Academic Grief with Chinasa Elue

Hi, Professors! This is Karen Gonzalez Rice, art historian, professor and life coach for academics.  You are listening to “The Good Enough Professor,” the show that reimagines academic life for overwhelmed professors.  Let's create a more supportive, more humane academia, one small, intentional choice at a time. Listen on for how we can do this together.

Karen:  Today, I'm so excited to be in conversation with Chinasa Elue. Chinasa is an academic, a grief coach, and the CEO and the founder of True Titans Consulting Group, which provides strategic coaching and consulting to help organizations make really impactful changes in the midst of uncertainty with empathy and with care. Chinasa is also the host of the “Grieving in Color” podcast, which is a revelation and such a joy to listen to.

Today, we're going to explore grief in higher education, really rooted in Chinasa’s research on grief leadership and trauma-informed leadership practices in organizational settings and the health and wellbeing of historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.

So Chinasa, we are both coaches and professors in the higher education space, and that is a fairly small group of us. So that's kind of how we are connected. I am so pleased to welcome you to the podcast, Chinasa, and to learn more about your empathetic and really affirming approach to grief and grief leadership. So welcome, Chinasa!  Thank you so much for being here, and please tell us a little about yourself.

Chinasa:  Thank you so much, first of all for having me here. I am so excited to engage in this conversation. You've already said a lot in your introduction of me, but I'll mention here that in addition to being a grief coach, I'm also a grief researcher at my institution. My background in training is in educational leadership, with a concentration and emphasis in higher education. And so my research really does expand into the realm of grief and higher education spaces, and looking at ways where we can really create conversations around being more grief-informed in our campus policies, practices and procedures.

I am a grief coach, a professor, an entrepreneur in my own right. And you know, oftentimes we don't hear the words entrepreneur and professor in the same lane, right? And so I think a lot of this entrepreneur activity has really spurred from my own experiences, personally and professionally, and in the need for creating a space to really step outside of the academic realm and share my knowledge more broadly.

So the grief piece of the work really came from a deeply personal loss, of losing my mom, which catapulted me into a space where I was navigating my own grief personally, but wanted to, during that process, engage in more grief-conscious conversations. And so there was an opportunity for me as I began to walk through the very painful journey of just reimagining the way forward, thinking about, how might I do that? And for me, I wanted to be able to support others as I walked along my own journey. And once I got to a space where I felt comfortable enough and able enough to support others, true to academic form, I went back and got some additional training and became a certified grief coach in 2021 and have not looked back since.

You know, one does not just enter into this realm where they say, “Hey, I want to be a grief researcher.” I think personally, it was after losing my mom in 2019 where I began that very difficult journey of walking through grief myself. That was the first major loss I'd ever experienced personally in my life. And it was months before the pandemic, and I remember when the pandemic hit, and I was still in the thick of it, I was like, “Oh my goodness. How are people coping?” I know how I was faring during that time. And then we started to see collective loss at a much larger scale as COVID ravished historically-underrepresented communities, black and brown communities specifically, and then all of the political unrest, all of it coupled to make this really big ball of just mess, where we were just walking through this experience, where grief was just so much a part of our day to day lives.

And so my inquiry started from within, recognizing that there was an opportunity in my process of trying to make sense of how I was going to move forward. I also wanted to see, from a professional standpoint, how are higher education leaders responding to the large amounts of loss that are present, loss of normalcy, loss of life, loss of trust in leaders, all of it that was very much so present during the pandemic years, and then even beyond, in our current times, where these same very losses are present here today. And so I think there's an opportunity to interrogate this a little bit deeper. And so my research has taken me down this pathway.  I will say that it's been very rewarding to really dig deeper into a space in the area where oftentimes is seen as taboo and we don't want to talk about it. But a big piece is acknowledging that grief is present in all aspects, in all spaces of our campuses, and so it's high time that we started engaging in these dialogues to really think about How do we become more grief conscious, and how do we become more intentional with the policies that we're providing that support those that we lead and serve?

Karen:  I'm trying to think through all the amazing things that you just shared. The question that comes up for me is, what are grief-conscious conversations?

Chinasa:  Ooh, that's such a good question. And you know, I think the reason it's such a good question is because when we talk about grief in general, it's such a taboo topic. No one wants to talk about it. The interesting thing is that over the past several years, we've all been walking through some element of grief. And so if we think about whether you've had a personal loss, losing a loved one, whether you've been collectively grieving the state of the world society, just seeing others walk through very challenging times themselves, grieving loved ones, grieving the loss of jobs, loss of income, loss of normalcy, loss of trust in leaders, those types of things we've all been experiencing different elements of grief. I think in a lot of ways, we just haven't put language to our lived experience. I think the reason it is so important to engage is because we want to normalize talking about something that we walk through each and every day, so it doesn't have to be “Oh, everyone's in a good mood, they're positive. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer.” It really is creating space to acknowledge the full scope of our human experience, recognizing that there's a full spectrum of emotions that we can draw from and those associated with grief are very much a salient part of our day-to-day lives, and deserve to be acknowledged as well.

Karen:  That seems particularly difficult for academics.  I wonder, how do you see grief showing up or or not showing up, really, in academic spaces?

Chinasa:  Oh, I definitely know grief is there for sure. So when you think about particularly academics, I think it depends on the space, right? It depends on where you feel you can truly be your most authentic self. And I know in a lot of ways, academic spaces may not lend itself to us showing up from a state where we are walking through some form of grief or loss. I see it in the day-to-day in terms of how we do our work. Sometimes, when we are grieving, we will throw ourselves into our work to offset dealing with the emotions that are present, right? So we may intend to engage in overwork. We may find ourselves not sleeping, not taking care of ourselves.  Because grief does warrant us taking time to pause, to slow down, to embody what is happening in our bodies and beyond that as well, and sometimes we don't want to deal with it.

That's how I was initially. I didn't want to grieve. Not that I didn't love my mom or I didn't want to grieve her. But I think for me, it was easier being busy than slowing down to take the time to deal with the emotions. But the interesting thing here is that grief always shows up. You might be in the middle of teaching class and someone said something, or brings up a memory and it triggers something for you, and you find yourself crying, and you find your disposition immediately changing. And so there's something to be said here about doing the difficult work of grieving, because it's difficult, because it requires us to be self-aware and also requires us to be willing to slow down the pace.  Which oftentimes academics do not want to do because the to do list is long, it never stops!  It requires us to really slow down and think about, “What do I need to really attend to myself emotionally in this current context, what additional support might I need? Are there community members that might be helpful? Are there spaces outside of academia that might replenish or refuel me in this context?” It requires a complete re-envisioning of how we engage with our work, because we have to take care of ourselves, which oftentimes we neglect to do when we're not grieving, but when we're grieving, we avoid it completely at times.

Karen:  I think that's such a key point that we don't necessarily, as academics, build that rest and that attentiveness to our own wellbeing into our everyday lives at the best of times, much less when it becomes really necessary.  I also notice when I work with folks in academics that sometimes we don't recognize our experiences in higher education as grief-inducing. Some of the things that happen in academics in higher education spaces create feelings of grief, create a need for a grieving process. And that's, I think, not always obvious to us. I'm thinking of even something—well, I was going to say as simple as, but this is not very simple—letting go of perfectionism, just something that I think, since the pandemic, many of us have been working on.  It's letting go of a part of yourself, a part of ourselves. And that might require some grief, some grieving.

Chinasa:  I agree with you 100%. I think there are multiple things that can elicit a grief response within higher ed, right? I think about, even as academics, even taking it all the way back to graduate school, right? How many of us were in graduate school, and we were socialized to thinking that if you didn't land an academic job as a professor, that you were going to be a complete and total failure, right? And the reality is, the market does not support the number of graduates that we're seeing in any respective field at this point. And so when you think about transitioning out of your graduate programs and then beginning this arduous job of trying to land that tenure track job—and let it be an R1, right?—it's hard. And so what happens when you are not afforded the opportunity to walk into one of those roles?  You grieve the very professional existence you had been socialized or trained to thinking warranted you even getting that degree. So when it doesn't happen for you, there's an element of grieving the professional identity that you desire, and it sometimes may never, ever have just given the state of the market. And I think oftentimes we don't talk about that enough, or what happens when you do the postdoc, or you get the job, and you recognize that this is not what you signed up for, right? And you have to make the very difficult choice to transition out of that and deal with all the different aspects of your professional identity. I think those are elements where we don't oftentimes think grief is present.

But there's an element of grief that's always present within our career transitions, whether it's from graduate student to professional identity, whether it's, you know, professorship or going into administration or an adjacent or other field, there's also grief that's present when we're in the midst of a job, and this is really not what we found it to be when we grew up. You know, you hear that proverbial question, what do you want to be when you grow up? You get into it, and it's like, “Oh, no, this is not it!”  What do you do now? Because it's like, I worked my whole life to get to this point, and this is not what I expected. This is not what I want for myself. It requires work to really think about how do I deal with these emotions? First of all, how do I acknowledge these emotions? What is coming up for me? And when you begin to sit down and reflect on that, thinking to yourself, “Okay, I have some awareness around this. I can acknowledge that some grief is definitely present here. I'm beginning to identify that some things need to shift for me.” How do you deal with even those emotions when you begin that shift and transition in and of itself?

Karen:  How do you suggest folks begin that process?

Chinasa:  There are a lot of ways we can begin that process. You know, I mentioned earlier the importance of just being able to slow down and to really sit with ourselves and our emotions and do some of that deeply reflective work. Some of that, again, in academic settings, where we're so used to running at the speed of light, seems taboo. But I think when we find that we are navigating a new terrain for ourselves, some of the things that you can begin to do is really get into community with people that you trust. I always say you shouldn't grieve alone. So I think if there are people, maybe colleagues, that you're really comfortable and close with, that you feel that you're able to communicate your emotional experiences, that may be helpful. I think therapy. I'm big, a big proponent on therapy and counseling, because a lot of mental health clinicians are trained in this aspect of being able to recognize the stages of grief and how that may be showing up. I think a grief coach in this context, who is able and understands the full spectrum of what it looks like to walk through circumstances that really bring us to this place where we are contending with our grief, is also helpful as well. I think finding ways to refuel and replenish yourself while you're in the midst of that process is also key. I found at times when I'm working with others and they're walking through grief, sometimes because it's such a visceral reaction we have to wanting to kind of close off ourselves and not really communicate or talk as much, that we tend to isolate. We tend to really close ourselves off to people that can be really supportive in that time. But I want to encourage people to really be intentional about their community, whether it's external to the academic spaces they're in or not, finding those spaces that replenish you and refill you, and being intentional about tapping in is also going to be key, as you're just dealing with all the various emotions that may be coming up for you.

Karen:  As you're naming community—and even that phrase, “walking through grief,” which brings up, for me, the embodied piece of grieving—those are difficult things in the academic space.  We sometimes think of ourselves as these brains, right? And I think, as you mentioned, graduate school and the way that we've been disciplined into thinking of ourselves in this intellectual way... One thing that that I've encountered with folks who are in this process of grief in the higher education world is thinking that, “Well, I can do that in therapy. I can separate that work from being on campus.  When I'm here, I can be my usual self.”  And I'm wondering how we might break down that barrier a little bit, to soften that barrier.

Chinasa:  So, you're asking around softening the barrier to even begin engaging with grief itself?

Karen:  Or maybe I'm asking about...I guess I'm kind of going back a little bit to your idea about how grief kind of intrudes into the academic space whether we want it to or not. And how many of us don't want to believe that.  Maybe we want to believe that we can deal with it over here, and that here in this academic space, like I'm somehow free of grief, or I can set it aside.  And I'm just wondering how we might soften that, that division.

Chinasa:  I think we have to really be mindful that for many people who are grieving, whether it's again a loved one, a job, community, whatever the case may be, oftentimes the grief is worn like a cloak. It's a jacket that we cannot take off.  So we have to recognize that when we are in spaces, whether with our colleagues or with our students, that they are literally bringing their grief with them into those spaces. And it's not enough for us to just know, “Oh, they lost someone last week or last month, but we're still going to move on like nothing happened.” It really is an intentional reframe for us mentally, particularly as academics, to acknowledge here that over the past several years, this is not business as normal, right? We have been rushing back and dropping off along the way to attempt to go back to normal all of the gems we picked up during the pandemic, right? During the pandemic, we were forced to intentionally stay inside, shelter in place, pick up hobbies and activities that really were things that caused us to be still and refreshed. I think back how during the pandemic, we started the family garden.  We were going on walks, we were doing bicycling, those kind of things.  That there was a need to intentionally leave the house and go outside and outdoors and soak up that vitamin D. I kept saying, “My goodness, this is free… I could be doing this on any given day,” right?

But here we are. We've transitioned back into our academic spaces and a lot of those gems of rest, of replenishment, of rejuvenating ourselves in the midst of navigating what was, during those times, some very dire circumstances, right? We saw in historically-underrepresented communities how COVID ravished lives. We saw the political unrest. We saw it all unfold, and so in a lot of ways, we were actively grieving collectively. But we also realized that although we're grieving, we also need time and space to refuel ourselves, and so we were doing all the things to help us cope and attend to our grief. So as we were doing that, I'll mention here that now we're coming back into a space where we are seeing colleagues who have lost loved ones. We're seeing colleagues who have not returned. We are walking through some very politicized times where now the grief is there, still like a cloak, and it's requiring us, again, to refuse, to not acknowledge the very lived experiences of what we are still actively living in.  It’s not that we're not still seeing people pass away or still grieving the very lack of normalcy that exists. Because in a lot of ways, it seems like we've been in a continuous state of onslaught of traumatic event after traumatic event after traumatic event to the point where we lose count, right? So I mean, things personally that are happening professionally, or the world at large, where we are all actively still grieving.

I think our job here, to not be so hard about it, is to say “It's 2024.  Let's just go ahead and say everybody's grieving something.” Everybody, whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they feel comfortable saying that in the space or not, has some element of grief that is attached to their lives, whether they're able to articulate it. So how do we cultivate a space where we can fully acknowledge the full scope of who people are as they come into the door, recognizing that some people's cloaks or capes may be longer than others, depending on what they're carrying, depending on the dimensions of their identity and how they're experiencing or afforded the opportunities to witness grief or attend to their grief?  And how do we cultivate a space where we really are pushing back against this lack of normalcy that we see present every day?

Karen:  Cultivating…that really calls to me, this idea of cultivating a space, and maybe this is the grief-conscious space that you talked about earlier. How do we do that in academia? What are some steps we can take?

Chinasa:  You know, I think there's so many things that we could do, but I first think it's going to start with leaders. I think they're going to set the precedent and the example here for how we're able to really be able to give ourselves the grace to become more grief conscious in general. I say that because in a lot of ways, when we think about the ways in which we're navigating academia, there are a lot of policies and practices that hinder our abilities to soften the space and make it what it needs to be. And so if we're really going to be intentional about building out a more grief-conscious space, it really is going to start with leaders acknowledging the fact that they are aware that grief is present on their campuses. It's going to start with the fact that they recognize, to acknowledge that some of the policies and practices that we have in place did not support faculty or students or even staff.

Let me not forget our staff, because we are all warranted to have an opportunity to grieve, and some of the practices and policies we have don't afford that. We don't have an active bereavement policy at most institutions.  You can get away to bury your loved one, but when you come back, the aftermath of the emotional weight of losing those trusted people that were with us at one point and are no longer here, we don't have the space to process that we think about mental health support on campus. We don't have enough clinicians at times on campuses to really rise to the occasion and meet the need. When we think about the financial ramifications of that, it may require us to think about amping up some of our resources to really cultivate spaces where at times, people may need to hear from other external people that can really affirm and fuel them, partnering community members, being intentional about bringing outside people. We can only speak to the needs that are present on your campus. But I think at times, there's no attention paid to those details. I think that's what's lacking.  And that's why I said it's going to start with our leaders, really thinking intentionally, “How can I be part of the solution here to really creating spaces where I fully acknowledge that grief is here and that I want everyone to experience wellness even while they grieve?”

Karen:  The image of the coat is coming to me now...I think sometimes our institutions believe that we can take off the coat and set it aside, but, you know, there's another coat there. You can’t just take it off. It's not really possible. And I think on the individual side, acknowledging that that's okay, that that's the reality of grief, is to carry that coat.

Chinasa:  Yeah, it's there. It's always there.

Karen:  When I think about grief in academia, I'm remembering the spring and our faculty listserv…it was very challenging. We had some challenging conversations on the listserv, and what I kept thinking was the visibility of grief in the conversations, particularly about Israel and Palestine, that so much grief was present in these emails, and how might the conversation have gone differently if we are all really conscious of the presence of grief?  I guess I'm curious, what do you think about that? I mean, how might we be different with each other as colleagues, with our staff as colleagues, with our students, if we were really aware of those coats that we're all wearing?

Chinasa:  You know, as you're mentioning the conversations, I think there's an element of tenderness that we have to bring with us into these conversations. It's been a very hard past couple of months, navigating the ins and outs of the conversation, bearing witness to all of it. And I think what has been jarring for me personally is the lack of time or space or attentiveness that's needed to truly, truly sit down and be in conversation or community with each other, to really attend to our emotional state of where we are, to bring in that element of care, because it's been so painful. All of it has been so painful to witness in general. So I don’t know what my response would be in this context, in the sense of having lived and walked through this the past, since October, when we all saw everything kick off.

I think about how every day, when we get up and we have the privilege to put two feet on the ground and walk outside, how much of a privilege it is to still be able to do that freely, and how painful it is to bear witness to everyone's pain on both sides of this.  And as higher educational leaders, I think it's been such a contentious topic because there's so many things to contend with in the conversation, in and of itself.  But I think if we approached it from a level of tenderness and an element of care…not an element, but a deep, deep measure of care and empathy, that perhaps there could be an opportunity to really think about, how do we create spaces where we can really attend to the needs that are present in our community? How can we give room or space for conversations where people can openly express themselves?  And just really be intentional about that. Because I think in a lot of ways, there's been not a lot of room for conversation, not a lot of room for just conscious conversation. And I think the censorship around the entire component of it has been very, very jarring in a lot of ways. And that'll go to the nature of higher ed, which is created for us to have, especially in the U.S., open and free academic speech to really engage in dialogue in these particular times, for sure.

Karen:  Your words are really making me crave more conversations about grief in the DIEI space. This is making me thin …what if grief were more visible as a part of our conversations about anti-racist work, around disability justice, around equity, inclusion? What would that be like if we brought that tenderness and care to that work, to those conversations?

Chinasa:  I think it's already in the work, right?  I think about right now, if we think about the current state of higher ed in times where we were creating spaces to have more inclusive conversations, to really honor the full scope of our faculty, staff, and students’ identities, to create spaces for people to feel seen and valued. I think we're grieving the fact that a lot of those same policies and practices are being rolled back. They are being abolished. They're being transformed before our very eyes. And so I know it's not answering your question, but I do want to acknowledge the fact that grief is very much so present:  witnessing the very things that we built up to provide support being torn down, being taken away, being dismantled.  I have experienced that grief very deeply by witnessing it.

I think if we could be honest here as a field at large or as institutional bodies, there's an important part here that I think we're missing. And I think the piece that we're missing here is that for people who are historically marginalized, who are historically underrepresented, any given day, they walk on campus and they don't see themselves represented. They don't see conversations that are inclusive of who they are as people. They are grieving the fact that they may not belong in this world, that they may not have picked the right campus, that they may not be amongst their community. And so in a lot of ways, it's always walking around feeling isolated, feeling like, “What or where could I possibly go?” Also to have a sense of belonging. And so I think in the work in and of itself, in this current iteration in higher ed, there definitely is room to acknowledge the grief that's present, given the fact that we know that we are grieving policies, practices, legislation that is very much so under attack, that has been put into place to support us.  For me, I grieve all the time. What is this going to look like a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now?  Given the drastic measures that have already unfolded over time, I don't know.

Karen:   It's almost like grieving in advance or grieving for the future.

Chinasa:  Anticipatory grief.  That's why I call myself an active griever, because every day I'm grieving, every day.  There's not a day that I don't carry my cloak of grief with me to any space. It's with me everywhere I go. In a lot of ways, I feel like the lens in which I look at the world is colored by grief, right? So in conversations that, yeah, I'm joyous, but then also I'm sad, right? Like, the sadness is always there, because it's always dealing with “Man, so much has changed!” And so much is continuing to change in real time. Like, what is this all going to look like at the end of the day?

Karen:  I don't know. How has that been possible for you to carry that grief and that everyday joy together?

Chinasa:  It's the duality of life, right? Like we can have both.  I always say this is like an out-of-body experience at times, right? Like you're there and you're present with your pain, but you're also leaving room to still build and hope for joy. So I think for me, especially over these past several years, has been being present with the pain when it's there, and then also leaving room to embrace joy and not feeling guilty.  Because at times, when you see so much suffering in the world at large, you feel guilty. You feel guilty at times for the laughter, the smiles that may be present.  But I think that's part of our experience, that even in the bad, there is still some good. And I don't want to lose that element of hope. I don't want to lose that element of joy, that's part of my humanity, part of my existence. And so I think a piece of this too, is acknowledging that we're complex beings, and the full spectrum of emotions on any given day is present to us, right? And so there's multiple dualities that exist when we're navigating the grief, the sadness, the loss, but then maybe five minutes later, we come into contact with someone we're really good friends with, or a loved one, and they bring a smile to our face. So they crack a joke, or they say something that even in the midst of that, maybe they were bringing up a good memory, and it's like, “Oh yeah, that that felt good, you know.” So it's embracing all of it, all of it.

Karen:  I want to acknowledge all the work that must have gone into coming to this place.

Chinasa:  Look, it has been a journey, and it's still ongoing, because I'm a work in progress.

Karen:  We all are.

Cninasa:  You ever been at a place where there are just no words? I mean, sometimes the pain is so much there are really no words to capture it, and it's like, “I just don't have a response right now, I just I don't have a response.” It's too painful. It's too painful at times. And I think silence can be a gift, and I think it's a point for us to also acknowledge that when we are left without words, that it's a deeply painful encounter, and we might need to pay attention to that. And I think there's been a lot of silence because of the pain that's too vast at times, that's too much.

Karen:  I'm thinking about the visible marks of grieving:  black clothing in Victorian culture, or other kinds of colors that indicate grief.  And when you talk about the presence of that silence, I just, I envision, it would be really nice if we had in our 21st century lives, an ability to mark for others that I need some tenderness today, or I need a little more care today, without having to communicate that in words.

Chinasa:  I wonder what that would look like, right? If we were to envision, you know, what it would look like to model or to outwardly display that it's a hard day. I need some grace.

Karen:  Next for me to what you were saying about leaders that you know, perhaps leaders in academia not only need to acknowledge, but to model:  what is it like to express grief on campus? You know, what is it like to walk that journey, that grief journey, authentically, in this particular campus space with all of its ups and downs and wrong turns and spirals and back and forth.

Chinasa:  In some of my research around grief leadership, specifically thinking about what grief leadership is, in general, is pretty much leading in the wake of tragedy, leading people through sorrow or difficulty or deep challenges.  I think leaders, particularly in a higher ed context, have had a lot of time, especially over these past couple of years, to grow in their crisis management arena, given the number of crises we've been under.

Karen:  I’m laughing and like, tears…How intense that experience has been…

Chinasa:  Yes, right? So leaders have grown in that aspect of managing crisis. But I think the piece around grief leadership has been really interesting because it is a newer term.  Oftentimes it gets conflated with crisis management. So when we think about grief leadership and crisis management, oftentimes people think about, “Oh, we had a tragedy happen. How do we how are we going to immediately tackle it? What resources do we have access to, to pull from?”  But I think an element of grief leadership too is leaders’ abilities to really tap into their humanistic side, really acknowledging the deep emotional pain that exists.  I keep using the loss of loved ones, because it seems in a lot of ways, especially in higher ed spaces, the past couple of years, we've seen so many tragedies happen on campus, but whether it's through campus shootings, stabbings and the like, right? Or, we know that suicide is on the rise in higher ed spaces as well. So thinking about how we're seeing grief manifest in a lot of ways, leaders have a unique opportunity here to really think about not going this “business as normal” route like throwing the boiler plate resources, not that they're not needed. They are definitely much so needed.

But I think also modeling in their communication and expression of the experiences of walking through loss, how that may exist for their colleagues, for staff, for students, to feel like, “Okay, it's okay to grieve in this space.”  They can do that by a number of different ways, right? Whether it's through how they communicate about the particular loss immediately, right after the event, not waiting days to get the right messaging correct, and how we talk or even allow ourselves to display emotions. If you feel led to cry, if tears pop up, it's okay to lean into that. I think oftentimes we see tears as a sign of weakness, but I think in a lot of ways, it shows strength when you allow yourself to show that you're human and to show that this experience has impacted you as much as it's impacting those who are walking alongside you and having the very much visceral reaction to the loss in and of itself. Leaders have an opportunity to embrace their emotions and not step away from this realm of what they envision a leader needs to be like in crisis, like big, bad, macho, you know, stoic in nature. Yes, we need someone who's strong. Yes, we need to know that it's going to be okay. But we also want that hug. We also want to feel the care, the love and the empathy at the same time.

Karen:  It occurs to me that this work has the potential to really dismantle whiteness within the institution, in the sense of helping kind of bring attention to those like the stoicism in the face of grief, or that sense that it even can be pushed aside some of those characteristics of white supremacy that I think we don't even really think of as being connected with whiteness.  But you know, perfectionism and that stoicism that you mentioned…tapping into humanness as a leader, it occurs to me, just has that potential…I guess what I'm saying is that grief work maybe could also be anti-racist work

Chinasa:  Might be, might be…yes, absolutely right! There's an opportunity here to really think about the intersectionality of it all right, and how our identities impact how and to what extent we're able to grieve. Who is afforded the space, time, and ability to grieve at any given time. And I think our position…

Karen:  And how we expect people to grieve…

Chinasa:  Yes, all of it, all of it, because it requires us to break outside of these norms that we've been socialized in and thinking what is acceptable and what's not, absolutely.

Karen:  So, two things.  You may know that my thing is good enough, right? And I'm curious about how good enough might come into grief work.

Chinasa:  You know, I think an important piece here is to remember that when we're grieving and whatever iteration we end up showing up in, that's good enough for that space, that we don't have to feel like we need to put on a mask or a facade to show up and appear, particularly when we are walking through grief experiences. It's good enough simply to just show up. It's good enough simply to sit there and be silent. It's good enough just to let people know, “You know what, I'm here in presence, but mentally and emotionally I'm not okay.” And I think it's acknowledging the fact that we are good enough. We don't have to prove ourselves to anyone, that we don't have to feel like we need to live to a particular standard or type, or in this context of grief, feeling like we need to grieve a particular way, because we saw such-and-such only took one day off, and they bounced back and they seem normal. How do you know they're normal? How do you know they're doing okay? You don't really know, right? Because the ways in which our grief experiences manifest looks different for each person, and so good enough means acknowledging that how you're showing up in real time as you're walking through grief is fine. It's good enough.

Karen:  I'm wondering about colleagues, too. This makes me think, I wonder if there's a good enough response to others around us grieving.

Chinasa:  I think acknowledging is number one.  Don't act like somebody didn't walk through a loss. When they come in the door, ask them, “Hey, I know you're not okay.” First of all, you know they're not okay. They're gonna say fine, because they don't know if this is a safe space to really express themselves. But I think asking them a question such as, “Hey, I know you're transitioning back in. How can I support you? Hey, I know you're coming back in from this tough loss. Can I help you with some grading? Hey, I don't mind serving as a proxy for you on these next couple of meetings so you can get your bearings.” I think good enough in this context is really thinking about and acknowledging that I know my colleague is not okay. I know they're not good. I don't have to pretend like, “Oh, they're coming in, they're smiling, they look good as new.” No. People are winning the Oscar in real time, okay, nobody is good.

Okay, so when you see a colleague or even a student coming in from expressing some form of loss, maybe a loved one, maybe they had a very hard trend, maybe they didn't get the job, for your graduate students, right? Maybe they missed the opportunity, and it's really painful, right? It's taking time to say, “I know what it probably would feel like to walk through that.” If you walk through it personally, you have the deep understanding and knowing of that experience. So it's the intentionality that's required to put your words and your actions in alignment with their lived experience.  And it's also not making assumptions on what they need. It really is taking the time to ask, “Hey, what do you need? How can I support you?  I'm here if you need anything. And hey, I noticed that this is coming up. Would you want me to step in for you?  Like those kind of things, so that you can give people the chance to articulate what it is they want from you in real time.

Karen:  Yeah, perhaps also not trying to find the perfect thing to say or the right thing to say..that sometimes prevents us from saying anything.

Chinasa:  because there's never going to be a perfect response, but a response is still needed right at times, so you're never going to get it all right. Yes, it's going to be awkward. It might seem a little clunky when you're trying to get the words out there. That's normal, but I think what we have to realize is that you asking is also showing care, is showing empathy. It's an acknowledgement that's present there. And I think we can't shy away from, “Oh, I don't want to say the wrong thing” or “We weren't that close anyways, I'm not going to say anything.”  Because we're not close to all our colleagues, right? But I can still acknowledge the fact that, “Hey, I heard what happened. I am so deeply sorry.”  I can get you a card. I can buy you coffee, if coffee is your thing, or whatever? I can leave a little note on your desk with a gift card and say, “Hey, next one's on me. If you would like to talk, I would love to, you know, go out and grab a cup of coffee.” It's just creating space and putting some intentional action behind it as well. You may not have the right thing to say, but you can put some actions behind it, and it may vary depending on what your colleagues need or what your context is, but we can. We can do better, for sure.

Karen:  I'm finding myself tearing up a little bit as you're listing all these beautiful, simple actions, these ways of acknowledging the reality of grief around us. It's just a really beautiful, simple, and wonderfully awkward.  I love that you brought up awkward, because such a fan of awkward, I feel like all the good stuff it's happening when we're feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

Chinasa:  It's awkward, it's awkward. We can call a spade a spade here!  It is awkward, especially if they're not—again to this point, you know, not all of our colleagues are maybe our people—but I kid you not, whether you're my people or not, you're human. And, you know, I think there's room here to really think about embracing the awkwardness, foregoing that, to just provide some additional support. And I think it's going to depend on the person or whatnot, because I say all this to say, oftentimes, when I talk about community care and this element of grief work—and this is not necessarily community care, what I'm describing in terms of acknowledging—but I think about a broader picture here around community care is that oftentimes, when we talk about community care and gleaning from the support and resources that in a particular space, in this context academic spaces, there may be those of us from particular identities that don't feel comfortable going to our academic communities because they're not safe. There may be places where we don't even want them to know we lost someone because we don't want them to treat us differently. Or, “Y'all haven't been treating me good the whole time. Now you want to come here and be fake, I'm good. I don't even want you to know, right?”  So those are those aspects that we have to acknowledge that that are present here, which is why I find at times, sometimes colleagues don't even mention to those people they work with that they had a loss, because they were like, “You've been nasty to me this whole time, and you're going to come and say, ‘Oh, my condolences.’ Let me know what you mean. It's like you're not real. I know you don't mean this, right?” Because how you've been trending with your previous actions gonna align with the care you're trying to show me now. 

So I would just couch all this and say, in general, as academics, just be good people. Be kind. Be good people, right? So that people aren't double guessing your actions when it warrants an element of care, when we're grieving.

Karen:  It kind of goes back to good enough, right? I mean, if it's not a safe place for you on campus, then good enough is doing your grief work elsewhere.  That makes perfect sense. That's good enough.

Chinasa:  Yes, it might be minimizing engagement or interaction on campus, because that space drains you or it triggers you in a variety of different ways. And when you're grieving, that may not be the space that's needed for you in that context, because you're just trying to get back to some sense of normalcy.

Karen:  Yeah, and acknowledging that that coat is coming with you!

Chinasa:  Always, it’s there.  It’s on all day.

Karen:  I feel like we have just scratched the surface, that there’s so much more that we could be discussing.

Chinasa:  I do think we've just barely scratched the surface on grief. I think there's a lot more for us to build out this space where we are more grief positive in our interactions and engagement within higher ed.  There's just so much room to grow, and there's also so much grief that's present in these spaces that we're in already that is. If there ever were a time to begin to experiment and even explore ways to really be more intentional with the ways that we navigate grief on campus, it’s now. It's present. It's in every space that we occupy, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. It’s there with our students, our staff, our faculty, our leaders are grieving, whether they're able to express themselves or not, it's everywhere. So this is the time now to really lean into these conversations and to create space where we normalize talking about grief. It doesn't have to be taboo, it doesn't have to be awkward. It can be part of our day-to-day living conversations that we have with each other, and it can be also the beginning of building spaces that are more empathetic and caring as well.

Karen:  That's a beautiful place to end. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

Chinasa:  Thank you for having me. I really, really enjoyed this conversation.

Thanks so much for listening to “The Good Enough Professor Podcast.” If you want to release academic grind culture and embrace your own Good Enough Professor within, join my email list. You'll get my reflections, gentle challenges, and simple prompts, all aligned with the rhythms of academic life and designed to disrupt the assumptions that get us over committed and keep us overwhelmed. Because remember, you are already good enough.