October 20, 2021: Work in Progress: SSN Boston

[Lots of balls in the air this Fall, all of which could use input and ideas from y’all! So I thought I’d share a handful here, and also ask to hear about some of what you’re juggling for a crowd-sourced weekend post o’ solidarity and support!]

Earlier this month, the Scholars Strategy Network’s Boston Chapter held a wonderful mixer and networking event on the Boston Waterfront, our first in-person event in more than 18 months. There’s a lot I could say about SSN Boston, but I want to take this opportunity to highlight my two awesome co-leaders and our phenomenal Graduate Fellow:

1)      Parastoo Massoumi: Gotta start with that Grad Fellow, whose work made that mixer/networking event happen (as it has all of our SSN Boston events, in-person and virtual, since she began in this role a couple years back). Parastoo is a grad student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, just the latest stage in a long and already deeply impressive career in education policy, philosophy, and practice. It honestly feels like catching lightning in a bottle that we’ve had the chance to benefit from her perspective, voice, dedication, and passion for a short time before she’s on to all that’s next in that career!

2)      Tiffany Chenault: The first of my two chapter co-leaders, Tiffany is a Sociology Professor at Salem State University, in the same MA state uni system as FSU. Her current project, in every sense of the word (from a book in progress to a personal running goal to a collective leadership role), focuses on the histories, stories, and meanings of Black women running. She’s also been one of the most consistent leaders of my faculty union, the MSCA, and its ongoing efforts to challenge threats to public higher education in MA and beyond. We’re very lucky Tiffany has been able to find space for SSN Boston amidst those multiple, vital leadership roles!

3)      Natasha Warikoo: My second co-leader, Natasha is a Sociology Professor at Tufts University and one of the nation’s leading scholars of diversity and equity in higher education. Her next/forthcoming book, Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2022), is one I’m deeply excited for, for personal/familial as well as scholarly reasons. I’m obviously (I hope) not writing this post to pat myself on the back, but I’ll end with this: I was initially solo as the SSN Boston Chapter leader and recruited Tiffany and Natasha to be co-leaders, and I think that was and will remain one of the best ideas I’ve ever had!

Next work in progress tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Ideas about this work, or work in progress of your own you’d share?