Welcome back everyone.

Welcome to another episode of the podcast, Knowledge Unbound.

For those of you who are new to us, we are an interview podcast where we've been in

conversation with people who do social justice work in science education and education in general.

Knowledge Unbound is brought to you by the Rios Institute for racially just,

inclusive, open-stem education. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

I'm joined here in the studio by my wonderful producer Mr. Segev Amasai. Segev, what's up?

Hello everyone. It is a pleasure to be back for this second installment of the Unbinding of

Knowledge. I'll cut your mic, I swear to God. Did you work on that? Like the way you said that,

I feel like you practiced that voice. Well, maybe. Who knows. Segev is a computer engineering major

class of 2025 and Segev is going to apply and receive a ton of scholarships this week

to make sure he graduates debt-free. Am I right? That is correct. Segev is the wonderful producer

for these episodes. Thank you so much. Today we have a really exciting conversation for you.

I'll be talking to Dr. Buranda Montgomery. Dr. Montgomery is the vice president for academic

affairs at Grinnell College in Iowa. She's also the author of a very wonderful book called Lessons

from Plants and she's been known in science education and education circles for a long time

as somebody who really, really thinks deeply and thoughtfully about mentoring and inclusive

education in science. We unpacked that. We went on that journey and it was just so good to hear her

really give thoughtful reasons for everything and why. I really hope you enjoy every element

of this conversation from the personal to the professional and I hope it inspires you

as much as it did me. Welcome. So I know when we go to places to give talks and I say we

are not. I do this from time to time. They read the CV thing, right? But I've heard you say

offline that if people look at your CV, they will see a very traditional ladder, right? What you

kind of expect of an academic, but there's a lot of non-traditionality that's sort of in circles

that has led to that. I was wondering if maybe by way of instruction, you could kind of unpack that

statement for the audience. Absolutely. So I think even as early as where I did my undergraduate

degree at Washington University with a bachelor's degree in biology, ultimately I had no intention

to be a biology professor. So I had decided really early that I wanted to be a lawyer.

And then in middle school, it was clear I was really good at science and math. And so through

kind of reason and deduction, I decided I wanted to be a biotech lawyer. So as an undergrad,

I was pre-law focused on getting into law school and ultimately committed to that until the very

senior year when I decided to do an undergraduate research experience to understand the science I

would be writing patents about. But that undergraduate research experience just changed the whole

trajectory and that I hadn't known any professors and the idea that you could have a career just

pursuing curiosity. So I decided not to go to law school and instead to try to get into graduate

school. Time out. Did you just say you hadn't known any professors? I hadn't known any professors

personally. Oh, okay. Right. When I decided to be a lawyer, I knew, you know, I grew up in a

neighborhood where being a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher were things, even though there were few

in the neighborhood, those were valuable careers. I just find it a little remarkable. This is

obvious, not on you, but just that so many of our students come to university. Yes. And they are

literally surrounded by professors. Yes. Right. Yes. And at least in my experience, so many of them

don't even think this is a thing. Absolutely. I just wonder how is it we don't lean into that

reality that they are being taught by us, mentored, served by us, and we don't kind of explicitly lay

our pathway out to the point where they don't even make it a consideration. No, I think it's

a really important point, which is something I brought into my own career of being a professor

is to have conversations with them about why I chose this path and how it is a possibility,

because I think too many of us look at them only as teachers in the classroom or professors in the

research, and often they don't lean into it. Frequently, when we do lean into it as a professor,

we're telling how stressful it is, how stressed out we are. And so leaning into it as a space of

possibility is a completely different kind of thing. Oh, you have that conversation. Okay.

You're going to be a patent lawyer. Yes. So then ultimately, after I did an undergraduate research

experience and realized that I could have a career of pursuing interesting questions and mentoring

students, I decided to take a year and work as a technician back in Arkansas. And ultimately,

the person I was working for said, you're doing really great work. You should get a master's

degree while you decide what you're going to do. So I got a master's degree, spent two years,

and then went to graduate school. During the master's degree, I took all kinds of classes

to decide what area of biology I wanted. And where was your master's? University of Central Arkansas.

So I'm from Little Rock, Arkansas. I went back home and I took a whole range of classes. I did

work assessing snakes in nature. I worked with rats. I did a whole kinds of things. And then I

took a plant physiology class. How do you assess snakes? Well, you look at where they are. You look

at the population. You look at how the aging of the population. My mother was shocked because I am

not that kind of person, but it was the person who was doing that work. It was a great mentor. So I

wanted to work with her. And then ultimately, I took a plant physiology class, not even really

interested in the class, but it fit a schedule. And the professor was so enthusiastic. And I had

thought at that point that plants were boring and he really brought them to life. And that's when I

made the decision to go to graduate school in plant biology. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking

like assessing snakes. I see you. You're stuck on the snakes. I run the next direction. I've assessed

the situation. I was picking them up. I was like, oh, this. I was in, the mentors can get you to do

things you never thought you would do. So I want to, before we move on career wise, I want to talk

a little bit about Little Rock. Yes. Right. You mentioned earlier about, you know, in that community,

there are these very particular career choices that you typically went after. Yes. Right.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that community? Yeah. So I grew up in the city,

right in the city in Little Rock, a working class family. So my mother had gotten her associate's

degree from shorter college, which is a historically black college in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Both my parents were from the Delta region. They grew up in agricultural Delta region.

And so my mom had an associate's degree. My dad did not graduate from high school and went back

after they were married and got his GED. So I came from a family that education was valued,

but it wasn't a family that was deep into education. And so we grew up and of course,

my parents wanted us to do well in school, but it was kind of a working class community. And as it

was clear that I was excelling at school, you know, the default was you should be a lawyer or you

should be a doctor. And we did have a few teachers in the neighborhood. And so those all seem like

valuable careers. And I had a brother who was into music and it was like, nope, that's not a path

towards sustainability. Is that a reflection of him or you just, you just understood? No, just,

it's like when we have people who were in these areas, my family was like, how do you make a

living there? So my parents had worked really hard to get out of poverty. They grew up in poverty

in the Delta region of Arkansas. They were, I was telling someone recently, both my parents were

pulled out of school every spring to pick cotton with their parents to make extra money. So they

grew up really having to struggle to make it. And so for them, they really wanted us to focus on

getting to a path that we could sustain our lives. And so even I remember when I decided I wasn't

going to go to law school, that was a long conversation with my mother. She was like,

I think you should still go and you could do that later. But it was just this idea. Those seem to be

paths that you could get a good job, sustainability and make a life for yourself. And so really the

community was trying to help us choose paths that would keep us on a path of economic sustainability.

Right. Yeah. So you, you keep using it with community, which I appreciate. Yes. But I'm

wondering from a numerical standpoint, was that encouragement beyond just your family?

Absolutely. So I grew up at a time where really it was like the whole neighborhood was raising you.

Yeah. And so across the street, there was a woman who owned a daycare. And so if we were out of

school, we would go to her daycare. And so she would, we, I grew up at a time where you would

be outside and anyone could correct you, right? The woman two doors down, we could freely go down

there, but it was, it was this community where they looked out for us and my mom looked out for

their kids. So it really was a couple of blocks of people who had become more than neighbors and

were friends. And it really was this kind of village like, like atmosphere where, um, if you

did something wrong by the time you got home, your mother already knew if you did something good,

the entire neighborhood celebrated. So I really did grow up in that kind of, it was a communal,

uh, raising of everyone. Yeah. Is there any family members still there? Yeah. So, um, all of my

family is still there. So I'm the youngest of five kids. Um, my father passed away in 2019,

but he and my mother lived in Little Rocker right outside and their entire marriage. My mom is still

there. And all five of us kids at one point moved away. Everyone else has migrated back. So everybody

else now is within probably 30, 40 mile radius. You're a prodigal child. I'm going to come for

Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. Couple of times a year. Well, I tell them that they need someone to visit.

Well, how is, well, how is that community now? You know, the community has changed.

I was talking about this with my mother, um, because I was there, um, some time ago and

someone ran out into the street, a young girl from across the street. And I just by instinct said,

you know, get out of the street, be careful. And later they came to my mom and said, please tell

your daughter, don't yell at my child. Right. And so it's, I think we've broken down and kind of gone

back into our entrenchments, which, you know, I'm like, I have a son, I'm like anybody who sees him

in danger, snatch him. Right. And we can talk about why you snatched them later. But I think

we have lost some of that, not in all places, but some of it has broken down as the city's grown.

And, you know, there are other challenges. So, I mean, I'm excited for conversation,

but there is a part of me that almost wants to talk to your mom.

She's right. Who would have grown up in a very different era and like watch that

through her own growing up and then raise you and your siblings and watch that change. And then now

in 2023 and well, it's so interesting. We have some amazing conversations, um, about, um, equity

and equality and sometimes some deep family debates because my parents who grew up at a time where

my mom is brilliant, a brilliant mathematician. We always say she could have been the first

professor if she wasn't brought up at this time. And so they look at things and talk about how

much things have changed. And my siblings and I are like, things are still pretty bad. And so we

have this whole conversation about whether we're in a better state. And it is fascinating to talk

with them because I do think often we can lose sight of how far we've come. Right. Right. Um,

because I sit there and talk with my mother who didn't have the possibilities that I have.

And so, no, I think you're right. There's a lot. Um, my son's, um, one of his teachers in middle

school had as an assignment that they talked to someone who was in their eighties or so,

who wasn't their grandparent, right? About their experience. Because I think we do sometimes, um,

we can focus so much on what all the paths we still need to take that we forget we've come some ways.

So I'm assuming at some point your mother's mother and perhaps even your dad's mother was alive.

Mm hmm. What, you know, you talk about your son's assignment, right? What about your assignment,

right? What, what about when you were growing up and talking to them about that time period?

And then you kind of reflect in your life now, how has some of those stories kind of come through

the generations of your family? It's really amazing. Um, I used to spend a lot of time with

my maternal grandfather. He would sit on the porch of his home. Same community. No, um, this is in,

uh, Helena, West Helena. So this deep in the country, right between Memphis and Little Rock.

And we would get sent there in the summer for a couple of weeks, you know? Um, and I would sit

with him on the porch almost all day, um, because he was mostly quiet and I could sit there and read.

But every once in a while he would bring up a story. And it was fascinating because my

maternal grandfather was born and lived in Elaine, Arkansas, which is a site of a major racial

insurrection. Okay. And he remembered that, right? And so sitting there and talking to him about that,

um, sometimes it was shocking. And now when I read about these histories, um, we come through

these really deep kind of generational, I call it a generational lineage of bravery, um, a generational

lineage of hope. Someone asked me, how do I remain hopeful? And I said, you know, I come from a

generational lineage of hope, but I'm not going to be the one to drop it. And so I do think it's so

important to connect with those prior generations to understand kind of what our lineages, what we're

made of, but also kind of what, um, the paths of success, the paths of change and where we still

have struggles. Yeah. So were there things that in talking with your maternal grandfather

that then came to inform your own thinking about your work, about your thoughts and equity and

social justice. And I want to maybe add some nuance to this question, because I know,

I mean, just thinking about my own life, right? When I was 18, 15 or whatever, and I would have

similar conversations with my dad, you know, Caribbean context. I didn't at 15 say, Ooh,

when I become a professor at 34, this is going to impact how I teach my class, right? But when I

teach my class, I realize I'm recalling things from my ancestors, things from, from the way I

was raised, things from his own past in ways that I hadn't planned. I'm just wondering what that

genius life. No, I think similar to you, some of them I've come to know later or to recognize them

right later. Um, one of the biggest ones is that my family has always had this sense that, um, the

kind of sense of Sancoffa, right? You're always looking back, you're going to get something, but

you're looking back and it's been a practice in our family. Like if you go off and get education,

then you need to bring it back in a way that we all can process it. And so I think that's

the biggest thing is to be able to benefit from it and benefit from it. And I look at that now a

lot in the ways that I go about collaborations and the ways that I go about mentoring is really

trying to encourage people, okay, you've got in this knowledge, what are you going to do with it

beyond yourself? Um, because we existed in a space is both fun and humorous, right? Even now, when I

go back for Thanksgiving, I can be talking to my mom about it in a major accomplishment. And she's

like, get us cute, get the sweet potato pie done. This is your job today. Right. And so there's this

hurt telling authority, someone else with great pride. So there's this constant negotiation of

you've done an amazing thing and yet that doesn't just belong to you and you can't let it elevate

you. And I think that one of the dangers of the academy for me is that it can sometimes be easy

to try to, you know, the academy kind of encourages you and pushes you into that space of look at all

you did, celebrate yourself. And I'm constantly reminding myself and those I work with that this

is a communal knowledge and we don't get it alone. So we can't just take the spoils alone. Right.

Right. Did you get a sweet potato pie done? I did.

Okay. So you took this really interesting, uh, plant physiology class,

piqued your interest. Yes. Um, I take it that's what then led to pursuing that at a doctor.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So that was ultimately, I became really fascinated with

how, um, plants have to spend their whole life in this one place. Right. And so if we are unhappy,

we move somewhere else, but they're there. And so they have to be really sensitive to what's going

on around them. And, um, that was so fascinating to me. I wanted to learn more about that. And the

more I study plants, the more parallels I saw in terms of communities broadly. And so I just became

completely and totally fascinated with them. Yeah. Um, so you're fascinated with plants. Yes. Right.

Um, and I know that for several years, I think, you know, you, you've said several times that you're

a trained biochemist. That was sort of the lens through which that was studied. And, um, and it

was, it was several years in, right. That you, you started to make this very explicit connection

between mentoring and some of the things that you were internalizing from your work with plants.

Could you walk us through that transition? I don't want to call it a transition because it's not like

you stopped being a biochemist per se, but, but I, but, but it was some, you know, some metaphors

that were becoming more apparent. And so what, what made, what surfaced that for you? Yes. And

then what made the change happen? So I think pretty early in my career, I started to really

struggle with the way. So my entire academic career until recently was at a primarily white

institution, research one, I'm still at primarily white. Um, and one of the challenges I really

started to struggle, you know, deal with in the scientific spaces, um, were that we study these

amazing systems and we understand how critically important the external environment is for the

success of these systems that we study. And yet with the humans we were interacting with, we shut

all of that off and we're judging people, um, based on what we felt their capabilities were,

their own personal agency from deficit perspective. So during my first few years, um, in my, um,

tenure track position, um, there were six black women recruited to PhD programs, not to my lab,

but in PhD programs that I was associated with. And I was really excited because the timing was

such that if I got tenure and was, and was successful, they should be finishing their PhDs.

And I said, we're going to have the biggest black women in STEM success party when this happens.

So I kind of had my head down focused on tenure. And as I was getting close, I started to look,

okay, where are they? They all six were gone, nobody with a PhD. So three of them decided the

environment wasn't for them and left. The other three, um, got to the point where they didn't get

successfully through. So they left with master's degrees. And when I was talking to the program

directors about what had happened, there were these conversations that, um, some of them we

had recruited from HBC use, they couldn't make the transition and others. This is the director

scene. And so there was this whole deficit framing, right? That they hadn't made it. And I said,

I knew at least four or five of these women and they were brilliant. So, and they also have been

successful elsewhere, right? They came to us having demonstrated success. And I also started

citing papers for them that HBC use are actually the training ground for a vast majority of black

with people who go on to get their PhDs. And so I asked the question at that time, we have to stop

and say, what did we do to derail their success? And when I would enter those conversations,

what I would find is that people's defenses would go up really quickly, right? Cause we're talking

about race. We're talking about gender. We're talking about whether the primarily white spaces

have done their work. And so I was desperate to find a way to get deeper into the conversation

before people shut down. And several of the people on this first committee were plant biologists. And

I said, you all understand this, right? And I started to break it down to them and not to say

it transformed everything, but they couldn't deny that we understand this in a biological context

and we don't use it in our own environments. So I really started to use the plants as a way to say,

you know, if a plant is growing and it's struggling in its health, we don't look at the plant and say,

well, you plant have a deficit and can't grow, right? We start to ask questions who watered it

last? Does it need nutrients? Does Brian always kill plants? If so, maybe he shouldn't have plants

or let me teach him how to do it. I would like my listeners to know that I have a green thumb.

I know you have a garden with great tomatoes. Or you know, what would happen? My mother has a great

green thumb. When we were growing up, sick plants would show up on the porch and they say, can you

nurse us back to health and then tell me what you did. So we from, it's because we interact with

plants from an expectation that they should grow. And I simply started asking what would happen if

we interacted with each other from that perspective. And it's hard for people to deny that. And so we

could get deep into the conversation before people realized that I was saying, yeah, you're the

problem. So it was really a desperation to ask, how can we have questions about topics that otherwise,

if we focused on the humans, would shut down before we could get to some insight. Right.

Let me ask you two follow up questions. And one is maybe based on, you know, the way in which I

remember doing biology early on, which may not have been correct, but this very clear message

that the difference between humans and say a plant is that we are sentient beings, right? That we can,

we have consciousness, we can make a decision. And when I've, when I've reflected on what that

statement came up in my mind again, when I read your book, Lessons from Plants, and, and I guess

my takeaway was not from the book, but from that lesson is that that message then kind of,

I don't want to say it gave us too much agency, but it completely negated the role of environment.

Yes. Right. It's almost as though conscientiousness was that was it. That was your whole being. Yes.

Right. And, and, and so I wonder if part of the problem that you're describing here is a big

pendulum swing towards this, you know, especially we can bring up sort of the culture of America and

the polio bootstraps up kind of thing. So that's the point number one. And then number two is

specifically in academia, where you're raised to be the smartest person in the room and the problem

solve anyone with all the answers. Is it a difficult conversation when a brand of Montgomery comes

along and says, you know, we might actually be part of the problem, right? We are creators of

the environment. So how has those themes bubbled up in the conversations? How people responded and

how do you sort of get around defensiveness? No, I think it's a really important point. You know,

the first point you make about consciousness, I had a great conversation with someone also from

the Caribbean, maybe you guys are thinking, but this idea of how do we balance the fact that we

as humans do have agency in a different way than other organisms. And I, I agree with your point

that we can go so far to agency that we still ignore that what we know. And so people who study

any kind of organism, whether it's mammals or environment impacts them, right? That impacts

their capacity for growth. It doesn't completely reprogram that it, but it impacts their capacity.

And I think we do put so much into consciousness that we forget we are still biological organisms

subject to our environments impacted by community. I think also your point about us being the smartest

in the room. It really goes to this idea that much of academia is built on an individual success

model. And even when we don't, most of us, hardly anyone does all their work alone. We still reward

it, right? And so every time I stand on a stage for an award, there are dozens of undergraduates,

graduates, post-docs collaborators, but somehow we tease it apart into individual success. And

because our systems resist the idea of collective success, we go back to that. And it can be really

hard then to understand that collective success means we need collective stewardship. Those two

have to go hand in hand. I think the last thing that I would say related to the two points that

you brought up is that, you said what happens when someone comes in and say, you're wrong,

we need to change. One of our hardest challenges, I'm convinced that we still have to grapple with,

is that it's really difficult to ask people to change the system that affirmed them.

Because if the system affirmed you, it must be good. And I think we have to get to a place to

say that I managed to navigate the system and it worked, but how are we going to make sure that

there are micro environments or microclimate so that more people of different kinds, you know,

so because what happens is you get people who are very similar or you get people, you can take

yourself out of this category. You get people like me and you who are finding our own way,

but we're not depending on the system to tell us we've got it right. But there's a whole range of

other people who we need to be at the table. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because one of the take away

messages for me from that path, which you accurately described is, but who else got left out? Yes,

because they didn't have that navigational capital. I didn't have, you know, the parents I had who

said, no, no, no, your decisions are guided by your values, not by anybody's dictation to you. And

and I think if I could say, I think one of the things we have to recognize is that when those

people get left out, it's not just the sadness that they got left out. I get sad that the system then

couldn't benefit from their input and also change. So the systems haven't evolved and individuals

haven't been successful. And until we see both of those as detriments, we'll keep thinking we're

just helping people be successful, but our systems are actually suffering from not having that diverse

input. Right. So what happened to the, were there any changes made in the program as a result of the

conversations and talking about that? Yeah. So we did make some changes. And one of them was that we

moved to having additional people in the graduate school, as well as the provost office who could do

mentor training. And a lot of them use the mentor training work that comes out of University of

Wisconsin with Angela Byers Winston and Chris Fun. So, you know, trying to get mentors to think

about students beyond just what they're producing, using some of their culturally competent mentoring.

So we, that was one step. I think the challenge that I was still pressing on while I was still

there is that those kinds of changes are good. And yet if we don't change the administrators who are

assessing us or the ways in which we get assessed, we can make better individual mentors,

but the system doesn't change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk about that a bit because

administrators, I know you've been one for a while. Actually, let me, let me put a plug on that real

quick because I want to go back just chronologically speaking back to there was a point where you, you

went full on mentoring. Yes. Like you're going to, this is going to be what you write about research

on. Was it that conversation, that experience you had with that group on the six black women

who didn't finish? Was that the thing that turned your work into full on mentoring or did that come

later? So that was the catalyst for me to start getting involved myself and understanding what

was possible in mentoring. And so at that point, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I did what

I would do with any experiment at the bench. I went to say, what's in the literature, what can we

learn and how can we put that in our practices? So I started first trying to learn myself, what was

out there and how to implement it, but then to be in community. And so for a long time, I was doing

mentoring kind of service. I was on committees, I was working for my disciplinary society and a mentor

of my own said that if you're going to continue to do this work in meaningful ways, you've got to

capture it in ways that the university will give you time and commitment to do it. So what I have

always encouraged people is that if you have something that's critically important to you

and you understand the powerful ways in which institutions look at that, whether it's writing,

research grants, talks, then you have to figure out which of those paths is something that you

can do and capture that work. I'm a writer. I love to write. So I said, I can start writing about

mentoring and capture it as scholarship. And then I volunteered to be a copia on a grant for

disciplinary society. So I had grant money and papers and people started to refer to me as a

scholar. Right. That's what makes you a scholar. Right. And so I pulled it into my kind of

scholarship such that by the time I went up for promotion to full, they recognized that along

with my biochemistry papers. Yeah. Okay. Very nice. So I like you very positive taken out of being

an administrator. Yeah. I don't know if it's completely positive, but I know it's a mixed

bag. But I want to get into it because it's something that's been thrown my way, not offers

per se, but just discussions as sort of my own growth has happened. And, you know, my kids are

young right now. I think there's a lot of things on the table that perhaps, you know, I see it in

the future, but not now. And I look at higher ed academia, I look at some administrative bloat,

maybe some cases where that's an unfair criticism, but cases where it is fair. And I try to be fair

in my assessment, right? Because at the end of the day, somebody has to run the university,

somebody has to keep the lights on, somebody has to keep the budgets balanced, somebody has to

enforce rules. I mean, yes. So somebody has to be there doing the things that perhaps we who just

want to teach and write papers, right? Don't either have time for one to the upside of I think that

role is kind of what you said is, when you look, if you see inequity as a systemic issue, and you

have a little bit more power and privilege in that system, then you have more opportunities to write

that ship in ways that you can't, you can't as much as a faculty member, even a full professor.

Yes. So knowing that you had that have that mindset, how did you kind of approach your

various administrator roles and unable to kind of implement that? Yeah, so I got into administration

the same way I got into mentoring scholarship, to be frank, I was doing mentoring scholarship and

realized that we could work on mentoring, but we were going to have to work on leadership, right,

to get this. And so then I started doing academic leadership scholarship, writing papers. And

ultimately, that work that I was doing started to have impact nationally. I was working with a lot

of colleges and universities. And so Michigan State, where I was at the time, wanted me to

start working with department chairs and such. And they just said, can you go help this department?

Like a department would call me up. And my mentor said, they're going to pull you left and right

doing this and still have all the same expectations for you. So you need to tell them this is

leadership. So they actually, the first role I have was a brand new role. They created a role

as assistant provost for faculty development, focused on research, to teach department chairs

and deans how to set up mentoring programs. And I have always been of the mindset that I'm not really

dying to be an administrator, but if you're going to be one, you want to be one where you have a

title and a budget where you can impact. So I negotiated the title so that it would be one that

the deans and chairs knew they had to listen. This wasn't just that she's doing good work.

So I became an administrator to capture the time to do the work that the college has started to

call up me on. And it was really trying to have a balanced life. It was going to be too much. And so

I said, if you all want me to do this, you need to create some time. So I was a part-time administrator

to create that time and to get a budget to do that work. And then realized that you can try to have

impact in that regard. If you can get your administrative higher ups to set the evaluation

systems. And they gave me a budget. And once I had a few million dollars, the deans were like,

well, we guess we have to listen. And so part of it-

Not the title, the budget, right?

So I realized a budget and title opens ears.

Right.

And so for me then, those are the roles that I've taken on. Not because I, you know, when I was in

a leadership program once, several of the people, I say, what do you want to do? They say, I want to

be a dean. I want to be this. They say, but Rhonda, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to be

able to impact our systems so that people have equitable chances to understand pathways towards

success, the stroke. So it's about that for me. And then it becomes which position has a budget that

allows you to set that as a standard, not just for individuals, but hopefully from a systemic

perspective.

Yeah. So you have the why first.

Yes.

How we can figure out the title and the budget stuff after.

So what are some of the things that you've really enjoyed about being in that position?

And what are some of the challenges that you feel you have to navigate?

So I think the challenges, I'll start with those. The challenges are that systems are designed

to function as they have. That's what an institution-

Inherently conceived.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah. And so a lot of the change that I see needs to happen, trying to come up with a strategy,

find the counterparts who will work with you, that is intense mental work. Sometimes finding

the resources. And often it looks like we're going to start moving towards success and then we hit

the structures of if we do that, how's it going to impact our graduation rate? How's it going to

impact our ranking? And I have argued that sometimes if you know something is the right

thing to do, to right the ship, your graduation rate might drop a couple years because you've

got to get something. And we can't be worried about that. Those are the challenging parts.

The systems are designed to stay the same. They are designed for status quo.

Right.

They are designed for the appearance of change. There's this leadership author called Deborah

Rowland who says that often our approaches towards change leadership are to layer change on the

system. And I always say that's like putting chocolate frosting on a vanilla cake and telling

someone they have chocolate cake. I like chocolate cake. That is not chocolate cake.

That is vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. Right. That's the hard part.

You don't need to get bread pudding. I'm just saying.

Oh, yeah.

You're going to start talking to Zerchi. I mean, call it like you see it.

I think the things that keep me at the table are that for me personally and many people I know,

my personal friends in the academy who have done kind of out of the box things, most of us had to

fight to do that. Or we had to do it even when we knew it wasn't going to be recognized. Or

we had to really make our own case. And that can be exhausting. And one of the things that I like

about being an administrator is that if you figure out the system well enough, sometimes you can use

levers that are there to make different things possible for people. You can invest in new areas.

And so I think for me, one of the things that brought me to administration is to ask what work

I could do to try to make it a little easier for someone who sees their career in a non-standard

way, the way I see mine, not have to fight so hard to do it. Because there are a lot of people who

left because they didn't want to fight. And if I can work in an administrative space and keep at

least some of them at the table to make their unique contributions, that can put institutions

on paths that I think they need to go. Are you beginning to see good examples of that out there

in the field? I do think so. I mean, I look at, in addition to being an administrator at a couple of

places, I've also done a lot of consulting across higher education. And I think some of the things

I've had a chance to collaborate on, either as a consultant or in the spaces I've been, you see

people at the current institution I'm at, we've done a couple of pilots, right, to try to make

teaching flexible enough for people to do the work that's meaningful for them, that's not seen as

standard teaching, but to get it recognized as teaching. And you see these people really excited

about their work. Some of them who are doing community-engaged work, you see the communities

change. But the ways that I know it's having impact is that I now have new people coming to

the table saying, I've been thinking about this thing that's out of the box. Is it possible

to think about? And in the past, they probably would have never spoken about that with someone

in my role. But inviting people to the table to do that kind of thing, I think can have impact

locally and hopefully over the long time get us to rethink our systems a little bit altogether.

Let's talk a little bit about lessons from plants. Yes. What made that happen? What led that book?

Why was the book we needed? Why was that book we needed for 2020? It came out 2021. 2021.

What led to that project? What was it like making that happen? What kind of impact you're hoping

that happens in the community? I love to share the story because at that time writing a book was not

on my radar. I went to give a talk at a conference. I was in the opening night presidential symposium

at a microbiology conference giving a very technical talk on biochemistry and proteins

and how it affects. And I gave that talk and every time I give a talk, my goal is not to impress

anyone with my knowledge, but to invite them into my enthusiasm for science and then come with the

facts. And I gave that talk, went back to my room and got an email from the person who became my

editor at Harvard University Press. Said, I'm here in the exhibit hall exhibiting books. Have you ever

thought about writing a book? I heard you're talking. It was great. And I said to her, I have

to have coffee with you just to understand how we got from mutating cysteines to prolines and can

you write a book? And so when I talk with her and I actually had the conversation with her because

at that time I was assistant provost for faculty development, now in charge of supporting faculty

who wrote books and I had never written a book. So I said, nothing else. I'll learn more about

this process to support the faculty. And I said to her, what is she said? You were so clear

and enthusiastic that I know I can send you on a book tour. I just need you to write a book.

And so she said, what are you been thinking about? So initially we were thinking about writing a very

academic book on how photosynthetic organisms respond to light. We were going to go for very

academic. I said, but I also have written a couple of papers about lessons from plants and what I

think humans can learn from plants. And she said, your whole face lit up with that. So let's go that

direction. So we went that direction of writing it and there was some serendipity. I wrote the

book and my goal of writing the book was that if someone were a plant biologist, they could hand it

to their family who had no plant biologist and the plant biology would be accessible enough.

But also that someone who just has a very small interest in plants could pick it up,

learn something, but also perhaps learn what plants had to share with us about being better humans.

And so I was not really sure what would happen with the book. And then the book came out during

the pandemic. And I don't know if you remember this, but during the pandemic, people were growing

lettuce from scraps. They were falling in love with house plants. There was like Monstera Monday.

So there was all this interest of plants at the time the book came out and I was devastated. I

was like, I can't go on book tour, but it ended up being amazing because all these people were

sitting at home. And then I got very lucky, two early people who do podcasts, Jonathan Van Ness,

who does Getting Curious and is also on Queer Eye on Netflix, loves plants. So he was one of the

first people to reach out and say, can we talk about plants? And then Alan Alda reached out.

And so it was perfect because Jonathan Van Ness was a audience that I probably, you know, a younger

audience. And Alan Alda was someone who my mom says, oh yes, I know who this is. Right. And so

it was this whole range. But I think it was just serendipity of this person saying, have you written

a book? I'd like to write. I thought I'd learned something to support faculty, do my core job

better. And then it came out at a time where people were fascinated with plants and I had some

unusual opportunities to really get out there and talk about it publicly. But I think it also just

resonates with people. You don't have to be a scientist to say, yep, if I see a plant that's

wilting, I would give it water. And then the translation to what that means about community.

Oh, you should talk to my wife. I just see it. Like I didn't see it. It's literally mixed. Anyway,

whatever. So, OK, speaking of, you know, kind of accessibility and relatability of it, there's a

couple of things I came up, you know, when I read it, I told I mean, several things were interesting,

but just for the interest of time, I want to zero in on two things. And one was this discussion

about the things in your professional and personal life don't have to exist in competition.

And I think that's a really important point because, you know, one of my favorite

former ESPN panelists was Jamil Hill. And she used to have a phrase, she used to say DTM,

doing too much. Yes. And she used to use that to describe, like, I think mostly basketballers,

who were just trying to like ball hand them. Don't worry. I don't know. For some reason,

I love the phrase. But I feel it's an apt phrase to describe what's expected of us in a very

consumer driven society. Right. And it for me is a math problem. Right. You have 24 hours in a day

and you have to be keep your marriage interesting. You have to be a good parent. You have to spend

time with the children, keep up with the news, know who to vote for, teach your class as well,

publish, get money, exercise eight hours. I mean, at some point you're like, well, okay,

something on this list is not going to happen. Right. And unfortunately, I've seen so many cases

where the thing that gave was the personal relationships, was the health. Right. Because

that mortgage is not going to pay itself. So you have to do the bean counting to get the,

you know, and all of that stuff. So you take that on explicitly. So talk to us a little bit about,

you know, how you manage that conflict to make it not a conflict. Yeah. I think one of the things I

tried to do really early was to see synergy between those areas. Right. And so I do have a son and it

was critically important to me when he was in his kind of elementary school stage, I would try to be

done 530 to six and like six until his bedtime. I would try for that to be his time. And then

there would be some times where something would come up. And so it's like, how do I, how do I deal

with this? And so I always tried to say, okay, if I've got to go out to the field, how do we make it

fun for him? Right. If I've got to go into the lab, how do I make it fun for him? So for years,

he had a bench in the lab where we worked with these organisms where when you extracted the

proteins, they were very colorful. So he had all these tubes that were food color, but he thought

they were protein. Right. And so he would be there and academic misconduct. Yeah. So he would be

there in this little room. It was a food safety way. So he's working. And so it was, it was a case

of, if I have to have you in my space, how do I make you think this is also about you and for you?

The other thing that I learned really early was I built a community. I had a group of several

women at Michigan state who we all had kids. And one of the things we did was introduced,

we all had boys that were then like five years of each other. Okay. We got them to love each other.

And then every Wednesday night, one of us had all of the boys. Okay. So for four Wednesday nights

a month, he was with his friends and one Wednesday, I was overwhelmed. Right. But it was so important

because it taught us that we needed to depend on each other, but it also taught the kids that they

needed to learn how to depend on other adults. And literally they were having the time of their lives.

And then the last thing I did is, you know, sometimes in these spaces, it is inevitable

that a grant deadline or something is immovable. Right. So I've had a principle that if I have to

ignore my loved one, I should honor them. So, you know, my son loved Legos, my partner loved golf.

So if it was a weekend that I knew I couldn't get away, I'm like, I booked you a golf weekend

with your friends. And they were like, this is lovely. Or I would buy my son on weekends. I knew

I had work to do. I would buy him a 700 piece Lego kit. And he would say, oh my God. He said, mom,

I feel bad because I'm going to be so busy this weekend with this kit. I said, it's okay.

Think we'll be out of here. Right. So it's like, how can you honor someone if you have to be apart

from them? And so I think there are ways to still try not to, because I agree with you, too many

relationships fall apart. Kids' relationships are not as strong as they could be because we don't

figure out that. How can I honor you even in this space where there's another demand?

All right. And I'll take this point a step further, because, you know, this is not just

about academia life, but this is the kind of topics that you write about, talk about,

has everything to do with equity. My business has to do with social justice, has to do with,

you know, like, how do we create this environment for students and for colleagues? And I dare say

more than say studying protein folding. Yes, absolutely. That kind of work can be very

exhausting. Right. And, you know, a piece of advice I try to share with people is like,

you can't measure the quality of this type of work by how exhausted you are. Right. I did

go listen to get, oh, my God, I'm so tired. We have exhaustion. All weekend, I was fighting.

I quit, you know, I mean, that can't be the model. But so that means that you have to have

a strategy as an activist or as a as a worker in this space to to manage that. Yes. So a little

bit separate from academia and some of the more kind of logistical things. How do you manage that

piece? Yeah, I think the most important part is that you have to recognize you have to have a group,

right? A group of like minded people. And it doesn't mean we think exactly alike, right? But

I have a group of people who do a certain kind of work. I have a group of women who I work with,

who are all we're all interested in promoting diversity in the academy. And so sometimes I'm

exhausted and can't speak up, but I can tag Robin in. Yeah. Or Robin. Sometimes they will say,

you're tired. You need to rest. We've got this. Right. And so I think you do have to I think

earlier we were talking in some context about civil rights, right. And marching. And I have a

sister who loves civil rights. And she always says that she would love to march. And I said,

oh, that would be great. She said, but I would march in the middle. Right. And I said, well,

why the middle? I said, why not get in the back? She said, no, you don't want to be in the back,

right? Because if you're at the forefront, you might be the one that faces the danger.

Right. But if you get turned back, the back becomes the right, right. Right. And so the middle,

you can support, but not be. And I think you have to have a collective where you can rotate into the

middle. Yeah. Sometimes you're at the front. Sometimes you're at the back ready to be in the

front. But sometimes you have to be in the middle and saying, I'm still here holding up the structure,

but I can relax a little bit. And I think that's been critically important. And it's one of the

things I try to tell students so much, because a lot of times they're trying to do work against all

this power. And so you have to have a group that some have more power than you, some have less,

and people can tag in and tag out. The work moves forward, but sometimes you get to rotate in and

rest a little bit. Yeah. And being and knowing that it's okay to rest, right? I mean, that's

the thing because sometimes there's this sense of like, you know, almost there's some formal

associated with equity work. There's another part of it. Like, rest is radical. I mean,

when you look back at some of the people who were doing some of the hardest work, they aged so

quickly because they didn't rest enough. And I think we have to rest. I try to model it. I had

some faculty recently, I was talking to, I said, what are you all doing this summer? They said,

I'm working all summer. I said, I'm not impressed. I'm taking off, right? The president's taking off.

And so I think we have to model it that it's not that you just are taking the rest as a luxury. You

need it to come back strong in the work. I was reading a book several years ago called the slow

professor. And yes, you know, one of the things in that book that I remember the authors were

talking about is, you know, they created this sort of scenario. And you come back to to campus,

like on a Monday or Tuesday or whatever. And you say you're talking to a colleague in the hallway

and you're just casually chatting about your weekend. And this person says to you, oh, yeah,

I was working as NSF grant or weekend. And it immediately sort of triggers this feeling in you

of, you know, why wasn't I doing that? Why did I take it off? And you realize there's a meta

message of if you're not burning out and you're not doing it right. And you're right. I think we

have to model that. You also talked about homophily. Yes. And I thought it was a really

interesting way to describe kinship and make that point. And it reminded me a little bit of a point

I read in a book by James Baldwin and Margaret Mead called A Rap and Race, where he you know,

there was a line where he says this is a whole kind of conversation they had through the entire

book. And he was saying, you know, I'm looking for the day when we no longer decide the define

ourselves by ethnicity, but as Americans first. And as you know, he said it much. Yes. You know,

much more articulately than I just did. But it felt like that is what you're calling for kind of

a redefinition of the parameters of how we define not to be dismissive of how we identify ethnically,

religious wise, whatever. But but to not have those become so salient that it creates inherent

divisions. Yes. And, I mean, just my personal opinion is maybe one of the more powerful lessons

I had learned from plans to the extent that's a lesson. Can you talk a little bit about that?

And what way that kind of idea came from? Yeah, I think it's just so critically important for us to

recognize each other's humanity first. Doesn't mean you don't look at me and see that I'm a black

woman. Right. But do you see me as a human first? Right. And I think the way our society, particularly

in America is so focused on race first, and the ways in which we sort ourselves, it's not just

race, right? We sort ourselves if we're the same socioeconomic status, we might see each other as

kin. Yeah. If we are all scientists, we see this commonality. And so I think it's this strangeness

that we we look for commonalities to connect with people. But the ways in which we do that are so

much impacted by the the social constructs, race, socioeconomic status, education versus not.

And it is so interesting, because often people that we are most closely related to, we don't even

see them as our kin anymore, because now I'm in this middle class, higher educated, you know,

higher education. And so it actually we entrench into these camps where we really fight for the

things that got us entry into that, as opposed to really seeing our own humanity and just the

coreness of humanity. And I think if we could get to that some of our problems, right? Climate change,

poverty, homelessness, it's because when you see someone else, you don't even see yourself in that

person anymore. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So, OK, we're in education. Yes. Yeah. How do we begin to

teach that? You know, that's one I'm still it's it's a challenge, right? It is a challenge because

we're in education, we're in disciplines. And if I meet another biochemist, I'm like, hey,

biochemist. And I was like, wait, am I feeding into the problem? I got a C in biochem, so you are not my people.

I'm not your people off. But I mean, I think one of them is to to I think about the thing that keeps

me in education and in science is my curiosity. OK. And that's the thing that gets me to break

out of that, being curious about someone. Because a lot of times the homophily is that we're not

really curious and we can go straight to what we think we share in common curiosity about the other

person, but not in a kind of I'm looking at animals in the zoo kind of curiosity. Right. But this whole

what would happen if I had a conversation and didn't make presumptions? And so I think really

elevating that curiosity. Yeah. What would it be like if you had a conversation and didn't make

presumptions? Yes. There's a term in restorative restorative justice called apophatic listening.

Yes. Which is, you know, to me, is just sort of beautiful description of what it means to keep

your thoughts in a big and yes, allow something new to emerge from the interaction with you trying

to superimpose your your story, your life, your brain on it. And yeah, I know. I mean, that's a

challenge. Right. And I think part of the answer is that we have to release our fears about

difference because fear is what causes you to make a judgment quickly. Right. If you are afraid of

dogs and you see a dog, the fear causes you to say, I got to get out of here quickly. Right.

And so if we could lessen our fears about difference, we could sit in the space that

you're talking about and not have the preconception. So we have so many fears. People are afraid. I

will never forget. My son is now six, two. And as he was about 13 and getting to be six feet, I saw

people go from he's this cute little boy to oh, now I see a black man. Right. And it's that fear.

And we but we don't have conversations about fear because our fears drive how we interact with each

other, even in education. But we don't talk about about that. Did he pick up on those different?

He did. He did. And he's such a social person. I remember his dad is from Uganda. And so,

you know, in America, when you're from a different country as a black person,

you can have a different experience. I know. You know. And so his dad often engaged with people

because people were curious about him. And when he saw his son moving into this, he said, we need

your son to sit with your brothers, your dad, who've grown up in the U.S. and to understand

how you navigate that without losing yourself. Yeah. So, I mean, he's you told me earlier,

he's 21 now. Twenty one today. How has all of how is he now in terms of that space?

You know, he's very happy birthday to him. Yeah. Thank you. He's very aware and yet tries to stay

engaged. Right. And it's this delicate balance of being aware and trying to be open to the

conversation with people who are open, but also taking care of yourself mentally and emotionally.

So you're not always trying to. So he's very adept at moving in and out of these spaces. And

over the years, I've seen him have some conflicts with some friends about language choice or around

election season, and they will navigate through it. And then I've also seen I'm like, what happened

to that friend? And he said, you know, we tried and it got to a point where it was I was it was

too much for me. And so it's been really interesting to watch him navigate that space and to try to

affirm him in those choices, right? That there there are times where you want to be able to lean

into people's curiosity. And then there are days where it's not the day that you can handle that

and navigating that and giving yourself grace and permission. You know, here with that,

did he become a patent lawyer? No. So he is he is studying engineering and anthropology, very

interested in culturally relevant impacts of engineering. So I don't know exactly where it

will take him. But, you know, as I was saying, how I grew up with parents who said, you got to get

this education or your life is over. He has a little bit more flexibility to explore and it's

fun to watch. I am going to take as a given that all that food coloring is what led to this.

I think it's the somehow it weaved its way into. Yes, this is very interesting mix. So I think

that's good. We're best of luck to him. And I really appreciate. So what's next after

Lessons from Plants? What sort of sort of sort of two questions. Yeah, I know you mentioned

at some point that you have other book projects. Yeah. Well, Lessons from Plants had a very

particular message for our community. Is there was a follow up to that message in your mind that

whether you deliver that follow up or not. But what's the follow up message to Lessons from

Plants? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the lessons I hope people get and I've talked about this a lot

is I've been invited into all kind of communities from economists to forensic scientists and other

places to talk about lessons from plants that part of the lesson that I hope comes for everyone

is that there are lessons all around us for our own self reflection and our own thinking. Right.

And so whatever you do as a profession, whatever your hobbies are, there's enjoyment there. But

there are also some lessons for us as we self reflect. And I think the more that we can share

those, we can help each other have different perspectives around these really tough ideas

and hopefully move, move things forward. And so that's my that's my biggest hope is that it is

an example of what's possible. The other thing that I really leaned into a friend of mine,

Chanda Prescott Weinstein had a book out at the same time I did. She's a physicist. She had a book

out the Disordered Cosmos. And one of the lessons from our books that she and I and others have

talked about black women is that the lessons from plant is also an example that you can be someone

who does social justice or black feminist work from science. You don't have to go into sociology.

Right. And I think that's been eye opening. Both of us have encountered young black women who said

I was about to get out of science because I didn't want to do this. But now I see that

science can take us into many different conversations. And I think that that is

important as well. So that's that's that's wonderful. So let me ask you this as a closing.

When you're not book writing, we're not being a scholar when you're not being an administrator.

What's the thing or things you enjoy doing most? So one of the things I enjoy doing most is traveling.

And my favorite travel partners are my sister, who's three years older than me. She's my best

friend and my son. The three of us make an amazing trio. OK, and we've traveled the world. And we

have so they have shared interests in African American history, and they're both foodies. And

I have different interests. So we go to this place and one day I choose the things that I want to do

and then another day he chooses and she chooses. And we really try to enjoy each other's company.

So I really enjoy exploring new places, new food, traveling, and they are great travel companions.

Is there anything that you you learn from your non-work hobby that sort of comes back to impact

your your writing? Yeah, you know, it's funny that you say that because the next book I'm writing

actually starts with the day trip I took with the two of them. OK, so they are very much into African

American history. We were in Charleston, South Carolina, and they wanted to visit plantations.

I had no interest. I'm like, I don't. Yeah. Family has been there. I don't think I need to see you at

Taco Bell. Yes. But they said, you know, yesterday we went to the Botanical Garden and looked at all

these plants all day with you. So you. So we went and at one of the plantations, I encountered a 400

year old tree and it occurred to me that that tree was alive at the same time our enslaved ancestors

were there. And me understanding photosynthesis the way I do, I said, you know, their breath,

their carbon dioxide is captured in the wood of this tree. Right. So we're literally standing

with their captured breath. And my next tree is called When Trees Testify. And it's about looking

at the next book. Yeah, my next book. So what did I say? You say your next tree. Oh, see, I'm so into

the plants. My next book is called When Trees Testify. We are keeping that in. And it's really about how standing at that tree

led me to re-understand kind of my legacy as a black plant scientist that many of my enslaved

ancestors were there, not just because they were strong, but because they were botanical experts.

And standing with that tree just changed me in a way. So my son is waiting on his cut from the book

advance because he said, you didn't want to go. We dragged you there. And so now you think this is

what's happening. So those kinds of experiences do change me a lot. Yeah. Well, I'm really looking

forward to reading that. Thank you. I mean, you know, I guess what they give my background, you

know, when you use the word testify, you know, people, they have expectations. I didn't know that until early, but I chose that intentionally.

Right. Yeah. They have expectations when you say that. Yeah. Dr. Montgomery is a pleasure. Thank you so much.

I look forward to seeing that book come out and hearing more from the audience when they read it.

Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you. Thank you. Knowledge Unbound is brought to you by the Rios Institute for racially just

inclusive, open STEM education. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,

our producer, Mr. Segeva Masai, computer engineering major, class of 2025, Florida

International University. Closing song by artist Infinite the Ghost from Providence,

Rhode Island. His name is Marlon Carey. The song is called Breakthrough.

We would especially like to thank Dr. Baronda Montgomery for spending the last hour with us

for sharing her story, her journey, her sense of why, her reflections, and the ways in which

she will continue to impact the STEM universe going forward. I have heard Dr. Montgomery speak

several times and I feel like every time I've listened, I've just taken one more new thing from it.

And I guess this time, perhaps, you know, it's through conversation.

And I know we closed on it and we didn't get into it because it's our next project.

But what does it mean to testify? What does it mean to be in the presence of things that are

communicating to you that history matters and that the work we do in education or classrooms

and our research is in service to those ancestors who gave so much for us to be here and be alive

and to thrive. So with these words, my friends, thank you for tuning in. I wish you a great week

and as you go forth, please be excellent to each other.

So I really started to use the plants as a way to say, you know, if a plant is

growing and it's struggling in its health, we don't look at the plant and say, well,

you plant have a deficit and can't grow, right? We start to ask questions. Who watered it last?

Does it need nutrients? Does Brian always kill plants? If so, maybe he shouldn't have plants.

One of the things that I like about being an administrator is that if you figure out the

system well enough, sometimes you can use levers that are there to make different things happen.

Sometimes you can use levers that are there to make different things possible for people.

You can invest in new areas. And so I think for me, one of the things that brought me to

administration is to ask what work I could do to try to make it a little easier for someone who

sees their career in a nonstandard way, the way I see mine, not have to fight so hard to do it.

I think there are ways to still try not to, because I agree with you, too many

relationships fall apart. Kids' relationships are not as strong as they could be because we

don't figure out that how can I honor you even in this space where there's another demand.