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head: NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION 1

Narrative Description: This is Me

Joshua Shannon

Loyola University Chicago

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This is Me

“What we know mattes, but who we are matters more” (Brown, 2012, p. 16, emphasis

added). I began my two-year Master’s degree in Higher Education in the fall of 2016 at Loyola

University Chicago, a Catholic Jesuit institution that frames education with a social justice lens.

During my graduate career, I held an assistantship within Residence Life where I supervised

Resident Assistants (RAs) and worked with residential students. In this narrative description, I

chronicle the most important content I learned through the program, about myself since entering

the program, through my graduate assistantship, and about social justice and its translation into

future work.

In reflecting on my time in the Higher Education graduate program, I value my

coursework in multiculturalism, student development theory, and leadership. Overall,

multiculturalism was very eye-opening for me in its curriculum on social identity, socialization,

and systems of power, privilege, and oppression. As a person who holds many dominant

identities, I was invited to consider my privilege and the benefits received simply due to my

social identity group membership. In one class, we focused on race and racism, which sparked a

desire to begin critically reflecting my understanding of society and my place within it. This

eventually led to joining racial justice groups and co-founding a White affinity space for

graduate students who wanted to acknowledge and explore their racial identity as White people.

Additionally, I gained practical experience facilitating and participating in dialogues in class,

establishing a dialogue contract, and asking probing or reflective questions. In my course on

student development theory, I learned that although informal theories formed from my personal

experience may have aided in my desire to pursue an education and career in Higher Education,

there are formal theories, grounded in research and data, that may aid a broader range of students
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that have different identities and experiences than I do. I learned that it is best to take from

multiple theories to guide students, recognizing that one theory will not likely provide all the

answers. At the same time, I learned how important it is to remember that students are complex

human beings and to beware of boxing students in with theories or models. Leadership was

similarly eye-opening in its grounding of a formerly abstract concept. Instead of a simple fluff

word, I learned that leadership is a formally studied and taught concept that can be learned. The

theories and models associated with leadership provide guides to develop students who are

socially responsible and can all be practitioners of leadership. For instance, the Social Change

Model (SCM) is a popular leadership identity development model that outlines a progression

from individual to group to societal levels with the ultimate effect of change (Komives &

Wagner, 2016). These three courses provided me with valuable content that I have and continue

to find helpful as I reflect, learn, and develop, and help my students do the same.

Although I learned much from my coursework in Higher Education, I also learned and

grew so much as a person since entering the program. As a healing perfectionist, I have stress,

shame, and guilt from the desire and self-expectation of being perfect. Brené Brown, and shame

and vulnerability researcher, was one of the featured authors in my coursework. I learned that

perfection is an unrealistic, unachievable goal for humans because we are innately flawed. As I

continue to unlearn perfectionistic behaviors and their negative impacts on myself and others, I

hold onto the truth that it is understandable to make mistakes or not have all the answers.

Vulnerably sharing that with my colleagues and students has been uplifting for my self-efficacy

and satisfaction with realistic self-expectations. In the same vein, I struggled with shame around

societal gender role expectations and value for inclusion of others in the queer community. In

identifying and acting in congruence with my values, I redefined masculinity for myself instead
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of internalizing societal messages about the actions or behaviors of men and masculinity. I

proudly performed in a celebration of queer people at a drag show in October 2017, a truly

freeing experience in which I found support in my trusted network. I also began my journey in

learning about my racial identity as a White person through this program. With an interest

sparked through coursework on race, racism, and social justice, I have taken initiative to further

my education on Whiteness and create spaces where White folks can have intentional dialogues.

These activities have been a source of healing for White shame and guilt, paving the way for

increased ability to talk about race and racism, and personal commitment to racial justice. As I

move forward from the program, I take from it this lesson: Development is a lifelong journey.

Rather than reaching a destination, I am focused on the path, which will surely hold

opportunities for growth.

Next, a lot of learning happened in my graduate assistantship in Residence Life at Loyola

University Chicago. I learned that I can be authentically myself, which may look different

depending on the space. For instance, I can be less business professional and more casual with

my student team, but more professional in departmental meetings. In both of these environments,

I can still be true to myself. Additionally, I learned that societal systems are very much alive

within the microcosm of higher education. There is much work to be done in dismantling

systems of oppression in the professional workplace and realm of higher education. Finally, my

assistantship taught me that trust is an important factor to consider when deciding when and with

whom to be vulnerable. Although higher education and student affairs is a wonderful place, trust

that is given unconditionally is risky. Brené Brown illustrated it well in her metaphor of the

marble jar. She said, “Trust isn’t a grand gesture—it’s a growing marble collection” (Brown,

2012, p. 53). As I continue in the field, I intend to build trust in my relationships with others and,
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in turn, be vulnerable with those that have earned the right to hear my story.

Finally, I began my critical learning of social justice in this program and know it will

forever shape my personal and professional development. Social justice is critically important to

fostering solidarity among humans. I have an ethical responsibility to create a more socially just

world by agitating change that will move the needle to liberation. As a change agent, I adopt

social justice work into all aspects of my life, including personal and professional environments.

This program taught me that social justice work requires a support network. I am happy to have

found one with my individuals in my cohort. With so much social justice work, it can be

overwhelming and impractical to tackle all forms of oppression with an appropriate level of

energy. To be most effective, I learned the importance of focusing on a few social justice

callings. For me, I feel called strongest to conversations around race, sexuality, and disability. In

the future, I will seek out communities of people that are doing social justice work to form

coalitions, support social justice initiatives, and maintain my network. I will do the work to self-

educate to increase awareness. Lastly, I will seek community with individuals who hold

marginalized identities. As a product of these relationships, I will foster interconnectedness and

better understand the needs of people different from me. All in all, continuing in social justice

work is about doing the work myself and with others.

In conclusion, I experienced much in the two years spent in the Higher Education

program, including learning about social identities, occupying professional spaces authentically,

social justice, and being a change agent beyond this program. At the beginning of this paper, I

highlighted a quote by Brené Brown differentiating knowing and being. During this program, I

gained much educational wealth in knowledge and skills. As I leave this program, I embed this

knowledge in my being, living it out as a change agent for a better world.

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References

Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live,

love, parent, and lead (1st ed.). New York, NY: Gotham Books.

Komives, S., & Wagner, W. (2016). Leadership for a better world, 2nd Edition. San Francisco,

CA: Jossey-Bass.