Tori Svoboda “Speaking Your Truth and Being Enough”

Explicit content warning

10/03/18 • 61 min

In episode 30, my guest Tori Svoboda shares raw stories and thoughts on life as a professional in higher education as well as equity in the academy. She discusses her lifelong journey, her experiences as a student, and how that all shapes her work today. Tori encourages us to take action and be relevant, while trying to balance not being too disruptive. Make sure to check out some great resources in the show notes! About Tori: A formerly low-income and still first-generation student, staff, and faculty person, Tori worked in student affairs for 20 years before changing lanes to full-time faculty life 5 years ago. Tori now directs the master's program and teaches in the doctoral program in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. Tori has a chapter coming out in the book, Social Class in the Academy, edited by Becky Martinez and Sonja Ardoin, entitled, "I could always go back to being a bartender: Musings of an ambivalent academic." If you meet Tori, ask about her family, including Stella, Hannah, and Millie - the three dogs who rule the roost.

Previous Episode

Julia R. Golden “Trusting Your Gut and Following Your Heart as Social Justice Educators”

In episode 29, my guest Julia R. Golden reminds us to be careful, kind, and patient with ourselves. Julia talks about the work they move forward, not only in Boston but across the nation through the NASPA Ubuntu Institute. Julia encourages us to follow our heart and trust our gut. We conclude our discussion with a tremendous list of resources and fantastic guidance to inform your daily work.

Next Episode

Trans*Forming Higher Education Collaborative Think Tank (Part 1)

To kickoff season three, I invite you to join me for a discussion at a gathering of the Trans*forming Higher Education Collaborative in Tucson, Arizona. T.H.E. Collaborative is “a group of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) educators dedicated to addressing transgender oppression in and through higher education." (T.H.E. Vision Statement, 2018) We centered the work of adrienne marry brown’s book, “Emergent Strategy”, by focusing on three questions. We had a very robust convening around these questions, so you have the honor of digesting the entirety of the discussion in three parts.
Episode 31, Part One centers the question:
“What does it mean for us to convene across and within geographies and institutional hierarchies?”
Episode 31, Part Two centers the question:
“What does it mean to build something that has never been built before?”
Episode 31, Part Three continues the discussion from part two, as well as centers the question:
“What does trans*forming higher education mean to you?”
In the spirit of brown’s work, T.H.E. Collaborative centered this Emergent Strategy principle:
“There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it."
Guests included:

Z Nicolazzo
Melvin Whitehead
Alex Lange
S Simmons
Sy Simms
D-L Stewart
Alden Jones
T.J. Jourian
Saby Labor

Resilient Campus - Tori Svoboda “Speaking Your Truth and Being Enough”

Transcript

spk_0: 0:05
Hello and welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here, and I hope that you're having an amazing week. I wanted to give you some of the highlights from this conversation that I had with Tory Svoboda today because we covered so much ground. We talked about so many different topics, and Tory kept it real and authentic. And that was something that I know many of you have asked of the guests to just have a conversation from the heart and not to edit it and not to cen