RESOURCES & NOTES

• Dr. Tiffany Johnson’s Website

• Dr. Tiffany Johnson’s Email: tiffany@tiffanydawnjohnson.com

• “You don’t have to make decisions when you’re tired.” From Gather by Octavia Raheem

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

We are very excited and grateful to be hosting this Q and A with Dr. Tiffany Johnson. And here with us is just an amazing, amazing human who I've known for some time and I’m  just really happy that she's here to be in conversation with us.

As you all know, my name's Dr. Zuri Tau. I'm so happy that alumni and staff can be here for this conversation. Tiffany, I'll just give a brief bio about you. Also, how do you like to be referred to? Dr. Johnson? Tiffany? What works for this call?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Tiffany works for this call.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

OK. Well, Tiffany, AKA Dr. Tiffany Johnson is one of the few Black women professors right here in Atlanta at Georgia Tech and a powerful example of what it means to prioritize wellness, creativity, and liberatory research in academic spaces. Her research explores the experience, or lack thereof, of wholeness and worthiness in the workplace.

Tiffany teaches yoga, meditation, and rest-based practices and is the creator of WHOLE. WHOLE is a 10 month program supporting PhD students, postdocs, junior faculty and, also, recently tenured professors. Through WHOLE, participants are encouraged to boldly dream and explore new ways to translate their research into meaningful offerings either in academic writing, public speaking, consulting or offering a course.

Tiffany's work invites us to reimagine how we might shift toward more generative, sustainable, and authentic approaches to being and working in academia and beyond. Thank you so much for being here and welcome!

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Absolutely. Well, I just wanna jump into it. Let's just start with who are you bringing into the conversation with you? What guides are you bringing here in this conversation?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

I love this question. I was like, “oh, I love that question.” So I always feel, especially when I'm talking about like WHOLE or just my time in academia, I always feel my grandparents, none of which are in the land of the living as we see them, but I feel them like all the time and see them in my dreams and wear my paternal grandmother's skirt sometimes to teach in academia.

So Martha Johnson, Ortho Johnson, Eula T. Horton, Geneva Love and Red Love as he went by and none of them had the opportunity to really be a part of the “opportunity,” I'll say that in quotes, to be a part of academic institutions. But all of them really, really encouraged their children and their grandchildren to, you know, to become and to be educated within the academic system even though it rejected so many of them, which I thought, I've always thought was really interesting. Like, neither of my grandfathers knew how to read or write their own name, but were very literate in many other ways and brilliant and geniuses in many other ways, but they had to work in the fields, you know, when they were young.

And so I bring them with me whenever I'm talking, especially when I'm talking about academia and my work in academia. I also always feel a special connection, like she is one of my guides, even though I've never met her but bell hooks, just because I can remember, like, the first time I read her words in undergrad with one of my own first and only Black women faculty, like professors that I had in sociology. And I remember reading her words, and I remember being like, “Who is this? Like, who wrote this?” And then seeing her name with no capital letters in it. And I was like, “What?!”

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes!

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

And just ever since then, I just feel like I have not read all of her work, but whenever I read her work, I'm really drawn toward it. And part of her work is the anchor. One of her quotes from her book, Sisters of the Yam, is the anchor quote for WHOLE. So she is definitely one of my guides.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Oh my goodness. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, okay. Can you share this quote, this anchor quote?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

There are many paths to wholeness. We don't have to be…we don't all have to be on the same… Now I'm paraphrasing. We don't all have to be on the same path, but we all need to be on some kind of path towards wholeness.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes. Thank you.

Well, you're bringing us into connection to lineage, and thank you for that. And I think that's a theme that we continue to land on in our Liberatory Research meetings and in our cohorts. And we talked a lot about who inspires us and guides us. And bell hooks and Audre Lorde show up in the curriculum—two guides that I bring into the work. And so, I love that bell hooks is someone that you continually connect with. 

I'm curious about guides, like, on the research journey as well. Specifically, if there are folks who have been really helpful to you and a part of that process.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Definitely. So I will say bell hooks on the research side as well. And I think I know that as I started to really question my role in academia, I started to reach towards Black feminist theory. And so there were like, so a lot of Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins. Like, their work really did help me to understand how I could find a different approach to the ways in which I was socialized in the business school and to really find community in terms of my voice. Like, I felt like what I was trying to say a lot of the times and when I was presenting or when I was writing was often like, “you….like what?” You know, “Who else says that? Nobody else does that. Nobody else talks like that. Da da da da.”

But when I started to really, like, just like, dedicate myself to their work and read some of their work and like, take my time reading their work on my own, I felt like I'm not crazy. I have not lost my mind. There are people who say this. It's just they're not centered in this kind of academic space.

And so they're definitely guides. I will also say, like my dissertation chair. Her name is Aparna Joshi. She has been such a great model for me. Like, she's been very…we're very different in how we approach our work, but she's been very open to my approach to working. And she has always been, like, very vocal when things that she doesn't like are happening in academia. And I think that that has helped me keep a fire as well. To be vocal in ways that may be seen as a little bit like, “You don't do that. You don't do those kinds of things in academia.” So she's been a guide.

I know some of you probably know Dr. Ashanté Reese. She's been a guide for me too. Just how she lives and exists and experiments in academia. We met in yoga at Sacred Chill West and went through yoga teacher training together and quickly became close friends as we went through the tenure process. And yeah, she's been so helpful for me to like, you know, like, find my own way and how I want to do my research. So. 

And then, lastly, I'll say Dr. Chanti Tacoronte-Perez has been a huge guide for me in academia. Yeah. Because she has her PhD and she's a yoga nidra teacher. Does creativity, does research on dreams and takes…I would say she takes a liberatory approach to her research as well. And when I was going through yoga nidra teacher training and I was complaining to her about academia, she was like, “Well, you gotta be the change then. You're like thinking all these other things gotta change. You gotta change, you know?” And so, she's been a huge guide and she's kind of walked with me and kind of been a support system for me as I, like, stepped out and did things the way that I felt needed to be done for my own self.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

So, I'm hearing, I'm hearing an origin story, a seed of an origin story, because it sounds like you weren't like, “I have started this program and I'm just going to push this out here and I know exactly what I want to do.” It sounds like this, this developed out of discomfort and being a need and also other people pushing you. So that's really the next question. Like, why and how did you start the WHOLE program?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yeah, it was for me, very selfishly. I was really frustrated. Like, I was almost out. I was like on my way out of academia. And not to say that I'm not halfway out most of the time, but I was really close, like the closest I've ever been. And for me that was huge because up to that point I had felt like some tension, but, as a graduate student, I loved it. Like, my advisor was so cool. Like, we got along, we were friends. Like, we like hung out, me and her family. Like, I felt like there was so much ease. But then when I became a faculty member, I was like….and like the veil was kind of like lifted. And I was like, “What in the world is going on?” And I was very…I was very just like upset, disappointed. I became super jaded really, really fast. And I began to question, like, “Can I do this? Like, can I, like, be in this institution?” 

And I remember like after my first year telling my dad that. He was like, you know, “If you gotta leave, you gotta leave, but make sure you learn…as like, whatever you're seeing in that, you're learning something. Like you're learning something about human behavior. You’re learning how people are inside of organizations as you're in there. And that'll be a lesson that you can take no matter where you go.”

And so I was like…I felt comfortable, like kind of exploring these different, like, “Should I stay? Should I go?” And so I was really, at the same time, practicing more because I thought I was doing it for research, practicing like mindfulness. My dissertation led me back towards mindfulness. I was like, “I gotta study like, why are people talking about mindfulness so much when I asked them about doing social justice and social change type of work.” So I started, you know, going to like, different mindfulness centers around Atlanta. Ended up at Sacred Chill West, thinking, like, “I'm gonna learn something for research from here.” And obviously that just ….And I ended up meeting people who were like, “Oh yeah, like we know what you're talking about.” 

And, you know, that's when I met Dr. Chanti and she was like, “But, you know, you're complaining about all these things that exist outside of you. You know, what are you gonna do? Like, if you're gonna stay in, what are you gonna do? If you're gonna leave, what are you gonna do? Like, how are you going to shift?” You know, and so that, really, that…and then I was working with Octavia Raheem. She has been my mentor, my teacher, and friend for some years now. And she was like, “You gotta…you should talk to other people about this. Like, you need community. Why don't you create the community around, you know, the challenges and how you approach work in academia?” 

And so that started in 2019. And then we all know what happened in March of 2020. And so it became virtual and it became a 10 month program versus just being, and not just, but versus being an in person, like mini retreat or in person retreat. And that's when we were able to really kind of build consistent community around it. And that was one of the takeaways from the first in person retreat. It was like, we need to be around each other more. Like, we need to talk to each other more. And that was in 2019. And so the 10 month program gave us time to explore different themes about how we approach our work in academia.

And, like I said, it was…I needed it. So I was like,” I’mma be in this Zoom room talking about this. If folks want to come and other people want to teach, please come and we'll figure out a way to, you know, compensate people or whatever. But like we…I just need, I need it. If anybody else needs it, let's like all get together and talk about it.” And yeah, so that's how it started about six years ago.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Oh my goodness. Well, for those of you who joined us a little late, we're talking with Dr. Tiffany Johnson, who is one of the few Black women professors at Georgia Tech and the founder of WHOLE, which as Tiffany just mentioned, is a 10 month program for PhD students, postdocs, junior faculty, recently tenured faculty, and is really a space where she's building community to help people think about how do they have a more generative and sustainable way of engaging with academia.

So thank you for telling us a little bit about the why. And I'm curious, you know, with six years of sessions and you know, I know that you did recently take a pause and then restarted, right? So I have a…and this is not…these were not prepared questions, but as you're mentioning how long you've been doing this. I'm really curious about some of the things that you have learned and then also the process of pausing and then restarting again recently.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Some of the things that I've learned since starting WHOLE? Man, I've learned…I've learned…I think like the power of being in community. I think being in WHOLE really did help me to…it kept me accountable to really experimenting with the practices that I was creating Dharma talks and meditations around, you know. And it helped me to be vulnerable in community, to talk about…because there was such a range in the group, like PhD students to tenured. So some of the people in the group were more tenured than I was in academia at that point. And so there was just such a range of experiences. But it definitely kept me accountable to really at least experimenting, like I said, with the practices of approaching my work in a more sustainable way. 

For me, it helped me to open up because I felt like…and I still feel like in academia really, it's really hush hush for people who are like, I don't know if I want to stay. And it became a space where a lot of people joined because they wanted to be able to say that out loud and not feel a sense of shame or judgment around that. And it…some people stayed, some people didn’t and it was great because we could talk about it openly versus being like, “I don't know, I don't know.” Like, you know. 

Because, sometimes, I do remember telling some people in my field about that when I was starting to create WHOLE. Maybe like, “Oh, so what are you doing?” And I was like, “There are these issues in academia. Like nobody seems to be talking about it and I feel like I want to talk about it.” And these were other Black and brown women. They were like, “You know, you shouldn't be talking about that in public, right? Like, you know, you should not be telling others… like saying that out loud.” And I was like, but “I'm suffering.” Like, “Who else? I mean, I have a therapist. Yeah, but I'm like…I need to…I want to be in community around it, you know.” 

And so I…so it felt really nice to have a space where we could just say that out loud and it could be held in that space or we could trust each other. And you know, if people did feel like they didn't want that to get to like their superiors or whatever inside their institutions, it wouldn't get out. But we could at least say it to each other and offer strategies to each other and explore the agency that we did have, like Dr. Chanti was trying to get me to see was like, “But what are you gonna do? Like, okay, so what's next? Now that you know that this is the environment that you're in, what are you gonna do? Do you want to be able to, you know, talk about all these issues? What…or do you want to do something different?” 

And so it helped us to also explore our agency, to really shift how we experience it. And so that to me was something that I didn't think was going to happen. I thought I was going to end up leaving, but. I ended up shifting my experience inside of academia through that community support in a way where I felt like if they…if I stayed, I was okay and if I didn't stay, I would also be okay. So when I went up for tenure, I was like, “I don't, like, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I know that I like doing my…” I became clear on what I was to do and I knew I would do that inside or outside of academia. I knew I was going to do certain research, teach certain things, no matter what, inside or outside of academia. And I just started to create a strategy so that I could do that regardless of where it was happening and how it was happening.

And so the agency is something that I really, I think I remembered it and I started to…we all started to embody it in ways that were important for us, um, in those years. So. Yeah.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes, thank you.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yeah and  I also was like, “I'm going to research this.” So I started to…and I didn't want to…like at first I was going to interview people in the group and then I was going to interview other women. I was like, “I don't think we need to interview people because there's so many digital archives about people's experience. Black and brown people, women and non-binary people in academia. I don't need to talk to nobody. Let's go find stories on, like, just like digital archives and write a paper about it”. So my co-authors and I, so Dr. Juanita Forester and Natasha Reid, who's a student of mine, a student at Tech who's getting ready to graduate and myself just wrote a paper about like the themes that were coming up that we saw that were the experiences in academia.

Not only like how Black women faculty felt they were being, like, devalued, but also the ways in which they experimented with their agency to reclaim their wholeness in spite of the dehumanization, the hyper surveillance, and the erasure that are commonly, like, happening across institutions. So, it helps that because we did that, I also got language and I was able…now I'm able to identify really a lot more easily. Like, I have the language say, “Oh, this is dehumanization. This is surveillance. You're trying to erase. And here's how we can combat that” you know. That was also very helpful.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

That’s lovely. See, you see the hearts and the chats, right?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yes.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

You know, there's a lot of folks that come through the Liberatory Research course that are really wrestling with how they want to engage with academia, if they want to engage with academia. And, you know, I'm curious about you continuing to be in academia. And we know that there's like, there's not a getting over a challenge. Like, they continue to come, right? And we're really curious about how you found a way to do your work in line with your values every day. Right. Like, you're speaking to your practices, you're speaking to community, and there's also the reality of these entrenched systems that you're consistently coming up against. So, yeah, shed a little bit more light on that for us.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

I will say, like, I think I love the language of experimentation, part of which I started to talk to Ashanté about this a lot. Like, in 2020, we started talking about experimentation more and more. And I feel like that comes from a lot of our Black feminist theorists talk about experimentation.

And so I can't say, like, every day is like a day where I'm able to align myself fully, because we know…I know academia is a very strong context, Very strong context. The socialization is strong, the currents are strong, the pressures are strong. And, nut also, like having the community its what’s helped me to kind of like, get further away from shore and come back in, get further away, and come back in and get further away and come back in. 

So that it was like an ebb and flow on a daily basis and in the every day. Over time, that consistency built up. I didn't even know when I noticed it when I was in it, but I kind of looked up in 2022 and turned around and I was like, “Oh, my gosh,” So some of the things that I did that I can look back on and say, “This is what I did.” But when I was doing it, I did not think of this as like, “Oh, this is me. I am sticking with…” I was just like, “In order to survive, I gotta..I started to be more honest with myself and I started to just vocalize it more and see what would happen. 

And so, I started to say like, in 2019, I suggested…I said I want to teach this class around wholeness basically. And I want to base it on my research and other folks who do research in this area and the school. And I said, “I want to center it around race and gender.” And the people in the school were like, “Well, you know, can it be about other identities?” Because I do research on all...on many identities, like including, like, disability and sexual orientation and social class. And so I was like, well, “I really think it needs to center on race and then we can go out from there, right?” Center around race and gender. And they're like, “We don't know.”

 And then we all know what happened also in 2020. So they had said yes to the class and they were kind of like, “We don't know. You may not get enough people to be in the class.”  I was like, “Well, just put me on the schedule, you know”. They said, “Well, you can't start until summer of 2020.” This was in winter of like November of 2019. So we know what happens know in the spring of 2020, summer of 2020. And so I start teaching the class and everybody's like, there's this new…now the school is like, “Oh, there's this new class, you know.” Because now it becomes like the “in” thing to talk about, talk about race. Right. Now it's no longer…now we've gone back down where nobody wants to talk about it. But, at that point, the trend was everybody wanted to talk about it then.

And so it just so happened that that class became like, “Oh, we have this class.” And so I started teaching this class around wholeness, creating cultures of wholeness in workplaces. And it's what I love to talk about. And that helped me stay. And then as I was teaching it, my MBA…it was with MBA students and undergraduate business school students.

They actually…there was actually resonance. At an institution like Tech, I don't think anybody thought that. People were like, “These are tech students. They're not going to really like that kind of touchy feel type of stuff.” But there was resonance. And those students started telling other students and started telling, like, administrators, “We want this class to become like a class that we all need to take or we wanna nominate this class for X, Y and Z.”

And so it started to get like legitimacy without me having to put a lot of, like, my effort behind it. All I did was show up in the way that I wanted to show up in class.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

And my guides—I truly believe this—my guides took it from there. It was like, you know what? This is it. Like she's showing up in this aligned way. And I like, I can't take full credit for that. I think I did my part. And then there are other forces around me that also helped, that were like co-creating and that also helped it to move forward and to get the resonance and for me to be able to keep the class until this day.

I teach that class more than I teach anything else. And that helps me to stay because I love teaching that class and I love the transformation that I experience when I'm teaching it every semester and I love engaging with the students when we're in class talking about these topics every single semester. That's one thing.

Second thing I did was I got off of a lot of research projects that I didn't want to be on anymore. I just started writing emails to people and was like, “I can't do this no more. It's not in integrity with what I want to do. I know I can't do this for the long haul. I gotta get out and I'm sorry, but I can't do it.” I did that for like three, maybe four research projects which really freed up my space. And I was like, “I know this might not help me get tenure, but I'm willing to take that risk because I want space to not be at work all the time, not be researching all the time, not be teaching all the time. I want to be with my people outside of work. That's gonna help me enjoy my life more anyways”. 

And so that space opened up. And I also want to lead WHOLE, right? And so I got off lots of projects. I started teaching what I wanted to teach and then I started saying yes to projects that I really felt like, “I will do this no matter what. Like no matter what, I'll do this work. This is super, super aligned with what I'm interested in.” And, and like I said, those are the things that I did. But I really, truly believe that there were invisible forces, unseen forces co-creating with me that I was truly trusting in. Because I stopped thinking. I kind of surrendered this idea that I had to do it all. It was all me. There were things that I can do and there were…I was gonna have to stay prayed up, stay in meditation, like stay in my practice and believe. Like there are other forces that are helping me to be in alignment and on, like, the everyday basis. 

You know, like one of the things that…one of the ways that we were framing our paper that did not gel well with the reviewers—but I really do believe this—was that around wholeness and academia. I really do believe that like racism and all the -isms are spiritual forces on top of like systemic and practical. I think there are really strong spiritual forces and the ways in which people were…Black women in academia were combatting them…Yes, they're very tangible, but they're very everyday…like everyday practices and things that they were doing to amplify and be in community and to self-preserve had a spiritual undertone. Like they're doing those consistent things that feel very practical, I really do believe carry a spiritual force with them as well that over time builds up and helps to create a force against some of these really harmful forces that we come across. 

And so I just, I really…so I can say I did those three things, but I know there are other forces working with me and I kind of…I decided to trust in them as well and to like work with them.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yeah, it's really striking that we're talking about research and landing in a place of the unquantifiable. Right. So there's these words that are coming up and what you're saying, you're talking about surrender.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Mhmm.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

You're talking about trust. And also not only trust in yourself, but trust in something beyond yourself. Right. And then trusting in the people that are holding you in the community that was built because you trusted someone else telling you this is what you need to be doing. Get out of your head. Be the change that needs to exist.

So it's just this like beautiful example that even when we're doing something…you're teaching in a business school, Right. You can't get no more like straight up and down. You know, we’re talking about numbers.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Right. And the only way that you're surviving is by resisting those things as superior. 

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

100%. Like I'm like when the first…I had to…Well, I started to get clear on like, how did I even get inside of a business? Like, this is some of the things that I'm like,..what am I doing here? And I was like, I didn't even really…Yes, I've done work and I've done well and there were things. But I can't even say I got myself here. I started out as a Spanish major and then I went to labor and HR school. And then my now my dissertation chair fought for me to get into my PhD program because my scores were not good. And everybody was like, she ain't gonna make it past the first year stats in a labor school. Right. In a labor school. 

And so she fought for me to get in. They were shocked at how I got A’s in all my stats class. I got the highest grade of my stat class because I basically treated it like it was another language. Like I applied Spanish language learning skills to stats and I studied like it was a language and that's how, you know…and prayed up and had a study group, had community, got through stats.

Right. And then my then advisor gets a job at a business school and asks me to come with her to the business school. I was never applying to a business school in the first place. That was never what I thought…You know what I'm saying? And then I get..and then I end up in a business school.

It was like “I'm a liberal arts person inside of a business school. That's me.” And once I got clear on that, I could…I was able to tell learners in my class on the first day, “This is the kind of professor that you have.” If it's a class that I created or if it's like a core class in our curriculum, like org behavior, HR, first day of class: “This is who I am. If you don't like this kind of stuff, right. You have time to go to another section because this is how I'm going to teach the class, from a liberal arts perspective. I'm going to teach about human resources and organizational behavior or whatever or the course that I created. You don't like it, you got time to go. We do not go together yet. We are just in the courting stage of relationship. You can get out.”

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

I love it. Let them know. These are the boundaries. These are the non-negotiables.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yes! Yeah, yeah. And that I say that was helpful for me to...that was part of the reason why, like I was, like, comfortable...not even comfortable. Like I started to enjoy myself because I was, like, starting to be clear on who I wanted to attract and who I wanted to repel, even inside of the business school.

“I don't want you. We don't need to be in the same class, if you don't like it. Go somewhere else because we're not a good fit.” I want the students who want to talk to me, who want to talk about these topics in this way. And the more I became…and I want to do research in this way. And the more I became clear about that to myself, I was able to communicate it to other people. And I started saying no to so many things, so many things. Like, people started to recognize, like, she's not…probably not gonna say yes to that. That helped me to stay in, because I was only doing stuff that I felt was synergistic with what I cared about. And even within this institution that can be so wildly harmful.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Well, I'm gonna ask you one last question, and then we're gonna transition to our audience Q and A. And the last question is that, you know, we talk a lot about liberatory research principles in the cohort, and there's five of these principles, and I'm curious about which one you see yourself using in your work. And if you can just speak to some challenges or rewards of using that principle that resonates with you.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

I looked and did my homework. I looked this up. I can't help it. I am who I am. I think the Black feminist thought and theory aligns the most, I say, with how I've approached my work thus far, because, like I said, like, when I was being trained in the business school, the theory that I began to really like, see as a…because we were heavily trained—not on practice, but on theory, right. And I was like, but I want, like, a theory that can help me explain some of the systemic things that I see happening to different identity groups. Stigma theory and the theory of stigmatization was that theory for me. 

It's written by mostly…it was, like, you know, founded by, you know, it was talked about a lot by Erving Goffman, who is a white man. And so a lot of the people who I was citing at first were not Black feminist theoreticians and/or it was not drawing upon Black feminist thought.

But what I found to be really interesting was one of the definitions that Erving Goffman would say was, like, the definition of stigma was “a reduction from wholeness.” And it wasn't until I was able to bring in Black feminist thought, which talks about wholeness so much and stigmatization and devaluation that I was able to get, like…have a…examine and talk about with clear, like, clearer language, a fuller picture of not only some of the harmful things that are happening, but the agency that people have—that people have always had—in  reclaiming their wholeness on, like, an every day basis.

And so that language that…so Black feminist has really been helpful for me. It's been challenging, right, to, like, try to get that published in, like, top tier management journals. But that is no longer my only interest. And so I don't mind getting it published in other ways and other spaces.

Right. Like my clarity helped me to understand, “Like, well then, I won't send it. Then I will take it somewhere else. I'll find a home somewhere else.” And now in going beyond publication, it's helped me to identify practices. Like it's taken it from this really abstract language and with…like even with the paper that we wrote about Black women in academia, Black women faculty and academia, it's helped me to identify, like, what are some of the everyday practices that reflect wholeness inside of this institution.

And that, for me, personally has been one of the most helpful things is to take it from this, like, abstract and to make it into an everyday practice.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Thank you. Well, we are going to transition. Thank you for your comments in the chat. If you have questions, some of you submitted questions in advance. If you have questions, we are fine with you coming off mute once we ask a few of the ones that were submitted in advance or you can put a question in the chat, that's okay too.

So the first question that was submitted was how can Black women sustain themselves and stay healthy while in the academy?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

One of the themes that I really resonated with that I take really seriously from the digital archives paper was self preservation. We found that a lot of Black women in academia were so creative. Like we always…we're so resourceful, we're so creative. Figure out way…and so strategically figure out ways to take space. Get away.

So, like, either, like, going traveling up to somewhere to, you know…so, like, sabbaticals. But even if you don't have a sabbatical, finding, you know, grants. You know, those are hard. You know, those are not as reliable these days. Right. They're a little bit less reliable. But besides just having financial support, saying “no” a lot. Like, so really drawing these really finite boundaries around their time and their space and separate like…creating distance between themselves and the institution as much as possible.

That was and that is something that I continue to do, as well. Which is the reason why…we don't have sabbatical at Georgia Tech but was like negotiating space for this past year because I was like I need time away. And I saw that so many, so many people, so many Black women faculty members do that as a way to kind of not just survive, but to thrive in academia or leave an institution, find another one. If they want to stay in academia, find somewhere else to go. If they can, you know, with family and everything. Go somewhere else. 

So, yeah, I think taking space is a big one to, like, preserve oneself. But I would also say, like, really figure…if there's a way, it's hard to answer the question without knowing the specific academic, like the specific institution and some of the constraints. Cause I know there are different specific constraints in every institution. But if there's a way to suggest a class that one can teach, or to negotiate a course release, or talk about a different time frame in which you want to teach a class, things of that nature, or say no to certain service commitments in favor of other service commitments that align or are synergistic with teaching or research—that, for me…it has helped to sustain me because the switching costs are not as high in between.

If I'm doing work on equity and sustainability in my teaching and my research and I'm on a committee about it, I don't have…my brain is in the same mode across all those things. I'm not having to think about anything different that entire week or that entire day. It's just…so it becomes real, like…it's like light work, you know. And so, that has been something that has been helpful for me for, like, for me to be able to be sustained in academia, too.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Great advice, great advice. Thank you so much. Another question that was submitted is how can community members in Atlanta and beyond partner with the work of WHOLE?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yes, that's a great question. You can email me tiffany@tiffanydawnjohnson.com and…so you can join it. We're thinking about other…we have guest teachers in WHOLE, as well. And also… thank you, Miko, for putting that in the chat. And also, gonna be figuring out ways for people to, you know, have their own group, like WHOLE-related groups in the future.

So, if that's something…and where you can tailor it to a specific topic that you want to tailor it to. So. And if you have any other ideas of how you might want to partner that I haven't thought of, you know, email me, let me know because I'm sure there's so many things I have not thought of up to this point.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes, thank you for sharing that offering. Definitely hit her up, y'all, because that's the lesson, right? It's in the community that this brilliance is pulled out of us. Sometimes we need that partnership, that encouragement. So we'll continue to open it up to questions. If you want to raise your hand. It's a function down at the bottom of zoom. Or you can put your question in the chat and I'll be happy to read it off if you don't want to come on video. 

Alright, well, while I'm waiting for you all to be…Oh, there we go. I was going to say. Sometimes it takes a minute to pull the bravery out, but...

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Jalisia, come on.

Jalisia Rachelle

First, thank you both for this space. It is incredibly refreshing. Liberatory research…I did during 2020, right around that time. And now just like having this echo that, like, so deeply reverberates with the space that I'm in right now, like, I'm just really grateful. My question is surrounding, like, as a person who chose to not go the academic route, this is related also to, like, just the community connection but like I recognize that, like, I still identify as an academic and not being in academic spaces, there is a part of me—going with the fullness—that feels still incomplete being in spaces where it's just like, “Alright, look, you talk…you thinking deeper than we are right now.” And it's just like, “Yeah, you're right. My bad.”

But, like, so where do I get that feeling? And so, I'm curious, like what recommendations you would give for folks who choose to opt out of the traditional way of engaging in academia but still want to feed their academic?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Well, that's a great question. Thank you. And I totally get it because—not as someone who's not in academic institutions, obviously—but I get like being in a space where you're talking to people and they're like, “What the hell? Like, you're like, that's not where…we're not there. Like, you need to go talk to some of your academic friends.” I'm curious if there are, like, communities within your field that you still feel drawn to where they gather and that you would still feel, like, comfortable still like attending some of their meetings?

Jalisia Rachelle

I don't actually know the answer to that.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Oh, okay. Cause I'm thinking about, like, some of my friends who are no longer in an academic institution and are still and are, of course, obviously—very much so—still academics. They sometimes still attend some of our like association meetings where they can…or they're part of some of the subdivisions. So, like, for example, the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology has subdivisions on like race and gender in the workplace and social justice at work. And they're still members of those subdivisions. And so they are still in the conversation. They're still on the listserv. They get emails about it. They're still doing research with some of those folks, and they still attend some of those meetings that go on, like, every year or every six months. 

And then…so I'm thinking about something like that. If there's an association in the field, in any of the fields that you're interested in that have those kinds of meetups.

Jalisia Rachelle

That's helpful. Thank you.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

 And I'm assuming, Liberatory…this space is one of those spaces, as well. Is that…? Am I…? Yeah.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

You can come back! It's about time. It's 2020.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Can we get return cohorts? Okay! Yeah, yeah. You know, places like WHOLE or, you know, we often…when Dr... Dr. Tau or Zuri?

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Zuri is fine.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

When Zuri came and taught in WHOLE—guest taught in WHOLE—like, one of the things that we talked about was, like, bridging, like, the research and talking about how to, like, land it as a practice for the group. And so we often try to, like, bridge the two and WHOLE, as well.

So I think communities like that are…and like this one are really, really helpful, especially when you have…when you're interested in the everyday practice and you also have a mind for, like, research and theory. You need to be able to have a space where you can talk about both and how they can come together. Yeah.

(Jalisia says “thank you” off screen) You're welcome.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

I'm gonna put one in the chat while you all are building up your bravery.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

I have another idea. I don't know if you…but you could also create one. I don't know if you want to. Cause I know there are other people who want that too.

Jalisia Rachelle

Yeah, that has been ideating. So I appreciate that encouragement.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Alright, feel free to put questions in the chat as you…they don't have to be perfect. You can say it ugly. We'll take it. But while folks are still thinking, I have one other question about, you know, your personal balance. We'd love to hear a little bit about that because you're juggling a lot. You're doing a lot. It's stuff you want to be doing, but you're still doing a lot.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yeah, that's why I took space this year. That is exactly why. I was like, “You know what? I think I need to pause on several things.” And so, prior to the space, what I did to kind of like…some days were better than others. Some…I would day some months were better than others. April is always a horrible month for me in terms of how much gets on the calendar somehow. And so was October. I started noticing, like, over time, like, my calendar became like its own source of, like, something I could analyze in terms of my tendencies. And I was like, October and April, those months you gotta stop, like you got to stop saying yes to anything during those months because you are over packed and something is always hitting the fan, either personally or professionally in those months.

So you're just gonna have to stop doing stuff in those months. Like stop saying yes stuff in those months. So I started to notice trends in my calendar of when I was overdoing and I didn't have any blank space in between meetings and things like that. And I have a rest…so Octavia Raheem is also my rest coach and so she helps keep me accountable. Like when I filled up my plate too much, it's always when I was meeting with her monthly, it was like, “Okay, who do you need to say no to today? Who do you need to email and say, ‘I know I said yes, but I gotta say no now?’” So, I started to clear off my calendar doing that and then I was just like…I had told her in 2020/2021, I'm going to take a sabbatical in an institution that does not have sabbatical by 2024. 

So when 2023 came around, you know, she was like, “So what's up with this sabbatical?” I started negotiating that in January of 2024 and it got approved. Not sabbatical, but space. My space got approved and, and, like, June 2024 I took five months. Took five months. But I'm so grateful because my life was changing. Like my personal life was changing. I was in a relationship, I got engaged, my partner has children. Like, everything about how I knew about creating a calendar and the to-do list was blowing up in front of me, right. There was no way I could have kept going in the same way and been in integrity with WHOLE or with my teaching or with my research.

So, I was like, I'm so glad I asked. I didn't know this was gonna be what I needed when I asked for space. I thought it was gonna be because I just wanted space from work. But by the time the end of 2024 came, I was so glad I asked for that space.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Like I didn't have no space. I just was like, “I need time to revaluate how I'm going to go about my like…I heard somebody say it's not…they said like, they're, like, work/life Jenga.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a lot.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

It was a lot. And I was like, I need time, and I don't want to be out of integrity. And I felt like I could easily if I had kept going with WHOLE for that year—I was going to end up not being in integrity with WHOLE. So I like…by April of 2024, before I even got approval for the space from Tech, I told…started telling the group that I was going to be taking space. And we slowly kind of faded out after that and said I wanted to come…like, I just said I want to reevaluate if I'm even going to come back to WHOLE. You know, like, I  just need to make sure that this is what the community…this is what we need, what I need to be doing, like, if I'm the right person for this, you know, at this time. And after a year, it came…I realized I did want to keep doing it. It’s just…It's gonna look different. So.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

I mean, there's a few things that I just want to point out here. I know we're coming to the end, but we do have a few questions in the chat. Well, one thing I want to point out that I'm hearing that's really important, I think, for those of us who are at the start of our journey and who are not, like, at the tenure place, right. That you also put a plan in motion for yourself that took several years to come to fruition. And I think that's something...sometimes it's really hard for us to think like that when we want what we want right now.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Preach!

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

No, I want my sabbatical today.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Right! 

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

And, you know, I just got my PhD, but y'all need to give me time off and I want my job and I want to be on tenure track. It's like, there's things that we want, right. But you're like showing us that there's possibility, but that that possibility is also requiring both strategy and patience and accountability from people in your life. So I just wanted to point that out because I think there's a thin line between, like, having high expectations and also, like, walking the tightrope of reality.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yes, that is…Thank you so much for pulling those themes out. That was…That is…I cannot agree more. Yeah.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

So we're going to answer, hopefully, a few more questions. I hope y'all can hang in there with us. If you do have to leave right away, I just…before we transition to these last questions, I just want to thank Miko for creating the space, making sure that you all got registered, making sure our music is beautiful and for all of the post-care that happens, which is sending out recordings and putting it up on the website. So, thank you so much, Miko. We appreciate you. 

And also I want to call out Brianna, who is our Liberatory Research fellow. Thank you for all of your support, as well. And yeah, so we're gonna jump to these last few questions, but I wanted to give some gratitude to the team. 

Alright, Jasmine, do you want to read this or do you just want us to read this in the chat?

Jasmine Edwards (she/her)

I can read it. I want to write it down before I forgot about it. But yeah, I'm so curious, Tiffany, about if there's something, like, somatic that goes on for you when, like, this ask is a “no” or like… yeah, I've heard you speak on spirituality. I'm curious if it's, like, connection to guides. Like, what lets you know this is not for me right now?

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

That's such a good question. So in WHOLE, we have…we talk about, like, intuition and discernment for a couple of months because I do feel like that is something that we get…that gets taken…that tries to get stripped from us in the socialization process of academia. It's all about this (motions to head and brain). And the rest is like, “What? Who cares about how you feel?” And then once we numb the body, we numb the body signals around like some of this discernment. Right. And so some of it is really like practical because until I could… until I…if I'm feeling a little numb in my body, one of the things that I can go to, to know if I should say yes or no is like, when's the last time you…you said yes to something and then it became a disaster? Like you…but you had an inkling in your mind, like, “I don't think I can do that.” And you still said “yes.” What happened? And remember that feeling and if you…if I feel that again. 

So if I can remember that and I'm like, “Oh, that's what I'm feeling right now. Oh man, I gotta say ‘no.’” Then I might sit on it for like 24, 48 hours, but then I will eventually say “no” just because it'll be like, “I've had this feeling before and I didn't listen.” I got that from…I also learned that from Octavia Raheem. It was like, there's something that when I say “yes” sometimes and I know, like, I don't really have the space to do that thing or I just don't really want to do it.like, it's not like…and then I still say “yes,”... I show up in a different way to that thing or something happens and I feel like I'm resentful towards such and such because I said “yes.” That's on me. I said yes, right? I said yes. 

And so I try to remember that feeling. Like, where do I feel that? For me, it's usually like, in my gut. Like, I feel like a tinge in, like, my lower abdomen that is like, “Okay,  I can't do it.” Another thing, though, that has been helpful for me is when it's like a recurring theme, it's like, okay, let's say I say yes. But like, every two or three months after I said yes, something comes up and I'm like, “I knew I should have said no. I knew I should have said no.” And I'm still saying yes? Eventually I'm just like, “Even though I said yes, I gotta say no now. Like, I gotta get out. This is not working. 

And then another one that…another thing that helps me in like the discernment is a quote from Octavia Raheem's first book, Gather, when she says, you don't have to make decisions when you're tired. And it's like it's become a mantra for me. I don't have to make decisions when I'm tired. So if I get a request and I'm tired, I do not respond until I have rested.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Okay, we're gonna put that in the show notes.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Super helpful.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Thank you. Thank you. And so we're about at our time. Briana asked a question about maintaining creativity and staying inspired. This is such a great question. We'll end with this one and let you all go. But we're going to put the feedback form in the chat. We love to have your feedback. You know, it tracks, right? This is all about research. We gotta get your feedback. So please, please, please, please tell us what you think. Critical, loving, we want it all. So that's in the chat and I'll turn it over to you, Tiffany, to answer this last question.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Thank you. Thanks for this question, Brianna, as well. I love it. I think it's so important. Sometimes when I talk to people who are wanting to join WHOLE and I ask some questions about, like, what do they miss? Sometimes they, like, talk about…many people will talk about how they used to love to read for fun or they used to like to do like certain…they had all these creative outlets that they had and they feel like they didn't realize they weren't going to have them anymore when they committed and devoted themselves to the academic pathway.

And so, one way that I do it…it sounds really like “Okay?”, but I put it in my calendar. So if I know, like, what I'm trying to prioritize in my whole life, then it needs time, it needs dedicated time on my calendar. And for me that's one way I keep myself accountable. Some people don't like the calendar, but I love, like, my, like, paper and pencil calendar and my Google calendar just to keep myself accountable. Like if I value this, what's the behavior that I'm doing to reflect that and how often do I need to do that in this particular season of my life? It might change in other seasons but in this season, how am I doing it? And so I like will schedule dance classes, make sure I'm reading an audio book, at least, or a physical book. Like these are the ways I like to do creative things. Go to speakeasies and listen to spoken word. Like things like that, you know, and make sure it's on my calendars. That's one way.

And I tell my partner, I tell my friends. I need to do something like sculpting or with, like, my hands and making sure it's, like, on my calendar for me at least once a month. So I don't know if anyone else has other ways that they do it.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Thank you. Solid tips, so much wisdom. Thank you, Tiffany.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Thank you!

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Appreciate you so much. This has been beautiful. We're going to stay in the room. Well, I'm going to stay in the room if you want to chill while we're hanging out and finishing those feedback forms. But thank you. Thank you for sharing WHOLE with us.

Thank you for sharing your journey and we hope to see you soon.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate the space. It's been great to speak with y’all. Take care.

Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights

Thanks.

Tiffany Johnson James (she/her)

Bye.