305: Affirmative Action, Grad Admissions, and Supporting BIPOC Students with Dr. OiYan Poon

305: Affirmative Action, Graduate Admissions, and Supporting First-Gen BIPOC Students in Higher Ed with Dr. OiYan Poon

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: to the award winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Yvette. Today, we are going to cover the topic of graduate admissions, affirmative action, and how to support first gen BIPOC [00:01:00] students in higher

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: ed in light of the Supreme court's decision to end race conscious admissions.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Our guest is Dr. Oyan Poon. She's a She's a scholar, educator, and advocate for racial justice and education. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, education, and policy with an emphasis on Asian American experiences. Dr. Poon is a vocal proponent of affirmative action, publishing extensively and contributing to national conversations on the subject. She's currently touring the country to promote her new book, Asian American is not a color conversations on race, affirmative action, and family.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Poon.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be. here.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'm happy to have you here as well. I'm so glad that our paths have crossed in this way. We were just chatting.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It was meant to

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Exactly. We were connecting before the call and realized we have some overlap in terms of our connections. [00:02:00] And I love that. So for folks who want to learn more about you and your work, I, I know that I always ask this question because I, I believe in the power of storytelling and testimonials, and I know sometimes this becomes the episode of telling our backstory, but it as briefly as you're comfortable sharing if you can let us know a little bit more about who you are, about what you do, and how you got to where you are today. I know it's a big question,

Dr. OiYan Poon: yeah. So what's relevant for this audience and this community? I, I think I had my really intellectual awakening and an origin story in ethnic studies. And so I'm known as an education scholar, but. I think first and foremost, you know, that's where my heart was. That's where, you know, sometime in college I was, I had a completely, perfectly fine corporate career and major derailed by ethnic studies. And [00:03:00] yeah, I took my first ethnic studies course in Asian American intro course. my junior year of college. I grew up on the East Coast and it was one of two Asian American Studies classes available at my college and they were both new. This is the late 90s, so. I'm taking us back to the late nineties sound cue soundtrack.

Dr. OiYan Poon: But yeah, so I was a marketing major, my, I, I grew up in a working class immigrant Chinese home and community financially unstable. So I went to college to do, you know, with the goal of I'm going to go make money so I can support my family. Right. And then I went to college marketing major. I was really bored in college.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Like I didn't really read anything for three years until that Asian American studies class. And then all of a sudden I felt like my life made sense. Like I, all of a sudden I had all these words and then I was like, well, okay, the next thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take social race. Right. It was just like this.

Dr. OiYan Poon: total graduating from college in the late nineties. I should I had [00:04:00] offers from, you know, marketing firms and tech firms. I should be like a tech boom millionaire right now. But I am much happier now. Financial stability is still possible, y'all. And I think, you know, at the same time as that ethnic studies class, I was an R. A. And realized, Oh, you know, I could think about Colleges and universities as systems with leaders and systems that can be changed and You know, as a, as a first gen student, I was like, there are so many things I would want to change about higher education. And yeah, so then I started a career in student affairs, ended up at UC Davis as my second job post proposition 209.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So after California banned affirmative action, I started working at UC Davis in 2002, so a few years after the ban. And, but I was hired specifically in the Asian American Studies Department to be an academic advisor and to work on [00:05:00] recruitment and retention efforts through an Asian American and Pacific Islander lens back then at Davis outside of Sacramento.

Dr. OiYan Poon: The position that I was in was created because Asian Americans had been experiencing a whole slew of violence, incidents of anti Asian violence and harassment, and students came together, not just Asian Americans, and I write about this in my book That Asian Americans and African Americans and the Chicano community and native students, they all came together and they were like, you know, yes, let's support the Asian American community, but we are all linked together.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So we need to fight for each other. And they made a whole lot of wins. One of those wins was my position. And from there, I, you know, I was always advocating. I burned out pretty quick, you know, in that kind of a position. And I was constantly trying to advocate for change at the university, and the higher ups were always saying, well, where's the evidence?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Where's the [00:06:00] data? And that's how I kind of stumbled into my academic career, because I was complaining. I was like, where am I supposed to find this data? And the professors I was working with, they're like, you go to grad school to learn how to get data. You go to grad school how to, to learn how to communicate with data to, to uplift our communities.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And I was like, Oh, that's what a PhD is for. I had no idea. And I fell in love with research and writing and you know, I have another 20 years left on a career, but I was tenured in education departments. I have since. So my whole research career was really focusing on racial politics and ed policies like race conscious admissions and this weird position Asian Americans are often in, in these policies and and then the Supreme Court ruling happened in 2023.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah.

Dr. OiYan Poon: I mean, I'm fully in my midlife crisis right now because it's like my whole career was on this area [00:07:00] advocating for it, defending it, pushing forward for equity and diversity and inclusion and accessibility. And now we find ourselves here in this moment in 2025, right? And so I, because of this long career that I've had I got a call. I'm in Chicago. I got a call from my governor's office after that Supreme Court ruling. And they asked me to be an a consultant to them on higher education. Like what now? Right? And I was, yeah, if I'm going to leave tenure, academic life, academia, sure, I'm going to do this. This is a short term thing, perhaps, but maybe this will lead to something else.

Dr. OiYan Poon: But it's It's really meaningful. We talked about, you know, I'm a mom, you're a scholar mom, we're scholar moms. This is really meaningful. My daughter's nine going on 10, like to work with state leadership on things that are really going to matter for our communities is huge. Like this, what now [00:08:00] post race conscious admissions. So I'm trying to find my way in my midlife crisis now.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: One thing that wasn't clear to me as you shared your story is did you leave your tenured

Dr. OiYan Poon: Oh yeah.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: accept the consulting position?

Dr. OiYan Poon: So you know, the tenure track tenure life, I don't know about you I, I have lived it all across the country in eight different metropolitan areas pursuing that dream of the tenure life. And so I born in Massachusetts. We talked about how I did grad school in california. I work in D. C. And then I landed my first tenure track position in Chicago.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So I've moved everywhere. And then I, you know, when you pursue that career, there's never a guarantee you get to live where you want to live. And so then I uprooted my family in 2017 to go to Colorado, got tenure in Colorado, Colorado State, and living there. [00:09:00] A couple of years in my husband and I were like, this is not working for us. And I was like, shoot, you can't just be like, as an academic, it's really hard to just be like, ah, I need to live there. So I'm going to get a job there. Right. And I, I got a job thankfully at the Spencer foundation, which is a research foundation in education. And they're located here in Chicago and that's what brought me back.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So it was kind of like a half foot out of the academy, but because it's a research foundation, I was still very much. In the academy, if that makes sense, right? So I left the Spencer Foundation to become a consultant for the governor's office because foundation life. That's a whole another kind of career field.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It is hectic. Right. And so, and then of course, working with government is also really juggling a lot of balls. So I had to make a decision and I decided to, I decided the short term thing and see what the adventure of learning something new and working with my [00:10:00] governor's office. Yeah. And, and choosing where my family needs to be, where our people and our communities are.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So that was, That's a big decision, I think, in this academic life, is like, are you pursuing that tenured life dream at the expense of where you need to be and where your people are?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's a big question

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'm so glad that I asked you and that you were willing to go there because we could have easily gone straight to the topic today. But now that you have framed your background and experience as having moved around and also made all of these pivots, it just goes to show the breadth and the scope of the knowledge that you have acquired of higher ed within and outside the walls of higher ed from starting out, you're like, I'm going to be a marketing major too. I'm going to go into student affairs too. I need the data. I'm going to get a phD too. I'm going to go the tenure track, [00:11:00] willing to make those sacrifices of, you know, for folks who don't realize it, of having to uproot your family multiple times

Dr. OiYan Poon: So So many times

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: landing tenure, then getting to tech getting to that point of tenure,

Dr. OiYan Poon: A forever job.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: are in that midlife where some of us are part of that sandwich generation of we have dependents both in terms of our children and sometimes our parents and realizing you know what I'm being called to be in a certain place

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is not working. It doesn't always align perfectly where you get your job and where you need to be. What like you asked right now, where, where do you need to be as I appreciate you sharing that? Because I think that it's helpful for listeners to hear the very realities of what you're facing when you pursue a career that's so in line with who you are and what you believe in and sometimes things don't just fall neatly into place and yet you still [00:12:00] have figured it out and it reminds me of the topic of what do we do now in 2025, you know, goodbye to affirmative action. Goodbye to DEI policies structures are literally falling apart. Yes, literally burning as we speak. We're recording this

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: in mid January and the fires are raging in SoCal and both of us have loved ones in the area. And these are the conversations we need to be having about, I was going to ask you, like, what inspired you, but I feel like that's so obvious now, of why you decided to pursue this work and why you decided to write.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But yeah, if, if you're comfortable, I would like to transition to talking about that end of race conscious admissions. I know we're not here necessarily to talk about the eradication of like DEI departments and DEI policies, but it's part of a

Dr. OiYan Poon: It's related.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's all Yeah. interrelated. So we're, we're [00:13:00] starting to see some of that impact, but because my audience is primarily first gen and bIPOC students, college students and grad students, I'm curious if you can share with us some of the impacts you're noticing and perhaps some of the impacts you suspect will continue to see over the years with these changes, changes in policies, changes in even in the culture of like what is considered acceptable nowadays. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm nervous for this year because I feel like a lot of people are becoming emboldened in ways that are really, really harmful to our communities and, and community care in general.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned community care because I think we need it. We need to double triple down on that more than ever, for sure. You know, what we do now, I feel like I'm glad I kind [00:14:00] of started my career in California post 209, post affirmative action ban there, because I feel like I'm reliving, in some ways our country is reliving what California went through, right? So what we saw in the late 90s, early 2000s in California at the public universities is what we're seeing nationally, generally speaking, right? So we are seeing the client. I mean, that said, like, you know, as a social scientist, I have to say one year of data does not make a trend.

Dr. OiYan Poon: However what we do know is in tracking some of these data. And ed reform now is a fantastic website that has a tracker on there that my colleague James Murphy has been keeping up. So if you want to take a look at that at some of the most highly rejective colleges, universities on undergrad admissions and enrollment, it's really enrollment, not admissions. Those are 2 different things. But we are seeing declines, particularly in Black, undergraduate enrollments at some of these, like. fancy top 50, [00:15:00] whatever colleges and universities for undergraduates. We're seeing some declines for Latinx and Native Americans as well, but we're also seeing kind of ups and downs for Asian Americans.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And so it's a unclear, more of a mixed bag, but also similarly with Latinx, I think there's some campuses where there are bright spots. So I can specifically talk more about like, Yale University, one of my former students who was the longtime Dean of La Casa you know, she has shared with me how much the university has invested over the last almost 10 years in partnering with local Latino communities.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And family. So when they do recruitment, they do whole family recruitment. So they lean into community cultural wealth and you see that as a trend. And we can say that there is an increasing trend of Latino students going to Yale. But that wasn't because of obviously it [00:16:00] wasn't because of the Supreme Court ruling, but it was because of several years of investment in relationships and ties between communities and the university.

Dr. OiYan Poon: To enroll students understanding culturally. We're not just enrolling individuals were enrolling families and communities, right? So I love that leaning into the community cultural wealth idea. And what it really tells me, and I think this is something that's really important for us to remember is that it's not a foregone conclusion that we have to lose diversity, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: There are things that colleges and universities can still do and continue to do. Nothing in the ruling said they can't do intentional recruitment on the application side and on the enrollment side after people are admitted. Unfortunately, there's a lot of colleges and universities that are like throwing their hands up and saying, like, we can't do anything, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Recruitment. We're not going to collect data anymore. We're not going to do this or that because we're scared of getting sued. [00:17:00] Right? And I think the first maybe 10 years in the UC, the University of California, after Prop 209, I think we kind of saw that as well, but two things happened. One, the community came together and fought.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And I don't know if you remember this, but like, people fought. In 2006, UCLA had less than 100 Black students.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yes! I was part of that cohort. That

Dr. OiYan Poon: part of that cohort!

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, I'm a baby in that case. I remember it was it was 96 students. I remember that.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Yes! Right? remember that? And you know what happened after that.

Dr. OiYan Poon: I mean, there was a big outcry. There was protests. There were, you know, marches onto the regents meetings. I was a , first or second year grad student. So we did overlap in, in Westwood!

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. because I actually was involved in the African Arts Ensemble at the time, I was involved in all kinds of different types of performance working and student groups. And one of them was the African Arts Ensemble. And I remember that [00:18:00] that cohort of like those of us from that year who got entered, that was the big conversation was that there's only 96 Black students that this is not okay. And there was a lot of activism on campus because of that.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So the community has to come together and, and say this is not okay. Right? We can't throw our hands up. And I know that there's I'm seeing across the country, there are student groups that are coming together to do that I do want to, I mean, it's a lot of burden to ask of students, but it can't just be students. It has to be alumni. It has to be, you know, various state faculty, staff, right? Folks have to come together to fight together for what we deserve. Our communities deserve and are entitled to. The other thing is then the universities also responded. Right. So there have been different experiments, I think different trials and learning from trials and errors and trying to improve.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Right. So that takes a long time. The pressure can be like [00:19:00] acute and immediate, but the leadership in the universities have to also move long term too. And we're seeing results from that. This last year, UCLA announced that they had the most diverse incoming class ever, right? Pre 209 post 209 ever. And we can say like, obviously with affirmative action, it would be even better.

Dr. OiYan Poon: But that there was this kind of recovery over the last 25 30 years is something that we need to hold for this next 2025 years, right? And we don't have to accept Oh, shoot. We can't do race conscious admissions. We can't do affirmative action anymore. Oh, well, right? That cannot be the attitude. We have to keep fighting and we have to fight together and we have to understand this is a long game.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Right.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It's not over.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: not. And like you said, if anything, we can learn from California.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Another thing you mentioned [00:20:00] earlier that I just want you to clarify for the listeners is can you distinguish the differences between admissions and enrollment, because I want to make sure that that's clear.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Yeah. Now we're getting in the weeds so oftentimes when we think about admissions, we just think about who's on campus but who's on campus is a result of multiple stages of a system. So colleges and universities recruit, right? You can't admit. Who's not in the pool of applicants. So you want to try to make sure that the students who have applied are folks that represent a diversity of talents and characteristics and, you know, a rich pool of applicants that you can then select from and admit. so, once you were admitted, so, you know, I'm sure. Everyone listening here, if you're remembering getting into college, right? You got typically more than one admission offer, right? Then you have to [00:21:00] decide, where am I going to go? Right? So then the percent of like who gets admitted is typically very different than who actually enrolls. Right. So a place like we know from data that like in California, Californians. Students of color from California, when they get admitted to the UC, most of the time, like there's high, high percentages of like, heck yes, I am going to UC whatever, right? Like people of color in California, we love the UC, we love the Cal State, you

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: We don't wanna leave California

Dr. OiYan Poon: we don't want to leave California. Yes. Yes. Right. So that's, that's just like the case versus. Honestly, when white Californians get admitted to the uC, I haven't looked at the numbers in a while, but like, it's way low percent. That when white students get admitted, they actually go and I remember talking to my. advisor back in the [00:22:00] day. I was like, why is this?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Why wouldn't you want to go to the UC? Like, what? And he was like, white kids got a lot more opportunities. They can go elsewhere. Right? And I was just like, oh, and so, right. So there's a difference when you're, a college and you're admitting somebody, you're kind of playing the odds, like Vegas, right? Vegas odds. If I admit Yvette, Is she going to come? Maybe. Like what are the chances? So you're kind of playing like the odds on a student and you're building a class and you have to hit your revenue targets. Now we're getting really in the weeds of the money balling. But that's what admissions is actually about.

Dr. OiYan Poon: The system itself, it's, it's like gambling, like which one of these highly qualified students is actually going to come and make up our class that we actually want.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah, and there's there is some overlap, with graduate admissions in that there is still that risk and that gamble of if I admit this [00:23:00] student and spend all of these resources and promise them a certain amount of funding, etc. Well, they actually say yes. I do think it's, I'm glad that you mentioned the differences. Because there's a lot of room there for having misconceptions around admissions around enrollment. And also, I know you talk about this in your book about the misconceptions that even POC have around what affirmative action is that not everybody is a proponent of affirmative action precisely because of these misconceptions. And so I'm curious , if you can share with us perhaps one of the biggest misconception that you talk about in the book about affirmative action that you've encountered and how this affects public discourse and even affects admissions around our effects, like the whole process of like who decides, you know, if they even want to put themselves in the ring of applying.

Dr. OiYan Poon: yeah. I think a big [00:24:00] misconception is that affirmative action gives opportunities to people who are not qualified. And that is absolutely false. Affirmative action is really just affirming that we have a diversity of talented people out there and folks, everyone should have a shot. Right? And I think the idea of affirmative action is really around questioning, this idea that it's always going to be a white guy that's going to be most qualified. Right? And, and so from of action is really just saying, hey, institutions, hiring, admitting, you need to make sure that you are getting the most diverse set of , qualified folks out there, you need to be looking for beyond like the conventional white guy, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Because we have had centuries of what the conventional has been, which is like assumed to be a white man. So we need to have [00:25:00] intentional efforts to check ourselves, check our systems and our practices so that we make sure that we're looking at and looking for the best qualified people out there. And best qualified doesn't always mean. A or B, you know, these narrow metrics of numbers, it can mean lots of different things and we need to work harder at understanding and recognizing talent.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. I know that that's something that we see at the graduate admissions level of.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's not necessarily the case everywhere, but a lot of departments try to advocate for a holistic review of admissions. And I think that that works in the favor of that, of like, If we don't have affirmative action, at least if you're taking into account the entire profile, not just one part of their application it can help us with, you know, having a wider range of folks who get admitted to these programs, aside from what you've shared this far about what universities can do to draw in more diverse talent, more diverse [00:26:00] applicants, and ultimately get them to enroll, what else do you feel like they could do to adjust their admissions practices, whether it's at the college or at the graduate admissions level, either or is fine.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I think it's relevant just to because my audience is across the board, like we have undergrads, we have grad students, and it's, it's, it, what happens at the college admissions level in some ways also impacts the graduate admissions level too, so I'm curious about what colleges and universities can do now and for the next, like you said, 20, 25 years to keep promoting equity in light of not having affirmative action.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm. Yeah, so if I could, I'll pivot to grad admissions a bit. So when I was on faculty in two different schools of education, I was the chair of our grad program admissions. processes. And I did institute some changes, right? I made our faculty really think [00:27:00] deeply about what is it that we're trying to accomplish mission wise? What is our curriculum? What are we requiring students to do? Great. Like at one of these places, it was a Jesuit Catholic University. Social justice is a big deal at that university and Jesuit universities generally. And so I was like, if we're going to take social justice seriously as part of our mission, what does that actually mean? Doesn't that also mean that in admissions we should also be making sure that students that are, that we're admitting and recruiting into our program are ready for that, are able, have demonstrated capacity to engage in these kind of hard conversations? Right. What's the evidence there in this file, this application, how do we know this student applying to our program is ready for that deep reflective, you know, activity.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Not everyone is willing to do that self reflection and Jesuit education is very, you know, mission [00:28:00] wise. It's very much about that self reflection and not everyone's ready for that. And so look for that evidence, right? It's not just like, the GRE.

Dr. OiYan Poon: That thing does not tell us anything. That would help us understand whether this applicant is going to connect with our social justice mission and curriculum. Right. So we didn't really look at that.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Instead, we looked at like, okay, what courses did this person take? Does that demonstrate something? What's the personal statement say? What does their cV say in terms of, you know, or letters of recommendation? How does it tell us a whole story about this person and whether or not they would

Dr. OiYan Poon: match up well and thrive, right? Would this person thrive in our program w as a question. So that was on a kind of more of a mezzo or micro level at a larger level. You know, these institutions, I know some of them are partnering with HBCUs historically black colleges and universities. And HSI Hispanic serving institutions. [00:29:00] You know, if it's like a, a STEM program, grad program, they're partnering with the STEM department in those minority serving institutions to create a pipeline of students.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Right. And so I know that's a proven model that the UC Davis medical school has like the, largest percent of black med students now outside of an HBCU med school. And partly that's because of the partnerships they've had with HBCU. So again, long term investment partnering. So colleges and universities can do a lot.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It's, it's, you know, whether they're willing to, does their leadership have the, you know, tenacity to actually. Walk the talk of we value diversity. Okay. Do you really like, how are you going to actually, what are you actually doing to, to show that? So I think there's a lot of different things that universities can do in grad programs to [00:30:00] diversify.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Right. And even just with what you shared of of asking the tough questions, like figuring out what are the main kind of cultural priorities of the department and how you want to even extract that information from an application, not just from, say, a test score, which doesn't say anything about a student's ability to succeed in graduate school.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then the other example of we're seeing more partnerships. And I've witnessed that, too, with I've seen a lot more folks using NSF funding to create summer research programs to develop these pipelines across HBCUs . HSI universities. And I, I also see I've, I will have one student for instance, that I work with who is part of a dual degree program where they're enrolled simultaneously in an HBCU and another university at the same time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so I just find it interesting that we're seeing more of this of like thinking outside of the box, doing more partnerships, more [00:31:00] collaboration, really just kind of rethinking the way that we do things. It's not going to be as straightforward. At least that's kind of what I'm interpreting based on what you shared. That is, there's no cookie cutter approach. It's not just check these boxes and you're good to go. It really is like what I tell a lot of people that I work with when they're thinking about applying to graduate school is you got to find the right place for you. And you want to find as many reasons possible for making sure that this is the right place for you. Are there people there that are going to have your back? Do they have the resources that are going to support you? Do they have the infrastructure? Do they have the programs? Do they, you know, so the more you can back up, like this is the right program for me because of X,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Y, Z the higher the chances are that you can convince them because you've convinced yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And yeah, and so that's, that's a little bit of what I'm hearing, at least in terms of graduate admissions that we really have to. think more broadly or rethink how we do things and, [00:32:00] and yeah, we're going to have to get more creative just in terms of making sure that we bring in more people and that we don't let the lack of affirmative action completely dismantle

Dr. OiYan Poon: all of this.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: collapse every, all the work that these institutions, departments, programs have worked so hard for. Yeah.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Right.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Oof, I feel like I need to take a breath I was going to ask about staff and faculty and administrators because there's so much that -----can be done on different ends. And right now I'm thinking particularly about promoting the well being of students because so much of what we're seeing right now

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Is directly or indirectly impacting our well being, whether it's like our physical health or even our basic needs to our mental health.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If we're witnessing things from afar, and it's hard. A lot of folks are choosing to just kind of return to normal as soon as [00:33:00] there's any kind of crisis is returned back to normal quote unquote normal as soon as possible. But I, I'm sure you, you agree with me that that's not the best case scenario.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You mentioned the importance of community care earlier. Yeah. So I'm curious if you had anything else to say about that, about

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: how we can continue to support our students,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: especially our students who are the most impacted by the current events that we see happening today, the global crises, climate disasters, changes in policies, et cetera, the new administration and changes in political climate to there's so much going on right now. We need to take care of ourselves. too, but , I'm, especially thinking about students right now. If there's anything that staff members, and I'm glad that I know now that you worked in student affairs, because you have that lens too like, so staff

Dr. OiYan Poon: Yeah. Yeah.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: faculty, administrators, and just the greater campus [00:34:00] communities. What can even those of us, like, I'm not even in higher ed anymore, but I'm higher ed adjacent that I work with a lot of students. So what can we all do? Those of us that are affiliated in some way, shape, or form with universities and especially college students. What can we do to support the well being for for them?

Dr. OiYan Poon: I think it's, I mean, it, it is about the community care. So I'm going to think about how I think I was practicing community care when I was a doctoral student without really understanding. I had never heard of the term community care at the time. I just knew it's just the right thing to do. I just called it like community building.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It's helping each other out. I was at UCLA in grad school in the school of education at a time in the, this is like 20 years ago now, oh my god when California's budget had collapsed, right? So funding was like almost nil and it's a hella expensive place to live in, in LA, and, you know, we often, We [00:35:00] had each other's backs in a way that other grad students. at other campuses were envious of.

Dr. OiYan Poon: You know, and I'm not saying like all of UCLA, every department, but in my little corner in this school of education, We had this little, we had each other's backs, right? I didn't know how to write a research proposal. That's cool. You know my friend Corina is going to help me out. We're going to like get each other, we're going to read each other's drafts and, and, and help each other revise my, my friend, Kim Griffin, who is now Dean of University of Maryland, you know, she was like, let me help you, you know, make sure you do a mock presentation for your dissertation defense, like all these things.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Right. And we had each other's backs. We didn't, we, you know, we, we didn't have a whole lot of time with our faculty sometimes, you know, Danny Solorzano is legendary. Okay. And he was my co advisor, but to get a meeting with Dr. Solorzano, you had to line up around the corner outside of his [00:36:00] office. I'm sure there's some technological way to do this right now, but like 20 years ago, we had to line up and he had a paper scheduling book, right.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And. You know, so when people's times, our, our formal advisors had so much going on in their lives and our funding was very little, we only had each other, right? And we, and so that was a choice that our community made versus, I remember a friend at UC Santa Barbara in the same program, they were like, yo, you guys actually seem to like each other and I was like, yeah, what are you talking about?

Dr. OiYan Poon: And they were like, Yeah, we don't like each other. We don't share nothing with each other because it's going to get stolen. Right. So when you mention applying to grad schools and trying to see where to go, I think this is one of the things you want to like suss out too, is like, what's the student culture?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Like, are they backstabbing or are they, [00:37:00] you know, and the only way to really find that out is to like connect with those students. So hopefully you find yourself in a space like that, where it is about community care and you're lifting each other up. And to this day, 20 years later, you know, we're still lifting each other up and we're still writing together and, you know, sending each other opportunities and stuff.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Right? So, and checking in with each other. We've been checking in with each other and said like, yo, did you hear about this professor or one of our classmates lost their house in the fires? You know, what do they need? What, what can we do? Right? And, and so it's it's a tough time. I, you know, here in my little corner in Chicago you know, it's no secret that the new regime says that they're going to come after Chicago.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And so our schools are, my little school, like our teachers, we're, you know, and our parents and everything, we're talking about what are we going to do to get each other's backs? Like, how do we protect each other? I [00:38:00]

Dr. OiYan Poon: am generally very introverted, so I have not hosted, plus like post pandemic, I have not hosted a house gathering in many, many years.

Dr. OiYan Poon: But this is the first time in a couple weeks is the Lunar New Year and I'm hosting a little small gathering of like families to celebrate the new Lunar New Year of the snake. And,

Dr. OiYan Poon: you know, secretly it's more like so, so we have to like build up those ties so that we have each other's backs and and And also knowing when you need to step back, because I don't think we're always, we're going to play different roles, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Like, at different times, we all play different roles in crisis. And I think about, if I can give a recommendation for reading Deepa Iyer has this great children's book We Are the Builders, and it has, like, this framework of eight different roles that people can play at different times in our communities to lift.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Each other up and sometimes you're feeling like this is where I'm at one of these [00:39:00] eight, but you know what tomorrow I'm not feeling it right now, and I just need to sleep And that's okay but i'll check in with you, right? so there's there's like a role where somebody is the checker inner I guess or like they come visit you and like bring you the food and Share a potluck and that kind of thing.

Dr. OiYan Poon: i'm really going insular right now. I think for me And this time, insular in a small community way, not just insular into my own head, right?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. I appreciate you reminding us the importance of building community and being intentional about that, even in the process of selecting graduate programs, because that's something that you can discover and doing your own research, talking to people. Who was a grad student at UCLA who was not in the education department. Maybe I should have been. I feel like I was brought in and welcomed into that community, into Danny's [00:40:00] community,

Dr. OiYan Poon: you knew the

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That yeah. Oh yeah. Oh

Dr. OiYan Poon: That vibe was, real.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I was envious

Dr. OiYan Poon: That's wild

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: why a lot of us started our own like, collectives

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: and our own writing groups because we were missing that in our own departments. All this to say, if for some reason you're already a student, you already find yourself in a department that maybe isn't as supportive. You can still build that community. I also love that recommendation of the book. We are the builders. I love that it's a children's book because This is the time. It's always the time, but especially now to tend to ourselves, to tend to our inner children. You don't have to be a parent or caregiver to get a children's book. And so I'm going to link that in the show notes so that we can all check it out. I'll probably also get it. I, I, I love getting the ebook options right away and showing my kids, too. So anyway I love

Dr. OiYan Poon: She has the adult book. She has the adult book, which is like 200 pages, but you know,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: if anything, I can link both and you can decide what [00:41:00] you have the capacity for right now, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thank you for sharing that. One more question I want to ask you. It's less about affirmative action. It's more about your work as a public scholar because another thing that's coming up that's on a lot of people's minds, especially academics, is this fear of so much misinformation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: There's so much misinformation and it seems like even with social media, there's like fewer. Like there's, there's just, it's just a mess out there. And so it's hard to, to know who to trust, what information you can trust. And I think that for those folks who are trained in this kind of work of of sharing information, creating knowledge, et cetera, we need more public scholarship. And so. For you, because you've done a really great job of [00:42:00] translating your research into public impact of do it going on this book tour that you've been going on of using your skills and your knowledge across different spheres, not just in academia. and I know there's a lot of folks who want to do this. They want to take that, leap as well. What lessons can you share, especially like early career scholars or just like nascent scholars who want to go this route? How any advice on how to become a public scholar or how to work on research that has this greater public impact.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Well, first of all I think it's important to remember that public scholarship is not necessarily like, oh, I have a million op eds. Right? I think public scholarship and being a public scholar really has to do with it can be different forms, different ways. of being and that, but all of those forms of being really [00:43:00] have to, you have to ask yourself, what impact are you trying to get at and who do you need to connect with to get it to happen, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: So thinking like a community organizer, I think, right, is like thinking about What is the ultimate outcome that you envision and who has access to that? What's the, like doing the power mapping and all of that and being like, well, how do I want to influence that change? Right. Because you're not going to be the solo person that makes that you're not pulling the lever. Right. But what you are doing is informing what's possible. Right. So I feel like right now as a consultant to my governor's office, I'm having the biggest impact, but this is not a public role. Right. Like, it's not a celebrated public scholar role. Right. But I am. You know, but there is a lot of impact whether people see it widely or not.

Dr. OiYan Poon: But that takes time to get where, to where I am. There's other things that can happen. I think the way I got started [00:44:00] was as a grad student, there were a lot of conversations at the region's level, right? Trustees level at the state level, state policymaking. And, and getting involved in different, like whether it's student government or.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Being you know, just a community organizer on the ground locally I think there's a lot of pathways. I know, you know, we're talking a lot about UC because that's our shared experience, but there was a lot of pathways for getting involved in various governance questions in the university, right?

Dr. OiYan Poon: As, as students and I know that other universities have those pathways. I just don't know what they are. But, You know, there was a question around who, I think in 2009, there was a question around, like, who can apply to the UC as undergrads, and because of my research, my research connected to it, and so then I did a quick analysis of it, there was, like, a public debate in the news and whatever, and there was, like, different assertions, and so then I did a quick policy [00:45:00] analysis, and I was, and I put it out there into the ether, onto, I think, like, you know, I don't know, like Facebook, I guess.

Dr. OiYan Poon: It's just like, actually, this side gets it partly right. That's, you know, like, just even using those levers of social media. That said, social media has changed a lot, so my one caveat and caution, especially as You know, people of color and early career scholars is that the right is after us. I got doxxed in 2018, I want to say, right before I got tenure.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And it was really scary because my home address was out in the world and there were threats made on my child's life. You know, and so, like, all kind of awful threats that I'm not even going to say were made, thousands of phone calls were made to my provost and president for my firing. My colleague, who I was friends with, had, was the person who had to listen to every single one of those vile calls.

Dr. OiYan Poon: There are things that we can purge, like, I have a subscription to something [00:46:00] called Delete Me, join Delete Me is the website. And you pay, I think I pay like 300 a year to have all of my information scrubbed from the internet. So now if someone tries to find my home address, they can't. Because as a homeowner, that's public records.

Dr. OiYan Poon: And so this service scrubs that. And so I feel safer. I'm going to say safer rather than safe. You know, there are risks here. If you've got something to say of consequence, Someone once told me there may be consequences to look out for and protect yourself from. And we have to protect each other from them.

Dr. OiYan Poon: So people, when I got doxxed, a lot of really great people across the country, you know, again, texted me. The community care was there again, telling me about, delete me, telling me about what to do to protect my family.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I really appreciate you sharing this because I feel like this is, this is a. potentially vulnerable topic, potentially triggering [00:47:00] conversation. I'm really, really sorry that you had to experience something like that. And it's also what I think comes up as a big fear when folks think about going public with their work is there's always this fear of, like you said consequences, especially negative or consequences that could impact your safety

Dr. OiYan Poon: Mm hmm.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: actual safety, you know, all kinds of safety.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'm glad that you mentioned the delete me app. You're not the only one I know. I know many people, I, myself we have to kind of check regularly to make sure that our public information isn't out there because we don't know we do have to protect, protect ourselves. But it sounds like that's not something that necessarily held you back from doing

Dr. OiYan Poon: that's what they want, right? They want us to shut up, right? And so how do we find it? And what was beautiful in that very scary moment was that my friends, my family came out like people I hadn't been in touch with for years. They were like, what do you need me to do? And they and I was just like, [00:48:00] so overwhelmed.

Dr. OiYan Poon: They organized themselves to be like, we're gonna be or whatever. Transcribed Net out there to like scour the internet to make sure that things aren't getting out of hand and checking them and documenting documenting everything for you. So I didn't have to document anything. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah, and so just to know, we've got each other's backs, you know, we have to have each other's backs and I think it's going to get. Worse in this moment, but this is exactly what they want. They want to silence us to make us go away. And we have a choice right now, like, how do, we do this safely?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yeah. Thank you for that reminder. As we get close to, to wrapping up the episode, I'm curious if there was any other question that you were hoping that I would ask you?

Dr. OiYan Poon: I was listening to my friend Ramon Goings episode and I was

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Oh, really?

Dr. OiYan Poon: But I listened to his episode and he said the same thing I'm about to say, which is like, this was this was a great [00:49:00] conversation. I so appreciate you, especially in these you know, I really want to live in precedent

Dr. OiYan Poon: at times, but here we are more unprecedented times. So I just appreciate you. And I'm grateful to yeah, just connect with you and, and, you know, your community here.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thank you. No, the feeling is mutual. Thank you so much for coming on. If there's any other closing words this is a great time to share them. And if not, I would also love for you to let us know more about how folks can connect with you, your work, how they can purchase a copy or order a copy of your, of your, book at their local library. So any closing words and or, Okay. Ways to connect with you would be great.

Dr. OiYan Poon: Yeah, you can find me at oiyanpoon.com and if you can't spell my name, that's okay. You can also look me up on publicpedagogy.info. Yes. Publicpedagogy. info. I'm also oiYan Poon on [00:50:00] Instagram and LinkedIn and happy to connect with folks. And then for my book, Asian American is Not a Color. I wrote this as a love letter to my daughter. So every chapter opens and closes as a letter to her. And you can get that from wherever you buy books. I always want to hype up your local independent bookstore here in Chicago. That's Call and Response. I love Call and Response here in Chicago. And reStory Bookstore in LA. It's Rep Club, Octavia's Bookshelf. So there's, there's all these independent bookstores and we need each other more than ever. So, yeah, you know, say no to Amazon.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yes. Support your local small bookshops. Get yourself a copy of the book if you can. Get it for a friend as well. And thank you

Dr. OiYan Poon: Get it at the library. Yeah. Libro, FM, Libby, all the apps.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Yes. Libby's actually my, my favorite app. I'm always on it. [00:51:00]

Dr. OiYan Poon: Love it. Love it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Poon for coming here, sharing all your knowledge, insights, gems, real talk, just all the things. Thank you for, for sharing space with us

Dr. OiYan Poon: Thank you for all your work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next [00:52:00] time.