Nadine led a workshop for members of our Black Studies graduate student cluster. Participants described the workshop as very meaningful and transformative. This workshop would be an excellent supplement to any graduate program serving historically-excluded students or students committed to linking theory and research to praxis and engagement.
Dr. Naber facilitated her “Liberate Your Research” workshop for a group of faculty and for a group of doctoral students and in both cases the feedback was highly positive and heartfelt. Participants noted that the content was relevant and useful and that the experience was empowering and enriching. A most valuable professional development experience for faculty at all ranks and for doctoral students.
Dr. Naber’s workshop is a profound experience for marginalized scholars seeking to explore complex questions that often affect our populations. Although I’ve gone to conferences and academic workshops previously, none of them seemed to address the root struggles I and other marginalized scholars experience in academia and the world at large, nor how to adequately address such struggles. Dr. Naber’s workshop was dramatically different from these previous experiences. Not only does she guide participants through the process of analyzing where and how imposter syndrome manifests and how to combat it, she takes the time to candidly address and acknowledge how institutionalized racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia are key factors in contributing to feelings of imposter syndrome and burnout. Her keen understanding and experience of marginalization was evident to all participants, as we all felt very comfortable and open in discussing our personal struggles in academia. Dr. Naber’s seamless ability to guide and hear her participants during these discussions, with deep empathy and desire to understand, is something any scholar addressing social justice issues aspires to do in their lifetime. I entered her workshop completely uncertain if I could adequately write a page of my dissertation and left her workshop feeling a sense of place and purpose in my research. I particularly enjoyed that this was an active workshop where we practiced strategies Dr. Naber discussed within the context of our individual research goals.
I invited Nadine to speak to the incoming cohort of fellows at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota on “Ways of Knowing,” with a special focus on how to build ethical knowledge with movements for social, ecological, and epistemic justice. In this class that included students from multiple global souths, Nadine inspired each one to draw energies from their own passions, commitments, and grounded relationships in order to build research agendas that responded to the needs of the struggles rather than to the values and frameworks imposed by their fields. Nadine empowered my students to affirm their own creative thoughts about their research interests in the very first semester of their graduate program. She gave them invaluable inner tools to commence and advance their journeys toward liberating their research.
Working with Nadine has helped me to take ownership of my writing and reorient the doubt or anxieties that emerge while writing in a way that is generative rather than destructive. She has helped me to distinguish between the harmful structures produced within academia, the way I respond to those structures, and the work I want to do. I absolutely recommend this workshop!”
I cannot recommend this workshop highly enough. Nadine inspired participants in this workshop to approach our research with joy and confidence. She gave us the tools to quell the oppressive criticism many of us have internalized that undermines our writing; she gave us a space to emotionally process, analyze, and refuse in good company the violence of an academy that is racist, heterosexist, capitalist, and colonial; and she provided us with concrete strategies and suggestions that enabled us to articulate and claim our theories and methodologies. In terms of my own work, I participated in this workshop while making final revisions to a book, and Nadine’s specific feedback along with the more general insights she provided allowed me to invigorate my central claims with greater boldness and clarity, and to heighten the stakes of my argument.
In addition, under Nadine’s badass, brilliant, expert and nurturing guidance, those of us participating (a mix of grad students, lecturers, assistant and full professors) strengthened our sense of community in ways that will persist beyond the workshop.
I invited Nadine to offer her workshop (Liberate Your Research) for our faculty of color retreat and it was exceptional–from beginning to end. Faculty of color are burned out right now and I did not want to host a retreat that focused on “productivity” as a measure of success. Academic writing is difficult and it’s been even more so given the social conditions in which we currently exist. Instead, I wanted faculty to find a space where they could remember the “why” of their research and feel empowered in their work. Mission accomplished. Nadine truly helped all of us understand that we have powerful and unique voices to contribute to our disciplines and fields, and how to use those voices to speak to those issues that matter to us the most.
Nadine visited my graduate research methods seminar and her workshop knocked down walls and opened up doors for my students. They entered the workshop feeling stuck and inadequate. They left feeling empowered to be true to themselves and their communities through their research. Their ideas flowed much more freely after this powerful workshop and I have so much confidence in their research futures.
Before I took Nadine’s workshop, I was bogged down by the feeling that I was stretched out to think in way too many directions. This had to do with my decision to accept the position of Chair of my department, but also with being committed to too many, unrelated research projects. After I took it, I started seeing that I had kept research going in spite of the burden of being Chair, contrary to what I thought and all my research projects were indeed related and social-justice driven. When I resumed research and revisited the notes from Nadine’s workshop. I am still under the spell of the thrill of coming up with a lens and an approach that are uniquely mine. This has restored my joy and passion in my research.
