Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

For all the challenges I face in my job from time to time, I can’t see myself working for any other place outside UCSB student affairs at this point in my career. It’s been more than a week since the Isla Vista tragedy and within that time, I’ve seen so many remarkable acts, events, selfless dedication by my colleagues and students that remind me of how remarkable UCSB community really is. I was further reminded of how blessed I am to be working in student affairs at UCSB during our divisional meeting when our Vice Chancellor Michael Young recounted all the amazing campus-wide collaboration in response to the tragedy. As he said “people just showed up and did what needed to be done.” He also acknowledged the leadership of the key individuals who were on the front line, moments after the incident.

It is during this time of the year, when I feel mixed emotions. I’m both happy to see the successes of our students and at the same time, I can’t help but feel sad that I will no longer seeing them, some of them of which I’ve seen grow since the first days of their classes at UCSB and whom I’ve developed mentor relationships with. I feel honored when students asks me to go to lunch and take the time out of their busy schedules preparing for finals and graduation to chat before they leave. I feel honored when a couple of graduating seniors I just met a month ago wanted to have lunch with me.

I have a great job and I’m very proud to say that. At the end of the day, in spite of the challenges of the job, what an honor it is to be able to serve the students and to be able to play a part in their lives. As VC Michael Young said this morning, “It’s often the personal connections that matter in the lives of our students.” I think he captured the essence of why I love my job. Through technologies, I help serve the UCSB community so students may successfully navigate the university and prepare them for their careers and develop as human beings. However, it is through the personal connections I’ve made with the few students that really makes me realize how blessed I am to be in a position wherein I can make a difference in their lives.

I want to write about the emotional roller coaster I’ve felt the last few days about the senseless and tragic incident that happened to our community. But, there’s so much to process, I don’t even know where to start. If this is a rambling post, that’s a reflection of my feelings at this point. It’s hard to believe this could even happen in our community. I’m still in shock, sometimes feeling numb. I personally don’t know the students that died, though not all of their names have been released, but I am feeling the impact. I cannot even imagine the sorrow their families and friends are going through. I’m not on the front line like my fellow UCSB colleagues and so I cannot even imagine the emotions they are going through with as they deal with their own emotions and those they are helping. How could this happen to UCSB community? It doesn’t make sense. I feel angry, frustrated, sad, confused, and hopeful that something good will come out of this. The healing process will be slow and painful. We will all grieve and go through the healing process in different ways. The degree to how we will feel the pain will vary but I think we will have been changed by this incident in some way or another. In the next few days, even weeks, as our community will begin to process and more information will come out along with the personal stories of the victims, we will all be reminded how connected we really are as a community. Personally, I expect stories from my UCSB colleagues and students who interacted and even developed relationships with the victims, our students. I am grateful, and not surprised, at the level of response of our university in our efforts to help students and those affected cope with this tragedy. Minutes after the shooting occurred, several of my student affairs colleagues went back to campus to offer counseling and provide information.The Candlelight Vigil held last Saturday evening, an event led by students, organized by many, and attended by thousands showed how quickly our community can come together and work as one. The outpouring of support from UCSB alums through social media, student affair colleagues from other universities checking in to see how we’re doing have been really helpful as well.

I have long considered UCSB as home since I came here as a student in 1991 and when I turned professional. It’s a place I thought I could get away from, leaving the university twice, but I felt the need to come back. It just feels right here, professionally and personally. It’s during these unfortunate times that I know, what I have here is more than a job. It’s part of my life. My wife and I both have spent half of our lives here. The students I get to work with and get to know, my colleagues I come to respect and value, and the pride of being a Gaucho — these are the reasons why I’m still a part of the UCSB community.

“Everyone in IV please stay inside right now.” This was a status update I saw on Facebook at approximately 9:30 pm on Friday, May 23rd, 2014. It was from a student I just recently met a few weeks ago through our Filipino-American student association at UCSB. A flurry of updates from other students soon followed urging others to stay inside and an alum visiting Isla Vista posted she saw “a guy bleeding to death…”. I could never have imagined this horrible event could ever happen at UCSB. This has been a crazy few days. Tragic.

I end my thoughts with this – we’re a community. As a community, I know we’ll support each other. We’ll be there for each other.

Easter Sunday is one of the days when many folks bemoan the privileges afforded to other folks who may not conform to their own beliefs. That we are able to express our discontents is a privilege in itself. I’m reminded of the image above which illustrates the point that when we point one finger to point out faults in others, there are three fingers pointing back at us. By no means am I suggesting for anyone to stop questioning things around us. On the contrary, I’m suggesting to question more. In the process of critiquing the beliefs and privileges of others, might as well take the time to examine our own as well.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the success and accolades given to others are not taken as threats to our own? One of the wonderful things about social media is that I get to read about the personal and professional accomplishments of my friends and colleagues. Life can be hard at times for everyone and so I welcome and enjoy the good things that happen to folks I know. I have so many colleagues who work hard behind the scenes and they unfortunately never get the recognition they deserve. I also think we live in a world wherein we don’t share our appreciations of others enough.

In a perfect world, we’d all be cheering for each other and we should be able to freely share our successes. Unfortunately, we live in a world of scarcity where the success of others can be seen as taking credit away from someone else. This can lead to crab mentality, and as described on wikipedia – “members of a group will attempt to ‘pull down’ (negate or diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the others, out of envy, conspiracy or competitive feelings.” In my life, I’ve been on both sides. I’m not perfect after all and there were times when negative emotions got the better of me where I became jealous of other people’s success.This is something I’ve worked on as I matured and  I’ve learned to adopt the mentality that people should get the credit that they deserve. I’ve also been a victim of crab mentality in my career which almost caused me a job.

Given the negative reactions folks receive when they share their accomplishments, I think this has lead some to either stop sharing them and/or sharing them in self-effacing manner so as not to be seen as bragging. There are those who definitely can be excessive in how they talk about their good fortunes and possessions but there are also others who I think are genuine in appreciating about their accomplishments and they are excited to share them with their colleagues and friends.

We all need some encouragement from time to time and I do hope that when folks are recognized for the work and contributions they truly deserve, let’s just congratulate them.

I sometimes wonder how my ethnic identity development process would have been if social media were available during my college years in the 1990s. This was a formative time for me, when I may have been in the midst of Stage 3 (Awakening of Social Political Consciousness) and Stage 4 (Redirection) of Kim’s Asian American Identity Development Model. I wonder about this when I come across tweets and blogs that remind me of these stages of my life when learning about discrimination against Asian-Americans and from personal experience of what I perceived to be discrimination led me to be more politically aware and active. It was a time when I went through a period of discovery/exploration about my Filipino-American ethnic identity. Some may have perceived me as being angry while some may have viewed me as extreme in how I shared my pride as a Filipino-American.

As I think back to my time in college, I remember the times I watched movies and how I analyzed them from different perspectives.  For me, movies were more than entertainment. They were social and political commentaries. For example, why is it that white male characters are made to look bigger (camera angle points up) and Asian males are made to look smaller? There’s this one time we watched a Bruce Lee movie and a scene of Chuck Norris coming out of a plane was shot at an angle that seemingly focused on his crotch. While watching this scene, I expressed to my then-girlfriend that it’s Hollywood’s way of showing white male virility and proceeded to share my frustration about the portrayal of Asian men as geeks and asexual.  As the movie went on, I provided commentary on the significance of the characters and how the movie was made in relation to the history of racial discrimination against Asian Americans. By the end of this movie, she was very frustrated that she could not enjoy it. I think she even refused to go to the movies with me for a while. I had taken a course on History of Asian Americans in Media where I learned about the portrayals of Asian Americans throughout American movie history (Fu Manchu, White Peril, dragon ladies, asexual males, …).  What I learned from that class and my discussions with classmates led me to my extremely pessimistic view of the media, specifically when it came to portrayals of Asian Americans.

In relating to this day and age of social media where I see racism against Asian Americans like this or this or this, I think about how I would have reacted and expressed my views if social media were available at that time. As one who understands the capability afforded by social media as a platform to broadcast opinions/ideas to a large audience and to be able to do it anytime/anywhere with a mobile device, I wonder how my identity development during college would have been impacted by social media.

I suppose at this stage in my life, I’m in stage 5 of Kim’s model (incorporation stage) wherein I’ve come to terms with some aspects of my identity. I will note however that while my views and reactions may be less extreme, there are still many things around me today that really upset me and I deal with them in my own way. For those who read my blog, you would have read some instances of what  I perceive to be personal experiences of discrimination and unfairness. So, the struggle continues.

What’s your identity development process as it relates to social media? What role does social media play? Also, does Kim’s Asian American Identity Development Model resonate with you (if you’re Asian American)? If not Asian American, what model could you use for yourself?