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Real Talk with Leaders in the Field: Fireside chat with Caryn Block
24 Plays14 days ago
We’re back with a very special guest, Dr. Caryn Block, Professor of Psychology and Education and Chair for the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University! You may have heard us talk about Caryn numerous times throughout the podcast. That’s because the three of us met in Caryn’s research group 10+ years ago. Caryn encouraged and supported us to study dynamics unique to Asians, and she is also one of the inspirations behind this podcast! Join us as we chat with Caryn about what good allyship and mentorship can look like and inspire.
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Transcript
Introduction of Dr. Karen Block
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight, your podcast for all things Asian and the workplace. Today we have a very special guest joining us. We have Dr. Karen Block.
00:00:19
Speaker
ah For those of you who've listened to our previous episodes, you may have heard us talk about her and reference the work that we've done with her. So we're really excited to to finally have her on the podcast.
00:00:31
Speaker
So Dr. Karen Block is professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She's the chair for the Department of Organization and Leadership. She received her PhD in industrial organizational psychology from and NYU and her Bachelor of Science in psychology from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
00:00:49
Speaker
She's a well-known expert on research focused on identifying and addressing challenges for professionals from different backgrounds and organizations. She's known for her work on stereotype threat, race and gender stereotypes, workplace microaggressions, and inclusive leadership.
00:01:04
Speaker
And she works with organizations on how to tackle these issues. Before we pass it over, i also wanted to add one more thing. So Karen has been one of the biggest influencers in my career and my research.
00:01:17
Speaker
And I'm sure Doug and Echo all have similar stories to share today. But a big reason why I'm doing the work that I do today and I made it this far this fast was because Karen took a chance on me many years ago by taking me under her wing and inviting me to join her research group.
00:01:35
Speaker
um So you believed in me, you encouraged me, you mentored me, and helped me grow into the you know the behavioral scientist that I am today. and today's episode is really about spotlighting what good allyship and advocacy can look like. And we you know we need more examples of this because doing this work requires buy-in and and support from people other than, in our case, you know Asian Americans and Asian professionals doing this work. So with that, welcome to the podcast, Karen.
00:02:09
Speaker
Woo!
00:02:11
Speaker
Thank you. It's so nice to be here. And as you all know, I'm an avid listener. i think I've heard every podcast so far. And it's wonderful because it just feels like we're continuing a conversation that we started having so long ago.
00:02:26
Speaker
And seeing that you're all continuing that conversation and where you're taking it, um it's wonderful. So I'm really happy to be here. Is there anything that I missed that you want to add? Maybe what's what's going on for you before we dive in?
Experiences as Department Chair
00:02:44
Speaker
Oh, let's see Well, I'm new in this leadership role of department chair. It's been the last two years. Took me till the end of my career before I did this, um you know, toward the end. And it's been incredibly gratifying. So I would just say that um for those of you who are listening, who are thinking about leadership positions, ah go talk to people who are in those roles and make those connections and find out what's actually involved, because it might not be what you think. And I think, you know, for me, the thing that's been most fulfilling about it is having a seat at the table.
00:03:15
Speaker
And it's really different when you can influence decisions that your organization is making. And so feeling that agency and proactive and knowing that you're doing a good job representing your department, your unit, and really also it's a wonderful thing to see the bigger picture of how the organization's functioning and the different roles people sit in.
00:03:37
Speaker
So I think anyone who's on the fence, for me, it's been just an unbelievable developmental experience. oh And I do think, Karen, that even in that role that you ah have definitely achieved what you have expected, right? I think that's definitely a plus. So that's wonderful for you as well. It's true. i One of my goals of doing this was increasing our funding pool for doctoral students so that it was, you know, in line with our enrollments and what we were bringing in.
00:04:06
Speaker
And as Echo Duke and Jenny can tell you, we didn't have great doctoral packages for a while. And from my work with you and other students, I really learned that even though, let's say we're covering tuition and giving you some sort of a stipend, it really isn't enough.
00:04:21
Speaker
And you all helped me realize the need for doing that. So, you know, I went in and was able to achieve that we got our proportional share of money to fund doctoral students, which is wonderful because, you know, I've been, I've been in this doctoral program and mostly been, um you know, chairing the doctoral program for, I don't want to say how many years because of age-related stereotypes, but before some of you were probably born.
00:04:47
Speaker
So it was really wonderful to be able to do that. But you're right, Echo, it was a time when I could affect change. But even if I couldn't affect change, at least I would understand some of the, you know, constraints the organization was under to see why decisions were being made in the way they were. So still, I encourage you to try it.
00:05:06
Speaker
Although maybe it is good to wait a long time because that is how I was able to affect change was having been there long enough that I really understood the
Journey into Psychology
00:05:14
Speaker
situation. Karen, could you talk a little bit about what got you into this field? So, yeah you know, you studied psychology as an undergrad and then you decided pursue a PhD in IO psychology.
00:05:24
Speaker
Could you talk a little bit about, you know, your origin story? Yeah, a lot of it has to do with serendipity. I don't know if that's true for everybody, but I did love psychology and I was able to because I went to a good high school, take it as an undergraduate and take it in advanced um psychology course, and not even as an undergraduate, sorry, as a high school kid.
00:05:43
Speaker
And so I got to write a research paper my senior year of high school, and I lived not that far from Northwestern University. So I would go in the stacks and really read articles And it was a paper about autism because I was reading Rolling Stone magazine and there was an article in there about autism and I just found it so fascinating.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then I went to the University of Illinois and, you know, being a typical undergraduate, I handed that paper in for a course of mine in clinical psychology instead of writing a new one. And I got...
00:06:13
Speaker
and a And I thought, oh, wow. you know I mean, for me, I think I stayed in the field because I didn't have all that much confidence. So whenever you know I got positive feedback, I would just stay in that role.
00:06:25
Speaker
And so I then went on in a summer in the summer to work for a really well-known clinical psychologist, John Gottman. And he was working on infant verbalizations. And um we had to code them from a tape recorder back then and you know code what an infant was saying. And you know how hard it is to understand infants?
00:06:43
Speaker
So they couldn't get me reliable with any other coder. And so they kind of fired me and said, you have to find a new... ah independent kind of research project for your summer.
00:06:55
Speaker
So my upstairs neighbor had a friend who was a doctoral student in industrial organizational psychology, and he was, you know, said, hey, I'll sponsor you.
00:07:05
Speaker
And so it's a really long story. I don't know if you want the whole story, but he sponsored me and there wasn't that much work. But because of that, I met other faculty and doctoral students in the and University of Illinois Industrial Organizational Psychology program, and they were just wonderful. And so, you know, one of the early studies I did was on looking at a fraternity and looking to see if the people who rise to leadership in that organization are the same people who have the same like kind of causal map of the organization as the senior leader. so it was a qualitative interview study.
00:07:39
Speaker
And it was fascinating with this wonderful professor from France, Michel Bougon. And so I really loved that research project and that's when I realized I loved research. And after that, I knew I wanted to study abroad and I thought maybe I'd go to Israel because i was Jewish and I had never like learned to speak Hebrew. You know, I was a suburban Jewish kid.
00:08:00
Speaker
And at the University of Illinois, um as a visiting professor was Mary Merez, who was a full-time faculty member at that point, maybe a associate professor. at the Technion University in Haifa.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so she agreed to work with me and during my, and she was a mentor to me during my junior year of college. I spent a semester there and worked with her to understand um employee withdrawal behavior.
00:08:26
Speaker
I worked with Chuck Hewlin at the University of Illinois as well. And whether, you know, um it's hidden or whether it's outright employee withdrawal behavior. and whether culture affects that, because in Israel, it's much more of a collectivistic culture, and in the U.S., it was more of an individualistic culture. So we looked at factories there, and that really, again, got me further hooked. That was my honors thesis and into research. And so then...
00:08:51
Speaker
I applied to NYU for graduate school because I just found that I loved working. And I applied to probably 10 different doctoral programs. But when I got to NYU, you know, I was also picturing where do I want to live till I'm like in my late 20s? And New York was the place because I walked into this store called Unique Boutique and they had T-shirts in every color of the rainbow.
00:09:15
Speaker
And I thought, I want to go to graduate school here. But it wasn't just that. I also got a chance to meet my second mentor, Madeline Heilman, who was doing incredible work. And so I then went to and NYU and I did like working in industrial organizational psychology. But the issue was I'd never really had a job other than it at an Army Navy surplus store. you know, in a day camp in a record store.
00:09:36
Speaker
So I really didn't have organizational experience. So then during my time at NYU, I thought strongly and went through with almost transferring to the social psychology program. I was working closely with John Barge.
00:09:48
Speaker
And i really almost transferred, but there was one meeting with Diane Rubel, another professor in social psychology. And she talked to me about the job market and said, you know, if you can stay in IO, you can have a job in industry, you can have a job in a psych department, you can have a job in the business school, and you can really still do social psychology.
00:10:06
Speaker
And so that was very influential. And I ended up then staying in the industrial organizational psychology program, but taking as many courses in social psychology as I could. And so that's kind of, you know, how I got there. And I did a number of internships, by the way, so I could learn about organizational life. And I worked at Citibank on their first employee survey.
00:10:27
Speaker
I worked at IBM for years in graduate school so that I really did get a sense of organizational life. But what kept me in the academic world instead of going on and doing something different was my you know, three to four year internship at IBM.
00:10:41
Speaker
And ah We found we I was on a very big research project and they were they did not at that point ever get rid of people for cause. I mean, sorry, they didn't get rid of people because of a downsizing.
00:10:55
Speaker
They would retrain everybody. So I was on this big study about retraining. And what we found was that, like, not everybody could be retrained given the technological demands that were changing.
00:11:07
Speaker
And so I did the study and it got reported up to my boss who thought it was great. We did it together. We reported it up to his boss, head of research, who reported it up to his boss, head of HR.
00:11:18
Speaker
The head of HR never reported it further because it was going to just be like a bad news story. And so that, I mean, it was right before Lewis Gerstner came and IBM changed those policies, but I just felt like, wow, could if I could work on something for three years and not have it go somewhere,
00:11:36
Speaker
I thought, you know, maybe I wanted to be in academia where I'd have more control over what I studied. That was probably too long-winded. Wow. Yeah. That was an amazing answer. Well, I'm glad you decided to stay in I.O. Yeah. Otherwise, this group won't exist.
00:11:51
Speaker
We all know, like this group probably know each other for 10 plus years. And this is the first time I ever heard that story. So thank you, Karen, for sharing that. Karen sits on every single dissertation defense that we have.
00:12:04
Speaker
the three of us have, and we share our story, but so i appreciate the the worst reverse side. Yeah, and we can have another call and I'll fill in the details.
00:12:14
Speaker
um um Karen, could you talk more about, and i knew about Madeline Heilman. I didn't know about Diane Rubel. Could you talk about how, like what characteristics like drew you to them say, like kind of made you think like, this is the person i want to be around. I want to learn from what, what triggered that? What, what made you think that these are the people that are going to help you move forward in your career?
00:12:42
Speaker
If I could even go back a little further, Duke, and talk about when I was an undergraduate, Miriam Arez, who is still a member of the Academy of Management and does an incredible amount of research. She was recognized as a PSYOP fellow two years ago.
00:12:54
Speaker
And she was such a patient and careful thinker. And I really appreciated her thinking and feedback. You know, she was working on goal setting. I was working on goal setting and I really worked closely with her.
00:13:08
Speaker
But then also it was just the personal care she gave to me because there I was as a, you know, somebody from the U.S. who had never been abroad, let alone live abroad in Israel. And so when I first got there, I was living on a kibbutz because I had like a couple months before I was going to start at University of Haifa.
00:13:27
Speaker
And she, you know, invited me up there and I ate with her family and then met her family. And then when I did move to Haifa, she would have me over all the time. And she was just, and but plus she was a mom.
00:13:40
Speaker
Her husband was an architect and she was a mom of these two kids. And it just, all of a sudden, I knew that I did want to be a parent. And so it just, for me, made real what my life could look like.
00:13:52
Speaker
And was such a calm and generous mentor. So, you you know, that was my, probably my first inkling that, oh, an academic, that would be a good career path.
00:14:02
Speaker
You know, with Diane Rubel, I didn't know her well at all. And it was just one conversation, but that points out how one conversation can be pivotal. um and With Madeline, when I got to and NYU, I wasn't working with her. I was working with, I switched work groups like three times.
00:14:20
Speaker
always to somebody different um each year. But I never felt, and I wasn't really interested in gender or race race issues at all. It was just kind of where I was assigned. But I really never felt like I got attention from my work group advisor, because that was either the youngest or I was one of the few females.
00:14:38
Speaker
So I really, didn't really have an advisor-advisee relationship for most of graduate school. But then I think in my Third, but maybe my fourth year, I was a TA a for Madeline in her course on research methods, which, by the way, as Jenny, Duke, and Echo know, that's a course that all doctoral students in psychology at TC take that I've come to love to teach. And I just loved working with Madeline. And that core and Madeline also was a graduate of Teachers College. she Her mentor was Mord Deutsch.
00:15:09
Speaker
And so working with Madeline on that course, we just really bonded as humans. um And so at that point, i kind of had the experience at IBM where I thought I don't want to go into industry.
00:15:22
Speaker
And Madeline was doing more publishing than anybody, but she was studying gender differences. And I wasn't really interested in that. I was interested in goal setting and task performance. But I thought, like, let me be practical and get some publications.
00:15:34
Speaker
And so our work together was wonderful. And we got three publications. She is one of the clearest writers and thinkers that I have ever run across in my life, if not the clearest.
00:15:46
Speaker
And so, you know, I learned a lot from how she structured the work group, although it was mostly structured on the project she was doing. And then we would assist and learn with that. So I was mostly writing like the methods and results sections, but not so much the intro and discussion.
00:16:01
Speaker
You know, it was great visibility. I learned a lot. That's really when it solidified that I wanted to go into academia, you know, and we're still close friends. um You know, even when I got to teacher's college, I didn't really think gender issues were that interesting because I'm not very, I wasn't very gender identified and I didn't think of myself that way. I was raised to be more agentic and be into sports.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I remember I was the very first woman that was hired in our program. oh And I was introduced at the faculty meeting by, not by anyone in our program, by somebody who is our department chair, is the first member of this program to wear a skirt.
00:16:40
Speaker
And I thought, huh, of all the things you could say about me, I didn't even wear skirts. And as you know, I don't anymore either. um But ah in that role,
00:16:51
Speaker
As the first woman and and younger, i found that I really do also have these communal characteristics where I really found, oh, do enjoy mentoring students and working with them.
00:17:03
Speaker
And then we had the next department chair, a female, Pat Raskin, who said to me, you're just going to have to watch it in your role, Karen, if you want to get tenure because you're spending so much time doing women's work and not enough time the doing the writing.
00:17:17
Speaker
And I thought, oh, maybe there is something to this gender work after all. And maybe even though i don't i I didn't at that time, I was pretty young, identify as being a female first, I still was subject to all the gender dynamics that can happen in a workplace. So I still, at this so stage in my career, i figured out how to balance it because I do really love the mentoring and I love, you know, the work that we all did together as a team when we were together, which wasn't driven by you know, my interest is uncovering diversity dynamics and systems, but where they get uncovered so much depends on the partnership. So, yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
To get to work with all three of you and embark on our new area of research on the experiences of Asian Americans in the workplace was just wonderful. You know, Karen, I've always wanted to ask you this question, and I can't believe that I have never asked you this.
00:18:09
Speaker
You know, most of my friends who did a PhD, they basically said that they had to work on a research topic that their advisor was working on, and that's pretty standard. But in your case and in our case,
00:18:21
Speaker
You co-created the research topic and we studied how Asian and Asian American professionals experience the workplace. And that was new for you. That was
Collaborative Research with Students
00:18:33
Speaker
new for us. what What motivated you to be open to kind of co-creating that with your grad students?
00:18:40
Speaker
It's really interesting, Jenny, because i think before that, I hadn't done it as much. Like before that, I was doing a bunch of work on women in STEM that was really based on my own you know interest in stereotype threat and you know working with Laurieann Roberson, another faculty member.
00:18:56
Speaker
And I think it was such a huge project. It was qualitative and and and I hadn't done qualitative before. And honestly, i was just kind of at that point, being totally honest with you all, was kind of burnt out and I didn't have...
00:19:09
Speaker
Like, I just, I was like, that that project took so much out of me. And I thought, you know what, I just, I don't have at this moment, like you have these moments where your research agenda feels really clear in your life and moments where you don't.
00:19:25
Speaker
And so when you all entered, I just closed the book on such a big chapter. And I was kind of fresh and open to doing something new. And I felt like, you know, Jenny, you had been with me for a while at that point. Echo had been with me before that.
00:19:41
Speaker
And joke we had been together through some of this stuff before. So we really weren't completely new to each other when we started. i'd say we knew each other. I just felt like doing something new. And I think I had done something on microaggressions because Daryl Sue had asked me to.
00:19:58
Speaker
It was really about colorblindness and meritocracy, um but it made me, it was a chapter for him because I was told I didn't have enough first authored publications to go up for full. And Daryl said, well, write this chapter and then put that in your folder and it worked.
00:20:11
Speaker
which is how Daryl Tsu really helped mentor me with those publication opportunities. So I think that it was just, i was open to it. And it I found that it was so generative to do research that way that I really haven't gone back. So, you know, I'm working with Katrina, who's Katrina Montan, who was a professional athlete. She was in the Olympics.
00:20:32
Speaker
And we're working on understanding masculinity, culture and sport. And I'm working on employee resource groups with Alexandria Frank, because that was something that was so important to her. And I would say it's now come around, though, where in this last year and a half, you know, I'm Jewish and we've talked about that through the our own research together because Asians and Jews can be seen as high on competence and low in warmth and some of the same dynamics, but we've always known there was sort of a difference, but I never really thought that I needed to pursue those kinds of microaggressions or what was happening to people who are Jewish. But since October 7th, all the work that we did together set me up to do this work with a current, two current doctoral students, Elle Silverstein and Natanya Treisenfeld, where we are
00:21:19
Speaker
Duke, we are developing and we have developed a scale to measure, you know, anti-Semitic microaggressions. And that work that like I did with Duke on his dissertation set me up to do that.
00:21:32
Speaker
And we are going to do a qualitative study and the work that we all did together. We're going, you know, so it's so funny how generative it has been for me. to then now it is informing something that is like top of mind for my research agenda.
00:21:46
Speaker
Wow. So it comes back full circle. like Like Jenny mentioned, like most of folks in tenured in PhD programs want you to do their research because that's what their field of expertise is.
00:21:59
Speaker
But you kind of took like us under your arms and said, let's go and do something else. ah Because I remember Mateo Cruz presented on this at a and of colloquium.
00:22:10
Speaker
And I think this is like about 2012 or something. He mentioned ah we had binders full of women, ah qualitative the the transcripts that were, but that were printed out kind of mocking, I think, probably a little bit at the time.
00:22:25
Speaker
yeah Yep. Yeah. it's It's very true. And I wouldn't necessarily go back to the way I used to do it because the students in our program come in with so much life experience and it's it's so much more generative to co-create a research project than to come in and say, this is my research agenda. So it's just been incredible, like working with Shani Yearwood on the research on the strong Black women stereotype.
00:22:52
Speaker
Working with ECHO, I would not have understood that um to inquire about the stereotype of East Asians and South Asians and how they differ. And so it just makes it so much more of a generative learning experience for me when I can do that kind of work. I really enjoy it.
00:23:09
Speaker
And I don't think I'll go back to ever just kind of here are the six studies. I'm going to plug you all in now. I wouldn't do it that way anymore. It's just not it's not me.
00:23:26
Speaker
Karen, this might be something. If this goes 20 years back, would you feel like you will have that freedom to do that? No. that's a really good question That's a really good point, Echo. I really wouldn't, so it isn't good advice when you're starting out.
00:23:42
Speaker
Well... I mean, it is good advice in that what I felt that freedom. I didn't have a role model who did it that way. I think that's the issue because i don't think people were doing that. And I just didn't have a role model.
00:23:55
Speaker
If I had a role model, maybe. But like when I did work with Miriam Arez, it was on work that she was already looking at participation and goal setting. And with Madeline, we looked at gender stereotypes.
00:24:06
Speaker
Although I did do new work with Robert Carter where we did look at racial stereotypes, but and that we co-created. He was a faculty member at TC. But yeah, I think before tenure, you know, I've been on the tenure committee long enough, people want to see your research trajectory.
00:24:21
Speaker
But I do feel like the umbrella of the work that I do on diversity dynamics, it is truly an umbrella. Other work that, you know, recently I've been doing that came from more from my experiences was, the you know, as Jenny mentioned, I work a lot with leaders and organizations.
Mentorship and Allyship
00:24:36
Speaker
And so when I was working with an investment company and we were doing a panel on stereotype threat, one of the questions I always asked was, what allowed you to succeed? And I was interviewing managing directors, you know, despite the stereotypes that you've been hit with.
00:24:51
Speaker
So many of them talked about leaders and having leaders who actually they could be open with, comfortable with. and willing to you know be honest with. And so that led to the research that I've been doing with I-Tong Lee that looks at what happens when leaders are vulnerable and what happens when leaders share struggles and how does that influence people's experience of stereotypes. And so you know we did find that if you have a leader who is more vulnerable, more honest,
00:25:22
Speaker
admits their struggles, doesn't put on the picture-perfect resume version of themselves, that people who work with them are more likely to thrive, not worry about being stereotyped. And when people make a mistake and stumble, they can then come and talk to that leader because they know their leaders have made mistakes and stumbled along the way.
00:25:42
Speaker
And so I think you know we're studying that, but I think I somehow... tried to live that because I stumble all the time. And I've shared with you many stumbles. Jenny knows them because she worked with me when I was getting promoted. And I didn't get promoted to full professor till late in my career.
00:26:01
Speaker
And Jenny helped me get it all together. So I feel like, you know, I just want to at this point in my career, be authentic, be honest, and be able to stumble and have people see that you stumble and then you get up.
00:26:14
Speaker
Karen, I wanted to go back to what you mentioned earlier on, which is you've sort of developed this reputation as being the person to go to, the mentor to have, the advisor to have. and And that also comes with its own downside because if no one else is doing that work and you're the only one or one of the only few doing that type of work in your workplace,
00:26:32
Speaker
um And that could potentially lead to burnout. So could you talk a little bit about that and how you balance the the joy that you get from mentoring other people and bringing others along, but also making sure to save a little bit for yourself and focus on what's important to you?
00:26:48
Speaker
So I'd love to, and I would not be honest if I didn't tell you therapy has helped me understand this. But, you know, when people are mentoring and giving selflessly, um they're getting something out of it.
00:27:00
Speaker
And that was really important to me to examine. Like, of course I'm doing it because I want, you know, I i want students who work with me to really um go out there and make an impact on the world.
00:27:13
Speaker
But what was I getting out of that was a question I had to explore. And why was I, like, what was my collusion in this, to use those terms? And why would I assume that my colleagues wouldn't pick up the slack? So it's very interesting because since you've all left the program, I do not have the biggest work group anymore at all.
00:27:32
Speaker
Other colleagues have bigger work groups and I haven't been the doctoral coordinator because now I'm the department chair. So I am off kind of procuring resources. I'm getting grants for some of the antisemitism studies that we're doing.
00:27:46
Speaker
And you know what? The doctoral coordinator now is doing great. And we have a new program director and he's doing great. And Faculty are mentoring students and some of the faculty have seen that the model of kind of meeting students where they are, as opposed to only your research agenda, is one that works and they've adopted it.
00:28:06
Speaker
And so I feel like the longer I stayed and did that, it was allowing us all to be stuck. But getting myself, doing the work on myself and saying, you know, maybe you would be valued even if you did this less. And also other people are very capable of doing it and they have.
00:28:25
Speaker
And so I feel like it's a much more balanced place now Karen, what you mentioned there um made me think there was one moment that you mentioned, like, what do you get out of from those mentorship?
00:28:37
Speaker
And even just the experience that you described, like how some of the research you have done with some of us, some of the other colleagues in the program. somehow also feel you back in the the recent research that you did. And I just wish everyone has that mentality as they were being someone's ally, as they were being someone's mentor.
00:28:58
Speaker
Because i might personally, I have experienced probably less of that pleasant experience when we were seeking some advice from someone or we trying to seeking some support from or advocate of from some of our colleagues or team members.
00:29:15
Speaker
And I do think that mental set ah mentality of openness, like you're open to new things, you're also open to learning new things. That is probably the key in in in that allyship. So I really appreciate that.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that's right. It is. That is the good part. You know, what's the bad part of it? Overworking. You know, just like we all are fixed amount of cognitive resources, missing my kid's birthday sometimes, you know, like, of course, now he's 28.
00:29:46
Speaker
And so he's fine. All of you who are out there, if you're listening and you're working and you have kids, he's totally fine. He's happy. He's great. But yeah. um And it's just, I feel like we all take up roles in ways that are good for us.
00:30:00
Speaker
And that's what we all have to figure out. Like, who are you? What parts of this role do you value? And take it up in a way that is good for you, but also looking at the people you want to bring behind you. And for me, um you know, just one of my favorite things we do is when students finish their dissertation. We've, during COVID, we started having these parties on Zoom, which, yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
Jenny, did you you, did you miss, it was yours in Zoom? Mine was in person. i think mine was one of the last ones that were in person. Yeah. Okay. But anyway, sorry, you missed it. We could do it, but we have these, we had, so we did it for Duke. We did it for Echo and you have people's families joining from all over the world and their friends.
00:30:46
Speaker
And it's just a real recognition of the journey. And when I am the sponsor of a dissertation and it's happening over zoom, I get to really think about my time with that individual and, you know,
00:30:58
Speaker
reflect back on our journey together. And there's nothing greater than seeing like where people enter, and then where people go and seeing that developmental trajectory.
00:31:09
Speaker
And then you see people out in the world. And it's such a wonderful feeling to know that you were able to be a part of somebody's journey. It's just I can't, it's incredible. And so I really i get so much from that. I really do.
00:31:23
Speaker
you You know, seeing where people take the program, because our program, you have to be a practitioner, be a scholar, no research, no group relations. And what people get interested in and how they put it all together is always totally unique, you know, no matter who finishes. And that really the three of you are a prime example of it, which is probably why just love listening to the podcast because I learn something new each time.
00:31:48
Speaker
You know, Karen, like, know, hearing all these stories about, like, the work that you've done with ah others, the work that you've done with us, I think still is an undersell of ah what you do.
00:32:00
Speaker
Because I was Karen's TA for the PhD methods course for two years in a row. And in the first year, I was actually really quiet. um Because I was actually watching Karen and how she was inviting people in and bringing people along to kind of join her journey on this research methods journey that we get to do together.
00:32:23
Speaker
And the way you did it, because we had um we had students in clinical, counseling, school, org psych, stats, HUDM, people were just on the edge of their seats just listening to you, and you were just bringing them along.
00:32:38
Speaker
You knew ah some of the work that they're ah a lot of the work that their advisors are doing. You knew the work that they're about to do. And I think A lot of folks ask you to be on their committee to be maybe an outside reader or a third reader.
00:32:54
Speaker
And it really just kind of shows like the the amount of work you put into not only us within the department, mentoring us as graduate students, And even post-graduation, but all the also the other folks that you have brought along in other departments, because you see the value in the collaboration within the different departments, the different realms of psychology and how that has kind of just can relate to each other.
00:33:21
Speaker
So. Mm hmm. There's just a much broader spectrum of the work that ah Karen touches beyond our own department at TC. And just want to let our audience ah i know that because ah we don't get a chance to talk about that.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, you know, it had this year was interesting because I was in the department chair role, so I really couldn't teach. So I asked Duke to teach, but he was busy. with his new position if he wants to teach this course.
00:33:48
Speaker
So then I decided to co-teach it with one of our doctoral students who just finished, Jean Sohn, because they won't like let a current doctoral student teach regular doctoral students. Makes sense to me.
00:33:59
Speaker
So Jean and I co-taught it, and we got our course evaluations back. And she got higher evaluations than I did, which is good though, right? Because she's closer to them. And so honestly, I'm 63.
00:34:12
Speaker
three And so I think that's also like a piece I think about is I also want to make room for people who are coming next. But I am very motivated by the work I'm doing now.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I learned so much about the Asian-American experience working with all of you. And we started studying this pre-COVID. And then COVID hit and it was such um a frightening, absolutely frightening time for everybody. And for because of the violence here, you know, Echo was stuck.
00:34:51
Speaker
in China, and then she finally got back here, and then she was stuck inside here during that time. You know, seeing what, and you know, Ginny, then you went and did research about that, and then invited me into another
Emotional Aspects of Research
00:35:03
Speaker
project. So it's also like the time that we chose to study the Asian American experience in the workplace, it's just been kind of a whirlwind. And I guess one other thing I learned from the experience was um You know, we always say research is me search.
00:35:19
Speaker
And so, of course, I've done research on women and the barriers they face. But I've also done research, you know, on people who are black and on Asians and Asian Americans. And I remember in embarking on this research, particularly because Duke was doing a qualitative study and he really dove deeply into like the history black.
00:35:37
Speaker
Asian American discrimination in the workplace. And in his dissertation, he really has like, um you know, I've never really read the whole history before. And Duke said, you know, I don't know if you know this, Karen, but it's kind of emotional to write this and you need a little bit of a break.
00:35:53
Speaker
And I knew it cognitively, but I didn't know it effectively until I started doing work on really looking at the discrimination that Jewish people have experienced. And I think I was in the strategy that I wrote about in the women and sta and STEM paper of fending off the stereotype and really not seeing it and thinking it didn't apply to me and working for it not to until you're kind of faced with the reality that it does. And so what I respect that I didn't realize before was the emotional content of our work together. And I could know it, but I couldn't feel it.
00:36:27
Speaker
in the same way that I now feel it. And so I look back and I feel like, wow, you even trusted me, not only with like the work, but with the emotion around doing this work.
00:36:38
Speaker
And I really appreciated that.
00:36:43
Speaker
If I could just share partly why that trust
00:36:51
Speaker
just share partly why that trust has been there. Karen, don't know if you remember this. This is, I think, back in 2009. I applied, i think, partly jokingly as a kid from Iowa, looking into a doctoral program.
00:37:09
Speaker
And surprisingly, I got an invitation to interview day. My first experience interaction with you, more so like hearing you, was you up in Thompson 229. two two nine And you opened up with, we invited you here.
00:37:24
Speaker
because we thought you could do the work. And when I heard that, there were just barriers that just came down. I wasn't, I didn't have to prove myself.
00:37:37
Speaker
They think I'm worth it. She thinks I'm worth it. She thinks I can do the work. I just need to do the work now. And um that year I didn't get in. i got into another program, but I didn't want to, with full funding.
00:37:52
Speaker
And I didn't want to go. because ah there's some other things that were happening and I knew I was going to be burnt out ah given the circumstance. But I said, give it two more years, reapply, and see if you can get in.
00:38:06
Speaker
And that's exactly what happened. and I knew I wanted to work with you because it was just that, um like you mentioned, that small interaction. that little interaction that just made me feel like you made me feel a certain way about the graduate work.
00:38:25
Speaker
And me being a first generation college student myself, I'm like, I've had other people try to facilitate this. There was just some sort of ah feelings, the aura that that came from you and the the barrier like barriers that came down when you mentioned when you said that.
00:38:41
Speaker
just I just knew that I wanted to work with you in one capacity or another because I think there was something about you that understood the work and the barriers. And I think that's why you said it.
00:38:55
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm cling on to her and I'm going to work really hard and I'm going ask her to work me really hard so that I'm prepared for whatever when I get out of it.
Essence of DEI Work
00:39:08
Speaker
And you are.
00:39:10
Speaker
I will say though, I think that's what, that's people's misunderstanding of what DEI work is. DEI work is removing barriers. So like you get the best people and they can shine. And that's all it is because like, if you are the first generation,
00:39:25
Speaker
you're going to naturally wonder, can I hack it? And that takes too many cognitive resources when people should just to do their work. And so I really see like that is what DEI is. And when will we have a merit meritocracy?
00:39:39
Speaker
It's when people don't have to deal with these kinds of barriers so they can actually just get their work done. And I think let's just let people get their work done and figure out in order to do that, you've got to see the barriers and then we've got to break them down in organizations.
00:39:55
Speaker
We'll do better if people could just get their darn work done. Oh, yeah. Such a good point. Right? I love that. Just let people get their work done.
00:40:06
Speaker
People get their work done.
00:40:09
Speaker
yeah So I know we're getting close to the end of the podcast. Is there and anything that you want to share that you know might help leaders in your shoes um in terms of like, what type of support can I provide to allies, um even if I don't share a social identity with them?
00:40:28
Speaker
Is there anything that you want to add? Well, one is a shout out. We have a new faculty member in adult learning and development. Her name is Rachi Ghosh. she looks at mentoring relationships.
00:40:40
Speaker
She might be a good guest. And allyship, um both within and across racial barriers and like has really documented what works. So that's just a shout out to ah to Rachi, um who's also wonderful individual.
00:40:53
Speaker
But you know for me, um truly want to get to know the people I'm working with. And why would I assume that everybody needs the same kind of support in working for with you know with me?
00:41:07
Speaker
Some people love schedules and deadlines. Other people feel micromanaged by it. And so I really believe you have to get to know the people you're working with to understand how you as a leader create conditions so that they can thrive. And that means different people are going to have different obstacles. So I think what makes somebody ah really good mentor or ally to people that face barriers makes someone a great leader and an ally to anybody.
00:41:34
Speaker
And so I think we just have to slow down and get interested with each other and build trust. And I think it's relational work. And it's funny because I said that I wasn't really into the whole gender thing and But in the end, I do think it is relational. And of course, we got to get our work done.
00:41:49
Speaker
But it's relational work in service of getting the work done. and love so um just yeah carrie I Kari, I don't if you know, well, I guess you should know this custom or ritual of our podcast, like go we usually end our podcast with ChatGPT Haiku.
00:42:09
Speaker
um So i asked it to um write another one for this session. So here we go. Guiding through the years, wisdom in each step step we take, mentor, ally, light.
00:42:24
Speaker
I'm going to also put this in the chat. That's beautiful. Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. me feel like it speaks to pretty much like the relationship that we had over the years.
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah. Both ways, right back at all of you, as you know. Yeah. Thank you, Karen, for joining us. i It was so awesome having you on our podcast.
00:42:49
Speaker
And hopefully we can have you back because I feel like we just touched the tip of the iceberg. So it'd be great to have you back for another session in the future. It would be great. And thank you for doing this work because, our um you know, the kind of work that you all do needs to be out in the world and not just in academic journals or in the organizations that you are working with, but in the world for other people to, you know,
00:43:13
Speaker
ah respond to and hear and think about. So really,
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:43:16
Speaker
thank you. This is the very first podcast that came from our anyone in our program, and it was it's really creative and really appreciate you all for taking the chance of taking us into this century.
00:43:29
Speaker
Thank you, listeners, for tuning in to this month's episode of Hidden in Plain Sight, your podcast for all things Asian. We'll catch you next time. See you, everyone.
00:43:42
Speaker
Thank