For this profile, we are featuring two very dedicated and long-time members of the IGR community: Adriana Aldana and Davin Phoenix. These talented individuals have been involved in IGR over the last several years in numerous roles: as Graduate Student Instructors, Researchers, a Program Manager (Adriana), and as dedicated volunteers for IGR events. Both Adriana and Davin just received their Ph.D.s from U-M this summer, and have started the next phase of their lives in Irvine, California. We are so grateful that they both chose to make IGR a part of their graduate school experience and we wanted our readers to know little bit about them and the contributions they have made.
Q: Can you tell the IGR community a bit about your academic careers, both in and outside of U-M?
Adriana: My undergraduate degrees are in Chicano Studies and Psychology, from California State University, Northridge. My graduate studies brought me to U-M, where I was a student in the School of Social Work. I just received a joint Ph.D. in Social Work and Developmental Psychology.
Davin: I completed my undergraduate work in Political Science at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. I then came to U-M as a graduate student in the joint degree program for Public Policy and Political Science. I received my Ph.D. this summer.
Q: What initially brought you to IGR?
Adriana: I wanted to become skilled in facilitating dialogues so I knew I had to gain expertise from IGR. I was specifically interested in learning the pedogogy they use and gaining hands-on, applied experience.
My first step was to become a GSI- I felt that would be a valuable experience for me. This experience both reinforced my teaching and my research interests, as well as my commitment to making more of my academic aspirations than just a career. I always felt that I was going to graduate school to gain the skills for creating change in my community.
There is this kind of niche of expertise in IGR that you can’t get anywhere else on campus. And, I think the IGR staff and faculty that I’ve been able to work with are both wonderful people and great colleagues. They made it easy for me to envision myself continuing to do this kind of work. I particularly leaned on Adrienne Dessel, because of her social work background, and on Roger Fisher for learning centered on doing dialogues in community settings (through our work in the summer youth dialogues).
Adriana contributed significantly as a GSI to the teaching of our students for two semesters. She was always attentive to their learning needs and was an excellent co-instructor and team member. She was also a major contributor to our curriculum development and revisions, and to our work on student initiatives last semester. She co-led the gender research team with me as well, and was instrumental in thinking about improvement of that dialogue topic. Adriana brings a unique perspective to working with youth, to the developmental approach she takes to social justice education and to raising awareness about issues of race and gender in our work. And, she has a great sense of humor! - Adrienne Dessel
Davin: It took some convincing for me. I wasn’t “game” from the start but at one point I was in grad school and really questioning whether or not the academy was really the place for me to have the kind of impact I envisioned myself having. I needed to get outside of the bubble or rut I’d been in, in terms of my approach or orientation towards the academy.
At one point I remembered that I had taken a part in an intergroup dialogue through Rackham. I appreciated that experience - it was my entry into the work. Then I started connecting to people in IGR and getting inspired and motivated and started seeing the academy as the vehicle for making the kind of impact I wanted to have.
The primary thing that influenced me to connect to IGR was Adriana. She encouraged me to be involved and felt that I’d find some of the things I felt I had been missing in my work.
Q: What are some of the other activities you’ve been involved with through IGR?
Adriana: I taught IGR’s training and practicum courses as a GSI in 2010 and 2011. Later, I stayed involved through participating in a committee that evaluated IGR’s Gender dialogues. A big chunk of my work was as Program Manager for the Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity program. I also worked on a committee to revise the curriculum for IGR’s International/USA dialogues.
Davin: I was a GSI for the Training and the Practicum courses during 2011 and 2012. I was also a three-time cluster facilitator and facilitator panel moderator for IGR’s National Intergroup Dialogue Institute. I have also gone out with IGR faculty to consult with another university that was interested in starting an intergroup dialogue program. And this summer I’ve been working with various folks in IGR on revising curriculum.
Davin was a highly valued member of our teaching team as a GSI for two semesters. We have had him continue on as a consultant with us to other higher ed institutions, and as a cluster group facilitator at our Institute. He worked with us on student initiatives last semester as well, and has been a major contributor to our current curriculum revisions. Davin is extremely thoughtful in his intergroup education work, and attentive to student needs as well, and he has been a significant contributor to our institutional consulting work. - Adrienne Dessel
Q: What was one moment that you especially remember from your time in IGR?
Davin: One story about something that was instrumental for me during my IGR experience was in Winter 2012, when I co-taught a course with former IGR staff member Noor Ali. One week, I was teaching on my own because Noor had to be away. During that class session, someone brought up the Trayvon Martin case, at the height of the anguish surrounding this issue. The student asked me for my thoughts on it. This required me to be really vulnerable, because my thoughts and feelings were very raw. I told the students I was going to take off my instructor cap and share with them my personal emotions on the situation. My doing so was appropriate for the nature of the class and it set up a really raw, emotionally charged hour of class conversation.
It felt overwhelming and intense, but by the end it also felt empowering and bonding for us to have shared on such a powerful experience together. I couldn’t imagine having that kind of experience with students, as an educator. There is such value in sometimes lifting the veil of separation between teacher and student and allowing myself to be authentic and vulnerable- it allows students to go deeper into the heart of topics and to build more authentic relationships. And, they can truly experience the power of intergroup dialogue to bring about understanding and change.
Q: How did what you learned in IGR influence what you plan to pursue at UC Irvine?
Adriana: My research looks at social justice education with high school-aged youth, which is so much of what I experienced in the Summer Youth Dialogues program. Throughout my post-doc research and beyond, I envision myself continuing to explore the impact of social justice education on youth civic engagement and critical consciousness. My IGR experience has enhanced my capacity to do research and practice that examines the role of identity in building relationships across difference for mobilizing youth participation.
Davin: Being a GSI was a powerful experience that changed my teaching pedagogy, my overall presence in the classroom, and my teaching methods- for the better. I’ve also seen my own research work be impacted in subtle ways- some components became amplified through my work. For instance, I use more terminology from IGR and I write more concretely and comprehensively about how individuals, when making political decisions, are influenced by the larger structural constraints.
I think my challenge going forward is how to be able to do work that is valued by the standards in political science, while continuing to integrate insights that come from a social justice perspective. And, learning how I can be a successful scholar and scholar advocate in a discipline where the norm is focused less on applied scholarship.
Davin and Adriana, in their time with IGR, did not only participate in the education and development of students or share their talents and gifts with their colleagues, but they advanced the work and cause of intergroup relations. We are most excited by their committment to the mission of social justice education as their life's work. - Roger Fisher
Q: Can you tell us more about the work you plan to do in California?
Adriana: I am starting a year-long post-doctoral fellowship at UC Irvine in Planning, Policy, and Design, with Dr. Maria Rendon.
Davin: I now work in UC-Irvine’s Political Science Department as an Assistant Professor.
Q: What do you both like to do outside of your academic pursuits?
Davin: Adriana is an amazing cook- a chef, really.
Adriana: Haha, a chef-- I just cook!
Davin: You know, it’s funny, we laugh about it, but anytime we see something on T.V. that looks appetizing or have something at a restaurant that’s really good, my thought is, that looks so good, tastes so good. HER first thought is “I wonder if I could make that!” I feel like she is very adventurous in the kitchen - she really does try new things and she has just a great ability to know what flavors are going to go together. I think for her, it’s a hobby but as someone who enjoys food but knows my limitations in the kitchen, I am able to acknowledge that she’s got something really special.
Adriana: One of the things that I wish I could do more that Davin does really well is stay in touch with the news and pop culture in general. He does a lot of reading in the evenings in terms of following the big news of the day. Either through social media or other, more formal news venues.
He also has the greatest knowledge of anything that has to do with movie and TV trivia, in terms actors, background story, producers, writers, even about the film’s funding! And it’s not necessarily movies he’s even watched!
And it’s something we like to do together too. We are also both into watching movies or TV and debriefing afterwards and thinking more concretely about what the underlying messages are. We like to critique what kind of narratives are being perpetuated in film.
Davin: It’s fun for us to do that because it’s not like work but it’s not like we’re completely escaping reality. We can both consume media and have critical and exploratory and stimulating conversations.
Adriana and Davin just began the next chapter in their lives a few short weeks ago. We in IGR wish them a world of success and happiness as they continue their journey and continue creating change in the world. Davin and Adriana, we all feel honored that you chose to spend much of the last several years making contributions to IGR. We are a better program for it! Best of luck to you both.