Sonja Ardoin - Straddling Class in the Academy: 26 Stories of Students, Administrators, and Faculty from Poor and Working-Class Backgrounds and Their Compelling Lessons for Higher Education Policy and Practice

STRADDLING CLASS IN THE ACADEMY

STRADDLING CLASS IN THE ACADEMY

26 Stories of Students, Administrators,
and Faculty From Poor and Working-Class
Backgrounds and Their Compelling Lessons for
Higher Education Policy and Practice

Sonja Ardoin and becky martinez

Foreword by Jamie Washington

COPYRIGHT 2019 BY STYLUS
PUBLISHING, LLC.

Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC.

22883 Quicksilver Drive

Sterling, Virginia 20166-2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, recording, and information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The CIP for this text has been applied for.

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-739-1 (cloth)

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-740-7 (paperback)

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-741-4 (library networkable e-edition)

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-742-1 (consumer e-edition)

Printed in the United States of America

All first editions printed on acid-free paper
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First Edition, 2019

From Sonja

For the poor and working class folks who struggle to access or complete higher educationwere fighting for us. Slowly but surely.

To those (students, administrators, and faculty) from poor and working class backgrounds in the academyyou are not alone.

There are more of us here than you might think. If you are able, share your own story.

From becky

Poor and working class folks seeking that degree, keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And know we are in this togetherwe too will keep pushing.

Family, friends, and colleagues with poor and working class roots now in the academy, your story is profound, necessary, and liberating. Breathe it into all of the spaces that say otherwise. We are resilient, courageous, resourceful, and powerfulshake it up!

CONTENTS

Jamie Washington

Narratives by Daniel Espiritu, Kevyanna Rawls, and Ta N. Wimer

Narratives by Constanza A. Cabello, Dylan R. Dunn, and Carmen Rivera

Narratives by Armina Khwaja Macmillan, Timothy M. Johnson, and Brenda Lee Anderson Wadley

Narratives by Sara C. Furr, Jacinda M. Flix Haro, and Sally G. Parish

Narratives by Mamta Motwani Accapadi, Thomas C. Segar, and Jeremiah Shinn

Narratives by Loren Cannon, Raul Fernandez, and Tori Svoboda

Narratives by Nancy J. Evans, Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., and Larry D. Roper

Narratives by Briza K. Juarez, Edward Pickett III, and Roxanne Villaluz

CONCLUSION
Increasing Social Class Consciousness and Inclusivity in Higher Education

FOREWORD

Straddling Class in the Academy

I s it Forward or Foreword? Or is it spelled Foreward? These were the questions in my head after being invited to write the Foreword for this book, Straddling Class in the Academy. My confusion in the meaning and spelling of this word is an example of why this book is so important. If I were to go to the community in which I grew up and shared that I was writing a foreword for a book, most people would not have any clue what that meant. I have seen and read forewords in my more than 40 years in the academy, but I dont think I really ever knew the purpose, nor did I really pay attention to the spelling. The word foreword is, like many other words, part of the language barrier that straddling class invites us into.

The authors speak of the importance of positionality. This too is a word that is much more understood in academic spaces. Positionality, social location, and social identities are all terms that speak to the importance of knowing who you are and how you are positioned in the world in relationship to others. For those of us who are straddling class in the academy, our positionality is reflected in having our early socialization in communities where words like socialization and positionality were not and still are not used. Language is just one part, but a very important part, of how we begin to understand the important contribution that Straddling Class in the Academy will be for our profession.

Because the authors are very clear about how their positionality and that of their contributors is so important. I felt it was important to share a bit about my positionality in this foreword. I began my journey in higher education as a working poor person from an inner-city north Philadelphia community in the late 1970s. This was a largely Black community with most of the community working hourly jobs or being on public assistance. Many of us lived in rented homes or in public housing. I dont know of anyone in my community who had gone to college. There was not a college-prep high school in my community. Of the two high schools in my community, one was vocational tech and the other was our big sports high school. Neither of these places boasted of their graduates getting into colleges in any substantial way unless it was on athletic scholarship.

My mother and I are the only ones in my family to graduate from high school. My siblings, father, and grandparents do not have a high school diploma. I went to undergraduate school with very little information or preparation for the space that I was entering. I want to be clear that I am referring to experience, not capacity to be successful. I did not know what I didnt know, and I was not aware of how much institutions of higher education were not set up for those of us who came from working poor backgrounds. The undergraduate experience provided me a glimpse into a world that was very different than mine. I spent much of my time observing others, largely White others, for cues as to how to behave. Because of my own internalized oppression and fear of looking like I didnt deserve to be in the space, I was not comfortable asking which fork I should use at a dinner or what a bursars office is. I was not sure why I could not end a sentence with a preposition, since that was the way that everyone ended sentences in my hometown. I had never had fresh broccoli or spinach, and the only places that I had been on a vacation was to my grandparents house in South Carolina. Thus, a salad bar, spring break trips, and writing differently than I spoke were all real challenges.

While I was able to find community and navigate my way through my four-year undergraduate experience, heading off to graduate school took these dynamics to the next level. My parents had a sense of why an undergraduate degree was important, but graduate school felt like an unnecessary expense. When I left my job to complete a doctorate, my grandfather said to me You already have more degrees than the president, what you goanna do with another degree? My family was and still is very proud of what Ive accomplished, and I, like many others, live with the concern that more educational attainment will move us further away from our families and communities.