Date

Dr. Thomas RaShad Easley is not only Assistant Dean of Community and Inclusion at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, he’s a hip hop artist, a campus minister, and a professor. “When people hear about all the things I’m doing they say, ‘Oh, you’re doing too much!’” “When I hear that I laugh and say, ‘I’m not doing too much. It’s the same message — I’m just changing up the platform.’” Join this conversation with Thomas as he shares his experience bringing his full self, as much as possible, to his work.

Thomas will share:
-bringing hip hop and conservation together for hip hop forestry
-managing expectations, people, and disappointment in the workplace
-navigating predominately white spaces

Here are some highlights from the webinar:

  • 11:25 On your inner artist - “That’s another thing that happens when the artist is taken away. Your spirit is gone. And when your spirit is gone, and you know how I can tell when your spirit is gone? It’s that you’re compliant with everything. Now you’re not alive. And that’s not how diversity works. That’s not how inclusion works. That’s not how equality works.”

 

  • 21:11 On making change in an institution - “What kind of institution are you in? Do you know where you are? Do you know where you’re working? The first thing that you want to do is figure it out. Because if you don’t know where you are, then you really don’t know what you can do… And if you don’t know what you can do, I don’t think you should move. Figure it out. Learn the history of the place. Learn how it got established. Learn who is in charge. Learn how they hire people. Pay attention to how they hired you. Pay attention to how decisions get made. Pay attention to the power struggle…If you can answer that, then you can answer how far you can go.”

 

  • 31:50 On defining what full self means - "What does your full self mean to you? Does your full self mean you run the show?... Does you full self mean you don’t feel threatened when you come to work?... Some of that has to do with your own inner security and some of that has to do with the environment."