Fostering a Culture of Belonging

Wes Johnson: Welcome to the EDUCAUSE Rising Voices podcast, where we amplify the voices of young professionals in higher education. I'm Wes Johnson. I'm joined by the amazing, the Glorious, the Magnificent,

Sarah J. Buszka: The magnificent Sarah Buszka! Hi there!

Wes Johnson: And we're your co-hosts for the show. We're members and friends of the Educ College Young Professionals Advisory Committee, also known as YPAC. And today we will be delving into a conversation on belonging from the Center for Talent Innovation Belonging at Work makes you feel seen for your unique contributions connected to your coworkers, supported in your daily work and career development, and proud of your organization's values and purpose. From Dr. Kenneth, or can I say Kenneth Keith Macintosh, AKA. Dr. Mack. In his work in the Belonging Advocate, he gave us some stats on the cost of exclusion, including that employees who feel excluded are 3.5 times more likely to leave their job. Workplace disengagement costs the US or costs US companies anywhere between 450 to 550 billion per year. And then finally, teens with low psychological safety are 50% less productive. That's pretty impactful, whether you look at it from an individual standpoint or a business objective standpoint.

Wes Johnson: It seems to point out quite clearly that belonging is a very important portion of our work and what we do and what we bring to that work environment to further all of our goals, whether that be mine to connect to a mission or be a part of something greater than myself or the university or institution at large and whatever those teaching or learning outcomes are. And so to get through that, Sarah, I believe we have some very highly esteemed guests. I would call them my brothers. That's why I pulled out the blazer today. Y'all know I don't always do blazers, but tell us more about our guests, Sarah.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yes. Yes, thank you. Wes. And I also pulled out my collared shirt today, so whenever Wes and I wear collars or blazers, it's a big deal. So it's business. So without further ado, we are just thrilled to have Felix Zuniga and James Johnson on our show today. Dr. Felix Zuniga is a campus engagement partner for the California State University Chancellor's Office, fostering collaboration across its 23 campuses. Also a 2023 EDUCAUSE, DEI leadership award winner. He has over 20 years of experience in higher education technology and has served in various leadership roles within higher education, deeply committed to education and community engagement. He has led mentorship programs, student development initiatives, and serves on multiple boards supporting diversity, leadership and inclusion. Also, we have Dr. James Johnson. Yes, we have two doctors on the show today. He is Oakland born and Richmond raised, serves as a CIO at St. Mary's College of California, the Bay Area, native earned degrees from CSU, long Beach and Southern Illinois University, including a doctorate in mass communications. With over 20 years of experience in technology, he explores race, class, gender, and technology intersections professionally while enjoying family time with his wife and son. It's so wonderful to have you both here. Welcome to the show.

James Johnson: Thank you for having us.

Sarah J. Buszka: So we love to kick off with our favorite question as we've been known for now, which is to ask, what is your superpower? Felix, would you be willing to kick us off? What's your superpower?

Felix Zuniga: Yeah, I knew you were going to ask that, Sarah. And it always hard, right? I always think out, what did I say last time, right? I'll stick with seeing the future, right? Kind keeping it in those terms of superpower, but I have a pretty good sense of what's going to happen. I put the dots together, I create these mind maps of what's happening, what's coming. And I basically started calling it like, well, I could tell what's going to happen. So I started to trust that more because I used to just think like, oh, that's kind of a crazy idea, but my brain just works in the background of what if and it keeps doing that. And I realized that not everybody does that. So I'll call it a superpower. We'll stop there.

Sarah J. Buszka: A sixth sense!

Felix Zuniga: Yeah!

Sarah J. Buszka: You heard it here, folks. We have a sixth sense on this show now. A first!

Wes Johnson: How's this show going to go today?

James Johnson: I knew before we even started.

Sarah J. Buszka: And James, what is your superpower?

James Johnson: Man? I feel like Felix took mine. No, I think for me, I would say my transparency. My transparency, I feel like it's a force, what do you call it? A force amplifier where the transparency allows early investment and authenticity that allows for empathy, allows me, the transparency helps me level set when it comes time to collaborate with other groups. And the transparency also lets me provide a context for those who are kind of on the outskirts of an organization to actually have a very authentic conversation. So for me, transparency has served me well as a mentor, mentee as well as leading teams, because that allows everybody to level set and be on the same page. And then we can start from just being honest,

Sarah J. Buszka: Right? Removing the guesswork too. We have some great superpowers on the show today. Thank you both for being here.

James Johnson: Appreciate it.

Sarah J. Buszka: So to maybe kick things off, Wes introduced our episode today talking about just the power of, and frankly the cost of exclusion. And I'm wondering just to kind of dive in deep here, starting off, can either of you share an experience of feeling isolated or lonely at work? Maybe James, if you're willing to start.

James Johnson: Yeah, so I started my career in educational technology and educational technology hasn't always been the traditional route to it. You tend to live on the academic side, and so you get that I'm not quite academic, but I'm not quite it. And so it creates a career of constantly trying to deal with that imposter syndrome. It creates a career of constantly trying to prove yourself, I am technical enough to be a part of it. I am academic enough to be a part of the PhDs and the professors talking pedagogy, andragogy and all these other things. And so I would say my career coming up and looking at loneliness in the workplace, it was always being on that cusp of trying to find a tribe, find a group that fully understood me. You can see when the tech guys really sit down and talk shop around the table and the zeros and ones or the server this and the DHCP, this, but then you go over here and the professors are talking syllabus. And so it was always trying to fit in. And once you make peace with that, loneliness can actually be another type of superpower because it's not that you're lonely, it's just that you have a different perspective that everybody do not understand or can see. And so once you make peace with that perspective, then you can start utilizing it and using it as a tool.

Sarah J. Buszka: Right. And like you said, that is a superpower because you become a super translator as well. You walk this line of being in both worlds of understanding both worlds intimately, and so you really can serve as a connector and a bridge.

James Johnson: Absolutely.

Sarah J. Buszka: But it takes a while to get there and to realize that perspective too. So I'm glad you shared your story and helped us understand that a bit. Thank you. Thank you. Felix, what about you, James?

Felix Zuniga: We're going to have a problem because I think we keep piping each other. That was the same thing I was going to say, right? It's that being that in between and not quite fitting here and not quite fitting there, not really having people who look like you or people who have your same share, your same experiences, your same background in those leadership roles necessarily to help guide you. So I think from that, what you end up doing is seeking guidance, mentorship before you even know it's mentorship, right? It's kind of just like, I think you're seeking connection with people. And so for me, it was my peers who I could connect with immediately. That peer connection about maybe as a person who's just been at the university a year more than you while you're a student or just same in the workforce, helping you just do this, don't do that.

Felix Zuniga: Maybe the best may not be the best kind of advice you get, but it's helpful because you don't even know where to go or what to start doing. And that's why being in the right circles really helps and getting connected to the right people. I was fortunate to have one of my mentors who was just an amazing man, Dr. Tom Rivera. He's the type of person when he saw you, it was like you were the spotlight or the shine of his day, and he made you feel that way. And so it was amazing because you would seek that out because sometimes you just needed to go see Dr. Tom because he was going to give you that shot of sunshine and let you know that you would be able to make it through whatever it was. And no matter what the challenge was, it was easy.

Felix Zuniga: Oh, don't worry, just do this. Or he'd ask you the right kind of coaching questions to say, well, what do you think? Let's do this. And so it was helpful to guide me through the university through early work life. I remember as I moved up and was negotiating senior level salaries, I couldn't really ask anybody in my family how to do that. So I go to other mentors who were administrators and they're like, okay, do this. Ask for this. If you don't feel uncomfortable asking for that, you're not asking for enough. And it's like, okay, I would never dream of doing that, but it's those mentors and leaders in our lives that really help us.

James Johnson: Can I ask Felix a question? Yeah, yeah. That thought of, so I was talking to some aspiring leaders last week and they were asking me the difference between formal formal mentorship versus that informal mentorship. So that relationship that you developed with your mentor, how formal did it start off informal? Was it formal? How does an aspiring leader curate that relationship?

Felix Zuniga: That one started off very informally. He was associate dean, I think, at the university for 30 years before I even got there. So he had a lot of practice and experience in nurturing people, especially believing in someone before they believed in themselves. I think we all have that capability, but it's that someone believing in you. And I think over time he learned that he could help nurture that along the way, right? So what I look back at now, I see that all he was doing is planting seeds all over the place, and then when something sprouted, he just kept watering it. And so it was informal to me, but maybe it was more planned on his part where he could see, hey, these people or this person could be something down the road. And I think he saw that potential in everybody no matter who they were or what they did, what they saw.

Felix Zuniga: I'm talking to the fact where he created programs where he brought fourth graders to the campus and making sure that they saw, because he knew that kids being on a college campus on the fourth grade are going to make a decision whether or not they're going to go to college. And so he brought as many fourth graders to the campus as he could. And I remember working there so long where fourth graders would come and see him and say, Hey, I've been to this college before. I was a coyote, a little coyote, I had my ID card. Still, he grabbed onto something and watered those seeds. I think, I dunno if that answers your question, James.

James Johnson: No, it does. I think mentorship and being a mentee or this idea of loneliness and belonging and some of it, again, I mentioned the imposter syndrome and filling up some type of skill gap, it is the hesitancy to even be vulnerable enough to seek out a mentor. So it's just very interesting. I think a lot of young professionals are asking, where do I broker that relationship? How do I start that relationship? What does it look like? So you answered it. I thought

Felix Zuniga: Before we go into the next question, just on the topic, or maybe not the last for today, but I always tell all of my mentees, you can't cheat on a mentor. You have as many mentors I seek, anybody I meet, anybody I want to. I'm like, I'm going to go connect with that person. And mentorship could be a cup of coffee, it could be an elevator ride, it could be a year's multi-year relationship that you have with people. So I try not to confine it into a box and just go with what it is.

Sarah J. Buszka: And speaking of mentorship, go ahead Wes.

Wes Johnson: We have an episode on mentorship. Go check it out on an input. A couple of them. Sarah does an amazing job there. It sounds like we already kind of getting to the next question, which is what we wanted to ask is where do you think our institutions succeed or fail in fostering a sense of belonging for young professionals? Sounds like mentorship, and that is a thing that we maybe do well at, or at least we have examples. Are there other things or things that you think that we could work on as institutions to create a better environment?

James Johnson: Man, that's such a good question. I think we can have a full episode just on that.

Sarah J. Buszka: We can start here. We're glad to have you here.

James Johnson: Right, right. I feel like our organizations need to seriously take a step back and look at from HR lens to curating a better managerial structure to where managers are empowered to curate talent, succession planning and things like that. So it kind of gets into what kind of org structure you're in, what kind of org culture, higher education. I think a lot of us understand that it can be somewhat disorganized at times, or it could be somewhat siloed. So while Wes and his group, they might be all stars because Wes is pouring into them and he has a succession plan and he has things going on for them. James and his group, maybe James is working on his own career path and it is not pouring into his staff. So what ends up happening, it creates, again, I keep using the same word as far as the imposter syndrome.

James Johnson: It gives you these partial truths where the organizational context is not part of the culture where that starts to negatively sandbag whatever confidence you have. And so it's hard as a young professional trying to grow. And before I get too deep into that, it is just kind of as a professional, how do you separate your true value and how you perceive yourself versus the needs and wants of the organization that you're in or the department that you're in. And so as an organization, I think if we did a better job at managing the person and not the position all the time, then we can actually start creating these pathways to where you start to become more of a launchpad for developing talent versus, oh, we're just here to clock in, clock out. And so we have to get away from that clock in, clock out mentality and start pouring more into the human side of our workforce. I'm going to stop there because again, I can keep going.

Sarah J. Buszka: That's why we have you on the show once.

Felix Zuniga: Yeah. I think back to just all the different jobs you have in your life. I remember one of my early jobs was I worked for a bank county money, and that's all we did. They didn't let us do anything else. They didn't let us talk to each other. And I mean to have a meeting or talk about professional development, it was like we were trying to leave, leave or start something that they didn't want anything to do with. They wanted us to just do our thing. So when I first started my first kind of professional job at the university, and I saw that they had training and professional development and career guidance at the university, I was like, well, I want to do this. Oh, I could do this for free and I could do this encouraged by my boss. I did everything and I always sought every opportunity at that point. And it really made it so that I really took the agency on my own because you do have leaders sometimes in your lives that'll help guide you, and you have others that don't want you to rock the boat. And so I think it became disappointing to myself very early on that I was the one in those things seeking my opportunities, not waiting for someone to say, Hey, it's your turn to go do something.

Felix Zuniga: If I didn't get the yes or feel the yes, I'd go find a way if it's something that I really wanted. And I found that I had to do that a lot. Sometimes I'll tell a funny story. One time I got accepted to a fellowship in DC and it was like a three week thing, and I was like, how the heck am I going to go away for three weeks, leave my job and they're going to pay for everything? They didn't have to do anything. And when I asked my boss, they asked, asked the leadership team, and I was not on the leadership team, I was just a staff member. And so they asked me to come back with what was in it for the department, why was it valuable for me to go to this, not like, Hey, this is an amazing opportunity for you.

Felix Zuniga: You should go do this. So I went to the president of the university and said, Hey, I've been accepted to this fellowship. Do I have your support before I got their support? And that's not the way you should always do things, but he came back with, I'd be glad to support you. Let me know how I can help. And so then I forwarded that email to my boss saying, Hey, just in case you need some more information, the president's already got my back. Then, okay, go ahead and go. I didn't need to do that other part. But sometimes you have to navigate that stuff because not everybody's going to be the same advocate that you are for yourself. And then going back to what you were talking about James, I think that our organizations, our jobs, they get busy with work and just doing what's next and putting out the next fire. They forget about the cultivation, the development, the pipeline, what's needed for the future. And unless that's built strong into your organization, it's not always there. And I think that's what a lot of our organizations are suffering from now, is people are leaving to bigger and better things. They're not putting up with other stuff that they've done in the past, and now they're struggling because they've always had people to choose from or people just waiting for their turn. And I think that's not the case anymore. So

James Johnson: Where do you stand on the organizations' position on professional development? There's schools of thought talking to HR professionals. It's like, oh, well, it's not the organization's job to provide paid professional development. Then the other person's like, no, a good place to go to is you have a certain budget amount to do professional development. So when we're talking to these professionals about what their expectations should be, what are your thoughts? I mean, even Wes and Sarah, what are your thoughts around professional development and should it be provided by the organization or should it be more like you have to go out there and get it yourself, even though a lot of these professional developments are commercially priced?

Sarah J. Buszka: And building on that too, another question just to round this out is do you find organizations that actually value professional development and have programs and have plans and have HR professionals and a management structure in leadership and culture that want to pour into their staff? How do you discern between those environments and cultures between others? Right.

Felix Zuniga: It's a big question. Yeah,

Felix Zuniga: It's a big piece of what I look for in an organization. So this is geared at everybody, but especially the young professionals when they're interviewing you, were as much interviewing them. And I'm sure that's been said on this podcast a lot, and that's what I look for. I remember asking my boss in this current job, what does your professional development budget look like? And she says, oh, we always have money left over. I said, well, I'm going to push that for you. And I told her, and so I remind her constantly when I come with something new and she's like, I don't know. And I'm like, on the way in, I let you know. And she's like, yeah, you did. You did. Yeah,

Sarah J. Buszka: Yeah, yeah.

James Johnson: Piece. And I think piece, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Sarah J. Buszka: Oh, go ahead. I was going to say thank you. One piece of advice that I've heard over and over, and I'm sure I think I've even talked about this with some of you even- is in general, I feel like no one is going to care about your career as much as you are.

James Johnson: Correct.

Sarah J. Buszka: And as much as we want our bosses, our organizations, those people, those groups, those anything to care about our careers, no one will care about it more than us. And to expect or to hope or to think that some organization or one person or one thing is going to do all of the things for you, I think it's just setting yourself up to fail. Hope is not a plan. I say that very often.

Sarah J. Buszka: While I think we all should be striving to do the best for ourselves, for our teams, for our people, because as we talked about at the beginning of this episode, it costs billions of dollars to not do that. So as much as we want people to be doing those things, I still think at the end of the day, you do need to hold yourself accountable for your own career because things just don't happen.

Sarah J. Buszka: You have to make them happen. You have to look for those opportunities. You have to put yourself out there. You have to look for mentors. And I know for young professionals, and especially for me early in my career, I felt so exhausted by that. And I also suffered from the, I don't know what I don't know issue, where I didn't know what to look for in professional development. I didn't even know what to ask for. I didn't have the vocabulary. I didn't know where things could go. So I just felt kind of like everything was spinning and I was in a snow globe that someone was shaking up and I couldn't get my feet on the ground. And still, I think some of us feel that way. I think we can feel that way throughout the entire length of our career for many different reasons, but I really think if your expectation is that someone else or some other organization is going to chart your path for you, I think you are missing out on a massive opportunity and a severe potential earnings loss too.

James Johnson: Well, Sarah, to that point, really quick to you and both of you and Felix's point, I actually went through an exercise early in my career where I had to do the justification for professional development, and the person in charge was like, well, he doesn't need that for his career. And so it got rejected. Years later, I become a CIO and one of those, there was an I training, you know what I mean? So, oh, well, you're educational technology, you don't need that. Right? Years later, I become CIO. So the thing is, if you don't start taking charge of your career and these elements only where you're going, only you have an idea. And so don't be subject to someone else's perspective. Wes, I felt like you was about to say something.

Wes Johnson: Well, actually, I want to stay on this line while also moving to another question, but I feel like there's a connection here. So in the framing of belonging, if I'm a young professional that's looking for opportunities of growth, new ways to challenge myself, it seems that a place I would belong would be one that celebrates training and development. The things that we're talking about here, but also I heard mentioned, I think both Felix and Sarah and Jane, you kind of hinted to it due to your own lived experience and background. You maybe didn't even know at one point in your career what was even reasonable to ask for. I use that example to say, and I'll start with Felix, how has social identity, background and lived experience shaped the way that you've experienced belonging?

Felix Zuniga: Before we move on to that, and I have one piece that I keep. So Sarah, you asked, how do you know, right? Or how do you know that the job is right and how do you know that's the right place? And one of my mentors, I always go back to my mentors, she told me, don't fall in love with the job because the job don't love you. I always remember that because sometimes we can wrap our identity so much into a job, a role, a university that we're willing to give more of ourselves, more of our family time. Another me, my red said, the only people who are going to remember the overtime will be your children. And it's like, okay, so what are our priorities and what does the organization prioritize and your leadership team? Those are all things that help me gauge the organization I'm with, the leadership that I work with. And if that don't feel right, then at that point is where I'm okay, what do I need to be doing now? And then always owning your own career and your trajectory and that work, right? No one's going to care about it as much as you or your family, and it has to be you. That makes that happen. Wes, to go back to your next question, well, James, jump in first and then I'll come back

James Johnson: For that question. Rephrase the last part of it, because Wes, the question.

Wes Johnson: Yeah, so what asking is how has your lived experience, your social identity, your background shaped your experience and belonging in the organization? And the example I used was when Felix mentioned that in the past there were certain things in regards to negotiating the next position, but he didn't have someone that he could go ask in his immediate circle. So that's like a flavor of how that shows up. I'm curious of other ways that's shown up,

James Johnson: Man. I mean, I want to say the way it's shaped my experience and my identity, when you start thinking about social capital, I haven't always had the social capital to tap into get that information. And so I've always had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and putting myself out there. And I know, again, speaking from imposter syndrome and some of these other insecurities, and knowing your value, I put myself out there at a risk because you want to come off confident and knowing in certain situations, but if you truly don't know, and this goes back to my superpower, being transparent. Do you want to know the answer to upskill or do you want to be quiet and not know any better? And so when it comes to this idea of belonging, some of these German theorists, I think it was like George Simmel, he is like the stranger. What's a stranger? A stranger or somebody who's part of the community but nobody really engages with. And so you start really interrogating what does it mean to be a stranger, a part of this community? And so even though despite your efforts of trying to not be a stranger, rather to culture position in the org chart, or what have you have to keep pushing against those boundaries and try to be a part of that community. Because really what you're essentially missing out on is the free flow of information that could help your career, the free flow of information that could help you on the next lateral lateral move or what have you. And so for me, I would say overall the issues around belonging as it pertains to my identity over the time, I can now identify when that's happening to somebody else and bring them in. Maybe they're a little quirky, maybe they're not a part of the old legacy group, maybe whatever the reason is, but you can see it happening. But the person's talented, the person has some value. Now it's my job to see, okay, where can you fit? And like, Hey everyone, this person is here. And a lot of times you just don't realize how socially awkward people are in a job setting. People are comfortable and people are, I click up with these people because our kids go to the same school. I click up with these people because we've been here for 20 plus years. I've clicked.

Wes Johnson: They were already in the meeting. They were already in the 10 years,

James Johnson: Right? And so it's really breaking that up and saying, Hey, I know you guys are comfortable, but this other person here, now I, I'm used to being the stranger, but I have to just assert myself because I know that if I don't do it, no one else will. And it's more so due out of comfort than people just not like him

Felix Zuniga: Thinking about this whole thing as a game. You're learning how to play the game, and when you figure out the game, they changed the game on you. So I've also learned that along the way. So early on, I think coming from your original question, Wes, of culture and background, I have a Mexican background. And for us it's work hard. Keep your head down and you'll be rewarded one day. And we all know that that's not always the case. And putting yourself out there, James, that's hard. It is like you're supposed to keep your mouth shut, work hard, and then your turn will come. But when times are bad, that doesn't always happen. And what do they also say? Closed mouths don't eat, right? So we have to speak up. We have to be those people. We have to be those advocates for ourselves even when others aren't. And so again, I go back to I sought people that not only affirm for me what I could be one day, and those mentors that I looked for, and they didn't have to be in technology, they were just senior leaders, administrators, not very many faculty that looked like me coming up. So I didn't have a professor that was of Latino background until my doctorate program. And I grew up in California. I mean, I can tell you one teacher in high school throughout my undergrad, none, there was one in another major that I would connect through a club, something like that. But it wasn't until my doctorate program where I had two black PhDs and three or four Latino and especially Mexican background that I could connect to instantly. So it was seeking those people out in the community, having breakfast with them and club organizations and letting 'em take you under the wing and just like I said, showing you the ropes and teaching you the game, but it's the game that they were playing where they had to play. And then you realize how challenging it was for them, and it makes you think like, man, what am I dealing with that it's nothing compared to this overt challenges that they were facing in their everyday lives all the time. And it's like if they could do it, I could do it. And that's kind of this mentality that I got from that was know what? Okay, I just need to sometimes suck it up and not get lost in my own thoughts and feelings and remember what people had to deal with before us and then say, okay, now it's our turn, right? Because I think a lot of times you hear that term like, we're waiting for Superman, we're waiting for someone to come send us or fix it. And it's you, it's us. We're the ones that have to step up and be those leaders that we're waiting for and blaze that path.

Sarah J. Buszka: Well, we had a mic drop moment here on the show, folks. You just heard it. We have to be our own leaders that we're waiting for, and we all have the capacity to do that too. I know we're getting close to the end of our episode, so pivoting us a little bit. One thing we like to ask before we leave is for our guests to kind of share their wisdom with our audience and the last little nugget drop. So I'm curious, James, from your lens, what is one actionable piece of advice that you would give to a young professional to help them feel more connected in the workplace? I

James Johnson: Would say start doing the self work. And I don't want to put that ownership on you. We're heading into interesting financial times with organizations, and you're going to start hearing a lot of narrative around performance and the market. And I just want you to be clear on your value, separate your value from the current context and understand that you, even if you have some type of skill gap or knowledge gap, it will come as long as you're investing in it and detach that from the organization that you're in at the moment. Because right now you're about to get hit with a barrage of narratives around value and fit and org charts and where the market is. And that has nothing to do with you. It's just a matter of when you enter the market. And why do I say this is part of belonging? Belonging is because everybody's going to have that conversation and probably people are going to retreat into their own traumas and own issues that's going on at home, and it's going to feel very lonely for a lot of people, but just understand that everybody's going to be dealing with something right now and just separate your value to the organization away and understand that people are having real human moments and real financial moments at the moment. And so I think I'll part ways with that.

Felix Zuniga: I love that in any market, there's always buyers and there's always sellers, right? James, oh, don't let that dictate what that means for you and for your career and for your future. I'll stick with that there. And I think a way to get around back to the loneliness piece of this whole conversation is that create that network for yourself. That network is going to be your support group, whether it's at work, whether it's outside of work, whether it's your old friends from school, whether it's new people that you've met through EDUCAUSE, YPAC community. There's a network out there for you to join and connect with and find things that you have in common with other people. It doesn't just happen on its own. You kind of got to make it happen sometimes. Real quick story, as a kid, I lived in this part of the city that was redistricted every year, and so every year I went to a different elementary school. And so then it was meeting this whole new set of people that you didn't know. There was about four or five of us that lived in that same neighborhood that we knew each other all the time, but you didn't know the rest of the kids at this school. So I think that actually built a superpower for me because I connect with people quickly and I make friends quickly, and I have all these different networks all the time because by the time I got to high school, all these five different elementary schools I went to were all in one place and I knew a lot of people. And so it's one of those things that connection, creating a network, working with people, connecting with people, lets you find those groups. And it could be because always awkward in the beginning, you don't know. You guys were talking about Wes and James not knowing where you fit in, or there's a group that's already existing. How do I get in there? My latest group is TaeKwonDo parents because my kid loves that. And it's like, how do I infiltrate this circle now? And I have to look at it that way, but it's something that you can now rely on to help you get through a certain part. If there's a camp and I can't make something, I know there's another parent that's going to get my back and help me with something over there just like I would help them. Same in the professional world, same in our jobs. It's about connecting with people because we're all people first.

Sarah J. Buszka: 100%. And actually, I want to share a quick story about Felix to underscore his superpower because I have firsthand experience with this. He has many. When Felix won the EDUCAUSE DEI leadership award in 2023, I'll never forget it. I saw him at the conference center. It was in the morning, and I knew he had won the award, and I had seen his name around. I had known of him, of course, I had seen him on stage accept the award. But I was walking by and I was heading to a breakfast with a bunch of strangers. I was invited to join a really cool breakfast and meet new people, and I was on my way there, and I saw Felix by himself, and I just walked up and I said, hello. I was terrified, but I put myself out there and I did it, and he was so kind and so welcoming, said hello. We immediately made a connection, and then I invited him to join me for breakfast with this group of other folks, and he said yes. And he came along and we had a wonderful breakfast that morning. We all met new people, we had some really great conversations. I brought this conversation card game, and we asked each other all these really deep questions over breakfast. It was wonderful, and it stands out in my mind as an amazing experience, but that is just a testament to what Felix is saying about being a connector and having that ability to do that. As we both were a little nervous, we put ourselves up there. We were open and receptive to however it might go, and I've definitely felt less lonely and more connected in that trip and at that conference, and I felt that way every year that I go. So this is a shameless plug the EDUCAUSE annual conference is something everyone should be going to if you want to feel more connected in higher education. But I just wanted to share that because Felix I think has a big superpower of connecting with folks and bringing other people together. And everyone here right now on this call and our producers right now all have a connection to Felix. And that I think really is the power of what we're trying to say here. Those connections really increase belonging, and we all have agency to do that. This is a love letter to you.

Wes Johnson: Felix can see the future. So if he's telling you the nasty, already seen he going, he didn't do it.

Sarah J. Buszka: Well, thank you both so much for joining us, Felix and James. It was just an absolute pleasure to have you on today's show. I appreciate it.

James Johnson: Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 5: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Rising Voices, a podcast from EDU College Review.

Sarah J. Buszka: To learn more about tips for work-life balance, please listen to episode number four with Wes Johnson and Sarah Buske.

Wes Johnson: This episode was produced by Gerry Bayne, Chris Bradney, and Joseph Caudle. Our music is from Wes Johnson.

Sarah J. Buszka: Please find us on the EDUCAUSE Platform, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us.

Wes Johnson: Also, email us at [email protected].