
know, to in, in primary school

when I was read as having a
speech pathology and having to

do speech therapy, but really, I
just had a Puerto Rican accent

that they didn't know how to
deal with because my brother and

I were like, the only Latinos in
the school I could talk about

about middle school and about,
you know, the kind of the class

that really made me want to be a
teacher, which was Mark Vetters

Social Studies seminar, were
really I started developing a

real true passion for learning
and for history and for archival

research methods. I could talk
about the experience I had in

high school, which was much less
positive. When you know, a when

I was seated next to a neo Nazi
skinhead who used to draw

swastikas and burning crosses on
his on his binder, and would

mutter racist things to me,
which is what prompted me to

leave my high school and
finished my high school credits

doing a dual credit program
called Running Start in

Washington State. But, you know,
I'll really start with, you

know, I really want to start
with graduate school because

that's the focus of, of this
podcast, you know, talking to

people who are in grad school,
who are early career, and people

who support those folks who are
in grad school and an early

career positions. As a first
generation student, I really

didn't fully know what to expect
going into graduate school. I

mean, thankfully, I had the
experience of being in you know,

being a debater in high school
and college and in a lot of

ways, debate, especially the
kind of the kind of debate, I

did a policy debate, which is
very research focused, that

prepared me well to, to enter
graduate school because it

taught me how to do focused
research, it taught me how to

advocate for myself. It taught
me how to engage ideas and

engage in critical the critical
back and forth of questions and

answers. So, you know, a lot of
ways academically

intellectually, I was, you know,
I was I was pretty well prepared

to enter graduate school because
the graduate school experience

from that standpoint, was a lot
like debate, you know, digging

deeply to two ideas to difficult
theoretical concepts, having to

process large volumes of reading
and information and be able to

present my ideas both orally and
in writing. You know, I felt

fairly well prepared for that. I
didn't really feel particularly

well prepared for academia. As a
first gen student, you know, I

struggled with things like just
how to be a good student. Truth

be told,

I wasn't a great Student as an
undergraduate, I focused my

attention on improving in
debate. And that meant a lot of

calculated decisions to let my
coursework kind of slack, I also

made bad decisions like taking,
you know, taking classes that

didn't challenge me sometimes,
because I knew they would be

easy, and then getting kind of
mediocre grades. And then

because I was totally bored, the
thing that excited me about grad

school is being able to really
focus on those studies, because

I wasn't going to be doing
debate anymore. And, and being

able to really like see what it
was like to kind of like, just

do academic things, and really
focus strongly on doing those

academic things. But I didn't
know really how to do that

particularly well. It was
something that I'd have to pick

up from, from other students
from advanced students, from

faculty. And the other thing
that wasn't particularly well

prepared for was being a Latino
in higher education right?

There,

there weren't many of us, I
mean, heck, still, to this day,

I'm one of only a couple of
tenure to Latino men at AAU

universities, rather kind of the
the highest, the highest tier of

those top tier research
universities. I'm only one of a

couple Latino men in my, in my
discipline, right at those kinds

of institutions. And certainly
there weren't, there weren't

many folks like me, first gen
Latino, in my graduate program,

or, you know, or in grad school,
at my institution who I ever

whoever ran into. And so those
kinds of support structures,

right, of how to succeed, right,
as a first gen low income

Latino, in a in a profession,
that doesn't have many folks

like you, that I didn't have a
lot of access to in my program.

And so, you know, so I had to
start building some of those,

those networks, those, those
mentorship networks, on my own,

and it was really, you know,
thanks to wonderful people in my

discipline, through the, you
know, I'm a communication

scholar. And, you know, our big
national, one of our big

national conferences or
organizations of the National

Communication Association, in
that organization, there's kind

of like a research focus
division called the the Latina

Latino Communication Studies
Division, there's also a caucus

called the Law rasa caucus. And
so I started attending those

meetings and meeting those
people, meeting other people

like me, that's when I finally
felt really, truly started to

feel at home in my discipline.
And then when my research

program changed, also, and I
started working on a research

project that had to do with,
with Puerto Rican activists,

I've talked about this in one on
one of the mini episodes, my

kind of first research real
research projects, as a

professional were on the the New
York Young Lords where I have a

but edited collection, and also
a monograph, when I started

doing that work and interacting
with those folks and getting

involved in service in that in
those units, in my professional

organization, that's when I
started learning, really, from

those mentors, how to succeed
how to thrive right, in this

field that is ultimately, you
know, not particularly welcoming

to people like us. And so fast
forward, you know, as I enter

the tenure track, and start
doing more kind of national

service work and be more
reflexive, and some of my

scholarly practices, you know,
that's when I really, really

truly start to realize just how
much work the field has to do.

And all academic fields have to
do in this in this area. I mean,

at the end of the day, right?
advanced degrees, right?

advanced graduate degrees, that
are preparing people to be

faculty, in their different
disciplines, for the most part,

aren't particularly well suited
for the task of diversifying

their field because these are
we're we're working out of

institutions that are
historically predominantly white

institutions. And that, you
know, that in some sense are

inherently conservative. And I
don't mean this in like the

politic, like a, you know, kind
of capital P politics of

Democrats and Republicans or
something like that. What I mean

is that disciplines are
inherently trying to preserve

themselves and what they look
like right there. resistant to

change. And I think that that's
true not only in terms of the

the theoretical perspectives and
methodological perspectives,

that, that make those
disciplines cohere as

disciplines. But I think it's
also true in terms of the

demographic makeup of those
disciplines, and the interplay

between those demographic
makeups, right, and the methods

and theories that inform those
fields, right, there is a kind

of like synergistic relationship
between these things. And so you

know, when you have disciplines
that are, that are that are kind

of like being guided by
predominantly white institutions

that are producing scholars in
the image of their path of those

disciplines paths, then it's no
surprise that, you know, even

when we see a kind of rapidly
changing face of higher

education, there's becoming much
more diverse at the

undergraduate level, as the
nation becomes more diverse, at

the graduate level, that
diversity isn't really being

mirrored, right. So at a place
like my current institution at

Texas a&m university, we have,
you know, 25%, roughly

undergraduate students who are
Latino, right, in a state that

is the graduates, high school
students at a rate of about 50%

Latinos, but still the
undergraduate population about

25% Latino, but you know, our
graduate student population

across the university is more
like, I think it's somewhere

around 13%, right. And our
tenure track tenure and tenure

track faculty are more like 7%,
right. And so you can see that,

you know, although the universe,
although universities are kind

of changing to recruit
undergraduate student population

that more closely reflects the
demographics of the states and

the country, those changes
aren't happening as fast at the

graduate level, and certainly
not happening as fast at the

level of the professorial, and
that's a real problem, because

when we don't have faculty who,
who kind of like, you know, to

put it bluntly, who look like
the student population, that

student population has a harder
time succeeding, right. And so

we know that when students don't
see themselves right, in one way

or another, at the front of the
classroom, when those first

generation students, and those
in those first generation Latino

and low income students don't
see themselves at the front of

the classroom, they have a lower
sense of belonging, and they

have a harder time seeing
themselves succeeding, right in

a timely fashion, compared to
their white peers, whose you

know, whose families went to
college and, and who have those

models of, of kind of success
and pathways into professional

careers, to look up to right and
to model themselves after

that's, you know, those issues,
right, or what prompt me too, to

talk about these things right
within my own field. And also

what what ultimately prompted me
to start this podcast because I

think that this comp, these
conversations don't happen

enough, right within our own
individual fields, but more

broadly, aren't happening
enough, especially with graduate

students and with early career
faculty, who need to know that

there are ways to approach the
educational process and their

career pathways that that can
that can help ensure greater

success. But also they need to
know that, that there's people

like them out there, right, who
are going through the same kinds

of things, who have a shared
experience, and be able to find

some strength in that. I mean,
that's part of how we honestly

that's part of how we find our
people in our disciplines, and

in our careers. Now, one of the
issues that I'm kind of that I'm

kind of dancing around here,
right when I'm talking about,

you know, knowing certain things
to be able to succeed is I'm

talking about what what scholars
like Jessica Calarco call the

hidden curriculum, and I talked
about about Clark was work a

little bit on one of the mini
episodes, her book, A Field

Guide to grad school uncovering
the hidden curriculum. It really

is fantastic. I strongly
recommend you check it out.

There's a link for it in the
show notes. And when she talks

about the hidden curriculum,
right she she's talking about,

and I'm quoting here from the
first page of her book, quote,

The things you're expected to
know or do but won't be

explicitly taught. Now these
things she continues stay hidden

in part quote, because it's
taken for granted. The hidden

curriculum tends to involve ways
of doing how to do write about

and talk about research, how to
navigate complex bureaucracies,

how to ask others for help when
you feel lost, she continues

those ways of doing are easy to
take for granted because Once

scholars learn them, they enact
them in subconscious ways. And

once those ways of doing or take
for granted, they become a lot

harder to teach. Now one of the
things that Calarco points to,

in expanding on the hidden
curriculum and how it stays

hidden, is, you know why when we
know that there's the hidden

curriculum, it's not just like
made explicit more often? Well,

one of the reasons she points to
is that there's an incentive

structure in higher education,
right? That doesn't really

encourage mentorship, that, that
demystifies that hidden

curriculum, and makes it part of
the explicit curriculum, that,

you know, ultimately, especially
at research intensive

universities, right, where,
which are the universities where

where PhDs are being produced,
faculty are rewarded for their

research, right. And, you know,
there's that old mantra of

publish or perish. as
problematic as it is, there's

truth to it, that if, you know,
if you're not producing enough

scholarship, right, if you're
not producing both the quantity

and quality of scholarship, then
you're not going to get

promoted, you're not going to
get tenured, etc, etc. And so

there's an incentive structure,
right? That encourages faculty

to really focus in on their
research, and not to spend extra

time right, to see it as kind of
a zero sum trade off in terms of

spending extra time mentoring
students, and demystifying that

hidden curriculum. And so a lot
of it stays hidden, until, you

know, until a student happens to
maybe like, ask the explicit

question, right? So the hidden
curriculum is, is a kind of,

like, you know, in a lot of
ways, that kind of, like

cognitive thing, right? That is,
it's about learning, learning

things, learning how to do
certain things. And the idea

here, that kind of, like
implicit assumption is that if

you only if you just know these
things, right, then you're able

to succeed if if only the
students know like, this is, you

know, you should do XY and Z
things as a graduate student,

then you're able to be a good
graduate student, and get that

good job and be a good
professor, et cetera, et cetera.

And, you know, we see these
kinds of attitudes reflected in

the in the kind of like trade
press for higher education, too.

So, in preparing for this
episode, just a couple days ago,

there was a an opinion piece in
diverse issues in higher

education, titled admitting
first generation and low income

students is not enough. And the
author of this piece, and I'll

link to the piece in in the show
notes, does a nice job of kind

of showing that, you know, that,
hey, like, recruitment is not

enough. Here, it's not enough
for our institutions to just be

to be diversifying the student
body bringing in more first

generation low income students,
because those students who, who

we bring in, right don't have
the the kind of resources coming

from family who've been part of
higher education in the past who

have, you know, these high
paying, ideally, high paying

kinds of career paths, career
trajectories that students know,

know about? The first gen
students don't have access to

those things, right. And so you
know, and so in some ways, as

the author of this, of this
piece notes, they feel behind

from the moment they start, she
says, quoting here, she's she

writes, they feel that they
don't stand a chance, when

compared to their peers who come
from privileged backgrounds. And

the reason she points to is that
they don't have access to, to

this hidden curriculum of
professional norms and, and

contacts, that the don't get
explicitly taught right, by the

schools that they come from, or
the higher education

institutions that they're that
they're in. And so the solution,

right, the the kind of implied
solution is, well, you teach

them the hidden curriculum,
right? You teach them about what

career paths are open to them,
you teach them how to succeed as

undergraduates, and we could
extend that to as graduate

students. And and if we do that,
then they're able to be, they're

able to be more successful.
Well, the problem here is that,

that these, these, these
explanations of the hidden

curriculum, fail to account for
structural inequalities. Right,

that can't be kind of like
knowledge away. That just

because like someone knows,
like, the ways to succeed as a

graduate student, or as an early
career professional, that

doesn't mean they have the same
access to people to resources,

or to an assumed competence that
was necessary for for advisors

for mentors to kind of like take
them up and assume that they're

going to be able to succeed.
Right and so, those strong trawl

inequalities that are kind of
baked into historically,

predominantly white institutions
mean that the deck is kind of

stacked against, you know, many
of these first generation

students of color, right,
especially the ones that are

going into graduate school and,
you know, someone who captures

this really well. And I'll be
I'll be interviewing her in a

short while for a future episode
is Victoria Reyes says in her

book, academic outsider stories
of exclusion and hope, and I'll

link to that book in the in the
show notes as well.

And, you know, she engages the
question of kind of usefulness

of the of the hidden curriculum
throughout the book, but

especially in her chapter,
called conditional citizenship.

And, you know, there she kind of
pushes back a little bit against

the hidden curriculum as a kind
of guiding concept or metaphor

for understanding kind of like
why higher education and

graduate school are kind of like
messed up a little bit, and

instead turns to to academic
citizenship as kind of the key

frame. And I'm quoting here from
her book on page 43. She says, I

use the term academic
citizenship since I see legal

institutional, cultural and
political forms of membership as

entwined, unable to be
disentangle from one another,

academic citizenship concerns
not only the rights and

responsibilities of those the
Academy, which are

differentiated and tied to rank,
whether that be grad student,

postdoc, adjunct lecturer line
or tenure faculty, it also

encompasses the sense of
belonging, access to political

participation, and sets of
practices and claims making

related to academic life, all of
which are racialized, gendered,

and classed right. And so Ray as
a starting point, in contrast to

the hidden curriculum, which is,
which would say, right, if we

just know these things, then
everyone's on an equal playing

equal equal footing array as a
starting place, they'd know,

actually, higher education is
classed racialized, gendered

space, she draws from
sociologist Victor Ray's work

that says that, that
organizations are racialized,

and that if we ignore the ways
in which organizations are

racialized, we're really kind of
missing a big part of the

picture that structures, how the
hierarchies and organizations

kind of work, right. And so by
pointing to the this, the this

really fact that organizations
including higher education

institutions, right, are
racialized, gendered, and

classed spaces that have these
hierarchies that are set up in

ways that that privilege those
from, from kind of, you know,

from, from privileged
backgrounds, and from elite

backgrounds, and that seek to
kind of reproduce those

structures, sometimes
explicitly, oftentimes,

implicitly, when we start from
that understanding that

knowledge, well, that leads to a
whole different set of questions

and a whole different set of
strategies for how we navigate

higher education, and how we
build toward more drug just

futures. And so I really look
forward to, to airing that

interview in a few weeks from
now, because I think that the

what Professor Reyes has to say
about how we can create more

just higher education context
is, is powerful stuff. But

that's also like the motivator
for me to be doing this podcast

for y'all. I think it's
important for us to demystify

that hidden curriculum, and I'll
still talk about the hidden

curriculum, because, because
that is stuff that can be taught

that we can learn. And that does
help put us on a better footing.

But we also have to be cognizant
of and interrogate the

problematic structures that

shape what higher education is,
and that limit what it can

become. And so part of what you
know, what I see myself doing in

my work on this podcast and
elsewhere, is a kind of harm

reduction that we have to kind
of understand that, look,

there's probably some some
pretty significant major

structural transformations that
have to happen to really have

more just higher education
context. And until that point,

we can do things to minimize
harm and to create opportunities

for people to kind of like work
with what we've got, and do the

best that we can. And so I hope
that through the episodes that

I'll air every week, addressing
questions that you have about

like how to do graduate school,
how to do the professorial, and

how to entertain the kind of
widest range of options, right

in these contexts in which we're
operating in. I hope that I can

kind of help make this place a
little bit better to start with,

you know, since I know it's the
start of the semester for those

of us on this Master System, I
want to offer just a couple

little snippets of advice for
people at different stages in

their higher education career.
So to new group to people who

are new to graduate school, my
my one piece of advice this week

is to read strategically. Check
out the advice in books like

Calarco, XField, guide or, or
shores grad school essentials.

I'll link to that one, too,
about how to read more

efficiently and selectively as
you get used to the different

workload, and the different
style of engagement of ideas

that happens in graduate school
because it is a kind of

different, really different
world, from what most of you

will be used to from
undergraduate or even from

master's programs. If you're, if
you're an advanced graduate

student, maybe you're comping or
dissertation sin, my advice to

you is keep your head down,
right and focus on your work.

Don't get distracted by shiny
things like the opportunity to

teach fancy new courses and new
service opportunities. Just get

your work done, do it well to
position yourself for success as

you get closer to the job
market, and to finishing out

your time as a student higher
education, and become a

professor or enter industry
beyond academia, and to new

faculty. My main piece of advice
to you is to establish patterns

and figure out who your people
are, right? If this is your

first term, somewhere, your time
is going to be occupied figuring

out where to get groceries,
order food, get your clothes,

dry cleaned, how to find your
way around campus, what offices

on campus, do certain things
that you need done. And you're

also needing to figure out like
who your people are, who's going

to be that support network for
you, who's going to help make

the place feel like a home for
you. And so, you know, spend

your time developing those,
those networks and establishing

work patterns and habits that
will enable you to really hit

the ground running next term,
because a lot of this term is

going to be lost in the swirl of
the kind of like newness of your

place. All that said, I'm
excited to be to be launching

the podcast. I'm excited that
this is the first full episode.

Next week, we're going to have a
wonderful interview with Shantel

Martinez and Bryant Taylor, a
couple of folks who, who who

know a lot about mentorship,
both from the perspective of

being a mentor in chanterelles
case, and being a mentee in

Brian's case. And so we've got a
great conversation lined up

about what makes for a good
mentor mentee relationship, and

how to kind of make the most of
that in, in higher education. So

please tune in next week for for
that very special episode. The

week after that, we're going to
start running, I'm going to run

a series of a few episodes about
public service loan forgiveness,

which is a program that that as
you as you know if you've been

listening to the many episodes
that I just recently benefited

from. And so I want to talk
about going to have a special

guest, a couple of special
guests who know a lot about

public service, loan
forgiveness, and have a host of

resources to set you up for
success in that realm. And then

also to get you thinking about
like, like how much you should

be taking out in student loans
like what are the advantages and

disadvantages to that? And how
do you to set yourself up for

financial success after you're
done with your education?

Additionally, since I try to
keep the show as listener driven

as possible, please send me your
thoughts and questions hit up

the show on Twitter or shoot me
an email at your leisure it if

you do have a question, please
send it to questions at your

shadow advisor.com or head to
the website to submit an audio

question that I might air on the
podcast. That said that's it for

today.

If you haven't already, please
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listening and I'll be back with

more next week.