Nicki Washington is Unapologetically Dope

In this interview with Nicki Washington, we discuss the importance of cultural competency, expanding beyond “diversity” by focusing on creating inclusive and equitable environments, learning from people and scholarship outside of the field, lessons learned working with CS educators across the country, lessons learned while teaching during a pandemic, focusing on the humanity in computer science education, and much more. If you haven’t listened to it yet, check out the unpacking scholarship episode that unpacks one of Nicki’s papers.

• Auto-generated transcript (click to expand)

  Welcome back to another episode of the

  CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

  in this week's episode i'm interviewing

  nikki washington

  in our discussion we discussed the

  importance of cultural competency

  which i discussed in the podcast episode

  that unpacked one of nikki's papers

  titled when twice as good isn't enough

  the case for cultural competence and

  computing

  so if you haven't listened to that

  episode yet i highly recommend listening

  to it either before

  or after this interview so you can have

  some more context on some of the topics

  we discuss

  we also discussed expanding beyond

  diversity by focusing on

  creating inclusive and equitable

  environments

  learning from people in scholarship

  outside of the field lessons learned

  working with

  cs educators across the country lessons

  learned while teaching during a pandemic

  focusing on the humanity and computer

  science education and

  so much more as always the description

  in the app that you're listening to this

  on should link directly to the show

  notes otherwise you can find them

  at jaredlery.com where there's nothing

  for sale and no advertisements

  there's just hundreds if not thousands

  of free resources that you could use

  potentially today

  in the show notes you'll find links to

  many of the publications and

  interviews that were mentioned in this

  episode as well as

  links to connecting with nikki online

  with that being said we're now going to

  start with an introduction by nikki

  good afternoon my name is nikki

  washington i'm a professor of practice

  in the computer science department at

  duke university

  born and raised in durham north carolina

  my background

  is computer science for all of my

  degrees

  i earned a bachelor's degree in computer

  science from johnson c smith university

  in charlotte north carolina

  in 2000 and then from there my master's

  in phd

  in computer science from north carolina

  state university in 2002 and 2005.

  so my career in computing has kind of

  been

  from college to grad school and then

  quickly

  into industry with the aerospace

  corporation for about one year

  post-graduation and then from there

  moved to howard university for nine

  years

  on faculty went through university for

  five years and now it do

  and can you tell me a story of how you

  got into computer science and cs

  education

  so i was exposed to computing at a very

  early age my mom

  was a math major and she spent her

  entire 34-year career at ibm as a

  programmer turned

  manager i was exposed to computing at a

  very early age

  due to her because of course ibm would

  have discounted

  computers and so my mom would every

  couple of years order a new one

  and allow me to install the software

  assemble it and then the more i did that

  as i aged

  i started to tinker around more and

  learn a little bit of programming

  a little bit more programming then

  turned into classes in high school

  and that was my introduction to

  computing but

  i originally planned to minor in

  computer science and major in something

  business related like marketing

  and so in my freshman programming course

  at johnson c smith my professor dr nagee

  batea realized that

  i was doing really well in the

  programming assignments in the labs and

  he asked me

  why is it that you are

  excelling in this in certain ways where

  other students are struggling

  i've been taking programming since high

  school so it's not new to me it was new

  to me to learn

  c but the concepts behind it weren't and

  he convinced me to

  change my major from marketing to

  computer science

  and consider minoring in marketing and

  his argument was

  this was 1996 at the time so he said by

  the time you graduate in 2000 computer

  science will be

  a really popular and needed area i think

  you'll do really well especially as a

  young black woman

  you'll have much more opportunities than

  you would in marketing

  so that kind of segued me into computing

  permanently

  yeah it's interesting how small

  conversations like that can be such a

  huge catalyst in somebody's lives and

  it's something that i try and

  take into account when i'm talking with

  somebody that i'm working with whether

  it's a kid or an adult or whatever

  it's amazing how it may have just been

  that one conversation

  just completely shifted your trajectory

  absolutely and

  i felt like there were a number of those

  that kept happening

  that was the first even my decision to

  pursue a phd

  i didn't want to but the president at

  the time dr dorothy cousin-yancey

  she wanted to nominate me for the david

  and lucille packard fellowship program

  which would be five years of funding to

  pursue

  a phd and when she called me

  to nominate me over fall break i told

  her yeah thank you but i really don't

  want to do a phd i think i may want to

  do a master's because

  i didn't know what i wanted to do but i

  knew i did not want to work

  and so as a college senior i just wasn't

  ready to go into the working world and

  get on that schedule

  but she told me you know i'm going to

  nominate you anyway

  this is too good of an opportunity to

  turn down so

  send me your resume and worst case

  scenario is you get it and you say no

  and so i took the chance and it worked

  out

  yeah i had similar experiences i hadn't

  even considered a phd i was just going

  to get a masters

  and i was taking a class and i was

  writing a paper on this topic and we're

  only supposed to

  cite like 10 sources or whatever i ended

  up citing like 30 or 40

  sources because i was just really

  interested in the topic and when i

  submitted the paper the professor's like

  you just basically did

  a chapter two of a dissertation on this

  topic have you thought about doing a phd

  and was like well i didn't even

  consider it and it's just funny how that

  little conversation it just completely

  shifted my trajectory in terms of where

  i went

  it's fun at least for me to reflect on

  like those various catalysts in life

  whether positive or negative so like i

  i shared with you on twitter like i have

  this calvin tattoo of like

  trying to play in the rain and like i've

  had moments in my life where like a car

  accident made it so that

  it was really bad in the moment but like

  made me focus more on education and it's

  funny how

  those little things completely shift

  best laid plans

  absolutely that's what i tell people you

  can plan all day and then life happens

  and you have to go with it

  you know it's funny because i grew up

  running track and it was that same thing

  that i had this idea that i was going to

  run track at a huge d1 school

  and all of these and then i played

  basketball in the winter

  to avoid having to practice outdoors for

  indoor and tour my acl

  in 11th grade and so that totally

  shifted like oh

  well there goes track so it was one of

  those situations where

  even the types of schools that i was

  interested in attending

  totally changed because before where i

  was looking at lsu or taxes

  or even carolina that totally shifted

  and so now

  i'm not worried about sports even like i

  just want to be somewhere where i can

  thrive and so all of my schools that i

  applied to as an undergrad were hbcus

  and even people told me some of my

  teachers told me well you need to go to

  a good school nicki and i kept saying

  well what is a good school and you're

  equating good to white and i don't want

  to attend a pwi

  i want to be somewhere where i can

  thrive and i don't have to fight every

  day yeah

  and for people who are listening and

  aren't familiar with it hbcu

  historically black college university

  and then pwa is primarily white

  institution so

  just in case people aren't familiar with

  the terminology now on that

  topic what i read on your website is

  that at some point you would realize

  that

  you're growing up as a black woman

  surrounded by black engineers was the

  exception and was not the norm

  and i'm wondering how that realization

  has kind of impacted

  your trajectory in csncs education yeah

  i think i did not realize it until

  i arrived at johnson c smith in my

  programming courses

  and i think because growing up in durham

  it's such

  a unique city especially at that time

  you know you're surrounded by

  duke north carolina central and durham

  tech and then you've got carolina right

  down the road

  nc state shaw and a ton of other schools

  as well

  and it had a rich history of black

  excellence in the haiti community and

  black wall street so

  for me it just kind of was commonplace

  to see

  representation of myself and always

  being told

  through my parents friends who also just

  happened to be the parents of my friends

  growing up

  that the only limit is you and whatever

  you start you finish

  you can be whatever you can do whatever

  but when i got to the university i

  realized everyone didn't have those

  experiences because they're coming from

  different parts of the country

  and different backgrounds even so they

  didn't have necessarily a lot of people

  in computing who may have been adults so

  they may not have had a lot of college

  graduates even in their environment

  but it was really important for me as i

  started navigating spaces even in

  graduate school

  that i tried to make sure that

  people coming behind me saw themselves

  in me so as a graduate student i would

  tutor

  at shaw insane og

  myself and another black graduate

  student in electrical and computer

  engineering

  and then even as i moved into

  working in industry at the aerospace

  corporation i was doing talks around

  graduate school

  and the importance of pursuing a phd or

  master's degree

  at howard in the college of engineering

  and it just so happened

  that one of these chance encounters

  again my closest friend

  in college is from dc and he was

  teaching at the time at his alma mater

  and so

  i went out to one of the high school

  football games and his cousin

  who was a faculty member dr clay

  gloucester at the time in electrical and

  computer engineering at howard said oh

  you graduated that's great i hadn't seen

  you in a couple of years and

  you want to teach a class at howard and

  i thought well that would be kind of

  cool

  okay and so it

  started as this idea of me being an

  adjunct professor

  but at the time a faculty member left

  and

  they were looking to fill that spot and

  they never had a black woman on faculty

  on the tenure track side at howard and

  so the incoming chair

  who was legane burge was in

  clay gloucester's ear saying ask her if

  she'd be willing to apply for the

  full-time position

  and so it kind of worked out again where

  i knew that there was something

  i really enjoyed the opportunity to

  speak

  to students and to be in front of them

  and encourage them and tell them these

  are the things that you need to do

  here's the blueprint for how i did it

  here's how you can too

  and i thought that that would be really

  important for students to see one

  especially when i realized that

  there was never a black woman in the

  department and then when i thought back

  on my experience

  even at an hbcu in the department i'd

  never

  seen a black faculty member as well so i

  never saw a black woman

  i never saw a black professor now we had

  other black faculty across the

  university because it was a black

  college

  but i knew that in a field like computer

  science it would be

  important especially for young men and

  women especially at howard of all places

  to see themselves

  in computer science especially to see a

  black woman so that was really the

  reason

  that pushed me into a career in academia

  and i think

  every space i've moved in every

  university since then i've tried to make

  sure that

  i'm always doing it because there's

  someone who looks like me who needs to

  see that

  they belong they're valued and that

  they don't have to do it the quote

  traditional way

  that everyone sends to tell them yeah

  it's amazing

  how there's a huge lack of diversity

  both

  in the k-12 context like 80 of teachers

  are white and then

  in the higher ed context as well so like

  i think all of my k-12 teachers were

  white

  in college i had one black professor who

  i worked with

  all four years he was a percussion

  person so like i got private lessons

  with him for all four years and was

  great

  and then i had a couple of professors

  who were navajo because there's

  a lot of navajo in arizona but other

  than that all white

  and it's amazing how that can have an

  impact in terms of

  basically implicitly saying these are

  the kinds of people who get these kinds

  of jobs and do these kind of

  things and that lack of representation

  can have a huge impact without even

  having to say anything about it

  absolutely i'm wondering if you could

  share the story that you shared with me

  about the paper that

  i unpacked a few weeks ago the when

  twice as good isn't

  enough yeah so like i said i started my

  career in academia at howard in 2006

  and i left in 2015 my dad died and so i

  took a position at winthrop for a number

  of reasons i thought that

  it would be a great fit for me in terms

  of doing css

  as well as bringing some initiatives to

  a state because i'd done some work with

  dc public school system and computer

  science then as well

  and i had a lot of challenges there over

  the five years

  at winthrop that i've shared very

  publicly in a lot of my talks and

  writing

  and one of the biggest challenges was

  moving

  into a space where now you're at a

  predominantly white institution

  you're at an institution in the south

  south carolina at that

  and having to deal with being

  expected to or being asked to

  change who you are in order to

  make people particularly students

  comfortable with your existence and

  presence

  there's a lot of work around and

  research around how

  course evaluations particularly impact

  the trajectories

  of women people of color and those with

  intersecting identities being

  women who are also of color and that

  came to light a lot for me where

  i was in situations where i would deal

  with a lot of biased student evaluations

  that on the qualitative feedback would

  talk about she's rude she's

  disrespectful she has

  no gratitude and having to have

  conversations with leadership about

  these are issues of bias versus being

  told oh nikki students complain about

  everybody

  and i would have to say but they're not

  saying that you don't have any gratitude

  they would never write these things

  about white men around here and so that

  paper was really born

  out of my frustration in 2019

  i applied in 2018 for promotion to full

  professor

  which at the university of course it

  goes assistant professor

  associate professor and then full

  professor which is the highest rank so

  my first application for promotion was

  denied in the spring of 2019.

  i got very limited feedback at the time

  and the feedback was that it was based

  on

  student evaluations that explicitly

  noted that quote

  students have complained that she's rude

  disrespectful and mean suggestion is to

  vary teaching strategies to account for

  different types of student dynamics

  and i said well i included an entire

  about five-page breakdown

  of you know the all of my student

  evaluations and showing that for every

  one

  negative feedback there were two

  positive that totally contradicted it

  including one student contradicting

  themselves who's the same person

  didn't matter and i was really

  frustrated and

  you know for all lack of better ways to

  put it i was super pissed

  and so i decided to find a way and i

  think it wasn't only that it was the

  conversation

  that followed regarding it where i was

  explicitly told

  that we need to find a way for students

  to like you

  and for students to improve your course

  evaluations i think you're a great

  professor but

  are the people that you can talk to

  about how to improve your teaching and i

  said i'm not going to do that

  i'm not going to reach out to anybody

  because this is not an issue about my

  teaching this is an issue of student

  bias

  that no one here wants to acknowledge

  and i told them you know if you're

  asking me

  to change who i am for the sake of being

  like for

  student evaluations then i'll tell you

  i'm not going to be here much longer

  that was the spring of 2019

  in talking with the new provost i was

  asked to apply again

  in 2019 2020 same thing happened but

  i wrote that paper over the spring and

  summer of 2019.

  my thought was this is not just

  happening to me

  i know it's not just happening to me

  because i have plenty of peers

  who are not only black they may be of

  other races and ethnicities but they are

  experiencing the exact same issues

  especially women they're being denied

  promotions

  they're being denied jobs even because

  that follows you when you have to apply

  for a new job

  in academia you have to submit all of

  your course evaluations

  and the same thing was happening even in

  industry so in 2018 i published the

  semester before

  unapologetically dope and i'm getting

  emails and calls from my former students

  a lot of them young women not all but

  former howard students who are saying

  you know i'm having these issues some of

  the same things

  and so my thing was why is this still

  happening

  this was happening to my mom throughout

  her career it's happening to me it's now

  happening to another generation of young

  women it will continue

  until we figure out how to stop focusing

  on

  issues of access and mentoring

  that people tend to think that students

  from marginalized groups need

  and start turning that attention to the

  students who are from the

  non-marginalized groups particularly

  white and asian by race and men

  by gender and if we do that then we'll

  start to fix these issues because we

  keep saying

  we need to provide access and resources

  for

  marginalized students and faculty but

  then we drop them into environments

  where they're still one of the few if

  not the only

  there's been no focus or work on the

  other people who don't identify

  as these groups and so they just

  continue what they're doing and

  we're all expected to just weather the

  storm and push through

  but we can't push through we see the

  numbers that are happening

  in silicon valley we see the numbers

  that are happening even in higher ed

  and so because of that i started looking

  at what is happening

  in social science and around that time

  i'd already started

  reading a number of books that were

  coming out and being released

  you know race after technology

  algorithms of oppression

  and then i started to look what are

  other places or fields doing

  that have to work with diverse groups of

  people

  so i looked first at education

  and healthcare and then they all led

  back to social work and this idea of

  cultural competence

  and honestly cultural competence was a

  term

  i never really remembered hearing in all

  of my education my nine years between

  undergrad to grad school and it

  definitely wasn't discussed at any point

  along the way in my career we've done a

  lot of work

  in culturally responsive pedagogy or

  curriculums and cultural relevance

  but nothing about cultural competence so

  as i started to study it more

  and read about it i kept saying why in

  the world are we not doing this

  in computer science this is the problem

  is that these other disciplines are

  making sure that every graduate comes

  out and they are able to engage with

  people from different identities and

  cultures

  in ways that ensure that the goal is met

  but that they are also respecting and

  understanding the differences that they

  share

  and being able to facilitate

  communication in a way that does not

  make that vulnerable population feel

  less than or minimized so why have we

  not done that here

  so that was really what it was born out

  of it was really my protest

  my frustration and my ability to say

  well if this is what you're gonna do

  then okay

  then this is my i'll show you and i'm

  just gonna take

  this bad batch of whatever it is i was

  given and turn it into something that's

  a win for me

  yeah i don't remember if this made the

  conversation or the

  cut for the podcast but when i

  interviewed joyce mccall

  she's a assistant professor in chicago

  and

  i've known her for several years and she

  mentioned all the same things that you

  were mentioning in terms

  of people just don't get it what it's

  like but she's fortunate in that she has

  adrian dixon

  as like a mentor in the college of

  education who has been there done that

  gotten tenure and like can help her

  navigate it and whatnot so it's very

  difficult when you are the only person

  in your institution or in your

  department

  and not have people to talk to about

  some of these issues and

  for people who are interested in it look

  up scholarship on discourse analysis

  and the way that people talk about

  different races or use different words

  in different contexts like the word

  urban

  in some context is associated with black

  with

  poor with like all these like negative

  connotations the way that people are

  phrasing them

  and then when they talk about suburban

  or rural then they're talking about it

  completely differently so

  it's a rabbit hole that i recommend

  listeners go down but i'm curious with

  your

  experiences with this and with your

  research interests and whatnot on like

  measuring

  and improving like historically

  disenfranchised groups like

  what have you learned through this

  process that people can do to try and

  help

  prevent some of this from happening i

  think there are a few things

  the first thing is to realize that

  everyone

  operates in a space of privilege the

  thing i think 2020

  is showing all of us is just how

  problematic we all

  are in certain ways especially when we

  are called on ourselves or our issues

  are presented to us

  it's very hard for people to talk about

  race i've seen that

  firsthand now it's usually people who

  are

  in non-marginalized positions so

  honestly that tends to be white folks

  for the

  better part where it becomes a very

  uncomfortable conversation and it's oh

  you know it's a lot of defensiveness but

  not recognizing that people like me

  have had to always talk about being

  black because we just don't have a

  choice

  people who identify as asian may have to

  do the same

  right people who identify as native also

  may have to do the same because

  otherwise our voices and our experiences

  will never be heard and respected

  and i think it's important to recognize

  that you have to be comfortable

  being uncomfortable there's a lot of

  desire to kind of get things over with

  quick and fast so we can move on

  and that's how we got to where we are in

  not just in society but also in the

  state of computing and we saw that with

  the black and the ivory twitter hashtag

  and shut down stem and even the most

  recent scholar strike right

  they're all of these things that have

  been happening because nobody wanted to

  talk about it

  the second thing is to decenter

  yourselves

  so i think that there's a lot of

  attempts even in the cs education space

  a lot of the people who have been doing

  the work who have been the most

  prevalent who have been the most

  prominent and received the most

  attention

  are again white men and women and the

  voices of the people who

  identify the same as the students tend

  to be

  the voices that are marginalized they

  don't get the exposure they don't get

  the opportunities and the access

  to a lot of these opportunities events

  conferences keynotes etc so it's not

  even about

  making space for individuals from

  different identities

  it's about giving up your space all

  together

  because a lot of times people say i'm

  gonna make space but i'm just gonna make

  just enough over here to let you sneak

  in but i'm still gonna take over

  majority of it and that doesn't serve

  any of us any good and i think also to

  stop operating

  from this deficit mindset of students

  from marginalized groups i remember

  vividly sitting

  it was either conference or some

  workshop and someone got up and said

  yeah we're doing stuff

  at my university for black kids and for

  rich kids

  and i just paused like excuse me what

  did i just hear

  and it's this like you said the

  discourse analysis and the words that

  are used to describe

  certain demographics of students how do

  you parallel black with rich

  and things that when people say for

  example you reference things as people

  of color

  but you're really talking about black

  people because you feel unsure about

  saying it

  i want you to call it out because i am

  not like every other person of color

  we're not a monolith even black people

  are not a monolith

  but if you're talking about black people

  say it you know one of the great things

  and i

  shout out dr tiffany williams because

  the article she wrote for communications

  of acm

  earlier this summer about calling people

  from systemically marginalized groups

  underrepresented minorities and the

  racism that's rooted in that it's so

  true because we see it but we've all

  used that language

  because that's what we were taught it

  was so ingrained in the

  terminology we saw every single day and

  even in my class i talked to students

  about the fact that every time you see

  anything around diversity or inclusion

  what is the language in terms of the

  target demographics and they'll say

  women

  underrepresented groups and then

  something else

  well what if i'm a black woman where do

  i fall into this spectrum

  when you're identifying and listing all

  of these people so there's no

  understanding even of intersectionality

  and how that plays

  an important piece so i'd say everybody

  needs to start thinking about those

  three things but

  also start to learn from the social

  sciences and the humanities

  and understand critical race theory i

  think it's you know absolutely absurd

  and disgusting to hear the rhetoric

  coming out at the

  federal level from the highest person in

  office right now

  about the divisiveness of critical race

  theory

  and it's just feeding this narrative

  that nothing

  is a problem here when we see every

  single day that it is for people who

  don't

  operate from a cisgender white

  heterosexual male identity

  yeah learning more about critical race

  theory and like the other

  sub points within that like double

  consciousness like when you were talking

  earlier

  in that discussion i was just like oh

  yeah that makes me think of the

  conversation with joyce where

  we unpack what is double consciousness

  in terms of like

  when joyce is in a group she also has to

  think of herself as black

  and view the perspective of a white

  person viewing her as black

  and like having those two different

  perspectives going on simultaneously

  like it's mentally draining having to

  consciously be aware of that all the

  time and it's something that i as a

  white individual don't have to think

  about and haven't had to worry about

  absolutely i'm curious when you've

  engaged with us kind of research and

  learning from like social work and

  things like that were there any

  surprises along the way

  that you were just hadn't anticipated

  the biggest surprise for me

  was that this wasn't being done

  anywhere that i could find right for a

  while gave me a lot of pause

  and i spent a lot of time just digging

  and digging which is why

  that 60 position paper had so many

  references because i kept going through

  a number of papers and avenues and

  looking and saying

  surely someone has been talking about

  this

  at an in-depth level in terms of what

  needs to be taught in computing

  departments

  the first paper i'd seen outside of that

  that was discussing anything around

  these topics

  was paper that just won sig kai's

  best paper award that was looking at hci

  and critical race theory and hci by a

  group of black women authors and i think

  the overall majority of them

  are grad students even but aside from

  that it shocked me

  and it shocked me so much because as i

  read algorithms of oppression

  and race after technology everything

  that they're talking about it's just

  like they're discussing everything we do

  in this field and everything we teach

  our students so

  why are we not even teaching this and

  the more i started to take

  little bits and plug it into for example

  i've always been on the front end

  of the undergraduate experience so i

  would teach

  the intro to programming or data

  structure something around that

  i would ask my students you know have

  you ever thought about

  how different algorithms affect people

  differently

  and they were floored when i would tell

  them that facial recognition technology

  doesn't recognize darker skin tones

  they've never even

  thought about that especially for

  students in south carolina

  to start understanding that and start

  looking

  and being hungry for more information

  was really impactful but it was also

  disheartening because

  it says what are we not doing and how

  are we failing students across the board

  and across the country

  yeah this is a topic that should be in

  cs education programs but it's not like

  you mentioned with the facial

  recognition technology i read a paper

  that like early uses a facial

  recognition technology

  the percentages of success rates were

  flipped between a light and a dark

  skinned

  so it was like 90 success with a white

  person and then with a black person was

  like 90

  failure rate and so i did a presentation

  recently on

  engineered inequalities and one of the

  things that i gave as an example is

  a video showing a white person putting

  their hand under a soap dispenser and

  then a black person does the same thing

  it won't dispense the soap

  so like whether it's in the algorithm or

  in the physical devices that we're

  creating

  like these are things that we need to

  talk about and we're not which is why i

  was glad to see it in your paper

  but it's also like well why did that

  just come out in 2020 why haven't we

  been talking about this for decades

  yeah there are black women even in the

  computing space who have been doing this

  research around bias and artificial

  intelligence so

  joy boulevaini timnit gibrou abba

  and deb rajni but they are in the

  ai space and so if you're not moving

  into that space of research

  then they don't get the exposure to the

  introduction to programming students the

  way they should

  every student in computing should know

  those four women's names

  because they are so critical in

  everything that's been happening not

  just over the last few months with a lot

  of technologies being sunset

  by places like amazon and ibm but also

  just over the last few years because of

  the

  work they've been doing in this space

  and the pushback that they

  received but i think that it was

  bothersome because

  it also spoke to nobody's willing to

  dig deeper right even when i had the

  idea for this class at first

  you know i pitched it and i got the idea

  well we already have an ethics course so

  how is this different

  and i just kept saying well a

  medical doctor can be ethical and still

  lack bedside manner

  it's not about ethics it's about all of

  these

  other things that you all purport to

  really

  support and really want to encourage and

  foster these inclusive environments

  but is it really what you want or is it

  just lip service because it's checking

  the box and it sounds good if i have to

  sit here and

  argue with you about cultural competence

  does not equal ethics

  then that says to me there's already a

  bigger problem and that you

  lack one of these for sure yeah and then

  on the other end of the spectrum if you

  get a course like that where

  you are talking about these things that

  now needs to bleed out into all of the

  other courses so if you're doing an

  assignment like one of the things that

  a professor did that i really liked was

  for education majors

  they would randomly assign this fake iep

  that a student had to prepare for so

  you're going to create a lesson

  and you have to think okay at least one

  of your kids is on the autism spectrum

  or at least one of the kids only has one

  arm or etc etc so like

  just different things to consider when

  designing lesson plans and whatnot and i

  think something like that

  can easily be incorporated into an

  assignment like okay you're all assigned

  into these different groups

  your software or hardware needs to

  take into account these different design

  considerations and whatnot so

  it's an easy way to actually apply the

  understandings outside of the class

  right and it's easy to dump even

  culturally competent modules into every

  single current computing course without

  creating a course

  right and that's what was so flooring

  like how is this

  not being done how are people just so

  unwilling to

  even see and the more that things have

  happened over 2020

  i'm not sure if i still believe it's a

  lack of willingness

  i think there was a lot of that in place

  but i think that for

  the other subset of people it was a lack

  of knowledge

  and understanding and wanting to learn

  but not having the requisite skill set

  to teach it

  do you have any recommendations for

  either k-12

  or higher ed cs educators about how to

  improve diversity equity inclusion

  i would say like i tell people all the

  time on twitter listen to black women

  and believe them you know we tend to be

  those canaries in the coal mine

  and people always listen to us a little

  too late

  i would say also taking away the

  idea of focusing on numbers right

  there's so much emphasis on we want to

  get x number of students from this

  demographic

  and we want to make sure that we have x

  number of women x number of black

  latina natives that's not representative

  of

  a good measurement because you can get

  numbers but how many people are you

  gonna keep

  and there's a difference between getting

  them in the door and keeping them there

  and people don't understand or

  appreciate the importance of being

  seen i say that all the time like i want

  you to

  not just recognize that i'm here but see

  my experiences

  and understand that i move in spaces

  differently

  than other people i have to you know

  like you said with double consciousness

  i operate always thinking about a white

  gay

  sometimes more than others but i need

  you to understand that that's a reality

  for your students

  and also recognizing that your students

  come

  with a lot of different experiences

  right now covet is showing that a lot of

  times and it's heartbreaking to hear

  some of the stories like

  the young kid who just got suspended for

  having a nerf gun

  in his zoom background and the teacher

  called the cops it's those kinds of

  issues that are flooring when you think

  about

  people right now educators especially

  tout this idea of diversity and

  inclusion and equity but then when

  something like that happens

  they're quick to do exactly what they've

  always done which is pick up a phone

  and call the police instead of trying to

  stop for a minute and process

  and recognizing that diversity does not

  mean you have an inclusive or an

  equitable environment it just means that

  you've dumped a bunch of different

  people from different

  identities into one pool it does not

  mean that

  it's an inclusive environment that it's

  not a toxic environment

  or that they came there from equitable

  situations or

  you made it equitable get away from

  diversity i tell everyone stop

  using that word just focus on creating

  inclusive

  and equitable environments if you do

  that the diversity will automatically

  come

  because it's something like i heard

  before where you know diversity is being

  invited to the party

  but inclusion is being asked to dance

  and actually take up space until we do

  that we're kind of just all

  chasing windmills yeah i like that and i

  think

  your points especially about the

  questions that are being asked in terms

  of like the numbers that people focus on

  with the demographics like

  so i myself identify as non-binary and

  that is not

  in most demographics like it's not an

  even an option to check it's either male

  or female

  and sometimes there's another option the

  kinds of questions you're asking and the

  numbers that you're collecting

  aren't representative of it but then we

  actually go like you mentioned earlier

  with intersectionality it's not just the

  fact that i have these identities that

  are

  labeled as silos like it's how they

  interact with each other and whatnot

  that for me

  is extremely important as an individual

  and i think it's

  really important especially for k-12

  educators

  even more so to start looking at some of

  these

  authors some of these social sciences

  humanities people

  who have written some amazing work

  around this space right

  and i use myself as an example because

  one of the earlier assessments that i

  was working on

  i used under the gender category male

  female other

  and i talk about that all the time

  because i say when i look at it now i

  cringe because it was something

  i didn't even think about but i was

  moving in a space of privilege again

  thinking about how someone who does not

  identify as male or female

  would feel by having to check other and

  that other ring that you create

  when you're trying to assess things or

  just engage with people

  so you have to learn to be very

  intentional about every single piece and

  recognize that again we all move in

  spaces of privilege

  when people ask me what can i read even

  i tell them start with something like

  sister outsider by audrey lord audre

  lorde

  she's amazing in her writing about

  all of her the facets of her identity of

  being a black queer woman

  and having to deal with these issues of

  age

  race class gender and sexuality and how

  they all

  overlap and intersect and how pivotal

  they all

  are to who she is and her experiences

  navigating in the world i think it would

  give

  so many educators a better understanding

  of all of the layers that their students

  bring to the table when they show up

  either in zoom or if it's back in the

  classroom or anywhere else and not only

  that like i said

  people don't understand enough how the

  experiences of

  their students who have certain

  identities are identical to their

  colleagues

  if your students are having issues then

  your colleagues are as well the

  difference

  is that your colleagues probably are not

  going to share it as much because

  you know there's issues like you said

  before promotion hiring

  just concerns about bias and

  discrimination from a number of

  different angles be it based on race

  sexuality gender but being able to

  understand

  put yourself in the perspective of

  someone else

  and understand fully how would you want

  to be

  seen and how would you want others to

  see you and then

  move in that way that you are always

  making sure that

  whoever's in front of you even if

  they're not in front of you they are

  still

  seen in the conversations and the work

  you do because

  they know that in the back of your mind

  you're always thinking about

  outside of yourself that's really hard

  for people to do but you have to be

  very intentional about it like thinking

  of that broader perspective

  outside of what you're doing i'm

  wondering what are some things that

  you've learned

  broadly speaking from your experiences

  like you said you've worked with dc

  public schools you also helped

  write the k12 cs standards for south

  carolina you're also one of the lead

  writers for the k12 cs framework

  so like thinking about those broad

  things like the frameworks and the

  standards

  how those impact people what have you

  learned from those experiences

  i think the biggest things i learned

  were in the development process

  and the convening of people from all of

  these different backgrounds so it wasn't

  just for example faculty k-12 educators

  there were people who were

  non-profits or in the government sector

  and then there were all of these other

  people who may have been

  just part of feedback or contributing in

  other ways outside of writing

  the biggest thing i learned is that not

  everybody in cs education gets it

  right everybody thinks they do but they

  don't and that was very telling because

  some of the conversations you know

  became some of those

  good intentions that just are terrible

  ideas

  i think the other piece was recognizing

  that there is such a difference in the

  experience of a student

  not just based on their identities but

  based on where they are geographically

  across the country

  so you know i spent 10 years

  in dc nine of those years at howard

  and while dc is

  a diverse city dc still has it still

  runs the spectrum

  in terms of class and income levels and

  so

  we actually for a full academic year

  myself my department chair lee burge

  and four students taught a full computer

  science course at the

  middle school that howard has on campus

  the middle school of math and science

  and because it was a charter school they

  came from all across

  dc but they were all black

  and latinx students the entire 300

  student population but you got to see

  all of these students from different

  backgrounds

  and all the students had access to

  technology and they had access

  through the school itself as part of

  being at that school you had access to

  technology at the school but then you

  also got a laptop at home

  when i relocate and now i'm working on

  the k12 standards in south carolina

  there were a lot of conversations from

  k-12

  educators and district leaders that were

  saying

  these standards we're developing are

  great but we still struggle with

  a lot of students with basic digital

  literacy

  and so in addition to creating the

  standards

  we also had to create a k-8 digital

  literacy standards to ensure

  that students had proper access and

  understanding of just how to use

  technology

  before we can start to get into the

  computer science aspects and then there

  were the issues again of access because

  depending on where you are

  does your school district even have

  enough computers to serve as a lab for a

  classroom

  in order to roll this out right there

  was the goal of that these standards are

  across the state and every school will

  have to teach these courses

  but how does that look in a school

  that's severely underfunded right now

  so i think that was the biggest

  eye-opening experience

  for me is that these standards

  that are developed they're great but

  there's still a lot of work to be done

  just to be able to

  even implement them properly and that's

  still a lot of work

  even now that you know covet exacerbated

  that and brought it to light

  but even still there are issues with

  that you know there's students who have

  to go to

  a mcdonald's or somewhere a public

  resource to sit in their car in order

  that

  to have school all day yeah and the

  issues of like what kinds of devices do

  teachers and students have access to

  like what you can do with an ipad

  is different from a chromebook which is

  different from a laptop or a desktop

  and then do you have access to it at

  home cool if you have access to at home

  do you actually have internet okay if

  you have internet how many people are

  using it at the same time so like larger

  families

  it's a lot harder for them to all be on

  a zoom call at the same time

  etc etc is such a huge problem and it's

  something that has

  certainly been exacerbated with kovid

  you had mentioned that like

  not everyone gets it one of the

  questions that i like to think through

  for myself is what do i not get right

  now that i'm gonna look back

  on like five years from now and go wow

  i'm doing that completely differently

  now and i'm glad i am and

  one of the things i like to think about

  is like in my teaching when i first

  started teaching i used to think

  x but now i think why and what has

  changed

  i'm curious do you have any examples of

  like when i first started teaching i

  used to think this but now i think

  something completely different

  so full disclaimer when i started

  teaching i was 28

  it was my very first time teaching ever

  i didn't have any experience with office

  hours anything i think my advisor asked

  me

  to proctor an exam one time and that was

  it so

  for me it was totally fish out of water

  context luckily my dad was a k-12

  educator turned administrator so he kind

  of coached me through a lot of things

  i think i entered the university

  making sure i operated in a space of

  what worked for me

  in terms of how did i best

  receive information and not only that i

  think i operated also in a space of

  making sure because i was so

  young and i looked so much like the

  students that i was

  trying to make sure there was a line of

  delineation where

  i'm not a peer i'm a professor and i

  think i needed that

  but i think i also started to realize

  that

  how i didn't need certain things in

  learning

  not only because of my exposure

  to the concepts at the time but i think

  also because

  i'd had so much opportunity

  over my younger years to participate in

  things that were focused around critical

  thinking and logic so

  a lot of things i just took for granted

  and the more that i progressed

  i realized that i need to make this make

  sense

  as much as possible to any student who's

  coming in with

  zero knowledge and let me make the

  assumption that a student's coming in

  because of course in those intro courses

  for computing majors we're all told

  you should if you don't have any

  experience in programming then you

  should at least have already taken

  calculus or be taking calculus well

  there's going to be a lot of students

  that i learned

  especially in my first early years that

  have not taken calculus they may show up

  and they may be

  taking precal at the university so

  calculus is going to be maybe the next

  semester or the next year down the road

  but that doesn't mean that again they're

  operating in a deficit

  it just means that whatever their

  trajectory was it didn't get them the

  calculus before they graduated

  so you don't need calculus to be a

  critical thinker

  or to have computational thinking so for

  me it was always about

  how do i make this make sense in a way

  that any student

  could grasp this without feeling like

  i'm slowing the class down for those who

  may be a little bit more ahead

  but also that i'm not moving too fast

  for those who may not be following this

  as easy and i also started to learn

  ways to help other students who may be

  struggling

  navigate and figure out what they're

  doing wrong so for me it was always well

  you just gotta practice

  i was an athlete and so for me it was

  always if you practice you're training

  your mind your mind's a muscle so

  you know just keep doing it and that

  would work for me a lot of times in grad

  school i would just drill something in

  my head and look at it until it just

  clicked

  and it made sense everyone doesn't

  operate in that space and so

  i had to learn how to

  bring it home to students in ways that

  were extremely visual especially in a

  programming class and that's

  hard to do when you're trying to teach

  basic concepts

  and you've never taught before but it

  helped me learn how to

  make things make sense without having to

  be in front of a computer and not having

  a compiler

  and everything i took it and applied it

  to all of my lessons where i tell

  students

  start with the picture if i give you a

  problem draw it i don't want to see any

  code just draw it out in a way that

  makes it make sense and start

  building it from there and i think that

  that's helped a lot for me

  i mean it's helped a lot for students

  because then they stop

  and they don't think about let me sit

  down and start typing something

  and one of the other things i would

  start to do is i learned how to glean

  certain pieces of information that were

  actual

  constructive criticism from course

  evaluations

  i tell a lot of people especially junior

  faculty

  don't take course of vows to heart

  because

  you know you've got the subset of

  students who did well and they don't

  care they're not going to submit an

  evaluation because they're done

  but there's also a subset who are mad at

  you about something and they're going to

  use that to

  lash out so you can't don't look at that

  don't look at rate my professor

  nothing every now and then there's

  something that makes sense like oh i

  wish you'd slowed down i just focused a

  little bit in on this

  and that was helpful so what i would

  start to do even

  now is check in with students and it was

  really important over the last

  several semesters and even with kobe

  because it became a thing of

  my dad would tell me this all the time

  is that the students don't care what you

  know till they know you care

  right and so and i would just tell them

  like look

  when kobe hit in march i was already

  struggling mentally i was just

  over everything at everybody anyway but

  when that hit

  i just shut down and so i emailed my

  students and i said look

  we are going to figure out how to get

  through this together i am overwhelmed

  i'm sure you all

  are so we're going to do what we need to

  do to get through this

  and the students i found were so

  appreciative of that and i changed all

  of the assignments to make sure that

  it wasn't overburdening them it wasn't

  monotonous it wasn't

  something that was just you know

  checking a box to make sure we

  covered x y and z like and it gave me an

  opportunity to learn about

  them i learned that you know some of

  these students were picking up jobs to

  try to make sure they helped their

  family for someone who lost income

  or you know they're back home and

  they're overwhelmed because they have

  a younger sibling that they're now

  trying to help get through the school

  day because their parents are working

  and they're trying to navigate their

  learning plus their younger siblings so

  just having that ability to extend the

  humanity part of it and

  again i think that that's not what we're

  taught in computer science we're

  taught you know nobody cares about your

  feelings this is what it is we operate

  in facts

  but you have to move in this space of

  feelings

  and humanity because life happens

  and if we don't again we continue to see

  these same situations and these are

  students who you could quickly lose

  because they start to feel further

  marginalized

  yep right it's not like oh i'm falling

  behind my professor knows this

  and she's telling me look let's figure

  out a schedule how can you get this in

  how can we make this work

  or you know she's making it so that it's

  asynchronous so that i don't have to

  worry about sitting in front of a

  computer exactly the same time that my

  sibling is

  yeah i like that i like the idea of like

  the multi-perspective

  approach to teaching thinking of

  different ways to teach things and then

  to approach it from a point of

  compassion

  i'm curious how do you do that in

  larger class sizes so like in the

  elementary space my class sizes were up

  to 35

  kids which that's manageable but i saw a

  few hundred

  a week because i had several different

  classes and whatnot so whether it's

  that kind of a context or you're

  teaching like a lecture with like 300

  people

  how do you include all these different

  perspectives and like try and be

  compassionate with students

  so it's funny you ask that because that

  was the question that was

  asked during my interview at duke

  and i was like yeah what's your biggest

  class size and i said oh there's about

  largest is about 400.

  it's interesting because i think you

  have to assemble a great team right

  and i'm going to say it in two spaces

  the first is where you have the ability

  to assemble a team of other people who

  can assist

  right so tas teaching assistants

  any other graders whatever it is

  understanding that that team is

  operating from that same mindset like we

  all understand that

  this can be a lot for us so we need to

  remember it's a lot for the students we

  need to move accordingly

  we need to make sure that we are

  attentive

  to any flags or things that may be

  concerning about a certain set of

  students or one or two students

  but if you're in a space where you don't

  have the resources of a ta

  or any assistance i found that the

  ability to

  just collect the information a lot of

  times is helpful

  even if it's a simple google form or a

  qualtrics form and it just asks an

  open-ended question how are you doing

  you know just

  somebody asking how you're doing and

  then students can submit

  and then you can review it and start to

  itemize like who needs more attention

  right now who's going through something

  right now that i need to pay attention

  to or flag

  you know for me it became overwhelming

  even when my classes were about 30 or 40

  because i may have been teaching

  you know like you said over the course

  of like 150 students across four classes

  and it's just me and so the easiest way

  for me a lot of times was just to

  create those forms and let students dump

  and it may be

  you know every every so often like i

  just throw it out there

  every month or every couple of weeks

  like what's going on

  that's going to be critical especially

  as we move

  forward post 2020 because

  we have to rethink how we do

  everything and how we engage with

  students

  i think that we have to rethink

  not just how we engage with them but how

  we teach them and how we engage with

  them should

  influence and impact how we teach them

  it's easy when you're in front of a

  classroom

  and you're on a board and you're writing

  something and you turn around okay

  any questions any comments any concerns

  you know you'll get one or two

  and then boom you're back to what you're

  doing but now in the age of zoom

  it doesn't work the same and there's so

  many other things that are going on

  in a student's mind and even in their

  background right you know we still have

  arguments about why people are forcing

  students to turn on

  their videos no matter what the course

  size

  is i think you just have to take the

  time to be intentional and there are

  ways to do that

  that can make it as least stressful as

  possible and strenuous as possible for

  you

  which is why i say a lot of times that's

  where the beauty of technology comes

  into place because you can automate that

  send it out

  but then you can filter that information

  pretty quickly

  and start to review that and look at how

  can i reach those students who need me

  the most

  but then still also let every other

  student know hey i see you

  yeah and speaking of like the making it

  as least stressful for you i'm curious

  because education and like being

  professor like there's a high burnout

  rate like there's

  the job never ends there's always

  something else to learn or to do and

  i'm wondering how do you personally

  nurture your mind body spirit

  good question i have actually thought

  about this this summer

  i think this was the first summer that i

  had zero time to decompress so i never

  in 15 years of teaching

  ever done summer school or anything so

  my summer was always my time to kind of

  just

  do whatever for three months and then

  everything with covet packing moving

  transitioning to

  a new job and creating a new course and

  so

  i am kind of five minutes

  and maybe one more class lecture away

  from a full

  meltdown but i say for me

  exercise so i walk unfortunately i can't

  run anymore due to knee injuries but

  i try to walk not as much as i should so

  i have to get back on a routine but

  that's always very helpful for me

  music is a huge source of

  zen for me i love music and honestly

  tv i'm a huge tv junkie so tv shows and

  music

  and podcasts are kind of getting me

  through all of this

  especially tv and music more so than

  anything

  so anyone who sees me on twitter i'm

  always tweeting about whatever i'm

  watching whatever i'm listening to that

  gives me

  life right now you know i have to

  definitely appreciate things like the

  versus series that started over covid

  because it gives me a chance to just

  remember when and be nostalgic about

  music that i enjoy

  tv shows like right now i'm watching

  lovecraft country and i'm so

  caught up in that and then even you know

  before watchmen or i watch a lot of old

  shows too so i'm either alternating

  between

  martin king of queens and golden girls

  and then during the day i wake up and

  it's living single

  girlfriends and in the heat of the night

  i'm all over the place

  and i tell people i'm high key using

  twitter kind of as my own therapy

  right now so you know i may be talking

  about something real serious

  at one o'clock but by nine o'clock i'm

  talking about something on tv

  or something that's popping up and it's

  hard because i

  feel like i'm an extroverted introvert

  so i like to be by myself but at the

  same time i like to do it on my

  terms so for me being an only child you

  know i could be very comfortable being

  home so the first couple of months

  or first couple of weeks in march oh it

  was great i guess just another weekend

  for me

  but then by april 1st it was okay you

  know i've had enough of this

  i need to see people and engage and you

  know here it is we're

  what it's september and we're still not

  outside yet so i've had to really find

  ways to step away from technology and

  just

  veg out and for me that's just been

  exercise music tv because there's really

  not much else you can do yet or we

  should be doing

  there's a lot that some people are doing

  but yeah i'm home

  are you listening to music or you're

  also creating the music i

  well no i'm not creating music i'm just

  a karaoke performer i'm not an

  actual singer yeah i'd say

  listening to music that's it and then

  shower singing

  yeah my wife and i are both

  percussionists and there's something

  about just like

  hitting a drum that's also very relaxing

  it's therapeutic to just like

  go put on some music i have this like

  funk playlist that i listen to

  and i'll just go on drums and just like

  jam out and i just like come away from

  that just feeling so

  relaxed and whatnot it's just i don't

  know it's nice so if you have the

  opportunity i recommend

  making the music as well but listening

  to it's also wonderful

  i don't think my mom would appreciate a

  drum set right now until i got my own

  place but yeah

  yes good point my parents speaking from

  like a point of privilege

  one of the privileges that i have had is

  my parents put up with the fact that i'd

  make music for several hours a day

  every day of the week and the fact that

  like it was percussion

  so i'd be banging a drum in my room or

  playing a marimba

  and several hours a day the fact that

  they didn't kick me out of the house for

  that

  oh my gosh yeah i can imagine i used to

  play piano when i was younger i stopped

  after about three years

  but my parents it would be the same

  thing i just kind of be banging away

  and sometimes i do miss it because it

  was good therapy you know like you said

  just to sit there and be able to just

  tap something or do something i'm

  curious what do you wish there was more

  research on

  that could inform like your practices or

  inform the field as a whole

  i don't even know if this is feasible

  but i think that

  more research around something related

  to faculty

  specifically faculty beliefs

  faculty engagement and certain activity

  i think

  something outside of just the

  quantitative how many students

  who identify as x have you mentored

  but actually getting to the root of some

  things around

  why are you in academia why are you in

  computing

  in academia what has shaped your

  experiences

  and your beliefs to date and that's

  something that i don't think a lot of

  faculty would necessarily be honest

  about

  unless it was highly anonymous but i

  think that it would start

  to give better clarity and context to

  some of the issues that we see in higher

  education

  being able to ask those questions that

  are not directly related to things

  around

  race or sexuality or religious

  affiliation but things that if they're

  asked the right way you could glean that

  information and extract it in a way that

  you could now start to see the why

  and start to better understand how to

  engage those specific faculty right

  i want to believe and i'm a cautious

  optimistic

  i want to believe that most faculty want

  every student to succeed in their class

  i don't believe that that's the case

  though

  and i think that if we could start to

  get to the why that is then we could

  start to fix a lot of the issues

  that are happening for our students yeah

  i know

  of some instances especially in some of

  the quote harder sciences

  there are a lot of professors who are

  there for the research and they

  begrudgingly

  are teaching classes to undergrads or

  graduate students

  and so they put very little effort into

  that and i'm grateful when universities

  have like professors of practice who

  focus specifically on

  teaching and teaching very well and not

  just doing the research and teaching on

  the side kind of a thing

  but it's tricky because like you have

  these universities where you're paying a

  lot of money to learn from somebody

  who's really good at what they do

  but they don't necessarily want to teach

  those courses at all

  and don't necessarily want to t every

  kind of student

  like i said before you have to come in

  exactly how

  they were as a college student and

  that's all they see

  and they don't know how to separate

  their experience at whatever age they

  are now

  because a lot of them are over the age

  of 50

  to gen z's and millennials who

  are growing up in a world where they

  never didn't know

  a google but they never didn't have a

  smartphone

  there's all of these dynamics that are

  at play

  that have nothing to do with race or

  gender but it's

  age even and just desire

  i don't know if that's a problem that

  can ever be solved you know i wish it

  was there's a lot of research i see that

  talks to students and you know looks to

  interview students in stem

  around these things but i just don't

  know how many faculty would be willing

  to participate in something like that

  i agree with you i think it would need

  to be heavily anonymized in order to

  actually get

  at the root of the thoughts behind that

  what about like flipping the question

  onto your own research what do you wish

  people understood about your own

  research your writing the biggest thing

  is that it holds

  just as much value as anything someone

  would consider

  theoretical research it's really

  frustrating

  in this field and it's not just over

  this last year

  but i'd say leading up to probably

  george floyd's murder that there was an

  inability for the greater computing

  community

  to recognize and truly appreciate

  education-based research or research

  that is not

  quantitative and i'd say even in the cs

  education space that was the case

  because when i submitted

  that 60 paper it was a position paper

  and i remember when i got the reviews

  there

  were actually one reviewer who was very

  much like

  you know i don't see why this is even

  here there's no

  data that's been collected you need to

  collect this data get feedback and then

  submit it and

  this may be more viable and i said and

  you're the exact reason why i wrote this

  paper

  you know it's a position paper like

  otherwise it would have been a research

  it's just

  but that again speaks to how problematic

  that not even just the greater computing

  community is but just cs education

  there's this issue of if you're doing

  this kind of work then it's less than or

  it's not as rigorous and it's

  not as valuable and then i tell people

  well it's really interesting because

  after george floyd's death and the black

  lives matter protests

  sparked up all of a sudden all of these

  things that

  i've been talking about that my

  colleagues who look like me

  or who are from other systemically

  marginalized groups have been talking

  about

  all of a sudden all the work we're doing

  is the bee's knees

  so why did it take all of this

  for you to see value in what we're doing

  why did it have to be such an explosive

  event and such a tragic event for you to

  find value

  in this and then my biggest issue is

  what happens january 1

  like all right we made it through 2020

  and then yep wiping my hands we're good

  we addressed racism again we're back to

  business as usual well we've seen this

  before right

  this isn't new like we didn't live

  through the civil rights movement but

  my parents did you know my grandparents

  did it and so on and so

  the same thing happened there where

  people felt like okay well

  the civil rights act was passed the

  voting rights act passed okay we're good

  racism is over we

  elected obama here we are yeah it'll be

  interesting especially

  what happens in early november it

  frustrates me because i felt like

  it shouldn't have taken all of this to

  value

  the work that we do and it's sad it's

  not even sad it's pathetic because i

  feel like it just speaks to the

  amount of lip service in so many ways

  you know

  and you see people who are in computing

  who are doing this work and this is what

  they solely focus on then it becomes

  like oh great here's somebody coming to

  talk to us about diversity again like

  oh like this is really the problem right

  and it's annoying to me

  because you know i have to tell people

  well don't get it twisted

  i have three degrees in computer science

  i am very skilled at what i do

  my thesis was built around optical

  network survivability

  so i can do queueing theory programming

  whatever you want to talk about

  but i choose not to because it doesn't

  make a hill of beans to me that research

  doesn't matter to me

  and honestly it never did if i'm being

  i've shared that before with others like

  i did the research

  that my advisor was doing because i

  wanted to work with my advisor and i

  really value the fact that he valued me

  i could care less about that but what i

  care about are the things that i'm

  working on and i should not

  be forced to pivot what i'm doing

  to be accepted by the greater computing

  community

  yeah i like that there was a quote a

  professor that i know who was at a

  qualitative research conference and was

  given the opening keynote and i was like

  thank you so much for having me

  i hope this is the last qualitative

  resource conference we ever have and the

  reason why is because i think we should

  be asking questions

  and finding a method that answers those

  questions we should not be focusing on

  the design

  itself that's being used and kind of

  like siloing those things out and so

  the fact that quantitative is seen as

  like this end-all be-all it's like well

  no it you can only answer certain types

  of questions with quantitative

  and you need other methods to answer

  different questions so we need to be

  looking at this again from a

  multi-perspectival approach

  and asking many different types of

  questions but the fact that we aren't

  doing that it's problematic

  absolutely absolutely and it continues

  to drive the issues that we see because

  everyone focuses on the numbers

  that's it nothing else makes sense and

  if we can check the box and say well

  we've got

  x percentage then problem solved i'm

  curious if

  your answer will kind of build off of

  that but do you have any questions

  for myself or to the field i think the

  biggest question i'd ask

  is for anyone what are you gonna do now

  that you know

  right now that you know because there's

  a lot of people who before

  said oh i didn't know i didn't realize

  it was this bad

  be it society or be it in computer i

  don't understand how anyone could not

  know in computing but

  even in society you know now that you've

  seen the black and the ivory hashtag so

  you know it just wasn't that one black

  student or faculty member or postdoc

  that was there

  now that you all participated in

  shutdown stem what are you going to do

  with that

  how are you going to translate that into

  a lifetime

  career commitment to creating

  a better space and a better environment

  for

  everyone i don't think that's something

  that i would expect anyone to answer

  quickly

  but i would expect people to be able to

  marinate on that and

  think right it's gotta go past book

  clubs because everybody's reading right

  now

  right but then you gotta do something

  with that so what are you willing to do

  and and more so i'd ask how much skin

  are you willing to put in the game what

  are you willing to sacrifice

  in order to make sure that it's met and

  the goal is reached that really

  resonates with me and kind of

  i think it's a great answer even to the

  the next question i have which is like

  what could i

  do to better serve the cs education

  community through this podcast

  keep asking the hard questions bringing

  on the people who are going to make

  listeners uncomfortable and it doesn't

  have to be someone who's

  always you know in the space that i'm

  working in

  but there are other people who are doing

  work that infuses this

  right you had shuchi on earlier she does

  a lot of that

  kristen's doing it you know just making

  sure

  that there's a good representation of

  men women and non-binary people who are

  in this space who are willing

  to get on the mic and say this is who i

  am and this is what i'm doing and this

  is why it matters

  and i would especially say

  get people who are willing to come on

  and say i don't fit the traditional

  narrative

  yeah i like that right because again

  we operate in a black white

  male female anything else rich poor

  that's it

  right everything in our world is binary

  but

  having people who get on the mic and

  talk about the fact

  that i do not operate or identify

  as a cisgender heterosexual

  white man right i'm transgender i'm

  non-binary

  i may have a religious identity that

  other people don't necessarily

  understand but i want to talk about that

  as well

  and showing the human part of the

  computer scientists and the educators

  and letting people see that there are

  all of these different identities

  working in this space and we have to be

  able to bring

  our fullest cells every single day i

  should not

  have to code switch i should not have to

  try to assimilate

  i should not have to try to pass

  as something and someone i am not in

  order to be accepted and in order for my

  work to be

  valued yeah i love that you know i think

  about it and i say how many transgender

  computer scientists do we learn about

  every day or hear about

  you know how many people are willing to

  to speak to these things because if i

  got up here and i never

  talked about my sexuality or my identity

  as a cisgender heterosexual

  black woman and all you would know is i

  was a black woman right but i think it's

  important that

  everyone should be able to hear

  different perspectives

  everyone should hear about other

  individuals who share different

  identities

  and the amazing work they're doing and

  what you can glean

  and learn from them and their

  experiences and not just their work but

  their experience

  yeah and one of the things that i've

  kind of noticed in different

  marginalized groups is

  allies who are helping don't

  take control of that narrative so like

  i'm writing a paper

  on transness for music educators to

  consider with their students

  so i'm an author there's another author

  who's a trans

  woman a trans man and a

  non-conforming person who's also on it

  so like we're all

  coming at this from different

  perspectives within like the trans

  community and talking about it

  and one of the things that we're

  bringing up is there are not enough

  people who identify within community who

  are actually

  speaking about this and that needs to

  happen so the narrative has largely been

  controlled

  by cis individuals which is great to

  have the allies but they shouldn't be in

  control of the narrative and some of

  that is coming into like the black lives

  matter

  protest where it's like i support black

  lives matter but i am not going out

  there and

  trying to change the narrative and

  trying to make it about me as a white

  individual

  and some of that is happening in some of

  the protests which is then

  taking away the power from black

  individuals and creating a problem

  absolutely and i'd say even you know

  these are things that

  people again have to become

  comfortable having those uncomfortable

  conversations

  and you have to be okay getting it wrong

  and apologizing for it learning from it

  and moving forward i think there's

  always this fear

  of being wrong or offending

  instead of recognizing that it's okay to

  make a mistake but it's not okay to not

  learn from it and grow from it which is

  why i talk all the time about

  you know that assessment and my gender

  labeling it was terrible to think about

  how someone who identified as

  non-conforming

  may see that and realize she's othering

  me and how could she do that as a black

  woman

  but it was an honest mistake it was

  something that i had to learn from and

  accept

  and realize that i don't need to change

  what's out there because i need people

  to see

  the change in the work that i do and how

  i've progressed

  and become better because of it and

  that's the only way that

  everyone in this community will start to

  improve and then like i said everyone

  else will feel like

  they matter and i can't resonate enough

  why it matters to be seen like you said

  for people to get out of the way

  right if that's not your voice and i

  can't speak to this

  identity then it's not my responsibility

  to i remember there was a question at a

  talk i recently gave and someone asked

  me about

  well how do i navigate spaces as a

  biracial person and i said well i can't

  tell you that because i'm not biracial

  but i can point you to some resources

  and

  experts who are who are doing this work

  but it's not for me to say that right

  it's for me as an advocate an ally

  whatever that is or activist to be able

  to say

  i can help bring you to the things that

  you need

  even if i can't give it to you or do it

  for you myself but i'm not gonna

  go out here and try to start speaking

  for you because i can't

  yeah i like that yeah finding ways to

  support without taking control of that

  and whatnot and not answering for other

  people

  it's definitely important so the last

  question is where my people go to

  connect with you and the organizations

  that you work with

  so there are a few ways my personal

  website is just my name nikki

  washington.com and i

  cki the work that i'm working on right

  now

  around identity and computing our

  website

  is identity at cs.duke.edu

  that has information on the other

  members of the research team

  some of the work we're doing right now

  the 3c assessment

  that i'm working on that i noted in the

  paper

  when twice as good isn't enough and then

  it's also

  a place for the 3c fellows program so

  we're currently soliciting for that

  we'll start

  february through june and that will be

  for

  any educators graduate students or

  industry professionals who are

  interested

  in learning more about identity

  in computing how to create courses

  around it course modules and other

  activities

  that can impact their departments and

  universities and students

  in ways that are more meaningful and

  engaging and sustaining

  so i would say those are the main two if

  anyone's interested in just following

  the crazy that is my mind across the day

  i'm always on twitter so i'm at dr

  underscore nikki ww on twitter

  those are pretty much the three easiest

  ways to reach me between

  any one of those sites i'm always around

  and with that that concludes this week's

  episode of the csk8 podcast

  friendly reminder to visit the show

  notes to check out many of the

  resources that were discussed in this

  particular episode and if you haven't

  done so please consider sharing this

  episode or your favorite episode

  with another colleague in cs education

  thank you for taking the time to listen

  to this episode stay tuned next week for

  another unpacking scholarship episode

  and two weeks from now for another

  interview i hope you're all having a

  wonderful week and staying safe

Guest Bio

View fullsize

Dr. Nicki Washington is a professor of the practice of computer science at Duke University and the author of Unapologetically Dope: Lessons for Black Women and Girls on Surviving and Thriving in the Tech Field. Her career in higher education began at Howard University as the first Black female faculty member in the Department of Computer Science. Her professional experience also includes Winthrop University, The Aerospace Corporation, and IBM.

Recognized as one of Essence Magazine’s “Essence Tech Stars: 15 Black Women Disrupting the Tech Industry,” Dr. Washington has led partnerships with the Howard University Middle School of Math and Science, Google, Exploring Computer Science, and Washington, DC Public Schools to introduce computer science courses and teacher professional development across Washington, DC high schools. She was a lead writer for the K-12 CS Framework (led by Code.org) and South Carolina K-12 Computer Science and Digital Literacy Standards. Her efforts in K-12 CS education have directly impacted approximately 10 million K-12 students and thousands of educators in over 20 states and Washington, DC, and they will continue to impact more nationwide as additional states develop K-12 CS standards.

At the undergraduate and industry levels, Dr. Washington’s efforts to recruit and retain students/graduates of color in computing include creating and implementing the first Googler-in-Residence program at Howard University in 2013. This project led to implementations of Googlers-in-Residence at other HBCUs (including Morehouse, Spelman, NC A&T, Fisk, and Hampton). Her current work focuses on addressing the diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in the tech industry by measuring and improving the cultural competence of students in undergraduate computing departments nationwide, including the development of assessments and courses dedicated to this work.

Dr. Washington has been a guest writer for CSforALL, USA Today College, The Root/VerySmartBrothas, Code.org, and Mama Knows It All, and her interviews have included Essence Magazine, The Atlantic, WHUR’s The Daily Drum, Association of Computing Machinery’s “People of ACM,” and Modern Figures Podcast.

She also provides numerous keynotes, panel discussions, and workshops on diversity, equity, and inclusion in computing+tech for various organizations, including the University of Virginia, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, UC-Irvine, North Carolina A&T, Marist College, American University, Bennett College for Women, Johnson C. Smith University, SXSW EDU, Association for Computing Machinery’s Council on Women in Computing, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., National Coalition for Women in Technology, blackComputeHER, Grace Hopper Celebration, Innovate Your Cool, National Society of Black Engineers, Google, Red Ventures, Wallbreakers, NASA, Advancing the Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W), The DC STEM Summit, and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Washington is also an experienced technical writer/editor, with over 15 years of consulting experience ranging from small to large enterprises. She is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University (B.S., ‘00) and North Carolina State University (M.S., ’02; Ph.D., ’05), becoming the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. at the university and 2019 Computer Science Hall of Fame Inductee. She is a native of Durham, NC.

---

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

• Other podcasts that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode

  • Culturally Responsive-sustaining Computer Science Education: A Framework

    • In this episode I unpack the Kapor Center’s (2021) publication titled “Culturally responsive-sustaining computer science education: A framework,” which describes multiple courses of action for six core components of culturally responsive-sustaining CS education.

  • Decolonizing Education through SEL and PBL with Matinga Ragatz

    • In this interview with Matinga Ragatz, we discuss Matinga’s journey into education, creating environments where kids can learn through struggle, the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL), how schools promote individualism and exceptionalism, the intersections of project-based learning and SEL, decolonizing education, the importance of shared values in education, and so much more.

  • Discussing Computer Science in K-12 with Shuchi Grover

    • In this interview with Shuchi Grover, we discuss the importance of having a variety of assessments in a CS class, why we need more research on computational thinking, why educators and scholars should read literature outside of the field, Shuchi’s new book titled “Computer Science in K-12: An A-To-Z Handbook on Teaching Programming,” and much more.

  • Healthy Boundaries with Siobahn Grady

    • In this interview with Siobahn Grady, we discuss the importance of self care and healthy boundaries, the impact of education, misconceptions and problematic assumptions people make with HBCUs, misconceptions and misunderstandings of being a professor in CS, lessons learned using machine learning to identify authorship of tweets, exploring the implications of social media and technology with students, the intersections of arts and CS, improving equity and inclusion in computing through action, and much more.

  • Intersections of Cultural Capital with Kimberly Scott

    • In this interview with Kimberly Scott, we discuss some of the problems with discourse around grit, students as techno-social change agents, teaching with culturally responsive approaches in communities that are hostile toward culturally responsive pedagogies, unpacking discourse and Discourse, considering both present and future identities when teaching, potential disconnects between theory and practice with intersectional work, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comforted, and so much more.

  • Liberatory Computing Education for African American Students

    • In this episode I unpack Walker, Sherif, and Breazeal’s (2022) publication titled “Liberatory computing education for African American students,” which unpacks and situates the five pillars of the liberation framework proposed by El-Amin within data activism modules.

  • Racial Justice Amidst the Dangers of Computing Creep: A Dialogue

    • In this episode I unpack Shah and Yadav’s (2023) publication titled “Racial justice amidst the dangers of computer creep: A dialogue,” which presents a dialogue that problematizes issues around racial justice in computing education.

  • Re-examining Inequalities in Computer Science Participation from a Bourdieusian Sociological Perspective

    • In this episode I unpack Kallia and Cutts’ (2021) publication titled “Re-examining inequalities in computer science participation from a Bourdieusian sociological perspective,” which uses Bourdieu’s discussions of capital, habitus, and field to analyze 147 publications on CS interventions.

  • The Shire as Metaphor for Systemic Racism with Joyce McCall

    • In this interview with Joyce McCall, we unpack and problematize some of the issues around race and racism in relation to education. In particular, we discuss the importance of allies not only showing up to support marginalized or oppressed groups, but staying when conversations get uncomfortable; the Shire from the Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for hegemony and systemic racism; as well as a variety of theories such as critical race theory, double consciousness, cultural capital; and much more.

  • Trans Voices Speak: Suggestions from Trans Educators about Working with Trans Students

    • In this episode I unpack Cayari et al.’s (2021) publication titled “Trans voices speak: Suggestions from trans educators about working with trans students,” which provides five suggestions from Trans educations on working with Trans students.

  • When Twice as Good Isn't Enough: The Case for Cultural Competence in Computing

    • In this episode I unpack Washington's (2020) paper titled "When twice as good isn't enough: The case for cultural competence in computing," which explores the five elements and six stages of cultural competence in relation to undergraduate computing programs.

  • More episodes related to cultural competence

  • More episodes related to diversity

  • More episodes related to equity

  • More episodes related to gender

  • More episodes related to inclusion

  • More episodes related to race

  • More episodes on the representation

  • All other episodes

• Publications mentioned in this episode

  • Nicki’s book - Unapologetically Dope: Lessons for Black Women and Girls on Surviving and Thriving in the Tech Field

  • Nicki’s paper - When Twice as Good Isn't Enough: The Case for Cultural Competence in Computing

    • Listen to the unpacking scholarship episode that unpacks this paper

  • The SIGCHI’s best paper that Nicki mentioned - Critical Race Theory for HCI

  • Audre Lorde’s book Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

• Dissertation by Dawn Farmer that explores discourse around the use of the word “urban” in professional discourse

• See the resources for the presentation I did on engineered inequalities

• Listen to the interview with Shuchi Grover that Nicki mentioned

• Connect with Nicki

  • Nicki’s website

  • Nicki’s Facebook page

  • Nicki’s Instagram page

  • Nicki’s LinkedIn page

  • Nicki’s Twitter page

  • Nicki’s Google Scholar profile

  • Identity in Computing Group, which has more information on the 3C Assessment and the 3C Fellows

  • Nicki’s faculty page at Duke

• Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter

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Free CS Resources I Have Created

• JavaScript (Khan Academy) resources

• Media arts and technology makerspace resources

• Scratch resources

• Sonic Pi resources

• Swift resources

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More Content

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Most Recent Podcasts

#CSK8 Podcast RSS Feed RSS

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Most Recent Presentations

Presentations RSS

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Most Recent Publications

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