ROUGHLY EDITED TRANSCRIPT

AMERICA OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY ASSOCIATION, INC BE HEARD - WE'RE LISTENING SESSION FOR EDUCATORS

JULY 23, 2020 7:30 P.M.

Captioning Provided by: Alternative Communication Services www.CaptionFamily.com Phone: (800) 335-0911 * * * REALTIME CAPTIONING AND/OR CART (COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS REALTIME TRANSLATION) ARE PROVIDED IN ORDER TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION ACCESSIBILITY AND MAY NOT BE A TOTALLY VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS. * * * >> This is about the quietest I have heard a room of educators. I'm just saying. (Laughter) >> Well, I'm not showing myself, but I agree with you. >> Okay, Toni. (Laughter) >> Okay. Everyone, we're going to get started and I'm going to agree with Wendy, that this is a quiet bunch. I'm sure it won't stay quiet for long. So I'm Varleisha Gibbs, and I'm part of capacity building here at AOTA. Other AOTA staff on today's session our AOTA's vice president of education, and professional development, Sabrina Salvant, who will be sharing questions sent from the AOTA staff. And acting as an official timekeeper so we can stay within our time frame and Sabrina will announce that five minutes are remaining for each topic that we will be moving through. We also have AOTA's president, Wendy Hildenbrand and AOTA's board of directors, Lisa Mahaffey, both of whom you will hear from briefly this evening. Tonight, we're also honored to be in the presence of three panelists, who are

occupational therapy educators. We have Jewell Dickson, who is an OTD also and a tenured associate professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at Alabama State University, as well as Dr. Candice freeman, founding director of occupational, at Mountain View College, but soon to be future doctor, Theresa Rhett-Davis who is the vice chair in the Department of Occupational Therapy at the University of the Sciences. We truly appreciate you taking time to participate in our listening session again. This is our fourth one in this series, and we truly value the voices that you provide. As usual, these sessions have been popular, and we have had hundreds of participants register, and we want to hear from as many as possible. So we ask that you try your best to keep your statements to one comment or question, and be mindful of the amount of time you are speaking. We will have a three-minute limit, and if you hear someone else share a similar comment or story, please unraise your hand to make space for others to share, so that we can receive as much of the lived experience as possible. So we'll also have our participants on YouTube live, as well as staff monitoring YouTube live to capture any of that information, any questions from that will be shared over here with Sabrina for us to share. I apologize. I'm in the midst of a thunderstorm. So hopefully we will continue. If not, I will call in. (Laughter). So for those of you that are on Zoom, we do ask that you raise your hand if you have a comment and you want to share. You can do that by going to the participant box and selecting your name and raising your hand. And I think that is all of our housekeeping information. I will turn on my screen since our power point is off. And with that, again, thank you for joining and I am go -- I am going to go ahead to turn this over to Lisa. >> My name is Lisa Mahaffey, and I'm a representative of the AOTA board of directors. I have been an occupational therapist for over 30 years, most of those as a clinician in a variety of mental health settings. For last ten years I have been on the fact actuality at Midwestern University which is a small medical college outside of Chicago. I ran for the board for a few reasons, but one is very dear to my heart and that was to start a conversation about including disabled people in our discussions about inclusion and equity. For seven of my ten years as a faculty, I worked towards a Ph.D. at UIC in Chicago. In that program, I was immersed in critical disability study literature and discourse alongside a cohort from all over the world, most of whom had disabilities.

Together, we learned about the systemic power structures that marginalized disabled people. Of course, our study included the intersection of disability with race. I'm grateful to be part of tonight's listening session, because my white privilege has allowed me to avoid seeing the challenges in my own profession. I recently read Roxy Block's article on OT's dance with diversity and there's a pat of fits and starts with AOTA. I'm glad to have a small part in the work we are doing here tonight, as well as the work we will do going forward, along with the diversity, equity, and inclusion task force, that convened for first time last week. I believe we are committed as a board to do what it takes to make sure that this time around, AOTA continues to dance forward. I'm joined temperature by AOTA President Wendy Hildenbrand and other members of the board and AOTA staff. In recent weeks, we have hosted these listening sessions -- this listening session series, and begun to revise some of the official documents. Tonight, a post-professional OTD student is taking data from these sessions and purposing it for strategic use for AOTA and the DEI task force. While this is the last listening session in this initial series, it is not the end. We know there's more work to go done, and we're glad that you are here to help. You can learn more about the steps we are taking on the AOTA website. For Wendy and me, tonight we are focused on listening. And with that, I will turn it over to Jewell. >> Good evening, I'm Jewell Dickson, I have been on staff at Alabama State University for about 13 years and I have an occupational therapist for 20 years and I began at Tuskegee University, and I had a very unique experience in that my coworkers were very diverse. We were 50/50. 50% African American, 50% none. We had four males in the cohort and one happened to be an African American male. While I was very nurtured at Tuskegee, when I entered my clinical experience, I realized the underrepresentation of clinicians of color. I have been wanted to be an occupational therapist when I was 16 years old. An occupational therapist came to my high school, and she was African American. I worked with an occupational therapist who was a person of color. I chose Tuskegee University. I did my clinical at the VA there and so I had this very rich experience of seeing myself reflected in the profession, in a way that didn't necessarily translate to my clinical experience. And although we didn't use terms like microaggression and implicit bias, this was over 20 years ago, if you ask about the lived experience during a student during the clinical time, I would say I very much experienced those things. Fast forward as a faculty member.

I teach at ASU, Alabama State University. We are very unique that our makeup of our cohort is maybe 15%, give or take, students of color. If you add in kind of underrepresented groups such as males and those with disabilities, we may get to 20%, but the cohort makeup looks very much like a PWI. And so while we have this very rich pool of students in our undergrad population, we have to help them be prepared that your cohort makeup may look very much like not only the profession, but if you chose an another type of university. And so when we think about how we're recruiting students, how we are retaining students, and our initial practices, how do you feel like implicit bias -- I think by microaggression, our make -- make up the experience of students of Color in your institution. I ask that question. Thinking about implicit bias and microaggression, what role or impact do you think it plays in the recruitment, the admission and the retention of students of Color in your programs and your institution? >> So we are going to open it up, this format is a little bit different from the previous sessions, if you attended. So the question that Jewell just posed, we are asking that you address that topic. And, again raise your hand in the participant box. If you are unable to have your comments shared this evening, we encourage you to continue on at commune OT, and that's for our members. If you are not a member -- which I have a feeling most of you -- but if you are not, please seek that out. So, again, I'm going to our chat box -- our participant box here for those that are interested in addressing that comment or question to please raise your hand. So Jewell, I will ask you to repeat it one more time, just in case we didn't hear that. >> I will be happy to. So the question is: Thinking about implicit bias and microaggression, what role or impact do you think it plays in the recruitment, the admission, and the retention of students of Color at your institution and in your program? >> Thank you, Jewell. >> So Varleisha, you might want to -- Elizabeth Ching has her hand up. You might want to explain to raise your hand in the -- in the chat. So I'm not sure if you can see her, but Elizabeth Ching has her hand up to make -- to respond to that question. >> Okay, yeah. It's not showing on my screen. So thank you, Sabrina. Elizabeth, if you can go ahead and share your camera. >> Okay. I'm so sorry. Can you all see me?

Okay. Thank you so much. I just want to thank you so much for the privilege of being here this evening. I have been an occupational therapist since 1985. I don't even want to say the number. Y'all do the math. (Laughter). So I just want to say thank you so much for this opportunity. I have a background besides being -- I have a post-professional OTD, besides that, I have a background in diversity training and I grew up -- for those of you that are familiar with E40, I grew up in Vallejo, California which is the most diverse city for a small city in the US, from the 2010 census. So I just want to say, prior to, before I go on to anything, I want to say that I believe Black Lives Matter and I'm here mainly in solidarity with all of my African American brothers and sister practitioners. I also know that I have Asian American privilege in the sense that, you know, nobody is targeted me because of the color of my skin. I do believe that in our country, we mainly talk about race in terms of white and black terms. And so it's kind of hard for some of us that couldn't fit those categories, because we also -- right, as today I experienced an antiracism -- anti-Asian bias someone just shouted at me today and cursed at me and all of this stuff for being Asian. Again, I want to preface my remarks by saying that. Okay. I know I have a short time. I do believe that we need to have as a profession, some place to have a bias incident reporting measure because that affects our students. And when I was in the office of diversity inclusion, that's a big issue. I think students feel trapped, certainly, Black, and indigenous and Asian students, they don't have a place to go to discuss incidents of racism. That piece is big. And I also think, you know, we're supposed to be so diverse in Oakland, California, where my university is from, but we have all kinds of incidents unfortunately that happen. Just because we are this California does not mean that racism does not occur, for sure. So I think our students are faced with a lot and in my experience, we are underrepresented, of course with our African American students. And of a cohort of -- I would say an example of 45 students, if we have one African American student, we're doing good. It's the -- the research shows that there should at least be two so people don't feel so isolated and that's a small amount for a cohort of 45 students. We are doing better on the Latinx and the Asian Pacific Islander and Desi-American end, but in terms of the African American end, very poor. And we're one of the diverse -- most diverse universities according to the AOTA

research in the country. And again, that's very disappointing to me. So in terms of the question I would just like to end by saying, I think we need -- you know, our students get microaggressed all the time and bullied all the time and our faculty of Color get bullied all the time. There needs to be some level at the AOTA level and our academic institutions for people to be able to report bias without fear of retribution. Thank you. >> Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you for being just so straightforward. I think that's a lot for us to take in. I will invite our panel, if you want to give a brief response to Elizabeth, before we move on. >> I want to say I'm glad -- >> Hello. >> Oh. >> Sorry. >> You can go ahead, Jewell. >> I was going to say, I'm glad you mentioned the challenges of faculty, because I think we live in a very unique dichotomy. While we may watch our students experience microaggression and racial bias and we experience that as well. You are having this lived experience and trying to create a very authentic, non-bias, safe experience for your students and there really is not a safe space for faculty to express that. And so I think there an additional opportunity for AOTA as well to create those environments for faculty to express some of those challenges as well, as we -- so we can be better equipped to meet the needs of the student. Because you want the traumatized to assist the traumatized -- and some more supports can be given in that way. So thank you for mentioning that aspect as well. >> Hi, Elizabeth, I want to thank you so much for your honesty and being so transparent with -- with what you just shared with us. I was listening to what you mentioned -- where you mentioned -- stating that there needs to be at least two individuals of the same in order to not feel so isolated and when I thought about that, I have been cohorted when I was the only one, but I have been in cohorts and it was just one other. And with that one other person, I still felt isolated, because at the end of the day, we didn't have a lot of things in common, except the color of our skin. And so that was a challenge as well, because we knew that we were the outliers, but still trying to navigate those waters, both recalling being a student and in academia. So I think we just have to get more color and more representation of the communities that we're serving and also being a greater advocate for our students to know that that is an uphill battle and challenge, and we will explore

that later when talking about field work issues and concerns that our students have expressed to us over the past sessions. But I did just want to touch briefly and say thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts and I do agree that we need to have some type of corrective action plan moving forward, but I honestly feel it should not stop today. We need a corrective action plan that needs to be implemented and we need to see how those changes can really make a powerful impact with the clients and the communities that we serve and most importantly with our students. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead, Varleisha. >> Go ahead, before Sabrina cuts us off. >> Elizabeth, I too agree with you. It's an important from an organizational and leadership level to be committed to looking at DEI and what that means. And in an institution for the students and for its faculty because you know, Black and Brown students and faculty can, you know, experience that trauma over and over again. And we are expected to, you know, advise those students of color when we are traumatized our own self in that environment. And so I think it's really important, you know, when an institution is being very -- you know, to walk the walk, and not just talk the talk, in terms of really setting into place like you said some policy and procedures, like, what happens when you feeling bullied, right? And be so using metrics to kind of, you know, figure out where you are, and your institution, when it comes to DEI. So we can have diversity and representations but it doesn't mean that the students and the faculty feel like they belong. >> I wanted to -- is there an opportunity -- I can't get my thing to do a hand up. >> Sure. So after you, we have Ingrid and then we'll probably move on to our next question. Go ahead. >> I just wanted to mention, you know, we were talking about implicit bias, and admission, and how this all sort of occurs. And I think that there's -- I would like to think as a White privileged person, I would like to think that part of this is the way we are doing our mechanisms and how our cultural -- how our culture is. For example, we have always been White. We have always been a certain way, and we have not changed our culture to be able to be really as inclusive as we need to be. And, you know, like when we talk about admission processes, right, a lot of times we don't even know the students that we're admitting. We are sort of taking the top different percent, and if we happen to have one person of Color in there, so be it. Or if we have one person with a disability, so be it.

And the idea is that we really need to look at our processes and have a willingness to say, it's important for us as a profession to have diversity. It's important for us in an educational program to have diversity for people to be able to learn from each other, to be able to have differences and that's only going to make us a better, stronger profession. So I think we need to look at those basic levels. I know that there are people that are not willing to do it. But I know that there are many people who are willing to do it if they would just focus on this important aspect. I guess that's why we are looking to the leadership of AOTA and ACOTE. We no need to have a standard, all educators need to have implicit bias training and all educators need to understand what it takes to, you know, facilitate a group of different people talking in a room. And I think we have never had that for ourselves as educators. We are okay with that for our students but not ourselves. I think that's an important piece that we really need to think about to make change. >> Yep. Powerful statement, Cheryl. Thank you. I don't know if anyone wants to respond. We also, of course, Wendy or Lisa, you are welcome to jump in if you want to respond as well before we move on. >> I mean I can certainly say something, but oh, my goodness, there's so many people on this call that have something that they can say as well. You know, in terms of views, experiences and contributions to that discussion. You know, I can -- what I can say is from an AOTA leadership, at least from a board level, that's why we are here, is to make sure that we continue to be clear in our message that addressing and trying to figure out how do we go about making this different, making active changes moving forward and how do we come together to do this work. And that is part of why we are here. And I just -- I just want to make sure that that is -- that that is not lost in the conversation because we are paying attention. We are listening and we are pulling on all of you to be part of this action process. So I'm here to learn. I'm reading things in the chat and I'm like, I want to hear more. I want to learn more. And I want to hear more from you all as the evening goes on that might be informative to our admission on education. I think it could be very informative to our academic leadership council. You know, ACOTE is certainly body that we are looking to. I think many times we need to look at each other and say what do we need to know? What do we need to do?

And I think that's where some of the additional bodies with the educator groups, you know, our colleagues, we need to be having those conversations with one another, and holding each other accountable for change. So thank you for that few minutes. >> Thank you, Wendy. So now we have Ingrid. Do you want to hop in and share your mic and/or your camera. >> My name is Ingrid Frank I'm at LSU science center in New Orleans. I have only been in academia for two and a half years. So I can't really respond to the concept of retention. We have -- we have managed to retain all of our students of Color in the last two and a half years that I have been in academia which is not very long. But I did start thinking about my own implicit bias as the academic field coordinator. Last semester, I had a student. She was Asian, and she -- I had her set up for a feel work in Jackson, Mississippi, that was going to be a really good fit for her. And she just -- she did not want to go there. And she was pushing back. I knew the issue wasn't economic, and I couldn't figure it out because it's never being White, I don't have to feel uncomfortable anywhere I go. I know I will be accepted or I know that at some gut level, and -- and the reason she didn't want to go to Jackson was she perceived it was going to be unfriendly to a person who is Asian. That she wouldn't feel comfortable there. It took me forever to get that out of her because she didn't trust me enough to tell me. And -- and my mind just didn't even go there for the longest. So I do want to learn how I can communicate better with my students of Color and get them to be able to communicate with me, and understand where they are coming from and understand, like, where something like that, where it took me to forever to figure out that that was the problem. It wasn't really until I talked to a coworker that we sort of figured out. Then once I asked her, she was like, yes, that's the problem. So that was all I wanted to say. Thank you for having us here. >> Thank you, Ingrid. And I'm going to pass it to the panel real quickly before we move on to Candice. Any comment from Ingrid? >> If there aren't any other comments, I will go ahead and start. >> Go ahead. >> Great. >> Okay. So I am Dr. Candice Freeman, I have been an occupational therapist for about 14 years now.

I received I many MLT from the University of Texas in Galveston and my doctorate at Reichert Mountain and I take great pride of being the vice president of the National Black OT Caucus. Which is one of the oldest student and practitioner organizations around. So I take great pride and privilege with that as well. I'm also the founding program director for Mountain View College occupational therapy assistant program. We recently received our program accreditation in December. So we're very excited about that. And it's pretty much my baby. I developed every policy. I developed every procedure. I'm very protective over it. (Laughter). So be honest. And I -- I love -- I love what I do. Initially, graduating, I never thought I would be in academia, to be honest. I thought I would go out into the workforce and be in the clinical setting and get acclimated in that setting and retire in that particular setting. My past experience includes being a schools occupational therapist for about ten years for Dallas Independent School District where I learned so much and it -- our caseloads were about 70 children. We were assigned to 20 to 30 schools. So it was very high paced, fast moving and a ton of and variety of cases that I would see. Going -- and I'm shifting a little bit. When I was in OT school, my MLT program was a total of 12 of us at that time and three of us were African American. We were all girls. We called ourself The Dirty Dozen, and it was three African Americans that were in the group with me. And I didn't really think about my instructors being all White women, and I had, I think one or two White men along the way, but I graduated and I went into the workforce. I noticed working in Dallas ISD, that there were 20 to 30 occupational therapists maybe only two and then adding me making three African Americans in the field, and I really had an a-ha moment and I thought, wow! We are like unicorns. I really don't have anybody -- and then I was the youngest one. So I really felt isolated at times, because in all -- they had been practicing longer than I had been alive. Here I am, a new grad. You know, looking to learn new information and mentorship, and just those experiences really did help evolve and shape me as a person. Thinking about hiring practices now as an administrator, I'm very mindful of the

community that I want on my team. Looking at my name Candice Freeman, I have a traditional name and in a lot of times in writing, you would think whatever. You wouldn't know if I'm White, African American or not, but there have been instances when I'm out in field work sites and the clinical locations, and I have my White academic field work coordinator early on that would be me, and they would immediately gravitate to her. She was the program director, and I had to be the academic field work coordinator. So once I acknowledged that I am Dr. Freeman, I'm the founding OTA program director, you can see the look on their face, like oh, my God, I just made a mistake. I'm so sorry, and they try to recover, but all of those things really help shape me and become more mindful that our students may go through when they are in field work and also just the hiring practices that we have as administrators and people in those roles. So given what I have mentioned and being more mindful, as far as creating policies and procedures for diversity, equality and inclusion, what issues has the audience had in those areas when the students of Color are in field work or in capstone experiences? >> Can you repeat it one more time, Candice? >> Sure. Sure. I would really like for us to really explore and speak about the policies and the procedures that administrators or program directors in those have in place for issues of diversity, equality and inclusion for students of Color. Either in the capstone experiences or in their field work experiences. Because for me, personally, I feel that I have to be their advocate, because I have experienced a variety of issues, you know, in my own lived experience. So for me, I'm my students' number one advocate and I would like to hear from the audience, what policies or procedures do they have in place to ensure that their students are getting basically a fair shake. >> Thank you. We have two people in line, Khalilah is up first and then after we have Ryan. So go ahead and join us. >> All right. Good evening. And you would think because we have been on Zoom for so long, that I would be able to access the raise hand feature. I will go back and speak to the implicit bias comment that was made by Dr. Dickson, and speak to the comment that I made in the chat, which is that it's well documented that implicit bias directly impacts the recruitment, admission and retention of students of Color and that we see that particularly in those efforts in predominantly white institutions. However, I believe that it's also important to recognize and discuss the fallacy of

implicit bias training. What I mean by that is that it is also well documented that these trainings don't necessarily translate to changes in explicit behavior. So these trainings, instead of speaking just to the attitudes and the stereotypes that people bring to the job. We have to talk about the actions and the results that result from those attitudes and stereotypes that educators hold about students. We have not had anything available to us in the school of medicine at UNC that is specific to that. But I believe whatever sort of response we have as a professional body, as educators, excuse me of our students is to speak directly to those behaviors, versus just thinking about, oh, we might think this about Black people. We might think this about Asian Americans and it may result in this sort of action. Like, we -- we see it. We know it. And I think we need to be a little bit more targeted and intentional about how we do those sorts of trainings. And speaking to the question that was just presented by Dr. Freeman, I honestly do not recall anything that is specific to like a policy or a practice necessarily, about DEI as it pertained to field work and we don't have AOTD, I can't speak to capstone projects, but I do support it. And I think it's a responsibility of our institutions to make sure whatever contracts they have with folks and bring the students for field work experience, that they have those sorts of policies in place, very explicitly so that when issues arise or some sort of protocol is there to address it. That's what I wanted to share. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any comment from our panel or should we go to our next question? >> I do have a response back to the young lady, Dr. Johnson. You were saying that currently in your setting, you don't know of any policy or procedure that's in place, but just thinking about your lived experiences or speaking to other colleagues, what is one area that you think would be a good start for a policy to introduce at your facility or for our experience with the students. Going out to the clinicals and field work, the students can be very anxious and because of this fear of the unknown, you don't know what you are walking into and I was looking also into hooking at the comments section, where they were saying someone mentioned that a lot of our students are being counseled by White field work educators and there may be perceived miscommunications occurring at that point. I guess my question to you, just very plainly, what's one thing that you could think of that would be beneficial to implementing your current practice? Policy-wise? >> That's a very good question.

Thank you for that. Speaking on my personal experience -- Chanel -- my niece, sorry. Honestly, one the first things that comes to mind, we create pipeline programs for students to come into our program. Then why are we not doing the same thing for the field work coordinators. I was fortunate that my first level, I did have an African American CI, who was first person that I came into contact with in my first three or four years of practice. One of the things we could institute in our schools is creating some sort of pipeline for field work -- clinical instructors of Color for our students, but also creating -- like I said some sort of protocol procedure for students to be able to safely discuss their grievances for when something does actually happen on the field work. So those are the two things that come to mind immediately. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> All right. So now we have Ryan and then Leslie Roundtree after Ryan. >> I lowered my hand if somebody else wants to go. >> Okay. I didn't know if you did that because I called on you, but no problem. Leslie, do you want to hop in now? >> I just wanted to add that I think sometimes it's not policies but it's practices. I have to think about in terms of field work, how often -- I'm Leslie Roundtree from Chicago State University and we are a predominantly Black institution and we have a very diverse occupational therapy program and it's an MOT, but oftentimes what we hear are comments like, oh, we only work with a certain school to take their students. Or -- well, your students really have to interview, and I believe in interviewing. We interview as part of admissions, but the students come back feeling they were not interviewed about their competence, but to be looked over. And so I think we have practices that are built in, that create a sense of bias among the students in the -- especially among field work. And it's hard then to help the student understand what happened that it didn't work out for them or why couldn't they go to this institution, you know? And to tell them, well, they don't accept our students makes them question what it is about our program that's different and what they start to look at is the difference in the makeup of our program versus the makeup in other programs. >> Hi, Leslie. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. When I was listening to you, you mentioned about you think it's more a policy rather than practice, and that oftentimes the facilities may kind of pick over the students and not necessarily interview them on their competencies or how they would be as a future student at the facility and they simply won't accept your students from your institution. I have had that challenge as well with being a founding program director in a

large metropolitan area, and many times facilities have said, no, you are not accredited. I won't accept your students yet until you are accredited. I have heard we don't take COTAs a bill time. We don't take COTAs. We only want MTRs, or MLT students a thousand times. But I'm a persistent person and I believe in the power of perseverance and I try to train my students that you are so good, they are going to take you. And so I will send a student out maybe to another site or actually create a network or a partnership or stay persistent with that facility and just ask them, give them an opportunity and really prepare our students and the students sore efficient and so good they end up hiring them. So I think that we have to, as program directors and faculty and people in administration, we have to try to change that narrative. We have to create greater partnerships with that, because being a woman of color, I already have a strike against me, honestly, being a woman of Color. And have to work twice as hard, if that makes sense to prove my point. To me, when someone says no, I'm used to it, but I will always keep working twice as hard to prove my value and what I can do in the field. And I try to tell my students regardless of your color, you will have to work twice as hard and especially, I kneel like as a COTA because oftentimes, people will say, I don't want a COTA and COTAs have so much to offer in the work that they do, and so I really strived to drive that home. And I just really think that we need to create a new narrative for that, and mentor and partnership with other facilities, and what we can do if not -- in the student is not what they are looking for, what are they looking for in a student and how can we better serve that facility in order to get us that placement. >> Thanks, Candice. So we have Sylvia and we're at about ten more minutes left and we have Sylvia and Arley and then we'll see where we are at with time. >> Hello, everyone. Good evening. So I just want to make a simple statement. I think we make a lot of -- we make this sound so complicated. You know, we're doing a lot of listening. We are doing a lot of talking. If we can just learn to treat other people as we would like to be treated ourselves, that is the bottom line to all of this. So if we can put ourselves in another person's shoes, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, if you don't want to be mistreated, then don't mistreat others. We are clinicians. We proclaim to have empathy for our clients. Wouldn't we be able to have empathy for another human being? I mean, does that -- that doesn't speak very well for us at all. I mean, we should be leading the charge when it comes to equal treatment.

I wanted to say, I don't think it's that complicated. Treat other people like you would want to be treated at all levels. >> I see a lot of heads nodding. I think we all agree. Thank you, Sylvia. >> Yes, you're welcome. >> Okay. Arley, do you want to hop in? >> Sure. Can you hear me okay? >> We can. >> Okay. Wonderful. First of all, I would like to say hi to all of my Highland University faculty on the call. So hi guys! There is a point -- the reason why I want to shout out my Howard University faculty. I had some road bumps doing my field work, and a lot of it was really based on communication. And that it was -- you know, I found out -- it felt like they were -- if I had a problem, they had a hard time just talking to me about it. Even though I can remember one situation in which when I was -- I did my field work at Jefferson, there was a situation there. If it wasn't for my original CI or my primary CI, questioning the other CI, it -- it came down to a situation of just not communicating to me about anything I could have been doing wrong, but, you know, those kind of things. And I remember going back afterwards for graduation, and talking to my Howard faculty, Dr. Banks and so forth, and I remember -- I remember her saying something -- I'm paraphrasing, because it's a little bit over 25 years, but she said, okay. That happened. What are you going to do about it? What does that mean? Okay. It happened. So what are you going to do they? And she set me on the same tone of, she's right. What can I do next? And now here I am, I'm in a leadership role in Philadelphia, and I frequently -- you know, when I do see, you know, students of Color, you know, I do ask, the managers. Hey, how are they doing? How is it going for them? But when I do hear about problems, my first question, have they communicated

that problem to them? And how have they communicated that problem? And over half the time, they have not communicated what they see as the problem, but just say oh, they are not doing well. And why aren't they doing well? Would you tell someone else exactly why? It reminds me of a person who talked earlier. It's not always possible in practice. We may not have a policy, but I tried many I -- every time I can, I ask my practice. It's not just with, you know, students of Color. Or employees of Color, I ask the manager, have you actually talked to them about it? Have you laid it out, you know, very specifically what the issues are? And it's just amazing how often that does not happen. So I say that those experiences I had, I have and in my career for the past 26 years and I always consistently applied to what I just said, it's how you want to be treated. And I knew that I wasn't treated well because I had poor communication, but now that I'm in a different position, I always want to be sure that they are communicated to correctly. Thank you. >> Sabrina is that our time? >> You have about four and a half minutes for this section. >> Okay. Great. Okay. So and you can tell when you are dealing with academics because you all are doing great with time. So we're going to -- I think Jewell had her hand up to for this and then we'll move on to our next question. >> I just think it's an opportunity for us to acknowledge the lived experiences of our students. When Candice mentioned this idea that you have to be double or better than your counterpart, I remember when I was at Tuskegee, they prepared us that when you go out into the world, you are going to be perceived as not being as good because you came from Tuskegee and you are also African American. So I walk out with this idea that I come as one, but I stand as 10,000. They prepared me for that. However, that is an extra burden that your students of Color carry, that they have to be better than. And some of that translates to the classroom. Maybe they do not engage as much because they are not as confident, because they don't -- they don't feel like there's as much room for error for them as maybe their White counterpart.

And so getting to know the lived experiences of our students, I think is critical, just because someone comes from an advantaged background, doesn't mean they still don't have some of the other barriers that -- that have been acknowledged in these conversations. So I do think asking questions like why the student may have felt uncomfortable going to Jackson, Mississippi. I'm from Alabama, but I heard lots about Mississippi growing up. And so just asking questions and acknowledging that those -- you may have very similar demographics GPA and my lived experience may be very different from my counterparts and how will that impact me in the classroom? How will it impact me on my clinical experience? Taking the time as the faculty and the clinical educators, that may be one of the barriers and they may not feel confident enough to say that within the context of the educational experience. I wanted to add that. >> Thank you. Jewell, I think what you are speaking to is about equity, you know? And I know Sabrina talks about, how that really connects to that retention and access, and so we appreciate your comment. I'm going to now shift over to Theresa and Theresa is going to pose our next question, and we'll come back to our attendees. >> Thank you, Varleisha. I want to thank AOTA for this listening platform to our share our forces as people of Color facing unique challenges professionally and I want to hank my fellow panelists for allowing me to share this forum with them. I have been in OT for over 28 years and been a faculty member at the university of sciences for six years. I have a master's degree in organization training and development. So I have a very high interest in organizational change. And yay, I'm like eight months from earning my EDD, and my educational leadership from Rowan University and one of the reasons I chose to get my EDD from Rowan University is one of their pillars of our doctoral program is social justice. And so -- and I'm very interested in that and I'm interested in working -- in making change in terms of working with our faculty at my university, and just that change in our profession as a whole. So I want to talk to you today about the role and that implicit bias and microaggression plays in the recruitment and retention of people in faculty and higher education. We know that implicit bias and microaggression obstructs recruitment and retention of diverse faculty. So I just want to share with you for a minute a little story. When I was ten, I wanted to be an OT, right? I -- since I was ten years old, so I applied to a college and my -- in many I state and it was the only OT program in my state, however, as a young college student

on the campus, I had the opportunity to meet a faculty member there. And what I vividly remember as a young college student is that her lukewarm reception of me as a student of Color seeking to enter in the field of OT. And I -- I -- like it was yesterday. She -- she said to me, it's -- it's a very difficult field, and not everyone is going to get in. So I felt like she dismissed my ability because of the color of my skin. And so that translates over in terms of that, for me, and maybe other Brown and Black skinned people into that recruitment and retention of faculty and higher education. And so I want to go back and say, you know, if we don't have Black and Brown students in the pipeline for careers of OTs, we don't have a diverse pool in terms of retention and recruitment, and especially as faculty members and have a diverse faculty in our program. Like the students say, they want to see people who look like them. Faculty want to see people and engage with people who look like them. And so I talk about implicit bias and microaggression and how often it could deter and discourage Black and Brown people, and individuals applying or staying in a faculty position, especially when they are made to feel inferior or unqualified to enter the academy or to perform in the academy. So one of the things that, you know, at my university, you know, I worked with a team and my president in terms of looking at why we weren't getting students and looking at why we weren't getting faculty of color and what was the -- what was some of the issues. Okay? And, of course, it came back to those hiring practices, those admission practices, that bias of allowing those students and those faculty to enter, you know, our institution. And one of the things that I said to him when -- and he asked me to go and present, I created a roadmap and he wanted me to go and present that to his -- the president's cabinet. And one of the things that I said to them is that we need to be intentional about embedding diversity, equity and inclusion in our mission statement and strategic plans and higher education. At our university and all universities, and at department levels. And using the DEI framework to help us understand where we sit in this. And it has to start from the administration level. And so we talked about that and what that would look like and how we could implement that and how that impacts the -- the recruitment of people of color in the retention of our faculty, because just because we make it diverse, doesn't mean, again, that people of Color feel like they belong there just because they are there as a representation. So we have to do more on that. And so, again, we go back to training and development. Because it happens in the academy.

All of these things that we are talking about, you know, whether it's at a field work level, whether it's, you know, working, you know, in the workforce and you are working with other counterparts who do not look like you, all of that could be combatted in the education environment. So we have to look at our practices in terms of how implicit bias, and microaggression shows up in our practice because we're expected to teach these students and a lot of faculties don't have -- a lot of faculty don't even have understanding of where they sit in that. And so -- so I want to say, you know, from an organizational and cultural level, it has to start with an individual -- with the individuals. Will the individuals are who make up that culture. Right? And so when we have those individuals within our program. So we have to do that work with our students but we have to do that work individually with us because it does impact the people that you work with, you know, in field work or, you know, in the workplace in terms of not having that implicit bias or microaggression towards you. And so to -- and to be really clear about that, you know, it has to be embedded in your mission. People want to know, especially Black and Brown people that the institution that they work for are committed to this change, and how we're going to do this change and how we're going to measure this change and how we're going to rate ourselves on this change. And so I -- you know, I want to pose the question out to you, how do you look at implicit bias and microaggression? I have given you my story. And I talked a little bit how I think -- what I think is necessary to address these issues, but I want to ask the audience, what is your story? And what is your ideal of how to tackle this recruitment and retention of faculty of color? >> Thank you, Theresa. So the question is focusing on faculty in terms of implicit bias and recruitment and retention of faculty members. But we did have a hand up from our previous section. So I don't know if we're -- if this answer or comment is pertaining to this question. So we'll repeat it if we have to. And having a -- an unusual name such as Varleisha, I feel guilty when I mispronounce someone's name. And so we have Kuzhilethu. >> This is Shep. >> Shep. Go ahead, Shep. >> Okay. It's wonderful to list and to all of these questions and comments about increasing the diverse pool of occupational therapy students, and I have a simple question,

suggestion to this wonderful people tuned in. I think as there are three pillars of this effort, recruitment, retention and graduation. I don't think graduation anybody has mentioned yet. But let's just take the recruitment. The students’ awareness of what is okay is one thing. Their socioeconomic status and family support is another thing. So I would request people to look at their own effort in terms of providing the support and assistance in terms of education. And also helping the student and the families to understand what are the things involved in this education, and, of course, the student has to meet the admission requirement. So how can they be stimulated, facilitated to get a good grade? And other kinds of requirements to get into the program. And how many of -- of these people in this panel has done some volunteer work going into the -- into the school to talk to students? Especially students of Color, to educate them and mentor them in order to finally get into the program. That is all I have to say. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Shep. So I will say that you bring up a great point in terms of volunteering your time and going into schools. I mean, we have talked about this with some of my colleagues of going into -- I have GOP -- gone into high schools, colleges, undergrad programs and even middle to school to talk about it and plant those seeds. So I will pose that to our panel in regards to what Shep is saying, in regards to bringing the knowledge of our profession to our younger individuals before they even consider graduate school, and then I think the other part of that is, once you get them there, how do we provide support for retention? So I will pose that to the panel or anyone that wants to hop in and then we'll get to our next person. >> I'm sorry, go ahead, Theresa. >> I agree that, you know, there has to be some type of -- because what we -- we -- some type of program in terms of us reaching out. I know that it is important, again as Varleisha, I go out into programs and I talk to students and junior high and high school and even the undergraduate programs, especially students of color. I go to let them know about our profession, you know. I have gone to medical programs, pipelines where students that they are in programs for medical school, that might not even get in medical school and to, you know -- and to tell them there's other great professions in healthcare that -- that are available to them, and OT is one of those programs. Then at a STEM school and healthcare institutions, specifically, you know, one of the issues that always comes up is that, you know, maybe some of these

students don't fit these requirements, you know, the admissions policy. And one the things is we have to look at the admissions policy then and see what might be some of the issues. It might not just be race. It may be a socioeconomic issue. It could be other factors that play into part why students of Color may not be attending getting in or being retained there. I have talked to many students and not just OT students, but students, students throughout our university, Black and Brown students in terms of their unique challenges with staying at the university where it boiled down to faculty don't know their unique challenges in terms of, you know, their ability and they have to work and to be able to stay in the programs. But they are not given -- it seems, you know, they are not given that benefit of the doubt that they are working harder as opposed to just being lazy and not completing the work. Right? So all of these things come up for these students and it comes up, you know, for the students in terms of the -- you know that freshmen that transitions and first-generation in programs. So we have to look at all of these issues in terms of -- in terms of how we are creating access for -- for diverse students. But I want to talk about and go back and point out what Dr. Khalilah Johnson, she talked about, the pipeline for students. The recruitment and the retention of faculty, you know, we need to look at those pipelines to help diverse faculty transition from that clinical role into that faculty role. >> Thank you, Theresa. And I don't know if it was Jewell or Candice who was trying to hop in? >> I want to piggyback on what Theresa was saying and some of the other individuals in the audience. I definitely believe that we need a pipeline. I feel that middle school is too late and because you have dual credit programs and things like that. For me, I start in elementary school going to career day, trying to explain what occupational therapy is. I take tools, and I give them simulations to do, to really try to understand. It's fairly challenging to explain what we do and all the things that we do, to some of our -- the younger kids, but I think that we have to instill in their mind that there's something other than being a medical doctor or a nurse, that there are amazing allied health careers that are just as powerful. So introducing the field for one, but then also students of color, finances become a big challenge. And for myself, I didn't have the funding to go to college. I have a lot of student loan and I do to this day, but I think we need to be more intentional in how we can have students go to college through scholarships and

endowments and things like that. Finances play a critical role in determining our students are going to continue on with their education or not. And I think that may be a reason why we are not seeing so many people of color engaging in these opportunities. And then one big thing I'm also noticing is why he, I want students of color to come to my institution, but then keeping them there. I'm noticing that they are not quite prepared from a math and STEM standpoint of they are not equipped enough to -- to stay with their cohorts. And so as a result, they do fall behind and we have to do more remediation practice with them. And so it starts early on, I feel and we also have to prepare them. They have to get stronger in the math and sciences and things like that. >> And it also comes down to resources. You know? Having them the resources at institutions and those funding to put those resources and have those available for those students. >> Agreed. Thank you. And so I know we have -- we have a couple of people in line. So I'm going to go to Jerry Bentley, and then Ryan, you have your hand back up. So let me know if you want to you can that after Jerry. We will come you to after. >> Good evening. Thank you. I just wanted to say that after 15 years struggle, it was a relief to see that AOTA had finally acknowledged what demographers have been saying for years, and that is the fact that the pipeline that they are currently using will be diminishing shortly. So I think if the profession wants to survive, we have to embrace students of color and I think that all the individual efforts that have been identified are wonderful, but we also need a national effort. I'm wondering if AOTA can't think of something similar for awareness, where the entire profession gets behind an initiative and works towards that particular initiative. Also, I think that programs have to be intentional in connecting their students of color to a support system, and that connection can be through therapists of Color, by having therapists on their advisory board, on their network educator boards. Also, there's a great resource in the Black Occupational Therapy Caucus. I think they can use those chapters or the national to get consultants -- not just when they are having challenges, but when they are in the process of developing solutions and looking at the change that needs to take place. I became an OT. My first conference was in '74.

I was a field work student and I had a field work student in 2017 that went through the same thing that I did in terms of being told that she was too confident and I knew the student wasn't. She was a nervous wreck. But the fact that she presented herself as being knowledgeable, it was interpreted as being confident. So the student needed someone there to support her through that process, and to meet with the student and the therapist. So it's important that programs, that are majority programs look to professionals or practitioners of color to help support their students. It's much needed. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Jerry. And we certainly appreciate all you have done in our profession. So thank you. And right now, I don't know if the panel wants to hop in, but I'll let Ryan talk and then Sabrina and then if you want to add to that, we'll let you go after, but I want to make sure that we keep it going. So Ryan and then we have some questions and statements from Sabrina. >> Yes. I did want to talk. I was really interested in asking a question to our panel that I think is related to all of what we're talking about when it comes to the complexities of recruitment and retention. And so the first question is related to sort of the message that we go out with, and I think this is a potential role for AOTA to really lead, especially in its new task force, in thinking about what are the messages that we really take out as we go to these high schools and when we're talking to students of color, why we need them, and what their value is. There are places where we can do harm and tokenizing saying we need you to come and serve other people like you. That's not what we want to be outgoing. My question to the panel is really: What are the core messages that you think we need to go to these locations and -- and these high schools with, to really inspire and connect with students of color so that they see what they offer and not why we need them? And then that's connected to the second question of the complexity, then they come to a program where there's nobody like them and then they go into a profession where there's nobody like them and so we sort of bait and switch a little bit. How do we manage that when we want to have representation in the photos and on our website, you know, and then when they get to the classroom, there's nobody there who looks like them, but we want that representation there to get them there in the first place. So any sort of advice or thoughts that the panel has on that sort of complex

process of connecting with, and really supporting students of Color, I would just really love to talk through. >> Thank you, Ryan. And so Jewell would like to address that question. >> I will just address maybe part of it. I think that before you go out and bring any student into your program, you want to do some internal housekeeping. How prepared is your faculty? How prepared are your students for diversity? Diversity is intentional. It never happens by accident. And so I think it's great to see AOTA put more people of color on their brochures. I think it's great to do that. You are right. If you have not prepared for anyone to come into the program, you have done a disservice. I think there's a lot of prework you need to do before you go out and start doing some recruitment. I think you can find that allies in the community. So you can talk about when are you coming into our program, although we may not be the most diverse, we have clinicians of color that are prepared to mentor and support you through your process. We have faculty, because you don't have to be a person of Color, to be an ally. If you don't do the work within your program, going out and just getting more students of color, you aren't able to retain, and that you wound along the way, I think you do a disservice. So if you are doing the work beforehand within the context of your academic experience, and you are getting allies within the community, with Black caucus is one way to do that as well. There's no perfect context. Even at HBCU, it's not a perfect experience abut I think we can create an experience where every student thrives and every student has a rich and fuel experience. But -- rich and full experience. And they can do the work on the front end before we go out into the community to bring in more diversity. Hopefully that was helpful. >> May I just jump in there real quick because I want to kind of -- kind of reinforce what Jewell is saying, because the one -- the one thing that was impressed about me -- this is our fourth one, that we, Varleisha and AOTA staff, and Wendy have done, the one thing that is emerging -- the one emerging theme is that we as academics are causing our students of Color trauma. And that's important because that is not what our academics are there for. We are there to impart for a knowledge-base to students for the profession that we love.

I think it's important for you guys to think about that as an educator who is given a privilege to teach the next generation of students that we are causing them trauma. This has come out of their mouths. Whether it's in our academic programs, or it's at field work. So to me, based on what I heard, part of that process is not only doing your internal work, but it's also looking at does your strategic plan -- oh, I'm timing myself out. I just want 30 seconds more. But does your strategic plan -- does the strategic plan show that you are being intentional and this is something you really want to change. Are you championing it and are you advocating for change in your program? Okay. I'm done. >> Thank you, Sabrina. Yeah. And I think Jewell, hit the nail on the head with some of those comments as Sabrina just stated. And certainly with that intent, there's the other piece that Jewell just mentioned about allies. So mentorship. You know, I think those of us that have -- I was previously in academia, we can all attest that there's a level of mentorship from someone or multiple people and they don't have to be someone that necessarily looks like you. Unfortunately, they probably will not be if you are, you know, in our field, because we don't have a lot of faculty members of Color. But reaching back and being an ally, if you see that potential in someone, definitely, it would certainly be the next step. I am going to call on our next -- we have a couple of people. Sabrina, before I do that, we have two hands raised. Did you want to jump in before we do that or do we have -- where are we at with time? >> We have maybe about -- let's say about six more -- well, no, not that much. Maybe five more minutes if you want to wrap it up with the last couple of questions so we can have the panel kind of summarize their final thoughts and then pass it over to Wendy. >> Okay. Great. Rakia, you are up next. >> Thank you for having this forum to discuss. I will add to the comment that was previously made about wounding students going through the program once you recruit them. I actually had that as a part of my experience. I went to a predominantly White institution for my master's program, and my instructor inadvertently used an example to describe statistics that targeted me,

the only Black female in my class. And when I pointed that out, she was obviously very embarrassed, and it was something that I have not forgotten and I take it with me now, even in my practice now in academia, in my role in terms of teaching students how to be aware of those things and being mindful of what they say and how they carry themselves and how that can be perceived and received by people whether it be intentional, unintentional. And I will throw this in because Mississippi has been mentioned several times on this call. It's something to be mindful of, of what that does to the development of the practitioner, but I have used it more -- I tried to in my power, now as an educator. And on to that -- to add to that point, the value of having allies and people that are willing to help you move this issue forward, is something that I -- I found important, and fortunately I found a space in my current university system where they were willing to support that. But it is still quite a bit of work to try to get some of these issues moved forward and recognized as something that they are committed to doing. You know, being it, you know, written down on paper, in your, you know, mission statements and strategic plannings because to their admission, they weren't aware that it was a problem. They -- there weren't any intentional efforts to do some of these things because they never had a problem filling their classes. So I think it can start with one, but if we can get more allies to help support, be around, and help to speak up, that will help to decrease some of the burden that some of us in those academic positions do or might feel being and trying to help carry this torch. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. And now, we our last participant is Rita. >> You are muted. >> Sorry. >> I feel very humbled to be listening the last few weeks to everybody's story and I have been so troubled by hearing the stories of how people in our profession have been -- students and practitioners have experienced things and I have to really -- I have to apologize for my naivety. And I have my White privilege and being around a lot of people who did practice antiracism and -- I have done in institutions where it's been enabled and others it's SATs and GREs and volunteer hours and whereas my prior position was at a school where we had a COTA to OTR program in New York and it was very diverse and our admissions was not based upon volunteer hours. It was based upon lived experience and it was quite different. So hearing the stories is very shocking. The one thing and just wake-up call. You know?

But the one thing that I keep thinking, we talk about, you know, the work we need to do and embedding this into our institutions via admission and those things. And those things require systemic change, which I agree with. I think we also have to get down into our own departments. I think we have to call out people in our departments and call out the field work settings, and say, excuse me, you know, that's not right! I mean, we have to -- when you talk about practicing anti-ableism and most of my work is -- because my brother is disabled. It's about anti-ableism and disability rights. That's my background and what I write about. I realize it can't just be anti-ableism. We have to teach antiracism and we have to embed that into our curriculum. And it's easy to say, though, people do the words and I always get upset because people -- someone said before, you know walk -- walk the talk, talk the talk, whatever it is. And, you know my last position was Jesuit institution. Jesuits are very cool and it was very suburban White privilege and that was the reality. I think we need to embed things into our curriculum. My thing that I wanted for moving forward in doing this, let's learn from people who are doing it right. You know, let's ask people what are the things that you are doing that are increasing your retention and increasing your recruitment, and make it that that becomes a norm. We have to change the cultural norm in our institutions, even though heavily suburban White ones. It has to be that you reach out, you don't just recruit at certain schools, where you recruit. You go to different schools. But we also need to do, I think in our departments. We need to call each other out. On 205 -- no, 2015, Scandinavian Journal, where are we at with client-centered practice, 25 years after. Many of the articles said we are not delivering and it was how to have a macro perspective and how to deliver and maybe we need to look at those things and apply that to also antiracism and embed it, you know, embed it that our case studies -- I talked to a colleague. I said -- she's wondering about for a graduate class because the students haven't done field work because of COVID. One of the real life things. Go listen to these listening sessions. There's a hell of a lot real life situations that students can learn from, just from listening to the situations that everybody has shared the past few weeks. So I really think we need to gather data about what is working from people who are doing it right, because I know there are some doing it right.

And then confront people who aren't doing it right. You know? I just think we have to call people out. I'm very -- very ashamed that -- that that hasn't been happening and I do feel proud of moments when I have done it, and some things -- I do have some procedures we did at my prior work that called people out that were quite good that I would be happy to share but not at this moment because of time. I think there are things that people have implemented to make change, institutional change and changes in our department. And I think we have to have a body of that, just like we, have you know, the curriculum for this and the curriculum for that. I think we need antiracism curriculum and concrete things to confront it. And among faculty too. When I think back, there's things I confronted and things that maybe I was stupid about that I was not so aware of and I do apologize for that. >> Rita, I promised I would keep these people on time and honest, so -- >> I'm done. >> I'm going to prod them along. So I'm going to hand it back to Varleisha to, I guess move this along so we can be respectful of people's time. Thank you so much for sharing. >> Yep. Thank you, Rita. And certainly email us. Feel free to email us any of those recommendations so that we can share as we develop. I'm going to pass it back to the panel. I'm just going to ask you to give one sentence, one phrase, words of wisdom that we want to take from this. And anything that you want to share before we close out, and then we're going to pass it to Wendy. How about we start with Jewell. Jewell, Candice and then Theresa. >> Well, thank you for this opportunity. I have learned so much from each of you. And I just have one thing I want to leave with you, about diversity and being intentional. You must do the work before you can create these safe, diverse environments. So I just encourage you guys to go back to your departments and have some very candid conversations. Have candid conversations with the students. Allow them to have a safe space and share experiences going through your programs. You may learn things that you don't expect. And holding you accountable for national initiatives.

Thank you so much for having the opportunity to share with you. >>> Thank you. Candice. >> Sorry about that. I thought I had -- (Laughter) I also want to thank everyone for the opportunity tonight to be on the panel. I hope I was able to convey some rich information to the audience. I have two take aways. My first take away, I want us moving in order to be intentional in our actions, and I want us to think about that we're in the profession right now, but where will you be in 15 years or 5 years or 10 years and how do you want the profession to look? Will it look like the communities we serve or look like it currently is? I want us to be very intentional in our choices and decisions and also the policies that we are trying to create because all of -- all of those choices are going to help the future of the profession. And if we want to stand out and be different and dynamic, improving diversity and DEI policies is a great start. I also want to share with the audience that we need to have allies, and I think that our White colleagues are that. So I don't want people to walk away and have White guilt but I want people to walk away feeling empowered and that you can walk alongside of us in making a powerful impact on changing policy and procedures and if you see something that you don't think is fair, or you don't think is right, or representative, you have the power to change that narrative. And so I really think that having those allies will be quite beneficial and I also hope and pray that AOTA will make -- and reinforce more policies no help DEI all over the board. >> Theresa, I'm sorry. >> Mine is short and sweet! The word here is the trifecta, and that's intentional. And everybody has to be intentional in their -- in doing their own work and -- because when we do our own work, that's how we are going to change our profession, at the institutional levels and within, you know, our workplace, with our students. So be intentional about it and do our own individual work because we are the ones who create that climate and culture in these places and in these settings. >> Perfect. Thank you, Theresa. All right. Wendy, you are up. >> And I will do my best not to get dinged by Sabrina as well. She knows how to manage -- manage the time and manage this room. I just -- I just want to say -- I mean this is the last of a series of four sessions that

we set out to do. This was very important for us to have, this particular session, I think, at the end of this series, but I also think that it is critically important to hear that this is not a last of our focus on this. This is not the last of conversation about this. This is not the last of action. And so, you know, I don't know what -- what goes above trifecta. It has to be a quad something, right? And put the word out there that AOTA and the board of directors, in particular, I know will be having very intentional plans, intentional focus on diversity, equity and inclusion as an area where we need to do work. We -- we know this. And I just -- you know, specific to this particular session, you know, we are -- there's a lot of educators in this room. I mean, I'm sitting here thinking about my own faculty and department as well. And, you know, we as educators, we have varying degrees of contact, relationships with our students. Some of that has been, you know, less over the summer months, yet we have students that might be coming into us in the fall with an awful lot of -- of feeling, emotion, experience, questions, uncertainty about many of the things that have gone on over this summer, let alone over a lifetime for many of our students and our faculty. And so I just want to say I hope that we continue to support each other in this effort moving forward, you know, in these national initiatives that are being called on, as well as in our own departments and our own collegial units. I can't thank you all enough for -- for being -- you know, for Jewell, for Theresa, for Candice for being able to be our panelists, to guide this conversation this evening -- but, you no he, everyone who has been ill involved in this, it has been a experience for me. It's been a learning opportunity for all of us, and I think as an association, and as a profession, I hope that this is -- is one that you can count on as a growth and change experience moving forward. We're working to bring about sustainable change. We also know this is a long haul effort and we look forward to ongoing conversations and shared work together that translates into actions. So I just -- I wish everyone the best. I wish everyone will stay in touch. Why do I know this group is going to do exactly that? I'm not even worried about that part. So I look forward to whatever communication channels we are able to bring together and make available so that this is a continuing dialogue and a continuing shared effort to be active in change. Thank you so much for everything that has taken place this evening. >> Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, everyone, for joining.

I have to say, I joined staff here at AOTA, yes, it's been five months, what a whirlwind. What a time to join. Even though we didn't want to have one of the events happen and I think I saw Natasha said in the chat, let the hard work begin. If you didn't have a chance to speak, we thank you for -- it was a healthy conversation in the chat. It's been recorded, and we have technologist, Liz Klein who is in the background working with us, and she will help us produce some wonderful resources and stuff specifically from these events. Please look out for that and look out for future communications from AOTA. And with that, we thank you and have a great night. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Good night.